Evidentiality in Dena'ina Athabaskan

Dena'ina evidentials are enclitics with a complex paradigmatic morphology. Their first component varies with person, while the second com- ponent varies with animacy and number, thus marking source and nature of knowledge. Although evidentiality in Dena'ina is not coded as an obligatory inflectional category on the verb, it is also not scattered throughout the gram- mar. The existence of an incipient inflectional evidential system demonstrates the ability of Athabaskan languages to innovate morphological structures outside the verb. The uniqueness of the Dena'ina system demonstrates the heterogeneity of Athabaskan grammar beyond the verb word

Letter from Lovick Pierce

Letter concerning an annual report from the Utah Agricultural College

Letter from Lovick Pierce

Letter concerning a report for the United States Bureau of Education

Central control of visceral pain and urinary tract function

Afferent input from Aδ and C-fibres innervating the urinary bladder are processed differently by the brain, and have different roles in signaling bladder sensation. Aδ fibres that signal bladder filling activate a spino-bulbo-spinal loop, which relays in the midbrain periaqueductal grey (PAG) and pontine micturition centre (PMC). The excitability of this circuitry is regulated by tonic GABAergic inhibitory processes. In humans and socialised animals micturition is normally under volitional control and influenced by a host of psychosocial factors. Higher nervous decision-making in a social context to 'go now' or 'do not go' probably resides in frontal cortical areas, which act as a central control switch for micturition. Exposure to psychosocial stress can have profoundly disruptive influence on the process and lead to maladaptive changes in the bladder. During sleeping the voiding reflex threshold appears to be reset to a higher level to promote urinary continence.Under physiological conditions C-fibre bladder afferents are normally silent but are activated in inflammatory bladder states and by intense distending pressure. Following prolonged stimulation visceral nociceptors sensitise, leading to a lowered threshold and heightened sensitivity. In addition, sensitization may occur within the central pain processing circuitry, which outlasts the original nociceptive insult. Visceral nociception may also be influenced by genetic and environmental influences. A period of chronic stress can produce increased sensitivity to visceral pain that lasts for months. Adverse early life events can produce even longer lasting epigenetic changes, which increase the individual's susceptibility to developing visceral pain states in adulthood

Jet Effects on Cylindrical Afterbodies Housing Sonic and Supersonic Nozzles which Exhaust Against a Supersonic Stream at Angles of Attack from 90 to 180

Jet effects on cylindrical afterbodies housing sonic and supersonic nozzle

Interpretation of radarsat SAR scenes of Sagwon Alaska, to establish temporal, spatial and physical active layer behavior

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2003Radarsat SAR images of the Kuparuk Basin in North Alaska can be used to describe the timing and characteristics of the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle and the spatial distribution of two types of Arctic Tundra. The freezing of the ground surface; decreases backscatter brightness by 3dB allowing the date of freeze-up and thaw to be established. Using Empirical Orthogonal Functions on amplitude images allows the subtle change in the brightness (during winter) of different tundra types to be enhanced, which provides a technique for discriminating between areas of Moist Acidic Tundra and Moist Non-acidic Tundra. The sand to clay ratio affects the backscatter properties of frozen soil and is inferred to cause this brightness difference. Coherence images show the dynamic nature of Arctic tundra, and low coherence limits the applicability of interferometric techniques to describe active layer heave, however, preliminary results show promise in the application of a differential interferometric technique.1. Introduction -- 2. Background -- 3. SAR backscatter images and the arctic tundra environment -- 4. Use of empirical orthogonal functions for tundra delineation -- 5. Active layer behavior using DINSAR and coherence images -- Discussion -- 7. Conclusion

Agentivity and Participant Marking in Dena'ina Athabascan

This dissertation is concerned with strategies of participant marking in narrative texts in Dena�ina Athabascan, a language spoken in south-central Alaska. Dena�ina is a highly head-marking, polysynthetic language, and all referents (subjects, direct objects and postpositional objects) are encoded by pronominal affixes to the verb stem, as opposed to free pronouns or noun phrases. After a short introduction into the grammar of the language (chapter 1), the pronominal inventory as well as basic pronominal functions are explored (chapter 2). It is then shown that there is a significant asymmetry between the pronominal marking of first and second person referents (so called discourse referents) and of third person referents. These differences are: Discourse referents are always overtly encoded by a prefix, while third person referents can be encoded by null-marking; also, first and second person are marked in a different position within the verb word than third person prefixes. First and second person prefixes display case-marking, third person prefixes do not. An interesting semantic difference between prefixes encoding discourse referents on the one hand, and third person prefixes on the other, is that the latter group agree with their referent with respect to features such as animacy or humanness. Several examples are presented where the narrator makes use of this mechanism either to keep track of several referents without explicitely naming them, or to express his or her attitude towards particular referents, by either down- or upgrading them. It is concluded that first and second person on the one hand constitute a different category than third person on the other hand. Third person prefixes act more like semantic class markers than like pronominals (chapter 5). Last of all, the question of the interpretation of noun phrases (�who did what to whom�) is addressed, seeing that there is no case marking to disambiguate. It is shown that Dena�ina employs marking patterns based on assumptions on the �natural order of things�: such a pattern indicates whether a high-ranking referent acts on a low ranking one or vice versa. The listener then has to use world knowledge to decide which of the referents is higher ranking than the other

Nonmonetary Strategies to Increase Employee Job Satisfaction in Nonprofit Organizations

Nonprofit organizations\u27 managers face challenges in creating nonmonetary rewards to increase the job satisfaction of staff and productivity of the organization. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the nonmonetary reward strategies that nonprofit organizations\u27 managers used to increase employee job satisfaction. The targeted population included nonprofit managers who had successfully implemented nonmonetary reward strategies to increase employee job satisfaction. Kalleberg\u27s theory of job satisfaction was the conceptual framework for the study. The primary data collection method was semistructured, face-to-face interviews with 3 participants. Secondary data sources included review of company documents such as employee evaluations and work-from-home request forms. Methodological triangulation of data and information was accomplished by comparing data collected from interviews and company documents. Through coding and thematic analysis, 3 primary themes emerged: experience, effective communication, and flexibility. The primary conclusion of this study was that managers use personal experiences as an employee to develop and implement effective reward systems. The implications of this study for social change include the potential to improve employee job satisfaction in nonprofit organizations, which may result in improved employee productivity and promote social development in the community

Urodynamic function during sleep-like brain states in urethane anesthetized rats

AbstractThe aim was to investigate urodynamic parameters and functional excitability of the periaqueductal gray matter (PAG) during changes in sleep-like brain states in urethane anesthetized rats. Simultaneous recordings of detrusor pressure, external urethral sphincter (EUS) electromyogram (EMG), cortical electroencephalogram (EEG), and single-unit activity in the PAG were made during repeated voiding induced by continuous infusion of saline into the bladder.The EEG cycled between synchronized, high-amplitude slow wave activity (SWA) and desynchronized low-amplitude fast activity similar to slow wave and ‘activated’ sleep-like brain states. During (SWA, 0.5–1.5Hz synchronized oscillation of the EEG waveform) voiding became more irregular than in the ‘activated’ brain state (2–5Hz low-amplitude desynchronized EEG waveform) and detrusor void pressure threshold, void volume threshold and the duration of bursting activity in the external urethral sphincter EMG were raised. The spontaneous firing rate of 23/52 neurons recorded within the caudal PAG and adjacent tegmentum was linked to the EEG state, with the majority of responsive cells (92%) firing more slowly during SWA. Almost a quarter of the cells recorded (12/52) showed phasic changes in firing rate that were linked to the occurrence of voids. Inhibition (n=6), excitation (n=4) or excitation/inhibition (n=2) was seen. The spontaneous firing rate of 83% of the micturition-responsive cells was sensitive to changes in EEG state. In nine of the 12 responsive cells (75%) the responses were reduced during SWA.We propose that during different sleep-like brain states changes in urodynamic properties occur which may be linked to changing excitability of the micturition circuitry in the periaqueductal gray

Modeling co-operative volume signaling in a plexus of nitric oxide synthase-expressing neurons

In vertebrate and invertebrate brains, nitric oxide (NO) synthase (NOS) is frequently expressed in extensive meshworks (plexuses) of exceedingly fine fibers. In this paper, we investigate the functional implications of this morphology by modeling NO diffusion in fiber systems of varying fineness and dispersal. Because size severely limits the signaling ability of an NO-producing fiber, the predominance of fine fibers seems paradoxical. Our modeling reveals, however, that cooperation between many fibers of low individual efficacy can generate an extensive and strong volume signal. Importantly, the signal produced by such a system of cooperating dispersed fibers is significantly more homogeneous in both space and time than that produced by fewer larger sources. Signals generated by plexuses of fine fibers are also better centered on the active region and less dependent on their particular branching morphology. We conclude that an ultrafine plexus is configured to target a volume of the brain with a homogeneous volume signal. Moreover, by translating only persistent regional activity into an effective NO volume signal, dispersed sources integrate neural activity over both space and time. In the mammalian cerebral cortex, for example, the NOS plexus would preferentially translate persistent regional increases in neural activity into a signal that targets blood vessels residing in the same region of the cortex, resulting in an increased regional blood flow. We propose that the fineness-dependent properties of volume signals may in part account for the presence of similar NOS plexus morphologies in distantly related animals