Digital Commons Network^™

Better Regulation In Europe, Jonathan B. Wiener

Faculty Scholarship

"Better Regulation" is afoot in Europe. After several transatlantic conflicts over regulatory topics such as the precautionary principle, genetically modified foods, and climate change, Europe and America now appear to be converging on the analytic basis for regulation. In a process of hybridization, European institutions are borrowing "Better Regulation" reforms from both the US approach to regulatory review using benefit-cost analysis and from European member states' initiatives on administrative costs and simplification; in turn the European Commission is helping to spread these reforms among the member states. In many respects, the Better Regulation initiative promises salutary reforms, such as wider …

Transmission Loss In Manatee Habitats, Jennifer L. Miksis-Olds, James H. Miller

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The Florida manatee is regularly exposed to high volumes of vessel traffic and other human-related noise because of its coastal distribution. Quantifying specific aspects of the manatee’s acoustic environment will allow for a better understanding of how these animals respond to both natural and human-induced changes in their environment. Transmission loss measurements were made in 24 sampling sites that were chosen based on the frequency of manatee presence. The Monterey-Miami Parabolic Equation model was used to relate environmental parameters to transmission loss in two extremely shallow water environments: seagrass beds and dredged habitats. Model accuracy was verified by field tests …

Development Of A System For Directed Evolution Of Arabidopsis Formate Dehydrogenase To Utilize Nadp As A Cofactor, Brittany L. Prather, Joshua R. Widhalm, John Markwell, Patricia L. Herman

RURALS: Review of Undergraduate Research in Agricultural and Life Sciences

Formate dehydrogenase (FDH) is a NAD-dependent enzyme found in methylotrophic bacteria, yeast and plants. This enzyme catalyzes the reversible oxidation of formate to carbon dioxide. The goal of this research was to determine the feasibility of using a directed evolution approach to generate an altered Arabidopsis FDH with a high affinity for NADP as a cofactor. A PCR procedure that induced approximately 1.5 mutations in the wild-type Arabidopsis FDH sequence per thousand base pairs was developed and the amplified products were transformed into E. coli cells. Approximately 1300 cell lines were assayed in 96-well microplates for activity with NADP^{+ …}

Privacy And Information Sharing In The War On Terrorism, Peter P. Swire

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Catalog, 2006-2008, Section 3, Taos Registrar

Office of the Taos Registrar - Archive

Section 3 of the 06-08 Taos Catalog.

Bridgewater Magazine, Volume 16, Number 2, Winter 2006, Bridgewater State College

Bridgewater Magazine

Feature story covers BSC’s expansion and renovation projects; also Alumni Profiles, College Stories, Career Services Update, and Class Notes.

Bridgewater Magazine, Volume 17, Number 1, Fall 2006, Bridgewater State College

Bridgewater Magazine

Feature story: “Senior Faculty Reflect on 30+ Years of Professional Contributions and Service”; also Alumni Profiles, College Stories, Faculty Profiles, and Class Notes.

Bridgewater Magazine, Volume 16, Number 3, Summer 2006, Bridgewater State College

Bridgewater Magazine

Feature story covers BSC’s external grant funding; also Alumni Profiles, College Stories, and Class Notes.

Communicating Applied Mathematics: Four Examples, Daniel E. Finkel, Christopher Kuster, Matthew Lasater, Rachel Levy, Jill P. Reese, Ilse C. F. Ipsen

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Communicating Applied Mathematics is a writing- and speaking-intensive graduate course at North Carolina State University. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief description of the course objectives and the assignments. Parts A–D of of this article represent the class projects and illustrate the outcome of the course:

• The Evolution of an Optimization Test Problem: From Motivation to Implementation, by Daniel E. Finkel and Jill P. Reese

• Finding the Volume of a Powder from a Single Surface Height Measurement, by Christopher Kuster

• Finding Oscillations in Resonant Tunneling Diodes, by Matthew Lasater

• …

Tunneling Through Weak Interactions:  Comparison Of Through-Space-, H-Bond-, And Through-Bond-Mediated Tunneling, Westin Kurlancheek '03, Robert J. Cave

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Results from ab initio electronic structure theory calculations on model systems allow for the detailed comparison of tunneling through covalently bonded contacts, hydrogen bonds, and van der Waals contacts. Considerable geometrical sensitivity as well as an exponential distance dependence of the tunneling is observed for tunneling through various nonbonded contacts. However, the fundamental result from the present study is that at most a modest difference is observed between tunneling mediated by H-bonds and tunneling mediated by van der Waals contacts at typical distances for each type of interaction. These results are considered in relation to the pathways model of Beratan …

2006 Water Law Symposium: Keynote Address, Roderick E. Walston

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Climate Change And Animals Responses To Global Warming: The Law, Economics, And Science Of Climate Change, Cass R. Sunstein, Wayne Hsiung

Articles

Climate change is already having adverse eeds on animal life, and those effects are likely to prove devastating in the future. Nonetheless, the relevant harms to animals have yet to become a serious part of the analysis of climate change policy. Even if animals and species are valued solely by reference to human preferences, consideration of animal welfare dramatically increases the argument for aggressive responses to climate change. We estimate that, even under conservative assumptions about valuation, losses to nonhuman life might run into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Whatever the precise figure, the general conclusion is clear: …

Government Secrets, Constitutional Law, And Platforms For Judicial Intervention, Adam M. Samaha

Articles

American law has yet to reach a satisfying conclusion about public access to information on government operations. But recent events are prompting reconsideration of the status quo. As our current system is reassessed, three shortfalls in past debates should be overcome. The first involves ignorance of foreign systems. Other democracies grapple with information access problems, and their recent experiments are illuminating. Indeed they expose two additional domestic weaknesses. One is a line we have drawn within constitutional law. Courts and commentators tend to treat constitutional issues of public access separately from those of executive discretion to withhold information, but these …

The Role Of Mental Health Problems In Explaining Violent Behaviors In Children And Adolescents Over The Lifecourse: An Exploratory Study, Denise Paquette Boots

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Juvenile violence is a phenomenon that consistently garners great attention in the media, the public, and across a multitude of academic disciplines. A growing body of literature in developmental and lifecourse criminology has called for innovative research to further investigate the causes and correlates of serious juvenile offenders. Toward this end, the present study uses prospective, longitudinal data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study (PYS) to gauge the temporal impact of childhood and adolescent mental health problems on the development of serious offending behaviors in boys. Borrowing largely from the work of Achenbach and colleagues (2001), data from parent and teacher …

Design And Implementation Of A 200mm 3c-Sic Cvd Reactor, Christopher L. Frewin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Silicon carbide, SiC, is a semiconductor material which has many diverse uses in many of today's leading technologies. The wide band-gap aspect of the material has been utilized to create power and high frequency electronics, its physical hardness enables its use for MEMS devices, and the biological compatibility make perfect for utilization in medical applications. SiC is not a chemical compound normally found in nature and must be artificially generated. One of the methods used for the creation of single crystal, high quality SiC material is provided through the use of a chemical vapor deposition reactor. The University of South …

Petroleum Cleanup In The United States: A Historical Review And Comparison Of State Programs, Timothy A. Terwilliger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cleanup of leaking underground storage tank (LUST) sites has been a priority for the United States of America (USA) for more than 20 years due to the large number of sites, the potential harmful health affects associated with gasoline components and the fact that single owners may not have the ability to pay for cleanup of these sites. In June 2006, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that of the 459,637 confirmed releases from USTs that had occurred previously, 342,688 had been remediated, which leaves 116,949 sites yet to be completed across the USA. Petroleum cleanup programs tend to …

Spatially Resolved Photoluminescence Spectroscopy Of Quantum Dots, Maciej Dybiec

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent advancements in nanotechnology create a need for a better understanding of the underlying physical processes that lead to the different behavior of nanoscale structures in comparison to bulk materials. The influence of the surrounding environment on the physical and optical properties of nanoscale objects embedded inside them is of particular interest. This research is focused on the optical properties of semiconductor quantum dots which are zero-dimensional nanostructures. There are many investigation techniques for measuring the local parameters and structural characteristics of Quantum Dot structures. They include X-ray diffraction, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Wavelength Dispersive Spectroscopy, etc. However, none of these …

Variation In The Response Of Crustacean Zooplankton Species Richness And Composition To The Invasive Predator Bythotrephes Longimanus, Angela L. Strecker, Shelley E. Arnott, Norman D. Yan, Robert Girard

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The predacious invertebrate Bythotrephes longimanus has invaded >90 freshwater lakes in North America. There is some evidence that B. longimanus has a negative effect on summer zooplankton species richness; however, no study has examined the effect of B. longimanus throughout the ice-free season in more than one lake. We visited 10 invaded and 4 reference lakes every 2 weeks from May to September, collecting B. longimanus, crustacean zooplankton, and water chemistry samples. Composite samples were pooled across the study season for each lake. Bythotrephes longimanus significantly reduced cladoceran species richness, diversity, and abundance, and the total zooplankton community also exhibited …

Using Student Generated Qualitative Ecological Models, J. Scott Blackwood, Marion Dresner, Hang-Kwang Luh

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this activity, students construct qualitative models of an ecosystem and use the models to gain a better understanding of direct and indirect ecological interactions. Qualitative modeling is described for use in two procedures, each with different educational goals and student backgrounds in mind. Part 1 is designed with the non-major or beginning ecology student in mind, and is intended both to improve student understanding of the ecosystem of interest and to provide a framework for the instructor to assess student learning. Part 2 is designed for more advanced students of ecology and involves the use of modeling software (POWERPLAY) …

Differential Habituation Of Male Betta Splendens To Qualitatively Different Stimuli, Lauren Baard

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

Habituation is a learning mechanism that functions to decrease the amount of energy and attention focused on a certain stimuli. Male Siamese Fighting Fish, Betta splendens, are territorial animals that defend their territories using a number of aggressive displays. Male Bettas have previously shown the ability to habituate to the presence of a conspecific male when visually exposed to each other. Due to the costly nature of many of the male Betta’s displays, I hypothesized that male Bettas should differentially habituate to qualitatively different stimuli. I presented each of three groups of male Betta splendens with a different stimulus, each …

The Isolation And Characterization Of Multiply Antibiotic Resistant Strains Of Fish Pathogenic Flavobacterium Species, Sarah E. Clark, Jaehee Yun, Justin Guay

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

Since the development of the first antibiotics in the 1940’s, there has been widespread overuse in both clinical and agricultural applications. Antibiotic resistance has become a significant problem as a result of subsequent dissemination of antibiotics into the environment, and multiply-resistant strains of bacteria are now a major pathogenic threat. In this study eight separate strains of Flavobacterium responsible for recent disease outbreaks in fish hatcheries throughout Maine were collected and analyzed. All eight strains were found to be resistant to high levels of a number of different antibiotics, including those used for aquaculture as well as human chemotherapeutic applications. …

Characterization Of The Wheat Grain Pkaba1-Interacting Protein Tawd40, Natalie Wayne

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

Abscisic acid (ABA)-mediated gene expression is a critical component of plant responses to this important hormone, which affects plant growth, development, and responses to environmental stresses. Plant responses to ABA are mediated by a number of factors including PKABA1, an ABA induced protein kinase involved in ABA-suppressed gene expression in cereal grains, and TaWD40, which has previously been shown to physically interact with PKABA1. A full-length 1.9 kb TaWD40 cDNA, CK210682, was sequenced as part of this project. Based on the deduced protein sequence, it is thought that TaWD40 may belong to the family of E3 ubiquitin ligases, possibly targeting …

A Broad-Spectrum Mer Operon In A Multi-Drug Resistant Strain Of The Fish Pathogen, Aeromonas Salmonicida., Erin Parry

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

Aeromonas salmonicida AS03, a potential fish pathogen, was isolated from Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, in 2003. This strain was found to be resistant to ≥1000 mM HgCl2 and ≥32 mM phenylmercuric acetate as well as multiple antimicrobials. Mercury (Hg) and antibiotic resistance genes are often located on the same mobile genetic elements, so the genetic determinants of both resistances and the possibility of horizontal gene transfer were examined. Specific PCR primers were used to amplify and sequence distinctive regions of the mer operon. A. salmonicida AS03 was found to have a pDU1358-like broad-spectrum mer operon, containing merB as well as …

Abstracts Of Presentations, Colby College

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

No abstract provided.

Colby College Catalogue 2006 - 2007, Colby College

Colby Catalogues

Colby College Catalogue: September 2006 - August 2007

The Bioinformatics Program At Washington University's Bernard Becker Medical Library: Making It Happen, Lili Wang, Kim Lipsey, Carol Murray

Becker Library Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Polyneuretic Paraparesis Revealing An Intramedullary Ependymoma, Lamia M. Ben Slamia, Haifa M. Ben Jemaa, Hichem Ben Salma, Sofien A. Benammou

Neurosciences

Spinal tumors are rare; intramedullary tumors are uncommon among these lesions, and occur in only 10% of cases in adults. Ependymoma is the most frequent histological type (40-60%). We report the case of a 22-year-old girl, presenting with local back pain, ascendant paresthesia, a progressive flask paraparesis, and a vesical globe. The clinical examination concluded in a mild motor weakness with areflexia of both patellar and Achilles tendons. The diagnosis of intramedullary tumor was made on MRI. The radiological and the macroscopic aspects evoked an ependymoma; the diagnosis was histologically confirmed after surgery (myxopapillary ependymoma) with a favorable evolution.

Neurosyphilis In A Young Indian Expatriate, Tarig S. Al-Khuwaitir, Hassabo B. Mohammed, Abdurrahman M. Al-Moghairi, Suphia M. Sherbeeni

Neurosciences

Neurosyphilis is the infection of the central nervous system with treponema pallidum species, and true to its reputation as the old mimic, can present with a multitude of clinical scenarios, one of which is stroke in the young. Rare in developed countries, except for an at-risk population of drug abusers and HIV infected patients; it is still common in the rest of the world. We describe the case of a young Indian male, his presentation, diagnosis and treatment, and remarkable recovery on aqueous penicillin G therapy following his presentation with a stroke.

Raves, Clubs And Ecstasy: The Impact Of Peer Pressure, Baojun Song, Melissa Castillo-Garsow, Karen R. Ríos-Soto, Marcin Mejran, Leilani Henso, Carlos Castillo-Chavez

Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Ecstasy has gained popularity among young adults who frequent raves and nightclubs. The Drug Enforcement Administration reported a 500 percent increase in the use of ecstasy between 1993 and 1998. The number of ecstasy users kept growing until 2002, years after a national public education initiative against ecstasy use was launched. In this study, a system of differential equations is used to model the peer-driven dynamics of ecstasy use. It is found that backward bifurcations describe situations when sufficient peer pressure can cause an epidemic of ecstasy use. Furthermore, factors that have the greatest influence on ecstasy use as predicted …

Exploring Current Practices In Pediatric Arv Rollout And Integration With Early Childhood Programs In South Africa: A Rapid Situation Analysis, Desiree Michaels, Brian Eley, Lewis Ndhlovu, Naomi Rutenberg

HIV and AIDS

This Horizons program report describes the status of pediatric HIV treatment in selected sites in South Africa, identifies gaps in service delivery, and proposes recommendations for strengthening services and expanding children’s access to treatment. The study provides much needed information on critical issues of pediatric HIV care, especially regarding health service and contextual issues surrounding the expansion of access to treatment for HIV-infected children, and key factors that facilitate sustainability of treatment by young children. The aims of the study were to identify successful program strategies in pediatric HIV treatment in South Africa and to determine priority knowledge gaps to …