cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
The Influence of G4 DNA Structures on Stationary Phase Mutagenesis in Bacillus subtilis
Creators: name: Ermi, Tatiana
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biology; Microbiology

description: Until the late 1980s it was widely understood that bacterial variance emerges randomly during growth. Research that followed has convincingly shown evidence for mutations arising in non-growing conditions, a phenomenon known as stationary-phase mutagenesis. In Bacillus subtilis, an elegant mutagenic mechanism has been elucidated in non-growing cells that biases mutations to transcribed regions of a subpopulation. One interesting possibility is that mutations can be further biased to hotspots within genes through alternate DNA structures known as non-B DNA. Non-B DNA have been linked to genomic instability and disease in humans, lesser is known about its role in bacteria. Here we investigate if G4 DNA, a type of non-B DNA, are mutagenic hotspots in non-growing B. subtilis cells. We hypothesize that G4 DNA can block RNA polymerase and trigger gratuitous transcription coupled repair. Gratuitous repair, or repair occurring in the absence of DNA damage, can lead to mutagenesis via repetitive re-synthesis of DNA, which can introduce mutations. In order to test this hypothesis, we constructed strains differing in their ability to form G4 DNA in a gene of interest and measured the effect on mutagenesis. We found that a strain having the potential to form G4 DNA in the coding strand had the highest levels of mutagenesis and this effect was dependent on a transcription coupled repair factor Mfd. Our data adds to the evidence of how B. subtilis avoids genetic load by having an elegant mechanism that biases mutations to distinct regions of genes under selection. Further, elucidating how alternate DNA structures promote genetic instability can lead to a better understanding of bacterial evolution and genetic diseases in humans.
TAFFS Conference Paper March 2022.pdf
Creators: name: Mandal, Nivedita
name: DAS, RITUPARNA
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2023
Subjects: Financial econometrics

description: India has proven to be the second most attractive emerging market among other large emerging economies in world. S&P has predicted India to be the one among fastest growing emerging markets in FY’22. According to Morgan Stanley report, banking is found to be the dominant sector in most of the emerging markets. Hence the banking sector in an emerging economy like India has the potential to attract fresh investment, so as their financial derivatives instruments. In this backdrop, the present work explores the price discovery mechanism between futures and spot markets in particular to Indian banking industry to bring forth sector specific insights. Alongside the paper tries to capture the impact of global slowdown due to Covid-19 pandemic during 2020-21on the Indian banking industry to check for its ‘resilience’ which is always a major concern for any emerging markets. The authors have used Bi-variate VEC-EGARCH framework to examine the price-discovery mechanism in the Bank-Nifty futures and spot markets. The short run impact of Covid-19 shock is measured with help of the ‘market model’ under ‘event study’ methodology.
A frustrated spin-1 $J_{1}$--$J_{2}$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet: An anisotropic planar pyrochlore model
Creators: name: Li, P H Y
name: Bishop, R F
name: Campbell, C E
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The zero-temperature ground-state (GS) properties and phase diagram of a frustrated spin-1 $J_{1}$--$J_{2}$ Heisenberg model on the checkerboard square lattice are studied, using the coupled cluster method. We consider the case where the nearest-neighbour exchange bonds have strength $J_{1}>0$ and the next-nearest-neighbour exchange bonds present (viz., in the checkerboard pattern of the planar pyrochlore) have strength $J_{2} \equiv κJ_{1}>0$. We find significant differences from both the spin-1/2 and classical versions of the model. We find that the spin-1 model has a first phase transition at $κ_{c_{1}} \approx 1.00 \pm 0.01$ (as does the classical model at $κ_{\rm cl}=1$) between two antiferromagnetic phases, viz., a quasiclassical Néel phase (for $κ< κ_{c_{1}}$) and one of the infinitely degenerate family of quasiclassical phases (for $κ> κ_{c_{1}}$) that exists in the classical model for $κ> κ_{\rm cl}$, which is now chosen by the {\it order by disorder} mechanism as (probably) the "doubled Néel" (or Néel$^{\ast}$) state. By contrast, none of this family survives quantum fluctuations to form a stable GS phase in the spin-1/2 case. We also find evidence for a second quantum critical point at $κ_{c_{2}} \approx 2.0 \pm 0.5$ in the spin-1 model, such that for $κ> κ_{c_{2}}$ the quasiclassical (Néel$^{\ast}$) ordering melts and a nonclassical phase appears, which, on the basis of preliminary evidence, appears unlikely to have crossed-dimer valence-bond crystalline (CDVBC) ordering, as in the spin-1/2 case. Unlike in the spin-1/2 case, where the Néel and CDVBC phases are separated by a phase with plaquette valence-bond crystalline (PVBC) ordering, we find very preliminary evidence for such a PVBC state in the spin-1 model for all $κ> κ_{c_{2}}$.
3D Parametric Hand to Improve Prosthetic Hand Functionality
Creators: name: Gerardi, Maria
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biomechanical Engineering; Biomedical; Biomedical Devices and Instrumentation

description: The use of prosthetics can significantly enhance an individuals standard of living, not only offering functional advantages but psychological advantages as well. Unfortunately for children with upper limb reduction, options are limited and rejection rates are high due to a multitude of reasons including discomfort and poor functionality. This study proposes a new parametric 3D design model (Parametric Hand) with an adjustable thumb that can be easily manipulated to the uniqueness of an individual. The Parametric Hand was evaluated, both qualitatively and quantitatively, against the Flexy-Hand 2, a commonly used prosthetic hand. The results showed insignificant differences in all testing except when grasping larger objects where the Parametric Hand excelled over the Flexy-Hand 2. This research concludes that the proposed design can perform better than Flexy-Hand 2 while providing the ability to customization fitting for a specific user
Qualitative Probabilistic Models of HRSI for Safe Situational Human-Aware Navigation
Creators: name: Roberts-Elliott, Laurence
Publisher: name: University of Lincoln
Year: 2023
Subjects: G900 - Others in mathematical sciences
I440 - Computer vision

description: For adoption of Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) across a breadth of industries,they must navigate around humans in a way which is safe and which humans perceive as safe, but without greatly compromising efficiency. This work proposes a novelclassifier of the Human-Robot Spatial Interaction (HRSI) situation of an interactinghuman and robot, to be applied in Human-Aware Navigation (HAN) to account forsituational context. A classifier comprised of per-situation Hidden Markov Modelsis developed, and trained with sequences of states in Qualitative Trajectory Calculus, representing relative human and robot movements in various HRSI situations.This multi-HMM HRSI situation classifier is created as a component of the safetystack for the EU Horizon 2020 ILIAD Project, and the theoretical foundation andimplementation of this system is described, along with the results of a HRI studythat evaluates the classification performance of this work’s novel classifier. The aimof this work is to demonstrate accurate continuous real-time classification of a setof socially legible HRSI situations that occur when a proximate human and heavyindustrial robot are moving through a shared space. High classification performanceis demonstrated, with future work currently being conducted by ILIAD colleagues totest a complete HAN system that employs this real-time situation classification toapply situational qualitative motion constraints, as well as testing the ILIAD safetystack as a whole.
Type I parametric down conversion of highly focused Gaussian beams in finite length crystals
Creators: name: Jeronimo-Moreno, Yasser
name: Jáuregui, R.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: Optics (physics.optics)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the correlations in wave vector space of photon pairs generated by type I spontaneous parametric down conversion using a Gaussian pump beam. We analyze both moderate focused and highly focused regimes taking special attention to the angular spectrum and the conditional angular spectrum. Simple analytic expressions are derived that allow us to study in detail the dependence of these spectra on the waist of the source and the length of the nonlinear crystal. These expressions are in good agreement with numerical expectations and reported experimental results. They are used to make a systematic search of optimization parameters that improve the feasibility of using highly focused Gaussian beams to generate idler and signal photons with predetermined mean values and spread of their transverse wave vectors.
description: accepted for publication in Journal of Optics (jopt). 8 pages 6 figures
Commercial basic resins as efficient heterogeneous catalyst for the isomerization of glucose to fructose
Creators: name: El Tawil, Miriam
name: Montaña, Maia
name: Martínez, Daniel
name: Iglesias, Jose
name: Moreno, Jovita
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022

description: Abstract from an oral contribution to ISGC.
Hispanics and the War on Drugs: An Explanation for the Rise in Hispánica Imprisonment
Creators: name: Haakma, Bryan
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Criminology; Criminology and Criminal Justice

description: The purpose of this study was to understand racial disparities that persist throughout the criminal justice system. Since the early 1970s, the U.S. female prison population has risen at a faster rate than the male prison population (Harmon & Boppre, 2016; Morín, 2008, 2016). Overall, a plethora of research has linked the rise in imprisonment to the War on Drugs and the criminalization of drug use. This thesis examined these questions: 1) are drug crime initiatives driving the rise in Hispanic female imprisonment in comparison to Black and White females and 2) using Blalocks (1967) theory on group threat, do drug crime prison admission rates for Hispanic females correspond with the increase in the Hispanic population from 1980 to 2010 in the United States (Owens, 2010)? Using state-level data collected by the National Corrections Reporting Program (7 years; 32 states), this study sought to fill in the gaps of literature pertaining to Hispanic females interactions with the criminal justice system by investigating differences in drug crime admissions for females (Beck & Blumstein, 2018; Harmon & Boppre, 2016; Lopez & Pasko, 2017). This thesis adds a new edition to the substantial research focused on the dichotomous Black and White disparity analysis by including Hispanics, more specifically Hispanic females into the analysis. A major limitation of the previous scholarship is the scarcity of research available on Hispanic females interactions with the criminal justice system (e.g., police interactions, sentencing, and imprisonment), and how or if the War on Drugs affected them (Beck & Blumstein, 2018; Harmon & Boppre, 2016; Lopez & Pasko, 2017). By using an F-test to compare drug crime prison admissions, the results indicated that Hispanic females were admitted to prison at lower rates than Black and White females for all drug offenses. This study found minimal to no support for Blalocks threat hypothesis based on race/ethnicity.
Building Better Biosensors Controlling the Surface Density of Probe Molecules on Glassy Carbon
Creators: name: Ahmed, Nasreen
Publisher: name: University of Lincoln
Year: 2023
Subjects: F100 - Chemistry
F110 - Applied chemistry

description: Carboxylic-acid functionalized molecules can be immobilized into the surface of a glassy carbon electrode through a multi-step surface modification procedure in which nitrobenzene diazonium tetrafluoroborate is electrochemically grafted to the electrode surface and the NO2terminus subsequently converted to an NH2group that can readily be coupled via carbodiimide crosslinking. This surface modification has potential applications in the development of new electrochemical DNA biosensors when modification attest to be attainable and readily managed. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of changing the concentration of nitrobenzene diazonium tetra fluoroborate for the duration of the initial electrochemical grafting step on the surface density of the surface modification. To achieve aim, the diazonium modified glassy carbon surface was exposed to carboxylic-acid functionalized anthraquinone, the presence of which at the electrode is established by cyclic voltammetry and the magnitude of the signal record employed for the estimation the surface density of grafted molecules. Results from the study revealed that diazonium reduction can be used to prepare surface densities of anthraquinone on a glassy carbon electrode at circa1×1012molecules per cm2, a value that is comparable to the surface densities of DNA probes used in current state-of the art electrochemical DNA biosensors on gold electrodes.
Eigenvalue distribution of optimal transportation
Creators: name: Klartag, Bo'az
name: Kolesnikov, Alexander V.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Analysis of PDEs (math.AP)
subject: Functional Analysis (math.FA)
subject: Metric Geometry (math.MG)
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: We investigate the Brenier map $\nabla Φ$ between the uniform measures on two convex domains in $\mathbb{R}^n$ or more generally, between two log-concave probability measures on $\mathbb{R}^n$. We show that the eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix $D^2 Φ$ exhibit remarkable concentration properties on a multiplicative scale, regardless of the choice of the two measures or the dimension $n$.
description: 23 pages
Examining the Factor Structures of the A-Des and PTCI to Identify Unique Predictors of PTSD Symptom Clusters in Maltreated Youth
Creators: name: Howard, Amanda
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Psychology; Social and Behavioral Sciences

description: Research on childhood posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has increased over the past decade. Youth who experience maltreatment are more likely to exhibit symptoms of PTSD. At present, the literature largely focuses on youth who have experienced general trauma or PTSD symptoms, while maltreated youth are understudied. To date, no studies have examined the psychometric properties of the Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale (A-DES) or the Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory (PTCI) in a sample of maltreated youth. Predictors of childhood PTSD for maltreated youth remain unknown. The present study was the first research study to date to examine the factor structures of the A-DES and PTCI in a sample of maltreated youth. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to identify predictive factors in these measures. Predictors of PTSD symptom clusters were identified and compared to the factors found in the original normative samples and the existing literature. Novel factors emerged as important predictors of PTSD symptom clusters and our new models best predicted PTSD in our maltreated sample. Findings suggest important implications for research and clinical assessment and prevention of childhood PTSD in maltreated youth.
Numerical Study of the Two-Species Vlasov-Ampère System: Energy-Conserving Schemes and the Current-Driven Ion-Acoustic Instability
Creators: name: Cheng, Yingda
name: Christlieb, Andrew J.
name: Zhong, Xinghui
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Numerical Analysis (math.NA)
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: In this paper, we propose energy-conserving Eulerian solvers for the two-species Vlasov-Ampère (VA) system and apply the methods to simulate current-driven ion-acoustic instability. The algorithm is generalized from our previous work for the single-species VA system and Vlasov-Maxwell (VM) system. The main feature of the schemes is their ability to preserve the total particle number and total energy on the fully discrete level regardless of mesh size. Those are desired properties of numerical schemes especially for long time simulations with under-resolved mesh. The conservation is realized by explicit and implicit energy-conserving temporal discretizations, and the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) spatial discretizations. We benchmarked our algorithms on a test example to check the one-species limit, and the current-driven ion-acoustic instability. To simulate the current-driven ion-acoustic instability, a slight modification for the implicit method is necessary to fully decouple the split equations. This is achieved by a Gauss-Seidel type iteration technique. Numerical results verified the conservation and performance of our methods.
Physical Therapy Nontreatment Events with Primary Physical Therapist
Creators: name: Johnson, Stephen
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biostatistics; Medicine and Health Sciences; Physical Therapy; Physiotherapy

description: Background: Physical therapy improves prognosis reduces stay and is generally helpful in aiding recovery from a wide range of ailments. Nontreatment rates occur for multiple reasons and are also related to the personalities of physical therapists.
Methods: We used data from a research project involving physical therapy at an acute care facility in our community. Our study focused on the retrospectively determined primary physical therapist for each patient. We used the chi-squared tests to compare nontreatment rates between days of the week and disease type and the reasons for nontreatment events. Repeated-measure models were used to evaluate the effect of personality on the occurrence of nontreatment events after controlling for other covariates. These were run for every personality trait.
Results: Personality was found to have a statistically significant relationship with nontreatment events. Openness was a significant predictor for nontreatment with the p-value of 0.045 and a slope of B= -0.0694 according to the repeated measurement model. An analysis of nontreatment by day of the week showed a nontreatment ranging from 15.8 and 9.7 with (p-value=.544). The nontreatment rate by diagnosis ranged from 21.2% to 7.1% (p-value
Conclusions: Therapist personality (openness) has a statistically significant relationship with nontreatment. Though our research evaluated personalities relationship with treatment rates, its effect on quality of care could be better understood. More research should be conducted on various aspects of personality and the therapists patient alliance.
SU(3) magnet: finite-gap integration on the lowest genus curve
Creators: name: Bernatska, Julia
name: Holod, Petro
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: Exactly Solvable and Integrable Systems (nlin.SI)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: 37K10, 14H45, 14H70

description: We consider the integrable system of isotropic SU(3) Landau-Lifshits equation as a Hamiltonian system on a coadjoint orbit of the SU(3) loop group. We connect the mentioned equation with an isotropic SU(3) magnet because it describes the mean fields of magnetic and quadrupole moments in a spin-1 lattice. For the system of isotropic SU(3) Landau-Lifshits equation we perform separation of variables in Sklyanin's manner, and integrate in the lowest finite gap where the spectral curve is elliptic.
description: 10 pages
Automated Echocardiographic Image Interpretation Using Artificial Intelligence
Creators: name: Azarmehr, Neda
Publisher: name: University of Lincoln
Year: 2023
Subjects: I100 - Computer science
I400 - Artificial intelligence

description: In addition to remaining as one of the leading causes of global mortality, cardio vascular disease has a significant impact on overall health, well-being, and life expectancy. Therefore, early detection of anomalies in cardiac function has become essential for early treatment, and therefore reduction in mortalities. Echocardiography is the most commonly used modality for evaluating the structure and function of the heart. Analysis of echocardiographic images has an important role in the clinical practice in assessing the cardiac morphology and function and thereby reaching a diagnosis. The process of interpretation of echocardiographic images is considered challenging for several reasons. The manual annotation is still a daily work in the clinical routine due to the lack of reliable automatic interpretation methods. This can lead to time-consuming tasks that are prone to intra- and inter-observer variability. Echocardiographic images inherently suffer from a high level of noise and poor qualities. Therefore, although several studies have attempted automating the process, this re-mains a challenging task, and improving the accuracy of automatic echocardiography interpretation is an ongoing field. Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning can help to construct an auto-mated, scalable pipeline for echocardiographic image interpretation steps, includingview classification, phase-detection, image segmentation with a focus on border detection, quantification of structure, and measurement of the clinical markers. This thesis aims to develop optimised automated methods for the three individual steps forming part of an echocardiographic exam, namely view classification, left ventricle segmentation, quantification, and measurement of left ventricle structure. Various Neural Architecture Search methods were employed to design efficient neural network architectures for the above tasks. Finally, an optimisation-based speckle tracking echocardiography algorithm was proposed to estimate the myocardial tissue velocities and cardiac deformation. The algorithm was adopted to measure cardiac strain which is used for detecting myocardial ischaemia. All proposed techniques were compared with the existing state-of-the-art methods. To this end, publicly available patients datasets, as well as two private datasets provided by the clinical partners to this project, were used for developments and comprehensive performance evaluations of the proposed techniques. Results demonstrated the feasibility of using automated tools for reliable echocardiographic image interpretations, which can be used as assistive tools to clinicians in obtaining clinical measurements.
3-D Silk Fibroin Porous Particles Created by the Ouzo Effect for Biomedical Applications
Creators: name: Lamb, Ashley Nicole
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biomechanical Engineering; Biomedical; Biomedical Devices and Instrumentation

description: Due to its high biocompatibility and biodegradability, silk fibroin  produced from
Bombyx mori (B. mori) cocoons  has been at the forefront of research for many
biomedical application formats: hydrogels, films, microspheres, and porous
sponges/scaffolding, to name a few. For drug delivery, in particular, porous particles are
desirable for their large surface area, uniform and tunable pore structure, and high
porosity. This thesis focuses on the fabrication of porous particles from silk fibroin by the
very interesting Ouzo effect. The Ouzo effect, so named because of the Greek
beverage ouzo, describes the phenomenon of an ethanol + anethole oil solution turning
milky-white in color once water is added in due to the spontaneous nucleation of oil
droplets. Using the Ouzo effect to fabricate porous particles solves the numerous issues
of typical colloidal droplet formation by not requiring energy nor a surfactant, which is
cost effective and environmentally friendly; the Ouzo effect also tackles the so-called
coffee ring effect of previous particle fabrication, in which a solutions suspension
medium travels to the edge of a droplet and leaves a residual ring. An Ouzo droplet is
able to self-lubricate at the droplets edge and form an oil ring that forces the
suspension medium to form a 3-D particle with tunable pore shape. By using the Ouzo
effect to fabricate these particles from silk fibroin, the result is consistent macro-porous
(pore diameter being greater than 50 nm) structures with relative 2-D porosity values
greater than 70%. These features make the particles ideal for drug loading and delivery.
Center manifolds for partially hyperbolic set without strong unstable connections
Creators: name: Bonatti, Christian
name: Crovisier, Sylvain
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Dynamical Systems (math.DS)
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: We consider compact sets which are invariant and partially hyperbolic under the dynamics of a diffeomorphism of a manifold. We prove that such a set K is contained in a locally invariant center submanifold if and only if each strong stable and strong unstable leaf intersects K at exactly one point.
Optical and electrical properties of textured sulfur hyperdoped silicon: a thermal annealing study
Creators: name: Wang, Ke-Fan
name: Qu, Shengchun
name: Wang, Yuanxu
name: Wang, Zhanguo
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: When the sulfur element is hyperdoped into crystalline silicon to a supersaturated density of 1020 cm-3, it can enhance the sub-bandgap light absorption of silicon from 0 to 70%, with the antireflection of surface dome structures. On the other hand, the local Si: S configuration that can contribute to the strong sub-bandgap absorption is still unknown. In order to find more characteristics of this local Si:S configuration, we thermally annealed the textured sulfur hyperdoped silicon, and analyzed the changes of its optical and electrical properties. We find that the imaginary part of the complex dielectric constant of this Si:S configuration is almost constant in the wavelength range from 1250 nm to 2500 nm ...
description: 34 pages, 6 figures, submitted to J. Appl. Physics at Nov. 6th, 2013
Identifying the missing; utilising strontium isotopes for geolocation; finding the voice of Guatemala's forgotten
Creators: name: Austin, Ryan
Publisher: name: University of Lincoln
Year: 2023
Subjects: C910 - Applied biological sciences

description: From 1960-1996 Guatemala suffered an internal conflict where military forces waged war against the indigenous Mayan population. When the remains of individuals are found, identification efforts are often complicated, as families were displaced or disappeared, meaning reference samples often remain unfound. Consequently, the process of identifying individuals and returning them to their region of origin presents a challenge based on DNA evidence alone. Strontium isotope ratios in the body (such as from teeth, bone, and hair) can be used to provide region of origin and migration information during life. Therefore, the main aim of this thesis is to assess the degree to which strontium isotope ratios from the hair of modern living individuals can be used to distinguish between regions where individuals were reported missing. The literature has neglected to record modern human strontium isotope ratios from the country, which are influenced by modern dietary and water sources, a shortcoming this thesis overcomes. In this study, 129hair samples were collected from 10areas in Guatemala (Guatemala City, Villa Nueva, Chichicastenango, Lacama II, Santa Cruz, Rabinal, Coban, Chimaltenango, Jalapa, and Escuintla) were analysed for their strontium isotopic composition. The samples were leached with hydrochloric acid and subsequently digested in nitric acid before analysis of 87Sr/86Sr. Using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS),an assessment was made in relation to whether external/leach (bathing water and atmospheric) or internal/digest (dietary) sources of strontium are suited to distinguish between such locations. Overall, with the 87Sr/86Sr of geographical regions grouped accordingly, from both field visits, a Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance was used to assess the degree of isotopic variation. All leach 87Sr/86Sr were found to be homogenous(p= 0.860). However, statistically significant differences were identified in digest 87Sr/86Sr between Guatemala City and Rabinal (p=0.001) and Guatemala City and Coban, respectively (p=0.010). The same conclusion for the latter comparison was gained through a small supplementary study conducted using thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (TIMS).While the theoretical application of such 87Sr/86Sr generated using TIMS to those involved in the internal conflict is complex, the significance of this study is that it demonstrates that strontium isotope ratios from modern, human samples can be used to differentiate between certain regions affected by the internal conflict. Informing our empirical understanding of the forensic potential of isotopes for provenancing applications within the country.
Higher-order corrections to electron-scattering multipoles
Creators: name: Grineviciute, J.
name: Halderson, Dean
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Nuclear Theory (nucl-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: A procedure is suggested for calculating electro-excitation multipoles to order $1/M^{2}_{N}$ with only the operators required in the calculations to order $1/M_{N}$. It is also shown that calculations to order $1/M^{2}_{N}$ cannot account for the contributions of a fully relativistic calculation of the transverse response.
Public Perceptions of Police Militarization: A Nuanced Understanding of Public Support for Police Practices
Creators: name: Lopez-Cristobal, Leobardo
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Criminology; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Law Enforcement and Corrections

description: In recent years, there has been heavily publicized incidents of police use of military weapons and tactics, which has raised concerns regarding the militarization of police. More famously, in 2014, Ferguson police utilized military weapons and tactics to quell the masses after the police shooting of Michael Brown incited protests and riots. Despite an overall decrease in incidents of police use of force and deadly shootings, individual dramatic events of police militarization paint a picture of a militarized police force. This coincides with an overall increase in military equipment transfers (e.g., weapons, vehicles) to police agencies in the United States. As police agencies become more militarized, the potential harm to police-community relations becomes ever more apparent. Therefore, it is imperative to assess public perceptions of police militarization. This study explores public support for police militarization across four dimensions (i.e., material, cultural, organizational, operational) that address different aspects of militarization. Additionally, to further contextualize levels of support, this study explores public attitudes of police-related factors (i.e., procedural justice, police legitimacy, public perceptions of police effectiveness, public experiences with the police, fear of crime) and individual characteristics as potential predictors of support for police militarization. This study employed an online survey distributed through Amazons Mechanical Turk national survey administration service to discern public support for police militarization. Finally, univariate, bivariate and multivariate regression analyses were used to assess all these factors.
The Relation between Positive Stereotypes, Negative Stereotypes, and Discriminatory Behavior toward Hispanic and White Populations
Creators: name: Lovitt, Aileen Ynez
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Experimental Analysis of Behavior; Social Psychology

description: Research examining positive stereotypes has suggested a possible connection between positive stereotype endorsement and prejudice. This literature, however, has not investigated the relation between positive and negative stereotypes endorsement. Additionally, the combined impact of positive and negative stereotype endorsement predicting prejudice or discrimination has not been considered. Two studies were conducted to address the limitations in past research and gain a better understanding of positive stereotypes relating to behaviors toward out-group racial groups using Hispanic and White participants. Positive stereotypes endorsement was hypothesized to be positively associated with negative stereotype endorsement and was expected to increase the predicted power of a regression model regressing overall stereotype endorsement on discriminatory behavior  measured by helping and social distance. Results from both studies did not find a significant relationship between negative and positive stereotype endorsement. Both positive and negative stereotype endorsement predicted discrimination, however, they contributed to the model in different ways. Negative stereotype endorsement was found to increase discrimination toward the target group, but positive stereotype endorsement was found to decreases discrimination toward the target group. Hispanic stereotype content endorsed by White participants was also examined using open-ended responses in study one. Results of a thematic analysis showed consistency in the positive and negative Hispanic stereotype content for the qualitative and quantitative measures of endorsement.
HCO+ and radio continuum emission from the star forming region G75.78+0.34
Creators: name: Riffel, Rogemar A.
name: Ludke, Everton
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present 1.3 and 3.6cm radio continuum images and a HCO+ spectrum of the massive star forming region G75.78+0.34 obtained with the Very Large Array (VLA) and with the Berkley Illinois Maryland Association (BIMA) interferometer. Three structures were detected in the continuum emission: one associated to the well known cometary HII region, plus two more compact structures located at 6" east and at 2" south of cometary HII region. Using the total flux and intensity peak we estimated an electron density of ~1.5x10^4 cm^{-3}, an emission measure of ~6x10^{7} cm^{-6} pc, a mass of ionized gas of ~3 M_Sun and a diameter of 0.05 pc for the cometary HII region, being typical values for an ultracompact HII region. The HCO^+ emission is probably originated from the molecular outflows previously observed in HCN and CO.
description: Accepted by Advances in Astronomy
Machine Learning Approach for Predicting Cancer Using Gene Expression
Creators: name: Maharjan, Aashi
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Computer Sciences

description: Cancer has become one of the major factors responsible for global deaths, due to late diagnoses and lack of proper treatment. It involves the abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells inside the body, which might spread from one place to different parts. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) sequencing can detect the changes occurring inside cells and helps to analyze the transcriptome of gene expression patterns inside RNA. Machine learning techniques can assist in the prediction of cancer at an early stage, if data is available. The objective of this thesis is to build models and classify different types of cancer. For this purpose, we implemented various machine learning models like support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), k-nearest neighbors (KNN) and multilayer perceptron (MLP) to classify the samples according to their labels. The datasets for this research were collected from The Cancer genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEX). The machine learning models were trained on TCGA data and tested on independent dataset (GTEX). The data representation obtained using stacked denoising autoencoders were used to train and test the models. The models did not have very high performance; however, MLP performed better than others. The best features that were selected using SelectKBest, were also used to compare the performances. It was observed that the K-nearest neighbor classifier gave better results, with and accuracy of 85.12% while tested on independent data, and the training accuracy was 98.4%.
Studies on Kernels of Simple Polygons
Creators: name: Mark, Jason
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: Computer Sciences

description: The kernel of a simple polygon is the set of points in its interior from which all points inside the polygon are visible. We formally establish that for a given convex polygon Q we can always construct a larger simple polygon with many reflex vertices such that Q is the kernel of P. We present algorithms for decomposing a strongly monotone polygon into star-polygons. This decomposition is applied for developing an efficient algorithm for placing a small number of vertical towers to cover the entire given 1.5D terrain. We also present an experimental investigation of the proposed algorithm. The implementation is done in the Java programming language and the resulting prototype supports a user-friendly interface.
An Alternative Approach to Food Market Design: Strategies That Nurture Human Health and Well-Being
Creators: name: Marsh, Kendall
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Architecture
subject: FOS: Civil engineering

description: Access to food is being implemented in newer and more convenient forms now more than ever before. However, many of the methods that people utilize to purchase food may have substantial adverse health effects. Markets were once centered around a direct exchange of locally grown food and intimate social gatherings. Major developments like the industrialization of agriculture, rapid urbanization, and technological advancements introduced a shift in food market settings. Redefining the design of the market environment can transform a routine task into a valuable experience that nurtures human health and well-being.
In addition to a review of literature, the method for gathering pertinent information will be based on qualitative analyses of case studies concerning seven different food-based retailers, ranging from supercenters to local farmers markets. These case studies will provide insight into the benefits as well as the adverse health effects of their design. A proposed design of an alternative market environment has been developed using the information gathered from the review of literature and case study analyses. The conceptual design demonstrates that an alternative approach can serve as a model for food-based environments that primarily focus on the aspects that positively influence the consumers immediate response and general well-being.
Technical viability of environmentally compliant small-scale energy from waste systems
Creators: name: Bokhari, Iftikhar
Publisher: name: University of Lincoln
Year: 2023
Subjects: F310 - Applied physics

description: The continuous increase in domestic and commercial waste generation has an adverse impact on the environment and on human health. Possible ways to address this issue is to use waste for energy generation using the incineration process. This study shows how an incinerator is designed, modelled, developed, built and tested for estimating the maximum available energy from a range of waste streams. It also highlights the need to balance the disposal of waste in a manner which is sustainable. There is also a need to be as compliant as possible with meeting emission requirements, whilst maintaining a sufficient throughput of waste that can be incinerated efficiently. A modified energy-based method for calculating the improvement potential in a waste-to-energy plant has been developed. Thermal destruction of the real waste products was compared with corresponding theoretical process. The range of waste investigated included, refuse derived fuel, minimised solid waste, animal waste and biomass. A custom designed solid-waste prototype incinerator was used to investigate improvements in the system when applied to a much larger industrial scale application. Modifications considered included there-arrangement of ambient air inlets and changes to the internal structures of a primary chamber and a review of burner specification. Modelling and simulations were performed using the ANSYS software. The results showed that the method developed for testing and burning of waste model was more accurate than the previous models for estimating the maximum available energy in waste material. The proposed model incorporates all the major elemental constituents and the physical composition of the solid waste. Moreover, the results obtained from the higher heating value model show good correlation between the values measured and are comparable with previous models. The thermal insulation used in the MB1 model thermal insulation thermal efficiency ranged from 80% in the chimney stack, 94% in the secondary chamber to 96% in the primary chamber compared to the ambient temperature during normal operations. The use of additional ambient air supplied by a variable inlet fan enabled the waste fuel to be combusted more efficiently and retain higher operating temperatures in the primary and secondary chambers which reduced the amount of fossil fuel required for the incinerator operation. This allowed the recording of data for burn rates for each type which other manufacturers are unable to provide. A large upscaled Moving Grate was also modelled to burn 700kg/hr of RDF and where actually it burnt 430kg/hr. This allowed the integration of Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) generators to provide electricity and heat to offset the parasitic load. For burning of 200kg/h with a calorific value of 15MJ/kg can drive one ORC generator providing approximately 70kWe power. For burning 1000kg/h of approximately generating 351kWe of electrical power.
High Salinity, High Concentration Perchlorate Reduction in the Presence of Hexavalent Chromium, Nitrate, and Chlorate
Creators: name: Martin, Nicole
Publisher: name: University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Environmental Engineering
subject: FOS: Environmental engineering

description: Perchlorate is a chemically stable anion which was used as an oxidizer in rocket propellant and explosives throughout the 1950s and 1960s. While natural sources of perchlorate exist, perchlorate in the environment is primarily a result of contamination from anthropogenic processes. Perchlorate contamination has now been identified in at least 45 states and is hazard to human health due to perchlorates ability to interfere with uptake of iodine in the thyroid gland. One of the most common and cost effective treatment methods for perchlorate remediation is biological reductionutilizing bacteria to enzymatically reduce perchlorate into chloride and oxygen.
The purpose of this bench-scale laboratory investigation was to identify the factors preventing and amendments required to promote biodegradation of hexavalent chromium, nitrate, chlorate, and perchlorate in a highly contaminated site with a history of ammonium perchlorate production. There is a lack of research into perchlorate reduction in adverse conditions including those with high initial perchlorate concentration (>100 mg/L), high salinity (>1% NaCl), and multiple co-contaminants.
Microcosm experimentation revealed hexavalent chromium presence, high levels of dissolved solids, and a lack of available carbon source to be the primary factors preventing biodegradation. Of the four carbon sources tested, food-grade blackstrap molasses was found to be the most effective due in part to its ability to abiotically reduce the hexavalent chromium. Bioaugmentation was required when utilizing sodium acetate as the selected carbon source, but further research is required to assess whether bioaugmentation is necessary for molasses-fed microcosms. Predominant bacterial genera identified in samples with successful hexavalent chromium, nitrate, chlorate, and perchlorate reduction included Vibrio, Azoarcus, Pseudomonas, and Denitrobacter.
Efficient Spin Injection into Silicon and the Role of the Schottky Barrier
Creators: name: Dankert, André
name: Dulal, Ravi S.
name: Dash, Saroj P.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Implementing spin functionalities in Si, and understanding the fundamental processes of spin injection and detection, are the main challenges in spintronics. Here we demonstrate large spin polarizations at room temperature, 34% in n-type and 10% in p-type degenerate Si bands, using a narrow Schottky and a SiO2 tunnel barrier in a direct tunneling regime. Furthermore, by increasing the width of the Schottky barrier in non-degenerate p-type Si, we observed a systematic sign reversal of the Hanle signal in the low bias regime. This dramatic change in the spin injection and detection processes with increased Schottky barrier resistance may be due to a decoupling of the spins in the interface states from the bulk band of Si, yielding a transition from a direct to a localized state assisted tunneling. Our study provides a deeper insight into the spin transport phenomenon, which should be considered for electrical spin injection into any semiconductor.
Numerical Simulations of a Two Component Advective Flow for The Study of the Spectral and Timing Properties of Black Holes
Creators: name: Giri, Kinsuk
name: Chakrabarti, Sandip K.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Two component advective flows are the most physical accretion disks which arise from theoretical consideration. Since viscosity is the determining factor, we investigate the effects of viscous stresses on accretion flows around a nonrotating black hole. As a consequence of angular momentum transfer by viscosity in an accretion flow, the angular momentum distribution is modified. We include cooling effects and found that a Keplerian disk is produced on the equatorial plane and the flow above and below remains sub Keplerian. This gives a complete picture to date, of the formation of a Two component advective flow around a black hole.
description: 3 pages, 2 figures, 13th Marcel Grossmann Meeting Conference Proceedings, Stockholm University, Sweden