Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an important tool for understanding neural mechanisms underlying human brain function. Most fMRI studies use limited sets of well-controlled stimuli to understand neural systems in isolation. The...
The ability to correctly determine the position of objects in space is fundamental to any visual system. For an animal to successfully engage with a dynamic and complex spatial environment it must be able to encode not only the identity of the...
How the genome is shaped directly influences how it is expressed. In fact, the genome is organized at many different levels, each imparting specific regulation over transcription. Fundamental principles regulating genome organization are poorly...
Gyrinophilus -- Ecology. ; Gyrinophilus -- Geographical distribution -- Northeastern States. ; Freshwater ecology -- Northeastern States. ; Amphibian populations -- Northeastern States.
I investigated controls on the distribution and abundance of the salamander Gyrinophilus porphyriticus (Plethodontidae) acting at multiple spatial scales: individual first-order streams, headwater drainages comprised of multiple streams, and the...
Microtubule motors are essential for cell division. Although the functions of some mitotic motor proteins have been elucidated, the precise mechanisms by which they govern spindle assembly and chromosome segregation remain largely unknown. This...
Form perception. ; Visual perception. ; Motion perception (Vision). ; Color vision. ; Visual cortex -- Psychophysiology.
Visual filling-in occurs when a retinally stabilized object undergoes perceptual fading. It is commonly believed that information about the apparently vanished object is lost and replaced solely by information arising from the surrounding...
Molecularly imprinted polymers are artificial networks designed to have many selective binding sites that are suitable for various applications. In order to develop more of these systems, the fabrication and characterization of imprinted polymers...
α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptors (AMPARs) function as paracrine and autocrine receptors throughout the body. Most studies have focused on their role in fast excitatory neuronal signaling, and learning and memory. In...
Annual screening mammograms are recommended for all women above 40 years of age for early detection of breast cancer, and are known to improve cancer mortality rates. However, mammography is hampered by low sensitivity and a high rate of false...
Robots -- Control systems -- Design and construction. Mobile robots. Robots -- Dynamics.
This thesis examines the issues of vehicle and information dynamics in the control of a multi-robot system using a radial-basis potential function controller. Distributed control of multi-robot systems requires each robot to communicate state...
Partially ordered sets. ; Convex polytopes. ; Representations of groups.
This thesis deals with geometric representations of ordered sets. In a geometric representation, each element of the ordered set is assigned a geometric object, with two elements incomparable in the ordered set if and only if the corresponding...
Regulatory linkage between epibiotic organisms and their host zooplankton populations is one of the least understood topics in zooplankton biology, despite the likely importance of epibionts to pelagic communities. These laboratory studies with...
The rat limbic system contains head direction (HD) cells that fire according to heading in the horizontal plane. These HD cells are thought to provide animals with an internal compass to guide navigation. Previous work has found that HD cell tuning...
Elevated sympathetic discharge from the CNS is an underlying pathogenic mechanism in neurogenic hypertension and an exacerbating factor in chronic heart failure (CHF). Current treatment of these diseases focuses on attenuation of the downstream...
We start by introducing avoidance coupling of Markov chains, with an overview of existing results. We then introduce and motivate a new notion, uniform coupling. We show that the only Markovian avoidance coupling on a cycle is of this type, and...
Niemann-Pick type C (NPC) is a neurovisceral disease that causes intracellular accumulation of cholesterol and other lipids. The exact mechanism how the defects in cholesterol trafficking pathways result in the progressive neurological damage is...