Digital Commons Network^™

The Influence Of Beaver Impoundments On Vegetative Composition, And Modeling Habitat Suitability As A Tool For Wildlife Management And Conservation, Jerry Leanne Bonner

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Beavers (Castor canadensis) can have dramatic effects on vegetative communities through impounding streams and wetlands. These alterations may influence rare plant species where beaver create ponds. We found that the youngest and oldest beaver ponds in Canaan Valley, West Virginia, USA had similar species richness. Rare plant species occurred most in oldest ponds, although no significant differences were detected. Species composition around ponds was found to be different between areas influenced by ponds versus those not affected, creating more obligate wetland communities when influenced by beaver. This information should be incorporated into management decisions when rare plant species conservation is …

A Form Of Two-Phase Sampling Utilizing Regression Analysis, Michael Allen Fiery Jr.

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A two-phase sampling technique was introduced and tested where sawlog heights were measured on intensive (second phase) points and predicted on non-intensive (first phase) points. Regression analysis is used to predict heights on first phase points in order to achieve an estimate of volume for every point. Results indicate an improved estimate of both mean volume per acre and volume per acre by species when compared to traditional double sampling. An unbiased sampling error was also achieved in this process. Datasets consisted of mostly hardwood species from West Virginia and Maryland.

The Use Of Charge -Charge Correlation In Impedance Measurements: A Test Of The Epet Method, Christopher W. Gregory

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

It is well known that biological tissues possess impedance properties that might be useful in medical diagnostics and treatment. Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) images internal electrical properties by using numerical methods to solve Laplace's differential equation. The indirect reconstruction method (IRM), a common method in application, predicts internal electrical property distribution by iteratively computing a forward and inverse solution. This approach reduces the non-linear Laplace's equation into a poorly conditioned series of linear equations, which are solved simultaneously. This method suffers from high computational effort and is susceptible to prediction errors that stem from measurement noise.;As an alternative to Laplace's …

An Ecological Study Of Panax Quinquefolius In Central Appalachia: Seedling Growth, Harvest Impacts And Geographic Variation In Demography, Martha E. Van Der Voort

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) is a long-lived, slow-maturing understory perennial herb found in eastern North American forests. The economic value of P. quinquefolius on the world market has remained strong for nearly 300 years. It has high economic and social value in the central Appalachians as well. Persistent harvest of ginseng combined with habitat loss has reduced populations in the wild, threatening the future of the species and its continued harvest. American ginseng was placed on the CITES Appendix II list in 1973 due to population declines. These concerns led to a series of studies investigating the population dynamics …

Avian Hosts For West Nile Virus In St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, 2002, Nicholas Komar, Nicholas A. Panella, Stanley A. Langevin, Aaron C. Brault, Manuel Amador, Eric Edwards, Jennifer C. Owen

Faculty Publications

West Nile virus (WNV) infections in free-ranging birds were studied in Slidell, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, after a human encephalitis outbreak peaked there in July 2002. Seroprevalence in resident, free-ranging wild birds in one suburban site was 25% and 24% in August and October, respectively, indicating that most transmission had ceased by early August. Mortality rates, seroprevalence rates, host competence, and crude population estimates were used in mathematical models to predict actual infection rates, population impacts, and importance as amplifying hosts for several common passerine birds. Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) and house sparrow (Passer domesticus) were the principal amplifying hosts, …

Weather And The Salem Witch Trials, Franklin G. Mixon

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Register, 2005-11-30, North Carolina Agricutural And Technical State University

NCAT Student Newspapers

No abstract provided.

Cwu Faculty Senate Minutes - 11/30/2005, Janet Shields

Faculty Senate Minutes

These are the official Central Washington University Faculty Senate Minutes for the 11/30/2005 regular meeting.

Spartan Daily, November 30, 2005, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily (School of Journalism and Mass Communications)

Volume 125, Issue 52

Quantile-Function Based Null Distribution In Resampling Based Multiple Testing, Mark J. Van Der Laan, Alan E. Hubbard

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Simultaneously testing a collection of null hypotheses about a data generating distribution based on a sample of independent and identically distributed observations is a fundamental and important statistical problem involving many applications. Methods based on marginal null distributions (i.e., marginal p-values) are attractive since the marginal p-values can be based on a user supplied choice of marginal null distributions and they are computationally trivial, but they, by necessity, are known to either be conservative or to rely on assumptions about the dependence structure between the test-statistics. Resampling based multiple testing (Westfall and Young, 1993) involves sampling from a joint null …

Holmes V. South Carolina: Brief Amicus Curiae Of Forty Professors Of Evidence Law In Support Of Petitioner, Richard D. Friedman, Samuel R. Gross, Richard O. Lempert, David A. Moran

Appellate Briefs

This brief amicus curiae is submitted on behalf of forty professors of law who teach the law of evidence at various law schools across the United States. They are identified by name and position in the Appendix to this brief. Petitioner Bobby Lee Holmes and Respondent the State of South Carolina have consented to the filing of this brief.

Amici teach, study and write about the law of evidence as applied by the state and federal courts of the United States. They have a professional interest in the issues presented by this case.

Petitioner Bobby Lee Holmes was convicted of …

Newscope - November 30, 2005

Newscope

No abstract provided.

2005 Field Inventory Of Breeding Birds At Seven Riparian Sites In Cibola And Sandoval Counties, Nm, Hawks Aloft, Inc.

Multi-Species Reports (Hawks Aloft)

No abstract provided.

The Spinnaker Vol. 29 No. 16, University Of North Florida

Spinnaker

Student newspaper for the UNF community

November 30, 2005, Library Advisory Board

Booth Collaborative Advisory Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Public Health And The Law: Responding To Terrorism And Other Public Health Emergencies In New York, Mark R. Shulman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

White Beauty: The Portrayal Of Minorities In Teen Beauty Magazines, Micaela Choo Banks

Theses and Dissertations

This content analysis examines the representations of minorities in the two most popular teen beauty magazines: Seventeen and YM. Nine issues for 2003 constituted the sample frame yielding a total of 620 advertisements containing human models. After setting up a theoretical framework of the new racism and White beauty, this study investigates the portrayals of minority models. Overall, when compared with earlier studies the number of minority models used in mainstream magazine advertising rose and the portrayals of minority models in prominent roles increased. Yet, the subtle nature of the new racism was reinforced in the following findings: Prominent …

Patient Safety And Employee Safety Go Hand-In-Hand

Articles - Patient Care

No abstract provided.

Data Adaptive Pathway Testing, Merrill D. Birkner, Alan E. Hubbard, Mark J. Van Der Laan

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

A majority of diseases are caused by a combination of factors, for example, composite genetic mutation profiles have been found in many cases to predict a deleterious outcome. There are several statistical techniques that have been used to analyze these types of biological data. This article implements a general strategy which uses data adaptive regression methods to build a specific pathway model, thus predicting a disease outcome by a combination of biological factors and assesses the significance of this model, or pathway, by using a permutation based null distribution. We also provide several simulation comparisons with other techniques. In addition, …

Soil Cleanup At Los Alamos National Laboratory: Sediment Contamination In The South Fork Of Acid Canyon, Institute For Energy And Environmental Research (Ieer), Brice Smith

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER)

Between 1944 and 1964, multiple liquid radioactive waste streams were released into the South Fork of Acid Canyon from Los Alamos National Laboratory. From 1944 to 1951, “untreated radioactive effluent from former Technical Area (TA) 1 was discharged into the head of the South Fork of Acid Canyon” and from 1951 to 1964 a “radioactive liquid waste treatment plant at former TA-45” discharged its effluent into the canyon. Today, this area is located within 1,000 feet of a residential neighborhood and less than a mile from a local high-school.1 We chose to examine the remediation of Acid Canyon because; (1) …

Climatic Unpredictability And Parasitism Of Caterpillars: Implications Of Global Warming, John Stireman, Lee Dyer, D. Janzen, M. Singer, J. Lill, R. Marquis, R. Ricklefs, G. Gentry, W. Hallwachs, P. Coley, J. Barone, H. Greeney, H. Connahs, P. Barbosa, H. Morais, I. Diniz

Biology Department Faculty Works

Insect outbreaks are expected to increase in frequency and intensity with projected changes in global climate through direct effects of climate change on insect populations and through disruption of community interactions. Although there is much concern about mean changes in global climate, the impact of climatic variability itself on species interactions has been little explored. Here, we compare caterpillar–parasitoid interactions across a broad gradient of climatic variability and find that the combined data in 15 geographically dispersed databases show a decrease in levels of parasitism as climatic variability increases. The dominant contribution to this pattern by relatively specialized parasitoid wasps …

Developmental Sequences For Simulating Crop Phenology For Water-Limiting Conditions, Gregory S. Mcmaster, Wally Wilhelm, A. B. Frank

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

The timing, duration, and pace of developmental events, or phenology, are among the many responses of plants to limited soil water. Understanding and predicting plant responses to availability of soil water are important in improving the efficacy of management practices. However, the first steps towards gaining this understanding, summarizing the complete developmental sequence of the shoot apex and correlating the timing of these events, have rarely been reported. Also, the effect of water-limiting conditions on crop phenology and shoot apex development is variable. The objective of this paper is to present the developmental sequence of the wheat (Triticum aestivum …

Daily Eastern News: November 29, 2005, Eastern Illinois University

November

No abstract provided.

Melatonin, Immune Function And Aging, V. Srinivasan, Georges J.M. Maestroni, Daniel P. Cardinali, A. I. Esquifino, S. R. Pandi Perumal, Sandra C. Miller

ETSU Faculty Works

Aging is associated with a decline in immune function (immunosenescence), a situation known to correlate with increased incidence of cancer, infectious and degenerative diseases. Innate, cellular and humoral immunity all exhibit increased deterioration with age. A decrease in functional competence of individual natural killer (NK) cells is found with advancing age. Macrophages and granulocytes show functional decline in aging as evidenced by their diminished phagocytic activity and impairment of superoxide generation. There is also marked shift in cytokine profile as age advances, e.g., CD3+ and CD4+ cells decline in number whereas CD8+ cells increase in elderly individuals. A decline in …

Reactivity Study Of Platinum Nanoparticles And Nanowires Inside The Channels Of Mesoporous Silica, Marcus R. Smith

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

Pt metal nanowires and nanoparticles were prepared using mesoporous silica as the template. Mesoporous silica with straight 1-dimensional, tortuous 1-dimensional and 3-dimensional channels was used. The experimental techniques included CO oxidation, Chemisorption, XRD, and STEM. CO oxidation and chemisorption provided the data to calculate the intrinsic reactivity, known as turn over frequency (TOF). Powder XRD was used to measure line broadening. The FWHM of the XRD line broadening was used with the Scherrer formula to determine Pt metal crystallite size. STEM images permitted for the measurement of the particle diameters, and the determination of morphology.

Two commercially available reference samples …

Ccu Newsletter, November 28, 2005, Coastal Carolina University

Coastal Carolina University Newsletter

A newsletter for faculty, staff and friends of Coastal Carolina University. Volume 15, Number 20

Arbiter, November 28, Students Of Boise State University

Student Newspapers

No abstract provided.

Optimal Feature Selection For Nearest Centroid Classifiers, With Applications To Gene Expression Microarrays, Alan R. Dabney, John D. Storey

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Nearest centroid classifiers have recently been successfully employed in high-dimensional applications. A necessary step when building a classifier for high-dimensional data is feature selection. Feature selection is typically carried out by computing univariate statistics for each feature individually, without consideration for how a subset of features performs as a whole. For subsets of a given size, we characterize the optimal choice of features, corresponding to those yielding the smallest misclassification rate. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm for estimating this optimal subset in practice. Finally, we investigate the applicability of shrinkage ideas to nearest centroid classifiers. We use gene-expression microarrays for …

A New Approach To Intensity-Dependent Normalization Of Two-Channel Microarrays, Alan R. Dabney, John D. Storey

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

A two-channel microarray measures the relative expression levels of thousands of genes from a pair of biological samples. In order to reliably compare gene expression levels between and within arrays, it is necessary to remove systematic errors that distort the biological signal of interest. The standard for accomplishing this is smoothing "MA-plots" to remove intensity-dependent dye bias and array-specific effects. However, MA methods require strong assumptions. We review these assumptions and derive several practical scenarios in which they fail. The "dye-swap" normalization method has been much less frequently used because it requires two arrays per pair of samples. We show …

Commonwealth Times 2005-11-28

Commonwealth Times, 1969-

No abstract provided.