Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Malintent On Visual Attention, David Brian Wallace

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Malintent is a relatively unexplored phenomenon, despite the practical and theoretical interest in its detection. The four studies presented here, informed by the Guilty Knowledge Test and Guided Search model of visual attention, illustrate how eye tracking can (and cannot) be utilized to detect malicious intent. Malintent, induced in two different mock crime paradigms (murder; theft), boosted the frequency and duration of fixations that fell upon objects relevant to their task. The size of the malintent effect ranged from moderate (fixation duration) to large (fixation frequency). The increased visual attention given to task-relevant objects was not unique to malintent; benign …

An Experimental Investigation Into The Mechanisms Of Bacterial Evolution, Zhenmao Wan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis studies the two fundamental mechanisms of bacterial evolution — horizontal gene transfer and spontaneous mutation, in the bacterium Escherichia coli through novel experimental assays and mathematical simulations. First, I will develop a growth assay utilizing the quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) to provide real-time enumeration of genetic marker abundance within bacterial populations. Second, I will focus on horizontal gene transfer in E. coli occurring through a process called conjugation. By fitting the qPCR data to a resource limited, logistic growth model, I will obtain estimated values of several key parameters governing the dynamics of DNA transfer through conjugation …

Numerical Study Of Canopy Flows In Complex Terrain, Xiyan Xu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Canopy flow plays a substantial role in regulating atmosphere-biosphere exchanges of mass and energy. The worldwide FLUXNET has been developed to quantify the net ecosystem exchange of mass and energy through fluid dynamics in and above vegetation canopy using tower-based eddy covariance (EC) technique. However, EC measurements are subject to advection errors in complex terrain, particularly during nights when atmospheric stability is strong. Because EC measurements are one-dimensional (1D), three-dimensional (3D) air movement, CO2 transport, and temperature variation around the instrumented tower are unknown. We employ a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model to investigate the impact on CO2 transport of …

Acts Of Belonging: Perceptions Of Citizenship Among Queer Turkish Women In Germany, Ilgin Yorukoglu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines how people who have multiple identifications develop a sense of belonging. It focuses on those with politicized, romanticized, and stigmatized identifications which are assumed to be in conflict with one another. My particular case is that of "queer" women of Turkish descent in Germany with Berlin as my main study site.

These people embody what is considered to be an oxymoron: being queer yet also Turkish, being a lesbian yet having a Muslim background, being of immigrant origin yet also German. In short, they are between all worlds and thus, seemingly, do not belong anywhere. Their ambiguous …

Mechanisms Of Deadenylation Regulation Under Different Cellular Conditions, Xiaokan Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Control of gene expression by regulating mRNA stability after DNA damage has the potential to contribute to the cells rapid response to stress. The main focus of this dissertation is to elucidate the role(s) of nuclear PARN deadenylase in controlling mRNA stability, hence gene expression, of factors in the p53 signaling pathway during the DNA damage response (DDR). Understanding the mechanisms of these regulatory pathways will provide new insights on how the control of gene expression upon DNA damage decides cellular fate, offering new opportunities for therapeutics. In Chapter II, I presented evidence that PARN along with the cleavage factor …

The Inner Workings Of Text Summarization Systems, Hope Cotton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper investigates automatic text summarization systems (ATS). To begin, a general description of how some ATS systems operate is provided. Following is a report on the testing of two summarization systems, Mead and SweSum. News articles from online sources were used for testing. Analyzing each system's output under different parameter settings helped to uncover (to some extent) the architecture of these summarizers. Both systems were compared as to how user-focused they are, how informative the summaries are in relation to the source document, and how punctuation and format are reconstructed in a summary.

Performing Modernity In Turkey: Conflicts Of Masculinity, Sexuality, And The Köçek Dancer, Brittany Giselle Haynes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis reexamines the history of the köçek dancer in Turkey and thereby opens modern heteronormative constructs of masculinity and sexuality to contestation, particularly as they have been symbolically embodied by the rural population of Anatolia. It traces the evolution of the köçek dancer from the early modern Ottoman Empire when the dancer embodied notions of divine love and the ideal of beauty as a young male object of adult men's desires. In the nineteenth century, perceptions of the köçek began to change, primarily among Ottoman elites, whose modernization efforts were influenced by the European gaze and travelers' Orientalist interpretations …

Quantitative Genetics Of Response To Novelty And Other Stimuli By Infant Rhesus Macaques (Macaca Mulatta) Across Three Behavioral Assessments, G. L. Fawcett, A. M. Dettmer, D. Kay, M. Raveendran, James Dee Higley, N. D. Ryan, J. L. Cameron, J. Rogers

Faculty Publications

Primate behavior is influenced by both heritable factors and environmental experience during development. Previous studies of rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) examined the effects of genetic variation on expressed behavior and related neurobiological traits (heritability and/or genetic association) using a variety of study designs. Most of these prior studies examined genetic effects on the behavior of adults or adolescent rhesus macaques, not in young macaques early in development. To assess environmental and additive genetic variation in behavioral reactivity and response to novelty among infants, we investigated a range of behavioral traits in a large number (N = 428) of pedigreed infants …

Benjamin Banneker's Original Handwritten Document: Observations And Study Of The Cicada, Janet E. Barber, Asamoah Nkwanta

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Benjamin Banneker, farmer, mathematician, astronomer, and scientist, is known for his mathematical puzzles, ephemeris calculations, almanacs, his wooden clock, land surveying work, and famous letter on human rights. However, as a naturalist, his scientific and systematic observations of the cicadas are less known. In this paper we publicize Banneker’s naturalistic study of the seventeen-year periodic cycle of the cicada and make available the original handwritten document of his observations. We also introduce the audience of this journal to an intriguing natural problem involving prime numbers.

The Effect Of Mechanical Vestibular Stimulation On Muscle Tone And Spasticity In Individuals With Neurological Impairment, Ghaith J. Androwis

Dissertations

In the desire to better understand spasticity mainly in Cerebral Palsy (CP) and to examine vestibular stimulation as a future intervention for .muscle tone reduction, and to be able to describe the change in level of spasticity in subjects with disability and describe interventions effects, a series of experiments are done on children with spasticity. In addition to understanding the otoliths in the vestibular system and their projections, properties and pathways a more important major objective of this work is to validate the changes in otoliths signal caused by vestibular stimulation based on the Equilibrium Point Hypothesis and the inclusion …

Analyses Of Groundwater Contribution To A Riverine Wetland, Farzad Mahmoodinobar

Dissertations

Rainfall, runoff, overbank flow and groundwater, all contribute water to wetlands. Each transport element is associated with unique modeling approaches and uncertainties. Transpiration is perhaps the hardest to quantify as it is subject to all the variability of plant growth. Transpiration causes land area to lose moisture and the loss amount depends on precipitation incidence, the temperature and type and extent of vegetation. Plants can intercept virtually all recharge during the growing season and almost none from late fall to early spring in northeastern United States. Thus, an improvement in the transpiration element can contribute considerably to an improved groundwater …

Discrete Element Method Based Scale-Up Model For Material Synthesis Using Ball Milling, Priya Radhi Santhanam

Dissertations

Mechanical milling is a widely used technique for powder processing in various areas. In this work, a scale-up model for describing this ball milling process is developed. The thesis is a combination of experimental and modeling efforts.

Initially, Discrete Element Model (DEM) is used to describe energy transfer from milling tools to the milled powder for shaker, planetary, and attritor mills. The rolling and static friction coefficients are determined experimentally. Computations predict a quasi- steady rate of energy dissipation, Ed, for each experimental configuration. It is proposed that the milling dose defined as a product of Ed and milling …

A Modeling Study Of The History-Dependence Of Conduction Delay In Unmyelinated Axons, Yang Zhang

Dissertations

Conduction delay in an axon is the time required for an action potential to propagate between two positions. It is a function of the axon’s passive membrane properties, voltage-gated ion channels and the Na+/K+ pump, and can be substantially affected by neuromodulators. The conduction delay of action potential, generated by the pyloric dilator (PD) neuron unmyel i nated motor axon in the stomatogastric nervous system, shows significant variability with ongoing bursting or Poisson stimulation. When the axon is stimulated, the mean value (Dmean) and coefficient variation of conduction delay (CV-D) slowly increase with time (slow timescale effect), and the relationship …

Computational Optimization Methods For Modeling The Effect Of Muscle Forces On Bone Strength Adaptation, Catherine Siena Florio

Dissertations

An improved understanding of the mechanical influences that alter the strength of a bone can aid in the refinement of the wide array of currently available techniques to counteract the losses of bone strength that occur due to age or disuse both on Earth and in Space. To address this need, computational modeling methods to quantitatively analyze and compare the effects of mechanical factors on the strength of a targeted bone within a multibone, multimuscle system are developed and implemented in this work. Through a more detailed representation of the system in which the bone acts and the creation of …

The University Of San Francisco Fact Book And Almanac 2014, Alan Ziajka

USF Fact Book and Almanac

No abstract provided.

Using Structural And Semantic Methodologies To Enhance Biomedical Terminologies, Zhe He

Dissertations

Biomedical terminologies and ontologies underlie various Health Information Systems (HISs), Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems, Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) and health administrative systems. Moreover, the proliferation of interdisciplinary research efforts in the biomedical field is fueling the need to overcome terminological barriers when integrating knowledge from different fields into a unified research project. Therefore well-developed and well-maintained terminologies are in high demand. Most of the biomedical terminologies are large and complex, which makes it impossible for human experts to manually detect and correct all errors and inconsistencies. Automated and semi-automated Quality Assurance methodologies that focus on areas that are more …

Vehicle Re-Routing Strategies For Congestion Avoidance, Juan Pan

Dissertations

Traffic congestion causes driver frustration and costs billions of dollars annually in lost time and fuel consumption. This dissertation introduces a cost-effective and easily deployable vehicular re-routing system that reduces the effects of traffic congestion. The system collects real-time traffic data from vehicles and road-side sensors, and computes proactive, individually tailored re-routing guidance, which is pushed to vehicles when signs of congestion are observed on their routes. Subsequently, this dissertation proposes and evaluates two classes of re-routing strategies designed to be incorporated into this system, namely, Single Shortest Path strategies and Multiple Shortest Paths Strategies.

These strategies are firstly implemented …

Role Of Hepatitis C Virus Inducted Osteopontin In Epithelial To Mesenchymal Transition, Migration, And Invasion Of Hepatocytes, Jawed Iqbal, Steven Mcrae, Thi Mai, Krishna Banaudha, Mehuli Sarkar-Dutta, Gulam Waris

Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

Osteopontin (OPN) is a secreted phosphoprotein which has been linked to tumor progression and metastasis in a variety of cancers including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Previous studies have shown that OPN is upregulated during liver injury and inflammation. However, the role of OPN in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-induced liver disease pathogenesis is not known. In this study, we determined the induction of OPN, and then investigated the effect of secreted forms of OPN in epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), migration and invasion of hepatocytes. We show the induction of OPN mRNA and protein expression by HCV-infection. Our results also demonstrate the …

Concomitant Socioeconomic, Behavioral, And Biological Factors Associated With The Disproportionate Hiv Infection Burden Among Black Men Who Have Sex With Men In 6 U.S. Cities, Kenneth H. Mayer, Lei Wang, Beryl A. Koblin, Sharon B. Mannheimer, Manya Magnus, +13 Additional Authors

Epidemiology Faculty Publications

Background

American Black men who have sex with men (MSM) are disproportionately affected by HIV, but the factors associated with this concentrated epidemic are not fully understood.

Methods

Black MSM were enrolled in 6 US cities to evaluate a multi-component prevention intervention, with the current analysis focusing on the correlates of being newly diagnosed with HIV compared to being HIV-uninfected or previously diagnosed with HIV.

Results

HPTN 061 enrolled 1553 Black MSM whose median age was 40; 30% self-identified exclusively as gay or homosexual, 29% exclusively as bisexual, and 3% as transgender. About 1/6th(16.2%) were previously diagnosed with HIV (PD); …

Air Force Institute Of Technology Research Report 2013, Office Of Research And Sponsored Programs, Graduate School Of Engineering And Management, Afit

AFIT Documents

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems Engineering and Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics.

Identification Of The Maize Gravitropism Gene Lazy Plant1 By A Transposon-Tagging Genome Resequencing Strategy, Thomas P. Howard Iii, Andrew P. Hayward, Anthony Tordillos, Christopher Fragoso, Maria A. Moreno, Joe Tohme, Albert P. Kausch, John P. Mottinger, Stephen L. Dellaporta

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Since their initial discovery, transposons have been widely used as mutagens for forward and reverse genetic screens in a range of organisms. The problems of high copy number and sequence divergence among related transposons have often limited the efficiency at which tagged genes can be identified. A method was developed to identity the locations of Mutator (Mu) transposons in the Zea mays genome using a simple enrichment method combined with genome resequencing to identify transposon junction fragments. The sequencing library was prepared from genomic DNA by digesting with a restriction enzyme that cuts within a perfectly conserved motif of the …

Paper-Based Standard Addition Assays, Cory A. Chaplan, Haydn T. Mitchell, Andres W. Martinez

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Standard addition assays conducted on paper-based microfluidic devices are introduced as an alternative to external standards for calibrating quantitative tests. To demonstrate this technique, a colorimetric, paper-based, standard addition assay was optimized for the determination of glucose concentrations in the range of 0 to 5 mM. Comparable results were obtained from the assay via digital image colorimetry under three different lighting conditions.

Biology Professor Collaborates With Chinese Researcher, January 31, 2014, Tom Scherberger

USF St. Petersburg Campus News and Press Releases

No abstract provided.

The Tiger Vol. 108 Issue 3 2014-01-31, Clemson University

Tiger Newspapers

No abstract provided.

Kingianic Acids A–G, Endiandric Acid Analogues From Endiandra Kingiana., K.H. Leong

Research Publications (2011 to 2015)

A phytochemical investigation of the methanolic extract of the bark of Endiandra kingiana led to the isolation of seven new tetracyclic endiandric acid analogues, kingianic acids A–G (1–7), together with endiandric acid M (8), tsangibeilin B (9) and endiandric acid (10). Their structures were determined by 1D- and 2D-NMR analysis in combination with HRMS experiments. The structure of compounds 9 and 10 were confirmed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. These compounds were screened for Bcl-xL and Mcl-1 binding affinities and cytotoxic activity on various cancer cell lines. Compound 5 showed moderate cytotoxic activity against human colorectal adeno-carcinoma (HT-29) and lung …

Physics Colloquium | Radioactive Ion Beam Physics At The Cyclotron Institute, Jan 31, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

The Wooster Voice (Wooster, Oh), 2014-01-31, Wooster Voice Editors

The Voice: 2012-Present

Stories in the news section include "College considers options for new science building," assuaging concerns for the expenses to build the new structure, and "Reusable to-go boxes coming soon," asserting sustainability in dining. "Water damage to Shack to cause delays in College's ownership" details both ongoing finanical and structural problems with the building. The Viewpoints Section takes a look at the issue of gun control. The Features section reports on the upcoming Great Decisions lecture series and an open house on consent and rape culture on campus. In Arts and Entertainment, The Voice reports on a visiting director and a …

The Aga Khan University Viewbook, Aga Khan University

Faculty/staff directories, alumni magazines, and yearbooks

We have, We are plaining three new faculties, Extensive library network (nine libraries in five countries), Our academic programmes are offered in five countries, seven graduate professional schools planned

Interdisciplinary Uab Researchers Collaborate To Establish New Imaging Method, Jim Bakken

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Galectin-1 In Early Acute Myocardial Infarction, Suhail Al-Salam, Satwat Hashmi

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Myocardial infarction (MI) is the most serious manifestation of coronary artery disease and the cause of significant mortality and morbidity worldwide. Galectin-1(GAL-1), a divalent 14.5-kDa protein, is present both inside and outside cells, and has both intracellular and extracellular functions. Hypoxia inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α) is a transcription factor mediating early and late responses to myocardial ischemia. Identification of the pattern of expression of GAL-1 and HIF-1α in the heart during the first 24 hours following acute MI will help in understanding early molecular changes in this event and may provide methods to overcome serious complications. Mouse model of MI …