In Print

- The Coming of the Frontier Press: How the West Was Really Won, by Barbara Cloud - We Were All Like Migrant Workers Here: Work, Community, and Memory on California’s Round Valley Reservation, by William J. Bauer, Jr. - Europe as a Political Project in the CDU: Precedents and Programs, by Daniel Villanuev

From Discovery to Marketplace

UNLV faculty demonstrate that research is actually the mother of invention – although necessity certainly got them thinking

Miles to Go

Long commutes. Pedestrian safety. Traffic accidents. Seatbelt use. Pollution. The Southern Nevada roadways are filled with transportation research issues just waiting for the attention of Shashi Nambisan. But the director of UNLV’s Transportation Research Center is ready to take on the challenges as he helps the community develop a strong ground transportation system

Optimal Order Scheduling for Deterministic Liquidity Patterns

We consider a broker who has to place a large order which consumes a sizable part of average daily trading volume. The broker's aim is thus to minimize execution costs he incurs from the adverse impact of his trades on market prices. By contrast to the previous literature, see, e.g., Obizhaeva and Wang (2005), Predoiu, Shaikhet, and Shreve (2011), we allow the liquidity parameters of market depth and resilience to vary deterministically over the course of the trading period. The resulting singular optimal control problem is shown to be tractable by methods from convex analysis and, under minimal assumptions, we construct an explicit solution to the scheduling problem in terms of some concave envelope of the resilience adjusted market depth

Prospects of long-time-series observations from Dome C for transit search

The detection of transiting extrasolar planets requires high-photometric quality and long-duration photometric stellar time-series. In this paper, we investigate the advantages provided by the Antarctic observing platform Dome C for planet transit detections during its long winter period, which allows for relatively long, uninterrupted time-series. Our calculations include limiting effects due to the Sun and Moon, cloud coverage and the effect of reduced photometric quality for high extinction of target fields. We compare the potential for long time-series from Dome C with a single site in Chile, a three-site low-latitude network as well as combinations of Dome C with Chile and the network, respectively. Dome C is one of the prime astronomical sites on Earth for obtaining uninterrupted long-duration observations in terms of prospects for a high observational duty cycle. The duty cycle of a project can, however, be significantly improved by integrating Dome C into a network of sites.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, accepted by PAS

Social bonds and genetic ties: Kinship association and affiliation in a community of bonobos (Pan paniscus)

Studies of captive populations of bonobos suggest that females are more gregarious than males. This seems to contradict assumed sex-differences in kinship deriving from a speciestypical dispersal pattern of female exogamy and male philopatry. Here we present data on spatial associations and affiliative relations among members of one wild community (Eyengo) for which genetic relationships were identified by analysing mitochondrial and nuclear DNA. Our data from Lomako confirm the existence of spatial associations among resident females. In addition, they reveal strong social bonds between males and females. While most female-female associations did not last longer than one field season, long-term associations occurred predominantly between mixed-sex dyads and involved both close kin and unrelated individuals. Differences in social grooming appeared to be related to patterns of spatial association rather than to kinship. It is suggested that under natural conditions social organisation of bonobos is characterised by strong inter-sexual bonds. Males may benefit from bonding with females by increased reproductive success via rank acquisition. For females benefits may derive from inclusive fitness and reduced food competition. Preliminary evidence suggests that females also may benefit from protection by resident males against male intruders

IGF-I receptor phosphorylation is impaired in cathepsin X-deficient prostate cancer cells

The cysteine-type peptidase cathepsin X is highly upregulated in several cancers and presumably promotes tumor invasion through bypassing cellular senescence. Here, we present first evidence that the underlying mechanism may involve the regulation of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF) system, a well-known activator of proliferating tumor cells. Cathepsin X deficiency leads to a reduced phosphorylation of the IGF-I receptor in response to IGF-I stimulation. In addition, downstream signaling through focal adhesion kinase was also affected. Taken together, our results indicate that cathepsin X is able to assist in IGF signaling, which may be an important progress toward understanding cathepsin X-dependent tumorigenesis

Analyzing the Impact of an Informal Mathematics Teaching Experience on Preservice Teacher Mathematics Teaching Self-Efficacy

A teacher’s sense of efficacy is their belief in their capability to successfully accomplish a specific task. Teachers with a high sense of efficacy exert more effort, persistence, and commitment to teaching, which leads to higher student achievement and attitudes. The purpose of this study is to determine how participation in an informal mathematics teaching experience impacts preservice teachers’ sense of mathematics teaching self-efficacy. This research was conducted at one informal mathematics teaching experience, during which, all participants completed pre-surveys and post-surveys rating their mathematics teaching self-efficacy using the MTEBI. Later, some participants were interviewed to gain insight into their experience teaching mathematics at the camp. Results of this study showed that participation in the informal mathematics teaching experience led to the preservice teachers having a higher sense of mathematics teaching self-efficacy. This study implies that participation in these mathematics camps at this Midwestern university leads to in-service teachers having higher efficacy and greater mathematics student achievement. Further research can be done to study the long-term impacts of participating in the informal mathematics teaching experience, as well as how informal teaching experiences of other content areas impact preservice teachers