Digital Commons Network^™

The Vonage Trilogy: A Case Study In "Patent Bullying", Ted Sichelman

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article presents an in-depth case study of a series of infringement suits filed by “patent bullies.” Unlike the oft-discussed “patent trolls”—which typically sell no products or services and perform no R&D—patent bullies are large, established operating companies that threaten or institute costly patent infringement actions of dubious merit against smaller companies, usually in order to suppress competition or garner licensing fees. In an ideal world of high-quality patents and optimal patent licensing and litigation, infringement suits by aggressive incumbents would have a cleansing, almost Darwinian effect. Yet, defects and distortions in patent examination, licensing, and litigation—the very problems that …

Cyp2j2 Targeting To Endothelial Cells Attenuates Adiposity And Vascular Dysfunction In Mice Fed A High-Fat Diet By Reprogramming Adipocyte Phenotype, Nader G. Abraham, Komal Sodhi, Anne M. Silvis, Luca Vanella, Gaia Favero, Rita Rezzani, Craig Lee, Darryl C. Zeldin, Michal L. Schwartzman

NYMC Faculty Publications

Obesity is a global epidemic and a common risk factor for endothelial dysfunction and the subsequent development of diabetes mellitus and vascular diseases such as hypertension. Epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) are cytochrome P450 (CYP)-derived metabolites of arachidonic acid that contribute to vascular protection by stimulating vasodilation and inhibiting inflammation. Heme oxygenase-1 is a stress response protein that plays an important cytoprotective role against oxidative insult in diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease. We recently demonstrated interplay between EETs and heme oxygenase-1 in the attenuation of adipogenesis. We examined whether adipocyte dysfunction in mice fed a high-fat diet could be prevented by endothelial-specific …

Thai Horror Film : Ghosts, Archives Of History/Ies, "Real Life," And Collective Trauma = 泰國恐怖電影 : 鬼、歷史檔案、「現實生活」與集體創傷, Katarzyna Ancuta

Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 現代中文文學學報

No abstract provided.

Commonwealth Times 2014-12-01

Commonwealth Times, 1969-

No abstract provided.

Communiqué, December 1, 2014, Lindenwood University

Communiqué

The Communiqué was the faculty/staff newsletter for Lindenwood University/College from 1982 to 2016.

Characterization Of The Early Development And Quality Of Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) Eggs And Larvae In Aquaculture Conditions, Agnès Bardon Albaret

Dissertations

The quality of red snapper Lutjanus campechanus eggs is highly variable and unpredictable in aquaculture, leading to high mortality during early larval rearing. In this work, the viability of red snapper eggs was investigated from fertilization until larvae expired due to exhaustion of vitellin reserves. The studied spawns were obtained via strip spawning wild-caught (n=17) and captive (n=7) females following hormonal induction. The fertilization rate, the hatch rate, and the duration of survival of unfed larvae post hatch were weakly correlated to each other, revealing occurrence of distinct and independent components of egg quality.

Spawns from captive females were characterized …

Clarification Of The Systematics Of The Haploporoidea (Trematoda) With Descriptions Of New Genera And Species, Michael Jay Andres

Dissertations

The superfamily Haploporoidea Nicoll, 1914 comprises two families, the Atractotrematidae Yamaguti, 1939 and the Haploporidae Nicoll, 1914, and the subfamily Cadenatellinae Gibson et Bray, 1982. All members are parasites of the alimentary tract or gall bladder of marine, estuarine, and freshwater herbivorous fishes. Overstreet and Curran (2005a) provided a review of the Haploporidae and recognized four subfamilies, the Chalcinotrematinae Overstreet et Curran, 2005, Haploporinae Nicoll, 1914, Megasoleninae Manter, 1935, and Waretrematinae Srivastava, 1937. In a series of five publications, Blasco-Costa et al. (2009a-e) revised the Haploporinae and erected a fifth subfamily, the Forticulcitinae Blasco-Costa, Balbuena, Kostadinova, et Olson, 2009. The …

Relative Expression Of Germination Genes Sleb, Gerac, And Gpr In Heat Treated Bacillus Licheniformis And Bacillus Subtilis, Valerie Paige Arechiga

Master's Theses

Endospore-forming bacteria of the genus Bacillus are of significant importance to the food industry. Species from this genus exhibit the ability to form metabolically dormant endospores characterized by resistance to heat, UV, and chemical treatment. Spores have undetectable metabolic activity and remain impervious to the harsh conditions of their environment, but they can detect environmental cues signaling favorable growth conditions and begin the process of germination. Once germination and outgrowth are complete, the fully viable cell is capable of reproducing and forming colonies. The resistance of these endospores has been a topic of decades of research, particularly because of their …

Pregnancy Intent Among A Sample Of Recently Diagnosed Hiv-Positive Women And Men Practicing Unprotected Sex In Cape Town, South Africa, Joanne E. Mantell, Theresa M. Exner, Diane Cooper, Dan Bai, Cheng-Shiun Leu, Susie Hoffman, Landon Myer, Jennifer Moodley, Elizabeth A. Kelvin, Debbie Constant, Karen Jennings, Virginia Zweigenthal, Zena A. Stein

Publications and Research

Background: Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services for HIV-positive women and men often neglect their fertility desires. We examined factors associated with pregnancy intent among recently diagnosed HIV-positive women (N = 106) and men (N = 91) who reported inconsistent condom use and were enrolled in an SRH intervention conducted in public sector HIV care clinics in Cape Town. Methods: Participants were recruited when receiving their first CD4+ results at the clinic. All reported unprotected sex in the previous 3 months. Logistic regression identified predictors of pregnancy intent for the total sample and by gender. Results: About three fifths of …

Intramural Activity Report Fy 2014, Yolanda Carr

Intramural Activity Reports

The Sponsored Programs Annual Reports collection contains reports for the Extramural and Intramural Activities of the Southwestern Oklahoma State University faculty and students. The collection currently covers the years 2014 - 2017. More reports will be included as they are available.

Extramural activities mean they were funded by organizations independent of SWOSU.

Intramural activities mean they were funded by SWOSU.

Α-Ketoglutaramate: An Overlooked Metabolite Of Glutamine And A Biomarker For Hepatic Encephalopathy And Inborn Errors Of The Urea Cycle, Arthur J. Cooper, Tomiko Kuhara

NYMC Faculty Publications

Glutamine metabolism is generally regarded as proceeding via glutaminase-catalyzed hydrolysis to glutamate and ammonia, followed by conversion of glutamate to α-ketoglutarate catalyzed by glutamate dehydrogenase or by a glutamate-linked aminotransferase (transaminase). However, another pathway exists for the conversion of glutamine to α-ketoglutarate that is often overlooked, but is widely distributed in nature. This pathway, referred to as the glutaminase II pathway, consists of a glutamine transaminase coupled to ω-amidase. Transamination of glutamine results in formation of the corresponding α-keto acid, namely, α-ketoglutaramate (KGM). KGM is hydrolyzed by ω-amidase to α-ketoglutarate and ammonia. The net glutaminase II reaction is: L - …

Forest Farming Ramps, Jim Chamberlain, Dana Beegle, Katie Lajeunesse Connette

Agroforestry Notes (USDA-NAC)

The spring ephemeral, Allium tricoccum Ait. (called ramps in the south and wild leeks in more northern areas), is native to the forests of eastern North America. Ramps can be found growing in patches in rich, moist, deciduous forests in eastern North America. They begin to emerge when the soil temperatures increase after snow melt, which usually occurs in late March and early April, depending on geographic location. Young plants send up smooth, broad leaves that die back as the shrub and tree canopy closes, reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the ramps. Patches of ramps often can be …

Nutrition Knowledge Of High School Senior Students In Northwest Arkansas, Grace Heymsfield

General Human Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Numerous changes in school environment regarding nutrition have been implemented in Arkansas, but there is no means in place of testing nutrition curriculum effectiveness in terms of nutrition knowledge of students. High school senior students completed a validated nutrition knowledge survey regarding the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010. Further testing with a larger sample size is recommended.

Fate Control And Human Rights: The Policies And Practices Of Local Governance In America’S Arctic, Mara Kimmel

Alaska Law Review

The loss of territoriality over lands conveyed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act had adverse impacts for Alaskan tribal governance. Despite policy frameworks that emphasize the value of local governance at an international, regional, and statewide level, Alaskan tribes face unique obstacles to exercising their authority, with consequences for both human development and human rights. This Article examines how territoriality was lost and analyzes the four major effects of this loss on tribal governance. It then describes two distinct but complimentary strategies to rebuilding tribal governance authority that rely on both territorial and non-territorial authority.

Ua66 Ogden College Of Science & Engineering Newsletter, Cheryl Stevens, Dean

Ogden College of Science & Engineering Publications

No abstract provided.

A Scalable Physics-Based Data Modeling Framework To Unsupervised High-Dimensional Data Mining, Hao Huang

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

Today's modeling and analysis of high-dimensional data is either based on human expertise to hand-craft a set of task-specific data, which suffers significantly from the ever-increasing complexity and the unknown patterns of the new data; or is based on simple data-driven approaches which tend to lose the fundamentally physical insights of real world datasets. Therefore, it is very difficult with today's modeling practice to efficiently, effectively, and unsupervisedly detect reliable patterns and information in high-dimensional data. In this dissertation, we developed a scalable data modeling framework that utilizes modern theoretical physics for unsupervised high-dimensional data analysis and mining. Not only …

The Role Of Developmental Mode And Population-Level Processes In Shifting Distributions: A Study Of Calyptraeid Gastropods, Abigail Eileen Cahill

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

In benthic marine invertebrates with complex life cycles, dispersal happens primarily during the larval stage: sedentary, benthic adults produce larvae that live in the water column for a period of hours to months. The larval life stage is therefore critical to the ability of a species to expand or shift its range, including in response to climate change. Species with planktonic larvae are expected to show greater dispersal and gene flow than those with direct development. In contrast, reduced gene flow among populations of directly developing species increases the potential for local adaptation. Understanding not only larval traits, but population-level …

Adaptation And Mutation Dynamics In Populations Evolving Under Nutrient Limiting Conditions, Omar Mahmud Warsi

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

To study adaptation to nutrient limitation and to understand the generation of adaptive diversity in evolving populations, we evolved Escherichia coli populations in twelve chemostats under three nutrient limiting regimes: four under nitrogen limitation, four under magnesium limitation and four in environments where the concentrations for both these nutrients are low. We traced the fitness trajectory of these populations over a period of ~400 generations. We also sequenced populations at two different time points to identify targets of selection and to investigate the mutation dynamics in these different nutrient-limiting environments. Our results show that populations evolving under nutrient limiting conditions …

Multi Agent Systems For Cooperative Tracking, Jonathan Patrick Beaudeau

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

This dissertation is a culmination of research in several parallel, yet related avenues dealing with statistical estimation in the context of dynamic state tracking. The main contribution of the thesis is to provide a novel scalable framework for tracking of a high-dimensional target state using a distributed and cooperative network of agents. This framework is incorporated into a specific application consisting of a multiple target tracking (MTT) environment, with each agent employing a number of mobile received-signal-strength (RSS) sensors capable of collecting measurements revealing localized information regarding the target state environment. The dimensionality of this problem, which is the dominating …

Genetic Contributions To Susceptibility And Resistance To Learned Helplessness, Craig Scott Garafola

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

Depression is a disease with a complex etiology that is only beginning to be studied from a genetic perspective. A selectively bred line of rats, susceptible to the learned helplessness model of depression, presents an opportunity to search for genes affecting either the depressive symptoms or the predisposition towards developing the disease. A microarray revealed a small set of genes with altered expression in the hippocampus of the congenitally helpless rats. We selected one of these genes, a member of the γ -protocadherin family, for further study to determine the basis for the change in expression. Helpless animals demonstrated an …

Mole Street Journal, December 2014, University Of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Dept. Of Chemistry And Biochemistry

Mole Street Journal

No abstract provided.

Thermal Stress And Predation Risk Trigger Distinct Transcriptomic Responses In The Intertidal Snail Nucella Lapillus, Nathaniel D. Chu, Luke P. Miller, Stefan T. Kaluziak, Geoffrey C. Trussell, Steven V. Vollmer

Faculty Publications, Biological Sciences

Thermal stress and predation risk have profound effects on rocky shore organisms, triggering changes in their feeding behaviour, morphology and metabolism. Studies of thermal stress have shown that underpinning such changes in several intertidal species are specific shifts in gene and protein expression (e.g. upregulation of heat-shock proteins). But relatively few studies have examined genetic responses to predation risk. Here, we use next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to examine the transcriptomic (mRNA) response of the snail Nucella lapillus to thermal stress and predation risk. We found that like other intertidal species, N. lapillus displays a pronounced genetic response to thermal stress …

Climate Change Enhances The Negative Effects Of Predation Risk On An Intermediate Consumer, Luke P. Miller, Catherine M. Matassa, Geoffrey C. Trussell

Faculty Publications, Biological Sciences

Predators are a major source of stress in natural systems because their prey must balance the benefits of feeding with the risk of being eaten. Although this 'fear' of being eaten often drives the organization and dynamics of many natural systems, we know little about how such risk effects will be altered by climate change. Here, we examined the interactive consequences of predator avoidance and projected climate warming in a three-level rocky intertidal food chain. We found that both predation risk and increased air and sea temperatures suppressed the foraging of prey in the middle trophic level, suggesting that warming …

The Relationship Between Tort Reform And Medical Utilization, Kevin T. Kavanagh, Lindsay Calderon, Daniel Saman

Biological Sciences Faculty and Staff Research

NTRODUCTION: The hidden cost of defensive medicine has been cited by policymakers as a significant driving force in the increase of our nation's health-care costs. If this hypothesis is correct, one would expect that states with higher levels of tort reform will have a decrease in Medicare utilization and that medical utilization will decrease after tort reform is enacted.

METHODS: State-level reimbursement data for years 1999 to 2010 (the last year available) was obtained from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. Medical tort rankings for the 50 states were obtained from the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) and correlated with state …

Meiotic Checkpoint Activation Promotes Anaphase Promoting Complex/Cyclosome Substrate Specificity And Ume6/Sin3/Rpd3-Independent Reduction In Emg Expression, Rebecca Lewandowski

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Complex differentiation pathways, such as yeast meiosis and sporulation, are initiated in response to cell type and external stimuli and are driven by changes in tightly regulated and temporally expressed transcriptional programs. These programs are monitored by checkpoint mechanisms that couple meiotic progression to transcriptional activity to ensure each stage is successfully completed prior to progression into the next phase. This work investigated transcriptional regulation controlling meiotic progression when cells sense an insult to genetic integrity. These studies revealed that the early meiotic gene (EMG) repressor Ume6p is degraded during meiotic checkpoint activation triggered by the deoxyribonucleotide reductase inhibitor and …

Value-Based Land Management Conflict: Alpine Cattle Grazing In Victoria , Matthew Luciani

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Victoria, the practice of cattle grazing in alpine areas has shaped land, culture, and history since the early nineteenth century. Characterized by early gold mining, grazing, and skiing tourism, the Victorian Alps eventually seized the attention of conservationists who understood its ecological significance and need for protection, with beginnings of an Alpine National Park idea in 1969 (Johnson, 1974, p. 180). Not until 1989, however, did the park enter into existence, meeting much resistance from farmers and graziers along the way (Mosley, 1999, p. 80). Today, however, the region remains contested between two very distinct groups of people: environmentalists …

Autism Spectrum Disorder In An Indian Context: Impact Of Socioeconomic Factors On The Experiences Of Individuals With Asd And Their Families, Kendall Harman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

While Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a condition that appears in comparable rates across social, ethnic and geographic groups, the quality and quantity of ASD-related resources and services is significantly lower in developing countries, including India. Moreover, sociocultural factors play a major role in the experiences of people with ASD. Yet, the bulk of ASD-related research has been conducted in developed countries. This study aimed to examine how social, cultural, political and economic factors impact the experiences of people with ASD living in India and their families. Seventeen parents of children with ASD were interviewed, and semi-structured observations of different …

Let’S Talk About Sex, And What Happens When We Don’T: How Limited Sex Education In Nepal’S Government Schools Affects Women In Arranged Marriages, Isabelle Stillman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In Nepal’s government secondary schools, the reproductive health curriculum is often covered in a single week, and many teachers neglect to administer the lessons thoroughly due to beliefs that sex is a private matter, inappropriate or unnecessary for students. The government curriculum not only lacks detail about reproduction and intercourse, but, in the information it does include, defines male and female puberty processes, reproductive systems, sexual health, roles in family planning, and intercourse in ways that further the gender inequality so deeprooted in Nepali culture. Following secondary school, many women in Nepal are married in arranged matches, to men they …

Program Evaluation Of Behavior Management Training For Preschool Teachers: Teacher Outcomes, Danielle Marie Young

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Teachers are required to manage difficult behaviors within their classrooms with limited support and resources. Additionally, there is not a lot of research that has been completed looking at teacher attitudes or how children’s behavior impacts them personally. The current study looks at teacher outcomes based upon an evidence-based teacher training program. The teacher training was implemented at the Western Kentucky Head Start. Teachers’ job stress and self-efficacy were measured before the training, after the training, in the fall, and in the spring. In addition, standardized observations were completed, looking at classroom climate and management, in the fall and spring …

A Study Of Effective Characteristics Most Valued In Superintendents By Principals, Camille Goldman

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effective characteristics of superintendents through the principal’s perception. The perceptions of principals were compared to those of superintendents. A one-way ANOVA was used to interpret and analyze the data for this study. All superintendents and principals in public schools in Indiana were invited to participate in this study. This study was conducted by administering a survey to public school district superintendents and principals in Indiana. The Effective Characteristics of Superintendents survey was developed by me to quantitatively measure the perceptions of superintendents and principals with research from the ISLLC standards, theorists, …