Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Noble Gases Identify The Mechanisms Of Fugitive Gas Contamination In Drinking-Water Wells Overlying The Marcellus And Barnett Shales, Thomas H. Darrah, Avner Vengosh, Robert B. Jackson, Nathaniel R. R. Warner, Robert J. Poreda

Dartmouth Scholarship

Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing have enhanced energy production but raised concerns about drinking-water contamination and other environmental impacts. Identifying the sources and mechanisms of contamination can help improve the environmental and economic sustainability of shale-gas extraction. We analyzed 113 and 20 samples from drinking-water wells overlying the Marcellus and Barnett Shales, respectively, examining hydrocarbon abundance and isotopic compositions (e.g., C2H6/CH4, δ13C-CH4) and providing, to our knowledge, the first comprehensive analyses of noble gases and their isotopes (e.g., 4He, 20Ne, 36Ar) in groundwater near shale-gas wells. We addressed two questions. (i) Are elevated levels of hydrocarbon gases in …

Analysis, Toxicity, Occurrence And Biodegradation Of Nonylphenol Isomers: A Review, Zhijiang Lu, Jay Gan

Environmental Science and Geology Faculty Research Publications

Over the last two decades, nonylphenols (NPs) have become to be known as a priority hazardous substance due primarily to its estrogenicity and ubiquitous occurrence in the environment. Nonylphenols are commonly treated as a single compound in the evaluation of their environmental occurrence, fate and transport, treatment or toxicity. However, technical nonylphenols (tNPs) are in fact a mixture of more than 100 isomers and congeners. Recent studies showed that some of these isomers behaved significantly differently in occurrence, estrogenicity and biodegradability. The most estrogenic isomer was about 2 to 4 times more active than tNP. Moreover, the half lives of …

Introduction: Geospatial Analysis Of Urban Environment, Changjoo Kim

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

To provide a timely snapshot of current research that utilizes geospatial analysis and modeling in urban environment, the Korea-America Association for Geospatial and Environmental Sciences (KAGES) and the editorship of the International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research (IJGER) organized a special issue of IJGER on the theme of geospatial analysis and urban environment. Eight articles out of 13 submitted manuscripts have been published in this issue. This article provides an overview of the articles published in the special issue.

Evaluation Of The Power And Type 1 Error Of Recently Proposed Family-Based Tests Of Assocations For Rare Variants, Allison Hainline, Carolina Alvarez, Alexander Luedtke, Brian Greco, Andrew Beck, Nathan L. Tintle

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Until very recently, few methods existed to analyze rare-variant association with binary phenotypes in complex pedigrees. We consider a set of recently proposed methods applied to the simulated and real hypertension phenotype as part of the Genetic Analysis Workshop 18. Minimal power of the methods is observed for genes containing variants with weak effects on the phenotype. Application of the methods to the real hypertension phenotype yielded no genes meeting a strict Bonferroni cutoff of significance. Some prior literature connects 3 of the 5 most associated genes (p <1 × 10−4) to hypertension or related phenotypes. Further methodological development is needed to extend these methods to handle covariates, and to explore more powerful test alternatives.

Application Of Family-Based Tests Of Association For Rare Variants To Pathways, Brian Greco, Alexander Luedtke, Allison Hainline, Carolina Alvarez, Andrew Beck, Nathan L. Tintle

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Pathway analysis approaches for sequence data typically either operate in a single stage (all variants within all genes in the pathway are combined into a single, very large set of variants that can then be analyzed using standard “gene-based” test statistics) or in 2-stages (gene-based p values are computed for all genes in the pathway, and then the gene-based p values are combined into a single pathway p value). To date, little consideration has been given to the performance of gene-based tests (typically designed for a smaller number of single-nucleotide variants [SNVs]) when the number of SNVs in the gene …

Using Social Network Analysis To Evaluate Health - Related Adaptation Decision Making In Cambodia, Kathryn Bowen, Damon Alexander, Fiona Miller, Dany Va

Dany Va

Climate change adaptation in the health sector requires decisions across sectors, levels of government, and organisations. The networks that link these different institutions, and the relationships among people within these networks, are therefore critical influences on the nature of adaptive responses to climate change in the health sector. This study uses social network research to identify key organisational players engaged in developing health-related adaptation activities in Cambodia. It finds that strong partnerships are reported as developing across sectors and different types of organisations in relation to the health risks from climate change. Government ministries are influential organisations, whereas donors, development …

Critical Phenomena And Estimation Of The Spontaneous Magnetization By A Magnetic Entropy Analysis In Mn0.96nb0.04coge Alloy, Jyotish C. Debnath, A M. Strydom, P Shamba, Jianli Wang, S X. Dou

Shi Xue Dou

Magnetic and magnetocaloric properties of the alloy Mn0.96Nb0.04CoGe have been investigated.

Monitoring People Using Location-Based Social Networking And Its Negative Impact On Trust: An Exploratory Contextual Analysis Of Five Types Of "Friend" Relationships, Sarah Jean Fusco, Katina Michael, Anas Aloudat, Roba Abbas

Professor Katina Michael

Location based social networking (LBSN) applications are part of a new suite of social networking tools. LBSN is the convergence between location based services (LBS) and online social networking (OSN). LBSN applications offer users the ability to look up the location of another “friend” remotely using a smart phone, desktop or other device, anytime and anywhere. Users invite their friends to participate in LBSN and there is a process of consent that follows. This paper explores the potential impact of LBSN upon trust in society. It looks at the willingness of individuals to share their location data with family, friends, …

Relationship Between Altitude And Lithium In Groundwater In The United States Of America: Results Of A 1992–2003 Study, Rebekah S. Huber, Namkug Kim, Carl E. Renshaw, Perry F. Renshaw, Douglas Kondo

Dartmouth Scholarship

Therapeutic dosages of lithium are known to reduce suicide rates, which has led to investigations of confounding environmental risk factors for suicide such as lithium in groundwater. It has been speculated that this might play a role in the potential relationship between suicide and altitude. A recent study in Austria involving geospatial analysis of lithium in groundwater and suicide found lower levels of lithium at higher altitudes. Since there is no reason to suspect this correlation is universal given variation in geology, the current study set out to investigate the relationship between altitude and lithium in groundwater in the United …

Robust Regression Methods For Massively Decayed Intelligence Data, Akiva Joachim Lorenz

Wayne State University Dissertations

Homeland Security, sponsored by governmental initiatives, has become a vibrant academic research field. However, most efforts were placed with the recognition of threats (e.g. theory) and response options. Less effort was placed in the analysis of the collected data through statistical modeling. In a field that collects more than 20 terabyte of information per minute though diverse overt and covert means and indexes it for future research, understanding how different statistical models behave when it comes to massively decayed data is of vital importance.

Using Monte Carlo methods, three regression techniques (ordinary least squares, least-trimmed, and maximum likelihood) were tested …

A User-Oriented Network Forensic Analyser: The Design Of A High-Level Protocol Analyser, D Joy, F Li, N L. Clarke, S M. Furnell

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Network forensics is becoming an increasingly important tool in the investigation of cyber and computer-assisted crimes. Unfortunately, whilst much effort has been undertaken in developing computer forensic file system analysers (e.g. Encase and FTK), such focus has not been given to Network Forensic Analysis Tools (NFATs). The single biggest barrier to effective NFATs is the handling of large volumes of low-level traffic and being able to exact and interpret forensic artefacts and their context – for example, being able extract and render application-level objects (such as emails, web pages and documents) from the low-level TCP/IP traffic but also understand how …

How We Got From There To Here: A Story Of Real Analysis, Eugene Boman, Robert Rogers

Milne Open Textbooks

The typical introductory real analysis text starts with an analysis of the real number system and uses this to develop the definition of a limit, which is then used as a foundation for the definitions encountered thereafter. While this is certainly a reasonable approach from a logical point of view, it is not how the subject evolved, nor is it necessarily the best way to introduce students to the rigorous but highly non-intuitive definitions and proofs found in analysis.

This book proposes that an effective way to motivate these definitions is to tell one of the stories (there are many) …

Moved But Not Gone: An Evaluation Of Real-Time Methods For Discovering Replacement Web Pages, Martin Klein, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Inaccessible Web pages and 404 “Page Not Found” responses are a common Web phenomenon and a detriment to the user’s browsing experience. The rediscovery of missing Web pages is, therefore, a relevant research topic in the digital preservation as well as in the Information Retrieval realm. In this article, we bring these two areas together by analyzing four content- and link-based methods to rediscover missing Web pages. We investigate the retrieval performance of the methods individually as well as their combinations and give an insight into how effective these methods are over time. As the main result of this work, …

Analysis And Mapping Of Climate Change Risk And Vulnerability In Central Rift Valley Of Ethiopia, L. Gizachew, A. Shiferaw

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.