Digital Commons Network^™

Influence Of Cholesterol And Bilayer Asymmetry On Membrane Protein Distribution In Polymer-Tethered Raft-Mimicking Lipid Membranes, Noor Fueza Hussain

Open Access Dissertations

It is now widely recognized that lipid rafts, which are membrane domains enriched in cholesterol (CHOL) and sphingolipids (SL), play a significant functional role in the plasma membrane. Raft domains particularly affect membrane functionality by causing sequestering of membrane proteins. Underlying mechanisms of raft-associated membrane protein sequestration remain elusive, due to the complexity, transient nature, and small size of raft domains in cellular membranes. To address these challenges, this dissertation unveils the relationship between lipid raft composition and membrane protein sequestration and function using raft-mimicking model membrane mixtures comprised of coexisting liquid-ordered (lo) and liquid-disordered (ld) domains with reconstituted membrane …

Development Of A Field-Portable Miniature Mass Spectrometer Designed For In-Situ Analysis And Ion Trap Miniaturization, Paul Isaac Hendricks

Open Access Dissertations

Chemical analysis by mass spectrometry has become the gold standard due to the sensitivity, selectivity, and short analysis times that are afforded by the method. Advances in miniaturized vacuum systems, mass analyzers, electronics, and ionization sources have allowed for the development of field-portable mass spectrometers. The performance of portable instruments has received much attention for their utility in the detection of illicit drugs, explosives, environmental contaminants, therapeutic drugs, and more recently, biological tissues. Furthermore, detection of the aforementioned compounds can be completed at atmospheric pressures and in the presence of complex matrices and sample surfaces when used in conjunction with …

Reasoning Across Language And Vision In Machines And Humans, Andrei Barbu

Open Access Dissertations

Humans not only outperform AI and computer-vision systems, but use an unknown computational mechanism to perform tasks for which no suitable approaches exist. I present work investigating both novel tasks and how humans approach them in the context of computer vision and linguistics. I demonstrate a system which, like children, acquires high-level linguistic knowledge about the world. Robots learn to play physically-instantiated board games and use that knowledge to engage in physical play. To further integrate language and vision I develop an approach which produces rich sentential descriptions of events depicted in videos. I then show how to simultaneously detect …

The Impact Of Big Data On The Healthcare Information Systems, Kuo Lane Chen, Huei Lee

Transactions of the International Conference on Health Information Technology Advancement

This article explores the possible impact of big data on healthcare information systems. Possible research issues include: 1). What applications in healthcare information systems are impacted most? 2). What algorithm/programs will be used for big data? 3). What privacy, security, and ethical issues are there for big data? In the biology area, big data becomes the newest technology for genomics. Other possible areas include pharmacovigilance, patient care, and medical supply chain management.

Ua64 Cebs Magazine: The College Of Education And Behavioral Sciences At Wku, Charles S. Evans Dean, Pam Pierce, Editor-In-Chief, Wku College Of Education & Behavioral Sciences

College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Publications

No abstract provided.

U.S. Drought Monitor, October 1, 2013, David Miskus

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for October 1, 2013 (10/1/13) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Digital Fluency : Skills Necessary For Learning In The Digital Age, Gerald K. White

Digital learning research

This article examines the skills that will be required for the 21st century that will need to be embedded in educational curricula in order achieve them. It begins by considering how communicating between people has changed and current educational responses. A view of 21st century skills follows with an argument for some core subjects that will be necessary. Learning and teaching are then discussed leading to a view about what is needed in order to develop digital fluency in education, for now and the future.

Prism #74, October 2013, Office Of The Provost

Prism: Western Michigan University's Newsletter for Academic Affairs

No abstract provided.

For King And Country: The Hobbit And The Great War, Ryan Chiu '14

2013 Fall Semester

British professor and author J.R.R. Tolkien is widely distinguished for his literary works that reshaped the fantasy genre, including The Hobbit, which serves as the prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While writing The Hobbit, Tolkien frequently attempted to incorporate aspects of his personal life, particularly the experiences he encountered in his service during the First World War. He represents these events vicariously through the eyes of the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, and his quest through Middle Earth. According to fantasy literature scholar Michael N. Stanton in his book Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards, “[readers] can go back and see …

College Of Arts And Sciences E-News Issue 6: October 2013, College Of Arts And Sciences

College of Arts and Sciences news

No abstract provided.

The Graduate Standard - Vol. 2, No. 1, Western Michigan University

Graduate College news

• Dean's Message
• Amanda Shuman
• Marcus Johnson
• 2013 Graduate Ambassadors
• 2013 Graduate Fall Welcome
• Linda Comrie
• Professional Email Etiquette in 12 Easy Steps

“I Had Never Really Made Sense Of That Before”: Constructing Mathematical Content Knowledge And Teaching Through Story Telling, Sara Mccormick Davis, Gabriel T. Matney

School of Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

How do teacher educators in two different fields help pre-service teachers bridge content and pedagogical knowledge? This paper explores the experience of using story-telling over two courses that are required in an early childhood teacher education program. The authors, from two different colleges, used reflection prompted by story-telling to collaboratively support the construction of content knowledge in both a math content class and in a math methods class. Students were able to reflect on their own math content knowledge by telling and retelling their understanding of math knowledge construction and that of children they worked with over the semester.

Table Of Contents

Madison Magazine

No abstract provided.

Weeds, Evelyn I. Funda

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

In Thomas Jefferson’s day, 90 percent of the population worked on family farms. Today, in a world dominated by agribusiness, less than 1 percent of Americans claim farm-related occupations. What was lost along the way is something that Evelyn I. Funda experienced firsthand when, in 2001, her parents sold the last parcel of the farm they had worked since they married in 1957. Against that landscape of loss, Funda explores her family’s three-generation farming experience in southern Idaho, where her Czech immigrant family spent their lives turning a patch of sagebrush into crop land.

The story of Funda’s family unfolds …

Attending To The Act Of Reading: Critical Reading, Contemplative Reading, And Active Reading, Paul T. Corrigan

Selected Faculty Publications

How students read influences how they learn. In particular, in order for students to learn to read more deeply or on a /oig/oer level, they need to learn to read actively. While many scholars and teachers appear to take active reading for granted, possibly assuming students will come into such “study skills” on their own, I propose that we should make concerted efforts to help students understand and adopt such habits as underlining, writing comments in the margins, asking questions, rereading, and so forth. In this essay, I survey recent work on critical reading, contemplative reading, and active reading and …

Question Order Effects On A General Chemistry Concept Inventory, Travis Lund

Discipline-Based Education Research Group Speaker Series

During the development of a general chemistry concept survey, interviews demonstrated that students used distinctly different problem‐solving strategies to answer two survey questions, one verbally‐based and one pictorially‐based, despite the fact that the questions were both designed to test the same concept of strong versus weak acids. Alternate versions of the concept survey were administered, with the order of the pictorial and verbal questions reversed. A significant ordering effect was observed in the questions of interest, and the incorrect answer choices that became better or worse distractors were identified. Current findings, future directions, and practical implications for instructors and researchers …

Community, Home, And School Partnerships: A Critical Issue In Bilingual Education, Claudia Peralta

Literacy, Language and Culture Faculty Publications and Presentations

How can we help educators realize the wealth and relevancy that culturally and linguistically diverse families and students bring into the schools? Preparing teachers to effectively teach across socioeconomic, cultural, linguistic, and gender differences is complicated by a lack of familiarity with or valuing of the cultures, learning styles, and communication patterns of diverse groups (Bohn & Sleeter, 2000). Today, however, 84% of teachers are white (Feistritzer, 2011), despite serving 74 million children in the United States (defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as those under 18 years of age), of which 59% are White; 19% Hispanic, 15%; Black, 4%; …

An Augmented Lsqr Method, James Baglama, L. Reichel, D. Richmond

Mathematics Faculty Publications

The LSQR iterative method for solving least-squares problems may require many iterations to determine an approximate solution with desired accuracy. This often depends on the fact that singular vector components of the solution associated with small singular values of the matrix require many iterations to be determined. Augmentation of Krylov subspaces with harmonic Ritz vectors often makes it possible to determine the singular vectors associated with small singular values with fewer iterations than without augmentation. This paper describes how Krylov subspaces generated by the LSQR iterative method can be conveniently augmented with harmonic Ritz vectors. Computed examples illustrate the competitiveness …

Directions - Fall 2013, Mervyn H. Sterne Library

Directions (Sterne Library, 1985-2015)

No abstract provided.

"The Heartbeat Of Spiritan Education In The United States", Jeff Duaime C.S.Sp.

Spiritan Horizons

No abstract provided.

Slow Potentials Of The Sensorimotor Cortex During Rhythmic Movements Of The Ankle, Ryan J. Mckindles

Dissertations (1934 -)

The objective of this dissertation was to more fully understand the role of the human brain in the production of lower extremity rhythmic movements. Throughout the last century, evidence from animal models has demonstrated that spinal reflexes and networks alone are sufficient to propagate ambulation. However, observations after neural trauma, such as a spinal cord injury, demonstrate that humans require supraspinal drive to facilitate locomotion. To investigate the unique nature of lower extremity rhythmic movements, electroencephalography was used to record neural signals from the sensorimotor cortex during three cyclic ankle movement experiments. First, we characterized the differences in slow movement-related …

Math-Qbi Colloquium Dynamical Architectures For Controlling Feeding In Aplysia Californica, Oct 23, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

Iowa Academy Of Science: The New Bulletin, V09n2, Fall 2013, Iowa Academy Of Science

New Bulletin

Inside This Issue:

--Message from the Executive Director

--ICTM-ISTS Math Science Fall Conference

--Next Generation Science Standards Updates

--Academy to Host NGSS Alignment Workshop

--Abstract Submission Deadline

--All Puns Intended: New Facilitators Dive into Project WET

--Iowa Science Foundation

--Recognizing Excellence

--Events and Deadlines

--New Excellence in Science Teaching Award

Acquisition Of An Electrochemical System Instrument For The Development Of Sensors, Elmer-Rico E. Mojico

Cornerstone 1 Reports : Expansion and Enhancements of the Thinkfinity Platform

No abstract provided.

Interactive Whiteboards And Computerized Assistance In Chemistry, Rita K. Upmacis, Elmer-Rico E. Mojico, Canan Karaalioglu

Cornerstone 3 Reports : Interdisciplinary Informatics

No abstract provided.

Estimation Of Variation For High-Throughput Molecular Biological Experiments With Small Sample Size, Danni Yu

Open Access Dissertations

Motivation: In the quantification of molecular components, a large variation can affect and even potentially mislead the biological conclusions. Meanwhile, the high-throughput experiments often involve a small number of samples due to the limitation of cost and time. In such cases, the stochastic information may dominate the outcome of an experiment because there may not be enough samples to present the true biological information. It is challenging to distinguish the changes in phenotype from the stochastic variation.

Methods: Since the biological molecules have been quantified with different technologies, different statistical methods are required. Focusing on three types of important high-throughput …

The Role Of Resource Predictability In The Metapopulation Dynamics Of Insects, Byju Nambidiyattil Govindan

Open Access Dissertations

The metapopulation paradigm has emerged as an important tool to understand the dynamics of species living in fragmented landscapes. In this dissertation, I investigate the unpredictable nature of resource availability for species living in human-dominated heterogeneous and dynamic landscapes in the context of its consequences for long-term regional persistence of species. In particular, I test theoretical advancements in metapopulation ecology following a two-pronged approach - via experiments in the lab and observations in the field - using insects. In chapter 1, I introduce the concept of metapopulation ecology in the context of its relevance for dynamics of species living in …

The Conflict Between Materialism And Idealism, Tina Zhang '16

2013 Fall Semester

In The Sea Wolf by Jack London, Humphrey Van Weyden is an American upper class gentleman on a ferry-steamer, but a collision almost drowns him in the sea. He is rescued by Wolf Larsen, the captain of a seal-hunting schooner named the Ghost. Forced to serve Wolf, Humphrey witnesses how Wolf treats his crew carelessly, for the Captain believes in Materialism, where life is only matter and has no value to others. Humphrey, on the other hand, argues for Idealism, the belief in spiritual values that transcend life such as love and honor. Although Wolf initially dominates the weak …

Deconstructed Gender Norms In Princess Mononoke, Karen Olowu '14

2013 Fall Semester

I’ve loved anime ever since I was a little kid. I remember staying up late every Friday night to watch Toonami with my older brother. However as I’ve grown up, I’ve begun to resent the one sided femininity displayed by the majority of female anime characters. Anime is notorious for its stereotypical portrayal of female characters. Girls are usually naive and wide eyed, rushing stupidly into trouble only for the brave hero to pull them out of it. My frustration with carbon copy female heroines had gotten to the point that I considered putting my love for anime to rest. …

To Be A Friend: An Analysis Of Phineas’ Character, Joy Qiu '16

2013 Fall Semester

19^th century poet Ralph Waldo Emerson famously observed that "the only way to have a friend is to be one." His statement suggests that friendship is a two-way street, requiring contributions and sacrifices from all members to qualify as a genuine bond. However, in A Separate Peace, by John Knowles, the relationship between Gene and Phineas demonstrates that Emerson’s definition does not always hold true. As each boy struggles with his own inner turmoil and sense of identity on the brink of World War II, their friendship becomes unstable and incredibly one-sided – Gene constantly questions Phineas’ motives, …