Digital Commons Network^™

Fsh/Lh Ratio In Females And Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection, Rehana Rehman, Hareem Syed, Najeeha Talat Iqbal, Sara Arif, Saeeda Sheharyar

Department of Biological & Biomedical Sciences

Objective: To observe the effect of follicle stimulating hormone-luteinizing hormone ratio on oocyte parameters, quality of embryo, implantation and clinical pregnancy rate after intracytoplasmic sperm injection.
Methods: The retrospective study was conducted at a fertility clinic in Islamabad, Pakistan, and comprised data of primary infertile females who underwent intracytoplasmic sperm injection from June 2011 to March 2013. All subjects had duration of infertility more than two years, and age range was 20-40 years. Follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone were estimated by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay on day 3 of the cycle and the ratio was calculated. Groups were stratified on …

Understanding The Impact Of Intensive Horticulture Land-Use Practices On Surface Water Quality In Central Kenya, Faith K. Muriithi, Danlin Yu

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Rapid expansion of commercial horticulture production and related activities contribute to declining surface water quality. The study sought to understand the impacts on select rivers in Laikipia and Meru, production hotspots. The specific aims were (1) to identify prevailing surface water quality by examining variations of 14 physico-chemical parameters, and (2) to categorize measured surface water quality parameters into land use types highlighting potential pollutant source processes. Water samples were collected in July and August 2013 along 14 rivers in the study area. The data were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant analysis (DA). Principal components (PCs) explained …

The Extent Of Autism Knowledge Of Novice Alternatively Certified Special Education Teachers In Texas, Jennifer Alward Hauber, Smita Shukla Mehta, Bertina H. Combes

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

An increase in the prevalence rate of autism is not necessarily matched by a concurrent increase in the rate of highly qualified special education teachers, resulting in chronic teacher shortages in this area. Alternative certification (AC) is used as a mechanism to alleviate the demand for highly qualified special education teachers. However, AC routes have often left novice teachers underprepared for teaching students with autism, more specifically in the implementation of evidence-based practices necessary for instructional effectiveness. The purpose of the study was to assess the knowledge of novice AC teachers in the area of autism intervention and to determine …

A Teacher’S Use Of Video To Train Paraprofessionals In Pivotal Response Techniques, Adria Murphy, Suzanne E. Robinson, Debra L. Cote, Belinda D. Karge, Trissie Lee

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

Research has shown that students with moderate-severe disabilities need direct and frequent social instruction in order to communicate and play with their peers. At the same time, there is little commensurate support for the paraprofessionals tasked with providing this support. It is imperative, then, that paraprofessionals have effective strategies in their repertoire of practices to facilitate social interaction. This investigation examined one classroom teacher's use of video to train two paraprofessionals in Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT), an evidence based practice for students with autism. Findings suggest that the teacher-provided video training was effective in improving paraprofessionals’ PRT implementation, and subsequently, …

High-Preference Strategies And Other Interspersal Procedures For Learners With Disabilities: A Review Of The Literature, Elias Clinton, Tom J. Clees

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

Interspersal Procedures (IP) represent a group of interventions that imbed, at varying ratios, requests for individuals to exhibit mastered skills before or within sequences of requests for target skills. Interspersal Procedures include numerous strategies, such as high-probability request sequences, pre-task requests, and high-preference strategies. Such arrangements can increase attempts to perform target or less preferred tasks. The purposes of this review include (a) an overview of terminology related to IP, (b) a discussion of the conceptual basis for using IP, (c) a description of the experimental literature that has used IP with individuals with disabilities, (d) a categorical summary of …

The Global Architecture Of Financial Regulatory Taxes, Carlo Garbarino, Giulio Allevato

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article endeavors to broaden the analysis of available policy tools to address the problems created by financial crises and discusses how, in addition to direct regulation, certain tax measures having a regulatory nature may operate to address the so-called “negative externalities” often associated with those crises. There is a negative externality when an economic agent making a decision does not pay the full cost of the decision’s consequences. In such cases, the cost to society as a whole is greater than the cost borne by the individuals creating the economic impact. In practice, negative externalities result in market inefficiencies …

Bridging Bisexual Erasure In Lgbt-Rights Discourse And Litigation, Nancy C. Marcus

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

LGBT rights are at the forefront of current legal news, with “gay marriage” and other “gay” issues visible beyond dispute in social and legal discourse in the 21st Century. Less visible are the bisexuals who are supposedly encompassed by the umbrella phrase “LGBT” and by LGBT-rights litigation, but who are often left out of LGBTrights discourse entirely. This Article examines the problem of bisexual invisibility and erasure within LGBT-rights litigation and legal discourse. The Article surveys the bisexual erasure legal discourse to date, and examines the causes of bisexual erasure and its harmful consequences for bisexuals, the broader LGBT community, …

Brand Engagement And Consumer Innovativeness, Ronald E. Goldsmith, Leisa R. Flynn, Felipe Korzenny

Journal of Applied Marketing Theory

Brand engagement describes the tendency of consumers to make the brands they buy part of their self-concept. This new insight into consumer behavior offers marketers many ways to create relationships with their customers. An unexplored aspect of brand engagement is how it is related to consumer innovativeness, the tendency to be among the first buyers of new products. The present study used survey data from 2399 adult U.S. consumers to show that brand engagement is positively related to consumer innovativeness. This finding suggests that in addition to promoting the features of new products likely to attract innovators, showing how the …

Full Issue, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Alumni Earning Doctorates, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Scholarships Awarded To Mcnair Scholars, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court And Religious Liberty, Joseph D. Kearney

Marquette Law Review

None

2015-December-01-Etsu Coaches, Students Featured In Anti-Tobacco Campaign, University Marketing And Communications, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

No abstract provided.

Resurrecting Health Care Rate Regulation, Erin C. Fuse Brown

Faculty Publications By Year

Our excess health care spending in the United States is driven largely by our high health care prices. Our prices are so high because they are undisciplined by market forces, in a health care system rife with market failures, which include information asymmetries, noncompetitive levels of provider market concentration, moral hazard created by health insurance, multiple principal-agent relationships with misaligned incentives, and externalities from unwarranted price variation and discrimination. These health care market failures invite a regulatory solution. An array of legal and policy solutions are typically advanced to control our health care prices and spending, including: (1) market solutions …

Que Ondee Sola - December 2015-January 2016, Rebecca Rios

Que Ondee Sola

Student publication founded in 1972, articles include: Acerca de Eugenio Maria de Hostos y Bonilla, Diaspora Insular Expertise and the War Over War Against All Puerto Ricans, Yo Soy NEIUI/I am NEIU, Oscar Lopez Aboga por una Educacion Libertadora, Master Class, Paseo Boricua Parranda 2015: La Tradicion Sigue

Notes: Woodpecker Forage Availability In Habi- Tat Disturbances Of The Black Hills, Brian E. Dickerson, Angie K. Ambourn, Mark A. Rumble, Kurt K. Allen, Chad P. Lehman

The Prairie Naturalist

Habitat disturbance events are critical to ecological systems in which some bird species have become specialized. The vegetation community, reduced competition, ability to avoid predators, nest-site characteristics, and forage opportunities within a disturbed ecosystem are all aspects that make it desirable for selection by particular species (Svärdson 1949, Cody 1981, Martin 1998). Specifically, avian species rely on the forest conditions created by fire, insects, and disease (Brawn et al. 2001, Hunter et al. 2001, Devictor et al. 2008). In the Black Hills National Forest (BHNF) of South Dakota,two major types of natural disturbances include wildfires and mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus …

Changes On Cran, Kurt Hornik, Achim Zeileis

The R Journal

New packages in CRAN task views

New contributed packages

Other changes

Practools: Computations For Design Of Finite Population Samples, Richard Valliant, Jill A. Dever, Frauke Kreuter

The R Journal

PracTools is an R package with functions that compute sample sizes for various types of finite population sampling designs when totals or means are estimated. One-, two-, and three-stage designs are covered as well as allocations for stratified sampling and probability proportional to size sampling. Sample allocations can be computed that minimize the variance of an estimator subject to a budget constraint or that minimize cost subject to a precision constraint. The package also contains some specialized functions for estimating variance components and design effects. Several finite populations are included that are useful for classroom instruction.

Clustvarlv: An R Package For The Clustering Of Variables Around Latent Variables, Evelyne Vigneau, Mingkun Chen, El Mostafa Qannari

The R Journal

The clustering of variables is a strategy for deciphering the underlying structure of a data set. Adopting an exploratory data analysis point of view, the Clustering of Variables around Latent Variables (CLV) approach has been proposed by Vigneau and Qannari (2003). Based on a family of optimization criteria, the CLV approach is adaptable to many situations. In particular, constraints may be introduced in order to take account of additional information about the observations and/or the variables. In this paper, the CLV method is depicted and the R package ClustVarLV including a set of functions developed so far within this framework …

Generalized Hermite Distribution Modelling With The R Package Hermite, David Moriña, Manuel Higueras, Pedro Puig, María Oliveira

The R Journal

The Generalized Hermite distribution (and the Hermite distribution as a particular case) is often used for fitting count data in the presence of over-dispersion or multimodality. Despite this, to our knowledge, no standard software packages have implemented specific functions to compute basic probabilities and make simple statistical inference based on these distributions. We present here a set of computational tools that allows the user to face these difficulties by modelling with the Generalized Hermite distribution using the R package hermite. The package can also be used to generate random deviates from a Generalized Hermite distribution and to use basic …

Program Committee Report December 2015, Regenstrief Center For Healthcare Engineering

RCHE Reports

No abstract provided.

Renaissance Fair, Richey Piiparinen

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

As Cleveland moves forward as a city on the rise, we risk leaving too many behind. Creating solutions for greater equity may be our best chance at a sustainable future.

Toward A Pigouvian State, Jonathan Masur, Eric A. Posner

Articles

No abstract provided.

Age Differences In Loneliness: Neural Correlates, Neurogenetics And Functional Connectivity, Alexandra D'Agostino

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

Loneliness, defined as the subjective experience of social isolation, has been linked to poor health outcomes (e.g. depression, cardiovascular disease) and is prevalent among older adult populations. To improve upon current treatments, the interaction between genetic and environmental risk factors for loneliness and their effect on the brain must be better understood. The present study investigated the brain basis of loneliness in younger (mean age = 20.4) and older adults (mean age = 62.9). We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and an emotional picture task to address this question. fMRI data were collected on a 3T Siemens Trio Scanner, …

Structure Determination, Enzymatic Characterization, And Inhibitor Discovery Of Select Protein Targets Of Bacterial Pathogens, Brian Edward Mcgillick

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

Our interests are in using structure based drug design to target bacterial agents and toxins that have the potential for intentional release into the environment and therefore pose a severe threat to public health and safety. Specifically, we focus on the pathogenic bacteria Francisella tularensis and Yersinia pestis, as well as the Clostridium botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs). Our strategy for F. tularensis and Y. pestis was to target the bacterial system for fatty acid biosynthesis (FAS-II). The FAS-II system contains several enzymes whose sequence and structure is highly conserved across a vast array of pathogens. This coupled with the low homology …

An Investigation Of Epidermolysis Bullosa And An Analysis Of Research And Treatment, Anna Dowling

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

The dysfunction of genes encoding integral proteins of the extracellular matrix and the basement membrane zone create foundations for the disease epidermolysis bullosa. Various proteins reside in the basement membrane zone and are responsible for the strength of the epidermal tissue. The cure for this disease is elusive which poses a problem for modern medicine. In this analysis, the mechanisms of epidermolysis bullosa subtypes were investigated and the viability of future treatment protocols was assessed. The promising treatment options include stem cell, gene, fibroblast, and protein therapy. Strategies need to be investigated further in order to develop therapeutic cures which …

Investigations Of Silver Vanadium Oxide And Silver Vanadium Phosphorous Oxide Solubility: Impact On Battery Performance, David Charles Bock

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

Extended battery lifetime has increased impact with the prospect of long life applications such as electric vehicles and the integration of energy storage into the electric grid. Thus, consideration of parasitic reactions that occur over long periods of time has elevated significance. One such life limiting reaction for several battery systems is the dissolution of the cathode material into the battery electrolyte. This research investigates cathode solubility in the battery system used to power implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs). The benchmark lithium/silver vanadium oxide (Ag2V4O11, SVO) system used in these devices has an unpredictable long term stability limitation attributed to cathode …

Interacting With Gigapixel Displays, Charilaos Papadopoulos

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

Large, high-resolution displays (LHiRDs) are a powerful visualization and data exploration tool. These facilities, with resolutions in the hundreds of millions of pixels, have proliferated in industry and research laboratories, enabling scientists, engineers or physicians to better understand the problems that they face. Recently, the Reality Deck pushed LHiRDs past the gigapixel resolution barrier, offering 1.5 gigapixels and providing a 360 degree horizontal field of view, within a large workspace of 33′ × 19′. Room-sized facilities such as the Reality Deck simultaneously promote and demand physical navigation on behalf of the user. Consequently, static user interfaces (e.g. | keyboard and …

Minimally Disruptive Management Frameworks For Network Functions, Zafar Ayyub Qazi

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

Networks today rely on network functions or middleboxes (e.g. | firewalls, WAN optimizers) to provide critical performance, security, and policy compliance capabilities. However, today the management of these middleboxes is hard. First, these middleboxes are implemented as dedicated hardware appliances, making it difficult to dynamically scale resources. Second, operators need to carefully plan the network topology, manually set up rules to route traffic through the desired sequence of middleboxes, and implement safeguards for correct operation in the presence of failures and overload. We can overhaul today’s network infrastructure to address these problems by introducing flexibility in routing and the implementation …

Using Plant Traits To Predict Denitrification In Wetland Ecosystems, Mary Katherine Alldred

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

Understanding how changes in ecological communities affect ecosystem function, including the provisioning of ecosystem services, is a critical challenge in the field of ecology. I apply a trait-based approach to link the characteristics of plant communities to their effects on denitrification and nitrogen-removal ecosystem services. My work has addressed this challenge at multiple scales using literature syntheses, field surveys, field manipulations, and greenhouse experiments. In a meta-analysis of 419 published measurements of denitrification, I estimated that vegetation on average increases the ability of marshes to remove nitrogen by 55% and that this effect differs among species. My study was the …