Host Volatile Percepts of Two Sympatric Longhorned Beetles, Anoplophora Chinensis and Anoplophora Glabripennis

Anoplophora chinensis (CLB) and Anoplophora glabripennis (ALB) are sympatric sibling species of pest lamiine cerambycids. Both are destructive invasives under strong domestic and international focus. Monitoring lures for both species need improvement. Under the current ratio hypothesis of insect host detection, insects orient towards their hosts via identification of a host-indicative, attractive blend of multiple volatile compounds. I evaluated multivariate statistical comparison of host versus non-host hardwood volatiles as a method for simultaneously identifying host-indicative compounds for both species. Statistical methods determined the commercially unavailable (E)-4,8-dimethyl-1,3,7-nonatriene was indicative of CLB hosts and a multicomponent blend including benzyl acetate, α-humulene, (E)-nerolidol, (E)-caryophyllene, isoamyl benzoate, and 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-ol was indicative of ALB hosts. I hypothesized that the CLB host indicative blend is inclusive of the ALB host indicative blend and tested the six ALB host-indicative compounds for attraction to both species in Bengbu, China. Field trapping treatments were host volatiles only, male pheromone only, host volatiles + pheromone, and isopropanol control. Pheromone containing treatments captured significantly greater numbers of CLB with the host volatile + pheromone treatment capturing the greatest number of CLB. To further examine intraspecies chemical communication between ALB and CLB, cuticular hydrocarbon extracts from ALB and CLB were collected. Stepwise discriminate analysis showed differences in samples by species and sex, illustrating that ALB and CLB males and females can be identified by their cuticular extracts. In addition, principle component analysis indicated ALB cuticular hydrocarbon samples collected from beetles from Hunchun, Jilin, diverged from the rest of the samples. This research found supporting evidence for the ratio hypothesis of insect host detection, characterized the cuticular hydrocarbons of ALB and CLB, and identified potential geographic variation in ALB cuticular hydrocarbons

Development and Validation of a Survey of Knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder

As autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is more commonly diagnosed, having knowledge of the disorder becomes increasingly important for educators, parents, and the general public. Previous research regarding knowledge of ASD, focused mainly on knowledge possessed by those in the educational field, has found that individuals may perceive themselves as possessing average knowledge regarding ASD but have low actual knowledge (as defined by the researchers) regarding specific aspects of the disorder (Williams et al., 2011). Studies support the notion that there is a general lack of knowledge of different aspects of ASD among teachers; however, there has been little research regarding the level of awareness concerning ASD possessed by individuals outside of the educational sphere. The primary goal of this study was to create a standard measure to evaluate perceived versus actual knowledge of ASD. A sample of undergraduate students was administered A Survey of Knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASK-ASD), as well as a measure of knowledge of ADHD and a measure of knowledge of HIV/AIDS. The ASK-ASD demonstrated test-retest reliability, adequate internal consistency, and fair validity coefficients. An exploratory factor analysis of the ASK-ASD revealed a two-factor structure of knowledge of ASD. Additionally, exploratory analyses revealed several interesting correlations between ASD knowledge, demographic characteristics, and source of ASD knowledge

Mechanical and structural effects of HIV-1 proteins and highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) drugs on murine arteries

The overall goals of this project were to develop microstructurally based constitutive models to characterize the mechanical behavior of arteries and to investigate the effects of HIV proteins and antiretroviral drugs on the microstructure and mechanical behavior. To this end we created several constitutive models in aim 1 using a rule of mixtures approach, investigated the role of viral proteins in aim 2 through the use a transgenic mouse model, and studied the effects of the antiretroviral drug AZT administered to mice in aim 3. It is well known that the local mechanical environment which cells experience mediates growth and remodeling and that subsequent growth and remodeling can change that mechanical environment. This remodeling includes changes in the content and organization of the constituents of arteries (collagen, elastin, and smooth muscle cells). The first aim thus created models that incorporated the content and organization of these constituents using a rule-of-mixtures approach. The models we developed were able to capture the mechanical behavior of the arteries as well as previously developed phenomenological models while providing more physical meaning to the parameters, some which can be measured experimentally for incorporation into future models. Aims 2 and 3 investigated the mechanical and microstructural changes to murine arteries in response to HIV proteins or the drug AZT. While the development of antiretroviral therapy has greatly increased the life expectancy of patients with HIV, a number of other complications and co-morbidities including cardiovascular disease have become apparent. While clinical data has implicated both the virus and the antiretroviral drugs as playing roles, this work addressed the need of investigating these effects in a controlled manner. Specifically we used mouse models and focused on the two subclinical markers of increased intima-media thickness and arterial stiffening. Aim 2 used a transgenic mouse that expressed most of the human HIV proteins. We observed both intima-media thickening and arterial stiffening in alignment with clinical data. Other changes that also support a proatherogenic phenotype included decreased elastin content and changes in cathepsin activity. Aim 3 administered the antiretroviral drug AZT to healthy mice and we also observed the same subclinical markers of atherosclerosis including intima-media thickening and arterial stiffening as well as the other proatherogenic changes of decreased elastin and changes in cathepsin activity. Several other parameters including axial behavior, opening angles, collagen content, and collagen fiber angles were also quantified. These were important to fully characterize the vessel and may also be incorporated in the future into the constitutive models developed in aim1. In conclusion, in aim 1 we developed a microstructurally based constitutive model of arteries that effectively captures the mechanical behavior and includes parameters that have more physical meaning and some of which are experimentally tractable. Aims 2 and 3 both observed several subclinical markers of atherosclerosis in mice that express HIV proteins or were given AZT, providing a good model for future work and suggesting that both the HIV virus and antiretroviral drugs may play roles in the development of atherosclerosis in HIV.PhDCommittee Chair: Gleason, Rudolph L.; Committee Member: Guldberg, Robert; Committee Member: Platt, Manu; Committee Member: Sutliff, Roy; Committee Member: Taylor, W. Rober

Validation of the ASK-ASD in a Sample of Parents, Teachers, and Medical Students

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that begins in childhood and manifests in social communication impairment and restricted, repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although accurate information about ASD is available through a variety of sources, this access to information may not translate into increased knowledge in parents, teachers, and medical professionals. A Survey of Knowledge of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASK-ASD) was initially established as a reliable, valid measure of perceived and actual knowledge of ASD (Hansen, 2015). The current study evaluated the psychometric properties (i.e., factor structure, reliability, and validity) of the ASK-ASD in a sample of parents, teachers, and medical students. The two-factor structure was not well-supported by a confirmatory factor analysis. Additionally, the ASK-ASD received mixed support for reliability and validity. Analyses of differences between actual knowledge levels among the three groups revealed no significant differences, suggesting the parents, teachers, and medical students had relatively similar levels of actual ASD knowledge. Exploratory analyses also examined the relation between ASD knowledge and various demographic characteristics (e.g., race, income level, relationship status) as well as group-specific factors (parenting efficacy, teacher efficacy, and characteristics of the imposter phenomenon). Limitations of the study included difficulties recruiting equal groups, as well as the online method of data collection

Sampling from binary measurements - on reconstructions from Walsh coefficients

Reconstructing infinite-dimensional signals from a limited amount of linear measurements is a key problem in many applications such as medical imaging, single-pixel and lensless cameras, fluorescence microscopy etc. Efficient techniques for such a problem include generalized sampling and its compressed versions, as well as methods based on data assimilation. All of these methods have in common that the reconstruction quality depends highly on the subspace angle between the sampling and the reconstruction space. In this paper we consider the case of binary measurements, which, after a standard subtraction trick, can be converted to a 1 and -1 setup. These measurements are modelled with Walsh functions, which form the kernel for the Hadamard transform. For the reconstruction we use wavelets. We show that the relation between the amount of data sampled and the coefficients reconstructed has to be only linear to ensure that the angle is bounded from below and hence the reconstruction is accurate and stable

Senior Recital, Joel Hansen, guitar

The presentation of this senior recital will fulfill in part the requirements for the Bachelor of Music degree in Performance. Joel Hansen studies guitar with Steve Ashby

Plan, Execute, Evaluate, Repeat: Social Media for Libraries and Non-Profit Organizations

As Facebook becomes more popular and mainstream, more nonprofits and libraries are starting pages for their organizations, but a 2010 survey by the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits found that only 11 percent of Minnesota nonprofits with social media sites evaluate or measure the impact it has on their organization.[1] Likewise, many libraries are happily using social media with little or no assessment of its impact. During this panel, Tanya Cothran, Executive Administrator for the international nonprofit Spirit in Action, will discuss: knowing your audience, setting goals/outcomes for social media interactions, the importance of evaluation, metrics for measuring impact, and recent changes and new features of Facebook Pages. Laura Hansen, Reference and Instruction Librarian at the University of St Thomas, will continue the discussion with strategies about using these theories in an academic library setting. The conversation will focus on various social media strategies and assessment tools St Thomas has implemented as it has integrated social media into its library services. [1] Nonprofit Social Media Survey ReportTo access additional session resources, click on the \u27Download\u27 button located to the right

A simple defense against adversarial attacks on heatmap explanations

With machine learning models being used for more sensitive applications, we rely on interpretability methods to prove that no discriminating attributes were used for classification. A potential concern is the so-called "fair-washing" - manipulating a model such that the features used in reality are hidden and more innocuous features are shown to be important instead. In our work we present an effective defence against such adversarial attacks on neural networks. By a simple aggregation of multiple explanation methods, the network becomes robust against manipulation. This holds even when the attacker has exact knowledge of the model weights and the explanation methods used.Comment: Accepted at 2020 Workshop on Human Interpretability in Machine Learning (WHI