Linking ecological and social dimensions of Missouri landscapes

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (November 27, 2006)Includes bibliographical references.Thesis (M.S.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2005.Dissertations, Academic -- University of Missouri--Columbia -- Forestry.A recent study by the Brookings Institution concluded that patterns of growth in Missouri are eroding the quality of life and rural heritage, and threatening the environment. Reversing these trends will require better understanding the relationship between ecological and socio-economic dimensions of Missouri landscapes. This project begins to examine this relationship. Ecological characteristics of Missouri landscapes were identified via the Ecological Classification System (ECS). Socio-economic attributes were obtained from the 2000 U.S. Census of Population & Housing. This information was explored for relationships through: social profile; CART; and diversity/fragmentation techniques. Social profiles revealed certain variables that reflected significant differences across ecological units. In CART analysis, certain socio-economic variables were prominent in distinguishing between ecological units. Diversity/fragmentation analysis revealed rugged ecological units were not socially diverse or fragmented; while those containing metropolitan areas were. It is hypothesized that in diverse and fragmented ecological units more challenges to collaborative planning and resource management become apparent. However, because of limitations in exploratory studies, combining quantitative and qualitative techniques would aid in fully understanding socio-ecological relationships on Missouri landscapes

High energy neutrinos from neutralino annihilations in the Sun

Neutralino annihilations in the Sun to weak boson and top quark pairs lead to high-energy neutrinos that can be detected by the IceCube and KM3 experiments in the search for neutralino dark matter. We calculate the neutrino signals from real and virtual WW, ZZ, Zh, and $t \bar t$ production and decays, accounting for the spin-dependences of the matrix elements, which can have important influences on the neutrino energy spectra. We take into account neutrino propagation including neutrino oscillations, matter-resonance, absorption, and nu_tau regeneration effects in the Sun and evaluate the neutrino flux at the Earth. We concentrate on the compelling Focus Point (FP) region of the supergravity model that reproduces the observed dark matter relic density. For the FP region, the lightest neutralino has a large bino-higgsino mixture that leads to a high neutrino flux and the spin-dependent neutralino capture rate in the Sun is enhanced by 10^3 over the spin-independent rate. For the standard estimate of neutralino captures, the muon signal rates in IceCube are identifiable over the atmospheric neutrino background for neutralino masses above M_Z up to 400 GeV.Comment: 45 pages, 18 figures and 5 tables, PRD versio

An Alternative Yukawa Unified SUSY Scenario

Supersymmetric SO(10) Grand Unified Theories with Yukawa unification represent an appealing possibility for physics beyond the Standard Model. However Yukawa unification is made difficult by large threshold corrections to the bottom mass. Generally one is led to consider models where the sfermion masses are large in order to suppress these corrections. Here we present another possibility, in which the top and bottom GUT scale Yukawa couplings are equal to a component of the charged lepton Yukawa matrix at the GUT scale in a basis where this matrix is not diagonal. Physically, this weak eigenstate Yukawa unification scenario corresponds to the case where the charged leptons that are in the 16 of SO(10) containing the top and bottom quarks mix with their counterparts in another SO(10) multiplet. Diagonalizing the resulting Yukawa matrix introduces mixings in the neutrino sector. Specifically we find that for a large region of parameter space with relatively light sparticles, and which has not been ruled out by current LHC or other data, the mixing induced in the neutrino sector is such that $sin^2 2\Theta_{23} \approx 1$, in agreement with data. The phenomenological implications are analyzed in some detail.Comment: 32 pages, 22 Figure

Improving Outcomes in Adults with Diabetes Through an Interprofessional Collaborative Practice Program

In 2014, the Midwest Interprofessional Practice, Education and Research Center partnered with a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) to implement an interprofessional collaborative practice (IPCP) education program to improve the health of adult patients with diabetes and to improve practice efficiency. This partnership included integrating an interprofessional team of students with the practice team. Twenty-five students and 20 staff engaged in the IPCP program, which included completion of educational modules on IPCP and implementation of daily huddles, focus patient visits, phone calls, team-based case presentations, medication reconciliation, and student-led group diabetes education classes. This study used a sequential mixed methods design. Tools used for collecting data from staff and students included demographic forms, the Interdisciplinary Education Perception Scale (IEPS), the Entry-level Interprofessional Questionnaire, the Collaborative Practice Assessment Tool, and pre/post module knowledge tests completed at baseline and at one-year post implementation. Patient clinical indicators included HgbA1c, glucose, lipid panel laboratory assessments, body mass index, blood pressure, and documentation of annual dental, foot, and eye examinations. Practice efficiency was measured by the average number of patients seen per provider per hour. Both students and staff showed significant knowledge gains in IPCP on Team Dynamics and Tips for Behavioural Changes knowledge tests (p \u3c .05). Patients who had an HgbA1c of ≥ 7% significantly decreased their HgbA1c (p \u3c .05) and glucose (p \u3c .01). However, BMI and annual dental and eye examinations did not improve. Providers demonstrated an increase in the number of patients seen per hour. This IPCP intervention showed improvement in practice efficiencies and select patient outcomes in a family practice clinic

Local adaptation, genetic divergence, and experimental selection in a foundation grass across the US Great Plains’ climate gradient

Many prior studies have uncovered evidence for local adaptation using reciprocal transplant experiments. However, these studies are rarely conducted for a long enough time to observe succession and competitive dynamics in a community context, limiting inferences for long-lived species. Furthermore, the genetic basis of local adaptation and genetic associations with climate has rarely been identified. Here, we report on a long-term (6-year) experiment conducted under natural conditions focused on Andropogon gerardii, the dominant grass of the North American Great Plains tallgrass ecosystem. We focus on this foundation grass that comprises 80% of tallgrass prairie biomass and is widely used in 20,000 km 2 of restoration. Specifically, we asked the following questions: (a) Whether ecotypes are locally adapted to regional climate in realistic ecological communities. (b) Does adaptive genetic variation underpin divergent phenotypes across the climate gradient? (c) Is there evidence of local adaptation if the plants are exposed to competition among ecotypes in mixed ecotype plots? Finally, (d) are local adaptation and genetic divergence related to climate? Reciprocal gardens were planted with 3 regional ecotypes (originating from dry, mesic, wet climate sources) of Andropogon gerardii across a precipitation gradient (500–1,200 mm/year) in the US Great Plains. We demonstrate local adaptation and differentiation of ecotypes in wet and dry environments. Surprisingly, the apparent generalist mesic ecotype performed comparably under all rainfall conditions. Ecotype performance was underpinned by differences in neutral diversity and candidate genes corroborating strong differences among ecotypes. Ecotype differentiation was related to climate, primarily rainfall. Without long-term studies, wrong conclusions would have been reached based on the first two years. Further, restoring prairies with climate-matched ecotypes is critical to future ecology, conservation, and sustainability under climate change

Electroweak symmetry breaking in supersymmetric models with heavy scalar superpartners

We propose a novel mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking in supersymmetric models, as the one recently discussed by Birkedal, Chacko and Gaillard, in which the Standard Model Higgs doublet is a pseudo-Goldstone boson of some global symmetry. The Higgs mass parameter is generated at one loop level by two different, moderately fine-tuned sources of the global symmetry breaking. The mechanism works for scalar superpartner masses of order 10 TeV, but gauginos can be light. The scale at which supersymmetry breaking is mediated to the visible sector has to be low, of order 100 TeV. Fine-tuning in the scalar potential is at least two orders of magnitude smaller than in the MSSM with similar soft scalar masses. The physical Higgs boson mass is (for $\tan\beta\gg1$) in the range 120-135 GeV.Comment: 17 pages, no figures, LaTe

Probing non-universal gaugino masses via Higgs boson production under SUSY cascades at the LHC: A detailed study

Cascade decays of Supersymmetric (SUSY) particles are likely to be prolific sources of Higgs bosons at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In this work, we explore, with the help of detailed simulation, the role of non-universal gaugino masses in the production of the Higgs bosons under SUSY cascades. The analysis is carried out by choosing an appropriate set of benchmark points with non-universal gaugino masses in the relevant SUSY parameter space and then contrasting the resulting observations with the corresponding cases having universal relationship among the same. It is shown that even of data at an early phase of the LHC-run with 10 fb$^{-1}$ one would be able to see, under favourable situations, the imprint of non-universal gaugino masses by reconstructing various Higgs boson resonances and comparing their rates. With increased accumulated luminosities, the indications would naturally become distinct over a larger region of the parameter space.Comment: 48 page

From Flavour to SUSY Flavour Models

If supersymmetry (SUSY) will be discovered, successful models of flavour not only have to provide an explanation of the flavour structure of the Standard Model fermions, but also of the flavour structure of their scalar superpartners. We discuss aspects of such "SUSY flavour" models, towards predicting both flavour structures, in the context of supergravity (SUGRA). We point out the importance of carefully taking into account SUSY-specific effects, such as 1-loop SUSY threshold corrections and canonical normalization, when fitting the model to the data for fermion masses and mixings. This entangles the flavour model with the SUSY parameters and leads to interesting predictions for the sparticle spectrum. We demonstrate these effects by analyzing an example class of flavour models in the framework of an SU(5) Grand Unified Theory with a family symmetry with real triplet representations. For flavour violation through the SUSY soft breaking terms, the class of models realizes a scheme we refer to as "Trilinear Dominance", where flavour violation effects are dominantly induced by the trilinear terms.Comment: 44 pages, 10 figures, version published in Nuclear Physics