Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Free Expression, In-Group Bias, And The Court's Conservatives: A Critique Of The Epstein-Parker-Segal Study, Todd E. Pettys

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

P-Values, Priors, And Procedure In Antidiscrimination Law, Jason R. Bent

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Two Weeks And Twenty-Four Hours Soft Contact Lens Cessation Times On Corneal Refractive Surgery Outcomes, Aoife Lloyd Mckernan, Luisa Simo Mannion, Veronica O'Dwyer

Other Resources

Purpose

To investigate the influence of previous soft contact lens (SCL) wear on outcomes of corneal refractive surgery (CRS). SCL wear can reduce accuracy of pre-operative corneal measurements and outcomes of CRS. Short SCL cessation times prior to CRS may be insufficient for resolution of SCL-induced corneal changes. It was hypothesised that the visual and refractive CRS outcomes would be worse in a SCL group compared to a non-contact lens (NCL) group and worse in a SCL group who ceased SCL wear for 24 hours when compared to those who ceased SCL wear for two weeks prior to examination and …

Long-Range Atom-Wall Interactions And Mixing Terms: Metastable Hydrogen, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigate the interaction of metastable 2S hydrogen atoms with a perfectly conducting wall, including parity-breaking S-P mixing terms (with full account of retardation). The neighboring 2P_1/2 and 2P_3/2 levels are found to have a profound effect on the transition from the short-range, nonrelativistic regime, to the retarded form of the Casimir-Polder interaction. The corresponding P state admixtures to the metastable 2S state are calculated. We find the long-range asymptotics of the retarded Casimir-Polder potentials and mixing amplitudes for general excited states, including a fully quantum electrodynamic treatment of the dipole-quadrupole mixing term. The decay width of the …

Composition-Dependent Structural And Transport Properties Of Amorphous Transparent Conducting Oxides, Rabi Khanal, D. Bruce Buchholz, Robert P. Chang, Julia E. Medvedeva

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Structural properties of amorphous In-based oxides, In-X-O with X=Zn, Ga, Sn, or Ge, are investigated using ab initio molecular dynamics liquid-quench simulations. The results reveal that indium retains its average coordination of 5.0 upon 20% X fractional substitution for In, whereas X cations satisfy their natural coordination with oxygen atoms. This finding suggests that the carrier generation is primarily governed by In atoms, in accord with the observed carrier concentration in amorphous In-O and In-X-O. At the same time, the presence of X affects the number of six-coordinated In atoms as well as the oxygen sharing between the InO_{6 …}

Enhancement On Counting Invariant On Symmetric Virtual Biracks, Melinda Ho

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis introduces a new enhancement for virtual birack counting invariants. We first introduce knots and other general types of knots (oriented knots, framed knots, racks, and biracks). Then we’ll discuss the methods, knot invariants, mathematicians use to identify whether two knots are different. Next we’ll look at knots with virtual crossings and knots with a good involution. Finally, we introduce a new symmetric enhancement for virtual birack counting invariants and provide an example.

Porous Layers Composed Of Oxide Crystallites Formed By The Combination Of Laser Ablation And Anodization Of Metal, Abbie S. Ganas, Dmitry A. Znamensky, Nahúm Méndez Alba, José Luis Hernández-Pozos, Kurt W. Kolasinski

Chemistry Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

San Diego’S Options For Alternate Sources Of Water: A Comparative Analysis Of Water Recycling And Desalination As Alternative Methods To Importing Water, Alana O. Pokorny

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper describes the processes, methods, backgrounds, and economic challenges, of Desalination and Water Recycling and provide current examples of both. To create a baseline with which to compare the two methods, I will also delve into the history of California water policy. This complicated past is the reason water importation into Southern California remains the main method of obtaining water. Yet, as the current drought continues and technology advances, the need for imported water will become obsolete as the methods for recycling and desalinating water become less expensive, more convenient and more equitable. In the conclusion, all the methods …

Utilizing Hydrology And Geomorphology Relationships To Estimate Streamflow Conditions On Maui And O‘Ahu, Hawai‘I, Brytne Okuhata

Scripps Senior Theses

As the population on the island of Maui drastically increases, water resource demands continue to rise. In order to match water demands and to manage water resources, it is important to understand streamflow and drainage basin interactions. If relationships between a drainage basin’s hydrologic and geomorphologic characteristics can be quantified, then streamflow conditions of ungaged streams can potentially be estimated. The baseflow recession constant is an important variable to analyze for water management, yet until this study, recession constants were not calculated for the island of Maui, or Hawai‘i as a whole. Recession constants of currently gaged streams on Maui …

Price, Perceived Value And Customer Satisfaction: A Text-Based Econometric Analysis Of Yelp! Reviews, Eleanor A. Dwyer

Scripps Senior Theses

We examine the antecedents of customer satisfaction in the restaurant sector, paying particular attention to perceived value and price level. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation, we extract latent topics from the text of Yelp! reviews, then analyze the relationship between these topics and satisfaction, measured as the difference between review rating and user average review rating.

An Examination Of El Niño's And Agricultural Runoff's Effect On Harmful Algal Blooms And California Sea Lion (Zalophus Californianus) Health In Monterey Bay, Nadine Lafeber

Scripps Senior Theses

An increase in marine mammal stranding and die-off events has been observed along the California coast. The exact cause to explain for these recent events is unknown, but El Niño and harmful algal blooms are established sources for temporary decreases in marine mammal health. To determine whether El Niño could be causing and amplifying harmful algal blooms, particularly in Monterey Bay where they occur frequently, data was analyzed from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California. Data analysis focused on California sea lions (Zalophus californianus), because they have the largest data set and are directly affected by harmful …

Examination Of Geophysical Signatures Of Ethanol-Water Mixtures In A Homogeneous Sand Column Using Ground Penetrating Radar And Time-Domain Reflectometry, Angelo Lampousis, Neil Terry, Lee Slater

Publications and Research

In recent years there has been an increase in the frequency of incidents involving ethanol-blended gasoline affecting the groundwater. Near-surface geophysical methods hold promise for site characterization at ethanol contaminated sites. We attempted to record the broadband dielectric properties of ethanol at various concentrations as it was circulating through a closed tank containing either sand or a sand-clay mixture. Two high frequency GPR antennas were positioned symmetrically on either side of the sample holder to obtain transmission measurements. In the first part of the experiment we used a sample consisting of sand. In the second part of the experiment we …

Global Trends In Extreme Precipitation: Climate Models Versus Observations, Behzad Asadieh, Nir Y. Krakauer

Publications and Research

Precipitation events are expected to become substantially more intense under global warming, but few global comparisons of observations and climate model simulations are available to constrain predictions of future changes in precipitation extremes. We present a systematic global-scale comparison of changes in historical (1901–2010) annual-maximum daily precipitation between station observations (compiled in HadEX2) and the suite of global climate models contributing to the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). We use both parametric and non-parametric methods to quantify the strength of trends in extreme precipitation in observations and models, taking care to sample them spatially and temporally …

Lectures On Thermodynamics And Statistical Mechanics, V P. Nair

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Hydrodynamics With Gauge Anomaly: Variational Principle And Hamiltonian Formulation, V. Parameswaran Nair, Gustavo Monteiro, Alexander G. Abanov

Publications and Research

We present a variational principle for relativistic hydrodynamics with gauge-anomaly terms for a fluid coupled to an Abelian background gauge field. For this we utilize the Clebsch parametrization of the velocity field. We also set up the Hamiltonian formulation and the canonical framework for the theory. While the equations of motion only involve the density and velocity fields, i.e., the Clebsch potentials only appear in the combination which is the velocity field, the generators of symmetry transformations (including the Hamiltonian) depend explicitly on one of the Clebsch potentials, if the background field is time-dependent. For the special case of time-independent …

The Bathtub Ring. Shrinking Lake Mead: Impacts On Water Supply, Hydropower, Recreation And The Environment, Ning Jiang, Season Martin, Julia Morton, Skyler Murphy, Colorado River Governance Initiative

Books, Reports, and Studies

4 pages (includes color illustrations and color maps).

The Hallett Decrees And Acequia Water Rights Administration On Rio Culebra In Colorado, Will Davidson, Julia Guarino

Books, Reports, and Studies

58 pages.

Article on p. 219-276.

The Effects Of Molecular Chaperones On Tau Fibril Assembly, Ahmed Omran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The accumulation of microtubule-associated protein tau into fibrillar aggregates is the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, collectively referred to as tauopathies. Fibrils can propagate from one cell to the next and spread throughout the brain. However, a study shows that only small aggregates can be taken up by cultured neuronal cells. The mechanisms that lead to the breakage of fibrils into smaller fragments remain unknown. In yeast, the AAA+ chaperone HSP104 processes the reactivation of protein aggregates and is responsible for fragmentation of fibrils. This study focused on investigating the effects of molecular chaperones on tau fibrils …

May You Walk In Beauty: The Decline Of Navajo Land And Culture, Jocelyn Catterson

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

The Navajo homeland, Dinetah, is bordered by four mountains that are sacred to the Navajo people: two in Colorado, one in New Mexico, and one in Arizona. Historically, Navajo medicine men have traveled to these mountains to renew prayers and collect medicinal herbs. Today, the mountains, which exist outside of the reservation boundaries, are used for resource extraction and various recreational pursuits. While many Navajo are fighting for the protection of these sacred lands and their traditional culture, others are disinterested. Traditional practices and beliefs are slowly disappearing within the Navajo Nation. The land-use issues associated with these sacred mountains …

Characterization Of The Detailed Interaction Interface Between T. Brucei Telomere Proteins Trf And Tif2, Jennifer Kungle, John Sabljic, Tia Nikova

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei causes fatal African trypanosomiasis in humans and nagana in cattle. T. brucei switches its variant surface glycoproteins (VSGs) inside the mammalian host, evading the host immune response. VSGs are expressed monoallelically from subtelomeric expression sites, and telomere proteins regulate VSGs. We previously found that telomere protein TbTIF2 interacts with TbTRF (TTAGGG-repeat binding factor) and plays important roles in VSG switching regulation. TbTRF maintains the telomere terminal structure. TbTIF2 is essential for subtelomeric integrity and suppresses VSG switching by inhibiting subtelomeric gene conversion. Depletion of TbTIF2 decreases TbTRF protein level. We hypothesize that TbTRF-TbTIF2 interaction is …

Novel Regulation Of The Pro-Apoptotic Protein Puma In Response To Hypoxia, Mareem Ali, Brianna Boslett

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

Ischemic injury in skeletal muscle caused by hypoxic (low oxygen) conditions occurs in response to vascular and musculoskeletal traumas, diseases and following reconstructive surgeries. Hypoxia induces apoptotic cell death. We have reported that the protein PUMA plays a critical role in the apoptosis of myoblasts in response to culture in differentiation media as well as exposure to DNA damaging chemotherapeutic agents. We have also determined that the transcription factor MyoD, known to control the differentiation process, also plays a role in these apoptotic processes by directly increasing the expression of PUMA mRNA. Herein, we report an increase in PUMA protein …

Assaying The Splicing Activity Of Novel Human Disease Variants Of U4atac Snrna, Maitri K. Patel, Rosemary C. Dietrich

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

In eukaryotes, pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) splicing is an essential process in gene expression. Splicing is carried out by a dynamic multi-megadalton RNA-protein complex known as the spliceosome. Sequential transesterification reactions catalyzed by the spliceosome convert pre-mRNA to mRNA by removing the intervening sequences (introns) and joining the coding sequences (exons) together. Small nuclear RNAs (snRNAs) are essential splicing factors. Biallelic mutations of the human RNU4ATAC gene, which codes for U4atac snRNA, have been identified in patients diagnosed with Microcephalic Osteodysplastic Primordial Dwarfism type I (MOPD I). MOPD I is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by extreme intrauterine growth retardation, multiple …

Dual Stimuli Response Frequency And Stimulus Choice Of The African Clawed Frog, Xenopus Laevis, When Presented With Two Stimuli, Mingo Rolince, Heidi Pignolet, Alexa Hoy

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

This preliminary study examines responses of African Clawed Frogs to simultaneous presentation of two stimuli. Frogs were tested in a round arena with water 4 cm deep. Four stimulus rods driven via computer-controlled stepper motors were concealed in a screen suspended above the water. These rods could present a lateral line stimulus, a visual stimulus, or a combination of both. Overall, reactions and no reactions were evenly distributed--51.1% and 48.9%, respectively. Frogs responded more frequently to rostral than caudal stimuli (chi-squared 20.8, df=11, p < 0.04). Frogs reacted more to stimuli between -90° and 90°. Turn angle depended linearly on stimulus angle (e.g., Turn angle = 0.44 + 0.64 x Stimulus angle; pslope < 0.0001; R2adj = 69.5%). (The distributions of stimulus angles appear slightly skewed as often the same stimulus rod was retested after the frog responded and partially oriented towards it, prompting a second test with smaller angles.) Two stimuli did not elicit more responses than one stimuli (P=0.25). The frogs’ choice of stimulus depended primarily on stimulus proximity and angle, not stimulus type. When presented with two stimuli, the frog chose the nearer stimulus and the more rostral stimulus (p < 0.0001). The largest factor in predicting the frog’s choice of stimuli seems to be the linear distance from the stimuli to the frog.

Control Of Meiotic Cell Divisions In Presence Of Unrepaired Chromosome Breaks, Francisco Monge, Jesus Monge, Andrew Reville, Rima Sandhu

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

Chromosome miss-segregation during meiosis is a major factor contributing to birth defects as well as many genetic anomalies through the formation of aneuploid gametes, i.e. gametes with a deficit or surplus of one or several chromosomes. The synaptonemal complex (SC) is a major protein structure assembled with the synapsis of homologous chromosomes and is conserved from unicellular yeast to humans. One of its major roles during prophase I in meiosis is providing a structural framework for the maintenance of synapsis to facilitate the completion of reciprocal crossover events. Failure to form an effective SC or to experience crossover events leads …

Role In Recombination Of Genes That Control Meiotic Cell Divisions, Francisco Monge, Jesus Monge, Andrew Reville, Rima Sandhu

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

The production of gametes in Saccharomyces cerevisiae via meiosis is under strict regulatory control where proper segregation of homologous chromosomes into gametes requires physical linkage via crossovers. Cells that initiate meiotic recombination but do not process programmed double strand breaks into crossovers enter meiotic arrest. The main goal of the current project was whether overexpression of gene Y is sufficient to bypass the meiotic arrest in prophase I exhibited by dmc1 deletion and a zip1 mutant that carries an internal deletion. DMC1 is a recombinase that promotes homologous recombination. ZIP1 is a transverse filament protein of the synaptonemal complex (the …

Lead Optimization Of Tubulin Inhibitor For Cancer Treatment, Morgan Ashcraft

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

Tubulin-containing structures are important for many important cellular functions, including chromosome segregation during cell division, development and maintenance of cell shape, cell motility, and distribution of molecules on cell membranes. The rapid growth of cancer cells makes them very sensitive to the disruption of tubulin polymerization/depolymerization. Taxol (paclitaxel), a tubulin inhibitor approved by the FDA in 1992 for cancer treatment, is one of the most powerful chemotherapeutic agents. However, the low water solubility and drug resistance limits its clinical application. Various effort in drug discovery field focuses on more water soluble smaller molecular tubulin inhibitors. Our previous study led to …

Optimizing The Design And Potency Of Diterpenic Acid Derivatives To Improve Cell Membrane Permeability And Hsp27 Targeting Characteristics, Aicha Quamine

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

Heat shock protein 27 (Hsp27) acts as a protective protein allowing it to play an integral role in aiding cancer cell resistance. Stress-induced Hsp 27 overexpression aids in the stabilization of partially denatured proteins to establish protein refolding resulting in thermotolerance, inhibition of apoptosis, cytoprotection, etc. As a result of rapid proliferation and general instability, cancer cells exhibit increased dependency on the support of Hsp 27 and it’s chaperone proteins, therefore generating an ideal target for anticancer therapy. Copalic acid, a clerodane diterpenoid, has already been confirmed in effective chaperone inhibition and antiproliferative synergistic effect. We hypothesize that by optimizing …

Mechanism Of Action By Which 5-Nidr Acts As A Therapeutic Agent Against Brain Cancer, Seol Kim, Jung-Suk Choi

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

Approximately 10,000 people in the United States are diagnosed annually with a brain tumor. In addition, the prognosis for brain cancer patients is poor as these cancers have low survival rates of less than 10%. One important chemotherapeutic agent used to treat brain cancer is temozolomide, an alkylating agent that causes cell death by damaging DNA. In this project, we tested the ability of a specific non-natural nucleoside developed in our lab, designated 5-NIdR, to increase the efficacy of temozolomide against brain cancer. Animal studies using xenograft mice were performed to evaluate the in vivo efficacy of this drug combination …

Nitrosylation Of S100a8/ A9 Protein Complex By Inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase, Kia Smith

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

How does the body fight infection? What causes inflammation? These are only a few questions that have been asked by many doctors across the globe. One thing that is known for certain about infection is that there is a particular sub-group of enzymes called NOS’s (eNOS, nNOS and iNOS) that produce Nitric Oxide (NO), a molecule radical capable of oxidizing proteins and alter their function. In our study we focus on inducible Nitric Oxide Synthase (iNOS). NOS’s are comprised of oxidase and reductase domains liked by Camodulin (CAM), a polypeptide linker. According to prior studies and SEM photographs, inducible Nitric …

Cell Surface Sialylation Status Of Monocytes And Macrophages, Henry Wang, Dan Wang

Undergraduate Research Posters 2015

Sialic acids (SAs), a family of 9-carbon containing acidic monosaccharides, often terminate the glycan structures of cell surface glycoconjugates such as glycoproteins and glycolipids. The levels and linkages of sialic acids named as sialylation status vary as cell environment changes related to both physiological and pathological processes. Changes in sialylation of cell surface modulate cellular activity. SAs are highly involved in the immune system, however, the sialylation status related to individual immune cells and their activation state and functions are still unknown. In this study, we used a newly developed LC-MS/MS method to examine the cellular SA content during THP-1 …