Digital Commons Network^™

Birth Mass Is The Key To Understanding The Negative Correlation Between Lifespan And Body Size In Dogs, Rong Fan, Gayla R. Olbricht, Xavior Baker, Chen Hou

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Larger dog breeds live shorter than the smaller ones, opposite of the mass-lifespan relationship observed across mammalian species. Here we use data from 90 dog breeds and a theoretical model based on the first principles of energy conservation and life history tradeoffs to explain the negative correlation between longevity and body size in dogs. We found that the birth/adult mass ratio of dogs scales negatively with adult size, which is different than the weak interspecific scaling in mammals. Using the model, we show that this ratio, as an index of energy required for growth, is the key to understanding why …

Measuring The Success Of The Emo Western States Championship Horse Show, Alison Mae Einolander

Agricultural Education and Communication

The purpose of this project was to determine whether or not the 2016 EMO Western States Championship Show was successful, and analyze if it should become an annual event. In this project, survey data and analysis pertaining to the 2016 Inaugural EMO Western States Championship Show will be found.

Mri Upgrades At Radiology Associates, Patrick Cheung, Charlene Donlon

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Problem Statement: The MRI machines at Radiology Associates are limiting the company’s ability to expand and compete within the local market. After discussing with technicians and managers at Radiology Associates, we decided to focus on hardware and software upgrades for the MRI machines. With 2 of the 3 locations purchasing new machines in the near future, our focus was on upgrades at the Santa Maria facility. The two machines at this location needed hardware and/or software upgrades to remain on par competitively both within the company and with local scanning options. Flexible coils are beneficial in terms of size, weight, …

Going For Gold In The International Math Olympiad, Queena N. Lee-Chua

Mathematics Faculty Publications

In July 2016, two high school students in the Philippine team garnered gold at the 57th International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) in Hong Kong, capping a three-decade long quest for the top prize in the most prestigious high school math competition in the world. The four other team members also brought home honors, boosting our country to its highest rank ever, 17th out of 109 countries. This article discusses the history of the Philippine participation in the IMO, and examines the critical factors that have led to the victory. For Philippine team participants in general, these include: institutionalized and refined search …

The Tax Definition Of "Medical Care:" A Critique Of The Startling Irs Arguments In O'Donnabhain V. Commissioner, Katherine Pratt

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article critiques the startling arguments made by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) in O’Donnabhain v. Commissioner, a case in which the issue was whether a person diagnosed with gender identity disorder (“GID”) could take a federal tax deduction for the costs of male-to-female medical transition, including hormone treatment, genital surgery, and breast augmentation. Internal Revenue Code § 213 allows a deduction for the costs of “medical care,” which (1) includes costs incurred for “the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or for the purpose of affecting any structure or function of the body,” but (2) generally …

Appraising Religious Liberty In The Philippine Reproductive Health Debates, Alfonso Suico

Jesuit School of Theology Dissertations

The debates surrounding the reproductive health bills created controversy and division between the Philippine government and the Church leaders. The government proposed laws that would promote accessible health care to women and children, including access to safe and effective contraceptives. The Catholic bishops opposed these bills, which they considered as inconsistent with Church teachings on sexuality and marriage.

Following a modified pastoral circle, this thesis describes the Philippine situation and genealogy of the debates, analyzes the critical position of the bishops, and proposes how the right to religious freedom can provide a paradigm of examining the debates. The bishops' opposition …

A Spatio-Temporal Model Of Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Ecology Across The North American Great Plains Throughout The Paleoindian Period: Development Of Biological Theory And Statistical Methods To Link Human Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, And The Archaeological Record, Erik Roque Otárola-Castillo

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

Hunter-gatherers spread to nearly every corner of the planet in large part due to their flexible ability to forage for high-quality foods in diverse environments. The study of human foraging behavior is therefore crucial to understanding the proximate and ultimate factors that have shaped human evolutionary history. Although not necessarily in an evolutionary context, the foraging behavior of Paleoindian hunter-gatherers in North America has been studied for over a century. Researchers have paid particular attention to Paleoindian foragers’ hunting of big game across the grasslands of the Great Plains, shedding light on “what†prey Paleoindians foraged, “where†foraging occurred on …

Evolution Of Immiscibly Blended Functionalized Polymers With Respect To Cure Parameters And Formulation, Nicholas Walter Heller

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

Powder coatings are becoming ubiquitous in the coating marketplace due to the absence of solvents in their formulation, but they have yet to see implementation in low-reflectance outdoor applications. This demand could be met by utilizing polymer blends formulated with low loadings of matting agents and pigments. The goal of this research is a thorough characterization of prototype low-reflectance coatings through several analytical techniques. Prototypical thermoset blends consist of functionalized polyurethanes rendered immiscible by differences in polar and hydrogen bonding characteristics, resulting in a surface roughened by droplet domains. Analysis of both pigmented and control clear films was performed. This …

Fabrication Of A Novel Biosensor For Macromolecules Detection Through Molecular Imprinting Technique, Yingjie Yu

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

There is an increasing need for precise molecular detection as a diagnostic tool for early identification of diseases, pathogens, and abnormal protein levels in the body. Typical chemical analytical methods are generally costly, unstable, and time-consuming. Molecular imprinting (MI) technique，based on the “lock and key model†, could be a simple method to overcome those shortcomings. In this study, a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) was employed as a platform to fabricate MI biosensor for detection of macromolecules. I demonstrated that, when the monolayer was formed on a rough surface, this method was in fact templating molecules in three dimensions, and hence …

Understanding The Dielectric Properties Of Water, Daniel C. Elton

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

Liquid water is a complex material with many anomalous properties. Three of these anomalies are an abnormally high dielectric constant, an abnormally high boiling point, and a solid phase which is less dense than the liquid phase. Each of these anomalies is known to have been critically important in the development of life on Earth. All of water's special properties can be linked to water's unique ability to form hydrogen bonds. Water's hydrogen bonds form a transient network. Understanding the average structure of this network and how it changes through the phase diagram remains the focus of intense research. In …

Some Applications Of Superspace, Chia-Yi Ju

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

Supersymmetry is a very popular topic in recent high energy physics theories. Especially, in order to make sense of string theory, we have to impose supersymmetry. Superspace method is proven to be a very useful approach to supersymmetric theories by treating supersymme- try as part of the geometry. In this dissertation, we use superspace method to investigate superconformal field theory and string/brane theory. The first part of the dissertation, we rewrite semi-shortening con- ditions using superspace approach. The rewritten expression is co- variant under superconformal transformation. We found that all the known semi-shortening condition are part of the covariantized ones …

Anomalous Transport In Chiral Systems, Gustavo Machado Monteiro

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

The experimental realization of Dirac and Weyl semimetals in 2014 and 2015 respectively has increased the interest in the topic. Similarly to graphene, the discovered materials are characterized by massless quasiparticles. In three dimensions these quasiparticles can be described by the Weyl Hamiltonian which exhibits so-called chiral anomaly at low energies. The chiral anomaly has a transport signature, namely, the enhancement of longitudinal conductivity along the direction of external magnetic field. This effect in new materials is the condensed matter version of the chiral magnetic effect (CME) predicted to happen in heavy ion collisions. Due to its topological nature the …

New Designs And Characterization Techniques For Thin-Film Solar Cells, Yutong Pang

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

This thesis presents a fundamentally new thin-film photovoltaic design and develops several novel characterization techniques that improve the accuracy of thin-film solar cell computational models by improving the accuracy of the input data. We first demonstrate a novel organic photovoltaic (OPV) design, termed a ``Slot OPV", in which the active layer is less than 50 nm; We apply the principles of slot waveguides to confine light within the active layer. According to our calculation, the guided-mode absorption for a 10nm thick active layer equal to the absorption of normal incidence on an OPV with a 100nm thick active layer. These …

Studies Of Entanglement Entropy, And Relativistic Fluids For Thermal Field Theories, Michael Spillane

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

In this dissertation we consider physical consequences of adding a finite temperature to quantum field theories. At small length scales entanglement is a critically important feature. It is therefore unsurprising that entanglement entropy and Renyi entropy are useful tools in studying quantum phase transition, and quantum information. In this thesis we consider the corrections to entanglement and Renyi entropies due to addition of a finite temperature. n this dissertation we consider physical consequences of adding a finite temperature to quantum field theories. At small length scales entanglement is a critically important feature. It is therefore unsurprising that entanglement entropy and …

The Study Of Nonequilibrium Dissipative Quantum Dynamics And Its Applications To Energy Transport And Quantum Information Processes, Zhedong Zhang

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

Nonequilibrium quantum physics is of fundamental importance and interest. It is still an extremely hard issue even in today's theoretical physics because of the lack of the knowledge on the basic theories, like the nonequilibrium quantum statistical mechanics. The recent advances on theory and experiments reveal the essentiality of nonequilibrium quantum dynamics on explaining as well as understanding many interesting phenomenon, i.e. | the ultrafast energy transfer \& long-survived quantum coherence in organic molecules, quantum phase transition and the novel transport properties of superfluid gas at low temperature. Here we will focus on the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics relaxing towards the …

"The Cradle Of Things": Origins And Ontogenesis In The Late Landscapes Of Gustave Courbet, Nicole Georgopulos

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

In the spring of 1864, Gustave Courbet returned to his home region of Franche-Comté and painted a series of landscapes that took as their subjects various natural points of origin: grottoes, caves, waterfalls, etc. Through his loose and expressive facture, Courbet renders visible in these landscapes the ongoing becoming of the world, investigating the nature of origination and evolution. Courbet’s interest in such subjects comes just two years after the publication of the French translation of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, which irreversibly unsettled the traditional understanding of humankind’s position within the world. The early years of evolutionary …

The Impact Of Campaign Finance On Roll Call Behavior, Voter Perceptions, And Democratic Responsiveness, David Stack

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

Levels of partisanship and polarization within Congress are at high levels. However, this development defies the expectation of Downsian models. My dissertation attributes polarization to the activity of political donors. Using a database of over 13.5 million individual donors, I use advanced time series models to show that donors have been increasingly rewarding Republicans who toe the party line. In the second section of my dissertation, I explore how incumbent politicians may be using these campaign contributions to offset any potential electoral penalties for excessive partisanship. My examination of survey evidence shows that incumbents may be using campaign spending to …

A Spatio-Temporal Model Of Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Ecology Across The North American Great Plains Throughout The Paleoindian Period: Development Of Biological Theory And Statistical Methods To Link Human Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, And The Archaeological Record, Erikroque Otárola-Castillo

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

Hunter-gatherers spread to nearly every corner of the planet in large part due to their flexible ability to forage for high-quality foods in diverse environments. The study of human foraging behavior is therefore crucial to understanding the proximate and ultimate factors that have shaped human evolutionary history. Although not necessarily in an evolutionary context, the foraging behavior of Paleoindian hunter-gatherers in North America has been studied for over a century. Researchers have paid particular attention to Paleoindian foragers’ hunting of big game across the grasslands of the Great Plains, shedding light on “what†prey Paleoindians foraged, “where†foraging occurred on …

Evolution Of Immiscibly Blended Functionalized Polymers With Respect To Cure Parameters And Formulation, Nicholas Walter Heller

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

Powder coatings are becoming ubiquitous in the coating marketplace due to the absence of solvents in their formulation, but they have yet to see implementation in low-reflectance outdoor applications. This demand could be met by utilizing polymer blends formulated with low loadings of matting agents and pigments. The goal of this research is a thorough characterization of prototype low-reflectance coatings through several analytical techniques. Prototypical thermoset blends consist of functionalized polyurethanes rendered immiscible by differences in polar and hydrogen bonding characteristics, resulting in a surface roughened by droplet domains. Analysis of both pigmented and control clear films was performed. This …

Estimation Of Stable Distribution And Its Application To Credit Risk, Hua Mo

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

To capture the heavy tails and the volatility clustering of asset returns is always an important topic in nancial market. We studies two projects related to the Alpha Stable distribution and Classical Tempered Stable(CTS) distribution respectively which both have desired properties to accommodate heavy-tails and capture skewness in nancial series. (1) In the major part of the rst project, we introduce the algorithm of indirect inference method. By using the skewed-t distribution as an auxiliary model which is easier to handle, we can estimate the parameters of the Alpha Stable distribution since these two models have the same numbers of …

Dilation Behavior Of Thermal Spray Coatings, Miryan Lorena Bejarano

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

Thermal Spray (TS) is a very versatile manufacturing process to deposit thick coatings on a variety of substrates. Coatings are used in protective (i.e. wear, chemical attack, high temperature, etc.) and functional (i.e. sensors) applications. TS coatings have a unique lamellar microstructure as a result of the overlapping of millions of molten and partially-molten particles. During processing, high deformation by impact, high temperature, and rapid solidification lead to a complex hierarchical material system that contains a high amount of microstructural defects. The presence of defects in the microstructure contribute to differences in property values in comparison to bulk materials. Thermal …

Molar Topographic Shape As A System For Inferring Functional Morphology And Developmental Patterning In Extant Cercopithecoids, Julia Mackay Winchester

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

New imaging technologies are rapidly changing the nature of morphological data by making possible the creation and sharing of large samples of digital scan data, creating a need for high-throughput morphometric methods. A promising example of this can be found in morphological topographic analysis, a suite of algorithms for describing surface shape properties. Topographic methods have been used effectively to address dietary functional morphology of molars in a number of mammal radiations. These methods may be also useful for answering other questions concerning molar shape. Empirical models of mouse molar morphogenesis include predictions concerning molar shape variation that could apply …

Synaptonemal Complex Disassembly Activates Rad51-Mediated Double Strand Break Repair During Budding Yeast Meiosis, Evelyn Joann Prugar

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

Meiosis is a highly conserved specialized cell division that occurs in many organisms, including budding yeast and mammals. Meiosis divides the chromosome number of the cell in half to create gametes for sexual reproduction. A single round of chromosome duplication is followed by two rounds of chromosome segregation, Meiosis I (homologs segregate) and Meiosis II (sister chromatids segregate). Proper segregation at Meiosis I requires that homologs are connected by both crossovers and sister chromatid cohesion. Crossovers are formed by the repair of double strand breaks (DSBs) preferentially by the homolog. The choice of repair template is determined at the time …

Mantle Composition And Temperature Of Western North America Revealed From In-Situ Velocity Measurements Of Klb-1 Peridotite, Xuebing Wang

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

The composition and thermal structure of the Earth’s mantle, especially the mantle transition zone, still remain controversial due to the lack of direct access to the Earth’s interior. An important geophysical approach to constrain the mineralogical composition of the mantle is to compare seismic profiles (e.g. | PREM and AK135) with the elasticity of candidate compositional models calculated by averaging schemes based on the phase equilibrium and elasticity data of individual mantle minerals. However, chemical reactions, element partitioning and diffusion cannot be fully taken into account by this approach. In this study, I conducted direct velocity measurements on KLB-1 peridotite …

Wave Gradiometry And Its Link With Helmholtz Equation Solutions Applied To Usarray, Yuanyuan Liu

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

Wave gradiometry is an array processing technique using the shape of seismic wavefields captured by dense seismic arrays to estimate fundamental wave propagation characteristics [Langston, 2007a,b; Liang and Langston, 2009]. We first explore a compatibility relation that links the spatial gradients to displacements and velocity seismograms through two unknown coefficients: A⃗ and B⃗. We show that the A⃗-coefficient corresponds to the gradient of logarithmic amplitude and the B⃗ -coefficient corresponds approximately to the local wave slowness. These coefficients are solved through iterative, damped least- squares inversions to provide estimates of four gradiometry products: dynamic phase velocity, back-azimuth, radiation pattern and …

Justices Of The Peace, Lawyers And The People: Local Courts And The Contested Professionalization Of Law In Late Colonial New York, Sung Yup Kim

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

Legal professionalization in New York was a contested social process entailing myriad local struggles over the use of land and credit. New York’s legal professionalization gained momentum in the mid-eighteenth century, as provincial lawyers pursued a collective mission to monopolize doctrinal interpretation and procedural application of English common law in the colony. The on-the-ground application of that mission frequently pitted lawyers against commoners, many of whom preferred the informal resolutions provided by lay justices, jurors, arbitrators, and town meetings. Professionalized law determined cases with doctrines and procedures alien to most laypeople. It disrupted the local communities’ means of equitable dispute …

Reconstruction Of Atmospheric [Co] And Stable Co Isotopes δ13c And δ18o Over The Last 250 Years | Reconstruction Of Atmospheric [Co] And Stable Co Isotopes Δ13c And Δ18o Over The Last 250 Years, Alicia Mullaley

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

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a trace gas that influences atmospheric chemical reactions. CO is relatively short-lived (weeks to months) in the atmosphere and therefore spatially variable with a modern concentration range from 35 parts per billion (ppb) to 150 ppb (Globalview-CO, 2009). Because of its lifetime, atmospheric carbon monoxide is a good tracer for hemispheric processes; it is long enough to be transported over hemispheric distances but is short enough where there can be large seasonal and interannual variations. Therefore, measuring the variations in CO from bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice can reveal processes that occur in the Southern Hemisphere …

Development Of The Simplified Land Model (Slm) And Its Application To The Diurnal Cycle Of Precipitation Over Land, Jungmin Lee

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

The diurnal cycle of convection is a key to understanding the climate and weather in the context of the Earth’s energy and water cycles. Yet, the well-observed late afternoon to early evening precipitation maximum over most of inland regions still remains one of the poorly understood features of continental convection. Many numerical weather and global climate models (GCMs) have had difficulty capturing the correct diurnal cycle of convection over land. Not only does this deficiency create a concern regarding the consistency of GCMs’ physical parameterizations, but it also requires a better understating of physical processes that control the land-atmosphere interactions. …

Palmitoylation Of The Nmda Receptor And Psd95 Utilizing Phosphopantetheinyl Transferases, Victor Chang

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

Signal transduction relies on the proper localization of proteins to properly transfer signals throughout the cell. The cell membrane serves as a vital interface for the proper localization of proteins. Posttranslational modifications cause proteins to become targeted to membranes. One such modification is palmitoylation, the addition of a palmitic acid to a cysteine of a protein. Within the neuron, a large protein complex called the postsynaptic density receives upstream signals at the synapse. Many signaling proteins within the postsynaptic density are known to require palmitoylation for proper trafficking and function. Two such examples are the N-methyl-D-Aspartate receptor (NMDAR) and Post …

Functional Consequences Of A Putative Mek1 Phosphorylation Site On Rad17 During Meiosis In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Madeeha Rahat

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

Meiosis is a specialized type of cell division, which produces haploid daughter cells from diploid parental cells. Meiotic recombination is initiated by the introduction of programmed DNA double strand breaks (DSBs), which are catalyzed by an evolutionarily conserved, meiosis-specific endonuclease, Spo11. Meiotic cells monitor the repair of Spo11-induced DSBs via the meiotic recombination checkpoint (MRC), which is activated in response to DSBs made during meiotic prophase. The MRC ensures proper repair of DSBs prior to entry into the first meiotic division. The Mec1 checkpoint kinase is recruited to resected DSBs via the 9-1-1 complex containing Rad17, Mec3 and Ddc1. Mec1 …