Digital Commons Network^™

Analytic Programming With Fmri Data: A Quick-Start Guide For Statisticians Using R, Ani Eloyan, Shanshan Li, John Muschelli, Jim Pekar, Stewart Mostofsky, Brian S. Caffo

Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a thriving field that plays an important role in medical imaging analysis, biological and neuroscience research and practice. This manuscript gives a didactic introduction to the statistical analysis of fMRI data using the R project along with the relevant R code. The goal is to give tatisticians who would like to pursue research in this area a quick start for programming with fMRI data along with the available data visualization tools.

Stress- And Sex-Related Differences In The Activation Of Neuronal Subtypes In The Basolateral Amygdala Of The Rat, Alejandra E. Lopez, Christina C. Ruiz, Juan M. Bolanos, Jameel N. Hamdan, Kristin Gosselink

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Summer 2012

Previous studies suggest that stress alters the activational profiles among phenotypically-distinct subpopulations of neurons within the basolateral amygdala (BLA) of the rat. Given the connectivity of this region of the brain to the hippocampus, and the implications of the role of the BLA in modulating long-term potentiation associated with memory and learning, inferences of stress having a negative impact on cognition and memory can be drawn. Observations regarding stress response disparities between males and females in our model prompted the investigation of the role gender plays in cognition under conditions of stress, as well as the responses to stress itself. …

Does Information Technology Increase The Division Between Rich And Poor?, Dennis Shaw

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The division between rich and poor countries manifests itself in a variety of ways. With regard to libraries and information services, it is usually illustrated by the paucity of funds to acquire current monographs and periodicals. The Third World Academy of Sciences has initiated the latest effort to reduce the literature shortage in the libraries of universities and colleges. It is not yet known how successful this initiative has been. The theme of this paper is the extent to which the development of the new information technologies has affected this division between well-resourced and poorly-resourced libraries. The data presented here …

Artificial Intelligence In Information Services: Revolution Or Survival?, John A. Mess

Proceedings of the IATUL Conferences

The evolution of society places a growing demand on access to information. Libraries have been pivotal in shaping society by providing this access, but now that role has been altered by information dynamics and knowledge economics. The rapid advances in computer technology and software design, especially in artificial intelligence, have shifted libraries to a "demand" economy. Unless libraries begin exploiting the technologies and innovate manage information and knowledge, they may face obsolescence in the 21st century.

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, College Of Science, July 13, 2012, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

The Departments of Geology and Watershed Sciences at Utah State University both seek to add a “Geomorphology & Earth Surface Processes” specialization to their respective MS and PhD degrees in Geology and Watershed Science.

07/13/2012 Obituary Records, Hawaii Obituaries

Obituaries

List of Obituaries for individuals who passed away on 07/13/2012. Scroll down to see the names and obituary description.

Ap Teachers Spend The Week On Campus Honing Skills, July 13, 2012, Tom Scherberger

USF St. Petersburg Campus News and Press Releases

No abstract provided.

Educational Policies Committee Program Proposal, College Of Natural Resources, July 13, 2012 - Specialization In Geomorphology & Earth Surface Processes, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

The Departments of Geology and Watershed Sciences at Utah State University both seek to add a “Geomorphology & Earth Surface Processes” specialization to their respective MS and PhD degrees in Geology and Watershed Science. No instructional activities will be impacted, as courses to be used for the requested specialization are already offered.

Murray Ledger And Times, July 13, 2012, Murray Ledger And Times

The Murray Ledger & Times

No abstract provided.

Seeing Clearly

News Releases

No abstract provided.

Mitigating Ros Induced Neurodegenerative Pathogenesis Through Polyphenolic Phytochemicals, Brittany N. Talamantes, Parijat Kabiraj, Mahesh Naryan

COURI Symposium Abstracts, Summer 2012

The United States accounts for 16% of all Alzheimer’s disease (AD) cases. The margin of elderly population increasing, due to the baby boomer generation, also contributes greatly to the increase in neurodegenerative diseases. This rise in neurodegenerative disease highlights the importance of research and its potential ability to alleviate financial health burdens as well creating protection for younger generations. Cell lines, PC12 and SHSY-5Y chosen as Parkinsonian and Alzheimer’s models because of their ability to release dopamine were treated with the phytochemical ellagic acid, and analyzed to view its protective capabilities against reactive oxidative stress (ROS). ROS was induced by …

Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Employment Discrimination As A Means For Social Cleansing, E. Gary Spitko

Faculty Publications

In December 2010, President Barack Obama signed into law the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010,” which provided for repeal of the policy prohibiting gay people from serving openly in the military, after consideration of a Department of Defense review on the implementation of such a repeal. This article examines the history of the exclusion of openly gay people from military service in the United States from the early twentieth century up until the time of the repeal. The author concludes from this review that the dominant purpose of the military’s exclusion of openly gay people was to …

Multivoxel Patterns In Face-Sensitive Temporal Regions Reveal An Encoding Schema Based On Detecting Life In A Face, Christine E. Looser, Jyothi S. Guntupalli, Thalia Wheatley

Dartmouth Scholarship

More than a decade of research has demonstrated that faces evoke prioritized processing in a ‘core face network’ of three brain regions. However, whether these regions prioritize the detection of global facial form (shared by humans and mannequins) or the detection of life in a face has remained unclear. Here, we dissociate form-based and animacy-based encoding of faces by using animate and inanimate faces with human form (humans, mannequins) and dog form (real dogs, toy dogs). We used multivariate pattern analysis of BOLD responses to uncover the representational similarity space for each area in the core face network. Here, we …

Defending The Role Of Unconscious Intentions: A Response To Wegner, Hannah Bondurant

Theses

Cognitive science has recently supported and popularized the idea that perhaps free will is but an illusion. With his theory of apparent mental causation, Daniel M. Wegner in particular proposes that our beliefs about intention and the control we exert over our actions are actually based upon other factors and usually occur retroactively. Since many of our actions are determined and preformed outside of awareness, the cause of said actions could then be difficult to locate. Part of Wegner’s argument lies in his assumption of brain activity and corresponding behavior as conscious and “controlled” or outside of awareness and unintended. …

Social Status Differences In Hostile Attribution Biases And Reactive Aggression, James Davis

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

A person's standing within a social hierarchy can have a pervasive influence on patterns of attribution,especially when presented with an ambiguous social provocation. Those with low social status are devalued by society and this sense of threatened social worth motivates social vigilance and influences patterns of social cognition and behavior. Integrating Attribution Theory (e.g., Heider 1958; Weiner, 1986} with predictions of Social Information Processing Theory (SIP;Crick & Dodge, 1994; Dodge & Pettit, 2003) and Stigma Compensation Theory (STC; Henry, 2009; 2011), this research suggests the possibility that status-based differences in hostile attributions and reactive aggression are mediated by threatened social …

Pupil Size As A Physiological Correlate For Facilitatory And Inhibitory Effects In Masked Priming, Jason Geller

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Two studies examined the effects of word (study 1) and nonword (study 2) primes in word recognition, utilizing a masked priming procedure (Forster & Davis, 1984). The primary objective of both studies was to replicate the results obtained by Davis and Lupker (2006)—that is, inhibition from related word primes and facilitation for nonword primes—using a common dependent measure, reaction time, and a measure not yet utilized in the word recognition literature—pupil dilation. Study 1 found nominal evidence corroborating the inhibitory nature of word primes. In the RTs analysis, only word frequency effects arose. Further, pupil dilation analysis did not show …

Evaluating The Performance Of Computational Approaches For Identifying Critical Sites In Protein-Coding Dna Sequences, Matthew Lewis Bendall

Theses and Dissertations

The ability to link a particular phenotype to its causative genotype is one of the most challenging objectives for biological research. Although the genetic code provides an explicit formula for determining the sequence of amino acid phenotypes produced by a given nucleotide sequence, identifying specific residues that are functionally important remains problematic. Many computational approaches have been developed that use patterns observed in DNA sequences to identify these critical sites. However, very few research studies have used empirical data to test whether these approaches are truly able to identify sites of interest.In most empirical studies, the actual protein function and …

Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy Study Of Protein Transport And Dynamic Interactions With Clustered-Charge Peptide Adsorbents, Lydia Kisley

Faculty Scholarship

Ion-exchange chromatography relies on electrostatic interactions between the adsorbent and the adsorbate and is used extensively in protein purification. Conventional ion-exchange chromatography uses ligands that are singly charged and randomly dispersed over the adsorbent, creating a heterogeneous distribution of potential adsorption sites. Clustered-charge ion exchangers exhibit higher affinity, capacity, and selectivity than their dispersed-charge counterparts of the same total charge density. In the present work, we monitored the transport behavior of an anionic protein near clustered-charge adsorbent surfaces using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy. We can resolve protein-free diffusion, hindered diffusion, and association with bare glass, agarose-coated, and agarose-clustered peptide surfaces, demonstrating …

The Ccl2 Synthesis Inhibitor Bindarit Targets Cells Of The Neurovascular Unit, And Suppresses Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis, Shujun Ge, Bandana Shrestha, Debayon Paul, Robert E. Cone, Joel S. Pachter

UCHC Articles - Research

Background

Production of the chemokine CCL2 by cells of the neurovascular unit (NVU) drives critical aspects of neuroinflammation. Suppression of CCL2 therefore holds promise in treating neuroinflammatory disease. Accordingly, we sought to determine if the compound bindarit, which inhibits CCL2 synthesis, could repress the three NVU sources of CCL2 most commonly reported in neuroinflammation – astrocytes, microglia and brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMEC) – as well as modify the clinical course of neuroinflammatory disease.

Methods

The effect of bindarit on CCL2 expression by cultured murine astrocytes, microglia and BMEC was examined by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRTPCR). Bindarit …

Agenda: Drafting Model Laws On Indoor Pollution For Developing And Developed Nations, University Of Colorado Boulder. Center For Energy & Environmental Security, Colorado Natural Resources, Energy And Environmental Law Review

Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations (July 12-13)

On July 12 and 13, 2012, experts convened at Colorado Law to demonstrate the extent to which a model law could help address the global problem of indoor air pollution from inefficient cook stoves. The air pollution that results from inefficiently burning biomass as fuel for cooking has serious health and climatic consequences. The workshop produced two sets of Model Laws and commentaries to help nations solve the problem, and the commentaries were published in the Colorado Natural Resources, Energy, and Environmental Law Review.

Drafting Model Laws On Indoor Pollution For Developing And Developed Nations Workshop, July 12-13, 2012, Boulder, Colorado: Introduction, Lakshman Guruswamy

Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations (July 12-13)

11 pages.

"This Essay introduces the framework for deliberation and legislative drafting undertaken at the workshop: Drafting Model Laws on Indoor Pollution for Developing and Developed Nations on July 12-13, 2012, in Boulder, Colorado. There are a number of fundamental premises upon which the workshop was based, and this Essay refers to the most salient among them."-- Excerpted from 24 Colo. Nat. Resources, Energy & Envtl. L. Rev. 319 (2013).

Macalester Permanently Protects Open Space Along The Mississippi River, Macalester College

College Press Releases

No abstract provided.

Development Of Humanized Monoclonal Antibody By Logical Approach: Characterization, Functional Studies In Vitro And Immunogenicity Studies In Vivo In Non-Human Primates, S.H. Cheah, S. Dharshanan, H. Chong, Z. Zamrod

Research Publications (2011 to 2015)

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are widely used due to their exquisite specificity and once were hailed as the solution to cancer. However, when mouse mAbs are administered in humans, anti-antibody response (AAR) is frequently observed. Using humanized mAbs which are commonly developed by CDR-grafting method, the AAR is negligible, but loss of binding has also been consistently reported. Therefore, in an effort to produce humanized anti-C2 mAbs that retain binding properties but produce minimal AAR, humanized mAb has been developed by logical approach using IgBLAST. The purity and functionality of humanized mAb was confirmed by Sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis …

The Parthenon, July 12, 2012, Shane Arrington

The Parthenon

The Parthenon, Marshall University’s student newspaper, is published by students Monday through Friday during the regular semester and weekly Thursday during the summer. The editorial staff is responsible for the news and the editorial content.

New Scanning Electron Microscope Adds To Uab's Research, Teaching Arsenal, Tyler Greer

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Daily Eastern News: July 12, 2012, Eastern Illinois University

July

No abstract provided.

Genome Sequence Of The Mesophilic Thermotogales Bacterium Mesotoga Prima Mesg1.Ag.4.2 Reveals The Largest Thermotogales Genome To Date, Olga Zhaxybayeva, Kristen S. Swithers, Julia Foght, Anna G. Green, David Bruce, Chris Detter, Shunsheng Han, Hazuki Teshima, James Han, Tanja Woyke, Sam Pitluck, Matt Nolan, Natalia Ivanova, Amrita Pati, Miriam L. Land, Marlena Dlutek, W Ford Doolittle, Kenneth M. Noll, Camilla L. Nesbo

Dartmouth Scholarship

Here we describe the genome of Mesotoga prima MesG1.Ag4.2, the first genome of a mesophilic Thermotogales bacterium. Mesotoga prima was isolated from a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-dechlorinating enrichment culture from Baltimore Harbor sediments. Its 2.97 Mb genome is considerably larger than any previously sequenced Thermotogales genomes, which range between 1.86 and 2.30 Mb. This larger size is due to both higher numbers of protein-coding genes and larger intergenic regions. In particular, the M. prima genome contains more genes for proteins involved in regulatory functions, for instance those involved in regulation of transcription. Together with its closest relative, Kosmotoga olearia, it …

Cotton/Soybean Insect Newsletter, July 12, 2012, Jeremy K. Greene

Clemson University Cotton/Soybean Insect Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Nonprofit Ethos And Identity: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals' Websites, Jessica Marie Kokinos-Havel

Theses and Dissertations

Research in the field of nonprofit studies tells us that nonprofit organizations have the inherent ability to provide communities with a distinctive kind of social capital in the form of collective identity and group participation. This identity function is one of the defining characteristics of the nonprofit sector. This study involves a rhetorical analysis of four websites maintained by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Each website (PETA.org, PETA Prime, peta2, and PETAKiDS) is aimed at reaching different age groups. This provides us with a unique rhetorical perspective into how the ethos of a nonprofit organization can …

Foraging And Digestive Energetics In Montane And Lowland Salamanders, Cody Lund Barnes

Theses and Dissertations

Thermal physiology substantially limits the distributions of organisms across landscapes. Specifically, the thermal sensitivity of foraging and digestive energetics influence the quantity of energy available for allocating to specific life functions. I hypothesized that foraging and Specific Dynamic Action (SDA) performances would differ between montane endemic and lowland salamander species. I found that foraging energetics differed between the montane endemics, Plethodon ouachitae and P. caddoensis, in comparison to the lowland P. albagula. Differences in foraging energetics were particularly pronounced at the warmest temperature and the montane endemics were more thermally sensitive, suggesting that constraints in foraging energetics influence the elevational …