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Host Selection And Parasite Infection In Aedes Taeniorhynchus, Endemic Disease Vector In The Galápagos Islands, Arnaud Bataille, Guillaume Fournié, Marilyn Cruz, Virna Cedeño, Patricia G. Parker, Andrew A. Cunningham, Simon J. Goodman

Biology Department Faculty Works

Host selection in blood-sucking arthropods has important evolutionary and ecological implications for the transmission dynamics, distribution and host-specificity of the parasites they transmit. The black salt-marsh mosquito (Aedes taeniorhynchus Wiedemann) is distributed throughout tropical to temperate coastal zones in the Americas, and continental populations are primarily mammalphilic. It is the only indigenous mosquito in the Galápagos Islands, having colonised the archipelago around 200,000. years ago, potentially adapting its host selection, and in the process, altering the dynamics of vector mediated pathogen interactions in the archipelago. Here, we use blood-meal analysis and PCR-based parasite screening approach to determine the blood-feeding patterns …

Generalized Anxiety Disorder: Examination Of Fear Generalization And Anticipation Of Affective Stimuli, Tsafrir Greenberg

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Despite increasing interest in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) it remains one of the least studied anxiety disorders and little is known about its neurobiology. The aim of the current research study was to investigate the neural basis of GAD from two perspectives: fear generalization and anticipation of affective outcomes. Thirty-two women with GAD (17 with and 15 without comorbid major depression disorder) and 25 healthy women underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while completing two tasks: a fear generalization task in which participants were presented with a conditioned stimulus (CS) that co-terminates with a brief electric shock, and generalization stimuli …

Pluralism, Democracy, And The `Empty Place Of Power': Using Lefort's Political Theory To Address The Problem Of Tolerance, Michael Roess

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Though widely adopted since the European wars of religion in the 16th and 17th centuries, liberal solutions to the problem of tolerance continue to face difficulties over issues, such as abortion and religious freedom, where deeply held values and matters of governance intersect. In this dissertation I provide a new argument for political tolerance that is supported by a Lefortian conception of democratic political legitimacy. In the first half of the dissertation I argue that two forms of liberalism, public reason liberalism and liberalism of conscience, fail to adequately address the difficulties posed by religious pluralism. In its Rawlsian form, …

Quantitative Computational And Biophysical Investigation Of Multivalent Proteins, Vadim Patsalo

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The valency of a biological molecule is the number of interactions that it is able to make with other molecules. Multivalency arises in proteins which oligomerize or contain tandem repeats, and commonly involves the binding of carbohydrates. Biological processes which rely on multivalency include surface interactions (e.g. virus-cell adhesion and cell-cell binding) or de-mixing phenomena. The energetics of multivalent interactions can be significantly enhanced relative to their monovalent counterparts, and numerous multivalent inhibitors of viral infection have been identified. In this dissertation, we present computational and biophysical investigations of several multivalent proteins related to human viral pathogens. The bivalent lectin …

Human Disturbance And Birds Of The Northeast: What Makes Some Species Decline, While Others Are Just Fine?, Leone Marion Brown

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Mounting evidence reveals the negative impacts of human activities on wildlife populations. However, studies investigating species' responses to human disturbance often rely on patterns of species' richness or abundance, and may not reflect underlying demographic processes. Is there evidence across geographic regions that humans are causing marked changes in species' survival, reproduction, and population growth? Do species' traits influence vulnerability? Can existing theories of ecology serve to predict or explain observable responses to human disturbance? I examined evidence of effects of human disturbance on populations of 24 breeding bird species across the northeastern United States. Based on reported literature and …

Inhibition Of Mammalian T Cells By Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium, Amy Laura Kullas

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Bacterial pathogens must avoid clearance by the immune system to establish infection, yet many processes of bacterial immune subversion remain undefined. T cells are a key component of the mammalian immune system and are required for protective immunity against many bacterial pathogens. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium avoid clearance by the host immune system by suppressing T cell responses, yet the mechanisms mediating this immunosuppression are still unknown. We show that S. Typhimurium inhibit T cell responses by producing L-asparaginase II, which catalyzes the hydrolysis of L-asparagine to aspartic acid and ammonia. L-asparaginase II is necessary and sufficient to suppress T …

The Design And Implementation Of A Mobile Game Engine For The Android Platform, Jon Hammer

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this thesis, a two-dimensional game engine is proposed for the Android mobile platform that facilitates rapid development of those games by individual developers or hobbyists. The essential elements of game design are presented so as to introduce the reader to the concepts that are crucial for comprehension of the paper. A brief overview of the Android Operating System is also included for those unfamiliar with it. Three primary design goals are identified, and a prototype solution is described in detail. The prototype is then evaluated against those design goals to see how well it accomplishes each task. The results …

Copyright Protection’S Challenges And Alaska Natives’ Cultural Property, Stuart Schüssel

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Last Phase Of The South Sea Slave Trade: Jack London's Adventure, Philip Castille

Pacific Studies

This paper explores Jack London's failed 1907–08 South Pacific voyage aboard the Snark as a crucible for physical collapse, racial ideology, and literary production. Once a symbol of Anglo-Saxon strength, London suffered debilitating illness and personal humiliation in Melanesia, experiences that destabilized his self-concept and white supremacist beliefs. Despite abandoning his global journey, London produced significant nonfiction and fiction, most notably his 1911 novel Adventure. Drawing from his time in the Solomon Islands, the novel channels his physical and ideological decline into a narrative of colonial dominance, racial hierarchy, and survival. While Adventure adheres to Edwardian tropes of racial …

Pacific Studies Vol. 35, No. 3 - December 2012 Full Issue

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Long-Term Integrated Studies Show Complex And Surprising Effects Of Climate Change In The Northern Hardwood Forest, Peter M. Groffman, Charles T. Driscoll, Chris E. Johnson, Lindsey E. Rustad, Pamela H. Templer

Civil and Environmental Engineering - All Scholarship

Evaluations of the local effects of global change are often confounded by the interactions of natural and anthropogenic factors that overshadow the effects of climate changes on ecosystems. Long-term watershed and natural elevation gradient studies at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest and in the surrounding region show surprising results demonstrating the effects of climate change on hydrologic variables (e.g., evapotranspiration, streamflow, soil moisture); the importance of changes in phenology on water, carbon, and nitrogen fluxes during critical seasonal transition periods; winter climate change effects on plant and animal community composition and ecosystem services; and the effects of anthropogenic disturbances and …

Winter Microhabitat Foraging Preferences Of Sympatric Boreal And Black-Capped Chickadees In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Alec R. Lindsay Ph. D., Zach G. Gayk

Faculty Works

We examined differences in microhab- itat use between Boreal (Poecile hudsonicus) and Black- capped chickadees (P. atricapillus) where they co-occur near Marquette, Michigan, USA. Twenty-four Boreal and 37 Black-capped chickadees were followed during 60 hrs of field observation. Boreal Chickadees foraged only in three conifer species, 76% of which were black spruce (Picea mariana), while Black-capped Chickadees foraged widely across six coniferous and three deciduous tree species. Analysis of foraging data categorized by zones within conifer trees indicated high niche overlap (0.676) between Boreal and Black-capped chickadees across all foraging zones. Individual comparisons on a zone-by-zone basis revealed a significant …

Cues Used By The Black Fly, Simulium Annulus, For Attraction To The Common Loon (Gavia Immer), Meggin L. Weinandt, Michael W. Meyer, R. Mac Strand, Alec R. Lindsay Ph. D.

Faculty Works

The parasitic relationship between a black fly, Simulium annulus, and the common loon (Gavia immer) has been considered one of the most exclusive relationships between any host species and a black fly species. To test the host specificity of this blood-feeding insect, we made a series of bird decoy presentations to black flies on loon-inhabited lakes in northern Wisconsin, U.S.A. To examine the importance of chemical and visual cues for black fly detection of and attraction to hosts, we made decoy presentations with and without chemical cues. Flies attracted to the decoys were collected, identified to species, and quantified. Results …

Creativity And Thinking Skills Integrated Into A Science Enrichment Unit On Flooding, Audrey C. Rule, Jean Suchsland Schneider, Denise A. Tallakson, Diane Highnam

Curriculum & Instruction Faculty Publications

Floods that used to happen every hundred years are now occurring more frequently. Human influences on the damage inflicted by flooding need to be well-understood by future voters and property-owners. Therefore, the timely topic of flooding was used as the focus of a special multi-grade enrichment short course taught by two university education professors for 26 preK-8th grade high-achieving and creative students. During the course, students listened to guest speakers (city council member, meteorologist, and environmentalist), watched two flood-related videos, read books on floods, viewed electronic presentations related to dams and recent floods, discussed causes, effects, and mitigations of flooding, …

Age Differences In Reward Anticipation And Memory, Kristen L. Cushman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Aging research on item- and associative-recognition memory has demonstrated that older adults are deficient in forming associations between two unrelated stimuli. Although older adult performance on tests of item-recognition is similar to younger adult performance, older adults perform worse than younger adults on tests of associative memory (Naveh-Benjamin, Hussain, Guez, & Bar-On, 2003). In addition to the idea that younger adult performance on associative-recognition tests is superior to that of older adults, research has shown that reward cues can enhance motivated learning and item memory performance of younger adults. In an fMRI study that examined the influence of reward anticipation …

Influences Of A Cladophora Bloom On The Diets Of Amblema Plicata And Elliptio Dilatata In The Upper Green River, Kentucky, Jennifer Maria Yates

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Freshwater mussels are the most imperiled group of freshwater invertebrates globally. Recent research suggests a better understanding of mussel feeding ecology may facilitate and improve conservation efforts. The use of stable isotopes is becoming an increasingly common method to study aquatic food webs. Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are two of the most frequently employed elements in food web studies. Differences in natural abundance of ¹³C/¹²C can indicate which food sources are the basal sources of carbon incorporated into a consumer’s tissue, while the ratio of ¹⁵N /¹⁴N provides a method of assessing trophic …

Introducing "The Tempation Of Tempation": Levinas And Europe, Annette Aronowicz

Journal of Scriptural Reasoning

No abstract provided.

Aesthetics And The Face In Levinas And James, Stuart Rosenbaum

Journal of Scriptural Reasoning

No abstract provided.

"I Smooth'd Him Up With Fair Words": Intersocietal Law, From Fur Trade To Treaty, Janna Beth Promislow

PhD Dissertations

History is an essential part of aboriginal law. The two disciplines, however, may produce incompatible narratives of indigenous-settler relations. In addition, indigenous legal traditions and the fur trade in the old North West have been under-represented in Canadian legal history, a gap that demotes over two centuries of working relationships to a brief preface to the numbered treaties and confederation. This dissertation seeks to bring under-observed normative relations between indigenous and European traders into Canadian legal history. It further considers the relevance of fur trade law to the jurisprudence on aboriginal treaty rights and the significance of history in overcoming …

Significance Of The Tearing Of The Temple Curtain, Andee-Sue Clark

Verbum

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph.

"Through-out the course of this paper we will explore the importance of the tearing of the curtain after Jesus’ death. This topic is of great interest because, although it is only mentioned briefly in the gospels of the New Testament, many theologians and scholars claim it holds great importance and symbolism to the Christian faith. This question is also intriguing because in order to understand and formulate an answer one must also explore aspects of Judaism, including what Jews thought of this event."

Creating Tomorrow, Fall 2012, College Of Engineering

College of Engineering Magazines

Annual magazine for the College of Engineering at Utah State University.

In Utero Programming Of Later Adiposity: The Role Of Fetal Growth Restriction, Ousseynou Sarr, Kaiping Yang, Timothy R.H. Regnault

Paediatrics Publications

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is strongly associated with obesity in adult life. The mechanisms contributing to the onset of IUGR-associated adult obesity have been studied in animal models and humans, where changes in fetal adipose tissue development, hormone levels and epigenome have been identified as principal areas of alteration leading to later life obesity. Following an adverse in utero development, IUGR fetuses display increased lipogenic and adipogenic capacity in adipocytes, hypoleptinemia, altered glucocorticoid signalling, and chromatin remodelling, which subsequently all contribute to an increased later life obesity risk. Data suggest that many of these changes result from an enhanced activity …

Septohippocampal Gabaergic Neurons Mediate The Altered Behaviors Induced By N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Antagonists., Jingyi Ma, Siew Kian Tai, L Stan Leung

Physiology and Pharmacology Publications

We hypothesize that selective lesion of the septohippocampal GABAergic neurons suppresses the altered behaviors induced by an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, ketamine or MK-801. In addition, we hypothesize that septohippocampal GABAergic neurons generate an atropine-resistant theta rhythm that coexists with an atropine-sensitive theta rhythm in the hippocampus. Infusion of orexin-saporin (ore-SAP) into the medial septal area decreased parvalbumin-immunoreactive (GABAergic) neurons by ~80%, without significantly affecting choline-acetyltransferase-immunoreactive (cholinergic) neurons. The theta rhythm during walking, or the immobility-associated theta induced by pilocarpine, was not different between ore-SAP and sham-lesion rats. Walking theta was, however, more disrupted by atropine sulfate in ore-SAP than …

Alumni Journal - Volume 83, Number 4, Loma Linda University School Of Medicine

Alumni Journal, School of Medicine

Features:
12 | Practicing in Malawi
18 | Treating Sickle Cell Disease
20 | Law and Medicine
22 | Department Spotlight

News:
8 | School of Medicine News
22 | Department Spotlight

Regulars:
4 | Editorial
10 | From the Dean
30 | Alumni in the News
31 | In Memoriam
36 | Placement Ads

Nobody's Boy, Linda Maria Mobley

Dissertations

"Village literature," literature that is written for and about the tribe, or community, has been a long standing tradition among African American writers such as Toni Morrison. These stories follow that tradition in that they are largely reflective of the African American Experience particularly South Alabama during the sixties. The decade that was marked by such violence and bloodshed is reflected here through the stories of a family experiencing it firsthand, yet who are not fully aware that they are living in a historically significant period of history. It is only through the retrospective lens of a child in that …

Religious Leaders In Crisis: An Analysis Of Image Restoration Strategies And Content Variables, Melody Teracita Fisher

Dissertations

The following study employs content analysis to examine the crisis communication responses and audience reception of religious leaders involved in scandal. Benoit’s Image Repair Strategies and the Contingency Theory are used to determine the strategies, stances and contingent variables of mega-church leaders: Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, Eddie Long, Henry Lyons and Jimmy Swaggart; and the Boston Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. News framing theory determined media and audience reception of the religious leaders’ crisis communication responses.

The study concludes that there is little difference in mega-church leaders and the Boston Diocese’s crisis communication responses. Religious leaders’ dominant strategies were …

Quantifying Vulnerability After The Storm: Hurricane Katrina Case Study, Jennifer Lori Bonin

Dissertations

We can predict social and physical vulnerability with relatively accurate modeling. There are, however, very few consistent models to predict economic vulnerability outside of loss estimation models designed by economists. The index in this dissertation predicts which areas are most economically vulnerable in terms of job loss. Communities rely on their ability to work and contribute to the tax base. Without that base, a community will take longer to recover after a disaster. Which industries, professions, and environmental factors most influence a community’s economic vulnerability in the wake of a disaster? This dissertation presents an index for measuring economic vulnerability …

The R Journal (December 2012) 4(2): Complete Issue, The R Foundation

The R Journal

Contributing Articles

What's in a Name? Paul Murrell

It's Not What You Draw, It's What You Don't Draw, Paul Murrell

Debugging grid Graphics, Paul Murrell and Velvet Ly

frailtyHL: A Package for Fitting Frailty Models with H-likelihood, Il Do Ha, Maengseok Noh, and Youngjo Lee

influence.ME: Tools for Detecting Influential Data in Mixed Effects Models, Rense Nieuwenhuis, Manfred te Grotenhuis and Ben Pelzer

The crs Package: Nonparametric Regression Splines for Continuous and Categorical Predictors, Zhenghua Nie and Jeffrey S. Racine

Rfit: Rank-based Estimation for Linear Models, John D. Kloke and Joseph W. McKean

Graphical Markov Models with Mixed Graphs in …

Prehistoric Human Ecodynamics In The Rub Al-Khali Desert: Results Of Remote Sensing And Excavations In Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Jason T. Herrmann

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological investigations in the Emirate of Dubai, UAE conducted by the Dubai Department of Archaeology and the University of Arkansas demonstrate that the desert inland of the Oman Peninsula was occupied not only during the Arabian Neolithic (8000-4400 BC), when the region experienced a moist period referred to as the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO), but also during the more arid millennia following the decline of the HCO into the Christian Era. During this period, desert settlement clustered near a band of oases, in contrast to the more widespread spatial distribution of remains of nomadic pastoralists from the Neolithic. Excavations at …

Three-Dimensional Indoor Rfid Localization System, Jiaqing Wu

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an information exchange technology based on radio waves communication. It is also a possible solution to indoor localization. Due to multipath propagation and anisotropic interference in the indoor environment, theoretical propagation models are generally not sufficient for RFID-based localization. In fact, the radio frequency (RF) signal distribution may not even be monotonic and this makes range-based localization algorithms less accurate. On the other hand, range free localization algorithms, such as k Nearest-Neighbor (kNN), require reference tags to be spread throughout the whole three-dimensional (3D) space which is simply not practical. In this work, a hybrid …