Other Statistics and Probability Commons^™

Weakly Positioned Nucleosomes Enhance The Transcriptional Competency Of Chromatin, Yaakov Belch, Jingyi Yang, Yang Liu, Sridhar A. Malkaram, Rong Liu, Jean-Jack M. Riethoven, Istvan Ladunga

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Background: Transcription is affected by nucleosomal resistance against polymerase passage. In turn, nucleosomal resistance is determined by DNA sequence, histone chaperones and remodeling enzymes. The contributions of these factors are widely debated: one recent title claims ‘‘… DNA-encoded nucleosome organization…’’ while another title states that ‘‘histone-DNA interactions are not the major determinant of nucleosome positions.’’ These opposing conclusions were drawn from similar experiments analyzed by idealized methods. We attempt to resolve this controversy to reveal nucleosomal competency for transcription.

Methodology/Principal Findings: To this end, we analyzed 26 in vivo, nonlinked, and in vitro genome-wide nucleosome maps/replicates by new, rigorous …

The Textural Discontinuity Hypothesis And Its Relation To Nomadism, Migration, Decline, And Competition, Aaron L. Alai

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The causes of nomadism, migration, and decline in vertebrates are debated issues in the ecological sciences. Literature suggests nomadism may arise in species that specialize in granivory, nectivory, or the utilization of rodent outbreaks. Migration is thought to arise as a result of the exploitation of certain scarce or variable food resources. Species decline is hypothesized to be the result of many different factors as well; large species, island species and specialists may be more prone to decline.

A fresh perspective regarding the causes for species nomadism, migration, and decline is being investigated utilizing the ideas within the Textural Discontinuity …

Software Internationalization: A Framework Validated Against Industry Requirements For Computer Science And Software Engineering Programs, John Huân Vũ

Master's Theses

View John Huân Vũ's thesis presentation at http://youtu.be/y3bzNmkTr-c.

In 2001, the ACM and IEEE Computing Curriculum stated that it was necessary to address "the need to develop implementation models that are international in scope and could be practiced in universities around the world." With increasing connectivity through the internet, the move towards a global economy and growing use of technology places software internationalization as a more important concern for developers. However, there has been a "clear shortage in terms of numbers of trained persons applying for entry-level positions" in this area. Eric Brechner, Director of Microsoft Development Training, suggested …

Principal Component Analysis And Biochemical Characterization Of Protein And Starch Reveal Primary Targets For Improving Sorghum Grain, Joshua H. Wong, D. B. Marx, Jeff D. Wilson, Bob B. Buchanan, Peggy G. Lemaux, Jeffrey F. Pedersen

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

Limited progress has been made on genetic improvement of the digestibility of sorghum grain because of variability among different varieties. In this study, we applied multiple techniques to assess digestibility of grain from 18 sorghum lines to identify major components responsible for variability. We also identified storage proteins and enzymes as potential targets for genetic modification to improve digestibility. Results from principal component analysis revealed that content of amylose and total starch, together with protein digestibility (PD), accounted for 94% of variation in digestibility. Control of amylose content is understood and manageable. Up-regulation of genes associated with starch accumulation is …

Reference Priors For Exponential Families With Increasing Dimension, Bertrand S. Clarke, Subhashis Ghosal

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

In this article, we establish the asymptotic normality of the posterior distribution for the natural parameter in an exponential family based on independent and identically distributed data. The mode of convergence is expected Kullback-Leibler distance and the number of parameters p is increasing with the sample size n. Using this, we give an asymptotic expansion of the Shannon mutual information valid when p = pn increases at a sufficiently slow rate. The second term in the asymptotic expansion is the largest term that depends on the prior and can be optimized to give Jeffreys’ prior as the reference prior in …

Desiderata For A Predictive Theory Of Statistics, Bertrand Clarke

Department of Statistics: Faculty Publications

In many contexts the predictive validation of models or their associated prediction strategies is of greater importance than model identification which may be practically impossible. This is particularly so in fields involving complex or high dimensional data where model selection, or more generally predictor selection is the main focus of effort. This paper suggests a unified treatment for predictive analyses based on six 'desiderata'. These desiderata are an effort to clarify what criteria a good predictive theory of statistics should satisfy.