Digital Commons Network^™

Estimating Gene Signals From Noisy Microarray Images, Pinaki Sarder, Arye Nehorai, Paul H. Davis, Samuel L. Stanley Jr.

Biology Faculty Publications

In oligonucleotide microarray experiments, noise is a challenging problem, as biologists now are studying their organisms not in isolation but in the context of a natural environment. In low photomultiplier tube (PMT) voltage images, weak gene signals and their interactions with the background fluorescence noise are most problematic. In addition, nonspecific sequences bind to array spots intermittently causing inaccurate measurements. Conventional techniques cannot precisely separate the foreground and the background signals. In this paper, we propose analytically based estimation technique. We assume a priori spot-shape information using a circular outer periphery with an elliptical center hole. We assume Gaussian statistics …

Photoactive Supramolecular Cyclodextrin Assemblies, Muath Atmeh

Doctoral

Ligands with a macrocyclic host unit attached to a photoactive metal core are of interest across a range of applications from luminescent or electrochemical sensors, light harvesting and energy-collection purposes. Their versatile properties and possibility of associating cyclodextrins with other molecules both covalently and non-covalently mean that these macrocyclic ligands can be employed in the design and the formation of supramolecular complexes. A particularly attractive proposition is to combine the selective inclusion capabilities of CD with luminophores which may act as reporters of binding or other interactions at the cyclodextrin cavity. Ruthenium, osmium, and iridium polypyridyl complexes are particularly attractive …

Nebline, June 2008

NEBLINE Newsletter Archive from Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County

Local Dairy Entrepreneurs Are Filling Market Niches
Effect of Fuel Price Increase on Production Costs
Calibrating Hand-Held Sprayers
Practice Water Conservation to Lengthen Septic System Life
Don’t Mistake Blossom End Rot for Mold on Tomatoes
Control of Biting Flies
Add “Star” Appeal to Fruit Dishes
Fresh Food, Fun, Friendly People: Farmers’ Markets
$tretch Your Food Dollar by Using Dry Milk
Frozen Fudge Bars Recipe
Presidents’ Notes—Bonnie’s Bits
Household Hints: Go Green—Clean with Vinegar
FCE News & Events
June is Home Safety Month— Tips for creating a safer home
Youth Can Explore Career Options at Big Red Camps
Emerging Pest: Emerald …

Missouri S&T Magazine Summer 2008, Missouri S&T Marketing And Communications Department, Miner Alumni Association

Missouri S&T Magazine

No abstract provided.

Skeletal Abnormalities In Mice Lacking Extracellular Matrix Proteins, Thrombospondin-1, Thrombospondin-3, Thrombospondin-5, And Type Ix Collagen, Karen L Posey, Kurt Hankenson, Alka C Veerisetty, Paul Bornstein, Jack Lawler, Jacqueline T Hecht

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Thrombospondin-5 (TSP5) is a large extracellular matrix glycoprotein found in musculoskeletal tissues. TSP5 mutations cause two skeletal dysplasias, pseudoachondroplasia and multiple epiphyseal dysplasia; both show a characteristic growth plate phenotype with retention of TSP5, type IX collagen (Col9), and matrillin-3 in the rough endoplasmic reticulum. Whereas most studies focus on defining the disease process, few functional studies have been performed. TSP5 knockout mice have no obvious skeletal abnormalities, suggesting that TSP5 is not essential in the growth plate and/or that other TSPs may compensate. In contrast, Col9 knockout mice have diminished matrillin-3 levels in the extracellular matrix and early-onset osteoarthritis. …

Analysis Of Pore Architecture And Correlation To Sonic Velocity Values In Silurian (Niagaran) Reefs Of The Michigan Basin, Amy Kathryn Noack

Masters Theses

Recent work has shown that there is a complex relationship among porosity, permeability, and rock fabric in carbonate rocks. Porosity/permeability transforms are of limited value when evaluating carbonate reservoirs because permeability is controlled by pore type. Vuggy, moldic, or fenestral pore types have high porosity but poor permeability; in contrast, intergranular and intercrystalline pore networks have high porosity and high permeability. Visible pore types of key facies in five Middle Silurian (Niagaran) Reef reservoirs of the Michigan Basin were evaluated to better understand related permeability. Image analysis was performed on key facies to understand pore geometries and pore connectivity. Facies …

Watching Satan’S Daughters: A Visual Analysis Of Lesbian Pulp Fiction Cover Art, 1950-1969, Carrie Shaver

Masters Theses

This research analyzes the historical social construction of identity through the visual reiteration of the norms of "woman" and "lesbian" as represented on the cover art of lesbian pulp fiction novels from 1950-1969. A subgenre of pulp paperbacks, lesbian pulps were sensationalistic and best-selling, reflecting the public lesbian image in the popular culture of the 1950s and 1960s (Keller, 2005). Their success in large part was due to popular mainstreaming of the fields of sexology, psychology, and psychiatry. The "normality" of female sexual behavior was a subject of great curiosity, especially after Alfred Kinsey's study of female sexuality was released …

Black Women, Beauty, And Labor: Towards An Archaeology Of African-American Women In Indianapolis, Indiana, Genesis M. Snyder

Masters Theses

For two consecutive summers (2002 and 2003), I conducted fieldwork in the Ransom Place Archaeology neighborhood on the near Westside of Indianapolis, Indiana. I found myself increasingly drawn to the material culture left behind by the African-American women who had lived in the area roughly 100 years ago. Such material culture begs many questions: What social and political forces influenced the construction of African-American women's understandings of self in the early twentieth century? Who was responsible for the construction and dissemination of beauty ideals, notions about women's work, and how did those ideals differ across the color line? Using as …

Bronchial Circulation Angiogenesis In The Rat Quantified With Spect And Micro-Ct, Christian Wieholt, David L. Roerig, John B. Gordon, Steven Thomas Haworth, Robert C. Molthen, Anne V. Clough

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Introduction

As pulmonary artery obstruction results in proliferation of the bronchial circulation in a variety of species, we investigated this angiogenic response using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and micro-CT.

Materials and methods

After surgical ligation of the left pulmonary artery of rats, they were imaged at 10, 20, or 40 days post-ligation. Before imaging, technetium-labeled macroaggregated albumin (^99mTc MAA) was injected into the aortic arch (IA) labeling the systemic circulation. SPECT/micro-CT imaging was performed, the image volumes were registered, and activity in the left lung via the bronchial circulation was used as a marker of bronchial …

Mapping The New Commons, Charlotte Hess

Librarian Publications

From Introduction: "This paper is a guide to the rapidly growing area of research and activity I call 'new commons.' Simply put, new commons (NC) are various types of shared resources that have recently evolved or have been recognized as commons. They are commons without pre-existing rules or clear institutional arrangements. The paper introduces a map that outlines the NC resource sectors and identifies some of the salient questions that this new area of research raises. In addition, it examines the relationship between new commons and traditional common-pool resources and common property regimes. "This overview includes a survey of the …

Optimal Controller Synthesis Of Variable-Time Impulsive Problems Using Single Network Adaptive Critics, Xiaohua Wang, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a systematic approach to solve for the optimal control of a variable-time impulsive system. First, optimality condition for a variable-time impulsive system is derived using the calculus of variations method. Next, a single network adaptive critic technique is proposed to numerically solve for the optimal control and the detailed algorithm is presented. Finally, two examples-one linear and one nonlinear-are solved applying the conditions derived and the algorithm proposed. Numerical results demonstrate the power of the neural network based adaptive critic method in solving this class of problems.

Genetic And Biological Variations Among Plutella Xylostella Granulovirus Isolates, S. Subramanian, R. J. Rabindra, S. Sithanantham

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Success of a baculovirus in the field depends on the selection and utilization of effective isolates of viruses with increased pathogenicity and virulence. Isolates of Plutella xylostella granuloviruses collected from Kenya and India were compared for genetic variations by restriction endonuclease enzyme analysis and for biological activity based on their median lethal concentration and time-to-kill early- and late-third instars. The P. xylostella granulovirus isolates in Kenya were more diverse than those in India and were considerably different from the latter, with only 53-61% similarity. The Kenyan and Indian isolates did not differ significantly for their median lethal concentration, but the …

Can Low Release Numbers Lead To Establishment And Spread Of An Exotic Parasitoid: The Case Of The Diamondback Moth Parasitoid, Diadegma Semiclausum (Hellén), In East Africa, G. Gichini, B. Löhr, A. Rossbach, B. Nyambo, R. Gathu

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

From 2001 onwards, Diadegma semiclausum, an exotic parasitoid of the diamondback moth, was introduced and released in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Contrary to common practice where thousands of parasitoids are released, we released very low numbers, 125 females in Kenya, 160 in Uganda and 350 in Tanzania. About 2 years after this single release, the establishment and natural spread of the parasitoids was assessed in all release areas. Two methods were employed: in Kenya, a grid with equidistant points in the four cardinal directions (2-50 km) with the release area in the centre was used and collections were made 27 …

Examining 4-H Robotics And Geospatial Technologies In The Learning Of Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Topics, Bradley S. Barker, Gwen Nugent, Neal Grandgenett

Journal of Extension

The study reported here investigated the use of educational robotics, paired with GPS and GIS geospatial technologies, as a context for learning selected concepts in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics within a 4-H camp setting. The study involved 38 students between the ages of 11 to 15. A pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used in the study, with a 29-question multiple-choice instrument targeting various academic topics. The results of the study suggest that the 4-H robotics and geospatial summer camp program is a promising approach for supporting STEM-related learning, as represented by a significant increase of means from pretest to posttest.

Random-Walk Access Times On Partially Disordered Complex Networks: An Effective Medium Theory, Julian Candia, V. M. Kenkre, Paul Ernest Parris

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

An analytic effective medium theory is constructed to study the mean access times for random walks on hybrid disordered structures formed by embedding complex networks into regular lattices, considering transition rates F that are different for steps across lattice bonds from the rates f across network shortcuts. The theory is developed for structures with arbitrary shortcut distributions and applied to a class of partially disordered traversal enhanced networks in which shortcuts of fixed length are distributed randomly with finite probability. Numerical simulations are found to be in excellent agreement with predictions of the effective medium theory on all aspects addressed …

Artificial Immune System Based Dstatcom Control For An Electric Ship Power System, Pinaki Mitra, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM) is a shunt compensation device which is generally used to solve power quality problems in distribution systems. In an all-electric ship power system, these power quality problems mainly arise due to the pulsed loads, which causes the degradation of the entire system performance. This paper presents the application of DSTATCOM to improve the power quality in a ship power system during and after pulsed loads. The control strategy of the DSTATCOM plays an important role in maintaining the voltage at the point of common coupling. A novel adaptive control strategy for the DSTATCOM based on artificial …

Computational Intelligence Meets The Netflix Prize, Ryan J. Meuth, Paul Robinette, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The NetFlix Prize is a research contest that will award $1 Million to the first group to improve NetFlix's movie recommendation system by 10%. Contestants are given a dataset containing the movie rating histories of customers for movies. From this data, a processing scheme must be developed that can predict how a customer will rate a given movie on a scale of 1 to 5. An architecture is presented that utilizes the Fuzzy-Adaptive Resonance Theory clustering method to create an interesting set of data attributes that are input to a neural network for mapping to a classification.

A Quantum Calculus Formulation Of Dynamic Programming And Ordered Derivatives, John E. Seiffertt Iv, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Much recent research activity has focused on the theory and application of quantum calculus. This branch of mathematics continues to find new and useful applications and there is much promise left for investigation into this field. We present a formulation of dynamic programming grounded in the quantum calculus. Our results include the standard dynamic programming induction algorithm which can be interpreted as the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation in the quantum calculus. Furthermore, we show that approximate dynamic programming in quantum calculus is tenable by laying the groundwork for the backpropagation algorithm common in neural network training. In particular, we prove that the …

Supracutaneous Vibrotactile Perception Threshold At Various Non-Glabrous Body Loci, Miriam Bikah, M. Susan Hallbeck, John H. Flowers

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Researchers at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln are currently designing a wearable/portable neutron detector. As an alerting mechanism, the device will transmit vibration to the wearer’s skin in the presence of hazardous levels of neutron radiation. The present study was designed to help in the ergonomically correct body placement of the neutron detection device while providing numerical values for vibratory thresholds at the surface of various non-glabrous body loci. The aim of the study was to investigate the underlying effects of locus stimulated, amount of subcutaneous fat around a specific body site and gender on low frequency vibration thresholds. Thirty-six participants, …

Rural Life Census Data Center Newsletter: South Dakota's Child Poverty Change, Trevor Brooks, Saileza Khatiwada, Donna Hess

Census Data Center Newsletter Archive: 2007-2010

When people think of poverty in the United States, many picture inner-city ghettos with homeless men begging for money on a street corner. Yet poverty is often more severe in rural areas and affects children more than any other group (Tickameyer and Duncan 1990). In 2005, nearly all of the United States counties with the highest percentage of children in poverty were rural (O’Hare and Mather 2008).

Ptsd Symptoms And Self-Rated Recovery Among Adult Sexual Assault Survivors: The Effects Of Traumatic Life Events And Psychosocial Variables, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Sarah E. Ullman

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Prior research has demonstrated that self-blame is predictive of more PTSD symptoms and poorer recovery (Frazier, 2003; Koss, Figueredo, & Prince, 2002), and perceived control over recovery is associated with less distress (Frazier, 2003) in adult sexual assault (ASA) survivors. A structural equation model was tested to examine the role of traumatic events, self-blame, perceived control over recovery, and coping strategies on PTSD symptoms and self-rated recovery in women ASA survivors. Adaptive coping partially mediated the effects of other traumas, self-blame, and perceived control over recovery on PTSD symptoms, and showed a small positive association with increased PTSD symptoms. As …

Empowering Translational Research Using Semantic Web Technologies, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

No abstract provided.

Alaska's Pavlof Volcano Ends 11-Year Repose, Christopher F. Waythomas, Stephanie G. Prejean, Stephen R. Mcnutt

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

After an 11-year period of repose, Pavlof volcano on the Alaska Peninsula (Figure 1) began an episode of Strombolian eruption lasting 31 days, from 14 August to 13 September 2007.

The eruption began abruptly on 14 August after a minor increase in seismicity the previous day. Nearly continuous lava fountaining, explosions, and lahars caused by minor disruption of the ice and snow cover on the volcano characterized the eruption. The eruption also produced diffuse ash plumes that reached 5–6 kilometers above sea level, but the plumes were too small and did not extend high enough to affect local or regional …

Ethnobotany Of The Shuar Of Eastern Ecuador, Serena Heckler

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Book review of Ethnobotany of the Shuar of Eastern Ecuador. Bradley Bennett, Marc Baker and Patricia Gómez Andrade. Bronx: New York Botanical Garden Press (Advances in Economic Botany, v. 10), 2002. 304 pp. ISBN: 0893274216.

Pubh 570.50: Ethics And Public Health, Ann F, Cook

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 1990-2010

No abstract provided.

Towards Spike-Based Speech Processing: A Biologically Plausible Approach To Simple Acoustic Classification, Ismail Uysal, Harsha Sathyendra, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Shortcomings of automatic speech recognition (ASR) applications are becoming more evident as they are more widely used in real life. The inherent non-stationarity associated with the timing of speech signals as well as the dynamical changes in the environment make the ensuing analysis and recognition extremely difficult. Researchers often turn to biology seeking clues to make better engineered systems, and ASR is no exception with the usage of feature sets such as Mel frequency cepstral coefficients, which employ filter banks similar to cochlear filter banks in frequency distribution and bandwidth. In this paper, we delve deeper into the mechanics of …

Biomechanical And Radiographic Evaluation Of An Ovine Model For The Human Lumbar Spine, Nina E. Easley, M. Wang, Linda M. Mcgrady, Jeffrey M. Toth

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

While various species of animal models have been used in preclinical investigations of spinal implant devices to assess their biological adaptation and biomechanical performance, few studies have made comprehensive comparisons to validate their suitability of modelling the human spine. The purpose of this study was to assess essential biomechanical behaviours and disc morphology of the ovine lumbar model. Flexibility testing was conducted on the spines (L3—L4 and L4—L5) of nine skeletally matured sheep. Segmental rotation and intradiscal pressure were measured and load sharing between the intervertebral disc and posterior elements were calculated on the basis of a simplified parallel spring …

The Reproductive And Conservation Biology Of The Spotted Towhee In Urban Forest Fragments, Sarah Bartos Smith

Dissertations and Theses

I studied the demography, reproductive biology, and mating behavior of Spotted Towhees (Pipilo maculatus) in four urban parks in relation to park area, the presence of recreational trails, and the effects of habitat edges. Despite high towhee abundance in the parks, two of the four are population sinks with levels of yearly reproductive productivity that do not offset adult survival. The other two parks have sufficient reproduction to adequately result in stable or growing population sizes. Park area and the proportion of habitat edge had no influence on population growth rate, reproductive productivity, or survival. However, trail density …

Sustainability From The Perspectives Of Indigenous Leaders In The Bioregion Defined By The Pacific Salmon Runs Of North America, David Edward Hall

Dissertations and Theses

Extensive research suggests that the collective behavior of humanity is on an unsustainable path. As the evidence mounts and more people awaken to this reality, increased attention is being dedicated to the pursuit of answers for a just and sustainable future. This dissertation grew from the premise that effectively moving towards sustainability requires change at all levels of the dominant Western culture, including deeply held worldviews. The worldviews of many indigenous cultures offer alternative values and beliefs that can contribute to addressing the root causes of problems related to sustainability. In the bioregion defined by the Pacific Salmon runs of …

Optimal Neuro-Controller Synthesis For Variable-Time Impulse Driven Systems, Xiaohua Wang, S. N. Balakrishnan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper develops a systematic scheme to solve for the optimal controls of variable time impulsive systems. First, the optimality conditions for variable time impulse driven systems are derived using the calculus of variation. After wards, a neural network based adaptive critic method is proposed to numerically solve the two-point boundary value problems formulated based on the optimality conditions derived. Finally, two examples - one linear and one nonlinear - are presented to illustrate the conditions derived and to show the power of the neural network based adaptive critic method proposed.