Digital Commons Network^™

Clustered Hierarchical Entropy-Scaling Search Of Astronomical And Biological Data, Najib Ishaq, George Student, Noah M. Daniels

Computer Science and Statistics Faculty Publications

Both astronomy and biology are experiencing explosive growth of data, resulting in a “big data” problem that stands in the way of a “big data” opportunity for discovery. One common question asked of such data is that of approximate search (ρ–nearest neighbors search). We present a hierarchical search algorithm for such data sets that takes advantage of particular geometric properties apparent in both astronomical and biological data sets, namely the metric entropy and fractal dimensionality of the data. We present CHESS (Clustered Hierarchical Entropy-Scaling Search), a search tool with virtually no loss in specificity or sensitivity, demonstrating a 13.6 × …

Closing Yield Gaps For Rice Self-Sufficiency In China, Nanyan Deng, Patricio Grassini, Haishun Yang, Jianliang Huang, Kenneth G. Cassman, Shaobing Peng

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

China produces 28% of global rice supply and is currently self-sufficient despite a massive rural-to-urban demographic transition that drives intense competition for land and water resources. At issue is whether it will remain self-sufficient, which depends on the potential to raise yields on existing rice land. Here we report a detailed spatial analysis of rice production potential in China and evaluate scenarios to 2030. We find that China is likely to remain self-sufficient in rice assuming current yield and consumption trajectories and no reduction in production area. A focus on increasing yields of double-rice systems on general, and in three …

What Genetic Testing Teaches About Long-Term Predictive Health Analytics Regulation, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

The ever-growing phenomenon of predictive health analytics is generating significant excitement, hope for improved health outcomes, and potential for new revenues. Researchers are developing algorithms to predict suicide, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cognitive decline, future opioid abuse, and other ailments. The researchers include not only medical experts, but also commercial enterprises such as Facebook and LexisNexis, who may profit from the work considerably. This Article focuses on long-term disease predictions (predictions regarding future illnesses), which have received surprisingly little attention in the legal and ethical literature. It compares the robust academic and policy debates and legal interventions that followed the …

Are Women Bad At Math Or Is It Just An Illusion? How False Memories And Gender Stereotypes Can Influence Women’S Perception Of Stem, Alexa Nicole Jayne

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

False memories and gender stereotypes were used to investigate if inducing a false memory of having a negative experience in a STEM field would influence participant’s preferences pertaining to the field. Women were recruited or volunteered to participate in the study. In the first session, participants completed a series of questionnaires to gauge their pre-existing experiences and attitudes towards STEM and non-STEM related subjects (n = 268). In the second session, participants whose responses from the first survey qualified, were randomly assigned to either the control (n = 74) or experimental condition (n = 71). Participants received …

Hearing Studies In Old Mice: The Effect Of Pre-Pulse Inhibition On The Acoustic Startle Response, Ashley B. Hillyard, Nicolette S. Chuss

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The purpose of this study pertains to hearing in the species Peromyscus maniculatus (deer mice) — specifically their responses to a startling sound. Approximately seven mice were tested between four and five years of age, approaching the lifespan of this species. By means of an accelerometer, which measures a reflexive, motor response, the mice were presented with an acoustic startle-eliciting stimulus (SES) — that is a loud, startling, unexpected sound. During the study, the mice were also presented with a softer, less-intense stimulus — known as a pre-pulse — slightly before the more intense sound. This pre-pulse stimulus was in …

Perceptions Of Disability And The Truth: Breaking Barriers, Syeda A. Kirmani

Honors Capstones

Disability is a term that is used in many contexts, areas and walks of life. It has only recently started to be recognized. It is for this reason there are still many misconceptions regarding disabilities and the perception is rather skewed. It is for this reason there exists a rather large divide between disability, the truth and perception of it. The confusion and uncertainty of any fact creates a barrier between people with disabilities and people without. It is for this reason they often become isolated into their own group or culture like the deaf community. In light of this, …

Recirculating Flow In A Basin With Closed F/H Contours, Alexander M. Fuller, Thomas W. N. Haine, Erik Kvaleberg

Journal of Marine Research

A general circulation model is used to study the time evolution of a rotating, weakly baroclinic fluid in a basin with sloping sidewalls. Contours of f/h, where f is the Coriolis parameter and h is the depth of the fluid, are closed in this model. The fluid is forced by a localized source of positive vorticity. The initial response is a narrow, recirculating cell that resembles a β-plume modified by bathymetry. Such cells have been found in previous studies and have been linked to the recirculation cells observed in the subpolar North Atlantic. However, this is not a steady …

Jim Mccarthy’S Achievements At The Intersection Of Science With Public Policy, John P. Holdren

Journal of Marine Research

Along with his distinguished research career as a biological oceanographer and marine biologist and his inspiring service as a teacher, advisor, and mentor to students and junior colleagues at Harvard University, Jim McCarthy has been a scientific statesman of the first order, bringing insights from his research and his deep understanding of the role of science in society into the arenas of management of scientific enterprises and public and policy-maker education about the science relating to some of the greatest challenges of our time. His roles at the intersection of science with public issues have included stints as director of …

Hats Off To You, Jim!, Bill Boicourt, Doug Capone, Ed Carpenter, Penny Chisholm, Paul Falkowski, Jim Galloway, Dave Kirchman, Fred Lipschultz, Hal Mooney, François Morel, John Nevins, Mike Roman, Dan Schrag, Sybil Seitzinger, Bess Ward

Journal of Marine Research

Jim’s intellectual curiosity was an inspiration. In addition to those whose comments follow, he clearly touched the careers and lives of many others.

The Microbial Loop Concept: A History, 1930–1974, Peter J. Le B. Williams, Hugh W. Ducklow

Journal of Marine Research

The microbial loop as a leading concept in marine microbiology gained wide recognition in the 1980s, but it has roots extending back to the 1930s when microbiologists first began to take a more dynamic approach to investigating the roles of bacteria in ocean food webs and biogeochemical cycles. Here we present a history of the microbial loop concept with emphasis on the period starting in 1930, when marine bacteriologists in Russia and the West began to study explicitly the roles of marine bacteria in the sea. Selman Waksman at Woods Hole and Claude ZoBell at La Jolla relied on colony …

The Ecological And Biogeochemical State Of The North Pacifi C Subtropical Gyre Is Linked To Sea Surface Height, Benedetto Barone, Ashley R. Coenen, Stephen J. Beckett, Dennis J. Mcgillicuddy Jr., Joshua S. Weitz, David M. Karl

Journal of Marine Research

Sea surface height (SSH) is routinely measured from satellites and used to infer ocean currents, including eddies, that affect the distribution of organisms and substances in the ocean. SSH not only reflects the dynamics of the surface layer, but also is sensitive to the fluctuations of the main pycnocline; thus it is linked to events of nutrient upwelling. Beyond episodic upwelling events, it is not clear if and how SSH is linked to broader changes in the biogeochemical state of marine ecosystems. Our analysis of 23 years of satellite observations and biogeochemical measurements from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre shows …

The Second Arm Training And Science Application Event: Training The Next Generation Of Atmospheric Scientists, Virendra P. Ghate, Pavlos Kollias, Susanne Crewell, Ann M. Fridlind, Thijs Heus, Ulrich Löehnert, Maximilian Maahn, Greg M. Mcfarquhar, Dmitri Moisseev, Mariko Oue, Manfred Wendisch, Christopher Williams

Physics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Cytosolic Sulfotransferase Expression And Regulation In Human Liver And Intestine, Sarah Talal Dubaisi

Wayne State University Dissertations

SULTs are conjugation enzymes that can modify the activity of a myriad of foreign and endogenous molecules. SULT expression was detected in various human tissues, including liver, small intestine, and colon. There are 13 human SULT genes that are classified into 4 families, SULT1, SULT2, SULT4, and SULT6. In humans, SULT1 and SULT2 families include 11 genes that are further divided into 6 subfamilies. In addition to their role in xenobiotic detoxification and regulation of physiological processes, SULT enzymes were implicated in the bioactivation of procarcinogens. Previous studies detected the expression of most SULT1 and SULT2 enzymes during early development, …

Humboldt Journal Of Microbiology: Volume 20, Number 1- May 2019, Press Humboldt

Humboldt Journal of Microbiology

No abstract provided.

The Mushroom, The Frog, And The Rainbow Of Desire: A Participatory-Psychedelic Spiritual Emergence, Gregg Lahood

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

This article will explore a spiritual emergency through a myth or fairy tale that emerged at the same time I had a frightening brush with death. Two days before the accident I had ingested psilocybin mushrooms. Michael Washburn, among other transpersonal theorists, will be used to interpret, amplify and re-frame this potential ‘psychotic episode’ with ‘borderline features’ into something more, perhaps, on the threshold of a shamanic initiation in a liminal state. The mythic sequence in my story anticipates the death-rebirth (perinatal pattern) and evolution of consciousness in the LSD research of Stanislav Grof; an evolution given epic participatory elucidation …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Core-Shamanism On A Group Of Westerners: A Brief Research Report, Joanic Masson, Yannick Gounden, Charlemagne Simplice Moukouta, Amal Bernoussi, Antoine Saurat

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

A study was conducted on Western adults who participated in a group undergoing initiation into therapeutic shamanism. It investigated how shamanic work could be a factor triggering changes in persons who never had been previously immersed in such a tradition. Five groups, each composed of six people for a total of 30 participants, met eight times over a period of four months. Analyzing questions asked of the 27 who completed the program resulted in the following identified themes: experiences of the group, trust in the shamanic practitioner, raised awareness of their feeling states, experiences of the shamanic journeys, understanding of …

The Transformation Of Marriage As A State Institution, John Makdisi, June Mary Zekan Makdisi

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

The first section of this essay explores why the good of children requires the institution of marriage to promote the procreation of children by the act of physical-spiritual love between a man and a woman. The second section explores why the good of children requires the institution of marriage to promote the upbringing of children by the lasting, exclusive, and faithful commitment of the couple. The third section explains why Obergefell's removal of the requirement of a legal union between a man and a woman as an essential aspect of marriage not only destroys the function of the marriage institution …

Desertification Assessment Using Medalus Method And Gis Techniques In North America Arid Environments, Essdik Bashir Habashi

Master's Theses

Desertification is a massive issue that affects many countries that have dry climates. The impacts of this phenomenon threaten the sustainability of natural resources, as well as agricultural, water, and food resources. Several factors that affect directly or indirectly desertification and making it worse are population growth, climate change, deforestation, overgrazing, natural disaster, and urbanization and other types of land development. This thesis research evaluated the desertification index in three counties in California State and three counties in New Mexico State by using the MEDALUS model (Mediterranean Desertification and Land Use) within a geographic information system (GIS). The model includes …

A Mathematical Solution To The Sine Of Madness That Is Pharmaceutical Compulsory Licensing Under The Trips Agreement And The Doha Declaration, Ashley E. Sperbeck

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

A viable economic solution is necessary to address the shortcomings, textual ambiguities, and deficiencies engulfing international patent protection, leading to the inability of LDCs facing public health crises or national emergencies and lacking pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities to obtain generic pharmaceuticals. This Note poses a solution to this problem via another Amendment to the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha Declaration, which provides a mathematical framework to determine when and under what circumstances a compulsory license should be granted. Furthermore, this Note contemplates establishment of a WTO subcommittee to oversee this proposed solution and to ensure compliance with this Amendment. This concrete …

Opting Into Device Regulation In The Face Of Uncertain Patentability, Rebecca S. Eisenberg

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

This article examines the intersection of patent law, FDA regulation, and Medicare coverage in a particularly promising field of biomedical innovation: genetic diagnostic testing. First, I will discuss current clinical uses of genetic testing and directions for further research, with a focus on cancer, the field in which genetic testing has had the greatest impact to date. Second, I will turn to patent law and address two recent Supreme Court decisions that called into question the patentability of many of the most important advances in genetic testing. Third, I will step outside patent law to take a broader view of …

Aging And Visual Spatial Integration, Alexia J. Higginbotham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The current study evaluated the ability of 20 younger and 20 older adults to discriminate shapes depicted by Glass patterns. On any given trial, observers identified a particular pattern as either possessing a radial or concentric organization. Detecting a shape defined by a Glass pattern requires the successful detection of the orientations of its constituent local dipoles. In addition, long-range processes are needed to integrate the spatially separated dipoles into perceivable contours that have a particular (e.g., radial or concentric) organization. In the current experiment, the shapes were defined by either 40 or 200 oriented dipoles spread over an area …

Conflict Management Training In Video-Based Teams, Alexis Ward

Master's Theses

In the wake of an emerging economy that demands organizational agility, globalization and an increasing number of independent contractors, corporations have exponentially incorporated virtual teams in their organizations. However, despite their financial and geographical convenience, research has indicated that virtual teams have consistently experienced more conflict and lowered performance and satisfaction levels than that of their traditional counterparts. The present study sought to examine whether conflict management training could help video based virtual teams demonstrate more positive conflict handling techniques and less negative techniques, which would result in higher group process and group outcome satisfaction. This study did not find …

Tgf-Β Induces A Heart Failure Phenotype Via Fibroblasts Exosome Signaling, Hesham Basma, Adelaide N. Johanson, Kajari Dhar, Daniel R. Anderson, Fang Qiu, Stephen I. Rennard, Brian D. Lowes

Journal Articles: Pulmonary & Critical Care Med

PURPOSE: The mechanisms for persistent and progressive loss of myocardial function in advanced heart failure (HF) remain incompletely characterized. In the current study, we sought to determine the impact of TGF-β on fibroblasts transcriptional profiles and assess if exosomes from TGF-β treated fibroblasts could induce a heart failure phenotype in co-cultured cardiomyocytes.

METHOD: Normal heart fibroblasts were treated with TGF-β with a final conc. of 2.5 ng/ml in serum free media. HF fibroblasts were also obtained from patients undergoing implantation of left ventricular assist devices. Exosomes were collected using three-step ultracentrifugation. Cardiomyocytes were co-cultured with exosomes from TGF-β-treated, HF and …

Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid From Copd Patients Reveals More Compounds Associated With Disease Than Matched Plasma, Eitan Halper-Stromberg, Lucas Gillenwater, Charmion Cruickshank-Quinn, Wanda Kay O'Neal, Nichole Reisdorph, Irina Petrache, Yonghua Zhuang, Wassim W. Labaki, Jeffrey L. Curtis, James Wells, Stephen I. Rennard, Katherine A. Pratte, Prescott Woodruff, Kathleen A. Stringer, Katerina Kechris, Russell P. Bowler

Journal Articles: Pulmonary & Critical Care Med

Smoking causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Though recent studies identified a COPD metabolomic signature in blood, no large studies examine the metabolome in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid, a more direct representation of lung cell metabolism. We performed untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) on BAL and matched plasma from 115 subjects from the SPIROMICS cohort. Regression was performed with COPD phenotypes as the outcome and metabolites as the predictor, adjusted for clinical covariates and false discovery rate. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) grouped metabolites into modules which were then associated with phenotypes. K-means clustering grouped similar subjects. We detected …

It's More Than Low Bmi: Prevalence Of Cachexia And Associated Mortality In Copd, Merry-Lynn N. Mcdonald, Emiel F.M. Wouters, Erica Rutten, Richard Casaburi, Stephen I. Rennard, David A. Lomas, Marcas Bamman, Bartolome Celli, Alvar Agusti, Ruth Tal-Singer, Craig P. Hersh, Mark Dransfield, Edwin K. Silverman

Journal Articles: Pulmonary & Critical Care Med

BACKGROUND: Cachexia is associated with increased mortality risk among chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. However, low body mass index (BMI) as opposed to cachexia is often used, particularly when calculating the BODE (BMI, Obstruction, Dyspnea and Exercise) index. For this reason, we examined mortality using a consensus definition and a weight-loss definition of cachexia among COPD cases and compared two new COPD severity indices with BODE.

METHODS: In the current report, the consensus definition for cachexia incorporated weight-loss > 5% in 12-months or low BMI in addition to 3/5 of decreased muscle strength, fatigue, anorexia, low FFMI and inflammation. The …

Philosophy Of Perception In Hegel, John Shannon Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

According to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics (The Introduction to Hegel’s Philosophy of Fine Art, 1886), beauty in art is a higher beauty than that of nature, because beauty in art is a product of the mind, or spirit, the intellectual rather than the sensory. In the Symposium of Plato, when the initiate learns to love all beautiful bodies rather than just one body, to “pursue the beauty of form” (210) rather than the beauty of the body, to turn away from the “low and small-minded slav-ery” of love for the beauty of a body, …

William H. Hannon Library Year In Review 2018 – 2019, William H. Hannon Library

William H. Hannon Year-in-Reviews

No abstract provided.

Electrochemical Reduction Of Artemisinin: Chromatographic Identification Of Bulk Electrolysis Products, Faja Ombwayo, Zahilis Mazzochette, Amos Mugweru

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

Artemisinin is a naturally occurring sesquiterpene lactone with an endo-peroxide bond. This drug is used for treatment of many diseases including malaria. The reduction of this molecule on an electrode surface was carried out by cyclic voltammetry as well as amperometry. Cyclic voltammetry of artemisinin generated one prominent peak wave at -1.0 V and another, smaller one at -0.3 V vs Ag/AgCl reference electrode. The bulk electrolysis of artemisinin on a carbon electrode generated two other irreversible peak waves at around -0.7 and -0.1 V. The concentration of the products was dependent on the time of electrolysis. LC-MS was used …

Social Determinants Of Health Theory: Policy Entry Points For Healthcare Providers, Kiah R. Vandergrift

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a shifting paradigm in the U.S. healthcare system that will re-define the role that the healthcare provider plays in the production of health. It does this by first acknowledging two differing economic theories on the production of health: Human Capital Theory and Social Determinants of Health theory, and how both schools of thought have contributed to the paradigm that healthcare providers only play a role in the end stages of health production - to heal those who are already ill. However, policy, payment, and delivery system reforms have begun to force healthcare providers to re-think how they …

An Archaeological Investigation Into Social Organization And Political Reform In The Reserve Area Of New Mexico, A.D. 1000–1350, Cameron D. Benton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes archival data from archaeological sites with great kivas in the Reserve region of west-central New Mexico dating to A.D. 1000-1350 and examines sociopolitical organization and reform between the dynamic Reserve (A.D. 1000-1100) and Tularosa (1100-1350) Phases. Specifically, studies in this thesis compare great kiva architecture and ceramic types present between sites using methods of descriptive statistics and quantitative analysis, which allowed for interregional variation and change to be identified between those time periods. The results of those analyses are correlated with the archaeological histories of the Mimbres and Chaco societies that bordered the Reserve area in prehistory …