Geophysical Investigations of the Mound City Borrow Pits, Ross County, Ohio

Geophysical subsurface imaging is becoming a common practice in archaeology. Non-invasive geophysical methods provide efficient alternatives to costly and invasive excavations, allowing archaeologists to analyze sites before any excavation is done to identify areas of interest. For my thesis, I investigated two prehistoric borrow pits at the Mound City Group (200 BC - 200 AD) in the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in south-central Ohio. The primary objective of this study was to determine the presence and spatial extent of a clay lining that was emplaced upon the borrow pits by the Hopewell people. Information gleaned from the geophysical investigation was used to assess the degree of site disturbance from agriculture, construction of Camp Sherman, and modern reconstruction of the earthworks. My analysis included a suite of overlapping geophysical surveys consisting of ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, electromagnetic induction, and electrical resistivity. The geophysical data was ground-truthed with limited auguring and trenching. Analysis of the first borrow pit data showed strong evidence of historical disturbance within the pit from construction of Camp Sherman, including disturbed soil and a buried utility pipe, leaving little of the clay lining present except around the edges of the borrow pit. The geophysical data for the second borrow pit showed less historical damage that was primarily caused from the re-excavation of the pit during the reconstruction of the park. The second borrow pit still retains about half of the clay lining, a finding supported by the results of auguring and trenching. These results are evidence that the borrow pits at Mound City may have also served a purpose as cultural landscape features. The geophysical methods used in this study proved to be an invaluable source of information with minimal disturbance of the site

The Derivative Nature of Corporate Constitutional Rights

This Article engages the two-hundred-year history of corporate constitutional rights jurisprudence to show that the Supreme Court has long accorded rights to corporations based on the rationale that corporations represent associations of people from whom such rights are derived. The Article draws on the history of business corporations in America to argue that the Court’s characterization of corporations as associations made sense throughout most of the nineteenth century. By the late nineteenth century, however, when the Court was deciding several key cases involving corporate rights, this associational view was already becoming a poor fit for some corporations. The Court’s failure to account for the wide spectrum of organizations labeled “corporations” became increasingly problematic with the rise of modern business corporations that could no longer be fairly characterized as an identifiable group of people acting in association. Nonetheless, the Court continued to apply the associational rationale from early case law and expand corporate rights into the realm of speech and political spending without careful analysis of when the associational approach would be appropriate. We set forth a theoretical framework that we believe is consistent with the underlying logic of the Court’s jurisprudence, based on the concepts of derivative and instrumental rights. Specifically, we argue that the Court, to date, has not granted constitutional rights to corporations in their own right. Instead, it has granted rights to corporations either derivatively, when necessary to protect the rights of natural persons assumed to be represented by the corporation, or instrumentally, when necessary to protect the rights of parties outside the corporation. Further, we consider the implications that this framework, with a more nuanced view of the spectrum of corporations in existence, would have if applied to recent corporate rights cases, such as Citizens United. We believe this framework provides a principled path forward for the difficult line drawing between corporations that needs to be done

"Wait, what was the question again?" : first-person descriptions of the experiences of school-aged females with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and their teachers

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has been under-researched in females when compared to the amount of research devoted to their male peers. This qualitative study involves individual interviews with middle-school and high-school-aged females with ADHD on their academic and social experiences living with this disorder in order to get their perspectives. Students reported on social and academic implications of ADHD, views on treatment methods, effectiveness of their teachers, and classroom interventions. Focus group interviews also were conducted with elementary-, middle-, and high-school teachers about their experiences in the classroom with females who have been diagnosed with ADHD. Teachers reported on views of ADHD, views of treatment methods, symptoms in males with ADHD versus females with ADHD, classroom interventions, and ways they identify students in need in the classroom

Development of Peptide Cyclization Strategies for Their Incorporation into One-Bead-One-Compound Peptide Libraries

Thesis advisor: Jianmin GaoThesis advisor: Eranthie WeerapanaCyclic peptides provide a privileged scaffold when optimizing interactions with various biological targets. Their rigidified structure decreases the entropic cost of binding by preorganizing residues in a fixed conformation, which may enhance binding affinity. These molecules occupy a larger chemical space than typical small molecule drugs and may provide good candidates for inhibiting protein-protein interactions or being able to interact with previously undruggable targets. Given the benefits of these structures we aim to develop a one-bead-one-compound peptide library for screening against relevant biological targets. Herein we describe several routes to achieving cyclic peptides through side chain interactions and head-to tail amide bond linkages. Additional considerations for the development of the on resin library such as linker strategies and sequencing methods will be discussed.Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2015.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Chemistry

Habitat modification and gene flow in Saimiri oerstedii: Landscape genetics, intraspecific molecular systematics, and conservation

Habitat modification, when it results in population fragmentation, often results in the loss of genetic diversity due to reduced gene flow, inbreeding, and genetic drift. However, the severity of these effects depends on how diminished dispersal and gene flow become between patches of suitable habitat. An empirical understanding of how habitat change affects dispersal and gene flow within and among patches is essential to predict the effects of increased habitat modification and landscape change on population persistence and processes of divergence. Recent studies in landscape ecology suggest that our understanding of dispersal in a heterogeneous landscape will improve by explicitly considering the heterogeneity of matrix habitats, or unsuitable habitats between patches of suitable habitat. In this dissertation, I describe population genetic structure and dispersal patterns in the Central American Squirrel Monkey (Saimiri oerstedii, Primates: Cebidae), a New World primate threatened with extinction and living in a heterogeneous, human-modified landscape, using analyses that explicitly consider matrix heterogeneity. I focus on the more endangered S. o. citrinellus, whose already restricted distribution in the Central Pacific region of Costa Rica has undergone considerable anthropogenic modification since the early 1900s. I collected non-invasive fecal samples from S. o. citrinellus across the Central Pacific region, obtaining full genotypes from 233 individuals. I also obtained 11 samples from S. o. oerstedii in the Southern Pacific region of Costa Rica from a collaborator, as well as fine-scale landscape data for the Central Pacific. I analyzed the data using molecular systematics, population genetics, and landscape genetic techniques. In this dissertation, first I explore whether molecular genetic support exists for the subspecies distinction between S. o. citrinellus and S. o. oerstedii. Second, I describe population genetic structure and recent migration patterns within S. o. citrinellus using traditional population genetic methods and Bayesian models. I also compare population genetic structure among males versus females to test for sex-biased dispersal patterns in S. o. citrinellus. Then, using landscape genetic approaches, I describe the relationship between landscape heterogeneity and genetic structure in S. o. citrinellus, and inferred which matrix habitats are costly to dispersal. Finally, I offer explicit recommendations for the conservation management of S. oerstedii. My results provide genetic support for S. o. citrinellus and S. o. oerstedii as separate taxa referred to as subspecies. Also, I found evidence of population genetic structure in S. o. citrinellus, with two genetically distinct populations and lower genetic diversity in the western population. I did not find genetic evidence for female-biased dispersal in S. o. citrinellus as expected. Instead, my results suggest that both sexes disperse, with males dispersing over longer distances. The landscape genetic analysis suggests that landscape heterogeneity is important in determining local population genetic structure in S. o. citrinellus in the Central Pacific region of Costa Rica. Specifically, oil palm plantations are moderate barriers to gene flow between populations, but not other matrix habitats. However, these inferences are specific to the composition and configuration of the Central Pacific landscape, and should not be generalized to all S. oerstedii populations. This study generated important information for conservation management. Based on my results, I recommend that conservation managers house the two S. oerstedii subspecies separately in captive facilities, and only transfer, reintroduce, or translocate among groups of the same subspecies. However, transfers, reintroductions, or translocations of either males or females are both likely to be successful for S. o. citrinellus in the Central Pacific region, pending further behavioral study. I also recommend that, in order to augment dispersal to the isolated western population of S. o. citrinellus, conservation efforts should focus on building biological corridors through or around adjacent oil palm plantations. Also, managers should prioritize the maintenance of existing forest connectivity in the Central Pacific region. The results also have important implications for future studies of evolutionary and ecological processes in heterogeneous landscapes. This study contributes to a growing body of research that finds differences in dispersal patterns among local primate populations of the same taxon. My results suggest that predictive models for variation in dispersal patterns should consider both variation among the environments of local populations within a species and temporal variation in local environments (e.g. recent habitat disturbance). Finally, this dissertation also supports the idea that matrix heterogeneity should be considered explicitly in studies of dispersal and gene flow, as opposed to assuming that all non-suitable habitats have a uniform effect on these processes. In the future, agent-based simulation approaches combined with ecological niche models and data on adaptive genetic diversity could expand upon this work to inform predictive models for population divergence and speciation under different climate and landscape change scenarios

An epidemiological study of neuropathic pain symptoms in Canadian adults

The reported prevalence of neuropathic pain ranges from 6.9% to 10%; however the only Canadian study reported 17.9%. The objective of this study was to describe the epidemiology of neuropathic pain in Canada. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in a random sample of Canadian adults. The response rate was 21.1% (1504/7134). Likely or possible neuropathic pain was defined using a neuropathic pain-related diagnosis and a positive outcome on the Self-Report Leeds Assessment of Neuropathic Symptoms and Signs pain scale (S-LANSS) or the Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) Questions. The prevalence of likely neuropathic pain was 1.9% (S-LANSS) and 3.4% (DN4) and that of possible neuropathic pain was 5.8% (S-LANSS) and 8.1% (DN4). Neuropathic pain was highest in economically disadvantaged males. There is a significant burden of neuropathic pain in Canada. The low response rate and a slightly older and less educated sample than the Canadian population may have led to an overestimate of neuropathic pain. Population prevalence varies by screening tool used, indicating more work is needed to develop reliable measures. Population level screening targeted towards high risk groups should improve the sensitivity and specificity of screening, while clinical examination of those with positive screening results will further refine the estimate of prevalence