Digital Commons Network^™

Developmental And Gender Patterns In Social Information Processing: Social Problem-Solving And Social Goals, April Bowersox

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of development and gender in first- through fifth-grade children's (N = 514) social information processing, as well as the role emotion plays in these patterns. Developmental patterns and goal selection have been relatively understudied in past social information processing literature. Videotaped ambiguous provocations were presented in which provocateur's emotion displays were manipulated (two each of happy, angry, and sad); children imagined being the provocateur's victim. Results revealed age and gender differences in children's goal selection and social problem-solving. Provocateur's emotion displays were also found to Influence goal selection and problem-solving in …

The City Wild, Adele Conover

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

It is an urban movement whose time has come. Although much of conservation remains focused on preserving unspoiled areas, an emerging view suggests preserving biodiversity in human habitats. With urban areas having become home to more people than rural areas, many scientists now argue that preserving human habitats is as essential to sustaining biodiversity as preserving the last great forests, grasslands and savannas.

The Internet Has Changed Many Things, But Not Everything: The Effects Of Internet Use On Gendered And Political Views, Jessica Ritchie

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Individuals who use the Internet can obtain uncensored information about nearly any subject with ease. The unlimited access and the perceived freedom make the Internet an extremely popular media form. The purpose of this research is to examine the differences in how the types of sites individuals visit affect their gendered views. I specifically examined (1) individuals who go to gender-issue sites are less likely to support traditional, female gender-roles and (2) individuals who go to political sites are more likely to support traditional female, gender-roles. This study, using special questions pertaining to gender-roles within the household and visiting gender …

Fat Teen Trouble: A Sociological Perspective Of Obesity In Adolescents, Katherine Malnor

Sociology Honors Projects

While many studies have sought to isolate some of the causes and possible solutions to the growing problem of childhood obesity in the United States, researchers have given scant attention to the influence of social factors on obesity. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, this study examines if social factors can explain adolescent obesity. Models predicting obesity as measured by body-mass-index found that different factors were associated with obesity for males and females, but had poor overall predictive power. Separate analysis of parents’ subjective assessment of adolescent obesity found different influences and no association with objective …

Ua35/1 Doers & Deeds, Volume 5, Issue 4, Wku Provost

WKU Administration Documents

Newsletter created by the WKU Provost & Vice President of Academic Affairs to highlight the activities of faculty, staff and alumni.

Impacts Of Feral And Free-Ranging Cats On Bird Species Of Conservation Concern, Linda Winter, George E. Wallace Ph.D.

Other Publications in Wildlife Management

This report reviews cat predation impacts on rare birds in the states of New York, New Jersey, Flor¬ida, California, and Hawaii, reviews government-authorized programs and ordinances affecting feral and free-ranging cats and their management, and makes recommendations on better ways to manage cat overpopulation problems. Sites marked * are State Important Bird Areas (IBAs) and sites marked ** are Global IBAs as identified by American Bird Conservancy (ABC) in The American Bird Conservancy Guide to the 500 Most Important Bird Areas in The United States. These areas are considered high priorities for cat control to protect threatened bird species.

05/01/2006 - Eiu Graduates Prepare For Saturday Commencement.Pdf, University Marketing And Communications

2006

No abstract provided.

Selective Male Mortality In The Red Imported Fire Ant, Solenopsis Invicta, Gary N. Fritz, Robert K. Vander Meer, Catherine A. Preston

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Males in polygyne populations of Solenopsis invicta are primarily sterile diploids and thought to not express the Gp-9 gene coding for a pheromone-binding protein affecting complex social behavior.We examined an aspect of the breeding system hitherto not considered—male Gp-9 genotypes in relation to sperm stored in queens. Four sites with varying frequencies of sympatric monogyne and polygyne colonies were sampled, including sexuals, workers, and broods from four colonies. Most queens were heterozygotes storing B sperm. Although predicted to be common, only 14 of 504 males were B or BB genotypes, suggesting strong selection. Increased frequency of polygyne colonies at each …

Sequence Analysis Of The Rdna Internal Transcribed Spacer 2 And Polymerase Chain Reaction Identification Of Anopheles Fluminensis (Diptera: Culicidae: Anopheles) In Bolivia, Corey L. Brelsfoard, Gary Fritz, Roberto Rodriguez

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Anopheles fluminensis Root is a member of the Arribalzagia Series in the subgenus Anopheles. We report the first record of this species in the department of Cochabamba, Bolivia. This species was sampled from two locations in the foothills of the eastern Andes Mountains within the Chapare Valley. Larvae were collected in fast-flowing, shaded streams at the edges of rocky pools. We provide the first sequence data for the rDNA of An. fluminensis, a partial sequence of the 5.8S and the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2). The ITS2 of An. fluminensis, sequenced from two individuals at one site, was at least …

Sequence Analysis Of The Rdna Internal Transcribed Spacer 2 And Polymerase Chain Reaction Identification Of Anopheles Fluminensis (Diptera: Culicidae: Anopheles) In Bolivia, Corey Brelsfoard, Gary Fritz, Roberto Rodriguez

Faculty Research & Creative Activity

Anopheles fluminensis Root is a member of the Arribalzagia Series in the subgenus Anopheles. We report the first record of this species in the department of Cochabamba, Bolivia. This species was sampled from two locations in the foothills of the eastern Andes Mountains within the Chapare Valley. Larvae were collected in fast-flowing, shaded streams at the edges of rocky pools. We provide the first sequence data for the rDNA of An. fluminensis, a partial sequence of the 5.8S and the internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2). The ITS2 of An. fluminensis, sequenced from two individuals at one site, was at least …

Prism #16, May 2006, Office Of The Provost

Prism: Western Michigan University's Newsletter for Academic Affairs

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Environmental Disturbance On The Stability And Benefits Of Individual Status Within Dominance Hierarchies, Lynne U. Sneddon, Sophie Hawkesworth, Victoria A. Braithwaite, Julia Yerbury

Ethology Collection

Changes in environmental conditions affect social interactions and thus may modify an individual’s competitive ability within a social group. We subjected three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, housed in groups of four individuals, to environmental perturbations to assess the impact on dominance hierarchy stability. Hierarchy stability decreased during increased turbulence or lowered water levels (‘simulated drought’) whereas control hierarchies became more stable in a constant environment. The dominant individual either became more aggressive and remained dominant during the environmental manipulation or was usurped by a lower rank member. Only simulated drought affected rates of aggression where levels of aggression were higher after …

Acoustic Structures In The Alarm Calls Of Gunnison’S Prairie Dogs, C. N. Slobodchikoff, J. Placer

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

Acoustic structures of sound in Gunnison’s prairie dog alarm calls are described, showing how these acoustic structures may encode information about three different predator species (red-tailed hawk—Buteo jamaicensis; domestic dog—Canis familaris; and coyote—Canis latrans). By dividing each alarm call into 25 equal-sized partitions and using resonant frequencies within each partition, commonly occurring acoustic structures were identified as components of alarm calls for the three predators. Although most of the acoustic structures appeared in alarm calls elicited by all three predator species, the frequency of occurrence of these acoustic structures varied among the alarm calls for the different predators, suggesting that …

Current, May 01, 2006, University Of Missouri-St. Louis

Current (2000s)

No abstract provided.

How To Activate Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Insurance, Elizabeth E. Gorham

SDSU Extension Extra Archives

This document provides information on how to activate Medicare insurance, specifically in Part D Prescription Drug insurance.

Exploring The Role Of Sac9 In Arabidopsis Thaliana Stress Response And Phosphoinositide Signaling, Elizabeth J. Drake

Biology

The SAC9 gene in Arabidopsis thaliana encodes a protein, Sac9, which is a putative 5-phosphatase involved in phosphoinositide stress signaling pathways in plants. The SAC domain of Sac9 has sequence homology with yeast and mammalian phosphoinositide phosphatases that catalyze the hydrolysis of phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate [PtdIns(4,5)P₂]. The loss of the Sac9 protein in A. thaliana leads to an increase in the quantity of PtdIns(4,5)P₂ in the plant. This increase in PtdIns(4,5)P₂ in the sac9-1 mutant A. thaliana likely causes plants grown under non-stress conditions to exhibit several phenotypes normally associated with stress. The focus of this thesis …

Systematics Of The Sympetrine Dragonflies With Emphasis On The Phylogeny, Taxonomy, And Historical Biogeography Of The Genus Sympetrum (Odonata: Libellulidae), Erik M. Pilgrim

Biology

Within dragonflies and damselflies, the family Libellulidae is the largest. The systematics have never been analyzed in a phylogenetic context. Using both molecular and morphological characters, this dissertation is the first study to address the phylogenetics of the Libellulidae, the phylogenetics and historical biogeography of Sympetrum, and several species-level disputes within Sympetrum. Phylogenetic study of the family Libellulidae revealed that many of the libellulid subfamilies (Brachydiplactinae, Leucorrhininae, Sympetrinae, Trameinae, Trithemistinae, and Urothemistinae) were paraphyletic. Wing venation characters were not useful for delineating the hierarchy of taxa within Libellulidae. Study of the systematics of Sympetrum shows that S. navasi …

Genetic And Phenotypic Variability Of Metarhizium Anisoplae For Virulence And Tolerance To Uv-B Radiation And Heat, Drauzio E. N. Rangel

Biology

The fungus Metarhizium anisopliae is an important agent for biological control of insects and has great advantages over chemical insecticides. However, ultraviolet radiation and heat from sunlight are serious obstacles for the use of M. anisopliae in agriculture, where the conidia may be impaired in a matter of a few hours in the field. Therefore, isolate selection and/or generation of conidia with increased tolerance to UV radiation and heat are a major goal of this dissertation. High variability in heat and UV-B tolerance was found among 17 isolates of M. anisopliae from different geographic origins, but there was very low …

Creating Mechanistic Ion Channel Models Using Genetic Algorithms, Jonathan Neal Hurst

Biology

Modeling ion channel function is often problematic, especially for channels that have not been physically characterized, because transitions between many conformational states cannot be directly observed. Myriad voltage clamp protocols have been developed to study these transitions, but model parameterization remains difficult because either all transitions must be culled from one protocol, or the data from multiple protocols must be non-redundantly combined. One solution to this problem is to use a genetic algorithm to create models that fit all desired voltage clamp data. This method has the distinct advantage of producing accurate ion channel models without manipulating the voltage clamp …

Somato-Dendritic Morphology Predicts Physiology For Neurons That Contribute To Several Kinds Of Limb Movements, Ari Berkowitz, Gina L.C. Yosten, R. Mark Ballard

Biological Sciences Faculty Research & Creative Works

It has been difficult to predict the behavioral roles of vertebrate CNS neurons based solely on their morphologies, especially for the neurons that control limb movements in adults. We examined the morphologies of spinal interneurons involved in limb movement control, using intracellular recording followed by Neurobiotin injection in the in vivo adult turtle spinal cord preparation. We report here the first description of a class of spinal interneurons whose somato-dendritic morphologies predict their robust activity during multiple forms of ipsilateral and contralateral fictive hindlimb scratching and fictive hindlimb withdrawal. These "transverse interneurons" or T cells have mediolaterally elongated soma and …

Host-Parasite Relatedness In Wood Ducks: Patterns Of Kinship And Parasite Success, Charlotte Nielsen, Brad Semel, Paul Sherman, David Westneat, Patricia Parker

Biology Department Faculty Works

We investigated the role of kinship in intraspecific nest parasitism of wood ducks (Aix sponsa). Among waterfowl, female philopatry creates the potential for female relatives to nest in proximity. Costs of intraspecific nest parasitism to host females may be reduced if parasites lay eggs with kin. However, previous observations of marked wood ducks indicated that females avoided parasitizing clutch mates or the female that incubated them. To further examine the role of kinship, we determined the genotypes of 27 host-parasite pairs at five microsatellite loci. Average relatedness between hosts and all females laying parasitic eggs was only 0.04 ± 0.03. …

Fisheries Research Report No.156 - Review Of Fishery Resources And Status Of Key Fishery Stocks In The Swan-Canning Estuary, Kimberley A. Smith

Fisheries Research Reports

This report synthesises data from the commercial and recreational fisheries of the Swan-Canning Estuary (hereafter Swan Estuary), as well as relevant biological and environmental data. This information is used to provide an overview of the fisheries, assess the current status of important stocks and highlight changes in the abundances of various fish species in the estuary over recent decades.

Foraging Fruit Flies: Lagrangian And Eulerian Descriptions Of Insect Swarming, Joesph Majkut

HMC Senior Theses

In this work, I seek to model swarms of fruit flies, drosophila melanogaster, whose flights are characterized by straight flight segments interrupted by rapid turns called saccades. These flights are reminiscent of Levy-distributed random walks which are known to lead to efficient search behavior. I build two types of model for swarms of foraging fruit flies, whose behavior depends on swarm density and chemoattractant concentration, using rules inspired by experimentally observed flight patterns. First I will present a Lagrangian model where the path of each individual fly is tracked. I will also consider an Eulerian model where the fruit fly …

Succession, Invasion, & Coexistence: Pdes In Ecology, Simon Maccracken Stump

HMC Senior Theses

We study the behavior of diffusive Lotka-Volterra systems in environments with spatially varying carrying capacities. In particular, we use numeric and analytic techniques to study two similar models for population growth, in order to determine their qualitative differences. Additionally, we investigate competition models in the presence of periodic disasters, in order to determine what factors affect competitive dominance. We found that under conditions of high spatial heterogeneity, the model for population growth was the main factor determining coexistence. Under low spatial heterogeneity, the effect of disturbance on the stronger competitor was the main factor determining coexistence.

Dishonest Medical Mistakes, Maxwell J. Mehlman

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the medical liability wars, physicians like to think that they are the ones in the trenches. Yet the true soldiers, of course, are the patients. As patients seek to avoid the barrage of malpractice reforms and the spoliation of managed care, one of their key refuges-the fiduciary duty of health care professionals-is being assailed from a number of directions. This Article describes these attacks and suggests how best to thwart them.

Imagine that you are seriously ill and go to a doctor. If you are like most patients these days, you are enrolled in some form of managed care. …

A New Way Of Thinking About Technology: An Interview With Futurists Joel Barker And Scott Erickson, James L. Morrison, Joel Barker, Scott Erickson

Innovate: Journal of Online Education

No abstract provided.

Mmogs As Learning Environments: An Ecological Journey Into Quest Atlantis And The Sims Online , Michael Young, P.G. Schrader, Dongping Zheng

Innovate: Journal of Online Education

No abstract provided.

To Click Or Not To Click: That's The Question, Johnny El-Rady

Innovate: Journal of Online Education

No abstract provided.

News Briefs, Coalition For Education In The Outdoors

Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education

This section contains multiple brief news items related to conservation, environment or outdoor education.Some items include: "The Return of Hetch Hetchy" and "Two Lost Worlds Give Us Hope".

Parasitism And A Shortage Of Refuges Jointly Mediate The Strength Of Density Dependence In A Reef Fish, Graham E. Forrester, Rachel J. Finley

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Various predator-prey, host-pathogen, and competitive interactions can combine to cause density dependence in population growth. Despite this possibility, most empirical tests for density-dependent interactions have focused on single mechanisms. Here we tested the hypothesis that two mechanisms of density dependence, parasitism and a shortage of refuges, jointly influence the strength of density-dependent mortality. We used mark recapture analysis to estimate mortality of the host species, the bridled goby {Coryphopterus glaucofraenum). Sixty-three marked gobies were infected with a copepod gill parasite {Pharodes tortugensis), and 188 were uninfected. We used the spatial scale at which gobies were clustered naturally (~4 m^{2 …}