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The Ecological Importance Of Brachiopods Versus Bivalves In The Paleozoic: Taphonomy, Biomass, And Energy Use, Shannon (Shin-Nan) Hsieh

Master's Theses

Brachiopods have commonly been considered more important than bivalves in Paleozoic ecosystems due to their greater global diversity and greater abundance in many fossil assemblages. New sampling-standardized diversity curves verify that brachiopods were more diverse than bivalves at the global level in the Paleozoic; they declined in the Permian-Triassic extinction, largely recovered, then faded away later in the Mesozoic. However, the subordinate ecological status of bivalves within local Paleozoic ecosystems has been challenged on two fronts. First, bivalve abundance may be underestimated due to preferential dissolution of aragonitic shells. Second, bivalve contribution to ecosystem function may be underestimated by abundance …

Predictors Of Improvement In Risk Reduction Skills Among Hiv Infected Drug Users, Rashmi Dahal

Master's Theses

Background and Objective: Unsafe needle use and unprotected sex are behaviors that have been associated with HIV transmission. Evidence-based behavioral intervention approaches are widely available for preventing HIV transmission, but neurocognitive impairment (NCI) may impede many intervention participants’ capacity to fully benefit from such interventions, leaving them vulnerable to HIV transmission risk. This study examines the impact of NCI on specific intervention outcomes expected to be enhanced through intervention participation.

Methods: Participants were 74 HIV+ opioid-dependent persons participating in methadone maintenance drug treatment and who reported drug- or sex- related HIV risk behavior. Using regression analyses, NCI, HIV knowledge (information), …

Jack Daniel Brown, Petitioner/Appellant V. State Of Utah, Utah Court Of Appeals

Utah Court of Appeals Briefs (2007– 2019)

Appeal from dismissal of petition for post-conviction relief challenging conviction for one count of aggravated murder, a first degree felony, in the Fifth Judicial District, Washington County, the Honorable G. Michael Westfall presiding

State V. Mansfield Appellant's Brief Dckt. 43115

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

Assessing Foliar Ascorbate Content In A Rice Diversity Panel And In Selected Mapping Population Lines With Varying Levels Of Seedling Cold Tolerance, Sonia Elizabeth Castillo Gonzalez

Student Theses and Dissertations

Rice is economically, culturally, and socially important to many people in the world. Arkansas is the main rice producer in the USA. Climate change continues to increase the incidence of abiotic stresses such as cold, heat, drought, water excess, and soil salinity. These stresses pose a particular challenge to rice cultivation. Rice has lower yields under cold stress, particularly when plants are exposed to cold at the seedling and reproductive stages. Early spring plantings and field irrigation with underground cold water expose rice seedlings to cold stress. Previous studies in Arabidopsis thaliana have shown that lines engineered to have elevated …

Linkages Between Protein Ubiquitination, Proteasome Activity And The Expression Of Oxygen-Binding Proteins In Antarctic Notothenioid Fishes, Corey A. Oldham

Biological Sciences

Antarctic icefishes lack hemoglobin (Hb), and some species lack cardiac myoglobin (Mb). As iron-centered proteins, Hb and Mb can promote the formation of reactive oxygen species that may damage biological macromolecules. Consistent with this, we find higher levels of oxidized proteins in some tissues of red-blooded notothenioids than in icefishes. Oxidized proteins are marked for degradation by the conjugation of the protein ubiquitin. I hypothesized that levels of ubiquitinated proteins and 20S proteasome activity (which degrades oxidized proteins) would be higher in +Hb and +Mb notothenioids than icefishes lacking the proteins. Levels of ubiquitinated proteins and rates of proteasome activity …

Non-Invasive Methods For Obtaining Occupancy Probabilities And Density Estimates Of Interior Alaska's Mesocarnivore Populations, Casey Pozzanghera

Biological Sciences

Mesocarnivore species worldwide have been shown to be significant drivers of ecological communities. Changes in their abundance and distributions are known to cause cascading effects throughout ecosystems, and changes to the landscape and climate will likely lead to shifts in mesocarnivore population sizes and distributions. However, the current status of these species in some of the world's most susceptible landscapes is not known. I assessed the impacts of abiotic factors on the distributional patterns and abundance of boreal mesocarnivores and evaluated methods commonly used to estimate density and occupancy. I conducted non-invasive winter surveys of coyotes (Canis latrans), red foxes …

State V. Brand Appellant's Brief Dckt. 43441

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

State V. Roark Respondent's Brief Dckt. 43166

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

Matthews V. Sallaz Respondent's Brief Dckt. 43311

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

State V. Lindley Respondent's Brief Dckt. 43314

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

State V. Bingham Respondent's Brief Dckt. 43360

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

State V. Maxwell Respondent's Brief Dckt. 43420

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

Spectroscopy Of Quasibound And Long-Range Rydberg States Of Ultracold 85rb2, Ryan A. Carollo

Doctoral Dissertations

Ultracold atomic physics offers an experimentalist the opportunity to perform sensitive tests and measurements that are not possible at higher temperatures. In this case it allows for access to molecular states, through photoassociation, that are inaccessible to conventional techniques. We use photoassociation to measure quasi-bound levels of the 2 ¹Σ_g⁺ state of ⁸⁵Rb₂ . With these data, we examine a coupling between the short-range Hund’s case (c) 2 (0_g⁺ ) component and the long-range 2 (1_g ) state, which corresponds to the 1 ¹Π_g state. A second experiment studies the …

Enhancing Upper-Level Performance From Below: Performance Measurement And Optimization In Lte Networks, Ruofan Jin

Doctoral Dissertations

The current 4G LTE cellular networks provide significantly higher data rate and lower network latency than earlier generation systems. The advances provided by LTE, however, may not be fully utilized by upper-level protocols and applications. In this dissertation, we first investigate the predictability of link bandwidth in cellular networks. We then design and implement a new transport protocol that utilizes the link bandwidth prediction framework. Last, we design and implement a control-theoretic approach for adaptive video streaming for cellular networks.

For cellular link bandwidth prediction, we conduct an extensive measurement study in major US commercial LTE networks and identify various …

Professional Values And Conflict Among Social Workers In Prisons: An Examination Of Role Stress, Strain, And Job Satisfaction In Working With Inmates With Mental Illness And/Or Substance Use Disorders, Hiroki Toi

Doctoral Dissertations

As the incarcerated population increases in the United States, especially those with mental illness and/or substance use disorders, social workers are expected to assume essential discharge planning roles in assisting prisoners’ transition back into the community. Social workers, like other prison professionals, experience value dilemmas and difficulties in ethical decision-making due to incompatibility between professional values and the practices in correctional settings. Often, social workers in prisons face role problems mainly represented by role incongruity, role ambiguity, and role conflict. Such stress creates role strain, which may profoundly affect job satisfaction. Job satisfaction of staff is important because it affects …

Evaluation Of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Interconnect Coatings: Mechanisms Behind Structure And Property Change During Reaction Layer Formation, Louis V. Gambino

Doctoral Dissertations

Modern solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) operate at sufficiently low temperatures to allow the use of alloy interconnects in the SOFC stacks. The alloys used are cheaper, more formable, and more conductive than the traditional ceramic materials used for interconnects. However, the long term SOFC performance is limited by oxidation of the alloy interconnect. To ameliorate the issues which result from oxidation, manganese cobaltite spinel coatings are typically applied.

The microstructural effects of the reduction step in the reactive consolidation of slurry processed Mn1.5Co1.5O4 (MCO) coated Crofer 22 APU were studied. The reduced coating contained particles of MnO with the …

Approximate Bayesian Computation For Probabilistic Decline Curve Analysis In Unconventional Reservoirs, Mohit Paryani

Engineering

Predicting the production rate and ultimate production of shale resource plays is critical in order to determine if development is economical. In the absence of production from the Shublik Shale, Alaska, Arps' decline model and other newly proposed decline models were used to analyze production data from oil producing wells in the Eagle Ford Shale, Texas. It was found that shales violated assumptions used in Arps' model for conventional hydrocarbon accumulations. Newly proposed models fit the past production data to varying degrees, with the Logistic Growth Analysis (LGA) and Power Law Exponential (PLE) models making the most conservative predictions and …

Using Twitter To Analyze Stock Market And Assist Stock And Options Trading, Yuexin Mao

Doctoral Dissertations

Twitter has rapidly gained popularity since its creation in March 2006. Stock is a popular topic in Twitter. Many traders, investors, financial analysts and news agencies post tweets about various stocks on a daily basis. These tweets reflect their collective wisdom, and may provide important insights on the stock market. In this dissertation work, we investigate using the tweets concerning Standard & Poor 500 (S&P 500) stocks to analyze the stock markets and assist stock and option trading.

The first part of the dissertation focuses on understanding the correlation between Twitter data and stock trading volume, and predicting stock trading …

Mhealth Risk Screening In Urban Primary Care, Martha R. Staeheli

Doctoral Dissertations

Background: Urban, underserved populations experience considerable disparities in the screening, prevention, and treatment of chronic disease, including behavioral health disorders. Screening patients for such problems is widely recommended, yet is challenging to do in a brief primary care encounter, particularly for this complex patient population. Electronic risk screening provides one method of eliminating disparities in the identification of risks, while limiting burden on providers.

Objectives: 1) Screening data were compared to EHR data to assess differences in the prevalence of 12 risk factors and clustering of risks; 2) Patients screening positive for behavioral health problems were followed to determine rates …

Pathological Brain Detection By A Novel Image Feature—Fractional Fourier Entropy, Shuihua Wang, Yudong Zhang, Xiaojun Yang, Ping Sun, Zhengchao Dong, Aijun Lu, Ti-Fei Yuan

Publications and Research

Aim: To detect pathological brain conditions early is a core procedure for patients so as to have enough time for treatment. Traditional manual detection is either cumbersome, or expensive, or time-consuming. We aim to offer a system that can automatically identify pathological brain images in this paper.Method: We propose a novel image feature, viz., Fractional Fourier Entropy (FRFE), which is based on the combination of Fractional Fourier Transform(FRFT) and Shannon entropy. Afterwards, the Welch’s t-test (WTT) and Mahalanobis distance (MD) were harnessed to select distinguishing features. Finally, we introduced an advanced classifier: twin support vector machine (TSVM). Results: A 10 …

Ubiquitin Goes Green, Zhihua Hua, Richard D. Vierstra

Biology Faculty Research

Chloroplasts depend on the nucleus for much of their proteome. Consequently, strong transcriptional coordination exists between the genomes, which is attuned to the developmental and physiological needs of the organelle. Recent studies highlight that the post-translational modifier ubiquitin adds another layer to plastid homeostasis and even helps eliminate damaged chloroplasts.

Sagavanirktok River Spring Breakup Observations 2015, H. Toniolo, E.K. Youcha, R.E. Gieck, T. Tschetter, M. Engram, J. Keech

WERC Project Reports

Alaska’s economy is strongly tied to oil production, with most of the petroleum coming from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. Deadhorse, the furthest north oil town on the Alaska North Slope, provides support to the oil industry. The Dalton Highway is the only road that connects Deadhorse with other cities in Interior Alaska. The road is heavily used to move supplies to and from the oil fields. In late March and early April 2015, the Dalton Highway near Deadhorse was affected by ice and winter overflow from the Sagavanirktok River, which caused the road’s closure two times, for a total …

Seasonal Movements And Habitat Use Of Rainbow Trout In The Susitna River Basin, Southcentral Alaska, Kevin Marshall Fraley

Fisheries

Potamodromous Rainbow Trout are an important ecological and recreational resource in freshwater systems of Alaska, and increased human development, hydroelectric projects, declining Pacific salmon stocks, and climate change may threaten their populations. We used aerial and on-the-ground telemetry tracking, field-measured and remotely-sensed aquatic habitat characteristics, snorkel surveys, and resource selection and occupancy models to characterize seasonal movements and habitat use of adult Rainbow Trout (>400 mm FL) at multiple spatial and temporal scales across the large (31,221 km²) and complex Susitna River basin of southcentral Alaska during 2003-2004 and 2013-2014. We found that trout overwintered in mainstem habitats near …

Using Self-Organizing Maps To Detail Synoptic Connections Between Climate Indices And Alaska Weather, Reynir C. Winnan

Atmospheric Sciences

Seasonal forecasts for Alaska strongly depend on the phases of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), and warm water in the North Pacific called the North Pacific Mode or more popularly the "Pacific blob." The canonical descriptions of these climate indices are based on seasonal averages, and anomalies that are based on a long-term mean. The patterns highlight general geographical placement and display a sharp contrast between opposing phases, but this may be misleading since seasonal averages hide much of the synoptic variability. Self-organizing maps (SOMs) are a way of grouping daily sea level pressure (SLP) patterns, over …

War Machine: Media And Technology During Operation Allied Force, N Bobic

School of Art, Design and Architecture

One significant aspect of military interventions is that violence in binary geographies, which have an implied colonial discourse (such as Serbia), often involve the dialectics of construction and erasure, meaning that absence and presence of destruction and violence run side by side. This paper investigates the ways that technology and media were instrumentalised in miniaturising evidence and reducing the visibility of destruction during NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Serbia and Kosovo. While the dominant NATO rhetoric behind the intervention was “humanitarian” with the Operation being deployed in the name of Western values and civilisation, this text puts forward an alternative …

Monitoring Cloud-Prone Complex Landscapes At Multiple Spatial Scales Using Medium And High Resolution Optical Data: A Case Study In Central Africa, Bikash Basnet

Theses

Tracking land surface dynamics over cloud-prone areas with complex mountainous terrain and a landscape that is heterogeneous at a scale of approximately 10 m, is an important challenge in the remote sensing of tropical regions in developing nations, due to the small plot sizes. Persistent monitoring of natural resources in these regions at multiple spatial scales requires development of tools to identify emerging land cover transformation due to anthropogenic causes, such as agricultural expansion and climate change. Along with the cloud cover and obstructions by topographic distortions due to steep terrain, there are limitations to the accuracy of monitoring change …

Geology And Origins Of The Peak Gold-Copper-Silver Skarn Deposit, Tok, Alaska, Peter Edward Illig

Geosciences

The distal Peak Au-Cu skarn deposit was discovered in 2012 on Tetlin native lands 15 miles southeast of Tok, Alaska. The deposit contains anomalous Au-Cu-Bi-Ag-Mo-Fe-Te-As-Pb-Co-W-Cd-Ni. At the time of drilling deposit style, mineralization and origin were not understood. Upper Paleozoic and older metamorphic rocks had been previously mapped in the area; however, no igneous or metasomatic rocks had been recognized. To better understand the deposit I created a 1:25,000 scale geologic map of the 25 km² exploration area; employed approximately 682,500 assays for metal ratios; described textures and minerals in 138 polished thin sections; employed approximately 3,000 meters of new …

Influence Of Physical And Biological Oceanography On The Structure Of The Seabird Community In The Northeastern Chukchi Sea, Adrian E. Gall

Marine Biology

The Chukchi Sea is losing seasonal ice cover as global temperatures rise, facilitating human access to the region for activities such as oil and gas exploration, shipping, and tourism. Processes and responses to environmental change by marine ecosystems are often challenging to quantify because they are hidden under water. Seabirds, however, offer visible evidence of the health and status of marine ecosystems. I studied the community structure, variability in abundance and distribution, and habitat associations of seabirds in the eastern Chukchi Sea. My results provide insights into the influence of climate change on seabirds and a benchmark against which to …

Cyberspace Operations Planning: Operating A Technical Military Force Beyond The Kinetic Domains, Don E. Barber, T. Alan Bobo, Kevin P. Sturm

Military Cyber Affairs

Cyber operations can be very complex, and it is useful to conceptualize a deeper, fourth technical level of warfare in order to conduct effective planning. The technical details associated with cyberspace operations are not grasped as intuitively by planners and commanders as are the capabilities and limitations of tanks, ships, and aircraft. The complex and dynamic nature of cyberspace often drives technical analysis and planning to a level beyond those planning practices and procedures accommodated by traditional Joint doctrine.