5153 research outputs found
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The Impact of Glyphosate on Human Health
No full textThis thesis is being archived as a Digitized Shelf Copy for campus access to current students and staff only. We currently cannot provide this open access without the author's permission. If you are the author of this work and desire to provide it open access or wish access removed, please contact the Wahlstrom Library to discuss permission.Objective – The purpose of this study is to review literature on the health risks of glyphosate based herbicides. With the increasing use of Genetically Modified Organisms to resist these herbicides, there is growing concern for possible toxicities. Basic Procedures – The database used for searching was PubMed. Researched focused on papers showing the effects of Glyphosate on various animal and human physiological systems. Papers were chosen that were published within the last 25 years. Systematic reviews and meta-analysis were included. Main Findings – Glyphosate in animal and human in vitro cell studies have been shown to cause pathological effects, ranging from low chronic exposure, to acute toxic exposure at sublethal and subtoxic doses. Principal Conclusions – Research shows that we have identified potential pathways of damage from glyphosate in not only aquatic life but animals as well. We have a profound shortage of animal studies and only retrospective human studies of glyphosate effects in vitro and in vivo. More research is necessary to define the impact of glyphosate on human cells
Development of Monitoring System of a Wheelchair Using a Quadrotor
No full textThe adoption of Image Processing concepts associated to robotic applications has been showing as efficient solutions for quotidian issues. The Quadrotor is an equipment that has been used largely for monitoring objects. Considering the stable flight control of a quadrotor, this project presents the development of a system to monitor a specific wheelchair. The system is composed of the camera attached to the quadrotor. The camera sends images to a computer, which will process the wheelchair movement through the algorithm developed. By applying the main concepts of Image Processing, respecting physical limits between the equipment and the wheelchair user, it is possible to monitor the target securely
Statistical Properties and Empirical Assessments of Leveraged ETFs
No full textLeveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are relatively new to the world of investments but have become increasingly popular to aggressive investors. While a regular ETF tracks the value of a specific index of stocks, a leveraged ETF attempts to achieve a multiple of the return of the underlying index on a daily basis. This multiple can be positive in the case of bull ETFs or negative in the case of bear (or inverse) ETFs. To accomplish these objectives, leveraged and inverse funds pursue a range of investment strategies through the use of swaps, futures contracts, options and other derivative instruments. Due to the effect of compounding, operating expenses and daily resets, not to mention tracking errors, the performance of leveraged funds over longer periods of time can differ substantially from the performance (or inverse of the performance) of their underlying index or benchmark during the same period of time. Such performance deviations are often quite meaningful and unexpected over the long run. This paper evaluates the nature and statistical properties of leveraged and inverse ETFs and in particular the long-run impacts as compared to their underlying indexes. It also provides an empirical assessment a sample of such ETFs
Consumer Perceptions of Product-Claim vs. Help-Seeking Direct to Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs
No full textDirect-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA). DTCA refers to advertisements that are directed to patients, the final consumers of the pharmaceutical product. In the U.S., the FDA permits three different types of DTCA: Product-claim ads, which mention the name of the drug, outline its use, and describe the risks and benefits, in addition to discussing the medical condition it treats; Help-seeking ads, which discuss the medical condition but do not mention a specific drug product; and Reminder ads, which provide the name of the drug but do not discuss its uses, risks, or benefits, nor the medical condition it treats. The purpose of this research is to better understand the effectiveness of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) by examining consumer perceptions of persuasive intent and informativeness associated with product-claim and help-seeking ads
My Home's Market Value: An Active Market Pricing Model
No full textThe current US residential real estate market is recovering although price growth remains stagnant. The non-linear pricing model examined represents a first investigation in the area of a single variable, polynomial correlation model. Using data from Easton, Connecticut demonstrated that when sellers set initial prices outside of a computed 95% confidence interval for similar properties no offers are forthcoming prior to asking price reductions and offered properties remain on the market longer
Temporal Data Analysis for Event Detection in Social Media
No full textThis research examines the possibility of detecting events using very basic statistical tools. We perform our analysis on a sample dataset collected from Twitter. We show that due to the large amount of data generated by active twitter users, simple statistical tools could be use to detect patterns that represent social events. We have collected posts generated by users over three weeks time period starting from Sep. 17 until Nov. 20. We have filtered these data by collecting only ’NFL’ related posts using twitter API. The amount of tweets was more than 4.4 million tweets. The size of the dataset was more than 17 Gb. We show in our analysis that events could be detected using basic social media network analysis. We’ve been able to successfully detect events by only using volume and frequency analysis
Dynamic Cluster Head Node Election (DCHNE) Model over Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)
No full textWSNs are becoming an appealing research area due to their several application domains. The performance of WSNs depends on the topology of sensors and their ability to adapt to changes in the network. Sensor nodes are often resource constrained by their limited power, less communication distance capacity, and restricted sensing capability. Therefore, they need to cooperate with each other to accomplish a specific task. Thus, clustering enables sensor nodes to communicate through the cluster head node for continuous communication process. In this paper, we introduce a dynamic cluster head election mechanism. Each node in the cluster calculates its residual energy value to determine its candidacy to become the Cluster Head Node (CHN). With this mechanism, each sensor node compares its residual energy level to other nodes in the same cluster. Depending on the residual energy level the sensor node acts as the next cluster head. Evaluation of the dynamic CHN election mechanism is conducted using network simulator-2 (ns2). The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach prolongs the network lifetime and balancing the energy consumption model among the nodes of the cluster
The Oral Microbiome & Chronic Disease: Naturopathic Solutions For Long-Term Health
No full textThis thesis is being archived as a Digitized Shelf Copy for campus access to current students and staff only. We currently cannot provide this open access without the author's permission. If you are the author of this work and desire to provide it open access or wish access removed, please contact the Wahlstrom Library to discuss permission.Objective – The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the oral microbiome on long-term health, as well as how and why to intervene Naturopathically for its optimization. This study looks at research regarding the composition and health impacts of differing oral microbiomes and also explores current and potential treatment protocols for long-term sound health. Basic Procedures – The databases used for searching were Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Dentistry & Oral Sciences, AMED-Alternative Medicine, and PubMed. Researched focused on papers showing oral microbiome compositions and associated states of health and habits, conventional dentistry treatments and their efficacy, and finally botanical medicine as well as other Naturopathic modalities and their impact on oral and systemic health. Papers were chosen that were published within the last 20 years, with the majority of studies containing human subjects. Main Findings – The oral microbiome has a profound impact on long-term health. Aberrant microbiomes can promote chronic infection and inflammation, leading to systemic diseases such as Diabetes, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, respiratory tract complications, anemia, gastrointestinal disease, preterm labor, and cancer. There are many existing and well studied Naturopathic approaches to reverse the pathogenic oral microbiome and support a more commensal relationship, promoting a being’s overall health, longevity, and quality of life. Principal Conclusions - Conventional dentistry is an important tool for oral health, however standard treatments are geared towards acute infection, and protocols do not extensively examine the oral microbiome with regards to potential subacute dysbioses which can severely impact long-term health. There are botanical, nutritional, lifestyle and technological interventions which address these aberrant microbiomes. These practices have the potential to prevent and possibly reverse chronic disease states
