Digital Commons Network^™

Acetaldehyde Dehydrogenase 2 (Aldh2) Activation Protects Hepatocytes From Mitochondrial Damage And Death Caused By 4-Hydroxynonenal., Keegan J. Baldauf 1982-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) ranks among the major causes of morbidity and mortality in the world and effects millions of patients each year. Progression of ALD is well characterized and is actually a spectrum of liver diseases, which progresses from steatosis, to inflammation and necrosis, to finally fibrosis and cirrhosis. However, the underlying mechanism(s) of ALD are not as well understood, and as a result there is no FDA-approved therapy to prevent or reverse the disease. With a better understanding of the mechanism(s) and risk factors that mediate the initiation and progression of ALD, a targeted therapy can be developed …

A Submodular Optimization Framework For Never-Ending Learning : Semi-Supervised, Online, And Active Learning., Wael Emara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The revolution in information technology and the explosion in the use of computing devices in people's everyday activities has forever changed the perspective of the data mining and machine learning fields. The enormous amounts of easily accessible, information rich data is pushing the data analysis community in general towards a shift of paradigm. In the new paradigm, data comes in the form a stream of billions of records received everyday. The dynamic nature of the data and its sheer size makes it impossible to use the traditional notion of offline learning where the whole data is accessible at any time …

The Role Of Endogenous Bcl-Xl In Regulation Of Apoptotic Signaling Pathways., Colins Ogwandi Eno 1982-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bcl-2 proteins are major regulators of cellular responses to various apoptotic stimuli. Among them, overexpression of the anti-apoptotic BcI-2 protein BcI-xL modulates organelle-specific apoptotic pathways. To understand the mechanisms by which endogenous BcI-xL regulates apoptosis, mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) deficient in BcI-xL expression (Bcl-x-KO) was generated. Studies of BcI-xL exclusively targeted to an organelle in Bcl-x-KO MEFs indicate that the mitochondria- and ER-Iocalized BcI-xL play distinct roles in apoptosis resistance and Ca2+ homeostasis. Specifically, mitochondrial BcI-xL can regulate apoptosis independently of ER BcI-xL, and when localized exclusively at the ER, BcI-xL impinges on Ca2+ homeostasis but does not affect apoptosis …

The Use Of Mathematical And Computational Models To Define The Role Of Mutation And Infection In Colorectal Cancer., Chandler D. Gatenbee 1982-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research over the past twenty five years has led to the development of the hypothesis that colorectal cancer is caused by the accumulation of mutations in tumor suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes. The last ten years has also revealed that the common JC Virus (JCV) is frequently found in colorectal tumors. This has led to the hypothesis that the virus, which is known to cause tumors in the lab, may playa role in colorectal cancer. However, the presence of JCV in colorectal tumors does not necessarily indicate a cause-effect relationship. Unlike in vivo and in vitro studies, mathematical and computational modeling …

The Dynamic Equilibrium Of Human Telomeric G-Quadruplexes., Robert Buscaglia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

G-quadruplexes are thought to have biological importance, with studies based on small molecule interactions and quadruplex-interactive antibodies demonstrating their potential for formation in vivo. One potential biological function of quadruplex structures is the regulation and maintenance of telomeres. Telomeres are nucleoprotein complexes involved in chromosome stability. Human telomeres are composed of the repeated DNA sequence, 5'- d(TIAGGG), that terminates in a 3' single-stranded overhang. DNA sequences with homology to the human telomere are capable of quadruplex formation in vitro. Specifically, sequences containing four-guanine stretches (e.g. 5'-d(AGGG(TIAGGGb)) are capable of forming at least five distinct unimolecular structures. Which structure is favored …

Connected Matchings In Special Families Of Graphs., Christopher James Caragianis 1980-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A connected matching in a graph is a set of disjoint edges such that, for any pair of these edges, there is another edge of the graph incident to both of them. This dissertation investigates two problems related to finding large connected matchings in graphs. The first problem is motivated by a famous and still open conjecture made by Hadwiger stating that every k-chromatic graph contains a minor of the complete graph Kk . If true, Hadwiger's conjecture would imply that every graph G has a minor of the complete graph K n/a(C), where a(G) denotes the independence number of …

Gain And Loss Of Functional Locomotor Recovery Following Contusive Spinal Cord Injury In The Adult Rat., Krista Layne Caudle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Activity-based rehabilitation in the form of overground or body weight-supported treadmill (BWST) locomotor step training has become the most widely accepted therapy translated from preclinical animal research to spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. However, locomotor training does not provide the level of functional locomotor recovery that animal models are interpreted to promise because preclinical studies have used complete spinal cord transections that do not sufficiently mimic the clinical presentation. Furthermore, animal models do not include the same standard of care, immobilization with stretch/range-ofmotion manual therapies, SCI patients receive. Therefore, we have developed an experimental animal model that includes aspects of …

Learning Understandable Classifier Models., Jan Chorowski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The topic of this dissertation is the automation of the process of extracting understandable patterns and rules from data. An unprecedented amount of data is available to anyone with a computer connected to the Internet. The disciplines of Data Mining and Machine Learning have emerged over the last two decades to face this challenge. This has led to the development of many tools and methods. These tools often produce models that make very accurate predictions about previously unseen data. However, models built by the most accurate methods are usually hard to understand or interpret by humans. In consequence, they deliver …

Integrated Modeling And Analysis Methodologies For Architecture-Level Vehicle Design., Rostyslav Lesiv

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In order to satisfy customer expectations, a ground vehicle must be designed to meet a broad range of performance requirements. A satisfactory vehicle design process implements a set of requirements reflecting necessary, but perhaps not sufficient conditions for assuring success in a highly competitive market. An optimal architecture-level vehicle design configuration is one of the most important of these requirements. A basic layout that is efficient and flexible permits significant reductions in the time needed to complete the product development cycle, with commensurate reductions in cost. Unfortunately, architecture-level design is the most abstract phase of the design process. The high-level …

Learning Visual Features For The Avatar Captcha Recognition Challenge, Mohammed Korayem, Abdallah A. Mohamed, David Crandall, Roman Yampolskiy

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Captchas are frequently used on the modern world wide web to differentiate human users from automated bots by giving tests that are easy for humans to answer but difficult or impossible for algorithms. As artificial intelligence algorithms have improved, new types of Captchas have had to be developed. Recent work has proposed a new system called Avatar Captcha, in which a user is asked to distinguish between facial images of real humans and those of avatars generated by computer graphics. This novel system has been proposed on the assumption that this Captcha is very difficult for computers to break. In …

Anthropological Apologetics: A Proposal Of An Anthropological Compendium As Evidence For The Imago Dei, Jeffrey R. Dickson

Masters Theses

Evangelical scholarship has shown great admiration for the work of Gary Habermas and others in their contribution to Christian apologetics by validating the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ with a list of minimal facts generally agreed to by historical and biblical scholars. This thesis will explore the methodology of the minimal facts approach and appropriate it as a tool to explore the data within the field of anthropology which offers evidence for the biblical concept of the Imago Dei. This study will focus on Wolfhart Pannenberg in his critically acclaimed work demonstrating the importance of the theological perspective …

Inside Voices: Protecting The Student-Critic In Public Schools, Josie F. Brown

Faculty Publications

First Amendment doctrine acknowledges the constructive potential of citizens’ criticism of public officials and governmental policies by offering such speech vigilant protection. However, when students speak out about perceived injustice or dysfunction in their public schools, teachers and administrators too often react by squelching and even punishing student-critics. To counteract school officials’ reflexively repressive responses to student protest and petition activities, this Article explains why the faithful performance of public schools’ responsibility to prepare students for constitutional citizenship demands the adoption of a more receptive and respectful attitude toward student dissent. After documenting how both educators and courts have mistakenly …

Standardization Of Process Sheet Information To Support Automated Translation Of Assembly Instructions And Product-Process Coupling, Matthew Peterson

All Theses

The design and manufacture of large scale systems, particularly automobiles, is a process that requires collaboration across multiple disciplines. This collaboration is facilitated through efficient and effective data and knowledge storage and transfer. Specifically, the data associated with the final assembly of the vehicle should be generated, organized, and distributed in such a manner that each user of the data is able to use it effectively. Furthermore, the structure for the assembly data should be robust and reliable such that it fosters consistency among various planners for multiple vehicle platforms that are assembled all around the world. This research aims …

Function Approximation With Artmap Architectures, Lucian M. Sasu, Răzvan Andonie

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

We analyze function approximation (regression) capability of Fuzzy ARTMAP (FAM) architectures - well-known incremental learning neural networks. We focus especially on the universal approximation property. In our experiments, we compare the regression performance of FAM networks with other standard neural models. It is the first time that ARTMAP regression is overviewed, both from theoretical and practical points of view.

Guardians Of Generations: African American Grandparent Caregivers For Children Of Hiv/Aids Infected Parents, Sandra Edmonds Crewe

Journal of Family Strengths

Grandparents, particularly, grandmothers in the African American community have historically provided needed care for their grandchildren (Crewe, 2003). Before there was a child welfare system that addressed the needs of African American children, there were grandmothers who served as the safety net for their biological, informally adopted grandchildren, and other minor relatives. They cared for grandchildren and others whose birth parents were unable or unwilling to care for them. For families of color, HIV/AIDS is an emerging issue that is contributing to the growing numbers of grandparent-headed households. And once again, many African American grandmothers have accepted the challenge of …

Can Public Child Welfare Help To Prevent Child Maltreatment? Promising Findings From Los Angeles, Jacquelyn Mccroskey, Peter Pecora, Todd Franke, Christina Christie, Jaymie Lorthridge

Journal of Family Strengths

This article describes promising findings from the Los Angeles County Prevention Initiative Demonstration Project, a systems change approach to developing relationships between public child welfare, allied public agencies, and community-based networks that offer family-centered services, economic assistance and capacity building to support all kinds of families. It describes the conceptual underpinnings and unique structure of the initiative, the evaluation methods used to assess results, and a pattern of promising results.

West Nile Virus Associations In Wild Mammals: A Synthesis, J. Jeffrey Root

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Exposures to West Nile virus (WNV) have been documented in a variety of wild mammals in both the New and Old Worlds. This review tabulates at least 100 mammal species with evidence of WNV exposure. Many of these exposures were detected in free-ranging mammals, while several were noted in captive individuals. In addition to exposures, this review discusses experimental infections in terms of the potential for reservoir competence of select wild mammal species. Overall, few experimental infections have been conducted on wild mammals. As such, the role of most wild mammals as potential amplifying hosts for WNV is, to date, …

The First Cosmic Ray Albedo Proton Map Of The Moon, Jody K. Wilson, Harlan E. Spence, Justin Kasper, Michael Golightly, J. B. Blake, J. E. Mazur, L. W. Townsend, A. W. Case, M. D. Looper, C. Zeitlin, Nathan A. Schwadron

Physics & Astronomy

[1] Neutrons emitted from the Moon are produced by the impact of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) within the regolith. GCRs are high-energy particles capable of smashing atomic nuclei in the lunar regolith and producing a shower of energetic protons, neutrons and other subatomic particles. Secondary particles that are ejected out of the regolith become “albedo” particles. The neutron albedo has been used to study the hydrogen content of the lunar regolith, which motivates our study of albedo protons. In principle, the albedo protons should vary as a function of the input GCR source and possibly as a result of surface …

"Alien" Litigation As Polity-Participation: The Positive Power Of A "Voteless Class Of Litigants", Daniel Kanstroom

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Bird Review (December 2012) 80(4), Whole Issue

Nebraska Bird Review

Fall Field Report, August–November 2012 … 126

Bellevue Fall Field Days ... 158

Notes on a Greater Sage-Grouse Record by Levi L. Mohler ... 162

Index to Volume 80 ... 164

Subscription and Organization Information ... 175

Fall Field Report, August–November 2012, W. Ross Silcock

Nebraska Bird Review

Some of you may be curious about the sources of sightings I use to compile these reports. The primary sources are reports posted to NEBirds, the Nebraska Listserv, along with the full reports (early and late dates, peak counts for all species) sent by a few faithful reporters around the state. The latter reports are very useful overviews of movements in the reporters' regions. Lately, thanks to a suggestion by Clem Klaphake, I have been receiving the eBird daily rarity report for Nebraska which I find to be an excellent check against reports posted to NEBirds, while providing a few …

Notes On A Greater Sage-Grouse Record By Levi L. Mohler, Mark A. Brogie

Nebraska Bird Review

In Nebraska, Greater Sage-Grouse has been considered an uncommon casual winter visitor in the extreme northwest (Sharpe et al. 2001). This species may now be extirpated in Nebraska due to habitat loss. There have been no known Nebraska observations of Greater Sage-Grouse in the last 25 years. The only documented record accepted by the NOURC of Greater Sage-Grouse in Nebraska (Accession #243) is a description of an adult male in September 1987 in extreme northwest Sioux County by Douglas Kapke (Grenon AG. 1990).

In 2002 Wayne Mollhoff received the following record from Levi L. Mohler and submitted it to the …

Updated Manuscript Submission Guidelines For The Prairie Naturalist, Christopher N. Jacques, Troy W. Grovenburg, Jonathan A. Jenks

The Prairie Naturalist

These guidelines present updated policies and procedures for submitting scientific manuscripts for consideration for publication in The Prairie Naturalist (PNAT). These guidelines incorporate substantial changes that have occurred following a change in Editorial staff during January 2009, and update the online “Suggestions for Contributors” guidelines provided on the PNAT website (http://www.sdstate.edu/nrm/organizations/gpnss/tpn/index.cfm); these instructions supersede all previous guidelines.

Tables and appendices are included for common word expressions with superfluous wording (Table 1), examples of correct format and style guidelines for tables accompanying manuscripts (Table 2, Appendix A), guidance in properly preparing Research notes (Appendix B) and citing literature (Appendix …

The Crs Package: Nonparametric Regression Splines For Continuous And Categorical Predictors, Zhenghua Nie, Jeffery S. Racine

The R Journal

A new package crs is introduced for computing nonparametric regression (and quantile) splines in the presence of both continuous and categorical predictors. B-splines are employed in the regression model for the continuous predictors and kernel weighting is employed for the categorical predictors. We also de velop a simple R interface to NOMAD, which is a mixed integer optimization solver used to compute optimal regression spline solutions.

Influence.Me: Tools For Detecting Influential Data In Mixed Effects Models, Rense Nieuwenhuis, Manfred Te Grotenhuis, Ben Pelzer

The R Journal

influence.ME provides tools for detecting influential data in mixed effects models. The application of these models has become common practice, but the development of diagnostic tools has lagged behind. influence.ME calculates standardized measures of influential data for the point estimates of generalized mixed effects models, such as DFBETAS, Cook’s distance, as well as percentile change and a test for changing levels of significance. influence.ME calculates these measures of influence while ac counting for the nesting structure of the data. The package and measures of influential data are introduced, a practical example is given, and strategies for dealing with influential data …

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

The R Journal

The R graphics engine has new support for drawing complex paths via the functions polypath() and grid.path(). This article explains what is meant by a complex path and demonstrates the usefulness of complex paths in drawing non-trivial shapes, logos, customised data symbols, and maps.

Debugging Grid Graphics, Paul Murrell, Velvet Ly

The R Journal

A graphical scene that has been produced using the grid graphics package consists of grobs (graphical objects) and viewports. This article describes functions that allow the exploration and inspection of the grobs and viewports in a grid scene, including several functions that are available in a new package called gridDe bug. The ability to explore the grobs and view ports in a grid scene is useful for adding more drawing to a scene that was produced using grid and for understanding and debugging the grid code that produced a scene.

The Variegated Mud-Loving Beetles (Coleoptera: Heteroceridae) Of Mississippi And Alabama, With Discussion And Keys To The Species Occurring In The Southeastern United States, Jonas G. King, Paul K. Lago

Insecta Mundi

We review the variegated mud-loving beetle fauna of the southeastern United States (Coleoptera: Heteroceridae), with an emphasis on Mississippi and Alabama. A key is presented to all species known to occur in the southeastern US, and includes several extra-limital species. Descriptions, illustrations and distribution maps are presented for each species. One new species, Tropicus nigrellus, is described and a lectotype is designated for Heterocerus schwarzi Horn. Our molecular data suggest that many previously recognized generic concepts are unnatural. As a result, the following generic synonymies are proposed: Culmus Pacheco 1964, Damfius Pacheco 1964, Efflagitatus Pacheco 1964, Erus …

Examining Pre-Service Teachers' Instructional Strategies For Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge Via Video-Conferencing, Hsiu-Jen Cheng, Hong Zhan

Publications

This action research observes instructional strategies and appropriateness of the strategies that pre-service teachers have applied during their training based on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) training model. Participants include 14 pre-service teachers who were enrolled in a Distance Education training course in Taiwan. During the course, pre-service teachers were trained to develop teaching skills based on the TPACK training model and applied their skills in video-conferencing teaching which involved 14 American students who were learning Mandarin Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) in an intermediate level course in the United States. Data were collected via screen recordings of …

Use Of Native Dna Binding Domains Tethered To The Fok1 Endonuclease To Target Nodal Related Genes Via The Activin Response Element, Jessica Lauren Minder

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

Use of zinc finger nucleases is an established method for gene targeting in zebrafish. Such strategies are efficient in targeting a single gene of interest. Our study attempts to target many Nodal related genes by targeting the Activin Response Element (ARE) through the use of native DNA binding domains tethered to the Fok1 endonuclease. In this light, genes are targeted in a Nodal-dependent manner, and can retain transcript levels sustained by other signaling pathways. This technique holds the potential to be a high throughput means of generating mutations in the regulatory regions of various Nodal responsive genes with the use …