Digital Commons Network^™

Winter Ecology Of Sandhill Cranes (Grus Canandensis) In Northern Mexico, Ingrid Barcelo

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) are a widespread species in North America and one of the most studied cranes in the world. However, most of the research has focused on the breeding grounds of Canada and Alaska and the staging grounds of Nebraska. Although an important proportion of the Mid-continent Population of Sandhill Cranes winters in northern Mexico, little information exists on distribution, status, and ecology of the species in Mexico. The goal of this dissertation was to provide new information on Sandhill Crane winter ecology from a regional perspective to better understand population trends. I examined the physiological …

Assessing Local And Landscape Constraints On Habitat Management For Grassland And Upland Birds, Christopher F. Jorgensen

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Species-habitat relationships are a central tenant to ecological theory and are critical in species management. Yet, despite a long-standing tradition of utilizing species-habitat relationships in both theoretical and applied ecology, there remains to be no clear predictors of how species relate to habitat. In order to further our understanding of the habitat selection process, we must begin to comprehend what spatial scales species form habitat decisions and what potential behavioral or life-history predictors underlie the scale of habitat decisions. During 2010-2012, I conducted point counts for grassland birds across Nebraska and assessed habitat relationships over multiple spatial scales to construct …

Population Characteristics, Development Of A Predictive Population Viability Model, And Catch Dynamics For Pallid Sturgeon In The Lower Missouri River, Kirk D. Steffensen

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Population characteristics and long-term population trends of pallid sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus in the lower Missouri River are relatively unknown. As recovery efforts continue, understanding and quantifying these characteristics and trends are critical for species recovery and future management decisions. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to determine the pallid sturgeon population characteristics, predict changes to the pallid sturgeon population based on different management and life history scenarios, and examine trot line catch dynamics in the lower Missouri River. Catch rates for pallid sturgeon collected with gill nets did not significantly change while catch rates using trot lines significantly declined …

Attitudes Of College Students In Relationship To Weight And Physical Activity, Emily N. Estes

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There is a limited amount of knowledge of the impact current and goal weights of college students have on their attitudes surrounding weight and physical activity.

OBJECTIVE: To examine weight/body image and physical activity attitudes of students and whether those attitudes correlate current and goal weights of students.

SETTING: The questionnaires utilized were completed between the years 2006-2011 at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln.

PARTICIPANTS: Male and female students from the University of Nebraska—Lincoln.

RESULTS: The mean BMI of all participants (n=2255) was 23.8 ± 4.1; for females (n=1403) 23.0 ± 4.0; and for males (n=852) 24.9 ± …

Nitrous Oxide Emissions From Smooth Bromegrass Pasture Under Nitrogen Fertilizer And Ruminant Urine Application In Eastern Nebraska, Laura K. Snell

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is a greenhouse gas primarily produced in soils by denitrifying and nitrifying organisms. Agricultural soils account for 70% of emissions in the United States, but little data is available for contributions from managed pasture ecosystems. This study focused on the production of N₂O in smooth bromegrass (Bromus inermis Leyss.) pastures established on silt loam soils in eastern Nebraska. Thirty smooth bromegrass plots (1.5m x 1.5m) were treated with five different fertilizer treatments (0, 45, 90, 135, and 180 kg N/ha) and two urine treatments (urine and no urine). Herbage sampling was taken …

Ecology And Invasive Properties Of Musk Thistle (Carduus Nutans) In The Central Prairies Of Nebraska, Chengchou Han

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Musk thistle (Carduus nutans) is an herbaceous monocarpic herb introduced to the U. S. from Eurasia. The invasion of musk thistle can reduce forage area, soil stability, and reduce recreation and open areas for humans and wildlife.

Resistance of warm season and cool season perennial grass communities to musk thistle invasion is important for land managers to consider, especially where disturbance has made an area particularly susceptible. Our results show that disturbances, such as overgrazing can open up niches in canopies of warm season grass communities and facilitate invasion but not in cool season grass communities. The mechanism …

The First Sinomastodon (Gomphotheriidae, Proboscidea) Skull From The Quaternary In China, Yuan Wang, Chang Zhu Jin, Cheng Long Deng, Guang Biao Wei, Ya Ling Yan

ETSU Faculty Works

The first Sinomastodon (Gomphotheriidae, Proboscidea) skull of the Early Pleistocene, collected from the Renzidong Cave deposits in Anhui Province, Eastern China, is described here as S. jiangnanensis sp. nov. As the only brevirostrine trilophodont gomphotheriid known from the Old World, Sinomastodon was mainly indigenous to China from the Early Pliocene to the Pleistocene. Compared with a few single Pleistocene teeth previously found in China, S. jiangnanensis sp. nov. is represented by a relatively complete skull, mandible and dentition, which is the first discovery of a Quaternary Sinomastodon skull from China. With a brevirostrine, elephant-like skull, no lower tusks, and simple …

The Effect Of Transformational Leadership In The Employee’S Motivation In The Organizations, Alia Jawad Mohammed

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

The transformational leaderships in all organizations considerMotivations policies which isone of the main and basic policies adapted by the successful leadershipsin all organizations, in order to be able to achieve essential goals, such as enhancing loyalty of employees towards their organizations and also developing and empowering their capacities and abilities in work, leading to development and increasing productivity and reducing production costs to the minimum, then reaching immense profits and benefits, in addition to development of excellence inthe market of competition. The research was performed in the (General Company of Leather Industries/ in Baghdad,in alkarada) the study reached to many …

Design Of A Pretreatment And Enzymatic Saccharification Scheme Of Understory From Managed Pine Forest For A Biochemical-Refinery Platform: The Example Of The Sweetgum Tree, Angele Djioleu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The possibility of using sweetgum from southern pine dominated forests as a biobased refinery feedstock was investigated. First, a baseline hydrolysis scheme for sweetgum wood and bark was designed. Sweetgum wood and bark were pretreated with 0.98% (v/v) sulfuric acid at 140°C for 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 min and at 160°C for 30, 40, 50 or 60 min. The water insoluble solid (WIS) fraction was hydrolyzed with a cellulase enzyme cocktail. Results showed that maximum xylose and glucose yields from the wood were 82 and 86%, respectively. Similarly, the respective maximum yields of xylose and glucose from the …

Living A Parallel Life: Memoirs And Research Of A Transnational Korean Adoptee, Mary C. Robinson

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

This thesis project consists of two parts: a memoir of my experience as a Korean adoptee, and a research paper examining how transracial, transnational adoption affects identity development in Korean adoptees. The memoir, as a first person narrative, gives voice to the research as one example of the findings. The majority of research on Korean adoptees has focused on levels of adjustment within a short time frame after adoptees’ placement in their adoptive homes. While the overwhelming majority of the prior research has declared positive and overall satisfactory adjustment for most adoptees, serious flaws exist in the methodologies that do …

The Relationship Between Perceptions Of School Climate And Student Achievement In Schools That Use Jostens' Renaissance Programs, Amy Yarborough Coyne

Dissertations

Each school has unique attributes and a personality that gives the school a distinct climate. Psychological qualities that schools possess might include trust, collaboration, cooperation, teaching attributes, expectations, community involvement, and engagement (Rhodes, Camic, Milburn, & Lowe, 2009). Given information regarding school climate, relationship needs, and motivation, the purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of teachers involved in change and improvement processes and to determine whether academic change was related to the use of programs such as Jostens’ Renaissance.

The participants of this study consisted of 242 faculty and staff from five public schools from three separate …

Panorama December 2012, Southern Adventist University

Panorama Parent Newsletter

This issue of the Panorama parent newsletter encourages students to stay active, provides information on Southern's QEP activity program, contains a profile on Professor Judy Sloan, and highlights the SOAP program.

Neuronal Protection By A Variant Of Gapdh Pseudogene P44 In Ad, Sara O. Mason, Christopher S. Theisen, Norbert W. Seidler

Faculty and Staff Publications

GAPDH is a conserved enzyme that binds diverse proteins, such as Siah during apoptotic nuclear translocation. There is one somatic GAPDH gene, but over 60 pseudogenes, the expression of which is nebulous. A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the GAPDHP44 pseudogene exhibits a beneficial allele in AD. The objective of this study was to examine the P44 gene and to propose a mechanism for the putative protein and its impact on AD. We examined the sequences in the putative coding region of the human GAPDHP44 gene and the upstream genetic elements using a bioinformatics approach. We compared the amino acid …

Semi-Supervised Heterogeneous Evolutionary Co-Clustering, Pankaj Andhale

Theses

One of the challenges of the machine learning problem is the absence of sufficient number of labeled instances or training instances. At the same time generating labeled data is expensive and time consuming. The semi-supervised approach has shown promising results to solve the problem of insufficient or fewer labeled instance datasets. The key challenge is incorporating the semi-supervised knowledge into the heterogeneous data which is evolving in nature. Most of the prior work that uses semi-supervised knowledge has been performed on heterogeneous static data. The semi-supervised knowledge is incorporated into data which aid the clustering algorithm to obtain better clusters. …

Zheng Classification In Traditional Chinese Medicine Based On Modified Specular-Free Tongue Images, Ratchadaporn Kanawong, Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi, Jun Yu, Dong Xu, Shao Li, Ye Duan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners usually observe the color and coating of a patient's tongue to determine ZHENG (such as Cold or Hot ZHENG) and to diagnose different stomach disorders including gastritis. In our previous work, we explored new modalities for clinical characterization of ZHENG in gastritis patients via tongue image analysis using various supervised machine-learning algorithms. We proposed a system that learns from the clinical practitioner's subjective data how to classify a patients health status by extracting meaningful features from tongue images based on color-space models. In this paper, we propose an enhancement to the ZHENG classification system: a coating …

Alternate Copies Of D1 Are Used By Cyanobacteria Under Different Environmental Conditions., Xiaohui Zhang, Louis A. Sherman

Department of Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

All cyanobacteria sequenced to date have multiple psbA genes, encoding the D1 protein. Some of these psbA genes have a series of mutations that would seem to render D1 incapable of binding the Mn4CaO5 metallocluster (Murray, Photosynth Res 110(3):177–184, 2012). Nonetheless, these genes are expressed under specific environmental conditions, such as during N2 fixation in unicellular diazotrophs of the genes Cyanothece. These genes emphasize the clever way that cyanobacteria have learned to deal with a constantly changing environment.

Sci-Tech Book News Reviews, Susan Fingerman

Sci-Tech News

The following section consists of 100 book reviews selected from Reference and Research Book News, reprinted with the permission of Book News Inc. This review journal is published six times a year, each issue reviewing thousands of new titles in all disciplines. For a sample issue and subscription information, contact Book News Inc at [email protected] or (503)281-9230.

Full Issue: Vol. 66, No. 4

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

Molecular Surveillance Of Low Pathogenic Avian Influenza Viruses In Wild Birds Across The United States: Inferences From The Hemagglutinin Gene, Antoinette J. Piaggio, Susan A. Shriner, Kaci K. Vandalen, Alan B. Franklin, Theodore D. Anderson, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

A United States interagency avian influenza surveillance plan was initiated in 2006 for early detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses (HPAIV) in wild birds. The plan included a variety of wild bird sampling strategies including the testing of fecal samples from aquatic areas throughout the United States from April 2006 through December 2007. Although HPAIV was not detected through this surveillance effort we were able to obtain 759 fecal samples that were positive for low pathogenic avian influenza virus (LPAIV). We used 136 DNA sequences obtained from these samples along with samples from a public influenza sequence database for …

Long-Term Integrated Studies Show Complex And Surprising Effects Of Climate Change In The Northern Hardwood Forest, Peter M. Groffman, Lindsay E. Rustad, Pamela H. Templer, John L. Campbell, Lynn M. Christenson, Nina K. Lany, Anne M. Socci, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur, Paul G. Schaberg, Geoffrey W. Wilson, Charles T. Driscoll, Timothy J. Fahey, Melany C. Fisk, Christine L. Goodale, Mark B. Green, Steven P. Hamburg, Chris E. Johnson, Mryon J. Mitchell, Jennifer L. Morse, Linda H. Pardo, Nicholas L. Rodenhouse

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

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 …

A Novel High Yield Process For Gold Sulfide Nanoparticle Synthesis Via Shifting Equilibrium Of Self-Assembly Reaction., Dhruvinkumar Patel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have attracted enormous attention in the field of nanotechnology for applications such as, immunoassay, drug delivery, contrast enhancement and tumor therapy. The typical range of gold nanoparticles varies from 1– 150 nm; there are many different subtypes of AuNPs mainly based on size, shape, and optical properties including: gold nanospheres, nanorods, nanocages, and nanoshells. The main advantage of using gold nanoparticles is the large surface-to-volume ratio; this will allow the particles to be functionalized with drugs and/or targeting agents to create many novel applications. Many AuNPs have another advantage as well, they can be fabricated to either …

News From Hope College, Volume 44.3: December, 2012, Hope College

News from Hope College

No abstract provided.

Full Page Ads

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

From The Reference Desk-Reviews Of Reference Titles, Tom Gilson

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Booklover-Poland, Donna Jacobs

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Indexing And Indices: An Essential Component Of Information Discovery, Donald T. Hawkins

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Library Marketplace-Interview With Norman Desmarais, Professor Emeritus, Providence College, John D. Riley

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Synthesis And Luminescence Properties Of Core-Shell Structured (Lanthanum(1-X)Europium(X))(2)Zirconium Heptoxid[At]Yttrium Orthoborate Spherical Nanoparticles, Suresh Babu Alaparthi

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Many rare earth compounds have photoluminescent characteristics for various important applications. In this study, europium doped La2Zr2O7 nanoparticles were first synthesized morphology-controllably by using a molten-salt synthesis method. These nanoparticles were used as the core for coating with YBO3 shell. We then explored the effect of different experimental processing parameters, such as annealing temperatures, reaction times and different ratios of salt mixtures on the structure and morphology of these nanoparticles. The overall core size and shell thickness can be controlled by varying the reactant concentration both the core and shell material. These core@shell nanoparticles were then characterized mainly using power …

Improving The Mechanical Properties Of Polymers By Adding Self-Healing Capabilities, Alma Perez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The addition of self-healing capabilities to polymers through the dispersion of First Generation Grubbs’ Catalyst (FGGC) and poly(urea-formaldehyde) (PUF) microcapsules filled with dicyclopentadiene (DCPD) as the healing agent, has been investigated by various experimental techniques such as Optical microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Tensile tests, Raman Spectroscopy, and Themogravimmetric Analysis (TGA). Optical and Scanning Electron Microscopy revealed the morphology of the surface of the PUF microcapsules, the diameter size distribution and the thickness of the shell, and their structure when dispersed in the polymeric matrices. Photos taken after the tensile test showed broken microcapsules on both polymer matrices having released the …

Human Papillomavirus, Vaccines, And Protection From Cervical Cancer, Sadiman K. Altinbas, Omer L. Tapisiz

Saudi Medical Journal

Current published data makes clear the relationship between genital human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical cancer. Although there is an opportunity for screening programs that could obviate the disease, cervical cancer still remains the second most common cancer among women worldwide. The subtypes HPV 16 and 18 affect the anogenital tract mucosal surfaces, and accounts for nearly 70% of all cervical cancers, and 90% or more of anal cancer cases. When the 493,000 new cases of cervical cancer and 274,000 deaths per year are taken into consideration, the importance of treatment and prophylaxis modalities for HPV can clearly be recognized. …