Editor\u27s Preface, Table of Contents, and List of Attendees

These proceedings contain papers presented in the fifth annual Kansas State University Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture, held in Manhattan, Kansas, April 25 through 27, 1993

CAN SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING CONFIDENCE INTERVALS BE USED ON TRANSECT SAMPLING DATA?

When sampling geographic regions, transect sampling may be easier and cheaper than simple random sampling. However, transect sampling data is more difficult to analyze. In the past, transect sampling data has sometimes been analyzed as if it was the result of simple random sampling. The purpose of this note is to present simulation results which show that this can lead to vastly inaccurate conclusions when one is calculating confidence intervals. In particular, an example is given of a purported 95% confidence interval which is actually a 49% confidence interval

Metric learning pairwise kernel for graph inference

Much recent work in bioinformatics has focused on the inference of various types of biological networks, representing gene regulation, metabolic processes, protein-protein interactions, etc. A common setting involves inferring network edges in a supervised fashion from a set of high-confidence edges, possibly characterized by multiple, heterogeneous data sets (protein sequence, gene expression, etc.). Here, we distinguish between two modes of inference in this setting: direct inference based upon similarities between nodes joined by an edge, and indirect inference based upon similarities between one pair of nodes and another pair of nodes. We propose a supervised approach for the direct case by translating it into a distance metric learning problem. A relaxation of the resulting convex optimization problem leads to the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm with a particular kernel for pairs, which we call the metric learning pairwise kernel (MLPK). We demonstrate, using several real biological networks, that this direct approach often improves upon the state-of-the-art SVM for indirect inference with the tensor product pairwise kernel

The Low German Dialect of Concordia, Missouri

Dissertation--(Ph.D.)--University of Kansas, Germanic Languages and Literatures, 1997.A resurgence of interest recently in various German dialects present in many regions of the United States has led to the gathering of data in many small towns throughout the Midwest whose dialects and dialect speakers will have died out within the next decade. With this realization, research efforts in these communities have been stepped up over the last five years, as we all feel the pressure of a most certain deadline. The researchers of this project, primarily graduate students at the University of Kansas under the supervision of Dr. William Keel, are seeking to record, analyze, and preserve these dialects for future study before they have completely died out. This paper is part of ongoing research into the Low German dialects spoken in the region of Western Missouri in and around Lafayette County, particularly in the towns of Concordia and Cole Camp (Benton County). Thus, this project has both dialectological and historical significance in helping to complete the bigger picture of Germans in America, their language and their culture. As a specific example, fieldwork in the town of Concordia will be used to illustrate how cultural ties to the German homeland, the historical development of the town, its religious affiliations, and its Low German Club have contributed to a revitalization of sorts in its efforts to preserve its heritage and language. Included will be discussions of the town's history, the basic structure and sounds of the dialect, interesting or unusual characteristics of the spoken dialect, and some of the language behaviors exhibited by various speakers. Finally, some implications of the marketing and death of Concordia Low German will be examined

The biological and pharmacological allosteric modulation of inositol monophosphatase

The purpose of this project was to develop novel pharmacological tools against Inositol Monophosphatase (IMPase) and gain new insights into the Calbindin-IMPase interaction. IMPase is an enzyme that has been of significant therapeutic interest since the development of the inositol depletion hypothesis of lithium’s efficacy in the treatment of bipolar disorder. More recent studies have implicated IMPase inhibition in the induction of autophagy and the clearance of peptides involved in the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases. Despite this there is a lack of specific inhibitors and those that have been developed lack favorable physiochemical properties to explore specific IMPase inhibition in vivo. My aim was to find novel inhibiters and binding chemical fragments that could later be developed into potent specific inhibitors of IMPase that would allow for the specific evaluation of IMPase inhibition in vivo. To achieve this, two approaches were tried: first a crystallographic fragment soaking screen was used to identify novel binding sites and chemical matter. This resulted in the discovery of a novel fragment binding site at the homodimer interface and mutagenesis at this site inhibited IMPase activity, indicating that the site could be therapeutically relevant. The second approach was to screen a specially curated isothiazolone library based on the previously identified covalent inhibitor Ebselen. Here I identified a new class of isothiazolone inhibitors of IMPase. The calcium binding protein Calbindin-D28k can allosterically modulate IMPase, this results in the increase in the catalytic activity of IMPase. I aimed to explore this interaction by fusing the proteins using a flexible amino acid linker. The resulting complexes had activity in excess of that of the wild type IMPase, confirming that Calbindin-D28k activated IMPase. Low resolution structural analysis using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) revealed a V-shaped IMPase-calbindin complex which was in contrast to the more linear shape predicted by computational docking models. Here we also obtained the first crystal structure of Calbindin-D28k. This crystal structure gave the first direct visualization of the calcium binding sites of the protein and is a better model of Calbindin-D28k in solution than the previous NMR structure