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Tectonosedimentologic Significance Of The Upper Cretaceous Foreland Basin Siliciclastics: Western Interior, Usa, Nazrul I. Khandaker

Publications and Research

The Upper Cretaceous Frontier Formation exposed along the western margin of the western interior foreland basin is composed of clastic sediments that were deposited during the initial late Cretaceous transgressive-regressive phases of the Western Interior Seaway across Wyoming (Figure 1). Current study is aimed at providing attendees with the best practices associated with tectonic, lithofacies and sedimentologic interpretation of foreland basin sequences and emphasizing the need for utilizing field, structural, geochemical, and compositional data for reconstructing a viable scenario connected with foreland basin sedimentary packages. An attempt will be made to compare documented sedimentological findings with foreland basins located in …

Remote Sensing Of Soil Moisture In Vineyards Using Airborne And Ground-Based Thermal Inertia Data, Aiman Soliman, Richard J. Heck, Alexander Brenning, Ralph Brown, Stephen Miller

Publications and Research

Thermal remote sensing of soil moisture in vineyards is a challenge. The grass-covered soil, in addition to a standing grape canopy, create complex patterns of heating and cooling and increase the surface temperature variability between vine rows. In this study, we evaluate the strength of relationships between soil moisture, mechanical resistance and thermal inertia calculated from the drop of surface temperature during a clear sky night over a vineyard in the Niagara region. We utilized data from two sensors, an airborne thermal camera (height ≈ 500 m a.g.l.) and a handheld thermal gun (height ≈ 1 m a.g.l.), to explore …

The Discrimination Power Of Structural Superindices, Matthias Dehmer, Abbe Mowshowitz

Publications and Research

In this paper, we evaluate the discrimination power of structural superindices. Superindices for graphs represent measures composed of other structural indices. In particular, we compare the discrimination power of the superindices with those of individual graph descriptors. In addition, we perform a statistical analysis to generalize our findings to large graphs.

Stochastic Dea With A Perfect Object And Its Application To Analysis Of Environmental Efficiency, Alexander Vaninsky

Publications and Research

The paper introduces stochastic DEA with a Perfect Object (SDEA PO). The Perfect Object (PO) is a virtual Decision Making Unit (DMU) that has the smallest inputs and greatest outputs. Including the PO in a collection of actual objects yields an explicit formula of the efficiency index. Given the distributions of DEA inputs and outputs, this formula allows us to derive the probability distribution of the efficiency score, to find its mathematical expectation, and to deliver common (group–related) and partial (object-related) efficiency components. We apply this approach to a prospective analysis of environmental efficiency of the major national and regional …

An Integrative Framework For Bayesian Variable Selection With Informative Priors For Identifying Genes And Pathways, Bin Peng, Dianwen Zhu, Bradley P. Ander, Xiaoshuai Zhang, Fuzhong Xue, Frank R. Sharp, Xiaowei Yang

Publications and Research

The discovery of genetic or genomic markers plays a central role in the development of personalized medicine. A notable challenge exists when dealing with the high dimensionality of the data sets, as thousands of genes or millions of genetic variants are collected on a relatively small number of subjects. Traditional gene-wise selection methods using univariate analyses face difficulty to incorporate correlational, structural, or functional structures amongst the molecular measures. For microarray gene expression data, we first summarize solutions in dealing with ‘large p, small n’ problems, and then propose an integrative Bayesian variable selection (iBVS) framework for simultaneously identifying causal …

Passion Of A Young Cataloger, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

The article discusses library cataloging from a passionate cataloger's viewpoint. The author mentions that cataloging requires courage, logical thinking and skill learned through education, repetition, and investment of time. He considers cataloging an art of rules based on personal judgment making books easily discoverable and accessible. He also notes that in the Internet age, cataloging has evolved as a tool to synchronize databases for effective information delivery from resources to users.

Scientific Communication Before And After Networked Science, John Carey

Publications and Research

Recent decades have seen extensive changes in how researchers in the sciences work. Online platforms enabled by Web 2.0 technologies (collectively known as “open” or “networked” science) have created multiple new channels for informal communications, revolutionizing the ways in which scientists collaborate and share results. Meanwhile, digitization and open access publishing have brought fundamental change to modes of publication and distribution for scientific journals. Yet the primary vehicle for the formal publication of results, the scientific article, has been much slower to alter in format. This paper will examine the functions that peer-reviewed journals have served within the scientific community …

Environmental Protection Agency Consultations With Indian Tribes: An Intercultural Struggle Over Process Of 'Consent', Denise Scannell Guida

Publications and Research

On November 6, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed his final executive order on

Consultation and Coordination with Tribal Governments. It was his last attempt to establish meaningful consultation processes with American Indians in the development of federal environmental policies. Based on ongoing environmental issues between the two cultures and the rising concern for environmental justice, the United States government wanted to identify the necessary improvements in communication and coordination among tribal and federal environmental programs, specifically regarding issues of information exchange, and creating partnerships among stakeholders. An analysis of the executive order, and a case study of the U.S. …

Imdb Network Revisited: Unveiling Fractal And Modular Properties From A Typical Small-World Network, Lazaros K. Gallos, Fabricio Q. Potiguar, José S. Andrade, Hernan A. Makse

Publications and Research

We study a subset of the movie collaboration network, http://www.imdb.com, where only adult movies are included. We show that there are many benefits in using such a network, which can serve as a prototype for studying social interactions. We find that the strength of links, i.e., how many times two actors have collaborated with each other, is an important factor that can significantly influence the network topology. We see that when we link all actors in the same movie with each other, the network becomes small-world, lacking a proper modular structure. On the other hand, by imposing a threshold on …

Data Assimilation For Stratified Convection, Andreas Svedin, Milena C. Cuéllar, Axel Brandenburg

Publications and Research

We show how the 3DVAR data assimilation methodology can be used in the astrophysical context of a two-dimensional convection flow. We study the way in which this variational approach finds best estimates of the current state of the flow from a weighted average of model states and observations. We use numerical simulations to generate synthetic observations of a vertical two-dimensional slice of the outer part of the solar convection zone for varying noise levels, and implement 3DVAR when the co-variance matrices are diagonal and proportional to the identity matrix. Our simulation results demonstrate the capability of 3DVAR to produce error …

Activity Determinants Of Helical Antimicrobial Peptides: A Large-Scale Computational Study, Yi He, Themis Lazaridis

Publications and Research

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), produced by a wide range of organisms, have attracted attention due to their potential use as novel antibiotics. The majority of these peptides are cationic and are thought to function by permeabilizing the bacterial membrane, either by making pores or by dissolving it (‘carpet’ model). A key hypothesis in the literature is that antimicrobial and hemolytic activity correlate with binding affinity to anionic and zwitterionic membranes, respectively. Here we test this hypothesis by using binding free energy data collected from the literature and theoretical binding energies calculated from implicit membrane models for 53 helical AMPs. We indeed …

Factors Associated With Loss To Clinic Among Hiv Patients Not Yet Known To Be Eligible For Antiretroviral Therapy (Art) In Mozambique, Rituparna Pati, Maria Lahuerta, Batya Elul, Mie Okamura, Maria Fernanda Alvim, Bruce Schackman, Heejung Bang, Rufino Fernandes, Americo Assan, Josue Lima, Denis Nash

Publications and Research

Introduction Retention in HIV care prior to ART initiation is generally felt to be suboptimal, but has not been well-characterized. Methods We examined data on 37,352 adult pre-ART patients (ART ineligible or unknown eligibility) who enrolled in care during 2005–2008 with >1 clinical visit at 23 clinics in Mozambique. We defined loss to clinic (LTC) as >12 months since the last visit among those not known to have died/transferred. Cox proportional-hazards models were used to examine factors associated with LTC, accounting for clustering within sites. Results Of 37,352 pre-ART patients, 61% had a CD4 count within three months of enrolment …

Dynamic Optimization Of Caregiver Schedules Based On Vital Sign Streams, Mohamed Saad, Bilal Khan

Publications and Research

Hospital facilities use a collection of heterogeneous devices, produced by many different vendors, to monitor the state of patient vital signs. The limited interoperability of current devices makes it difficult to synthesize multivariate moni- toring data into a unified array of real-time information regarding the patients state. Without an infrastructure for the integrated evaluation, display, and storage of vital sign data, one cannot adequately ensure that the assignment of care- givers to patients reflects the relative urgency of patient needs. This is an especially serious issue in critical care units (CCUs). We present a formal mathematical model of an operational …

Multiscale Modeling Of The Causal Functional Roles Of Nssnps In A Genome-Wide Association Study: Application To Hypoxia, Li Xie, Clara Ng, Thahmina Ali, Raoul Valencia, Barbara L. Ferreira, Vincent Xue, Maliha Tanweer, Dan Zhou, Gabriel G. Haddad, Philip E. Bourne, Lei Xie

Publications and Research

Background It is a great challenge of modern biology to determine the functional roles of non-synonymous Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (nsSNPs) on complex phenotypes. Statistical and machine learning techniques establish correlations between genotype and phenotype, but may fail to infer the biologically relevant mechanisms. The emerging paradigm of Network-based Association Studies aims to address this problem of statistical analysis. However, a mechanistic understanding of how individual molecular components work together in a system requires knowledge of molecular structures, and their interactions. Results To address the challenge of understanding the genetic, molecular, and cellular basis of complex phenotypes, we have, for the …

Cobweb Theorems With Production Lags And Price Forecasting, Daniel Dufresne, Felisa Vázquez-Abad

Publications and Research

The classical cobweb theorem is extended to include production lags and price forecasts. Price forecasting based on a longer period has a stabilizing effect on prices. Longer production lags do not necessarily lead to unstable prices; very long lags lead to cycles of constant amplitude. The classical cobweb requires elasticity of demand to be greater than that of supply; this is not necessarily the case in a more general setting. Random shocks are also considered.

Impacts Of Soil-Acquifer Heat And Water Fluxes On Simulated Global Climate, Nir Krakauer, M. J. Puma, B. I. Cook

Publications and Research

Climate models have traditionally only represented heat and water fluxes within relatively shallow soil layers, but there is increasing interest in the possible role of heat and water exchanges with the deeper subsurface. Here, we integrate an idealized 50m deep aquifer into the land surface module of the GISS ModelE general circulation model to test the influence of aquifer-soil moisture and heat exchanges on climate variables. We evaluate the impact on the modeled climate of aquifer-soil heat and water fluxes separately, as well as in combination. The addition of the aquifer to ModelE has limited impact on annual-mean climate, with …

Effects Of Localized Trap-States And Corrugation On Charge Transport In Graphene Nanoribbons, Oleksiy Roslyak, Upali Aparajita, Godfrey Gumbs, Danhong Huang

Publications and Research

We investigate effects of the electron traps on adiabatic charge transport in graphene nanoribbons under a longitudinal surface acoustic wave (SAW) potential. Due to the weak SAW potential and strong transverse confinement of nanoribbons, minibands of sliding tunnel-coupled quantum dots are formed. Therefore, as the chemical potential passes through minigaps, quantized adiabatic charge transport is expected to occur. We analyze the condition for a closed minigap, thereby destroying the current quantization in a nanoribbon. We present numerical calculations showing the localized energy states within minigaps. Additionally, we compare the results with the minibands of corrugated nanoribbons.

Origins Of Power-Law Degree Distribution In The Heterogeneity Of Human Activity In Social Networks, Lev Muchnik, Sen Pei, Lucas C. Parra, Saulo D. S. Reis, José S. Andrade Jr, Shlomo Havlin, Hernán A. Makse

Publications and Research

The probability distribution of number of ties of an individual in a social network follows a scale-free power-law. However, how this distribution arises has not been conclusively demonstrated in direct analyses of people's actions in social networks. Here, we perform a causal inference analysis and find an underlying cause for this phenomenon. Our analysis indicates that heavy-tailed degree distribution is causally determined by similarly skewed distribution of human activity. Specifically, the degree of an individual is entirely random - following a “maximum entropy attachment” model - except for its mean value which depends deterministically on the volume of the users' …

Trends In Citations To Books On Epidemiological And Statistical Methods In The Biomedical Literature, Miquel Porta, Jan P. Vandenbroucke, John P. A. Ioannidis, Sergio Sanz, Esteve Fernandez, Raj Bhopal, Alfredo Morabia, Cesar Victora, Tomàs Lopez

Publications and Research

Background There are no analyses of citations to books on epidemiological and statistical methods in the biomedical literature. Such analyses may shed light on how concepts and methods changed while biomedical research evolved. Our aim was to analyze the number and time trends of citations received from biomedical articles by books on epidemiological and statistical methods, and related disciplines. Methods and Findings The data source was the Web of Science. The study books were published between 1957 and 2010. The first year of publication of the citing articles was 1945. We identified 125 books that received at least 25 citations. …

Massacre In Central Burma: Muslim Students Terrorized And Killed In Meiktila, Richard Sollom, Holly G. Atkinson

Publications and Research

This report details the results of a Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) investigation into the March 20 and 21, 2013, attacks on Muslim students, teachers, and residents in the Mingalar Zayyone quarter of Meiktila, a small town in central Burma.

A two-person team, the authors of the report, from PHR conducted 33 interviews about the attacks, which resulted in the deaths of at least 20 children and four teachers. The report details the attacks by the Buddhist mobs, provides evidence that local police officers were complicit in the crimes, and lists policy recommendations for the Burmese government and the international …

Refining Environmental Satellite Data Using A Statistical Approach, Md Zahidur Rahman, Leonid Roytman, Abdelhamid Kadik

Publications and Research

The proposed approach in this article applies an efficient and novel statistical technique to accurately describe radiometric data measured by Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES). The corrected data set will then be applied to improve the strength of NOAA Global Vegetation Index (GVI) data set for the 1982- 2003 period produced from AVHRR. The GVI is used extensively for studying and monitoring land surface, atmosphere and recently for analyzing climate and environmental changes. The POES AVHRR data, though useful, cannot be directly used in climate change …

Horizontal Cooling Towers: Riverine Ecosystem Services And The Fate Of Thermoelectric Heat In The Contemporary Northeast Us, Robert J. Stewart, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Ariel Miara, Charles J. Vorosmarty, Balázs M. Fekete, Richard B. Lammers, Bernice Rosenzweig

Publications and Research

The electricity sector is dependent on rivers to provide ecosystem services that help regulate excess heat, either through provision of water for evaporative cooling or by conveying, diluting and attenuating waste heat inputs. Reliance on these ecosystem services alters flow and temperature regimes, which impact fish habitat and other aquatic ecosystem services. We demonstrate the contemporary (2000–2010) dependence of the electricity sector on riverine ecosystem services and associated aquatic impacts in the Northeast US, a region with a high density of thermoelectric power plants. We quantify these dynamics using a spatially distributed hydrology and water temperature model (the framework for …

Exploratory Bioinformatics Study Of Lncrnas In Alzheimer's Disease Mrna Sequences With Application To Drug Development, T. Holden, A. Nguyen, E. Lin, E. Cheung, S. Dehipawala, J. Ye, G. Tremberger, D. Lieberman, T. Cheung

Publications and Research

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) within mRNA sequences of Alzheimer's disease genes, namely, APP, APOE, PSEN1, and PSEN2, has been analyzed using fractal dimension (FD) computation and correlation analysis. We examined lncRNA by comparing mRNA FD to corresponding coding DNA sequences (CDSs) FD. APP, APOE, and PSEN1 CDSs select slightly higher FDs compared to the mRNA, while PSEN2 CDSs FDs are lower. The correlation coefficient for these sequences is 0.969. A comparative study of differentially expressed MAPK signaling pathway lncRNAs in pancreatic cancer cells shows a correlation of 0.771. Selection of higher FD CDSs could indicate interaction of Alzheimer's gene products …

Learning By Visualizing, Nadia Benakli, Ashwin Satyanarayana, Satyanand Singh, Arnavaz Taraporevala

Publications and Research

Technology is universal and omnipresent. It has reshaped the way we function. One of the best ways to incorporate technology in the classroom is as a tool to facilitate learning by using it as a visual aid. This is a type of teaching and learning style in which ideas, concepts, data and other information are associated with images and techniques. In this paper we will discuss some of the tools and present and analyze a number of examples to demonstrate how the use of technology in the classroom and visualization can improve Math and Computer Science learning.

The Use Of Statistics In Experimental Physics, Thomas J. Pfaff, Maksim Sipos, M. C. Sullivan, B. G. Thompson, Max Tran

Publications and Research

Most mathematicians are aware of the importance of statistics in biological sciences, business, and economics, but are less aware that statistics is used every day in experimental physics. This paper gives three interesting examples of how statistics plays a vital role in physics. These examples use the basic statistical tools of residuals analysis and goodness of fit.

The Impact Of Demographics On 21st Century Education, Norman Eng

Publications and Research

Do all students need STEM education or should it be focused primarily on the mathematically and scientifically inclined? Here, demographics may hold the key to such questions from which a 21st century education model should be based on.

Network Firewall Dynamics And The Subsaturation Stabilization Of Hiv, Bilal Khan, Kirk Dombrowski, Mohamed Saad, Katherine Mclean, Samuel Friedman

Publications and Research

In 2001, Friedman et al. conjectured the existence of a “firewall effect” in which individuals who are infected with HIV, but remain in a state of low infectiousness, serve to prevent the virus from spreading. To evaluate this historical conjecture, we develop a new graph-theoreticmeasure that quantifies the extent towhich Friedman’s firewall hypothesis (FH) holds in a risk network.We compute this new measure across simulated trajectories of a stochastic discrete dynamical system that models a social network of 25,000 individuals engaging in risk acts over a period of 15 years. The model’s parameters are based on analyses of data collected …

The Evolutionary Dynamics Of Protein-Protein Interaction Networks Inferred From The Reconstruction Of Ancient Networks, Yuliang Jin, Dmitrij Turaev, Thomas Weinmaier, Thomas Rattei, Hernán A. Makse

Publications and Research

Cellular functions are based on the complex interplay of proteins, therefore the structure and dynamics of these protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks are the key to the functional understanding of cells. In the last years, large-scale PPI networks of several model organisms were investigated. A number of theoretical models have been developed to explain both the network formation and the current structure. Favored are models based on duplication and divergence of genes, as they most closely represent the biological foundation of network evolution. However, studies are often based on simulated instead of empirical data or they cover only single organisms. Methodological …

Gene Entropy-Fractal Dimension Informatics With Application To Mouse-Human Translational Medicine, T. Holden, E. Cheung, S. Dehipawala, J. Ye, G. Tremberger, D. Lieberman, T. Cheung

Publications and Research

DNA informatics represented by Shannon entropy and fractal dimension have been used to form 2D maps of related genes in various mammals. The distance between points on these maps for corresponding mRNA sequences in different species is used to study evolution. By quantifying the similarity of genes between species, this distance might be indicated when studies on one species (mouse) would tend to be valid in the other (human). The hypothesis that a small distance from mouse to human could facilitate mouse to human translational medicine success is supported by the studied ESR-1, LMNA, Myc, and RNF4 sequences. ID1 and …

Simulation Insights Using R, Boyan Kostadinov

Publications and Research

This article attempts to introduce the reader to computational thinking and solving problems involving randomness. The main technique being employed is the Monte Carlo method, using the freely available software R for Statistical Computing. The author illustrates the computer simulation approach by focusing on several problems of increasing difficulty. The simulation techniques and the specific problems discussed in this article would be of interest to STEM students and instructors, teaching courses in Monte Carlo simulations, stochastic modeling, probability and statistics. The R code for all problems is discussed in full detail so that the reader can get a taste of …