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2009

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Decoding Of Multipoint Algebraic Geometry Codes Via Lists, Nathan Drake Dec 2009

Decoding Of Multipoint Algebraic Geometry Codes Via Lists, Nathan Drake

All Dissertations

Algebraic geometry codes have been studied greatly since their introduction by Goppa . Early study had focused on algebraic geometry codes CL(D;G) where G was taken to be a multiple of a single point. However, it has been shown that if we allow G to be supported by more points, then the associated code may have better parameters. We call such a code a multipoint code and if G is supported by m points, then we call it an m-point code. In this dissertation, we wish to develop a decoding algorithm for multipoint codes. We show how we can embed …

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The Development Of A Mesenchymal Stem Cell Based Bone Graft System, Sarina Sinclair Dec 2009

The Development Of A Mesenchymal Stem Cell Based Bone Graft System, Sarina Sinclair

All Dissertations

Greater than 5.5 million fractures are sustained by Americans each year, accounting for more than 500,000 bone graft surgeries. Bone grafts are the second most transplanted material, surpassed only by blood. The current 'gold standard' for bone grafting involves harvesting bone material from the patient's iliac crest, due to its osteoinductive properties. Unfortunately, the surgery required to harvest material from the iliac crest causes additional pain for the patient, relies on a limited amount of available bone tissue, and results in, on average, a 30% rate of donor site morbidity. Both natural and synthetic substitutes have been developed to avoid …

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Prevalence And Biological Control Of Salmonella Contamination In Rendering Plant Environments And The Finished Rendered Meals, Brandon Kinley Dec 2009

Prevalence And Biological Control Of Salmonella Contamination In Rendering Plant Environments And The Finished Rendered Meals, Brandon Kinley

All Dissertations

Although the rendering process serves as invaluable means for the disposal of inedible animal by-products, the finished products often harbor pathogenic and opportunistic microorganisms such as Salmonella and enterococci, respectively. The temperatures used during the rendering process far exceed the heat tolerance threshold of most bacterial species, so cross-contamination from the environment and/or from the incoming raw material is the proposed source of the contamination. Research has demonstrated that the raw material coming into the rendering facility is highly contaminated with pathogenic bacteria including Salmonella. While not in a rendering facility, studies have also demonstrated that bacteria such as Salmonella …

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L2 Teachers’ Pedagogic Knowledge Base: A Comparison Between Experienced And Less Experienced Practitioners, Ramin Akbari, Leila Tajik Dec 2009

L2 Teachers’ Pedagogic Knowledge Base: A Comparison Between Experienced And Less Experienced Practitioners, Ramin Akbari, Leila Tajik

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Second language teacher education community has become increasingly interested in the pedagogical knowledge base of teachers as a window into practitioners' mental lives. The present study was conducted to document likely differences between the pedagogic thoughts of experienced and less experienced teachers. Eight teachers participated in the project. Data were collected through the use of stimulated recall. The analysis of the data shows that there are differences both in the number and the order of the thoughts teachers produced in different groups. Experienced teachers produced an average of five pedagogical thoughts per minute, while their less experienced counterparts produced 3 …

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Configuring Of Masculinity In An Ethnocentric Community School, Dimitri Garas, Sally Godinho Dec 2009

Configuring Of Masculinity In An Ethnocentric Community School, Dimitri Garas, Sally Godinho

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

This paper presents snapshots of a qualitative study that investigated how Year 8 boys in an ethnocentric community school configured their constructions of masculinity. Fifteen boys participated in focus group discussions that extended over a six-week period. For one focus group, the boys were invited to bring a ‘totem’, which was an embodiment of their masculinity. The findings from the focus groups revealed both collective and individual constructions and enactments of masculinities that were talked into existence and transmitted through hegemonic discourses. Yet the findings also revealed the boys’ individual agency to engage with other ways of doing and being …

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Design And Implementation Of Proposed B-R Encryption Algorithm, Janan Ateya Dec 2009

Design And Implementation Of Proposed B-R Encryption Algorithm, Janan Ateya

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

In this paper, a 128-bit block cipher B-R encryption algorithm is proposed which is an eVolutionary improvement of 64-bits Blowfish designed to meet the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard. It is compact, speedy, simple and easy to understand. It is a Feistel network, iterating a simple encryption function 16 times and the key can be any length up to 128 bytes. The B-R reduced the memory requirement by using two S-boxes each of which of size 259 bytes instead of four S-boxes each of size 1024 bytes in Blowfish algorithm ,so that the total size of S-box of B-R …

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Design And Implementation Of An Improvement Of Blowfish Encryption Algorithm, Ashwaq T., Saleh M. Al-Qarrawy, Janan A. Mahdi Dec 2009

Design And Implementation Of An Improvement Of Blowfish Encryption Algorithm, Ashwaq T., Saleh M. Al-Qarrawy, Janan A. Mahdi

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

Block cipher is a major part of cipher algorithm like stream cipher and other techniques. Its power comes from dealing with plaintext as parts and operating on each block independently. Blowfish is a secret-key block cipher proposed by B. Shneier. It is a Feistel network, iterating a simple encryption function 16 times. The block size is 8-bytes and the key can be any length up to 56-bytes. In this paper, a Blowfish was improved to encrypt 16-bytes using a variable key length from 8-bytes up to 144-bytes. During the design of Improved Blowfish algorithm, the pragmatic aim was to satisfy …

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Error Estimation For An Integrated Gps/Ins System Using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Technique, Salam A., Ahmed M. Hassan, Ali F. Lutfy Dec 2009

Error Estimation For An Integrated Gps/Ins System Using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Technique, Salam A., Ahmed M. Hassan, Ali F. Lutfy

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

Global Positioning System (GPS) and Strap down Inertial Navigation System (SDINS) can be Integrated Together To Provide A Reliable Navigation System. In This Paper, A Technique For Error Estimation In A GPS/INS System Based On A Low-Cost Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) Is Offered. This Technique Is Composed Of Wavelet Transform (WT) And Adaptive Fuzzy System (AFS). The Wavelet Decomposition Is Used To De-Noise The Position And Velocity Components Of The GPS And INS Outputs. An AFS Is Introduced In This Paper To Estimate The Position And Velocity Errors In The Integrated System In Order To Provide Accurate Navigation Information About …

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Design Of A Stochastic Re-Configurable Artificial Neural Networks Using Fpga, Mutaz S., Hannan A. R. Akkar, Manal H. Jassim Dec 2009

Design Of A Stochastic Re-Configurable Artificial Neural Networks Using Fpga, Mutaz S., Hannan A. R. Akkar, Manal H. Jassim

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

This paper uses the theory of stochastic arithmetic as a solution for the FPGA implementation of a complex feed forward, multi layered neural network. Compared with the traditional digital implementations, the stochastic approach simplifies the computation inVolved and saves digital resources. The architecture combines stochastic computation techniques with a novel Look Up-Table-based that fully exploits the Look Up-Table structure of many FPGAs. Basic operations of simple ANN are mapped into a modular design. The system control module, random pulse generating module , bit stream generating module , LFSR_32(Liner Feedback Shift Register) sub module, modulator sub module, neuron module and bit …

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Implementation Of Genetic Algorithm Using Fpga With Applications, Hanan A., Omar Arif Abdul-Rahman Dec 2009

Implementation Of Genetic Algorithm Using Fpga With Applications, Hanan A., Omar Arif Abdul-Rahman

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

This paper presents a design of a general purpose GA. It is described using the Very high speed integrated circuits Hardware Description Language (VHDL), which is one of the Hardware Description Languages (HDLs). The complete system is implemented in a single Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform using the Foundation 2.1i, which is a software tool from XILINX. The feasibility of the purposed FPGA-based GA (FPGAGA) is demonstrated by testing it using two case studies. The objective of the first test is to maximize mathematical functions (f(x) = 2x, f(x) = x+5 and f(x) =2x3 -45x2 +300x) over the domain …

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Hydrogel Compositions For Nonviral Gene Delivery, Eunhee Cho Dec 2009

Hydrogel Compositions For Nonviral Gene Delivery, Eunhee Cho

All Dissertations

The incorporation of nonviral vectors into biomaterial matrices has been employed to improve localization at the implant site and to protect from loss by clearance or extracellular barriers. However, several limitations such as detrimental crosslinking mechanisms, uncontrolled burst release require improved design of matrix-based gene delivery systems that provides sustained and controlled vector release as well as overcomes extracellular barriers to gene transfer in proximity to target cells. The long-term objective of this dissertation project is to provide the basis for the eventual creation of tissue engineering scaffolds that combine structural and biological activity through the creation of composite materials …

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Polymeric Carbon Nanocomposites - Preparation, Characterization, And Properties, Lucia Veca Dec 2009

Polymeric Carbon Nanocomposites - Preparation, Characterization, And Properties, Lucia Veca

All Dissertations

Excellent thermal properties of carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and newly discovered graphene make them the filler of choice for the development of thermal management materials. Graphene has been viewed as “ unrolled single-walled carbon nanotube and as a wonder material with many superlatives to its name ” thus there is an excessive interest in developing new synthetic routes towards large scale production of high quality graphene nanosheets.
In this dissertation, we report different methods that could further exfoliate the commercially available expanded graphite to nanometer sized carbon structures, “carbon nanosheets ”, for their use in highly thermal conductive …

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Wide Area Monitoring And Control, Manish Patel Dec 2009

Wide Area Monitoring And Control, Manish Patel

All Dissertations

Today's interconnected power system is deregulated for wholesale power transfers. In 1996 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission provided open access of the transmission network to utilities. Since then utilities are transferring power over long distances to bring reliable and economical electric supply to their customers. As the number of wholesale power transactions taking place over an interconnected system are increasing, system operators in control areas are forced to monitor the grid on a large scale to operate it reliably. Before scheduling such a large scale power transactions, it is necessary to make sure that such transaction will not violate system operating …

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The Fiduciary Constitution Of Human Rights, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle Dec 2009

The Fiduciary Constitution Of Human Rights, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

We argue that human rights are best conceived as norms arising from a fiduciary relationship that exists between states (or statelike actors) and the citizens and noncitizens subject to their power. These norms draw on a Kantian conception of moral personhood, protecting agents from instrumentalization and domination. They do not, however, exist in the abstract as timeless natural rights. Instead, they are correlates of the state’s fiduciary duty to provide equal security under the rule of law, a duty that flows from the state’s institutional assumption of irresistible sovereign powers.

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Improving Computer Game Bots' Behavior Using Q-Learning, Purvag Patel Dec 2009

Improving Computer Game Bots' Behavior Using Q-Learning, Purvag Patel

Theses

In modern computer video games, the quality of artificial characters plays a prominent role in the success of the game in the market. The aim of intelligent techniques, termed game AI, used in these games is to provide an interesting and challenging game play to a game player. Being highly sophisticated, these games present game developers with similar kind of requirements and challenges as faced by academic AI community. The game companies claim to use sophisticated game AI to model artificial characters such as computer game bots, intelligent realistic AI agents. However, these bots work via simple routines pre-programmed to …

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Perceptions And Attitudes Of College Science Students Regarding Carrers In Clinical Laobratory Science, Maureen L. Doran Dec 2009

Perceptions And Attitudes Of College Science Students Regarding Carrers In Clinical Laobratory Science, Maureen L. Doran

Theses

Histology as a career offers many challenging and diverse job opportunities but few qualified applicants pursue this vocation. The purpose of this research was to collect data to identify factors impacting this problem. The study investigated the awareness, attitudes and perceptions of community college and university science students towards laboratory health science and histology as a career option. The goal was to develop strategies to identify and recruit potential individuals who are qualified for the histology profession. The researcher surveyed 15 undergraduate science classes from two community colleges and one university in the Midwest. The community colleges and university surveyed …

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Feeling Comfortable With Pluralistic Diversity: Using Common Organizational Strategies To Get Uncommon Results In Higher Education Voluntary Service Organizations, Ruth Sessler Bernstein Dec 2009

Feeling Comfortable With Pluralistic Diversity: Using Common Organizational Strategies To Get Uncommon Results In Higher Education Voluntary Service Organizations, Ruth Sessler Bernstein

Student Scholarship

Diversity is a goal of the majority of America's institutions of higher learning. These colleges and universities have made great strides in achieving representational diversity through aggressive recruiting and retention efforts. However, on campus, students infrequently engage in pluralistic diversity. This paper examines a national voluntary service organization at two pluralistically diverse universities. Semi-structured interviews with members and alumni of the association provided insight into the characteristics of the interactions they have had with those who are different from them. These insights enabled us to examine the specific organizational strategies this nonprofit adopted that promoted enriching intercultural interactions.

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The Role Of School Leadership In Student Achievement In Kenya, Renson Muchiri Mwangi Dec 2009

The Role Of School Leadership In Student Achievement In Kenya, Renson Muchiri Mwangi

Student Scholarship

Despite ample documentation that mathematics mastery can affect national development and notwithstanding long instituted formal government initiatives to improve it, student mathematics performance at the secondary school level in Kenya has deteriorated. Studies on mathematics achievement in Kenya have primarily focused on teachers’ classroom practices neglecting the potential influence of school leadership. We conducted a qualitative study involving Kenyan school principles and other administrative and instructional staff to construct an account of how school leadership is enacted and experienced in the day-to-day practices and how it affects student mathematics mastery. Our findings suggest that principals’ leadership and engagement, demonstrated commitment, …

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Enterprise Information Systems And Organizational Agility: Erp As A Dynamic Source Of Change, Complexity, And Risk, Amol Kharabe Dec 2009

Enterprise Information Systems And Organizational Agility: Erp As A Dynamic Source Of Change, Complexity, And Risk, Amol Kharabe

Student Scholarship

The literature is silent about how organizations that have implemented Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions reconcile the use of these rigid platforms in turbulent competitive environments. We studied three diverse organizations- a $9 billion US retailer, a $3 billion consumer products firm and a $2 billion logistics company- all with ERP solutions in the sustainment phase, to shed light on the impact of changing business needs on overall ERP performance. Semi structured interviews with 24 business and technical professionals revealed that in addition to economic and competitive forces for change to the ERP system, the system itself is paradoxically a …

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Economic Foundations Of The Law Of The Sea, Alan O. Sykes, Eric A. Posner Dec 2009

Economic Foundations Of The Law Of The Sea, Alan O. Sykes, Eric A. Posner

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has a plausible economic logic. Jurisdiction over portions of the ocean is assigned to states which can regulate them most cheaply and value them the most. These jurisdictional rights are subject to limits that reflect the interests of other states in navigation and other uses of the seas. For the vast areas of the ocean that no state can regulate, the Convention provides for an open access regime subject to simple rules, mostly self-enforcing, to limit conflict over resources.

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Finding Hart: The Lost Text And Biography Of Hart Stilwell, Brandon D. Shuler Dec 2009

Finding Hart: The Lost Text And Biography Of Hart Stilwell, Brandon D. Shuler

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Hart Stilwell was a noted newspaperman, journalist, outdoor writer, and political activist. He is most noted for the books Border City (1945), Uncovered Wagon (1947), and Campus Town (1950), which were, as confessed to J. Frank Dobie, Stilwell’s life story. Finding Hart: The Lost Text and Biography of Hart Stilwell pieces together the most inclusive biographical sketch of this enigmatic man of Texas letters to date through his correspondences and autobiographical novels. The author has also included an edited and footnoted version of a previously unpublished Stilwell manuscript, Glory of the Silver King, a history of Texas and northeast Mexico …

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Evaluation Of Windows Servers Security Under Icmp And Tcp Denial Of Service Attacks, Hari Krishnea Vallalacheruvu Dec 2009

Evaluation Of Windows Servers Security Under Icmp And Tcp Denial Of Service Attacks, Hari Krishnea Vallalacheruvu

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Securing server from Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks is a challenging task for network operators. DDOS attacks are known to reduce the performance of web based applications and reduce the number of legitimate client connections. In this thesis, we evaluate performance of a Windows server 2003 under these attacks. In this thesis, we also evaluate and compare effectiveness of three different protection mechanisms, namely SYN Cache, SYN Cookie and SYN proxy protection methods, to protect against TCP SYN DDoS attacks. It is found that the SYN attack protection at the server is more effective at lower loads of SYN …

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The Return To Aztlan, Eliseo Moreno Dec 2009

The Return To Aztlan, Eliseo Moreno

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

With this thesis I will focus on my Chicano artistic influences as well as on my life experiences as a third-generation Chicano growing up in the barrios of Browntown, “Tejas” (Brownsville, Texas) I will also examine in my paintings the Chicano identity; its culture, traditions, beliefs, and lifestyle. In this thesis like my artwork I will depict the myth of “Atzlan” via eras of the Chicano movement. I will start my writings with the mid-nineteen forties, the “Zoot Suit” era, which I believe is the original beginning of the Chicano movement, and advance to the nineteen sixties and seventies where …

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Set And Light Design For “Con Mis Manos/With My Hands”: A Play In Two Acts By Misael Martinez, Lawrence Andrew Lopez Dec 2009

Set And Light Design For “Con Mis Manos/With My Hands”: A Play In Two Acts By Misael Martinez, Lawrence Andrew Lopez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

An examination and analysis of the process of creating and executing a set and light design for a new show in a new space. This thesis will delve into the problems and solutions that helped to create the set for Con Mis Manos/With My Hands, a play by Misael Martinez, for production in the Albert L. Jeffers Theatre at the University of Texas-Pan American.

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Gpu-Accelerated Hierarchical Dense Correspondence For Real-Time Aerial Video Processing, Stephen Cluff, Bryan S. Morse, Jonathan D. Cohen, Mark Duchaineau Dec 2009

Gpu-Accelerated Hierarchical Dense Correspondence For Real-Time Aerial Video Processing, Stephen Cluff, Bryan S. Morse, Jonathan D. Cohen, Mark Duchaineau

Faculty Publications

Video from aerial surveillance can provide a rich source of data for many applications and can be enhanced for display and analysis through such methods as mosaic construction, super-resolution, and mover detection. All of these methods require accurate frame-to-frame registration, which for live use must be performed in real time. In many situations, scene parallax may make alignment using global transformations impossible or error-prone, limiting the performance of subsequent processing and applications. For these cases, dense (per-pixel) correspondence is required, but this can be computationally prohibitive. This paper presents a hierarchical dense correspondence algorithm designed for implementation on graphics processing …

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China’S Exports And The Oil Price, João Ricardo Faria, Andre V. Mollick, Pedro H. Albuquerque, Miguel A. Leon-Ledesma Dec 2009

China’S Exports And The Oil Price, João Ricardo Faria, Andre V. Mollick, Pedro H. Albuquerque, Miguel A. Leon-Ledesma

School of Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

The increase in oil prices in recent years has occurred concurrently with a rapid expansion of Chinese exports in the world markets, despite China being an oil importing country. In this paper we develop a theoretical model that explains the positive correlation between Chinese exports and the oil price. The model shows that Chinese growth can lead to an increase in oil prices that has a stronger impact on its export competitors. This is due to the large labor force surplus of China. We then examine this hypothesis by estimating a reduced form equation for Chinese exports using Rodrik (2006)’s …

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Openline Newsletter, December 2009, Civil Service Council Dec 2009

Openline Newsletter, December 2009, Civil Service Council

OpenLine Newsletter

A monthly newsletter for Civil Service employees, Volume XXXIV, Number 6, December 2009.

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A Cross-Case Analysis Of Gender Issues In Desktop Virtual Reality Learning Environments, Lynna J. Ausburn, Jon Martens, Andre Washington, Debra Steele, Earlene Washburn Dec 2009

A Cross-Case Analysis Of Gender Issues In Desktop Virtual Reality Learning Environments, Lynna J. Ausburn, Jon Martens, Andre Washington, Debra Steele, Earlene Washburn

Journal of STEM Teacher Education

This study examined gender-related issues in using new desktop virtual reality (VR) technology as a learning tool in career and technical education (CTE). Using relevant literature, theory, and cross-case analysis of data and findings, the study compared and analyzed the outcomes of two recent studies conducted by a research team at Oklahoma State University that addressed gender issues in VR-based training. This cross-case analysis synthesized the results of these two studies to draw conclusions and implications for CTE educators that may assist in developing or implementing successful virtual learning environments for occupational training. The cross-study findings suggested that males and …

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Protein Secondary Structure Prediction Using Parallelized Rule Induction From Coverings, Leong Lee, Cyriac Kandoth, Jennifer Leopold, Ronald L. Frank Dec 2009

Protein Secondary Structure Prediction Using Parallelized Rule Induction From Coverings, Leong Lee, Cyriac Kandoth, Jennifer Leopold, Ronald L. Frank

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Protein 3D structure prediction has always been an important research area in bioinformatics. In particular, the prediction of secondary structure has been a well-studied research topic. Despite the recent breakthrough of combining multiple sequence alignment information and artificial intelligence algorithms to predict protein secondary structure, the Q3 accuracy of various computational prediction algorithms rarely has exceeded 75%. In a previous paper [1], this research team presented a rule-based method called RT-RICO (Relaxed Threshold Rule Induction from Coverings) to predict protein secondary structure. The average Q3 accuracy on the sample datasets using RT-RICO was 80.3%, an improvement over comparable computational methods. …

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Applications Of Variable Number Tandem Repeat Genotyping In The Validation Of An Animal Medical Model And Gene Flow Studies In Threatened Populations Of Reptiles, Candace D. Smith Dec 2009

Applications Of Variable Number Tandem Repeat Genotyping In The Validation Of An Animal Medical Model And Gene Flow Studies In Threatened Populations Of Reptiles, Candace D. Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We used variable number tandem repeats (VNTR) to validate the chicken as a human medical model for Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. We identified seven regions on four chromosomes and interrogated for VNTR markers that significantly associate with Pulmonary Hypertension Syndrome/ascites. In those regions, we identified 7 candidate genes; AGTR1, ACE, p38MAPK, SST, 5HT2B, NET1, and CALM3 for further analysis as significantly contributing QTL for ascites/PHS. We also used variable number tandem repeats to measure gene flow and gather evidence for multiple paternity in a population of Timber rattlesnakes, Crotalus horridus. We were able to verify 1 VNTR that can be used …

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