Shadow Lane Campus

UNLV has developed a new campus that has emerged as a leading facility for health, biomedical, and biotechnological research

In Print

UNLV faculty authors shed light on medieval science, airfi eld pavements, and juvenile justice

Enhancing Research

UNLV’s National Supercomputing Center provides research support

Soil Science

Objectives: Understand that soil is composed of inorganic and organic solid material, water, and air.·Investigate the properties of the inorganic solid components of soil: sand, silt, and clay. Recognize that varying proportions of sand, silt, and clay in a soil impact the soil’s ability to hold and transmit water. Experimentally determine the soil texture of a local soil sample. Determine the chemical composition of a local soil sample for pH, nitrate, phosphorus, and potassium levels. Analyze a given soil’s ability to support crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and oats. Provide recommendations for amending a given soil to support the needs of various crop plants.https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/urban_agriculture/1002/thumbnail.jp

Row Spacing Models

Objectives: Identify multiple row spacing models used by soybean farmers and determine how these planting arrangements impact crop yield. Explore how row spacing influences the amount of access that a plant has to the natural resources it needs to grow. Recommend a row spacing model that considers overall yield, economic efficiency, and potential environmental threats for a hypothetical farmer.https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/urban_agriculture/1001/thumbnail.jp

Prestigious Professors

The Harry Reid Silver State Research Award winners share a passion for research, but on distinctly different aspects of the state and region

Reconstructability of Epistatic Functions

Background: Reconstructability Analysis (RA) has been used to detect epistasis in genomic data; in that work, even the simplest RA models (variable-based models without loops) gave performance superior to two other methods. A follow-on theoretical study showed that RA also offers higher-resolution models, namely variable-based models with loops and state-based models, likely to be even more effective in modeling epistasis, and also described several mathematical approaches to classifying types of epistasis. Methods: The present paper extends this second study by discussing a non-standard use of RA: the analysis of epistasis in quantitative as opposed to nominal variables; such quantitative variables are, for example, encountered in genetic characterizations of gene expression, e.g., eQTL data. Three methods are investigated for applying variable- and state-based RA to quantitative dependent variables: (i) k-systems analysis, which treats continuous function values as pseudofrequencies, (ii) b-systems analysis, which derives continuous values from binned DVs using expected value calculations, and (iii) u-systems analysis, which treats continuous function values as pseudo-utilities subject to a lottery. These methods are demonstrated and compared on synthetic data. Results: The three methods of k-, b-, and u-systems analyses, both variable-based and state-based, are then applied to a published SNP dataset. A preliminary search is done with b-systems analysis, followed by more refined k- and u-systems searches. The analyses suggest candidates for epistatic interactions that affect the level of gene expression. As in the synthetic data studies, state-based RA is more powerful than variable-based RA. Conclusions: While the previous RA studies looked at epistasis in nominal (or discretized) data, this paper shows that RA can also analyze epistasis in quantitative expression data without discretizing this data. Since RA can also model epistasis in frequency distributions and detect linkage disequilibrium, its successful application here also to continuous functions shows that it offers a flexible methodology for the analysis of genomic interaction effects

Dive In: Oceanographic Engineering

Although some is known about the oceans, many believe that there is still a majority of the oceans that remains unexplored. The oceans are home to wide variety of organisms and are constantly changing. Humans rely on the ocean for a multitude of reasons including food, products, recreation, and energy. Engineering is involved in all aspects of harnessing these resources. During Dive In: Oceanographic Engineering, students will be engaged in identifying problems, designing, testing, and evaluating potential solutions