Digital Commons Network^™

Planet Sensitivity From Combined Ground- And Space-Based Microlensing Observations, W. Zhu, Andrew Gould, Charles Beichman, Sebastiano Calchi Novati, Sean Carey, B. Scott Gaudi, Calen B. Henderson, Matthew Penny, Yossi Shvartzvald, Jennifer C. Yee, A. Udalski, R. Poleski, J. Skowron, S. Kozłowski, P. Mróz, P. Pietrukowicz, G. Pietrzyński, M. K. Szymański, I. Soszyński, K. Ulaczyk, L. Wyrzykowski, F. Abe, R. K. Barry, D. P. Bennett, A. Bhattacharya, I. A. Bond, M. Freeman, A. Fukui, Y. Hirao, Y. Itow, N. Koshimoto, H. Ling, K. Masuda

Faculty Publications

To move one step forward toward a Galactic distribution of planets, we present the first planet sensitivity analysis for microlensing events with simultaneous observations from space and the ground. We present this analysis for two such events, OGLE-2014-BLG-0939 and OGLE-2014-BLG-0124, which both show substantial planet sensitivity even though neither of them reached high magnification. This suggests that an ensemble of low to moderate magnification events can also yield significant planet sensitivity, and therefore probability, for detecting planets. The implications of our results to the ongoing and future space-based microlensing experiments to measure the Galactic distribution of planets are discussed.

Non-Traditional Stable Isotope Behaviors In Immiscible Silica-Melts In A Mafic Magma Chamber, Dan Zhu, Huiming Bao, Yun Liu

Faculty Publications

Non-traditional stable isotopes have increasingly been applied to studies of igneous processes including planetary differentiation. Equilibrium isotope fractionation of these elements in silicates is expected to be negligible at magmatic temperatures (δ57 Fe difference often less than 0.2 per mil). However, an increasing number of data has revealed a puzzling observation, e.g., the δ57 Fe for silicic magmas ranges from 0‰ up to 0.6‰, with the most positive δ57 Fe almost exclusively found in A-type granitoids. Several interpretations have been proposed by different research groups, but these have so far failed to explain some aspects of the observations. Here we …

What Role Do Hurricanes Play In Sediment Delivery To Subsiding River Deltas?, James E. Smith, Samuel J. Bentley, Gregg A. Snedden, Crawford White

Faculty Publications

The Mississippi River Delta (MRD) has undergone tremendous land loss over the past century due to natural and anthropogenic influences, a fate shared by many river deltas globally. A globally unprecedented effort to restore and sustain the remaining subaerial portions of the delta is now underway, an endeavor that is expected to cost $50-100B over the next 50 yr. Success of this effort requires a thorough understanding of natural and anthropogenic controls on sediment supply and delta geomorphology. In the MRD, hurricanes have been paradoxically identified as both substantial agents of widespread land loss, and vertical marsh sediment accretion. We …

Geochemistry Of Fine-Grained Sediments In The Yangtze River And The Implications For Provenance And Chemical Weathering In East Asia, Mengying He, Hongbo Zheng, Peter D. Clift, Ryuji Tada, Weihua Wu, Chao Luo

Faculty Publications

© 2015, He et al. In order to interpret the marine clastic record preserved in the sedimentary basins of the East Asian marginal seas, it is important to understand how sediment transport and chemical weathering affect the composition of sediment enroute to its sink. Here we present a new data set for fine-grained sediment (<63 >μm) from the Yangtze River and its major tributaries, which represents a baseline for interpreting sediment in the East China Sea. We demonstrate that there is no significant coherent downstream variation in the major element contents, which are generally more enriched than the average upper …

Multitrophic Enemy Escape Of Invasive Phragmites Australis And Its Introduced Herbivores In North America, Warwick J. Allen, Randee E. Young, Ganesh P. Bhattarai, Jordan R. Croy, Adam M. Lambert, Laura A. Meyerson, James T. Cronin

Faculty Publications

© 2015, Springer International Publishing Switzerland. One explanation for why invasive species are successful is that they escape natural enemies from their native range or experience lower attack from natural enemies in the introduced range relative to native species (i.e., the enemy-release hypothesis). However, little is known about how invasive plants interact with co-introduced herbivores or natural enemies of the introduced herbivores. We focus on Phragmites australis, a wetland grass native to Europe (EU) and North America (NA). Within the past 100–150 years, invasive European genotypes of P. australis and several species of specialist Lipara gall flies have spread within …

Tissue-Specific Contributions Of Paternally Expressed Gene 3 In Lactation And Maternal Care Of Mus Musculus, Wesley D. Frey, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

© 2015 Frey, Kim.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in anymedium, provided the original author and source are credited. Paternally Expressed Gene 3 (Peg3) is an imprinted gene that controls milk letdown and maternal-caring behaviors. In this study, a conditional knockout allele has been developed in Mus musculus to further characterize these known functions of Peg3 in a tissue-specific manner. The mutant line was first crossed with a germline Cre. The progeny of this cross displayed growth retardation phenotypes. This is consistent with …

The Seesaw Effect Of Winter Temperature Change On The Recruitment Of Cotton Bollworms Helicoverpa Armigera Through Mismatched Phenology, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Peijian Shi, Cang Hui, Xiaofei Cheng, Fang Ouyang, Feng Ge

Faculty Publications

Knowing how climate change affects the population dynamics of insect pests is critical for the future of integrated pest management. Rising winter temperatures from global warming can drive increases in outbreaks of some agricultural pests. In contrast, here we propose an alternative hypothesis that both extremely cold and warm winters can mismatch the timing between the eclosion of overwintering pests and the flowering of key host plants. As host plants normally need higher effective cumulative temperatures for flowering than insects need for eclosion, changes in flowering time will be less dramatic than changes in eclosion time, leading to a mismatch …

Next-Generation Sequencing Reveals Frequent Opportunities For Exposure To Hepatitis C Virus In Ghana, Joseph C. Forbi, Jennifer E. Layden, Richard O. Phillips, Nallely Mora, Guoliang Xia, David S. Campo, Michael A. Purdy, Zoya E. Dimitrova, Dorcas O. Owusu, Lili T. Punkova, Pavel Skums, Shirley Owusu-Ofori, Fred Stephen Sarfo, Gilberto Vaughan, Hajung Roh, Ohene K. Opare-Sem, Richard S. Cooper, Yury E. Khudyakov

Faculty Publications

Globally, hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection is responsible for a large proportion of persons with liver disease, including cancer. The infection is highly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. West Africa was identified as a geographic origin of two HCV genotypes. However, little is known about the genetic composition of HCV populations in many countries of the region. Using conventional and next-generation sequencing (NGS), we identified and genetically characterized 65 HCV strains circulating among HCV-positive blood donors in Kumasi, Ghana. Phylogenetic analysis using consensus sequences derived from 3 genomic regions of the HCV genome, 5'-untranslated region, hypervariable region 1 (HVR1) and NS5B …

Examining Louisiana State University College Of Agriculture Students’ Perceived Motivators And Barriers To Participation In International Experiences, J. C. Bunch, J. Joey Blackburn, Shelli Dan Jean, Kristin E. Stair, Leslie D. Blanchard

Faculty Publications

© 2015, Assoc. Int. Agricultural and Extension Education. All rights reserved. In an effort to internationalize higher education and produce globally competent professionals, many universities have increased the time and financial assets put toward promoting an international experience (IE). Research supports using an IE to supplement international education efforts and help students develop the global perspective and experience needed to succeed in the workplace. The purpose of this study was to determine College of Agriculture (CoA) students’ perceptions of IE participation, and identify factors that CoA students perceived as barriers and motivators to participation in an IE. CoA students were …

Mathematics Library News 14, Aaron Lercher

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Parity Sheaves On The Affine Grassmannian And The Mirković–Vilonen Conjecture, Pramod N. Achar, Laura Rider

Faculty Publications

We prove the Mirković–Vilonen conjecture: the integral local intersection cohomology groups of spherical Schubert varieties on the affine Grassmannian have no p-torsion, as long as p is outside a certain small and explicitly given set of prime numbers. (Juteau has exhibited counterexamples when p is a bad prime.) The main idea is to convert this topological question into an algebraic question about perverse-coherent sheaves on the dual nilpotent cone using the Juteau–Mautner–Williamson theory of parity sheaves.

On The Asymptotic Derivation Of Winkler-Type Energies From 3d Elasticity, Andrés A. León Baldelli, Blaise Bourdin

Faculty Publications

We show how bilateral, linear, elastic foundations (i.e., Winkler foundations) often regarded as heuristic, phenomenological models, emerge asymptotically from standard, linear, three-dimensional elasticity. We study the parametric asymptotics of a non-homogeneous linearly elastic bi-layer attached to a rigid substrate as its thickness vanishes, for varying thickness and stiffness ratios. By using rigorous arguments based on energy estimates, we provide a first rational and constructive justification of reduced foundation models. We establish the variational weak convergence of the three-dimensional elasticity problem to a two-dimensional one, of either a “membrane over in-plane elastic foundation”, or a “plate over transverse elastic foundation”. These …

A New Analysis Of The Exoplanet Hosting System Hd 6434, Natalie R. Hinkel, Stephen R. Kane, Genady Pilyavsky, Tabetha S. Boyajian, David J. James, Dominique Naef, Debra A. Fischer, Stephane Udry

Faculty Publications

The current goal of exoplanetary science is not only focused on detecting but characterizing planetary systems in hopes of understanding how they formed, evolved, and relate to the solar system. The Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey (TERMS) combines both radial velocity (RV) and photometric data in order to achieve unprecedented ground-based precision in the fundamental properties of nearby, bright, exoplanet-hosting systems. Here we discuss HD 6434 and its planet, HD 6434b, which has a Mp sin i = 0.44 MJ mass and orbits every 22.0170 days with an eccentricity of 0.146. We have combined previously published RV data with …

Krylov-Veretennikov Formula For Functionals From The Stopped Wiener Process, Georgii V Riabov

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Doob's Decomposition Theorem For Near-Submartingales, Hui-Hsiung Kuo, Kimiaki Saitô

Communications on Stochastic Analysis

No abstract provided.

Failure Of A Heterologous Recombinant Sca5/Ompb Protein-Based Vaccine To Elicit Effective Protective Immunity Against Rickettsia Rickettsii Infections In C3h/Hen Mice, Sean P. Riley, Marissa M. Cardwell, Yvonne G. Chan, Ludovic Pruneau, Fabio Del Piero, Juan J. Martinez

Faculty Publications

Spotted fever group (SFG) rickettsial species are obligate intracellular tick-borne pathogens that are responsible for important human diseases. Previous reports have demonstrated the feasibility of using recombinant surface cell antigen Sca5/OmpB to elicit protective immunity against homologous challenges using murine models of Mediterranean spotted fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. In addition, the feasibility of generating cross-protective immunity against related rickettsial species has also been established, but the molecular basis for these phenomena was not explored. Here, we demonstrate that vaccination of C3H/HeN mice with a recombinant OmpB domain derived from Rickettsia conorii induced high titer humoral immune responses that …

Island Vs. Countryside Biogeography: An Examination Of How Amazonian Birds Respond To Forest Clearing And Fragmentation, Jared D. Wolfe, Philip C. Stouffer, Karl Mokross, Luke L. Powell, Marina M. Anciaes

Faculty Publications

Avian diversity in fragmented Amazonian landscapes depends on a balance between extinction and colonization in cleared and disturbed areas. Regenerating forest facilitates bird dispersal within degraded Amazonian landscapes and may tip the balance in favor of persistence in habitat patches. Determining the response of Amazonian birds to fragmentation may be hindered because many species use adjacent second growth matrices thereby limiting the applicability of island biogeography to predict species loss; alternatively, a countryside biogeographic framework to evaluate the value of regenerating forest may be more appropriate. Here, we used point-count and capture data to compare Amazonian bird communities among continuous …

The Michelle Obama Influence: An Exploration Of The First Lady’S Fashion, Style, And Impact On Women, Delisia Matthews, Cassandra Chaney, Jane A. Opiri

Faculty Publications

Given keen national interest in the fashion sense of First Lady Michelle Obama, few studies have examined the appeal of the first lady’s style and if her example influences women to modify their styles and shopping behaviors. To address this paucity in the research, the purpose of this study was to explore the impact of Michelle Obama’s apparel choices on women. To address this purpose, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who follow Michelle Obama’s fashion and rated her style as appealing. Qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed three themes: (1) relating through authenticity, (2) permission to defy norms, …

Environmentally Persistent Free Radical-Containing Particulate Matter Competitively Inhibits Metabolism By Cytochrome P450 1a2, James R. Reed, Albert Leo N. Dela Cruz, Slawo M. Lomnicki, Wayne L. Backes

Faculty Publications

Combustion processes generate different types of particulate matter (PM) that can have deleterious effects on the pulmonary and cardiovascular systems. Environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) represent a type of particulate matter that is generated after combustion of environmental wastes in the presence of redox-active metals and aromatic hydrocarbons. Cytochromes P450 (P450/CYP) are membrane-bound enzymes that are essential for the phase I metabolism of most lipophilic xenobiotics. The EPFR formed by chemisorption of 2-monochlorophenol to silica containing 5% copper oxide (MCP230) has been shown to generally inhibit the activities of different forms of P450s without affecting those of cytochrome P450 reductase …

The Navier–Stokes Equations In Nonendpoint Borderline Lorentz Spaces, Nguyen Cong Phuc

Faculty Publications

It is shown both locally and globally that $${L_t^{\infty}(L_x^{3,q})}$$Lt∞(Lx3,q) solutions to the three-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations are regular provided $${q\neq\infty}$$q≠∞. Here $${L_x^{3,q}}$$Lx3,q, $${0 < q \leq\infty}$$0

Colorimetric And Fluorometric Determination Of Homocysteine And Cysteine, Robert M. Strongin, Weihua Wang, Oleksandr Rusin, Nadia N. St. Luce, Jorge O. Escobedo

College of Science Patents

Colorimetric and fluorometric methods are disclosed for the rapid, accurate, selective, and inexpensive detection of homocysteine, or of homocysteine and cysteine, or of cysteine. The methods may be employed with materials that are readily available commercially. The novel methods are selective for homocysteine, for cysteine, or for total homocysteine and cysteine, and do not cross-react substantially with chemically-related species such as glutathione. The homocysteine-selective method does not have substantial cross-reactivity to the very closely related species cysteine. The cysteine-selective method does not have substantial cross-reactivity to the very closely related species homocysteine. The methods may be used, for example, in …

On The Stability Of A Periodic Solution Of Distributed Parameters Biochemical System, Abdou K. Dramé, Frédéric Mazenc, Peter R. Wolenski

Faculty Publications

This paper studies the stability of periodic solutions of distributed parameters biochemical system with periodic input Sin(t). We prove that if Sin(t) is periodic then the system has a periodic solution that is input to state stable when small perturbations are acting on the input concentration Sin(t).

Synthesis And Properties Of A Series Of Carboranyl-Bodipys, Jaime H. Gibbs, Haijun Wang, N. V.S.Dinesh K. Bhupathiraju, Frank R. Fronczek, Kevin M. Smith, M. Graça H. Vicente

Faculty Publications

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. A series of four BODIPYs containing one or two ortho- or para-carborane clusters were synthesized using palladium(0)-catalyzed Suzuki cross-coupling or nucleophilic substitution reactions, at the 2,6- or the 8-positions of halogenated boron dipyrromethenes (BODIPYs). The spectroscopic, structural (including one X-ray) and in vitro BBB permeability of the BODIPYs using hCMEC/D3 brain endothelial cells were investigated.

Hybrid Sol–Gel Glasses With Glass-Transition Temperatures Below Room Temperature, Andrei Jitianu, Guadalupe Gonzalez, Lisa C. Klein

Publications and Research

Melting gels are hybrid gels that have the ability to soften and flow at around 100 ° C for some combinations of mono- and di-substituted alkoxysiloxanes, where substitutions are either all aromatic or all aliphatic. In this study, melting gels were prepared using phenyltriethoxysilane (PhTES) and dimethyldiethoxysilane (DMDES), meaning both an aromatic and aliphatic substitution. Differential scanning calorimetry was performed to identify glass-transition temperatures, and thermal gravimetric analysis coupled with differential thermal analysis (TGA-DTA) was performed to measure weight loss. The glass-transition temperatures ( T g ) ranged from – 61 ° C to + 5.6 ° C, which are …

Emergency Takings, Brian Lee

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Labrad : Vol 41, Issue 3 - December 2015, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi

LABRAD - Departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Radiology Archives

• Overview on Approach to Inherited Bleeding Disorders
• Diagnostic Approach to Haemoglobinopathies
• Transient Abnormal Myelopoiesis
• Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) in Children
• Role of Histopathology in the Diagnosis of Paediatric Renal Tumours
• Role of Histopathology in the Diagnosis of Paediatric Bone and Soft Tissue Small Round Cell Tumours
• Evaluation of Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEM) In a Nutshell
• An Update on Blood Lead Levels in Children
• Clinical Utility of Immature Platelet Fraction – An advanced 25 Parameter in Laboratory Hematology
• Meeting Report: “Les Confluences” The Society for the Study 30 of Inborn errors of Metabolism (SSIEM) Annual Symposium 2015 in Lyon, France

Salad: A Multimodal Approach For Contextual Video Advertising, Chen Xiang, Tam Nguyen, Mohan Kankanhalli

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The explosive growth of multimedia data on Internet has created huge opportunities for online video advertising. In this paper, we propose a novel advertising technique called SalAd, which utilizes textual information, visual content and the webpage saliency, to automatically associate the most suitable companion ads with online videos. Unlike most existing approaches that only focus on selecting the most relevant ads, SalAd further considers the saliency of selected ads to reduce intentional ignorance. SalAd consists of three basic steps. Given an online video and a set of advertisements, we first roughly identify a set of relevant ads based on the …

An Immersive Telepresence System Using Rgb-D Sensors And Head-Mounted Display, Xinzhong Lu, Ju Shen, Saverio Perugini, Jianjun Yang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present a tele-immersive system that enables people to interact with each other in a virtual world using body gestures in addition to verbal communication. Beyond the obvious applications, including general online conversations and gaming, we hypothesize that our proposed system would be particularly beneficial to education by offering rich visual contents and interactivity. One distinct feature is the integration of egocentric pose recognition that allows participants to use their gestures to demonstrate and manipulate virtual objects simultaneously. This functionality enables the instructor to effectively and efficiently explain and illustrate complex concepts or sophisticated problems in an intuitive manner. The …

Objective Real-Time Motion Analysis Using Wearable Devices For Post Stroke Rehabilitation, Brandon J. Allen

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

With the growing population of the elderly, there is an increasing need for reliable, inexpensive, and quantifiable clinical measures. This thesis proposes mStroke, a practical, accurate, and mobile health system that remotely measures a stroke patient's proficiency in standard post-stroke therapy activities. The proposed system is delivered as an application (App) running on a hardware system consisting of two bluetooth low energy (BLE) modular sensor devices and an iPad. The system uses accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers to measure movement during three single-tasked clinical activities: the functional reach test, the NIHSS motor arm test, and the NIHSS motor leg test. The …

The Development Of An All Quadrilateral Boundary Conforming Grid Generator For High Order Finite Element Methods, Mary A. Barker

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

A grid generator is developed that produces all quadrilateral meshes. The scheme is automated to work for arbitrary choice of geometry. In addition, a Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline curve fitter is implemented to replicate the curvature of the geometries. The grid elements on the boundaries conform to the curved structure to support high order accuracy for a finite element scheme. Various geometries are used to test the robustness and generality of the meshing algorithm. The initial problems that were encountered are discussed and the solutions explained. The speed of the algorithm is discussed together with the effect of grid and geometry …