Concepts in Animal Parasitology, Chapter 02: Phylogenetic Systematics in Parasitology

Chapter 2 in Concepts in Animal Parasitology on phylogenetic systematics in parasitology by Anindo Choudhury. 2024. S. L. Gardner and S. A. Gardner, editors. Zea Books, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States. doi: 10.32873/unl.dc.ciap00

A Noble Mansion for All?: The Production of Difference in Selected Works By Mahesh Dattani and R. Raj Rao

This dissertation reads selected works of two queer Indian writers, Mahesh Dattani and R. Raj Rao, as sites of the production of difference in contemporary, fin-de-millnaire India. The literary analysis in this project tracks the particular texture of the selected primary texts. It follows the particular weave of what stories are being told, and how they are being told, which creates unique patterns of difference, providing the means for critical readings of diversity and difference in contemporary India. Close readings of the primary texts reveal artful, significant interventions in two intersecting discursive fields: namely, nationalism and sexualities. Moreover, the art-work of the texts reveals how the idea of India as a model of unity-in-diversity is by no means politically or ideologically neutral; specifically, the texts show how it is conceptually inadequate for understanding, let alone accommodating, any radical approaches to difference, especially the kind manifested in queerness. While the ramifications of Indian national identity animate one line of enquiry, those of dissident sexualities and gender energize the other, drawing into both lines region-specific questions and enquiries into identity- and subject-formation at large. The queer India crystallizing in the works of Dattani and Rao comes to signal a heterogeneity, complicating stabilized notions of identity (the self-same) and difference (extraneous other/s), all the while interrogating the ground on which that same term rests. Both writers works defer stable assumptions of what it means to be queer and what it means to be Indian. This project examines these forms of deferral as productions of differences in which the irreducibility of, but also radical unsettled interconnections between, difference is theorized

Fostering Collaboration in Emerging Three-Tiered Spectrum Markets

Ensuring optimum spectral efficiency is a critical requirement for current wireless networks to cope with the ever-growing flow of wireless data traffic, using limited spectral resources. As such, spectrum sharing, which allows different grades of users, as well as multiple networking standards to co-exist and utilize in the same frequency band, has become a topic of great intrigue. Due to the inherent advantages of these schemes, the US government has opened up vast amounts of federal spectrum that supports spectrum sharing. The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) proposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is one of them. A tiered spectrum sharing approach, CBRS allows end commercial users to share the radio spectrum with federal incumbent users in the 3,550-3,700 MHz range. Employing a light leasing approach, the FCC aims to encourage the licensed providers of CBRS called the Priority Access License (PAL), to lease/share their licensed spectrum with unlicensed users named the General Authorized Access (GAA) for limited duration, which is essential for the maximum utilization of the CBRS bandwidth, but the current approach proves ineffective for that purpose. In this thesis, we propose a novel clustered framework to facilitate this sharing, where GAA users are grouped into multiple distinct geographical clusters and request access to licensed spectrum through the clusters in a collaborative manner rather than individually. Each cluster will nominate a central entity denoted as the GAA leader to communicate their requests to the PAL operators, as well as establish temporary connections with PAL access points once granted permission for licensed CBRS access, to be used by GAAs outside the operators coverage range. The leaders will also receive information from the PAL operators regarding the number of requests they are willing to accept and transmit that to the GAAs within the cluster. This process reduces the amount of information flow between the licensed and unlicensed entities, thereby providing a convenient platform for CBRS spectrum sharing. In order to determine the leader, the role of which can be assumed by any of the GAA users within the cluster, we formulate a distributed leader selection algorithm algorithm called the LSA, which takes into account the signal strength of the PAL access points available the GAA users, as well as the network density of each GAA node, to assign a score called the leader evaluation score (LES) to each GAA user and nominate the user with the highest score as the leader. To encourage PAL operators to frequently share their licensed spectrum, we incorporate a government reward model, where operators are incentivized by gaining access to additional spectrum for limited periods based on their level of sharing

Cybernetics: How It Compares to Science-fiction and Future Possibilities

Cybernetics is a branch of science that studies how information is communicated in machines and electronic equipment compared to how information is communicated in the brain and nervous system. It also relates to the theory of automatic control and physiology, particularly the physiology of the nervous system. Usage of cybernetics is very popular in various science-fiction medium. This naturally leads one to be curious if its depictions might turn into reality one day. This research paper delves into the growth of cybernetics since its inception, current applications of cybernetics, and what the future might hold

Effects of U.S. Financial Regulations on Labor Markets

This thesis is based on a collection of three essays which study the effects of financial policy on labor markets. The first two essays investigate the effects of U.S. bank branching deregulation on labor markets. The first essay studies how these regulations impacted wages and working hours of traditional payroll workers. The second essay studies the impact of these policy reforms on the occupational choice to engage in self-employed work. The main finding of this set of studies is credit access has real effects on the workforce. Estimates from the econometric analysis used in this study suggest that credit access that stemmed from various policy changes lead to increases in entry and exit rates among self-employed workers, especially among those who started incorporated businesses. Furthermore, these effects are stronger among groups that typically face tougher credit constraints such as younger workers, minorities. The results of this study also show that increases in credit, stemming from policy reforms, lead to increases in the annual working hours and growth rate of the real wage rate for private sector workers. Further analysis suggests that increases in the annual labor supply response is higher for workers with lower earning rates, which lead to decreases in income inequality in the absence of a decline in earnings inequality. The third essay studies the effects of bankruptcy reforms on self-employed workers classified by their needs for external finance. We find that after a national tightening of the bankruptcy code, there is a decline in the rates of entry among unincorporated self-employed workers in states which offer a lower degree of bankruptcy protection

CO2 absorption into MEA-AMP blend: Mass transfer and absorber height index

AbstractA parametric study of CO2 absorption into aqueous solutions of monoethanolamine (MEA)-2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol (AMP) blends was conducted to obtain a much-needed mass transfer data for process design. It was found that the overall mass transfer coefficient (KGae) generally increases with liquid flow rate, temperature and total amine concentration (except at high CO2 loading of above 0.35 mol/mol). It however decreases with CO2 partial pressure and CO2 loading. Higher MEA concentration in the MEA-AMP blends causes KGae to increase, but this trend reverses at high CO2 loadings. An empirical correlation of KGae was subsequently developed as a function of process parameters

PID Stabilization of a Position-Controlled Robot Manipulator Acting Independently of in Collaboration with Human Arm

In this paper we develop framework for PID stabilization of a robot manipulator when using an object independently or in collaboration with a human arm. In both applications, the manipulator is equipped with a wrist sensor represented by an impedance. A second order manipulator transfer function along each coordinate direction is assumed. The aim of the paper is to design a PID controller when measurement of contact force, available via wrist sensor, is used to command the position controlled manipulator to a desired position and/or force profile. Necessary and sufficient conditions for stability of the closed loop system are developed using Hermite-Biehler Theorems. The theorems have been used to analyze stability of polynomials defined over the set of real numbers. Analgorithm for synthesis ofPID controllers using linear matrix inequalities is developed. The theoretical framework presented in this paper can be easily adapted to other low order manipulator transfer functions

End-to-end Prostate Cancer Detection in bpMRI via 3D CNNs: Effects of Attention Mechanisms, Clinical Priori and Decoupled False Positive Reduction

We present a multi-stage 3D computer-aided detection and diagnosis (CAD) model for automated localization of clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa) in bi-parametric MR imaging (bpMRI). Deep attention mechanisms drive its detection network, targeting salient structures and highly discriminative feature dimensions across multiple resolutions. Its goal is to accurately identify csPCa lesions from indolent cancer and the wide range of benign pathology that can afflict the prostate gland. Simultaneously, a decoupled residual classifier is used to achieve consistent false positive reduction, without sacrificing high sensitivity or computational efficiency. In order to guide model generalization with domain-specific clinical knowledge, a probabilistic anatomical prior is used to encode the spatial prevalence and zonal distinction of csPCa. Using a large dataset of 1950 prostate bpMRI paired with radiologically-estimated annotations, we hypothesize that such CNN-based models can be trained to detect biopsy-confirmed malignancies in an independent cohort. For 486 institutional testing scans, the 3D CAD system achieves 83.69$\pm$5.22% and 93.19$\pm$2.96% detection sensitivity at 0.50 and 1.46 false positive(s) per patient, respectively, with 0.882$\pm$0.030 AUROC in patient-based diagnosis $-$significantly outperforming four state-of-the-art baseline architectures (U-SEResNet, UNet++, nnU-Net, Attention U-Net) from recent literature. For 296 external biopsy-confirmed testing scans, the ensembled CAD system shares moderate agreement with a consensus of expert radiologists (76.69%; $kappa$ $=$ 0.51$\pm$0.04) and independent pathologists (81.08%; $kappa$ $=$ 0.56$\pm$0.06); demonstrating strong generalization to histologically-confirmed csPCa diagnosis.Comment: Accepted to MedIA: Medical Image Analysis. This manuscript incorporates and expands upon our 2020 Medical Imaging Meets NeurIPS Workshop paper (arXiv:2011.00263

What is the Element of the Smart Village Model?: Domains, aspects and indicators

The idea of "smart villages" doesn't mean that all villages have the same solution. The goal of this study has two-step plan for a "smart village". First is making a model of a smart village based on a review of the literature. Second, verification of the proposed model by interviewing the respondent. In accordance with the proposed model, exploration is conducted at the stage of verification using open-ended questions. As a result of verification, each indicator receives an additional form of explanatory indicators that are matched to the case study's conditions. This is qualitative research with multiple units of analysis based on a single case study. The case study is Banyuwangi Regency. The units of analysis are Kampung Anyar Village, Kaligondo Village, Wringinrejo Village, Tambong Village, and the Department of Community and Village Empowerment. This villages that have won the smart village competition from 2016 to 2019 in Banyuwangi. The result model consists of 6 domains, 17 aspects, and 55 indicators. The domain is governance, basic village services, village resources, the economy, infrastrucutre, and tourism. All domains, aspects, and indicators can be implemented in smart village development by making technology an enabler, and there are sustainable elements.The idea of "smart villages" doesn't mean that all villages have the same solution. The goal of this study has two-step plan for a "smart village". First is making a model of a smart village based on a review of the literature. Second, verification of the proposed model by interviewing the respondent. In accordance with the proposed model, exploration is conducted at the stage of verification using open-ended questions. As a result of verification, each indicator receives an additional form of explanatory indicators that are matched to the case study's conditions. This is qualitative research with multiple units of analysis based on a single case study. The case study is Banyuwangi Regency. The units of analysis are Kampung Anyar Village, Kaligondo Village, Wringinrejo Village, Tambong Village, and the Department of Community and Village Empowerment. This villages that have won the smart village competition from 2016 to 2019 in Banyuwangi. The result model consists of 6 domains, 17 aspects, and 55 indicators. The domain is governance, basic village services, village resources, the economy, infrastrucutre, and tourism. All domains, aspects, and indicators can be implemented in smart village development by making technology an enabler, and there are sustainable elements