Faculty Scholarship
Showing 651 - 660 of 733 Items
Peatlands as a model ecosystem of soil carbon dynamics: Reply to Comment on "peatlands and their role in the global carbon cycle"
Date: 2012-01-01
Creator: Zicheng Yu, D. W. Beilman, S. Frolking, G. M. MacDonald, N. T., Roulet, P. Camill, D. J. Charman
Access: Open access
Symmetric-group decomposition of SU(N) group-theory constraints on four-, five-, and six-point color-ordered amplitudes at all loop orders
Date: 2012-01-01
Creator: Alexander C. Edison, Stephen G. Naculich
Access: Open access
- Color-ordered amplitudes for the scattering of n particles in the adjoint representation of SU(N) gauge theory satisfy constraints that arise from group theory alone. These constraints break into subsets associated with irreducible representations of the symmetric group Sn, which allows them to be presented in a compact and natural way. Using an iterative approach, we derive the constraints for six-point amplitudes at all loop orders, extending earlier results for n = 4 and n = 5. We then decompose the four-, five-, and six-point group-theory constraints into their irreducible Sn subspaces. We comment briefly on higher-point two-loop amplitudes. © SISSA 2012.
Quantification of dendritic and axonal growth after injury to the auditory system of the adult cricket gryllus bimaculatus
Date: 2013-09-27
Creator: Alexandra Pfister, Amy Johnson, Olaf Ellers, Hadley W. Horch
Access: Open access
- Dendrite and axon growth and branching during development are regulated by a complex set of intracellular and external signals. However, the cues that maintain or influence adult neuronal morphology are less well understood. Injury and deafferentation tend to have negative effects on adult nervous systems. An interesting example of injury-induced compensatory growth is seen in the cricket, Gryllus bimaculatus. After unilateral loss of an ear in the adult cricket, auditory neurons within the central nervous system (CNS) sprout to compensate for the injury. Specifically, after being deafferented, ascending neurons (AN-1 and AN-2) send dendrites across the midline of the prothoracic ganglion where they receive input from auditory afferents that project through the contralateral auditory nerve (N5). Deafferentation also triggers contralateral N5 axonal growth. In this study, we quantified AN dendritic and N5 axonal growth at 30 h, as well as at 3, 5, 7, 14, and 20 days after deafferentation in adult crickets. Significant differences in the rates of dendritic growth between males and females were noted. In females, dendritic growth rates were non-linear; a rapid burst of dendritic extension in the first few days was followed by a plateau reached at 3 days after deafferentation. In males, however, dendritic growth rates were linear, with dendrites growing steadily over time and reaching lengths, on average, twice as long as in females. On the other hand, rates of N5 axonal growth showed no significant sexual dimorphism and were linear. Within each animal, the growth rates of dendrites and axons were not correlated, indicating that independent factors likely influence dendritic and axonal growth in response to injury in this system. Our findings provide a basis for future study of the cellular features that allow differing dendrite and axon growth patterns as well as sexually dimorphic dendritic growth in response to deafferentation. © 2013 Pfister, Johnson, Ellers and Horch.
Field information links permafrost carbon to physical vulnerabilities of thawing
Date: 2012-08-16
Creator: Jennifer W. Harden, Charles D. Koven, Chien Lu Ping, Gustaf Hugelius, A., David McGuire, Phillip Camill, Torre Jorgenson, Peter Kuhry, Gary J. Michaelson, Jonathan A. O'Donnell, Edward A.G. Schuur, Charles Tarnocai, Kristopher Johnson, Guido Grosse
Access: Open access
- Deep soil profiles containing permafrost (Gelisols) were characterized for organic carbon (C) and total nitrogen (N) stocks to 3m depths. Using the Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) we calculate cumulative distributions of active layer thickness (ALT) under current and future climates. The difference in cumulative ALT distributions over time was multiplied by C and N contents of soil horizons in Gelisol suborders to calculate newly thawed C and N. Thawing ranged from 147 PgC with 10 PgN by 2050 (representative concentration pathway RCP scenario 4.5) to 436 PgC with 29 PgN by 2100 (RCP 8.5). Organic horizons that thaw are vulnerable to combustion, and all horizon types are vulnerable to shifts in hydrology and decomposition. The rates and extent of such losses are unknown and can be further constrained by linking field and modelling approaches. These changes have the potential for strong additional loading to our atmosphere, water resources, and ecosystems. © 2012. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
Free limits of Thompson's group F
Date: 2011-12-01
Creator: Azer Akhmedov, Melanie Stein, Jennifer Taback
Access: Open access
- We produce a sequence of markings Sk of Thompson's group F within the space Gn of all marked n-generator groups so that the sequence (F, Sk) converges to the free group on n generators, for n ≥ 3. In addition, we give presentations for the limits of some other natural (convergent) sequences of markings to consider on F within G3, including (F, {x0, x1, xn}) and (F, {x0, x1, x0n}) © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Bounding right-arm rotation distances
Date: 2007-03-01
Creator: Sean Cleary, Jennifer Taback
Access: Open access
- Rotation distance measures the difference in shape between binary trees of the same size by counting the minimum number of rotations needed to transform one tree to the other. We describe several types of rotation distance where restrictions are put on the locations where rotations are permitted, and provide upper bounds on distances between trees with a fixed number of nodes with respect to several families of these restrictions. These bounds are sharp in a certain asymptotic sense and are obtained by relating each restricted rotation distance to the word length of elements of Thompson's group F with respect to different generating sets, including both finite and infinite generating sets. © World Scientific Publishing Company.
Pectin activation of MAP kinase and gene expression is WAK2 dependent
Date: 2009-12-01
Creator: Bruce D. Kohorn, Susan Johansen, Akira Shishido, Tanya Todorova, Rhysly, Martinez, Elita Defeo, Pablo Obregon
Access: Open access
- The angiosperm extracellular matrix, or cell wall, is composed of a complex array of cellulose, hemicelluose, pectins and proteins, the modification and regulated synthesis of which are essential for cell growth and division. The wall associated kinases (WAKs) are receptor-like proteins that have an extracellular domain that bind pectins, the more flexible portion of the extracellular matrix, and are required for cell expansion as they have a role in regulating cellular solute concentrations. We show here that both recombinant WAK1 and WAK2 bind pectin in vitro. In protoplasts pectins activate, in a WAK2-dependent fashion, the transcription of vacuolar invertase, and a wak2 mutant alters the normal pectin regulation of mitogen-activated protein kinases. Microarray analysis shows that WAK2 is required for the pectin activation of numerous genes in protoplasts, many of which are involved in cell wall biogenesis. Thus, WAK2 plays a major role in signaling a diverse array of cellular events in response to pectin in the extracellular matrix. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Dead end words in lamplighter groups and other wreath products
Date: 2005-09-22
Creator: Sean Cleary, Jennifer Taback
Access: Open access
- We explore the geometry of the Cayley graphs of the lamplighter groups and a wide range of wreath products. We show that these groups have dead end elements of arbitrary depth with respect to their natural generating sets. An element w in a group G with finite generating set X is a dead end element if no geodesic ray from the identity to w in the Cayley graph Γ(G, X) can be extended past w. Additionally, we describe some non-convex behaviour of paths between elements in these Cayley graphs and seesaw words, which are potential obstructions to these graphs satisfying the k-fellow traveller property. © The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Simplified insertion of transgenes onto balancer chromosomes via recombinase-mediated cassette exchange
Date: 2012-05-01
Creator: Florence F. Sun, Justine E. Johnson, Martin P. Zeidler, Jack R. Bateman
Access: Open access
- Balancer chromosomes are critical tools for Drosophila genetics. Many useful transgenes are inserted onto balancers using a random and inefficient process. Here we describe balancer chromosomes that can be directly targeted with transgenes of interest via recombinase-mediated cassette exchange (RMCE). ©2012 Sun et al.
Attention training for reducing spider fear in spider-fearful individuals
Date: 2010-10-01
Creator: Hannah E. Reese, Richard J. McNally, Sadia Najmi, Nader Amir
Access: Open access
- Cognitive theorists propose that attentional biases for threatening information play an important role in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. If attentional biases for threat figure in the maintenance of anxiety, then the experimental reduction of the bias for threat (attention training) should reduce anxiety. We randomly assigned 41 spider-fearful individuals to receive either attention training (n=20) or control procedures (n=21). We used a modified dot-probe discrimination paradigm with photographs of spiders and cows to train attention. Training reduced attentional bias for spiders, but only temporarily. Although both groups declined in spider fear and avoidance, reduction in attentional bias did not produce significantly greater symptom reduction in the training group than in the control group. However, reduction in attentional bias predicted reduction in self-reported fear for the training group. The reduction in attentional bias for threat may have been insufficiently robust to produce symptom reduction greater than that produced by exposure to a live spider and spider photographs alone. Alternatively, attention training may be an unsuitable intervention for spider fear. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.