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Electronic Structure Based Classification Of Neurotransmitters And Related Drugs, Amrita Jha Oct 2010

Electronic Structure Based Classification Of Neurotransmitters And Related Drugs, Amrita Jha

Theses and Dissertations

A fundamental understanding of the relationship between structure and activity of neurotransmitters in the human brain is of vital importance for the design targeted drugs. Using density functional theory and hybrid exchange correlation energy functionals we have studied the structure-activity-relationships of some important neurotransmitters and selected drugs by calculating their absolute hardness (η) and absolute electronegativity (χ). A plot of the η- χ diagram allowed us to assign them into three distinct groups, namely, (i) Acetylcholine analogs (positively charged structure), (ii) GABA analogs (zwitterionic structures) and (iii) monoamines. The results suggest that brain stem is chemically soft because of distribution …

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Handling External Events Efficiently In Gillespie's Stochastic Simulation Algorithm, Brad Geltz Oct 2010

Handling External Events Efficiently In Gillespie's Stochastic Simulation Algorithm, Brad Geltz

Theses and Dissertations

Gillespie's Stochastic Simulation Algorithm (SSA) provides an elegant simulation approach for simulating models composed of coupled chemical reactions. Although this approach can be used to describe a wide variety biological, chemical, and ecological systems, often systems have external behaviors that are difficult or impossible to characterize using chemical reactions alone. This work extends the applicability of the SSA by adding mechanisms for the inclusion of external events and external triggers. We define events as changes that occur in the system at a specified time while triggers are defined as changes that occur to the system when a particular condition is …

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“Sustainable Design – A Holistic Approach To Sustainable Planning And Living”, Nexhmije Kryeziu Oct 2010

“Sustainable Design – A Holistic Approach To Sustainable Planning And Living”, Nexhmije Kryeziu

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

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The Regulation Of The Alternative Splicing Of Caspase 9, Rachel Goehe Sep 2010

The Regulation Of The Alternative Splicing Of Caspase 9, Rachel Goehe

Theses and Dissertations

The pro-apoptotic, caspase 9a, and the anti-apoptotic, caspase 9b, are derived from the caspase 9 gene by alternative splicing. This study demonstrates that the alternative splicing of caspase 9 is dysregulated in a large percentage of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumors of the adenocarcinoma type. Furthermore, modulation of the levels of splice variants of caspase 9 had dramatic effects on the anchorage-independent growth and tumorigenic capacity of NSCLC cells. Due to these findings, the molecular mechanisms regulating the post-transcriptional processing of caspase 9 were therefore examined and an exonic splicing silencer (ESS) regulating the pre-mRNA processing of caspase 9 …

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The Dream Is Alive: A Study Of Selected African American Males' Success At Rowan University, Cory Boone Sep 2010

The Dream Is Alive: A Study Of Selected African American Males' Success At Rowan University, Cory Boone

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to better understand why African American males struggle to obtain a four-year college degree. A secondary purpose was to analyze the Black male college students' perceptions of success in college and the roles educational leaders played in their attendance and achievement in college. This study also looked at the behavior of the African American males in college. Purposive sampling was used to select participants. Selection criteria included male, African American undergraduate and graduate students attending Rowan University during the 2009/2010 academic year who were student leaders, and doing well in the classroom. Also, selected …

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Self-Directedness In Foreign Language Learners: A Phenomenological Study Of College Students And Foreign Language Instructors, Sueid Fauaze Moreira Sep 2010

Self-Directedness In Foreign Language Learners: A Phenomenological Study Of College Students And Foreign Language Instructors, Sueid Fauaze Moreira

Theses and Dissertations

The intent of the qualitative research was to investigate if students experience self-directedness when taking foreign language classes at the college level. The research was based on learners' perspectives of the phenomenon both verifying the use of self-directedness among learners and understanding the paradigms of self-direction. Guided by scholarly research, the construct elements for the research were a) Characteristics of Instruction, b) Characteristic of Learner, and c) Self-Directedness. Four groups of students were identified in the study. Individual students' interview responses revealed that their perceived needs varied according to their degree seeking and career goals. Interview data combined with scores …

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Systematic Analysis Of Nutritional Components, Cell Wall Chemical Features And Potential Pathway(S) Of Assimilate Transport In The Developing Pods And Seeds Of Medicago Truncatula, Alka Sharma Sep 2010

Systematic Analysis Of Nutritional Components, Cell Wall Chemical Features And Potential Pathway(S) Of Assimilate Transport In The Developing Pods And Seeds Of Medicago Truncatula, Alka Sharma

Theses and Dissertations

Medicago truncatula is a model species for legume studies. Despite the great advances in the study of M. truncatula and development of a vast array of genetic tools and genomic resources, there is a lack of knowledge regarding the nutrient movement and accumulation in its pods and seeds. This study used a combination of the microscopic analysis, histochemical localization and the fluorescent tracers to identify the cellular course and location of nutrient movement. Temporal histochemical localization revealed that the longer duration of the accumulation of protein bodies and lipid droplets combined with the high hexoses concentration in seed apoplasm might …

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Untargeted Metabolite Profiling Using A Multi-Way Decomposition Method, Minho Chae Sep 2010

Untargeted Metabolite Profiling Using A Multi-Way Decomposition Method, Minho Chae

Theses and Dissertations

Although gas chromatograpy-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) is a mature technology for profiling primary metabolites, analyzing those datasets in a large-scale and high-throughput manner is a great challenge because of the complex nature of the data. There is often non-linear inter-run variance in the retention time between runs, making it difficult to identify corresponding peaks among multiple runs. Moreover, peaks are rarely homogeneous. They often contain systematic signals, i.e., background, or non-systematic signals, i.e., noise, and many peaks comprise multiple co-eluting or overlapping components. Thus, identifying all the pure components in all of the peaks from the entire dataset, and comparing them …

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A Bioinformatics & Computational Biology Approach To Supervised Selection And Prognostic Marker Identification For Malignant Astrocytic Glioma Patients, Vinay Ravindrakumar Raj Sep 2010

A Bioinformatics & Computational Biology Approach To Supervised Selection And Prognostic Marker Identification For Malignant Astrocytic Glioma Patients, Vinay Ravindrakumar Raj

Theses and Dissertations

Malignant astrocytic gliomas, like Glioblastoma Multiforme and Anaplastic Astrocytoma, are among the deadliest forms of brain tumors with varying periods of survival. Currently, the risk of a glioma patient is mostly measured by prognostic models with clinical prognostic markers and has limited success. In this study a Bioinformatics & Computational Biology approach to identify candidate prognostic markers from a combination of clinical, genetic and gene expression variables (related to multiple significant pathways targeted by classical genetic alterations) involved in malignant glioma progression, was developed to explain variation in survival. The initial selection of molecular variables for prognosis modeling was done …

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Fetal Breathing Movement And Its Distinctive Characteristics In Bio-Magnetic Data, Umit Deniz Ulusar Sep 2010

Fetal Breathing Movement And Its Distinctive Characteristics In Bio-Magnetic Data, Umit Deniz Ulusar

Theses and Dissertations

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is widely used to study magnetic fields generated by the electrical activity of the human brain and can also be applied for fetal neurological health assessment. The fetal MEG (fMEG) signals are often contaminated with other bio-magnetic signals such as fetal breathing movement (FBM), which acts as an interfering factor for fetal neurological signals. This study was carried out to identify the bio-magnetic signals pertinent to the FBM. The fMEG signals were captured using superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) and the FBMs were recorded by an ultrasound-based video technique. The simultaneous recording is challenging since SQUIDs are extremely …

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Signal Detection Framework Using Semantic Text Mining Techniques, Sithu D. Sudarsan Sep 2010

Signal Detection Framework Using Semantic Text Mining Techniques, Sithu D. Sudarsan

Theses and Dissertations

Signal detection is a challenging task for regulatory and intelligence agencies. Subject matter experts in those agencies analyze documents, generally containing narrative text in a time bound manner for signals by identification, evaluation and confirmation, leading to follow-up action e.g., recalling a defective product or public advisory for potential flu outbreak. Technical challenges to achieve effective signal detection include mining unstructured data, increasing document collections, and presence of multi-domain vocabulary. Lack of annotation and multi-domain vocabulary makes traditional semantic web mining ineffective. Use of heuristics to enhance bag-of-words type text mining to semantic text mining is a novel idea attempted …

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Unusually Conductive Carbon-Inherently Conducting Polymer (Icp) Composites: Synthesis And Characterization, Shawn Edward Bourdo Sep 2010

Unusually Conductive Carbon-Inherently Conducting Polymer (Icp) Composites: Synthesis And Characterization, Shawn Edward Bourdo

Theses and Dissertations

Two groups of materials that have recently come to the forefront of research initiatives are carbon allotropes, especially nanotubes, and conducting polymers-more specifically inherently conducting polymers. The terms conducting polymers and inherently conducting polymers sometimes are used interchangeably without fully acknowledging a major difference in these terms. Conducting polymers (CPs) and inherently conducting polymers (ICPs) are both polymeric materials that conduct electricity, but the difference lies in how each of these materials conducts electricity. For CPs of the past, an electrically conductive filler such as metal particles, carbon black, or graphite would be blended into a polymer (insulator) allowing for …

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Antifolate Modulators Of Amp-Activated Protein Kinase Signaling As Cancer Therapeutics, Scott Rothbart Sep 2010

Antifolate Modulators Of Amp-Activated Protein Kinase Signaling As Cancer Therapeutics, Scott Rothbart

Theses and Dissertations

Since its discovery, it was appreciated that the antifolate pemetrexed had multiple targets within folate metabolism. This laboratory was instrumental in showing that pemetrexed elicited its primary action as a thymidylate synthase inhibitor. Unusual for an antifolate, pemetrexed showed significant clinical activity against malignant pleural mesothelioma and non-small cell lung cancer. Accordingly, the FDA recently issued first-line approvals for pemetrexed in these diseases, leading us to question whether the effects of pemetrexed on other folate-dependent targets could explain this atypical clinical activity of the drug. Studies in this dissertation showed that in addition to thymidylate synthase inhibition, pemetrexed was also …

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B Cell Adam10 Activity Is Increased By Kainate Receptor Activation: Potential Role Of This Pathway In Th2 Immunity And Cancer, Jamie Sturgill Sep 2010

B Cell Adam10 Activity Is Increased By Kainate Receptor Activation: Potential Role Of This Pathway In Th2 Immunity And Cancer, Jamie Sturgill

Theses and Dissertations

CD23 has long been appreciated to be a natural, negative regulator of IgE synthesis. This understanding is due in part to animal models in which CD23 deficient or CD23 transgenic animals display exacerbated or reduced IgE levels respectively. Interestingly, CD23 is susceptible to proteolytic cleavage from the cell surface. When this occurs, CD23 loses its regulatory capability and the solubilized form can lead to pro-inflammatory events through its cytokinergic activity on macrophages. Thus, targeting this specific cleavage would be beneficial to the control of allergic disease by stabilizing CD23 at the cell surface. Inhibitor studies performed by our group as …

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Scientific Language: The Fear Of The Unknown (A Ualr Course Proposal), Ashley Stanley Block Sep 2010

Scientific Language: The Fear Of The Unknown (A Ualr Course Proposal), Ashley Stanley Block

Theses and Dissertations

Scientific Language: The Fear of the Unknown (A UALR Course Proposal) is a final project written as a proposal for the implementation of a science writing course within the Department of Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The project is complete with a syllabus, assignments, an extensive review of relevant literature, as well as a personal reflection regarding the importance of communicating scientific knowledge to lay audiences.

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Little Rock Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1888 To 1903, Jane Ann Wilkerson Sep 2010

Little Rock Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1888 To 1903, Jane Ann Wilkerson

Theses and Dissertations

In discussions about the women's rights, organizations such as the National Organization for Women or the National American Woman Suffrage Association often overshadow the contributions of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Most know of the WCTU's efforts against alcohol but little is known about the group's work toward woman's suffrage. In fact, the Little Rock organization became one of the WCTU's strongest local unions. It worked to change the lives of women and children not only in the city, but also statewide. Members' skills and unique backgrounds helped the union reach many of its goals. During these efforts it …

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East Of The Jordan: A Journey Of Surrender, Sacrifice, And Survival, Mike David Rush Sep 2010

East Of The Jordan: A Journey Of Surrender, Sacrifice, And Survival, Mike David Rush

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is a memoir recounting my spiritual journey which took place from the fall of 1994 to the fall of 1997. Each of those three years represents a part of the grander story - the year I returned to teach in the Netherlands having been unable to find a job in the states, the year I served on a chapel youth leadership team with a man I felt certain was a sexual predator, and the year I worked at Walmart unable to find a teaching job in the States after flying back to testify in his court martial. I …

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Assessing The Sensitivity Of Water To Surface, Soil, Rock, And Cave Conditions In Fitton Cave, Northern Arkansas, Drew Aaron Westerman Sep 2010

Assessing The Sensitivity Of Water To Surface, Soil, Rock, And Cave Conditions In Fitton Cave, Northern Arkansas, Drew Aaron Westerman

Theses and Dissertations

Fitton Cave, located within the Buffalo National River in north-central Arkansas, offers a window into a relatively pristine portion of the Ozark Plateaus Aquifer. This region is one of the largest karst aquifers in the United States, providing more than 1.8 million people with drinking water. Understanding what happens to water as it moves from the surface to subsurface is requisite for utilization, management, and sustainability of karst aquifers as water resources. As population pressures increase, assessment of geochemical and hydrologic processes from pristine systems such as Fitton Cave will prove invaluable for providing baseline conditions. By integrating vascular plant …

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Design, Synthesis, And Characterization Of A Tetraamide Macrocyclic Ligand And Its Fe- Complex For Green Oxidation Chemistry, Shane Z. Sullivan Sep 2010

Design, Synthesis, And Characterization Of A Tetraamide Macrocyclic Ligand And Its Fe- Complex For Green Oxidation Chemistry, Shane Z. Sullivan

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents the spectroscopic characterization and catalytic investigation of a FeIII-complex of a tetraamidomacrocyclic ligand. Under catalytic conditions the complex is soluble in aqueous solutions and rapidly activates hydrogen peroxide under mild reaction conditions. Both the kinetics and extent of water-soluble dye and paper effluent H2O2-bleaching catalyzed was found to be comparable to known FeIII-TAML complexes. As an additional application, the complex showed potential for the synthesis of a variety of Noxides from their corresponding amines as demonstrated by its high turnover number and essentially stoichiometric yield in selected amines. Electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry of the complex reveals a peak …

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Site Fidelity And Population Structure Of A Solitary Subterranean Rodent, Geomys Breviceps, In Southwestern Arkansas., Kimberly Nicole King Sep 2010

Site Fidelity And Population Structure Of A Solitary Subterranean Rodent, Geomys Breviceps, In Southwestern Arkansas., Kimberly Nicole King

Theses and Dissertations

From October 2007 to April 2010, 87 Geomys breviceps were captured a total of 156 times on a 2-ha plot in southwestern Arkansas. Individuals were captured using the Sikes-Finley pocket gopher trap and all new captures were marked with passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags. Spatial distribution and movement patterns were examined using ArcGIS. The population was female biased. Average duration between initial capture and final recapture of individuals was 8 months. An individual male and female captured at the onset of the study were recaptured after 29 months and remained within 46 m of their initial capture site. Males were …

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Specificity Determinants Of Arma, A Ribosomal Rna Methyltransferase That Confers Antibiotic Resistance, Tamara Zarubica Sep 2010

Specificity Determinants Of Arma, A Ribosomal Rna Methyltransferase That Confers Antibiotic Resistance, Tamara Zarubica

Theses and Dissertations

Bacterial resistance to 4,6-type aminoglycoside antibiotics, which target the 30S ribosomal subunit, has been traced to the arm/rmt family of rRNA methyltransferases. These plasmid-encoded enzymes transfer a methyl group from S-adenosylmethionine to N7 of the buried G1405 in the aminoglycoside binding site of 16S rRNA in the 30S ribosomal subunit. Neither 16S rRNA alone nor intact 70S ribosome is an efficient substrate for armA methyltransferase. To more fully characterize this family of enzymes, xiii we have investigated the substrate requirements of ArmA. We determined the Mg2+ dependence of ArmA activity and found that the enzyme could recognize both translationally active …

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The Predictive Relationship Between Temperament, School Adjustment, And Academic Achievement: A 2-Year Longitudinal Study Of Children At-Risk, Maha Al-Hendawi Sep 2010

The Predictive Relationship Between Temperament, School Adjustment, And Academic Achievement: A 2-Year Longitudinal Study Of Children At-Risk, Maha Al-Hendawi

Theses and Dissertations

Individual differences in temperament can be a risk or a protective factor for a child, especially for children at-risk who possess single or multiple risk factors that may interfere with their educational success and affect their healthy development and their life-long outcomes. This research study examined the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between temperament, school adjustment, and academic achievement in children at-risk. Seventy-seven children, ages five to 11 years, were reassessed two years after an initial study. Their teachers completed the Temperament Assessment Battery for Children (TABC), the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC), and reported on the children's academic achievement. …

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Neural Extensions To Robust Parameter Design, Bernard Jacob Loeffelholz Sep 2010

Neural Extensions To Robust Parameter Design, Bernard Jacob Loeffelholz

Theses and Dissertations

Robust parameter design (RPD) is implemented in systems in which a user wants to minimize the variance of a system response caused by uncontrollable factors while obtaining a consistent and reliable system response over time. We propose the use of artificial neural networks to compensate for highly non-linear problems that quadratic regression fails to accurately model. RPD is conducted under the assumption that the relationship between system response and controllable and uncontrollable variables does not change over time. We propose a methodology to find a new set of settings that will be robust to moderate system degradation while remaining robust …

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Providing A Theoretical Basis For Nanotoxicity Risk Analysis Departing From Traditional Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (Pbpk) Modeling, Dirk P. Yamamoto Sep 2010

Providing A Theoretical Basis For Nanotoxicity Risk Analysis Departing From Traditional Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (Pbpk) Modeling, Dirk P. Yamamoto

Theses and Dissertations

The same novel properties of engineered nanoparticles that make them attractive may also present unique exposure risks. But, the traditional physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modeling assumption of instantaneous equilibration likely does not apply to nanoparticles. This simulation-based research begins with development of a model that includes diffusion, active transport, and carrier mediated transport. An eigenvalue analysis methodology was developed to examine model behavior to focus future research. Simulations using the physicochemical properties of size, shape, surface coating, and surface charge were performed and an equation was determined which estimates area under the curve for arterial blood concentration, which is a surrogate …

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Consistency Properties For Growth Model Parameters Under An Infill Asymptotics Domain, David T. Mills Sep 2010

Consistency Properties For Growth Model Parameters Under An Infill Asymptotics Domain, David T. Mills

Theses and Dissertations

Growth curves are used to model various processes, and are often seen in biological and agricultural studies. Underlying assumptions of many studies are that the process may be sampled forever, and that samples are statistically independent. We instead consider the case where sampling occurs in a finite domain, so that increased sampling forces samples closer together, and also assume a distance-based covariance function. We first prove that, under certain conditions, the mean parameter of a fixed-mean model cannot be estimated within a finite domain. We then numerically consider more complex growth curves, examining sample sizes, sample spacing, and quality of …

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Analysis Of Alternative Methods For Long-Term Wind Speed And Initial Site Assessment For Purposes Of Wind Energy Production Estimation, Ryan Mcdevitt Sep 2010

Analysis Of Alternative Methods For Long-Term Wind Speed And Initial Site Assessment For Purposes Of Wind Energy Production Estimation, Ryan Mcdevitt

Theses and Dissertations

A need exists for identification and evaluation of viable sites for wind energy. However, this is made difficult by the site-specific nature of the wind. A review of current industry practices shows that linear regression is the preferred method, although little work has been done to investigate alternative approaches. To address this, various methods were tested on 23 target sites with data measured over a long-term period. Each site was analyzed with the chosen best reference station, across 10 data periods for each method with results classified as mean absolute percentage error in energy density between the projected and measured …

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How Do First Graders Define A Family?, Kelly Ann Mcgrail Sep 2010

How Do First Graders Define A Family?, Kelly Ann Mcgrail

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to determine how first grade students define a family. Qualitative research was used as the methodology for this inquiry. The participants were thirteen first grade inclusion students in a school that is located in Southern New Jersey. An instructional unit depicting various family constellations was implemented along with authentic discussions, a student survey, an interactive bulletin board, a classroom library containing family books, and writing prompts contained in My Family Journal. The data collected and analyzed was from student discussion, the subjects' work, direct observation of pupils, the instructional unit, and a teacher research …

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Axial Temperature Gradients In Gas Chromatography, Jesse Alberto Contreras Sep 2010

Axial Temperature Gradients In Gas Chromatography, Jesse Alberto Contreras

Theses and Dissertations

The easiest and most effective way to influence the separation process in gas chromatography (GC) is achieved by controlling the temperature of the chromatographic column. In conventional GC, the temperature along the length of the column is constant at any given time, T(t). In my research, I investigated the effects of temperature gradients on GC separations as a function of time and position, T(t,x), along the column. This separation mode is called thermal gradient GC (TGGC). The research reported in this dissertation highlights the fundamental principles of axial temperature gradients and the separation potential of the TGGC technique. These goals …

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Predicting The Distribution Of Air Pollution Sensitive Lichens Using Habitat Niche Modeling, Gajendra Shrestha Aug 2010

Predicting The Distribution Of Air Pollution Sensitive Lichens Using Habitat Niche Modeling, Gajendra Shrestha

Theses and Dissertations

Usnea hirta and Xanthoparmelia cumberlandia are commonly used as bio-monitors of air quality. In order to more accurately and efficiently determine the distribution of these two sensitive indicator species, we have developed a probabilistic distribution map as a function of 9 macroclimatic and topographic variables for the White River National Forest, Colorado using Non-Parametric Multiplicative Regression (NPMR) analysis. Furthermore, we also developed a logistic regression (LR) model for X. cumberlandia in order to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the NPMR model. The best model for U. hirta included four variables - solar radiation, average monthly precipitation, average monthly minimum …

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The Roads Are Bumpy Ones: A Study Of Body Image Through Abstract Performance, Alexis Goldstein Aug 2010

The Roads Are Bumpy Ones: A Study Of Body Image Through Abstract Performance, Alexis Goldstein

Theses and Dissertations

An overwhelming number of contemporary adolescents struggle with difficult issues. Many of these problems are socially related whereas others can be directly related to the degradation of the family unit. Among the most damaging of issues is distorted body image, which infect youth, often causing them to communicate aggressively, and even landing them in compromising situations. I have sought to challenge my students to redefine themselves through expressive movement and the creation of abstract rhythmic sounds. In teaching these techniques, I have given my former students the means to combat negative thoughts and actions, as well as an excellent tool …

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