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Department Of Biological Systems Engineering Newsletter, Issue 2, November 2006

BSE Department Magazine

Contents:
Visiting Scholar
Big changes in the BSE Computer Lab
From the Department Head
National Science Foundation Initiative Moving to Transform Water and Environment Research ByWayneWoldt
ASABE Awards
Nebraska Tractor Test Lab Welcomes New Director
Alumni News
August Graduation
College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources Alumni Association (CASNRAA)
Hydrologic Studies in Prairie and Agricultural Watersheds: Gleanings from a Faculty Development Leave, by Dean E. Eisenhauer
Irrigation and Energy Conservation Field Day, by Suat Irmak
P3–Ten Years
Hall of Fame
Vegetative Treatment Systems Help Small Livestock Producers Control Animal Waste, by Kalee Olson
Ice Cream Social and Scholarship Recognition
Student …

Emergence Of The Fuzzy Horizon Through Gravitational Collapse, Anand Murugan '07, Vatche Sahakian

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

For a large enough Schwarzschild black hole, the horizon is a region of space where gravitational forces are weak; yet it is also a region leading to numerous puzzles connected to stringy physics. In this work, we analyze the process of gravitational collapse and black hole formation in the context of light-cone M-theory. We find that, as a shell of matter contracts and is about to reveal a black hole horizon, it undergoes a thermodynamic phase transition. This involves the binding of D0 branes into D2’s, and the new phase leads to large membranes of the size of the horizon. …

Exploiting Gene-Environment Independence For Analysis Of Case-Control Studies: An Empirical Bayes Approach To Trade Off Between Bias And Efficiency, Bhramar Mukherjee, Nilanjan Chatterjee

The University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Standard prospective logistic regression analysis of case-control data often leads to very imprecise estimates of gene-environment interactions due to small numbers of cases or controls in cells of crossing genotype and exposure. In contrast, under the assumption of gene-environment independence, modern “retrospective” methods, including the “case-only” approach, can estimate the interaction parameters much more precisely, but they can be seriously biased when the underlying assumption of gene-environment independence is violated. In this article, we propose a novel approach to analyze case-control data that can relax the gene-environment independence assumption using an empirical Bayes framework. In the special case, involving a …

A Note On Bias Due To Fitting Prospective Multivariate Generalized Linear Models To Categorical Outcomes Ignoring Retrospective Sampling Schemes, Bhramar Mukherjee, Ivy Liu

The University of Michigan Department of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Outcome dependent sampling designs are commonly used in economics, market research and epidemiological studies. Case-control sampling design is a classic example of outcome dependent sampling, where exposure information is collected on subjects conditional on their disease status. In many situations, the outcome under consideration may have multiple categories instead of a simple dichotomization. For example, in a case-control study, there may be disease sub-classification among the “cases” based on progression of the disease, or in terms of other histological and morphological characteristics of the disease. In this note, we investigate the issue of fitting prospective multivariate generalized linear models to …

On The Complexity Of Horn Description Logics, Markus Krotzsch, Sebastian Rudolph, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Horn-SHIQ has been identified as a fragment of the description logic SHIQ for which inferencing is in PT_IME with respect to the size of the ABox. This enables reasoning with larger ABoxes in situations where the TBox is static, and represents one approach towards tractable description logic reasoning. In this paper, we show that reasoning in Horn-SHIQ, in spite of its low datacomplexity, is E_xpT_IME-hard with respect to the overall size of the knowledge base. While this result is not unexpected, the proof is not a mere modification of existing reductions since …

Multiscale Image Registration, Dana C. Paquin, Doron Levy, Lei Xing

Mathematics

Abstract of paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Improving The Convergence And Computational Efficiency Of Deformable Image Registration Calculation By Incorporating Prior Knowledge, S. Kamath, Eduard Schreibmann, Doron Levy, Dana C. Paquin, Lei Xing

Mathematics

Abstract of a paper presented at the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology.

Editorial

Word Ways

Thirty-seven years... hundreds of authors... thousands of articles. It's been a glorious adventure, and I've enjoyed every moment of it, but nothing lasts forever. It's time to give someone else a chance to experience these pleasures. Starting with the Feb 2007 issue, Jeremiah Farrell, an emeritus professor of mathematics at Butler University and a Word Ways author since Aug 1983, will take over the editorship with his wife Karen. I plan to continue writing Word Ways articles.

Kickshaws

Word Ways

A collection of linguistic kickshaws.

Back Cover

Word Ways

Instructions to authors wishing to contribute to Word Ways.

A Framework For Schema-Driven Relationship Discovery From Unstructured Text, Cartic Ramakrishnan, Krzysztof Kochut, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

We address the issue of extracting implicit and explicit relationships between entities in biomedical text. We argue that entities seldom occur in text in their simple form and that relationships in text relate the modified, complex forms of entities with each other. We present a rule-based method for (1) extraction of such complex entities and (2) relationships between them and (3) the conversion of such relationships into RDF. Furthermore, we present results that clearly demonstrate the utility of the generated RDF in discovering knowledge from text corpora by means of locating paths composed of the extracted relationships.

From Opposition To Accommodation: How Rockefeller Foundation Grants Redefined Relations Between Political Theory And Social Science In The 1950s, Emily Hauptmann

Political Science Faculty Publications

I n this essay, I rely primarily on unpublished documents from the Rockefeller Foundation Archives as well as the annual reports of the Ford Foundation and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to show that rather than being in a torpor, political theory in the 1950s was a large and eclectic field, marked by contest and rapid change. I focus on the Rockefeller Foundation’s policy making for its program in Legal and Political Philosophy (LAPP), the largest grant program for political theory in the 1950s, both to see how the Foundation justified the creation of the program and how it …

Planner, Volume 21, Number 6, November-December 2006, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

(Acetonitrile-Κn){2-[Bis­(2-Pyridylethyl)­Amino]Ethanol-Κ4n,N′,N′′,O}Zinc(Ii) Bis­(Perchlorate) Monohydrate, Hong-Chang Liang, Marcel M. Hetu, Kraig A. Wheeler, Lev N. Zakharov, Arnold L. Rheingold

Faculty Research and Creative Activity

In the title compound, [Zn(C2H3N)(C16H21N3O)](ClO4)2·H2O, the ZnII ion is coordinated by two pyridyl N atoms, one amine N atom, and an ethanol O atom from the N,N′,N′′,O-tetra­dentate 2-[bis­(2-pyridylethyl)amino]­ethanol donor ligand. The fifth coordination site is filled by an acetonitrile N atom, and there is one solvent water mol­ecule in the asymmetric unit. The 2+ charge of the cationic portion of the complex is balanced by two perchlorate counter-anions.

Prism #18, October/November 2006, Office Of The Provost

Prism: Western Michigan University's Newsletter for Academic Affairs

No abstract provided.

November 1, 2006 Cal Poly Report, Public Affairs Office

Cal Poly Report

No abstract provided.

Quaternary Deposits Near The San Emigdio Mountains, California: Evidence For A Paleolandscape?, Paul G. Lavelle

Earth and Soil Sciences

Discontinuous low-relief surfaces are scattered throughout relatively high topography within the San Emigdio Mountains, California. These surfaces are considered anomalous, as they are preserved in a dissected, mountainous region that is affected by ongoing orogeny. Previous research has suggested that the low-relief surfaces may represent a once-contiguous alluvial surface. This project utilizes field mapping and sedimentological analysis to determine if the surfaces represent a paleo landscape. What is apparent from field work is the presence of two morphologically distinct lithologic units that most likely represent surficial geologic components of the same relict landscape.

Clinical Data Entry & Protocol Tracking System, Neeta Pophali

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

CLINICAL DATA ENTRY & PROTOCOL TRACKING SYSTEM (CDEPT) is a software framework designed to provide the tools necessary to rapidly develop web based data entry and data management systems for clinical trails and medical research studies. A software framework defines a model, approach, procedures and tools for creating new protocols for clinical studies. As a framework this software is able to gain efficiency by providing standard approaches and tools for commonly needed capabilities such as construction of data entry routines, validation of data, audit trails and monitoring the completeness and timeliness of data collection. However, as a framework this software …

Working Memory, Executive Functioning, And Children's Mathematics, R. Bull, K. A. Espy

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory: Faculty Publications

Approximately 3-6% of school-age children are estimated to have mathematics difficulties (Badian, 1983; Gross-Tsur, Manor, & Shalev, 1996; Kosc, 1974, Lewis, Hitch, & Walker, 1994). There are many more children in regular school classrooms who struggle with mathematics but whose performance is not considered sufficiently poor to be classified as meriting a specific disability in mathematics. Specific mathematic learning disability (MLD) is defined in psychiatric and educational venues as a large discrepancy between mathematics ability compared to reading and general intellectual ability, although the size of the discrepancy required varies. To further complicate matters, mathematic difficulties are associated with other …

Orchard Words, Jeremiah Farrell

Word Ways

The orchard problem, also known as the three-planting problem in the literature, is to plant n trees so that there will be r straight rows with k trees in each row. The maximum r for various k is unknown except for certain small cases of n and k. We have constructed examples of known maximums using words which we call Orchard Words.

A New Vision For New Orleans And The Mississippi Delta: Applying Ecological Economics And Ecological Engineering, Robert Costanza, John W. Day, William J. Mitsch

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

The restoration of New Orleans and the rest of the Mississippi delta after Hurricane Katrina can become another disaster waiting to happen, or it can become a model of sustainable development. Sea level is rising, precipitation patterns are changing, hurricane intensity is increasing, energy costs are predicted to soar, and the city is continuing to sink. Most of New Orleans is currently from 0.6 to 5 m (2?15 feet) below sea level. The conventional approach of simply rebuilding the levees and the city behind them will only delay the inevitable. If New Orleans, and the delta in which it is …

On The Cohomology Of Spatial Polygons In Euclidean Spaces, Vehbi Emrah Paksoy

Mathematics Faculty Articles

Space of spatial polygons in Euclidean spaces has been studied extensively in [3, 1, 2]. There is a beautiful description of cohomology in [1]. In this paper we introduce another, easy to compute method to obtain the cohomology without using toric variety arguments. We also give a criterion for a polygon space to be Fano, thus, having ample anticanonical class.

Open Source, Openness, And Higher Education , David Wiley

Innovate: Journal of Online Education

No abstract provided.

Maximal Clifford Semigroups Of Matrices, Edmond W. H. Lee

Mathematics Faculty Articles

All maximal Clifford semigroups of matrices are identified up to isomorphism. If the ground field of the matrices is finite, then there exists a unique Clifford semigroup of maximum order.

A Case Study On Grid Performance Modeling, Amy Apon, Baochuan Lu, Larry Dowdy, Frank Robinson, Doug Hoffman, Denny Brewer

Publications

The purpose of this case study is to develop a performance model for an enterprise grid for performance management and capacity planning1. The target environment includes grid applications such as health-care and financial services where the data is located primarily within the resources of a worldwide corporation. The approach is to build a discrete event simulation model for a representative work-flow grid. Five work-flow classes, found using a customized k-means clustering algorithm characterize the workload of the grid. Analyzing the gap between the simulation and measurement data validates the model. The case study demonstrates that the simulation model can be …

An Approach For Using Soil Surveys To Guide The Placement Of Water Quality Buffers, Mike Dosskey, Matthew J. Helmers, Dean E. Eisenhauer

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Vegetative buffers may function better for filtering agricultural runoff in some locations than in others because of intrinsic characteristics of the land on which they are placed. The objective of this study was to develop a method based on soil survey attributes that can be used to compare soil map units for how effectively a buffer installed in them could remove pollutants from crop field runoff. Three separate models were developed. The surface runoff models for sediment and for dissolved pollutants were quantitative, based mainly on slope, soil, and rainfall factors of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), and …

Mercury Exchange Between The Atmosphere And Low Mercury Containing Substrates, Mae Sexauer Gustin, Mark Engle, Jody Ericksen, Seth N. Lyman, Jelena Stamenkovic, Mei Xin

USU Uintah Basin Faculty Publications

Mercury is emitted to the air from Hg-enriched and low Hg-containing (natural background) substrates. Emitted Hg can be geogenic, or can be derived from the re-emission of Hg that was previously deposited to the soil from the atmosphere. Atmospheric Hg can be derived from natural and/or anthropogenic sources and can be deposited by wet or dry processes. It is important to understand the relative magnitude of emission, deposition, and re-emission of Hg associated with terrestrial ecosystems with natural background soil Hg concentrations because these landscapes cover large terrestrial surface areas. This information is also important for developing biogeochemical mass balances, …

True Blue: Blue-Emitting Aluminum(Iii) Quinolinolate Complexes, Cesar Perez-Bolivar, Victor A. Montes, Pavel Anzenbacher Jr.

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Blue-emitting heteroleptic aluminum(III) bis(2-methyl-8-quinolinolate) phenolate complexes were synthesized. A tunable, blue-to-green emission is achieved by attaching electron-withdrawing modulators to the emisssive quinaldinate ligand. The electronic nature of modulator substituents attached to the position of the highest HOMO (highest occupied molecular orbital) density is used to modulate ligand HOMO levels to achieve effective emission tuning to obtain blue-emitting materials. Optical and electrochemical properties of the resulting complexes were investigated and compared to the results of density functional theory (DFT/B3LYP/6-31G*) studies. The resulting materials may find application as organic light-emitting device materials.

Having One's Property And Eating It Too: When The Article 9 Security Interest Becomes A Nuisance, Lawrence Ponoroff, F. Stephen Knippenberg

Notre Dame Law Review

No abstract provided.

Predicting Residue Contacts Using Pragmatic Correlated Mutations Method: Reducing The False Positives, Petras J. Kundrotas, Emil Alexov

Publications

Background

Predicting residues' contacts using primary amino acid sequence alone is an important task that can guide 3D structure modeling and can verify the quality of the predicted 3D structures. The correlated mutations (CM) method serves as the most promising approach and it has been used to predict amino acids pairs that are distant in the primary sequence but form contacts in the native 3D structure of homologous proteins.

Results

Here we report a new implementation of the CM method with an added set of selection rules (filters). The parameters of the algorithm were optimized against fifteen high resolution crystal …