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Slavery, Agriculture, And Malaria In The Arabian Peninsula, Benjamin Reilly

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

In Slavery, Agriculture, and Malaria in the Arabian Peninsula, Benjamin Reilly illuminates a previously unstudied phenomenon: the large-scale employment of people of African ancestry as slaves in agricultural oases within the Arabian Peninsula. The key to understanding this unusual system, Reilly argues, is the prevalence of malaria within Arabian Peninsula oases and drainage basins, which rendered agricultural lands in Arabia extremely unhealthy for people without genetic or acquired resistance to malarial fevers. In this way, Arabian slave agriculture had unexpected similarities to slavery as practiced in the Caribbean and Brazil.

This book synthesizes for the first time a body of …

Predicting Scenarios For Successful Autodissemination Of Pyriproxyfen By Malaria Vectors From Their Resting Sites To Aquatic Habitats; Description And Simulation Analysis Of A Field-Parameterizable Model, Samson Sifael Kiware, George F. Corliss, Stephen Merrill, Dickson W. Lwetoijera, Gregor J. Devine, Silas Majambere, Gerry F. Killeen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Large-cage experiments indicate pyriproxifen (PPF) can be transferred from resting sites to aquatic habitats by Anopheles arabiensis - malaria vector mosquitoes to inhibit emergence of their own offspring. PPF coverage is amplified twice: (1) partial coverage of resting sites with PPF contamination results in far higher contamination coverage of adult mosquitoes because they are mobile and use numerous resting sites per gonotrophic cycle, and (2) even greater contamination coverage of aquatic habitats results from accumulation of PPF from multiple oviposition events.

Methods and Findings

Deterministic mathematical models are described that use only field-measurable input parameters and capture the biological …

Active Learning For The Automation Of Medical Systematic Review Creation, Prem Timsina, Omar F. El-Gayar, Jun Liu

Research & Publications

While systematic reviews (SRs) are positioned as an essential element of modern evidence-based medical practice, the creation of these reviews is resource intensive. To mitigate this problem there has been some attempts to leverage supervised machine learning to automate the article triage procedure. This approach has been proved to be helpful for updating existing SRs. However, this technique holds very little promise for creating new SRs because training data is rarely available when it comes to SR creation. In this research we propose an active machine learning approach to overcome this labeling bottleneck and develop a classifier for supporting the …

Maps Of Marginalization: Exploring The Healthcare Experiences Of Men And Women With Fibromyalgia, Michelle J. Skop

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative study explored the retrospective and ongoing healthcare experiences of men and women who have a diagnosis of fibromyalgia (FM), a contested, chronic, and gendered condition of unknown origin. The research question was: "How do men and women who have a diagnosis of FM experience interactions with healthcare providers?" The study, which was epistemologically rooted in the critical theories of feminist poststructuralism and intersectionality, blended constructivist grounded theory with a participatory component, an arts-based research methodology called body-map storytelling. Thirty-five participants were recruited from the Greater Toronto Area and Kitchener-Waterloo. Ten participants completed in-depth interviews while 25 participants completed …

2015 Weed Science Research Report – Gold Section, Ndsu Weed Science, Dept. Of Plant Sciences

Plant Sciences Weed Science Reports

The Weed Science team at North Dakota State University conduct field research in the State of North Dakota and Minnesota. This specific document reports on field research conducted in 2015 It includes work on sugarbeet and the management of several weeds in North Dakota and Minnesota..

2015 Weed Science Research Report – Pink Section, Ndsu Weed Science, Dept. Of Plant Sciences

Plant Sciences Weed Science Reports

The Weed Science team at North Dakota State University conduct field research in the State of North Dakota. This specific document reports on field research conducted in 2015. It includes work on leafy spurge and yellow toadflax in North Dakota.

Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva Misdiagnosed As Cervical Exostosis, Muhammad Awais, Abdul Rehman, Noor Ul-Ain Baloch

Department of Radiology

No abstract provided.

Analyses Of Volatiles Produced By The African Fruit Fly Species Complex (Diptera, Tephritidae), Radka Břízová, Lucie Vaníčková, Mária Faťarová, Sunday Ekesi, Michal Hoskovec, Blanka Kalinová

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Ceratitis fasciventris, Ceratitis anonae and Ceratitis rosa are polyphagous agricultural pests originating from the African continent. The taxonomy of this group (the so-called Ceratitis FAR complex) is unclear. To clarify the taxonomic relationships, male and female-produced volatiles presumably involved in pre-mating communication were studied using comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC-TOFMS) followed by multivariate analysis, and gas chromatography combined with electroantennographic detection (GC-EAD). GC×GC-TOFMS analyses revealed sex specific differences in produced volatiles. Male volatiles are complex mixtures that differ both qualitatively and quantitatively but share some common compounds. GC-EAD analyses of male volatiles revealed that the antennal …

Description Of Third Instar Larvae Of Ceratitis Fasciventris, C. Anonae, C. Rosa (Far Complex) And C. Capitata (Diptera, Tephritidae), Gary J. Steck, Sunday Ekesi

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Third instar larvae of members of the Ceratitis FAR complex, including Ceratitis fasciventris (Bezzi), Ceratitis anonae Graham, and Ceratitis rosa Karsch are described and compared with those of Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann). Diagnostic characters, such as presence vs. absence of a secondary tooth on the mandibles, previously used to separate C. capitata from C. rosa, are shown to vary in each species. Significant variation in diagnostic morphological characters among populations of C. rosa from east and south Africa is documented; however, the differences are not simply congruent with the R1 and R2 designations based on other studies. Quantitative measures of numerous …

Cuticular Hydrocarbons Corroborate The Distinction Between Lowland And Highland Natal Fruit Fly (Tephritidae, Ceratitis Rosa) Populations, Lucie Vaníčková, Radka Břízová, Antonio Pompeiano, Sunday Ekesi, Marc De Meyer

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The cuticular hydrocarbons (CHs) and morphology of two Ceratitis rosa Karsch (Diptera: Tephritidae) populations, putatively belonging to two cryptic taxa, were analysed. The chemical profiles were characterised by two-dimensional gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection. CHs of C. rosa that originated from the lowlands and highlands of Kenya comprised of n-alkanes, monomethylalkanes, dimethylalkanes and unsaturated hydrocarbons in the range of the carbon backbone from C14 to C37. Hydrocarbons containing C29, C31, C33 and C35 carbon atoms predominated in these two populations. 2-Methyltriacontane was the predominant compound in both populations. Quantitative differences in the distribution of hydrocarbons of different chain lengths, …

Bmx: A Tool For Computing Bacterial Phyletic Composition From Orthologous Maps, Benard W. Kulohoma

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Background: New sequencing technologies have made it possible to explore genetic diversity at higher resolution in microbial populations. However, our understanding evolutionary relationships, and comparison of closely and distantly related bacterial genomes from these massive datasets remains a formidable challenge. Numerous clustering algorithms that group genomic data based on homology have been developed, but new tools are still required to analyse the resultant orthologous maps to understand functional genetic similarities and their phyletic patterns (patterns of presence of absence of genes). Findings: Bacterial Makeup eXplorer (BMX) implements an algorithm that swiftly and efficiently facilitates the determination of the number of …

Occurrence Of Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi And Fusarium In Tc Banana Rhizosphere Inoculated With Microbiological Products In Different Soils In Kenya, R. W. Mukhongo, M. A. Kavoo-Mwangi, M. E. Kahangi, E. M. Ateka, A. B. Were, J. R. Okalebo, M. E. Mutegi, K. E. Mwangi, T. T. Tepeni, K. S. Njuguini, J. M. Onguso, S. A. Okoth, J. M. Jefwa

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The impact of microbiological commercial products (PHC Biopak, Rhizatech and ECO-T) on the occurrence of mycorrhizae and Fusarium in the rhizosphere of tissue culture banana (Gros Mitchel cv.) was assessed. Tissue cultured banana plantlets were inoculated with PHC Biopak (Bacillus), Rhizatech (mycorrhiza) and ECO-T (T. harzianum) under greenhouse conditions using a completely randomized design in a Vertisol, Rhodic Ferralsol and Humic Nitisol sampled from the major banana growing regions in Kenya. Potted plants were later established under field conditions in the three agro ecological zones. Roots and soils sampled at end of potting and at flowering were assessed for AM …

The Fourth Social Change Wave: Mastery Or Misery?, Raymond L. Forbes

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

One of the great values of social science has been its ability to identify and interpret useful themes and patterns that have shaped historical human behavior. In particular, understanding broad patterns of strategic social and technological change offers the opportunity to gain valuable insight into the present and provide potentially practical guidance for the future. This paper advances the concept of social waves of change, originally presented by futurist Alvin Toffler, as a frame work to think about what is now and what might be coming. It also provides several visions for a changed world, explores what it all might …

Breast-Feeding And Postpartum Maternal Weight Trajectories, Laura Mullaney, Amy O'Higgins, Shona Cawley, Rachel Kennedy, Daniel Mccartney, Michael J. Turner

Articles

We examined whether breast-feeding, and in particular exclusive breast-feeding, was associated with maternal weight and body composition changes at 4 months postpartum independently of other maternal variables.

Organizational Leaders’ Experience With Fear-Related Emotions: A Critical Incident Study, Al Barkouli

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study used the Critical Incident Technique (CIT) to better understand how organizational leaders experienced fear-related emotions. Through semi-structured interviews, fifteen executive leaders, mainly chief executive officers (CEOs), shared their experiences in response to threatening, risky, or dangerous incidents. In addition to a phenomenological understanding of the experience, participants illuminated the role that fear-related emotions play in leader decisions, how these emotions influence leader-follower relationships, the impacts of fear-related emotions on leaders’ health and well-being, and the ways leaders managed their experience with fear-related emotions including the role courage played. Leaders often faced threats, risks, or dangers (stimuli) from within …

Behavioral Adjustment In Children With Life Threatening Illness A Qualitative Study, E. Joseph Becher Jr.

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study investigated factors that affect adjustment in children with life-threatening illness from the viewpoint of the parents/caregivers. The data were collected from parents/caregivers whose children have a life threatening diagnosis. Parents/caregivers were interviewed and asked to complete the Parent Request Questionnaire (PRQ) which was given to them after the in-person interview. This newly developed PRQ was utilized into prior research to predict the levels of adjustment in children. It includes age, whether the child has been informed of the diagnosis, whether the child engages in age-appropriate activities, the child's prior experience with death, the child's family's involvement in treatment, …

Grandmothers' Leadership Roles As Reflected In The Lives Of High-Achieving Women: A Qualitative Study Of The Impact Of Grandmothers On Granddaughters During Their Formative Years, Sylvia E.M. Asante

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this study is to document and recognize the role of grandmothers as leaders, role models, and mentors who can positively influence the lives of their granddaughters. Grandmothers’ roles are not typically associated with leadership, and this phenomenon of presenting grandmothers as effective leaders will fill a void and add to the canon of leadership literature. The use of phenomenological study, which describes the lived experience (Husserl, 1970), as well as transformative leadership and feminist theory perspectives will be pivotal to this study. Due to the dearth of data on grandmothers’ leadership roles, this phenomenological study will "give …

A Mixed Methods Perspective: How Integral Leaders Can Contribute To The Growth Of Emerging Leaders, Susan M. Hayes

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Given that organizational complexity continues to increase, leaders are looking for credible information, and a process that helps them become a better leader. Emerging leaders are faced with trying to be the best leader they can be while leading teams of people who think and act differently from them. To assist emerging leaders with their leadership, this study explores the literature and looks to highly respected and admired leaders for how they became the leader they are today. The purpose of this study was fourfold: first, to identify and describe first and second tier integral theory leaders from a sample …

Common Psychosocial And Spiritual Factors Among Individuals Who Have Healed From Chronic Lyme Disease, Frederick Green

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation examined the subjective experience of individuals who have healed from Chronic Lyme Disease (CLD). Despite significant attention paid to the controversy over CLD diagnosis and treatment, scholarly research has neglected the psychosocial and/or spiritual factors that facilitate healing from the perspective of CLD sufferers. This study addressed this research gap by using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the barriers and facilitators of healing among those who have healed from CLD. Six participants who had suffered from CLD and considered themselves healed from the disease were recruited and interviewed. The qualitative data was reduced to meaning units, which …

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Subject-Matter Eligibility Inquiry In The Age Of Cloud Computing, Scott T. Luan

Santa Clara High Technology Law Journal

This article critiques and refines the subject-matter eligibility inquiry in patent law by examining the process of creativity in the context of software-implemented inventions. As a substantive critique of § 101 jurisprudence, this article, informed by copyright law, proposes a working hypothesis for a general structure of the subject-matter eligibility inquiry in which a critical determination is the appropriate level of abstraction for claim construction. As a discursive critique of the limits and limitations of judicial language, this article argues that courts have incorrectly presumed that contemporary legal thought is equipped, conceptually and linguistically, to understand the full significance of …

Developing A Chronic Pain Vocabulary: Communication Preferences Among Individuals With Chronic Pain, Karin L. Becker

Theses and Dissertations

In order to be acknowledged, chronic pain must be voiced yet disclosing of chronic pain is fraught with social and professional repercussions. Moreover, there is a perceived disinterest in hearing about, and a stigma associated with the experience of chronic pain. This research explores the therapeutic value of communicating about pain. Nineteen individuals with chronic pain participated in a six-week online writing workshop to describe the way chronic pain impacts daily activities. These qualitative responses were analyzed using discourse analysis and four interpretive repertoires emerged which convey the multi-faceted impacts of living with chronic pain. These findings informed the creation …

Phylogenetic Analysis Of Mitochondrial Genomes Of Filarial Nematodes In The Subfamily Waltonellinae, Sarina Marie Bauer

Theses and Dissertations

The family Onchocercidae is a group of parasitic vector born nematodes that are split up into eight subfamilies. Although the subfamilies containing species that parasitize humans and livestock (e.g., Onchocercinae) have been well-studied, there is a considerable lack of information for the lesser studied subfamilies in Onchocercidae (e.g. Waltonellinae). This uncertainty leaves some doubt as to the phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships among the different taxonomic groupings of filarioid nematodes.

I worked with two species of the subfamily Waltonellinae, Foleyellides n. sp. and F. flexicauda. The primers used in this study for polymerase chain reactions (PCR) and DNA sequencing reactions were …

Coordinating Gesture, Word, And Diagram: Explanations For Experts And Novices, Seokmin Kang, Barbara Tversky, John B. Black

Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

Successful explanations are a symphony of gesture, language, and props. Here, we show how they are orchestrated in an experiment in which students explained complex systems to imagined novices and experts. Visual-spatial communication—diagram and gesture—was key; it represents thought more directly than language. The real or virtual diagrams created from gestures served as the stage for explanations, enriched by language and enlivened by deictic gestures to convey structure and iconic gestures to enact the behavior and functionality of the systems. Explanations to novices packed in more information than explanations to experts, emphasizing the information about action that is difficult for …

Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Wing Color Pattern Development In Vanessa Cardui And Evolution Of The Polycomb Repressive Complex 2, Heidi Connahs

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present four papers. Three explore different aspects of wing color pattern development in the painted lady butterfly, Vanessa cardui; while the fourth examines the evolution of an epigenetic silencer complex across invertebrate animals. In the first paper, I used transcriptomics to identify patterning genes from the Drosophila wing gene regulatory network (GRN) in larval and pupal wings of V. cardui and to examine how temporal expression dynamics of this gene network correspond to expression of ommochrome and melanin pigment genes. This study identified key developmental periods of gene upregulation and highlights the temporal separation between peak …

Removal Of Blocking Artifacts From Jpeg-Compressed Images Using An Adaptive Filtering Algorithm, Riddhiman Goswami

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this research was to develop an algorithm that will produce a considerable improvement in the quality of JPEG images, by removing blocking and ringing artifacts, irrespective of the level of compression present in the image. We review multiple published related works, and finally present a computationally efficient algorithm for reducing the blocky and Gibbs oscillation artifacts commonly present in JPEG compressed images. The algorithm alpha-blends a smoothed version of the image with the original image; however, the blending is controlled by a limit factor that considers the amount of compression present and any local edge information derived …

Parasites Within Parasites: Transmission And Evolution Of Neorickettsia In Digeneans, Stephen Edward Greiman

Theses and Dissertations

Digeneans are endoparasitic flatworms with complex life cycles that involve two or more different animals as definitive and intermediate hosts. Some digenean species harbor bacterial endosymbionts belonging to the genus Neorickettsia (Order: Rickettsiales, Family: Anaplasmataceae). Neorickettsia occur in all life cycle stages of digeneans and are maintained by vertical transmission. Far from benign however, Neorickettsia may also be transmitted horizontally by digenean parasites to their vertebrate definitive hosts. Once inside, Neorickettsia can infect macrophages and other cell types. For some vertebrate species (e.g. dogs, horses and humans), neorickettsial infections cause severe disease. With a few exceptions, studies of Neorickettsia have …

Student Perceptions Of Digital Resources And Digital Technology In A Flipped Classroom, Larry S. Guggisberg

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to analyze student perceptions of flipped classroom instruction strategies, and student perceptions of their learning experience using digital resources and digital technology in a flipped classroom. Although perceptions are important, student achievement is a common tool used by policy-makers and judged by the general public as a means to evaluate and achieve continuous improvement in K-12 public education.

This case study may be a beneficial illustration for school administrator practitioners to consider prior to implementation or utilization of flipped classroom instructional strategies. The study provides a review of a high school that first implemented …

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Graduate Students' Experiences Of Plagiarism By Their Professors, Kimberly Dawn (Hanson) Becker

Theses and Dissertations

This phenomenological study expands the inquiry on perceived academic misconduct by investigating the experiences of graduate students who have reported a professor’s misattribution of their work. The participants include five graduate students who formally reported a violation of academic integrity because they believed a faculty member had misattributed their work. During the incident, the faculty and students both participated in an academic setting in one or more of the following types of relationships: committee chair–advisee, committee member–student, classroom professor–graduate student, and research supervisor–graduate assistant. Two central research questions frame this study: How do graduate students who have reported that their …

Using Computer Vision And Volunteer Computing To Analyze Avian Nesting Patterns And Reduce Scientist Workload, Kyle Andrew Goehner

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the use of feature detection and background subtraction algorithms to classify and detect events of interest within uncontrolled outdoor avian nesting video from the Wildlife@Home project. We tested feature detection using Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF) and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) along with four background subtraction algorithms — Mixture of Guassians (MOG), Running Gaussian Average (AccAvg), ViBe, and Pixel-Based Adaptive Segmentation (PBAS) — as methods to automatically detect and classify events from surveillance cameras. AccAvg and modified PBAS are shown to provide robust results and compensate for issues caused by cryptic coloration of the monitored species. …

Comparisons Of Muskrat (Ondatra Zibethicus) Trapping Efficiency And Incidental Take Of Non-Target Water Birds Using Covered And Uncovered Float Sets, Rodney Allen Gross Jr

Theses and Dissertations

Muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) have been a highly sought after furbearer species in North Dakota because of recent pelt prices. In 2011, regulation changes allowed trappers to use float sets to trap muskrats during the spring season. The current regulations require float sets used during the spring trapping season to have a covering made of either wire mesh, wood, or plastic and must not have an opening exceeding 20.32 cm (8 in) to attempt to minimize the incidental take of non-target species. The primary goals of this project were to determine if muskrat float set covers are effective in eliminating incidental …