Digital Commons Network^™

Computational Modeling Of Biological Neural Networks On Gpus: Strategies And Performance, Byron Galbraith

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Simulating biological neural networks is an important task for computational neuroscientists attempting to model and analyze brain activity and function. As these networks become larger and more complex, the computational power required grows significantly, often requiring the use of supercomputers or compute clusters. An emerging low-cost, highly accessible alternative to many of these resources is the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) - specialized massively-parallel graphics hardware that has seen increasing use as a general purpose computational accelerator thanks largely due to NVIDIA's CUDA programming interface. We evaluated the relative benefits and limitations of GPU-based tools for large-scale neural network simulation and …

Pkcα And Cpi-17 Expression And Spatial-Temporal Distribution With Activation In Pig Stomach Antrum And Fundus, Yu Zhang

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Smooth muscle contraction is a complicated process coordinated by contractile, regulatory and cytoskeletal proteins. The force generation depends on the phosphorylation of Myosin Regulatory Light Chain (MLC20). Myosin Light Chain Kinase (MLCK) and Myosin Light Chain Phosphatase (MLCP) are the two main regulators of the MLC20 phosphorylation level. MLCP is further controlled by two known pathways including the G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs)/ phospholipase C (PLC)/ diacylglycerol (DAG)/ protein kinase C (PKC)/ PKC-potentiated inhibitory protein for heterotrimeric myosin light chain phosphatase of 17 kDa (CPI-17) pathway. While messengers involved in this pathway have been proposed, studies on the details of …

Mir-237 Is Likely A Developmental Timing Gene That Regulates The L2-To-L3 Transition In C. Elegans, Xi Li

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Development is regulated in both the spatial and temporal dimensions. The developmental timing pathway in C. elegans is the most extensively studied timing mechanism. Many components of the pathway are conserved across phyla. Postembryonic development of C. elegans is comprised of four larval stages (L1 to L4). The lin-4 microRNA regulates development from the L1 to L3 stages by repressing the expression of key developmental timing genes: lin-14 and lin-28. Another microRNA, mir-237, shares sequence similarity with lin-4 and they are grouped into one microRNA family. mir-237 and lin-4 display closely overlapped temporal expression in the hypodermis. I hypothesize that …

Effects Of Biologics On Pedicle Screw Fixation In A Sheep Model: Histological And Biomechanical Analysis, Akshi Arora

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Objective: Osteoinductive recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein (rhBMP–2) was delivered on an absorbable collagen sponge (ACS) within a novel titanium screw implant in an IACUC approved non–osteoporotic ovine spine model. Biomechanical pull–out strength, undecalcified histology, microradiography, and quantitative histomorphometry were used to assess effects of augmentation with rhBMP–2 on the holding power and peri–implant bone formation.

Methodology: rhBMP–2 (0.43 mg/ml) soaked ACS was placed within and around cannulated and fenestrated titanium pedicle screw implants. Sixty–four implants were randomly divided into 4 treatment groups (n=16 each). Biomechanical pull–out testing was done on half of the screws (n=32) to determine the pull–out …

Rabies Virus Infection Induces Type I Interferon Production In An Ips-1 Dependent Manner While Dendritic Cell Activation Relies On Ifnar Signaling., Elizabeth J Faul, Celestine N Wanjalla, Mehul S Suthar, Michael Gale, Christoph Wirblich, Matthias J Schnell

Department of Microbiology and Immunology Faculty Papers

As with many viruses, rabies virus (RABV) infection induces type I interferon (IFN) production within the infected host cells. However, RABV has evolved mechanisms by which to inhibit IFN production in order to sustain infection. Here we show that RABV infection of dendritic cells (DC) induces potent type I IFN production and DC activation. Although DCs are infected by RABV, the viral replication is highly suppressed in DCs, rendering the infection non-productive. We exploited this finding in bone marrow derived DCs (BMDC) in order to differentiate which pattern recognition receptor(s) (PRR) is responsible for inducing type I IFN following infection …

Factors That Influence Learning Satisfaction Delivered By Video Streaming Technology, Daniel Stephen Keenan

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

In 2005, over 100,000 e-Learning courses were offered in over half of all U.S. postsecondary education institutions with nearly 90% of all community colleges and four year institutions offering online education. Streaming video is commonplace across the internet offering seamless video and sound anywhere connectivity is available effectively making any location a learning environment. The problem investigated in this study was to determine factors that affect the learning satisfaction of students that video streamed courses. This study is important to enable improvements in curriculum, delivery of content, designs of alternative study venues, and guide college administrators in making decisions on …

Government Dragnets, Christopher Slobogin

Law and Contemporary Problems

Slobogin describes the nature and effects of dragnet actions. They do so primarily through the prism of Supreme Court and lower court cases, but these sections also look at law-enforcement efforts that have yet to lead to litigation and imagine future dragnet efforts as well, with a special emphasis on the role technology can play in motivating dragnets and carrying them out. He then summarizes the Supreme Court's approach to group searches and the most significant alternative proposals for dealing with them.

What Is Probable Cause, And Why Should We Care?: The Costs, Benefits, And Meaning Of Individualized Suspicion, Andrew E. Taslitz

Law and Contemporary Problems

Taslitz defines probable cause as having four components: one quantitative, one qualitative, one temporal, and one moral. He focuses on the last of these components. "Individualized suspicion," the US Supreme Court has suggested, is perhaps the most important of the four components of probable cause. That is a position with which he heartily agree. The other three components each play only a supporting role. But individualized suspicion is the beating heart that gives probable cause its vitality.

Merricks's Soulless Savior, Luke Van Horn

Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers

No abstract provided.

Research View, Summer 2010

Research View

Contents of this issue include:

Idea Guy: New director works to commercialize campus research

Making New Species: Researcher studies evolution using mice, apes and Neanderthals

Global Competence: UM training an antidote to cultural myopia

Cell's Eye View: Research surveys offenders locked in a DUI world

Individualized Medicine: UM research aims to improve tribal health

The Debate Authors Working Group Model For Collaborative Knowledge Production In Forensics Scholarship, Gordon R. Mitchell, Carly Woods, Matthew Brigham, Eric English, Catherine E. Morrison, John Rief

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The disconnect between modes of knowledge production in forensics (mostly collaborative) and academic study in the humanities (mostly solo work) is a chasm that can complicate the transition from tournament competitor to professional scholar. Might arrangements that promote joint authorship help harmonize the two modes of knowledge production and convert creative energy from the forensics setting to the academic publishing enterprise? This essay considers the possibility, reflecting on how efforts to coordinate collaborative knowledge production in debate authors working groups relate to professional development challenges isolated in the 1974 Sedalia Conference, the 1984 National Developmental Conference on Forensics, the 1993 …

Orwellian Language And The Politics Of Tribal Termination (1953–1960), Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

From 1953 to 1960, the federal government terminated sovereign recognition for 109 American Indian nations. Termination was a haphazard policy of assimilation that had disastrous consequences for Indian land and culture. Nonetheless, termination cloaked latent motivations for Indian land within individual rights rhetoric that was at odds with Indian sovereignty. Termination highlights the rhetorical features of social control under capitalism portrayed in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), in which opposing principles are fused and inverted. This essay critiques termination’s Orwellian language to show how ideographs of social liberation are refashioned by the state to subvert Indian sovereignty and popular dissent.

Environment And Hybrid Influences On Food-Grade Sorghum Grain Yield And Hardness, Joni K. Griess, Stephen C. Mason, David S. Jackson, Tomie D. Galusha, Muhammad Yaseen, Jeffrey F. Pedersen

Department of Food Science and Technology: Faculty Publications

Few studies have examined grain quality of food-grade sorghum hybrids. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of environment and hybrid on grain quality of commercially available food-grade sorghums. A randomized complete block experiment with three replications was planted in 12 environments, which included the 2004 and 2005 growing seasons and irrigated and dryland water regimes in eastern, central, and west central Nebraska and a dryland low-N environment in eastern Nebraska. Environment accounted for 5 to 140 times greater variation in measured parameters than hybrid, and the hybrid × environment interaction accounted for less than 2% of …

Increased Abundance And First Breeding Record Of The Neotropic Cormorant (Phalacrocorax Brasilianus) On The Alluvial Plain Of Mississippi, Katie C. Hanson, Travis L. Devault, Stephen J. Dinsmore

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Phalacrocorax brasilianus (Neotropic Cormorant) has been observed with increasing frequency in the alluvial plain (Delta region) of Mississippi. In the past 6 years, 22 individuals have been observed in 20 separate sightings during spring and summer. These sightings have occurred at breeding colonies of other colonial waterbirds and commercial aquaculture facilities of Ictalurus punctatus (Channel Catfish). Two sexually mature Neotropic Cormorants have been collected at a colonial waterbird breeding colony near the Mississippi River in the western Delta region among flocks of Phalacrocorax auritus (Double-crested Cormorants). Twice during the summer of 2008, confirmed nesting of Neotropic Cormorants were documented in …

Genes For High Altitudes, Jay F. Storz

Jay F. Storz Publications

Analyses of genomes from Tibetan populations reveal a signaling pathway that may account for high-altitude adaptation. Tibetans, who have lived at high altitudes for nearly 25,000 years, survive the low-oxygen environment through a low blood hemoglobin concentration.

Bats Of The Grenadine Islands, West Indies, And Placement Of Koopman's Line, Hugh H. Genoways, Gary G. Kwiecinski, Peter A. Larsen, Scott C. Pedersen, Roxanne J. Larsen, Justin D. Hoffman, Mark De Silva, Carleton J. Phillips, Robert J. Baker

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

Almost nothing is known concerning the chiropteran fauna on the Grenadine Islands, a chain of islands between St. Vincent and Grenada located near the southern end of the Lesser Antilles. Previously, only a single species—Glossophaga longirostris—had been reported from the Grenadines. Our research, conducted on 4 occasions over the period of 1980 to 2006, provided museum vouchers and genetic specimens for the addition of 4 other species to the known fauna of these islands—Noctilio leporinus, Artibeus lituratus, Artibeus schwartzi, and Molossus molossus. The Grenadines, being situated between St. Vincent and Grenada, occupy an important zoogeographic position. …

Hypoglycemic Effect Of An Extract From Date Seeds On Diabetic Rats., Ahmed F. El-Fouhil, Aly M. Ahmed, Hasem H. Darwish

Saudi Medical Journal

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the efficacy of an aqueous extract from date seeds on diabetic rats. METHODS: The study was performed in the Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia between November 2008 and December 2009. Eighty adult albino rats were divided into 4 groups. Group 1 was used as healthy control. Group 2 was given daily ingestions of 10 ml of the date seed extract. Animals of groups 3 and 4 were made diabetic by injection of streptozotocin. Diabetic rats of group 3 received daily subcutaneous injections of 3 IU/day of insulin for …

Episiotomy Is Still Performed Routinely In Yemeni Women., Kaima A. Frass, Abdelrahman H. Al-Harazi

Saudi Medical Journal

OBJECTIVES: To examine the rate of episiotomy use among nulliparous Yemeni women, and to evaluate its impact on perineal tears. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the delivery record for all nulliparous women with and without episiotomy and singleton spontaneous births at Al-Thawra General Hospital, Sana9a, Yemen between January and December 2008. The womens9 charts were retrieved, and the demographic characteristics were obtained. For women with episiotomy, the indication and type of incision were noted. The rate of the procedure and the perineal tears was recorded, and compared between women with and without episiotomy. RESULTS: A total of 2588 nulliparous women had …

A Parasitological Paradox: Why Is Ascarid Infection So Rare In The Prehistoric Americas?, Daniela Leles, Karl Reinhard, Martín Horacio Fugassa, Luis Fernando Ferreira, Alena M. Iñiguez, Adauto Araujo

Karl Reinhard Publications

Ascaris lumbricoides (giant roundworm) and Trichuris trichiura (whipworm) are the most common intestinal parasites found in humans worldwide today and they almost always co-occur. However, we find two distinct patterns in archae­ological material. In historical North American and Old World contexts, the association of A. lumbricoides and T. trich­iura is similar to the modern epidemiological picture. In contrast, the co-occurrence of A. lumbricoides and T. trichiura eggs in prehistoric South America is rare. For prehistoric contexts, T. trichiura is the most common parasite found in ar­chaeological material. Recently molecular biology techniques pointed to a subdiagnosis of roundworm infection in pre- …

Chasing Reputation: The Argument For Differential Treatment Of Public Figures In Canadian Defamation Law, Bob Tarantino

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

When comparing the seminal Supreme Court of Canada defamation decisions of the 1990s and 2000s, it is apparent that the Court's view on the importance of protecting reputation has changed. Recent decisions hail the importance of using freedom of expression as a countervailing interest against the oft-criticized strictures of the common law of defamation. Fundamental alterations in the nature of mass and interactive media and in the nature of reputation are two phenomena informing this change. Increased attention to the theorizing of "reputation," the interest whose protection animates the entire tort of defamation, reveals that reputation is itself a highly …

Complete Handbook, Saint Mary's College Of California

Graduate and Professional Student Handbook (2009-2018)

No abstract provided.

3.0 Academic Policies And Services, Saint Mary's College Of California

Faculty Handbook

No abstract provided.

1.0 Mission Statement, History, General Organization And Governance Of Saint Mary’S College, Saint Mary's College Of California

Faculty Handbook

No abstract provided.

Have American Indians Been Written Out Of The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Jessica M. Wiles

Montana Law Review

Written out of RFRA

Impact Of Hiked Prices Of Food And Basic Commodities On Poverty In Cambodia: Empirical Evidences From Cbms Five Villages, Try Sothearith, So Sovannarith

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The study on the impact of hiked prices of food and basic commodities on poverty is designed as a follow-up CBMS survey of 5 villages in a Northwest province of Cambodia. The hiked prices in Cambodia and in CBMS sites occurred when there were changes in demand and prices of petrol, food and other consumer goods at the international market. The rising prices have immediately resulted in food insecurity for many people and pushed small landholders into indebtedness and deteriorated the capacity of the poor to cope with any future shocks or crises. This requires a stronger social safety net …

Effects Of Rising Food And Oil Prices On Rural Households In Ghana: A Case Study Of Selected Communities In The Dangme West District Using The Cbms Approach, Felix A. Asante, Cynthia A. Tagoe, Alfred A. Boakye

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This study sought to examine the effects of rising food and oil prices on rural households in Ghana in relation to their food, access to healthcare and education, changes in their work situations, their financial management practices, and their recreational and leisure practices using three selected communities in the Dangme West district of the Greater Accra region – Dodowa, Ningo, and Prampram. A total of 300 households were interviewed. The households were divided concerning the issue of whether their standard of living was better, worse or had remained the same. In general, households that indicated they were worse off currently …

Analysis Of The Impact Of Changes In The Prices Of Rice And Fuel On Poverty In The Philippines, Celia M. Reyes, Alellie B. Sobrevinas, Joel Bancolita, Jeremy De Jesus

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This study aims to assess the impact of rising prices of rice and fuel on poverty in the Philippines. In particular, the variations in the potential effects among different group of households were analyzed using household level data. Results of the study confirm that the impact of increasing prices of rice and fuel vary across different groups of households depending on the sector of employment, level of urbanity, income group and geographical location. In fact, there are losers and gainers from the recent increases in the prices of rice and fuel. In response to higher prices, households adopted different coping …

Co-Reranking By Mutual Reinforcement For Image Search, Ting Yao, Tao Mei, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Most existing reranking approaches to image search focus solely on mining “visual” cues within the initial search results. However, the visual information cannot always provide enough guidance to the reranking process. For example, different images with similar appearance may not always present the same relevant information to the query. Observing that multi-modality cues carry complementary relevant information, we propose the idea of co-reranking for image search, by jointly exploring the visual and textual information. Co-reranking couples two random walks, while reinforcing the mutual exchange and propagation of information relevancy across different modalities. The mutual reinforcement is iteratively updated to constrain …

What Is Method Variance And How Can We Cope With It? A Panel Discussion, Michael T. Brannick, David Chan, James M. Conway, Charles E. Lance, Paul E. Spector

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A panel of experts describes the nature of, and remedies for, method variance. In an attempt to help the reader understand the nature of method variance, the authors describe their experiences with method variance both on the giving and the receiving ends of the editorial review process, as well as their interpretation of other reviewers’ comments. They then describe methods of data analysis and research design, which have been used for detecting and eliminating the effects of method variance. Most methods have some utility, but none prevent the researcher from making faulty inferences. The authors conclude with suggestions for resolving …

Part 4: Community And Student Policies, Saint Mary's College Of California

Graduate and Professional Student Handbook (2009-2018)

No abstract provided.