Digital Commons Network^™

A Neighborhood-Wide Association Study (Nwas): Example Of Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness, Shannon M. Lynch, Nandita Mitra, Michelle Ross, Craig Newcomb, Karl Dailey, Tara Jackson, Charnita M. Zeigler-Johnson, Harold Riethman

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Purpose

Cancer results from complex interactions of multiple variables at the biologic, individual, and social levels. Compared to other levels, social effects that occur geospatially in neighborhoods are not as well-studied, and empiric methods to assess these effects are limited. We propose a novel Neighborhood-Wide Association Study(NWAS), analogous to genome-wide association studies(GWAS), that utilizes high-dimensional computing approaches from biology to comprehensively and empirically identify neighborhood factors associated with disease.

Methods

Pennsylvania Cancer Registry data were linked to U.S. Census data. In a successively more stringent multiphase approach, we evaluated the association between neighborhood (n = 14,663 census variables) and prostate …

Distribution, Habitat, And Life History Aspects Of The Shrimp Crayfish, Faxonius Lancifer (Hagen) (Decapoda: Cambaridae) In Arkansas, Henry W. Robison, Chris T. Mcallister, Renn Tumlison

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

The Shrimp Crayfish, Faxonius (formerly Orconectes) lancifer (Hagen) is an uncommon, although widespread, crayfish in Arkansas. This species is herein documented from 19 counties of the Gulf Coastal Plain physiographic region. Between 1974 and 2017, we made 344 collections throughout the 75 counties of Arkansas, of which 22 (6%) yielded 163 specimens of F. lancifer. Thus, from these collections, plus 10 unpublished collections of Reimer (1963), and one collection from G.L. Harp, a total of 34 collections of F. lancifer are now known from the state. Faxonius lancifer ranged from uncommon (1 specimen) to locally abundant …

The Fishes Of Chadron Creek, Dawes County, Nebraska, Chris T. Mcallister, Michael B. Leite, Renn Tumlison

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

This first modern comprehensive survey of fishes collected from Chadron Creek, Dawes County, Nebraska, documents collections made with a small seine and backpack electrofisher during November 2007 and February and March 2008. Chadron Creek’s fish community is of low diversity. The total of 3 collections at each of 9 stations along the length of Chadron Creek resulted in 254 individual fishes, which represented only 7 species within 4 families. Water quality parameters, including dissolved oxygen, pH, conductivity, total dissolved solids, temperature and fecal coliform counts indicate that Chadron Creek is a healthy stream capable of supporting a greater diversity of …

Ecology Of Blanchard Springs Caverns, Ozark National Forest, Arkansas: 42 Years Later, C. J. Midden, S. K. Sasser, J. L. Grove

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Interrelationships between subterranean and epigean environments affect dispersion and distribution of cave organisms among the macro and microhabitats. This study examined the environmental impact of 42 years of tourism and development in the two lower sections of Blanchard Springs Caverns found in Stone County, Arkansas; and contributes to a better understanding of the seasonal fluctuations of the abiotic and biotic parameters.

Temperature, water quality, and fauna data were collected. A new entrance, lighting, and approximately 12,500 visitors during the 12-month study had no observable effect on cavern temperatures. Stream water quality measurements were comparable to Grove’s 1974 study. Gray bat, …

A Description Of Variation In Fecundity Between Two Populations Of Wolf Spider Rabidosa Rabida In Searcy Arkansas Using Brood Size Measurements, Brandon Hogland, Ryan Stork, Amber Hug

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Fecundity, a very important population variable, can be estimated by measuring the number of juveniles hatching out of individual egg sacs. Rabidosa rabida is a large wolf spider that is common in Arkansas and much of the eastern portion of North America. This study attempts to expand previous estimates of variation in fecundity made for this species by Reed and Nicholas in Mississippi. We hypothesized that a significant variation would be found in fecundity estimates between two populations in Arkansas. We also hypothesized that this variation would be similar to the variation reported in Mississippi. Two populations of R. rabida …

Sun-Bathing By Greater Roadrunners – A Neglected Aspect Of Their Range Extension, Kimberly G. Smith, Joseph C. Neal, J. C. Reynolds

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Taking Steel Seizure Seriously: The Iran Nuclear Agreement And The Separation Of Powers, Samuel Estreicher, Steven Menashi

Faculty Articles

This Article examines the constitutional validity of President Obama’s decision, as part of his 2015 agreement with Iran, effectively to repeal seventeen different sanctions provisions for the fifteen-year life of the agreement. Although Congress had legislated extensively in this area, the President effected this change by entering into a “nonbinding political agreement” with Iran and by aggregating individual waiver provisions in the sanctions laws into an across-the-board waiver of sanctions. We argue that the commitments made by the President in the Iran agreement violate a fundamental separation-of-powers limit on executive power—what we term “the Steel Seizure principle,” after Youngstown—the Steel …

How Missouri Stacks Up In Protecting Transgender Youths At School: An Analysis Of The Differing Views Of Title Ix And State-Level Protections, Kelly Smallmon

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

Neonatal Hypoglycemia In Diabetic Mothers: A Systematic Review, Brook T. Alemu, Olaniyi Olayinka, Hind A. Baydoun, Matthew Hoch, Muge Akpinar-Elci

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Hypoglycemia occurs in approximately 8-30% of neonates born to mothers with diabetes. The full extent of the individual and contextual risk factors of hypoglycemia remains unclear and no systematic review of the available studies exists to date. We identified published studies using PubMed and EBSCO host search engines. A modified STROBE statement was used to assess studies' strengths, weaknesses, and generalizability. A total of 16 articles were eligible for full text review. The clinical risk factors in these studies were broadly classified into two: infant-related and mother-related risk factors. The identified infant-related risk factors were SGA, macrosomia, prematurity, lower cord …

Hand Motion Detection In Fnirs Neuroimaging Data, Mohammadreza Abtahi, Amir Mohammad Amiri, Dennis Byrd, Kunal Mankodiya

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

As the number of people diagnosed with movement disorders is increasing, it becomes vital to design techniques that allow the better understanding of human brain in naturalistic settings. There are many brain imaging methods such as fMRI, SPECT, and MEG that provide the functional information of the brain. However, these techniques have some limitations including immobility, cost, and motion artifacts. One of the most emerging portable brain scanners available today is functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). In this study, we have conducted fNIRS neuroimaging of seven healthy subjects while they were performing wrist tasks such as flipping their hand with the …

Respire: A Spectral Kurtosis-Based Method To Extract Respiration Rate From Wearable Ppg Signals, Harishchandra Dubey, Nicholas Constant, Kunal Mankodiya

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper, we present the design of a wearable photoplethysmography (PPG) system, R-band for acquiring the PPG signals. PPG signals are influenced by the respiration or breathing process and hence can be used for estimation of respiration rate. R-Band detects the PPG signal that is routed to a Bluetooth low energy device such as a nearby-placed smartphone via microprocessor. Further, we developed an algorithm based on Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) regression for the estimation of respiration rate. We proposed spectral kurtosis features that are fused with the state-of the-art respiratory-induced amplitude, intensity and frequency variations-based features for the estimation …

A Role For Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Gene In Central Nervous System Myelination, Azeez Dean Aranmolate

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

96 pages

Building Bridges: Why Expanding Optional Practical Training Is A Valid Exercise Of Agency Authority And How It Helps F-1 Students Transition To H-1b Worker Status, Pia Nitzschke

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The "Postmodern Geographies" Of Frank Gehry's Los Angeles, Katherine Shearer

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the ways in which Frank Gehry’s architectural contributions to Los Angeles’ social and built environment have shaped the region’s “postmodern geographies” throughout the 20^th and 21^st century. Through a focused exploration of three of Gehry’s postmodernist structures in Greater Los Angeles—a house, a library, and a concert hall—this thesis analyses how Gehry and his designs reflected and affected the artistic and socio-spatial development of Los Angeles’ “decidedly postmodern landscape.”

2016 - 2017 Faculty Senate Annual Report, University Of South Carolina

Faculty Senate

The primary file includes the 2016-2017 Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Responsibility Annual Report. Additional annual reports are attached.

Synthesis, Characterization And Reactivity Of Bio Inspired Mononuclear Copper (Ii) And Nickel (Ii) Complexes With N-Rich Ligand Infrastructure, Nirupama Singh

Theses

Metalloenzymes that reacts with dioxygen play an important role in numerous biological processes. Due to their well-tuned redox activity, these metalloenzymes are appropriate to participate in various biological oxidation/oxygenation reactions in-volving dioxygen. In dioxygen activation chemistry, these metal containing enzymes interact with molecular oxygen. With the help of reduced metal center at the enzyme active site, dioxygen gets activated and produce metal oxygen adducts such as metal superoxo, metal hydroperoxo and metal oxo intermediate species. These intermediate species are responsible for many biological processes observed in metabolic pathways and aerobic respiration. To study the formation and characterization of structural and …

The Role Of Schematic Support And Fluency In Value-Directed Remembering, Donald J. Skinner

Theses

Value-directed remembering can be influenced by multiple factors, such as learners’ goals, perceptual cues, and perceived familiarity and fluency. Font size, type, and clarity are all perceptual cues that have been found to influence the subjective value of to-be-learned information. Fluency, or the ease with which information is processed, a factor influenced by familiarity, can also impact value-directed remembering. More fluent information is perceived as easier to process and thus more likely to be remembered. Judgments of learning (JOLs; i.e. subjective ratings regarding whether information will be remembered) can also be influenced by these three factors. The present study examined …

Planning For The Effects Of Climate Change On Natural Resources, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Climate change has important implications for the management and conservation of natural resources and public lands. The federal agencies responsible for managing these resources have generally recognized that considerations pertaining to climate change adaptation should be incorporated into existing planning processes, yet this topic is still treated as an afterthought in many planning documents. Only a few federal agencies have published guidance on how managers should consider climate change impacts and their management implications. This Article explains why these agencies are legally required to consider climate- related risks in planning processes, and presents recommendations and a model protocol for conducting …

Appliance And Equipment Efficiency Standards: A Roadmap For State And Local Action, Peter Ross

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

For decades, federal energy and water efficiency standards have demonstrably saved consumers money, reduced pollution, and increased grid reliability. The U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) periodically reviews standards and test procedures for more than 60 products, representing about 90% of home energy use, 60% of commercial building energy use, and 30% of industrial energy use. Due in part to their incremental nature and proven track record of success, these standards have been relatively uncontroversial, and often have been reached via consensus between manufacturers seeking regulatory certainty and environmental advocates seeking greater efficiency.

Recently, however, the political winds have shifted. Immediately …

How Did Federal Environmental Impact Statements Address Climate Change In 2016?, Saloni Jain, Omri Klagsbald, Giovanna Leigh Crozier-Fitzgerald, Taylor Quinn, Elana Sulakshana

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In partnership with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, this project surveyed 31 federal environmental impact statements (EISs) published from September through November 2016. The objective was to evaluate how federal agencies were implementing the guidance released in August 2016 by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) on how to account for climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the environmental review process.

Reproductive Timing Of The Largescale Stoneroller, Campostoma Oligolepis, In The Flint River, Alabama, Dana M. Timms

Theses

The purpose of this research was to ascertain the reproductive timing of a species that has been scantily researched. Campostoma oligolepis, the Largescale Stoneroller, inhabits freshwater streams from Michigan to the Mobile Basin and parts of the Ozark region. Specimens totaling 768 were collected from March, 2014 to September, 2015 from the Flint River in Northern Alabama. By assessing the size and condition of testes, ovaries, and subsequent oocytes, their reproductive schedule could be determined. Ovaries are latent from June through October. They begin developing oocytes in November and continue to enlarge through their reproductive peak. Gonads reached peak reproductive …

Rivera V. Google, Northern District Of Illinois

Historical and Topical Legal Documents

No abstract provided.

Exploring Population Change Detection By Monitoring Effective Number Of Breeders, Brian Trethewey

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Detecting if a population is in decline is an important objective for biologists and conservationists who are monitoring threatened populations. As genetic methods improve effective population size (N_e) and effective number of breeders (N_b) continue to gain popularity as a way to monitor species. Using simulated populations and linkage disequilibrium, we explored detecting population decline through N_b in age structured populations. Through comparisons of sensitivity (1 – false negatives) and specificity (1- false positives) over 1000 replicates, we explored how factors such as starting N_b, number of SNPs, number of individuals …

Response Of Amphibian And Invertebrate Communities To Wetland Mitigation In The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, Leah K. Swartz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Wetlands play a critical role in supporting freshwater biodiversity and ecosystem services, but human activities have resulted in large-scale loss and degradation of these habitats across the globe. To offset the decline of wetland area, mitigation wetlands are now frequently constructed, but their ability to replace the functions of natural habitats, including providing habitat for native fauna, remains uncertain. A recent highway reconstruction project in northwestern Wyoming caused impacts to and the destruction of multiple natural wetlands. To mitigate this loss, new wetlands were constructed along the highway corridor. To evaluate the performance of these created wetlands relative to reference …

Mirage: A Novel Multiple Protein Sequence Alignment Tool, Alex Nord

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

A fundamental problem in computational biology is the organization of many related sequences into a multiple sequence alignment (MSA) [2]. MSAs have a range of research applications, such as inferring phylogeny [22] and identifying regions of conserved sequence that indicate functional similarity [18]. In the case of protein isoforms, MSAs are valuable tools for transitively annotating post-translational modifications (PTMs) by enabling information transfer between known PTM sites and the sites that they align to [11].

For protein MSA tools, one challenging biological phenomenon is alternative splicing, wherein identical genomic sequence will differentially select from a subset of available coding regions …

Decolonization And Political Engagement For The Health And Wellbeing Of The Selish, Ksanka And Qlispe People, Anita Louise Dupuis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

What would a contemporary cultural model for health and wellbeing look like for an Indigenous community and what domains would feature prominent today? How would this model be reflected in governance for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT)?

This autoethnographic, interdisciplinary, action research study suggests ten cultural domains for inclusion in a contemporary cultural model for health and wellbeing for the Selish, Ksanka and Qlispe (SKQ), the Indigenous Nations of the CSKT. It then provides a revised, annotated draft of a culture-based constitutional governance structure, which integrates, synthesizes, and incorporates these ten domains.

The key purposes of the study …

Fire, Ice, Water, And Dirt: A Simple Climate Model, John Kroll

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

A simple paleoclimate model was developed as a modeling exercise. The model is a lumped parameter system consisting of an ocean (water), land (dirt), glacier, and sea ice (ice) and driven by the sun (fire). In comparison with other such models, its uniqueness lies in its relative simplicity yet yielding good results. For nominal values of parameters, the system is very sensitive to small changes in the parameters, yielding equilibrium, steady oscillations, and catastrophes such as freezing or boiling oceans. However, stable solutions can be found, especially naturally oscillating solutions. For nominally realistic conditions, natural periods of order 100kyrs are …

Abundance, Growth, And Predation By Non-Native Brown Trout In The Trinity River, Ca, Justin S. Alvarez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Brown Trout were introduced to the Trinity River in Northern California in the 1890’s. Since 1932, Brown Trout have sustained their population without additional stocking. Over the last 15 years, fisheries managers have been concerned that predation by piscivorous Brown Trout may impede efforts to restore native salmonids, in particular endangered Coho Salmon. I investigated predation by Brown Trout on native fish in the 64 km of the main stem Trinity River below Lewiston Dam. Using a bioenergetics approach parameterized with field measurements of Brown Trout abundance and growth, I estimated the amount of energy needed to sustain the 2015 …

A Comparison Of Benthic Macroinvertebrate Assemblages Between Perennial And Intermittent Headwater Streams Of The Mattole River In Northern California, Usa, Mason S. London

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Intermittent streams are common throughout the world and comprise 60% or more of total river lengths in the conterminous United States. Despite their prevalence, intermittent streams are understudied, particularly first-order headwater streams, which are vital for maintaining the function, health and biotic diversity of river networks. In June 2016, I sampled five intermittent and five perennial headwater streams in the Mattole River watershed in northwestern coastal California, USA, to compare benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) assemblages between intermittent and perennial streams. BMI samples were collected using a 500µm mesh D-net at eight randomly located riffles along a 150-m reach, and then composited, …

Effects Of A Post-Activation Potentiation Warm-Up On Submaximal Parallel Back Squat Volume, Rating Of Perceived Exertion, Peak Velocity, And Peak Power, Carlton Wei

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Resistance training (RT) is effective for improving athletic performance, with specific training loads and volumes dictating the adaptations. A warm-up is necessary to safely and effectively engage in RT: typically with a low intensity aerobic activity, stretching, and movement specific potentiating exercises. Post-activation potentiation (PAP) acutely increases muscular power following a conditioning contraction, though limited research has assessed its use for RT. The purpose of this study was to assess how a PAP warm-up protocol affects volume, rating of perceived exertion (RPE), and peak velocity and power with 75%1RM in the barbell parallel back squat (PBS) exercise across 4 sets. …