Digital Commons Network^™

Take Time To Compliment Those Who Inspire You, Denver E. Severt

UCF Forum

Sometimes we cross paths with others who inspire and motivate greatness. This is particularly true in a learning community such as UCF.

Analysis Of Crime Data Using Principal Component Analysis: A Case Study Of Katsina State, Shehu U. Gulumbe, Dikko H. .G., Bello Yusuf

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper analyses Katsina State crime data which consists of the averages of eight major crimes reported to the police for the period 2006 – 2008. The crimes consist of robbery, auto theft, house and store breakings, theft/stealing, grievous hurt and wounding, murder, rape, and assault. Correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were employed to explain the correlation between the crimes and to determine the distribution of the crimes over the local government areas of the state. The result has shown a significant correlation between robbery, theft and vehicle theft. While MSW local government area has the lowest crime …

An Assessment Of Monetary Policy Response To Capital Inflows In Nigeria1, Usman M. Okpanachi

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

Large and persistent capital inflows can be a double-edged sword. Accompanying its many attractions is the tendency to display a boom and bust pattern (volatility and reversals) in addition to the possibility of causing rapid exchange rate appreciation, inflation and loss of monetary policy independence. These downside risks create very strong impetus for some sort of policy response like sterilization, fiscal consolidation or controls. This study employs a simple analytical framework to estimate the intensity (and effectiveness) of monetary sterilization by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in response to increased capital inflows in recent years. The study finds evidence …

Inflation And Economic Growth In Nigeria: Detecting The Threshold Level, Sani I. Doguwa

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper re-examines the issue of the existence and the level of inflation threshold in the relationship between inflation and growth in Nigeria, using three different approaches that provide appropriate procedures for estimating the threshold level and inference. While Sarel’s (1996) approach provides a threshold point estimate of 9.9 per cent that was not well identified by the data, the technique of Khan and Senhadji (2001) identifies a 10.5 per cent inflation threshold as statistically significant to explain the inflation-growth nexus in Nigeria. Also, the approach of Drukker et al (2005) suggests a two threshold point model with 11.2 and …

Can Law And Literature Be Practical? The Crucible And The Federal Rules Of Evidence, Martin H. Pritikin

West Virginia Law Review

Counter-intuitively, one of the best ways to learn the practice-oriented topic of evidence may be by studying a work of fiction-specifically, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which dramatizes the seventeenth-century Salem witch trials. The play puts the reader in the position of legal advocate, and invites strategic analysis of evidentiary issues. A close analysis of the dialogue presents an opportunity to explore both the doctrinal nuances of and policy considerations underlying the most important topics covered by the Federal Rules of Evidence, including the mode and order of interrogation, relevance, character evidence and impeachment, opinion testimony, and hearsay.

Presumed Disadvantaged: Constitutional Incongruit In Federal Contract Procurement And Acquisition Regulations, William J. Bogard

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Excavating Constitutional Antecedents In Asia: An Essay On The Potential And Perils, Arun K. Thiruvengadam

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This essay seeks to endorse Tom Ginsburg's call for studies that expand the relatively limited range of historically informed scholarship on constitutional law in Asia. Such a trend will no doubt also broaden the focus of the discipline of contemporary constitutional scholarship, which remains unjustifiably narrow and excludes many regions of the globe. While appreciating the virtues of Ginsburg's broader analysis, the essay also seeks to draw attention to the potential pitfalls of such historically-oriented inquiry. I emphasize the fact that in many Asian societies, contemporary constitutional practice marks radical departures from pre-existing traditions of law and constitutionalism. Drawing upon …

Constitutionalism And The Rule Of Law: Considering The Case For Antecedents, Rogers M. Smith

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Tom Ginsburg credibly establishes that East Asian legal traditions include elements that can be considered antecedents for perhaps the strongest form of the rule of law, constitutional restraints that apply even to sovereigns. Treating these precedents chiefly as anticipations of Western-style constitutionalism, however, may be historically misleading and may inhibit reflection on the desirability of practices that represent alternatives to Western conceptions of the rule of law.

Beyond The Courts, Beyond The State: Reflections On Caldwell's "Horizontal Rights And Chinese Constitutionalism", Victor V. Ramraj

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article provides a critical response to Ernest Caldwell's article, Horizontal Rights and Chinese Constitutionalism: Judicialization through Labor Disputes. According to Caldwell, those looking for an emerging constitutional culture in China should be looking not in the higher courts (as the American paradigm of constitutional law suggests), but in the lower courts that settle day-to-day disputes. Moreover, the constitutional discourse in those lower courts is not about limiting state power, but about the need for "horizontal" protections of citizens—specifically laborers—from their powerful employers in furtherance of constitutional values. This article offers three responses to Caldwell's thesis. First, while acknowledging and …

From Constitutional Listening To Moral Listening, Roy Tseng

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In order to provide comments on Michael Dowdle's account of "Constitutional Listening," this paper aims to establish three counter-arguments. First of all, in contrast to Dowdle's particularly narrow understanding of liberalism, I argue that to evaluate the moral import of liberalism properly, we need to draw attention to the diversities of liberalism. According to what I will call "historicist liberalism," for example, in understanding other cultures we should try to show sensitivities toward alien political systems and moral values. Second of all, although I appreciate Dowdle's effort to avoid the misinterpretation of non-Western constitutional discourse, I do not agree with …

Beyond The Schoolhouse Gate: Should Schools Have The Authority To Punish Online Student Speech?, Brittany L. Kaspar

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This note analyzes the current circuit split over whether schools should have the authority to punish students for speech made on the Internet. Part I discusses the First Amendment generally and the four Supreme Court cases that have refined its application with respect to on-campus student speech. Part II presents the ensuing circuit split over the constitutionality of disciplining students for online, off-campus speech. Specifically, this section will explain both of the existing perspectives and why neither of the two is ideal. Part III attempts to devise a solution to the current divide by advocating a compromise position. In particular, …

Pages News, Volume 20, No. 2, December 2012, Takeshi Nakatsuka, Ryuji Tada, Kenji Kawamura

PAGES

Contents: Inside PAGES -- PAGES calendar -- Special Section: Japanese Paleoscience Editorial -- Japanese paleoscience on past climate and environmental changes -- Science Highlights -- Ocean circulation in the North Pacific during the last glacial termination -- North Pacific - North Atlantic linkages during the Last Glacial Termination -- Teleconnection between Asian Monsoon and the North Atlantic -- Latent 1500-year climate oscillation in the Holocene -- The history of Lake Biwa drilling -- Lake Suigetsu 2006 Varved Sediment Core Project -- Monsoon in subtropical Asia from oxygen isotope ratios of tree-ring cellulose -- Hydroclimate reconstruction in Indonesia by stalagmite isotopic …

The Management Of Sport-Related Concussion: Considerations For Male And Female Athletes, Tracey Covassin, R. J. Elbin, Bryan Crutcher, Scott Burkhart

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

Sport-related concussion continues to be a centerpiece of attention in the field of sports medicine. The benefit to using neurocognitive testing when managing concussion will be documented in this review. In addition to providing critical objective information on the neurocognitive status of the concussed athlete, research data will be provided on the pre- and post-concussion neurocognitive profiles of concussed male and female athletes. Specifically, an overview of research will be presented on the epidemiology of male and female concussion rates, as well as concussion outcomes including symptoms and cognitive function post-injury. Finally, a clinician’s perspective on managing sports-related concussion will …

Fas-Activated Serine Threonine Kinase 4 Is A Mitochondrial Protein, Johnna St Clair

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

Mitochondria play an essential role in eukaryotic cells, supplying energy levels which vastly exceed those available to prokaryotes. They rely heavily on the import of nuclear encoded proteins for their function. The FAST family of proteins which are synthesized in the cytoplasm and imported into mitochondria are an example of this. The FAST family has not been well characterized, and next to nothing is known about several FAST family members. In the following I have reviewed what is known about each member of the FAST protein family including conserved domains, structures, including roles in cellular function, apoptosis and disease. Additionally, …

The Role Of Dystroglycan In Differentiating Oligodendroglia And Cns Myelination, Christopher Edward Eyermann

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

During central nervous system (CNS) development, individual oligodendrocytes myelinate multiple axons, thus requiring the outgrowth and extensive branching of oligodendroglial processes. Extrinsic cues including the extracellular matrix (ECM) molecule laminin regulate oligodendrocyte maturation; indeed, laminin-deficient mice have fewer myelinated axons, which may indicate a defect in the ability to properly extend and branch processes. It remains unclear, however, to what extent ECM receptors contribute to oligodendroglial process remodeling itself. Here I report that the ECM receptor dystroglycan is necessary for laminin enhancement of filopodial formation, process outgrowth, and process branching in differentiating oligodendroglia. During early oligodendroglial differentiation, the disruption of …

Contemporary Manhattan Cartographies: Ephemeral Public Projects In New York, Andrew Wasserman

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

This dissertation considers the emergence of a cartographic public practice in both contemporary art and contemporary cities, attending to the ways in which ephemeral public projects create map-like objects that diverge from official urban projections. Rather than marking a single location, such projects structure networked connections between several sites, transforming undifferentiated urban spaces into legible urban places. Evaluation of this recent cartographic turn entails the triple consideration of placemaking, placemakers, and placemarkers as constructing spatialized identities for different neighborhoods and setting forth wayfinding strategies within these same neighborhoods. Focusing on Manhattan, the dissertation surveys how the borough has served as …

Energy-Efficient Wide Datapath Integer Arithmetic Logic Units Using Superconductor Logic, Christopher Lawrence Ayala

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

Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology is currently the most widely used integrated circuit technology today. As CMOS approaches the physical limitations of scaling, it is unclear whether or not it can provide long-term support for niche areas such as high-performance computing and telecommunication infrastructure, particularly with the emergence of cloud computing. Alternatively, superconductor technologies based on Josephson junction (JJ) switching elements such as Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) logic and especially its new variant, Energy-Efficient Rapid Single Flux Quantum (ERSFQ) logic have the capability to provide an ultra-high-speed, low power platform for digital systems. The objective of this research is to …

Direct Photon Tagged Jets In 200 Gev Au+Au Collisions At Phenix, Megan Elizabeth Connors

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

A hot dense medium called the quark gluon plasma (QGP) has been created at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). Quarks and gluons are deconfined in the QGP state but many of its properties are still under investigation. One interesting observation is that high momentum partons (quarks and gluons), which result from hard scatterings in the initial collision, lose energy as they travel through the medium. These partons fragment into the particles observed in the detector. Since fully reconstructing all the "jet" particles associated with the initial parton is complicated by the high multiplicity background produced in heavy-ion collisions, two …

Understanding Carbohydrate Recognition By Antiviral Lectins: Applying Computational Methods To Protein-Carbohydrate Complexes, Yukiji Karen Fujimoto

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

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection of T-cells begins when the viral envelope glycoprotein, gp120, binds to CD4 receptors on the target cell surface. Over the past several years, proteins isolated from various prokaryotes have been shown to inhibit HIV cell entry by binding to gp120 and thus blocking the association with CD4. Lectins that bind to high-mannose oligosaccharides on gp120 are an attractive class of antiviral agents. While several of these have been quite well characterized both structurally and biochemically, there remain many open questions regarding their mechanism of inhibition. Among the best studied is cyanovirin-N (CVN), which is currently …

Azimuthal Anisotropy Measurement Of Neutral Pion And Inclusive Charge Hadron Production In Au+Au Collisions At Sqrt(S_Nn) = 62 And 39 Gev, Xiaoyang Gong

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

The harmonic flow coefficients vn with n=2,3,4 are measured for neutral pions and inclusive charged hadrons in Au-Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 62 and 39 GeV with the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). These vn coefficients characterize the anisotropy of particle productions in the azimuth at different angular scale, which are sensitive to the transport properties and initial spatial asymmetries of the hot and dense medium created in these collisions. Significant values of vn are observed for neutral pions (for n = 2) and inclusive charge hadron (for n = 2, 3, 4) at both collision …

Screening For Steroid-Derived Immunomodulatory Metabolites Biosynthesized By Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (M. Tuberculosis), Xiaoqian Jin

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

Tuberculosis (Tb) is a serious worldwide threat to human health killing 1.4 million people every year. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis), the causative agent for Tb, has infected 30% of the world's population. The emergence of multidrug, extensively drug, and total drug resistant organisms (MDR/XDR/TDR TB) creates an urgent demand to develop new drugs with novel mechanisms to be effective against both sensitive and drug-resistant strains of M. tuberculosis. The cholesterol metabolism pathway in M. tuberculosis is important for mycobacterial survival in the host macrophage. We proposed that cholesterol serves as a starting material for biosynthesis of steroid-derived immunomodulators that down-regulate …

Hyperkahler 4n-Manifolds With N Commuting Quaternionic Killing Fields, Joseph Malkoun

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

We consider a hyperk? hler 4n-manifold M. Using local holomorphic Darboux coordinates with respect to a compatible complex structure I on M, we find local necessary and sufficient conditions for a real smooth vector field X on M to be quaternionic Killing. We then apply this result to the case of a hyperk? hler manifold M admitting n commuting quaternionic Killing fields, X^1,... | X^n, the first n-1 of which are further assumed to be triholomorphic and quaternionically linearly independent pointwise. We then have two cases: if the self-dual part of DX^n vanishes, we get back the Hitchin-Karlhede-Lindstr??m-Roček result, and …

Improving Cancer Detection Through Visualization, Joseph Marino

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

The proliferation of medical scanning technology, especially computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), has led to various research works on methods of intuitively visualizing the large amounts of resulting slice data. The visualization of this data consists not only of display methods, but ideas covering topics such as navigation, exploration, surface parameterization, and analysis. These imaging modalities can play a large role in diagnosing a multitude of diseases, including carcinomas of the colon, lungs, and prostate. The work presented in this dissertation develops varied visualization techniques for application to the detection and localization of these three prevalent cancers. …

Performance Study Of Cascade Reconstruction At The Glashow Resonance In Icecube, Hans Martin Niederhausen

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

IceCube is a one cubic kilometer neutrino telescope at the South Pole. Its primary goal is to discover high energy cosmic neutrinos and anti-neutrinos from astrophysical sources. Observation of the spectrum near the characteristic energy $E_\nu\approx6.3\,\mbox{PeV}$ of the Glashow resonance, the interaction of anti-neutrinos with atomic electrons via $\bar{\nu}_e+e^{-}\rightarrow W^{-}$, is of particular interest. Since the cross section for this process can be calculated from first principles, it is possible to quantify separately the fluxes for neutrinos and anti-neutrinos if the resonance is observed above a continuum. In turn, such a separation will give unique insights into the astrophysics properties …

The Confessions Of Augustine's Flesh: Counter-Conducts Overwhelming To Pastoral Power In Christian Conversion, Darla Senami Migan

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

In his 1978 lectures at the College de France, Security Territory Population, Michel Foucault shifts his analysis of power by arguing for pastoral power as both the prelude to governmentality and as the decisive moment in the constitution of the Western subject. If the history of the Christian pastorate involves " the entire history of procedures of human individualization in the West (184)," then, Foucault argues, there has never been a revolt against pastoral power because such a revolt would be a revolt against the constitution of the self, that is to say against self-consciousness. If the revolt against pastoral …

Transnational Interlocks And Global Business, Josh Murray

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

Economic globalization raises questions about whether the emerging transnational business class acts in unison or whether the global business community is internally factionalized. In this context, interlocking directorates that connect transnational corporations play an important role. However, we know surprisingly little about the impact the growing number of such transnational interlocks has on national-level economic and political strategies. Transnational capitalist class (TCC) theory posits that a segment of global capital has emerged as a class and seeks to influence national governments on behalf of transnational class interests by engaging in political behavior that is 1) globally, rather than nationally oriented; …

Constitutionalism: East Asian Antecedents, Tom Ginsburg

Chicago-Kent Law Review

To what degree can traditional Asian political and legal institutions be seen as embodying constitutionalist values? This question has risen to the fore in recent decades as part of a new attention to constitutionalism around the world, as well as the decline in orientalist perceptions of Asia as a region of oppressive legal traditions. This article juxtaposes East Asian analogues or antecedents of constitutionalism with a particular set of recent theoretical understandings of the concept of constitutionalism. After conducting a historical review of political and legal institutions in China, Japan and Korea, the article argues that we can indeed speak …

Benchmarks 2012, December 14, The Rockefeller University

BenchMarks 2012

BenchMarks. Friday, December 14, 2012

The community newsletter of The Rockefeller University

BenchMarks is published monthly and is distributed on the campus of The Rockefeller University. It produced by the Office of Communications and Public Affairs

Hyperhomocysteinemia Alters Sinoatrial And Atrioventricular Nodal Function : Role Of The Cardiac Nmda Receptor., Chirag V. Soni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) is a pathological condition characterized by excessive levels of plasma homocysteine (Hcy). Patients with HHcy are reported to be at risk for arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation and sudden cardiac death (SCD); however, the causative mechanisms remain unknown. The effects of HHcy on sinus node function, atrioventricular conduction and ventricular vulnerability were investigated by in vivo electrophysiological (EP) analysis, and the role of the cardiac N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDA-R) in promoting Hcy-induced conduction abnormalities was explored. Materials and Methods: Anesthetized wild-type control mice (WT), mice receiving Hcy in the drinking water for 12 weeks (DW), and heterozygous cystathionine-ß-synthase knockout …

Effect Of Viewing Conditions On The Detection Of Proximal Dental Caries In Intraoral Digital Images With And Without Computer-Assisted Diagnosis., Lauren Christine Szechy 1989-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Dental caries is the most common childhood ailment and one of the most prevalent chronic diseases of people worldwide. Approximately 91% of dentate adults 20 years or older have experienced dental caries. Carious lesions on proximal surfaces are particularly difficult to detect clinically, which is why intraoral radiography has become a supplemental method used to aid diagnosis. It was hypothesized that the accuracy of detection of proximal caries with the unaided eye would be reduced in sub-optimal viewing conditions; furthermore, the use of computer-assisted diagnostic software (Logicon Caries Detector) would improve the overall accuracy of observers. Methods: Eighteen radiographs …