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Raising Cattle “Naturally” The Significance Of Animal Health, Russ Daly

SDSU Extension Extra Archives

Raising cattle in a “naturally raised” program presents an opportunity for cattle producers to realize premiums for the cattle when marketed. Specific requirements of “naturally raised” programs vary among individual branded programs, but commonly the programs disallow use of antimicrobials, ionophores, and hormones. Products such as antimicrobials and ionophores have customarily played a large role in prevention and treatment of disease conditions in cattle. In addition, products such as ionophores and growth implants substantially improve the growth performance and feed conversion of cattle receiving those products. Because of this, producers considering raising “natural” cattle need to consider the consequences presented …

The Role Of L-Carnitine In Preventing Mitochondrial Dysfunction After Neonatal Hypoxia-Ischemia, Thomas Fredrick Rau

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Neonatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI) represents an intractable clinical condition that lacks an effective treatment and results in blindness, cerebral palsy, and cognitive deficits. A primary mechanism of cell death induced by neonatal HI is mitochondrial dysfunction leading to metabolic crisis and apoptosis. L-carnitine (LCAR) is an endogenous compound that transports fatty acids across the mitochondrial membrane for metabolism, buffers endogenous acyl-coA pools and improves the health and efficiency of the mitochondria. In light of the mitochondrial dysfunction observed after HI we hypothesized treatment with LCAR would reduce cell death after HI. Using a novel rat hippocampal slice culture model we observed …

Self-Report Measures Of Psychopathic And Schizotypal Personality Characteristics: A Confirmatory Factor Analysis Of Characteristics Of Antisocial Behavior And Hypothetical Psychosis-Proneness In A College Sample, Amber Nicole Bonogofsky

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This study separated the constructs of hypothetical psychopathy and hypothetical psychosis-proneness by performing Confirmatory Factor Analyses on different proposed factor structures of both psychopathic and schizotypic subclinical symptoms using data from a college sample. The study validated and provided evidence for existing structures of each construct. Research showed that the constructs overlap in their factor structures, as do their measures, although psychopathy and schizotypy are most likely distinct constructs. As conceptualized by Dr. Robert Hare, originator of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R; 2003), psychopathy reflects two interrelated but distinct factors of symptoms. The first symptom factor (Factor 1) reflects the …

William T. Jacob, An Individual; Commercial Properties, Inc., A Utah Corporation; And Phillips Manufacturing Company, Inc.,A Utah Corporation, Plaintiffs/ Appellants V. Brett Bezzant, An Individual; Newtah, Inc., Dba American Fork Citizen New Utah, A Utah Corporation; And Does I Through X, Defendants/ Appellees : Brief Of Appellees

Utah Supreme Court Briefs (1965 –)

Appeal from the Orders Granting Defendants' Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings and/or Summary Judgment, Granting Defendants' Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, and Denying Plaintiffs' Motion to Reconsider of the Fourth Judicial District Court for the State of Utah, Utah County, Honorable Lynn W. Davis and Honorable Fred D. Howard, District Court Judges,

The Importance Of Individual And Population Variation To Human Stature Estimation, Kelly Jean Shields

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Human stature estimation is a central part of forensic anthropological investigation. It is one of several factors used to identify unknown individuals. The statistical relationship between body length and body segment length allows for long bone lengths from an unidentified individual to be used in a linear regression equation to estimate living stature. These linear regression equations are often formulated from a data set of an entirely different population. This research explores the necessity for the unknown individual to be similar on a number of points to the known population that makes up the equation. Populations are highly variable, and …

Ecological Process And The Blister Rust Epidemic: Cone Production, Cone Predation, And Seed Dispersal In Whitebark Pine (Pinus Albicaulis), Shawn Thomas Mckinney

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), a high elevation foundation species, is experiencing population declines throughout the northern part of its range. The introduced fungal pathogen, Cronartium ribicola (white pine blister rust), infects whitebark pine and kills cone-bearing branches and trees. Blister rust has spread nearly rangewide and damage and mortality are highest in the northwest US and southwest Canada. Mortality caused by mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) population upsurges, and successional replacement and loss of regeneration opportunities from fire suppression, are also impacting some whitebark pine populations. Within this dissertation, I present three manuscripts that address the impact of whitebark pine's …

Lithologic And Hydrogeologic Controls On The Occurrence, Transport, And Fate Of Mtbe In Fine Grained Glacial-Lacustrine Sediments, Mary Kathryn Sutherland

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In April of 1994, a leaking 60,480L gasoline underground storage tank was removed from George’s Conoco in Ronan, Montana. Investigations discovered a free product plume extending under Highway 93, with dissolved phase contamination (including MTBE) extending 460 m west to Spring Creek. Though geochemical sampling has established the general plume extent, the influence of aquifer heterogeneities on plume position and transport behavior is poorly described. The purpose of this work is to characterize the physical controls on plume migration. In addition to standard well installation and geochemical sampling, geotechnical tools including cone penetration testing (CPT) and Membrane Interface Probe (MIP), …

Fall And Redemption: The Essence Of Country Music, Patrick Jude Campbell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

My initial focus as a final project in the Creative Pulse was to begin to sing again. Singing fulfilled the three requirements of choice in a project: risk, rigor, and the requirement of ‘having to do it’. I had sung as a young man, and stopped as the result of listening to an adult tell me that I could not sing. During the following 23 years, I used percussion and became a dancer in order to express myself. The art forms of percussion and dance I was drawn to like a man is drawn to a woman that he must …

The Effects Of Fiscal Decentralization On Health And Education Spending And Outcomes: Evidence From Ethiopia, Brian Philip Vander Naald

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores the impacts of fiscal decentralization on woreda level spending and local health and education outcomes in the Amhara region of Ethiopia. Using fiscal decentralization theory, we predict that local conditions will affect future local spending patterns because local governments possess superior information and respond to heterogeneous preferences. In similar fashion, we also predict that local spending patterns will impact future outcomes. Government collected household survey data and local government expenditure data are used to investigate this theory. While results indicate that some woreda conditions have an effect on future local spending behavior, the effect of local spending …

Pursuing Accountability For Atrocities After Conflict: What Impact On Building The Rule Of Law?, Jane E. Stromseth

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In countries ravaged by widespread violence, the trauma does not end when the guns fall silent. On the contrary, atrocities have cast a long shadow in places such as the Balkans, where brutal massacres, mass rapes, and ethnic cleansing were regular features of war; in Rwanda, where a devastating genocide killed hundreds of thousands of people; and in Sierra Leone, where the civil war was marked by forced recruitment of child soldiers, rapes and murders, and the gruesome mutilation of civilians. In Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, and many other societies, severe abuses have also left deep pain and trauma in …

A Republic Of The Mind: Cognitive Biases, Fiscal Federalism, And Section 164 Of The Tax Code, Brian Galle

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In its efforts to guide money to the states, our federal government annually passes up more than $75 billion in potential revenue under a single provision of the Tax Code. That provision, section 164 of the Code, allows itemizing taxpayers to deduct the cost of the state and local income, property, and (to a limited extent) sales taxes they paid during the tax year. The eye-popping size of that number makes section 164 a perennial issue in tax policy circles, and as one of the deductions omitted from the Alternative Minimum Tax's (AMT) parallel tax universe, the section is also …

A Grounded Theory Of Teacher Sensemaking Processes In A Climate Of Change, Dorothea Reynolds Wood

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Teacher commitment and capacity are critical factors in school reform. However, school change models underestimate the complexity of teaching, which undermines teachers' ability to implement and sustain changes. This grounded theory of teacher sensemaking explored teachers' perceptions as they participated in school reforms targeting pedagogy.

A multi-site sample was purposefully selected and included 12 elementary school teachers from eight schools. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with each teacher and analyzed using inductive analysis. The three analytical coding procedures were (a) open coding, (b) axial coding, and (c) selective coding. Open coding analyzed the concepts emerging from the data and pursued …

Democratic Administration In The United States Forest Service, Nancy Leigh Leifer

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Pluralism, the dominant theory in citizen involvement in the United States Forest Service since the 1950s, has prolonged the process of determining the public interest by promoting the use of appeals and lawsuits. The advent of more collaborative public involvement strategies in the past fifteen years offers the opportunity to assess whether participatory democracy offers a better paradigm for determining the public interest. This research focused on four cases of reported successful collaboration in Region One of the Forest Service and involved in-person interviews with 17 Forest Service officials and 24 citizen and interest group leaders. The researcher translated pluralist …

Managing Multiple Identities: A Qualitative Study Of Nurses And Implications For Work-Family Balance, Claire Marie Spanier

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The ways in which people manage organizational, professional, and familial identities can have significant implications for work-family balance. This is particularly true for nurses, who have a strong sense of professional identity and may be likely to experience work-family tensions. By framing work-family tensions as related to identity, we can see the ways in which being a “good” employee, a “good” nurse, and a “good” family member are both complementary and contradictory. This study highlights ways in which being “good” employee facilitates and hinders an individual’s ability to be a “good” nurse. Furthermore, it demonstrates how being a “good” nurse …

An Assessment Of The Hiv Prevention Needs Of Injection Drug Users In Montana, Nancy Mae Cunningham

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study was to assess HIV prevention needs of individuals living in Montana who use injection drugs (IDUs). Gaps between prevention needs and services were identified and recommendations for overcoming the barriers to accessing and implementing treatment needs and services were offered.
A qualitative case study approach was used. Data collection methods included: 1) IDU interviews, 2) Key Informant interviews, and 3) Documentation collection and archival record retrieval.
IDUs represented a wide range of demographic variables. While people of both genders, a variety of sexual orientations, ethnicities, educational levels, incomes and employment statuses participated in the interviews, …

Definitions And Descriptions: Conventional, Natural, And Organic Beef Production And Consumption, Tyler A. Melroe, Erik R. Loe

SDSU Extension Extra Archives

Natural and organic beef production was only 1.1% of total beef production and 1.6% of total U.S. beef sales in 2006 but is the fastest growing sector in the beef industry. With demand continuing to surge in these markets, you will find that terminology used in these marketing strategies is confusing. Beef that is produced following “natural” or “organic” protocols is assumed to have been raised without hormones or antibiotics. But “natural” and “organic” are not the same, and “natural” also is variable.

The Illegality Of Contingency-Fee Arrangements When Prosecuting Public Natural Resource Damage Claims And The Need For Legislative Reform, Julie E. Steiner

Faculty Scholarship

Private attorneys are entering into contingency-fee based special counsel agreements with states, territories and tribes, to bring public natural resource damage (NRD) claims. Under this agreement, special counsel brings a NRD action on behalf of the public and fronts the litigation costs, but deducts a percentage of the public's damage recovery to pay the attorney's contingency fee; the remainder goes into a fund to be allocated by the government's NRD trustee. Because NRD claims implicate gargantuan damage awards, the legality of depleting such a damage award by a substantial percentage to pay an attorney's fee is a significant issue that …

The Effects Of A Six-Week Open Kinetic Chain/Closed Kinetic Chain And Open Kinetic Chain/Closed Kinetic Chain/Core Stability Strengthening Program In Baseball., Kathleen R. Lust

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Context: Most of the information found in the literature only provides suggestions as to what exercises to use for strengthening and rehabilitation programs with very few if any studies evaluating the benefits of the exercises. Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine whether there will be a difference between the Open Kinetic Chain/Closed Kinetic Chain (OKC/CKC) group and Open Kinetic Chain/Closed Kinetic Chain/Core Stability (OKC/CKC/CS) group, and control group following a six week training program on throwing accuracy, proprioception, and core endurance. Design: This study was a 2×3 factorial design with group (experimental groups and a control group), …

Analyzing Adjuvant Radiotherapy Suggests A Non Monotonic Radio-Sensitivity Over Tumor Volumes, Jack Y. Yang, Andrzej Niemierko, Mary Qu Yang, Youping Deng

Faculty Publications

Background: Adjuvant Radiotherapy (RT) after surgical removal of tumors proved beneficial in long-term tumor control and treatment planning. For many years, it has been well concluded that radio-sensitivities of tumors upon radiotherapy decrease according to the sizes of tumors and RT models based on Poisson statistics have been used extensively to validate clinical data. Results: We found that Poisson statistics on RT is actually derived from bacterial cells despite of many validations from clinical data. However cancerous cells do have abnormal cellular communications and use chemical messengers to signal both surrounding normal and cancerous cells to develop new blood vessels …

A Hybrid Machine Learning-Based Method For Classifying The Cushing's Syndrome With Comorbid Adrenocortical Lesions, Jack Y. Yang, Mary Qu Yang, Zuojie Lao, Yan Ma, Jianling Li, Youping Deng, Xudong Huang

Faculty Publications

Background

The prognosis for many cancers could be improved dramatically if they could be detected while still at the microscopic disease stage. It follows from a comprehensive statistical analysis that a number of antigens such as hTERT, PCNA and Ki-67 can be considered as cancer markers, while another set of antigens such as P27KIP1 and FHIT are possible markers for normal tissue. Because more than one marker must be considered to obtain a classification of cancer or no cancer, and if cancer, to classify it as malignant, borderline, or benign, we must develop an intelligent decision system that can fullfill …

Improving Prediction Accuracy Of Tumor Classification By Reusing Genes Discarded During Gene Selection, Jack Y. Yang, Guo-Zheng Li, Hao-Hua Meng, Mary Qu Yang, Youping Deng

Faculty Publications

Background

Since the high dimensionality of gene expression microarray data sets degrades the generalization performance of classifiers, feature selection, which selects relevant features and discards irrelevant and redundant features, has been widely used in the bioinformatics field. Multi-task learning is a novel technique to improve prediction accuracy of tumor classification by using information contained in such discarded redundant features, but which features should be discarded or used as input or output remains an open issue.

Results

We demonstrate a framework for automatically selecting features to be input, output, and discarded by using a genetic algorithm, and propose two algorithms: GA-MTL …

Promoting Synergistic Research And Education In Genomics And Bioinformatics, Jack Y. Yang, Mary Qu Yang, Hamid R. Arabnia, Youping Deng

Faculty Publications

Bioinformatics and Genomics are closely related disciplines that hold great promises for the advancement of research and development in complex biomedical systems, as well as public health, drug design, comparative genomics, personalized medicine and so on. Research and development in these two important areas are impacting the science and technology.

High throughput sequencing and molecular imaging technologies marked the beginning of a new era for modern translational medicine and personalized healthcare. The impact of having the human sequence and personalized digital images in hand has also created tremendous demands of developing powerful supercomputing, statistical learning and artificial intelligence approaches to …

Investigation Of Transmembrane Proteins Using A Computational Approach, Jack Y. Yang, Mary Qu Yang, Keith A. Dunker, Youping Deng, Xudong Huang

Faculty Publications

Background

An important subfamily of membrane proteins are the transmembrane α-helical proteins, in which the membrane-spanning regions are made up of α-helices. Given the obvious biological and medical significance of these proteins, it is of tremendous practical importance to identify the location of transmembrane segments. The difficulty of inferring the secondary or tertiary structure of transmembrane proteins using experimental techniques has led to a surge of interest in applying techniques from machine learning and bioinformatics to infer secondary structure from primary structure in these proteins. We are therefore interested in determining which physicochemical properties are most useful for discriminating transmembrane …

Structure And Function Predictions Of The Msa Protein In Staphylococcus Aureus, Vijayaraj Nagarajan, Mohamed O. Elasri

Faculty Publications

Background

Staphylococcus aureus is a human pathogen that causes a wide variety of life-threatening infections using a large number of virulence factors. One of the major global regulators used by S. aureus is the staphylococcal accessory regulator (sarA). We have identified and characterized a new gene (modulator of sarA: msa) that modulates the expression of sarA. Genetic and functional analysis shows that msa has a global effect on gene expression in S. aureus. However, the mechanism of Msa function is still unknown. Function predictions of Msa are complicated by the fact that it does …

Iloop - A Web Application For Two-Channel Microarray Interwoven Loop Design, Mehdi Pirooznia, Ping Gong, Jack Y. Yang, Mary Qu Yang, Edward J. Perkins, Youping Deng

Faculty Publications

Microarray technology is widely applied to address complex scientific questions. However, there remain fundamental issues on how to design experiments to ensure that the resulting data enables robust statistical analysis. Interwoven loop design has several advantages over other designs. However it suffers in the complexity of design. We have implemented an online web application which allows users to find optimal loop designs for two-color microarray experiments. Given a number of conditions (such as treatments or time points) and replicates, the application will find the best possible design of the experiment and output experimental parameters. It is freely available from http://mcbc.usm.edu/iloop …

A Comparative Study Of Different Machine Learning Methods On Microarray Gene Expression Data, Mehdi Pirooznia, Jack Y. Yang, Mary Qu Yang, Youping Deng

Faculty Publications

Background

Several classification and feature selection methods have been studied for the identification of differentially expressed genes in microarray data. Classification methods such as SVM, RBF Neural Nets, MLP Neural Nets, Bayesian, Decision Tree and Random Forrest methods have been used in recent studies. The accuracy of these methods has been calculated with validation methods such as v-fold validation. However there is lack of comparison between these methods to find a better framework for classification, clustering and analysis of microarray gene expression results.

Results

In this study, we compared the efficiency of the classification methods including; SVM, RBF Neural Nets, …

Beyond Blame—Mens Rea And Regulatory Crime, Arthur Leavens

Faculty Scholarship

In the first part of this Article, the Author briefly outlines the conceptual underpinnings of the common law approach to mens rea, with its blame focus, and the Supreme Court's early efforts to develop a different approach in interpreting regulatory criminal statutes. The Author begins the second part of this Article with Lambert v. California, in which the Court staked out the constitutional limits for the employment of strict liability in public welfare or regulatory crimes, and, first employed notice-based mens rea. This part goes on to examine the ensuing cases in which the Court, at least implicitly, fleshes out …

The Overlapping Magisteria Of Law And Science: When Litigation And Science Collide, William G. Childs

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, the Author explores two unexpected consequences of joining science and law at the hip, and considers whether these consequences represent reciprocal contamination, or instead cross-fertilization, of law and science. In Part I of this Article, the Author provides a brief review of the evolution of legal standards for the admissibility of what is termed "scientific evidence," including Frye and Daubert and their progeny. In Part II of the Article, the Author gives a (necessarily limited) overview of certain modern scientific paradigms of reliability and he explores the realities of peer reviews and of other institutions in science …

Comparative Responsibility In Nonsubscriber Litigation Revisited After Kroger Co. V. Keng., Trek C. Doyle, Jarrett R. Andrews

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Kroger Co. v. Keng appears to resolve the question of whether an employer who does not subscribe to worker’s compensation can avail itself of the proportionate responsibility scheme in Chapter 33 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. The question left unresolved is whether proportionate responsibility is available in nonsubscriber cases involving additional independently liable defendants. In Keng, the Court premised its holding on Texas Labor Code § 406.033, concluding nonsubscribing employers are prohibited from proving its employees were negligent. The Keng Court declined to decide whether proportionate responsibility was unavailable per se. …

Current Trends In Texas Charge Practice: Preservation Of Error And Broad-Form Use., William G. Arnot Iii, David Fowler Johnson

St. Mary's Law Journal

Over the years Texas appellate courts have been wrestling with two overwhelming charge issues—charge preservation of error and broad-form use. Since the charge is the controlling document the jury uses to decide the factual issues of the case, it is of extreme importance. Before a party can complain on appeal about charge errors, the error must be preserved at trial. The Texas Rules of Civil Procedure (TRCP) have a certain set of procedures for preservation of charge error. The Texas Supreme Court amended charge preservation of error practice in State Department of Highways & Public Transportation v. Payne. In the …