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The Cardio-Protective Effects Of Substance P In Both Ischemia/Reperfusion And And Short-Term Hypoxia Rat Models, Shaiban Jubair

Theses and Dissertations

Substance P, a member of the tachykinin family, is found primarily in sensory nerves. In the heart, substance P-containing nerve fibers surround coronary vessels, making them ideally positioned to sense changes in coronary pressure and/or flow. Recent studies have identified substance P as being protective acutely following ischemia-reperfusion due to its ability to induce coronary blood vessel vasodilation. In addition, studies conducted on non-cardiac tissue have reported substance P to be protective against cell death through a mechanism involving activation of anti-apoptotic AKT pathway. However, the possibility of substance P being similarly cardioprotective has not been reported. Accordingly, the purpose …

Early Screening And Identification Of Preschool Children Affected By Serious Emotional Disorders, Cathy Renee Robey-Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Mental illness has surpassed physical health problems as the leading cause for morbidity and mortality in American children. National prevalence of serious emotional disorders in the 0-5 age group has ranged from 9.5% to 14.2%. Of the 15 million children affected by mental illness, less than 20- 25% receive any treatment. Nationwide, early screening, identification, and treatment of preschoolers with emotional or behavioral disorders have become a critical priority in order to reduce the increasing burden of healthcare costs for mental illness and psychiatric care. The purpose of this study was to test the feasibility of a screening process for …

Situating Belonging Through Multi-Sited Identities: Community Building Among Middle Eastern Christians In Upstate South Carolina, Amelia Ayoob

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a Human Geography perspective on immigrant identity and integration. Using the case of a diverse, multigenerational Middle Eastern Christian population in the Upstate region of South Carolina, I explore how Middle Eastern immigrants and their descendants have negotiated belonging and identity in the United States by simultaneously building new social networks in the Upstate and maintaining ties to the Middle East. The focus on a single case allowed for an in-depth exploration of how geographic and historical contexts have shaped the present-day dynamics of the community (broadly defined) constructed around two Catholic churches, one Latin and one …

Temporal Constraints On Holocene Initiation And Termination Of Mound Development At An Episodic Gas Hydrate And Cold Seep System, Woolsey Mound, Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Nathan Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Woolsey Mound is a thermogenic gas hydrate and cold seep system in the deepwater (900m) Gulf of Mexico. A set of sub-bottom seismic profiles acquired at MC-118 Woolsey Mound provide decimeter-scale vertical resolution of the upper ~50m of the subsurface throughout the lease block. Integration of these data with radiocarbon, lithostratigraphic, and biostratigraphic data from shallow gravity cores provides the basis for detailed interpretation of the mound evolution within the last 12,000 years. Uniform sedimentation during the Last Glacial Maximum and following changes in sediment distribution over MC-118 suggests modern mound activity did not begin until at least ~12ka. Development …

The Effects Of Robot-Child Interactions On Interpersonal And Intrapersonal Coordination, Kinga Palatinus

Master's Theses

Coordination is crucial throughout development, from motor development and language acquisition to children’s play and other social interactions. Based on the links between motor and social behavior, proper coordination should help children connect socially with others. Being part of a larger study investigating the effects of a multisystem intervention tool for children with ASD, this work examined the effect of robot-child interaction on interpersonal and intrapersonal coordination in typically developing children. 5-year-olds and 7 year-olds participated in a four-week training protocol, where children had to copy the movements of a small humanoid robot. Measures of cross recurrence quantification analysis revealed …

The Boundaries Of Youth: Labor, Maturity, And Coming Of Age In Early Nineteenth-Century New England, 1790-1850, Jane Fiegen Green

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This project uses the experiences of young men and women to show how the language of maturity laid a foundation for the mythology of democratic capitalism in nineteenth-century America. Freed from the bounds of the household but left to the mercy of the emerging capitalist economy, young New Englanders struggled to reconcile the democratic ideals of work with the realities of class stratification. Expected to show their self-ownership through the performance of gender-defined employment, young men and women used their work experiences to display their maturity. Recognition as competent, mature adults required young people to find and demonstrate independence through …

Bio-Enhanced Constructivism: Moral Facts For The Naturalistic But Morally Serious Philosopher, Jason Gardner

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACTBio-Enhanced Constructivism: Moral Facts for the Naturalistic but Morally Serious PhilosopherbyJason GardnerDoctor of Philosophy in PhilosophyWashington University in St. Louis, 2014Professor Eric Brown, ChairThere is a tension between being both morally and naturalistically serious because it is doubtful that features philosophers have ascribed to moral facts in order to explain why we should take them seriously can be given a naturalistic accounting. Yet even serious naturalists who think the tension is real and troubling persist in trying to be serious moralists. I do not think they can do so on their own terms. Thus the purpose of this dissertation: to …

The Late Ordovician Biogeochemical Carbon Cycle, John Garrecht Metzger

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The isotopic composition of the carbonate carbon (δ13Ccarb) is one of the best tools for understanding the biogeochemical carbon cycle through Earth history. δ13Ccarb is also used to chemostratigraphically correlate coeval strata. This dissertation has three main foci that all utilize δ13Ccarb as the common data type. The geologic interval investigated was the Late Ordovician (458-444 Ma) with emphasis on the Guttenberg δ13C excursion, a globally correlated, positive ~3 / event that is ~400 kyr in duration. In the first topic we evaluate post-depositional alteration (i.e., diagenesis) of δ13Ccarb signals. In the second topic, we make reconstructions of sea level …

Nitrogen Fertilizer, Cropping Systems, And Iowa Groundwater, Robert Dehaan, Ronald Vos, Matt Schuiteman, Matt Van Schouwen, Harlan Kruid

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Summary presentation of research conducted over a 5 year period to determine which cropping systems best reduce nitrate leaching. Initial data was collected on nitrate concentration from individual wells in the Sioux Center, Iowa area which led to connections with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Source Water Protection Program. A community group was then formed comprised of city representatives, Dordt College faculty, local farmers, Source Water Protection Program staff, and others. The group applied for and received a Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture grant to fund field experiments to identify cropping systems that retain nitrate and are workable for …

A Four-Dimensional Image Reconstruction Framework For Pet Under Arbitrary Geometries, Aswin John Mathews

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a functional imaging modality with applications ranging from the treatment of cancer, studying neurological diseases and disease models. Virtual-Pinhole PET technology improves the image quality in terms of resolution and contrast recovery. The technology calls for having a detector with smaller crystals placed near a region of interest in a conventional whole-body PET scanner. The improvement is from the higher spatial sampling of the imaging area near the detector. A prototype half-ring PET insert built to study head-and-neck cancer imaging was extended to breast cancer imaging. We have built a prototype half-ring PET insert for …

Nuns In The Newsroom: The Sisters Of Marillac College And U.S. Sisters’ Involvement In Social Justice Reform, Elizabeth D. Nako

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

"Nuns in the Newsroom: The Sisters of Marillac College and U.S. Sisters' Involvement in Social Justice Reform" is a senior honors history thesis project.  The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) was guided by the spirit of aggiornamento, or “a bringing up to date” of the Catholic Church.  As a result of Vatican II documents such as Gaudium et Spes, they influenced U.S. sisters to expand their ministry from performing works of mercy to advocating for legal, economic, and social justice in addition to their charitable endeavors.  However, after doing research at the Daughters of Charity Archives in Emmitsburg, Maryland and …

Monnet, The General, And The Community Of Six: French Policy On European Integration In The 1950s And 1960s, Daniel A. Gagnon

History & Classics Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines the roles of Jean Monnet and General Charles de Gaulle in crafting French policy towards a united Europe during the postwar decades. Monnet strongly supported supranational integration in which the nations of Europe cede power to common governing institutions. But, French policy changed dramatically when de Gaulle came to power in 1958. As a nationalist he refused to sacrifice France’s independence by ceding power to the common institutions. He risked the existence of a united Europe, but after his sudden departure in 1969 it became clear that French popular opinion opposed his limiting policy towards European integration.

Novel Mobile Computation Offloading Framework For Android Devices, Meng Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The thesis implements an offloading framework for GoogleTM AndroidTM based on mobile devices. Today, the full potential for smartphones may be constrained by certain technical limits such as battery endurance and computational performance. Modern mobile applications own more powerful functions but need larger computation and faster frame rate, which consume more battery energy. Using the proposed offloading framework, mobile devices can offload computational intensive workload to servers to save battery energy consumption and reduce the execution time. The framework can also enable software developers to easily build and deploy services on the servers to support mobile devices to run computationally …

Real-Time Temperature Imaging Using Ultrasonic Change In Backscattered Energy, Weiyuan Zhao

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Thermal therapy from low-temperature cryosurgery to high-temperature ablation of tumors and unwanted electrical pathways has gained increased attention. Temperature imaging (TI) from magnetic resonance studies is the de facto standard for volumetric estimation of temperature. Ultrasound has the advantages of being cheap, portable, non-invasive and non-ionizing. Our group showed in predictions for single scatterers, simulations of scatterer populations and measurements in 1D, 2D and 3D, that CBE changed monotonically with temperature with 1^oC accuracy. An obstacle to clinical application of CBE TI is estimation of temperature in real time, which is limited by time for motion compensation (MC). …

A Reinforcement-Learning Framework For Interpreting Trial-By-Trial Motor Adaptation To Novel Haptic Environments, Ranjan Patrick Khan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Motor adaptation is often considered to occur under the influence of sensory signals, which is usually readily available for humans performing most motor tasks. However, humans can also use reward or other qualitative feedback to reinforce previous actions and perform adaptation. In these experiments, we introduce reward feedback to a traditional motor adaptation experiment: reach adaptation to a velocity-dependent force field. Drawing from the literature of computer science and machine learning, we use a reinforcement-learning framework to interpret the pattern of force generation and reward-prediction errors and observe the effects of concurrent and isolated reward and sensory feedback.

It is …

Aerosol Techniques For Deposition And Characterization Of Biological And Biomimetic Sensitizers For Solar Devices, Vivek B. Shah

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Nano-structured columnar films synthesized by the aerosol chemical vapor deposition (ACVD) system are unique, and have proved to be useful for fabricating solar cells and in other applications. The film formation by ACVD process involves three main phenomenon - aerosol formation and growth, deposition, and restructuring. In this work, thin film formation by the ACVD process is simulated by combining three models - (A) particle formation in gas phase by atrimodal model, (B) particle deposition onto heated substrate by a Brownian dynamics model and (C) sintering on the heated substrate by a multi-particle geometric sintering model (MPGSM). Modelling and simulation …

Win Big During '5 Days Of Giveaways', Staff Report

University of Mississippi News

University Communications to give away Ole Miss-themed prizes each day this week

State V. Cooke Respondent's Brief Dckt. 41833

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

2014-December-15-Tuell Scholarship Program, University Marketing And Communications, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

No abstract provided.

Preface, Wen-Hsiang Hsieh

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

No abstract provided.

Contour Data Acquisition System For Electric Vehicle Distance Estimation System, Kuew Wai Chew, Chee Ken Leong

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The conventional distance estimation system only uses a constant speed and a constant level of road elevation to estimate the driving range of a vehicle. This technique leads to low prediction accuracy. In this project, a new estimation technique namely the Contour Positioning System (CPS) for an electric vehicle is proposed. The CPS provides a more reliable estimation of the electric vehicle battery energy usage by taking into consideration additional factors such as road elevation and regenerative braking energy. In order to perform the CPS calculation, first and foremost, the elevation profile of the selected destination must be determined. In …

Periodic Damage Evaluation Of Aging Offshore Jackets Based On Continuous Dynamic Tests, Fu-Shun Liu, Hong-Chao Lu, Wei-Ying Wang, Dong-Ping Yang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

This study proposes a new method for evaluating the damage of aging offshore platforms, based on dynamic tests. The proposed method involves a new damage indicator for reducing the effects of occurred damages accumulated before the first measurement. One theoretical improvement is that the requirement of using the stiffness matrix of the finite element model to replace that of the measured model can be ignored in calculating the modal strain energy of the measured model. The other development is that the proposed approach can be used for providing reasonable evaluations of damages that occurred between two adjacent dynamic tests. This …

Development Of An Intelligent Energy Saving Heat Pump For Water Heater With Fuzzy Logic Controller, Cong-Hui Huang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

There is a growing awareness of the importance of using clean and environmentally friendly sources of energy. This paper presents the development of an intelligent energy saving heat pump for a water heater with a fuzzy logic controller that analyzes the heating efficiency of the heat pump heater. The fuzzy logic controller is employed for developing a heating algorithm to raise the efficiency of the heat pump heater and suppress unnecessary heating at high temperatures. Experimental results show that our heat pump heater produces an energy saving of 60% of total energy input, compared to the 23% for a gas …

A Study On Optimization Of Ship Hull Form Based On Neuro-Response Surface Method (Nrsm), Soon-Sub Lee, Jae-Chul Lee, Sung-Chul Shin, Soo-Young Kim, Hyun-Sik Yoon

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Building large and eco-friendly ships has become a clear trend in the ship building industry. Research to minimize ship resistance has actively been investigated for energy savings and environmental protection. However, optimization of the full geometry, while taking into account the hydrodynamic performance is difficult because extensive time is needed to calculate the performance factors, such as the resistance and propulsion. Hence we suggest an optimal design framework based on the neuro-response surface method (NRSM) for optimal shape design in consideration of hydrodynamic performance. The optimization algorithm of the constructed framework consists of the back-propagation neural network (BPN) and the …

Model-To-Data Comparisons Reveal Influence Of Jellyfish Interactions On Plankton Community Dynamics, Kevin P. Crum, Heidi L. Fuchs, Paul Bologna, John Gaynor

Department of Biology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Taxonomic shifts can alter predator feeding preference and modify ecosystem dynamics through top-down control. In Barnegat Bay-Little Egg Harbor Estuary (New Jersey, USA), sea nettle Chrysaora quinquecirrha abundances have increased in the northern portions of the estuary. We evaluated the geographical variation in top-down influence of C. quinquecirrha on plankton community dynamics. We simulated a range of jellyfish- to copepod-dominated ecosystems using a size-resolved nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton (NPZ) model. Zooplankton feeding was parameterized as a community average based on predator-prey size ratios and breadth of prey sizes of dominant species. We compared model outputs to data collected in the estuary during 2 …

Mapping Interdisciplinary Fields: Efficiencies, Gaps And Redundancies In Hiv/Aids Research, Jimi Adams, Ryan Light

Faculty Publications

While interdisciplinarity continues to increase in popularity among funders and other scientific organizations, its potential to promote scientific advances remains under-examined. For HIV/AIDS research, we examine the dynamics of disciplinary integration (or lack thereof) providing insight into a field's knowledge base and those questions that remain unresolved. Drawing on the complete histories of two interdisciplinary journals, we construct bibliographic coupling networks based on overlapping citations to identify segregation into research clusters and estimate topic models of research content. We then compare how readily those bibliographic coupling clusters account for the structuring of topics covered within the field as it evolves …

Bronze Age Potters In Regional Context: Long-Term Development Of Ceramic Technology In The Eastern Eurasian Steppe Zone, Paula Naify Doumani

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the relationship between mobility, social interaction and flows of material technology in Bronze Age Semirech'ye, in southeast Kazakhstan. The work is directed at questions of operational complexity and issues of scale in understanding local and regional material assemblages and craft production in the Bronze Age. The thesis represents the first comprehensive technological analysis of Handmade Steppe Ceramics (HSC) from Semirech'ye. The ceramics date to the Bronze Age (ca. 2400-800BC) and are associated with the work of mobile pastoralists who occupied disaggregated seasonal campsites along the piedmont zone of the Dzhungar Mountains. Pottery data was obtained from newly …

X-Ray Polarimetry With X-Calibur, Qingzhen Guo

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT X-Ray Polarimetry with X-Calibur by Qingzhen Guo Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, Washington University in St. Louis, September, 2014. Professor Henric Krawczynski, Chair X-ray polarimetry is a prime tool to investigate the unexplored compact sources and to provide crucial information that other techniques can not produce. By measuring the degree and orientation of the polarization of radiation from a cosmic source, unique inferences about the morphology and the magnetic field structure can be made. Krawczysnki's group at Washington University is working on a uniquely sensitive scattering polarimeter, X-Calibur, to be used in the focal plane of a focusing X-ray …

The Bg News December 15, 2014, Bowling Green State University

BG News (Student Newspaper)

The BGSU campus student newspaper. December 15, 2014. Volume 94-Issue 48.

Land Surface Anomalies Preceding The 2010 Russian Heat Wave And A Link To The North Atlantic Oscillation, C. K. Wright, K. M. De Beurs, G. M. Henebry

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

The Eurasian wheat belt (EWB) spans a region across Eastern Ukraine, Southern Russia, and Northern Kazakhstan; accounting for nearly 15% of global wheat production. We assessed land surface conditions across the EWB during the early growing season (April–May–June; AMJ) leading up to the 2010 Russian heat wave, and over a longer-term period from 2000 to 2010. A substantial reduction in early season values of the normalized difference vegetation index occurred prior to the Russian heat wave, continuing a decadal decline in early season primary production in the region. In 2010, an anomalously cold winter followed by an abrupt shift to …