Digital Commons Network^™

A Prospective Study Of Maternal, Fetal And Neonatal Deaths In Low- And Middle-Income Countries, Sarah Saleem, Elizabeth M. Mcclure, Shivaprasad S. Goudar, Archana Patel, Fabian Esamai, Ana Garces, Elwyn Chomba, Fernando Althabe, Janet Moore, Bhalachandra Kodkany

Community Health Sciences

Objective: To quantify maternal, fetal and neonatal mortality in low- and middle-income countries, to identify when deaths occur and to identify relationships between maternal deaths and stillbirths and neonatal deaths.
Methods: A prospective study of pregnancy outcomes was performed in 106 communities at seven sites in Argentina, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Pakistan and Zambia. Pregnant women were enrolled and followed until six weeks postpartum.
Findings: Between 2010 and 2012, 214,070 of 220,235 enrolled women (97.2%) completed follow-up. The maternal mortality ratio was 168 per 100,000 live births, ranging from 69 per 100,000 in Argentina to 316 per 100,000 in Pakistan. Overall, …

The Show Cave Of Diros Vs. Wild Caves Of Peloponnese, Greece - Distribution Patterns Of Cyanobacteria, Vasiliki Lamprinou, Daniel B. Danielidis, Adriani Pantazidou, Alexandra Oikonomou, Athena Economou-Amilli

International Journal of Speleology

The karst cave ‘Vlychada’of Diros, one of the oldest show caves in Peloponnese, sustains extended phototrophic biofilms on various substrata – on rocks inside the cave including speleothems, and especially near the artificial lighting installation (‘Lampenflora’). After a survey of the main abiotic parameters (Photosynthetically Active Radiation -PAR, Temperature -T, Relative Humidity -RH, Carbon Dioxide -CO₂) three clusters of sampling sites were revealed according to Principal Component Analysis (PCA): i) the water gallery section predominately influenced by CO₂, ii) the dry passages influenced by RH and PAR, and iii) the area by the cave exit at …

The Gps Craze: Six Questions To Address Before Deciding To Deploy Gps Technology On Wildlife, A. David M. Latham, M. Cecilia Latham, Dean P. Anderson, Jen Cruz, Dan Herries, Mark Hebblewhite

Wildlife Biology Faculty Publications

GPS and satellite technology for studies on wildlife have improved substantially over the past decade. It is now possible to collect fine-scale location data from migratory animals, animals that have previously been too small to deploy GPS devices on, and other difficult-to-study species. Often researchers and managers have formatted well-defined ecological or conservation questions prior to deploying GPS on animals, whereas other times it is arguably done simply because the technology is now available to do so. We review and discuss six important interrelated questions that should be addressed when planning a study requiring location data. Answers will clarify whether …

The Effect Of Economic And Social Conditions On The Use Of Clinical Preventive Services, Bisma Ali Sayed

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between economic conditions and individuals’ use of clinical preventive (CP) services. CP services form the cornerstone of the national healthcare agenda, and are key in the fight to reduce morbidity and mortality in the United States. Despite this, low utilization rates remain concerning, with recent statistics indicating that rates of CP service use fall well below the targets outlined in Healthy People 2020. In the present study, I focus on individuals’ use of three CP services, influenza vaccinations, blood cholesterol screening, and endoscopic colorectal cancer screening. Broadly, I examine the effect of state-level unemployment and …

Spatial Analysis In Cancer Surveillance, Recinda Loraine Sherman

Open Access Dissertations

The burden of cancer is a significant physical, psychological, and financial toll on individuals and populations. Cancer is more common in older populations, so advances in other areas of medicine will inevitably increase the numbers of cancer patients. The development of cancer is prolonged over years which makes it difficult to identify etiologic causes. And the treatment of the disease can also be quite protracted. In the case of advanced or aggressive disease, medical treatment is sometimes reduced to a series of clinical interventions that do little to change the timeline to mortality. Currently, our most effective tool in cancer …

Advances In Aquatic Target Localization With Passive Sonar, John Thomas Gebbie

Dissertations and Theses

New underwater passive sonar techniques are developed for enhancing target localization capabilities in shallow ocean environments. The ocean surface and the seabed act as acoustic mirrors that reflect sound created by boats or subsurface vehicles, which gives rise to echoes that can be heard by hydrophone receivers (underwater microphones). The goal of this work is to leverage this "multipath" phenomenon in new ways to determine the origin of the sound, and thus the location of the target. However, this is difficult for propeller driven vehicles because the noise they produce is both random and continuous in time, which complicates its …

A Multi-Scale Approach To Study Predator-Prey Interactions And Habitat Use Of Pinfish, Lagodon Rhomboids, Dinorah Helena Chacin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biological processes like species interactions and patterns such as abundance and distribution observed in nature can vary depending on the scale at which the subject of interest is evaluated. Knowing that there is no single natural scale at which systems should be studied, in this thesis, I conducted a series of basic and applied ecological approaches in order to examine the phenomena that can occur at different scales of space, time, and ecological organization.

Species abundances can vary over large spatial and temporal scales. By studying the habitat use of an abundant species, which uses a wide range of habitats, …

Borreliabase: A Phylogeny-Centered Browser Of Borrelia Genomes, Lia Di, Pedro E. Pagan, Daniel Packer, Che L. Martin, Saymon Akther, Girish Ramrattan, Emmanuel F. Mongodin, Claire M. Fraser, Steven E. Schutzer, Benjamin J. Luft, Sherwood R. Casjens, Wei-Gang Qiu

Publications and Research

Background The bacterial genus Borrelia (phylum Spirochaetes) consists of two groups of pathogens represented respectively by B. burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme borreliosis, and B. hermsii, the agent of tick-borne relapsing fever. The number of publicly available Borrelia genomic sequences is growing rapidly with the discovery and sequencing of Borrelia strains worldwide. There is however a lack of dedicated online databases to facilitate comparative analyses of Borrelia genomes. Description We have developed BorreliaBase, an online database for comparative browsing of Borrelia genomes. The database is currently populated with sequences from 35 genomes of eight Lyme-borreliosis (LB) group Borrelia species and …

Fact Or Fiction: Random Mating In Field Populations Of Western Corn Rootworm (Diabrotica Virgifera Virgifera Leconte) Emerging On Bt And Refuge Corn Plants, Steven Joel Smith

Open Access Theses

The western corn rootworm, or WCR, (Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte) is the most significant pest of field corn (Zea mays) in the United States, and has recently expanded its range into Europe. Since 2004, hybrid corn containing Bt toxins targeting the corn rootworm complex have been heavily adopted and are now the primary control measure for this pest in North American corn production. ^ The evolution of resistance is an ongoing concern, and to ensure Bt products will retain their usefulness, insect resistance management (IRM) tactics using various refuge structures have been adopted. One of the key …

Can Fire Atlas Data Improve Species Distribution Model Projections?, Shawn M. Crimmins, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Alison R. Mynsberge, Hugh D. Safford

Forest Management Faculty Publications

Correlative species distribution models (SDMs) are widely used in studies of climate change impacts, yet are often criticized for failing to incorporate disturbance processes that can influence species distributions. Here we use two temporally independent data sets of vascular plant distributions, climate data, and fire atlas data to examine the influence of disturbance history on SDM projection accuracy through time in the mountain ranges of California, USA. We used hierarchical partitioning to examine the influence of fire occurrence on the distribution of 144 vascular plant species and built a suite of SDMs to examine how the inclusion of fire-related predictors …

Pattern And Rate Of Decline Of A Population Of Carolina Hemlock (Tsuga Caroliniana Engelm.) In North Carolina, Foster Levy, Elaine S. Walker

ETSU Faculty Works

We monitored a population of Carolina Hemlocks in northwestern North Carolina for four years to examine the rate and pattern of decline in response to infestation by Adelges tsugae (Hemlock Woolly Adelgid). Our yearly census of hemlock condition and severity of the adelgid infestation included trees of all sizes. We estimated declines in condition as the portions of the leaf canopy that were lost. Initially, infestation occurred throughout the population but was severe in only a small cluster of individuals. Within 1 year, the area of severe infestation increased in size to encompass 48% of the population. In another region …

Hispanic Residential Ethnic Density And Depression In Post-Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients: Re-Thinking The Role Of Social Support, Ellen-Ge Denton, Jonathan A. Shaffer, Carmela Alcantra, Lynn Clemow, Elizabeth Denton

Publications and Research

Background: The ethnic density hypothesis suggests that ethnic density confers greater social support and consequently protects against depressive symptoms in ethnic minority individuals. However, the potential benefits of ethnic density have not been examined in individuals who are facing a specific and salient life stressor.

Aims: We examined the degree to which the effects of Hispanic ethnic density on depressive symptoms are explained by socioeconomic resources and social support.

Methods: Patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS, N = 472) completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and measures of demographics, ACS clinical factors and perceived social support. Neighborhood characteristics, including median …

Self-Identity Of Biracial Children: What Role Do Parents Play?, Patreese D. Ingram, Anil Kumar Chaudhary

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

One of the fastest growing student groups today is the biracial student population. This study is part of a larger exploratory descriptive study on biracial college students with a focus on the extent to which parents socialized their biracial children in the cultures of both parents while growing up and how these students chose to self-identify. Biracial students at a large, predominantly white, research university in the northeastern United States completed an online survey. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that most students had adopted a “border” identity. The majority of parents …

Full Issue, Volume 2, Number 2, Donna J. Peterson

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

No abstract provided.

The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (Mmetsp): Illuminating The Functional Diversity Of Eukaryotic Life In The Oceans Through Transcriptome Sequencing, Patrick J. Keeling, Bethany D. Jenkins, Susanne Menden-Deuer, Et Al

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Funding: This project was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF; Grants GBMF2637 and GBMF3111) to the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) and the National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Authors apart from NCGR and NCMA affiliates, FB and HMW (who performed 18S rRNA gene analyses), are community members who submitted samples for sequencing, including members of the advisory committee, but did not receive GBMF funds directly in support of these efforts.

Alum López Publish Article On Chronic Kidney Disease In El Salvador, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

Pre-Processing Techniques Applied To Automatic Taxon Identification On Fish Otoliths, Ramon Reig-Bolaño, Pere Marti-Puig

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper analyzes the characteristics of a rotation-invariant Feature space to be used in a classifier of fish otoliths, it is compared to two other Feature spaces, one with raw data and another with transformed data (using the Elliptic Fourier Descriptors EFD). Otoliths are found in the inner ear of fish. Their shape can be analyzed to determine sex, age, populations and species, and thus they can provide necessary and relevant information for ecological studies. The Automatic Taxon Identifier (ATI) is used to classify fish otoliths directly from a query image and is implemented on-line in a Public Database. This …

What Can Urbanism Be? Problematizing The Design Of Cities, Aseem Inam

DRS Biennial Conference Series

In this paper, I highlight a number of different ways of defining and describing the field conventionally known as urban design, which I problematize by broadening, deepening, and calling urbanism and which I re-define as city-design-and-building processes and their spatial products. These ways include morphological definitions, as a default focus, as the keeper of the public realm, through lists of categories, as a map of bodies of knowledge, as a field of research, as different modes of practice, via models for understanding and making cities, and practical “how-to” approaches such as best practices. I describe and critique each of these …

Biomechanical Properties Of Hemlocks: A Novel Approach To Evaluating Physical Barriers Of The Plant-Insect Interface And Resistance To A Phloem-Feeding Herbivore, Paul Ayayee, Fuqian Yang, Lynne K. Rieske

Entomology Faculty Publications

Micromechanical properties that help mediate herbivore access may be particularly important when considering herbivorous insects that feed with piercing-sucking stylets. We used microindentation to quantify the micromechanical properties of hemlock, Tsuga spp., to quantify the hardness of the feeding site of the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid, Adelges tsugae. We measured hardness of the hemlock leaf cushion, the stylet insertion point of the adelgid, across four seasons in a 1 y period for four hemlock species growing in a common garden, including eastern, western, mountain, and northern Japanese hemlocks. Leaf cushion hardness was highest in the fall and winter and …

Lone Madrone Winery And Bristols Cider, Kallo Collines, Asher Hoffman, Paul Ogden

Case Studies in Agribusiness

Neil Collins, the award winning wine maker at Tablas Creek and Lone Madrone wineries, is originally from Bristol, England, where he grew up enjoying apple ciders. This case follows his transition from the culinary to wine industry, and how he learned wine making from some the best wine makers in the Central Coast of California to become the head wine maker at an established winery and part owner of his own smaller winery. The case also explores how his cider making hobby became a commercial business, and the growth of the fledgling US cider industry.

Precipitation And Fire Impacts On Small Mammals In Shortgrass Prairie, Whitney J. Priesmeyer, Raymond S. Matlack, Richard T. Kazmair

The Prairie Naturalist

The southern Great Plains and the northern part of the Texas Panhandle have received less attention from a biological perspective than other parts of the state. Although there is substantial information on the effects of fire on small mammals in the tallgrass and mixed-grass prairies, there is a lack of understanding of fire influences in the shortgrass prairie, specifically on small mammals. We conducted our study on the Cross Bar Cooperative Management Area (CMA), a 4,856 ha shortgrass prairie within the Texas panhandle. Our objective was to determine the effect of three different fire return frequencies and precipitation on diversity …

Vegetarian Dietary Patterns: Mortality, Colorectal Cancer, And Food Consumption, Michael John Orlich

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Objective Vegetarian dietary patterns represent longstanding, real-world diets consumed by a minority of persons. Studies of important health outcomes of such diets, particularly for all-cause mortality and colorectal cancer risk, have yielded inconsistent results. We sought to examine these outcomes (mortality and colorectal cancer incidence) in a large North-American cohort. We also sought to further characterize potentially important differences in the food consumption patterns of these diets. Design Baseline diet was measured by a quantitative food frequency questionnaire among more than 96,000 Seventh-day Adventists in the US and Canada, enrolled from 2002-2007. Dietary patterns were defined, based on the reported …

Surface-Soil Properties Of Alder Balds With Respect To Grassy And Rhododendron Balds On Roan Mountain, North Carolina—Tennessee, James T. Donaldson, Zachary C. Dinkins, Foster Levy, Arpita Nandi

ETSU Faculty Works

We analyzed soils in Alder Bald, Grassy Bald, and Rhododendron Bald communities on Roan Mountain to infer the influence of vegetation on soil and to help guide management strategies. In all vegetation types, soils were acid (pH = 4–5) sandy loams. We found vegetation-associated differences for organic content, cation exchange capacity, acidity, two plant macronutrients (K, Mg), and three cations (Fe, Na, Zn). We predicted that nitrogen compounds would be highest in the Alder Bald because Alnus viridis ssp. crispa (Green Alder) can harbor nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Organic content was highest at the alder-bald sites, ammonium was similar among vegetation types, …

Multi-Timescale Dynamics Of Land Surface Temperature, Peng Fu

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spatial and temporal patterns of land surface temperature (LST) have been used in studies of surface energy balance, landscape thermal patterns and water management. An effective way to investigate the landscape thermal dynamics is to utilize the Landsat legacy and consistent records of the thermal state of earth’s surface since 1982. However, only a small proportion of studies emphasize the importance of historical Landsat TIR data for investigating the relationship between the urbanization process and surface thermal properties. This occurred due to the lack of standardized LST product from Landsat and the unevenly distributed remote sensing datasets caused by poor …

Photosynthetic Thermal Tolerance And Recovery To Short Duration Temperature Stress In Desert And Montane Plants: A Comparative Study, David William Gallagher

Master's Theses

• Climate change models predict an increase in frequency and amplitude of extreme weather events, including heat waves. To better predict how the composition and distribution of plant assemblages might respond to these changes in temperature, it is important to understand how species currently respond to these extremes. Photosynthetic thermal tolerance (T₂₅)and photosynthetic recovery (RT₂₅) were quantified in 27 species. We also studied the relationships between T₂₅, RT₂₅ and leaf mass per area (LMA). Leaf temperature was also monitored in the field.
• Leaves used in this study were collected from two distinct …

Diurnal Raptors Of Buffalo County, Nebraska, Thomas L. Freeman

The Prairie Naturalist

Diurnal birds of prey are apex predators, which often are utilized as indicators of potential environmental change (Newton 1979, Rodriguez-Estrella et al. 1998). While the Platte River Valley of Nebraska and the central plains are recognized as important winter habitat for numer- ous bird of prey species (United States Fish and Wildlife Service [USFWS] 1981, Root 1988), there are few published studies describing the distribution and abundance of raptors in Nebraska (Mathisen and Mathisen 1968, Craighead and Craighead 1969, USFWS 1981). In addition, studies summarizing the long-term distribution or density of Falconi- formes in Nebraska are limited due to the …

Mate Replacement And Alloparental Care In Ferruginous Hawk (Buteo Regalis), Shubham Datta, Will M. Inselman, Jonathan A. Jenks, Kent C. Jensen, Christopher C. Swanson, Robert W. Klaver, Indrani Sasmal, Troy W. Grovenburg

The Prairie Naturalist

Alloparental care (i.e., care for unrelated offspring) has been documented in various avian species (Maxson 1978, Smith et al. 1996, Tella et al. 1997, Lislevand et al. 2001, Literak and Mraz 2011). A male replacement mate that encounters existing broods has options, which include alloparental care or infanticide. Infanticide may be beneficial in some species (Rohwer 1986, Kermott et al. 1990), but in long-lived avian species, like the ferruginous hawk (Buteo regalis) that do not renest within a season, infanticide might be detrimental. Adoption and rearing success likely provide direct evidence of competence of replacement mates as potential parents for …

Nonlinear Internal Waves, Internal Bores, And Turbulent Mixing In The Nearshore Coastal Environment, Ryan K. Walter

Physics

The nearshore coastal environment is generally taken to be one of the most productive and ecologically important parts of the ocean. The nearshore is also a complex environment from a physical standpoint, due in large part to the widespread and often irregular occurrence of nonlinear internal waves (NLIWs) that frequently appear more bore-like than wave-like. Indeed, this region of the ocean can be thought of as the “swash zone” for larger-scale internal wave fields on the continental shelf. These nearshore NLIWs and bores have considerable implications for the cross-shelf exchange and transport of nutrients, sediments, contaminants, larvae, and other scalars; …

Biodiversity Index Value Of Benthic Invertebrates' Community In Relation With Variation Of Some Environmental Properties In Rivers Tigris And Diyala Within Baghdad City., Dahlia M. Ali Hassan Al-Kinani, Emaduldeen A. Al-Mukhtar

Baghdad Science Journal

This study was carried out to determine the effects of some environmental variables on biodiversity index value of benthic invertebrates' community in samples that collected monthly from two adjacent sites nearby the confluence of Tigris and Diyala rivers within Baghdad city that’s from November 2007 - October 2008. Results showed differences in chemical and physical characteristics for each river. Where the annual averages of these characteristics in Rivers Tigris and Diyala respectively for: water temperature (20, 19) Cº, pH (8, 8), Dissolved oxygen DO(8,4 ) mg/l , EC(1152,2979)µc/cm , Turbidity (28,74) NTU, Total Hardness of CaCO3 (485,823)mg/l, and finally NO3 …

A Study Of The Physical And Chemical Characteristics Of The Waters Of The Central Marshes In Southern Iraq After Restoration, Jameelah W. Ogaili, Abdul Rahman A. Al-Kubaisi

Baghdad Science Journal

some ecological (physical and chemical varible) of water samples were studies monthly from December 2008 to May 2009 at two stations( St.1) Al - Chibayesh marsh and (St.2) Abu – Zirik marsh which are located in the south of Iraq . These variables included : Temperature, pH, EC, Dissolved oxygen , Total alkalinity, Nitrate, Sulphate, and phosphate, Si-SiO2 and Ca ,Mg, Cl, The marsh Considered as fresh water and alkaline. Abu-Zirik less than Al-Chibayesh.