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The winemaking technique of saignée is common for some varietals, and the ensuing flavor profiles have been carefully analyzed by oenologists. However, we argue that saignée is fundamentally about economic tradeoffs between the quantity of primary wine that is ultimately produced, the quality (and thus, price) of that wine, and the amount of rosé wine that is bled off in the process. We develop the first theoretically-grounded economic model of saignée and analyze the model to shed light on the winemaker's optimal choice of saignée, and on the properties of wine and wine markets that should empirically give rise to more, or less, saignée. The model helps to explain several real-world regularities such as the absence of saignée for most Bordeaux wines, the specialization in rosé for many wines in Provence, and the practice of moderate amounts of saignée for varietals such as grenache and pinot noir.

The four papers in this dissertation examine the relationship between demographic context and mass and elite political behaviors. The first paper leverages a demographic shock---the movement of massive numbers of African Americans from the American south to California during the ``Second Great Migration'' in the early 20th century---to assess the impact of proximity to demographic change on voting for a racial ballot proposition in 1964. The second paper argues that racial threat can also operate prospectively before demographic shifts occur, what I call ``potential outgroup entry.'' To study this, I examine how a vote for a bond funding the expansion of the BART train in the Bay Area in 1962 was partially shaped by the fear of the potential outgroup entry of a sizable number of black riders from the East Bay into San Francisco. In the third paper I apply theories of demographic change and racial threat to contemporary voting by looking at how both symbolic attitudes and contexts were correlated with vote-switching toward and away from Donald Trump in 2016. Finally, in the fourth paper, I examine the role that context plays in shaping elite behavior. More specifically, I examine how both stable and changing demographics in a state shape electoral incentives and thus the content of campaign appeals by U.S. Senatorial candidates in 2010, 2012, and 2014.

There are roughly 440,000 foster youth living in the United States. Coupled with experiences of child welfare inequalities, foster youth are at an increased risk to develop mental and behavioral health issues. Mental health counselors are trained to advocate for their client’s mental and emotional well-being. However, minimal research demonstrates a counselor’s ability to work with foster youth. The current study adds to the existing body of research surrounding clinical work with children living in foster care. Using a transcendental phenomenology study to explore the experiences of mental health counselors working with foster youth, participants ( N = 11) were interviewed about their knowledge, skills, and feelings of preparedness to work with children living within the foster care system. Implications for counseling practice, supervision, and counselor education are provided.

Although there is evidence that 5-HT acts as an excitatory neuromodulator to enhance maximal force generation, it is largely unknown how 5-HT activity influences the ability to sustain a constant force during steady-state contractions. A total of 22 healthy individuals participated in the study, where elbow flexion force was assessed during brief isometric contractions at 10% maximal voluntary contraction (MVC), 60% MVC, MVC, and during a sustained MVC. The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, paroxetine, suppressed physiological tremor and increased force steadiness when performing the isometric contractions. In particular, a main effect of drug was detected for peak power of force within the 8-12 Hz range (p = 0.004) and the coefficient of variation (CV) of force (p < 0.001). A second experiment was performed where intermittent isometric elbow flexions (20% MVC sustained for 2 min) were repeatedly performed so that serotonergic effects on physiological tremor and force steadiness could be assessed during the development of fatigue. Main effects of drug were once again detected for peak power of force in the 8-12 Hz range (p = 0.002) and CV of force (p = 0.003), where paroxetine suppressed physiological tremor and increased force steadiness when the elbow flexors were fatigued. The findings of this study suggest that enhanced availability of 5-HT in humans has a profound influence of maintaining constant force during steady state contractions. The action of 5-HT appears to suppress fluctuations in force regardless of the fatigue state of the muscle.

High-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) assays are highly specific to cardiac tissue and can detect small amounts of myocardial injury rapidly. Hs-cTn assays are the recommended cardiac biomarkers in the major US and European guidelines. In the appropriate clinical context, these assays allow clinicians to rapidly rule out a non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction and decrease 30-day major adverse cardiac events. This can have significant downstream impacts on the percentage of patients discharged from the emergency department (ED), ED lengths of stay, cardiac testing, and hospitalizations. There are many proposed diagnostic protocols and experts recommend institutions implement a single validated protocol.

This study assessed the usefulness of DNA quantification to predict the success of historical samples when analyzing SNPs, mtDNA, and STR targets. Thirty burials from six historical contexts were utilized, ranging in age from 80 to 800 years postmortem. Samples underwent library preparation and hybridization capture with two bait panels (FORCE and mitogenome), and STR typing (autosomal STR and Y-STR). All 30 samples generated small (~80 bp) autosomal DNA target qPCR results, despite mean mappable fragments ranging from 55–125 bp. The qPCR results were positively correlated with DNA profiling success. Samples with human DNA inputs as low as 100 pg resulted in ≥80% FORCE SNPs at 10X coverage. All 30 samples resulted in mitogenome coverage ≥100X despite low human DNA input (as low as 1 pg). With PowerPlex Fusion, ≥30 pg human DNA input resulted in >40% of auSTR loci. At least 59% of Y-STR loci were recovered with Y-target qPCR-based inputs of ≥24 pg. The results also indicate that human DNA quantity is a better predictor of success than the ratio of human to exogenous DNA. Accurate quantification with qPCR is feasible for historical bone samples, allowing for the screening of extracts to predict the success of DNA profiling.

The FORensic Capture Enrichment (FORCE) panel is an all-in-one SNP panel for forensic applications. This panel of 5,422 markers encompasses common, forensically relevant SNPs (identity, ancestry, phenotype, X- and Y-chromosomal SNPs), a novel set of 3,931 autosomal SNPs for extended kinship analysis, and no clinically relevant/disease markers. The FORCE panel was developed as a custom hybridization capture assay utilizing ∼20,000 baits to target the selected SNPs. Five non-probative, previously identified World War II (WWII) cases were used to assess the kinship panel. Each case included one bone sample and associated family reference DNA samples. Additionally, seven reference quality samples, two 200-year-old bone samples, and four control DNAs were processed for kit performance and concordance assessments. SNP recovery after capture resulted in a mean of ∼99% SNPs exceeding 10X coverage for reference and control samples, and 44.4% SNPs for bone samples. The WWII case results showed that the FORCE panel could predict 1st to 5th degree relationships with strong statistical support (likelihood ratios over 10,000 and posterior probabilities over 99.99%). To conclude, SNPs will be important for further advances in forensic DNA analysis. The FORCE panel shows promising results and demonstrates the utility of a 5,000 SNP panel for forensic applications.

It was hypothesized that unstable subject-item interactions on personality scales would be associated with small psychological distances between subjects and items. It was further hypothesized that this relationship would be more demonstrable when the psychological test was more homogeneous. To clarify the rationale of the first hypothesis, an explanation was offered for the commonly observed greater stability of extreme items and extreme subjects. Both of the hypotheses were supported. For the second hypothesis, however, it was demonstrated that a single index of test homogeneity was only partially adequate. The separate contributions of items and of subjects to total test homogeneity had to be considered for the most meaningful interpretation of the results. Implications of the instability of responses associated with small subject-item distances were drawn for those operational definitions of subject variability and subject acquiescence which are based on personality test data. A suggestion is made for controlling acquiescence in personality tests. (Author)

Many proposed mechanisms for helping people understand the security or privacy of their information involve notifying users at various times regarding how that information is used or shared. Howeve...

The integration of massively parallel sequencing (MPS) technology into forensic casework has been of particular benefit to the identification of unknown military service members. However, highly degraded or chemically treated skeletal remains often fail to provide usable DNA profiles, even with sensitive mitochondrial (mt) DNA capture and MPS methods. In parallel, the ancient DNA field has developed workflows specifically for degraded DNA, resulting in the successful recovery of nuclear DNA and mtDNA from skeletal remains as well as sediment over 100,000 years old. In this study we use a set of disinterred skeletal remains from the Korean War and World War II to test if ancient DNA extraction and library preparation methods improve forensic DNA profiling. We identified an ancient DNA extraction protocol that resulted in the recovery of significantly more human mtDNA fragments than protocols previously used in casework. In addition, utilizing single-stranded rather than double-stranded library preparation resulted in increased attainment of reportable mtDNA profiles. This study emphasizes that the combination of ancient DNA extraction and library preparation methods evaluated here increases the success rate of DNA profiling, and likelihood of identifying historical remains.

Brittleness index (BI) is a key parameter used for reservoir fracability evaluation and "sweet spot" search in shale gas exploration. The existing assessment methods cannot guide the fracturing design and field treatment due to their insufficient theoretical foundation and neglect on the influences of engineering factors. This study aims to solve this problem by using the thermodynamics criterion in nonlinear fracture mechanics. First, the quantitative relationship between energy loss and rock brittleness was investigated during fracture propagation. The nonlinear plastic deformation at the crack tip was then simplified into an ideal line elastic condition by using the equivalence principle. In addition, the numerical equation for surface pressure was fitted by the monadic regressive method. A case study was conducted to compare the obtained BI using common methods and the proposed one. Results demonstrate that energy dissipation theory is recommended to describe the essence of nonlinear rock deformation. Moreover, a higher BI indicates more occurrences of microseismic events. The monitoring data fitted with the conclusion well, which verify the applicability of the proposed evaluation method. Furthermore, the average BIs of the two wells used in this study are 48% and 62%, which shows obvious positive correlation with production. The proposed model can be regarded as a good reference for BI evaluation in shale reservoirs. Keywords: Brittleness index, Shale gas, Hydraulic fracturing, fracability

Many of the software security vulnerabilities that people face today can be remediated through secure coding practices. A critical step toward the practice of secure coding is ensuring that our computing students are educated on these practices. We argue that secure coding education needs to be included across a computing curriculum. We are examining an approach that complements traditional classroom instruction by turning the student’s integrated development environment into an educational resource for secure coding instruction. In this article, we report on two formative and one summative study using our tool Educational Security in the Integrated Development Environment (ESIDE) in early and intermediate computer science programming courses. Our results support the viability of this approach to increase secure programming knowledge and awareness of students and also to identify several challenges for maximizing the learning opportunities within programming courses.

The MARATHON experiment ran at Jefferson Laboratory in 2018, measuring deep inelastic scattering of 10.6 GeV electrons from the proton (p), deuterium (D), tritium ( 3H), and helium-3 ( 3He). MARATHON's experimental observables are cross section ratios, most notably 3H/ 3He. This ratio of mirror nuclei is used for a novel extraction of the nucleon structure function ratio $$F^n_2$$ /$$F^p_2$$ with minimal nuclear corrections. Determining leading-order $$F^n_2$$ /$$F^p_2$$ at high x provides important constrains on the ratio of nucleon valence quark distributions d/u. The ratios 3H/D and 3He/D allow a determination of the EMC effect in the lightest nuclei sensitive to possible isospin dependence of nuclear effects. Lastly, the D/p ratio allows a comparison of the MARATHON experiment to SLAC measurements, and provides data to which the A = 3 ratios can be renormalized. The MARATHON results provide new constraints on d/u. Additionally, the results emphasize the importance of higher-order effects in extracting $$F^n_2$$ /$$F^p_2$$ from DIS measurements, and can help constrain said effects. In the renormalization scheme applied in the MARATHON analysis, no significant isospin dependence of the EMC effect is observed.

A weather data collection study is currently conducted using a renewable energy training system. The system is composed of a LabVolt trainer, two sun tracking photovoltaic solar panels and a small wind turbine. The LabVolt training system is located in one of the McCoy School of Engineering laboratories, the solar panels and the wind turbine are located in the neighborhood of the Engineering building at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. A set of meteorological data collecting outdoor sensors to monitor the impact of weather conditions on the power generation of the sun-tracking photovoltaic solar panels and the wind turbine have been installed on the building roof. Weather parameters such as atmospheric temperature, pressure, humidity, and rainfall are monitored using a Davis Vantage Pro 2 data collecting system. A number of LabVIEW data acquisition cards and signal processing modules are used to monitor the sun-tracking photovoltaic solar panels’ output voltage, the wind turbine output voltage, the atmospheric temperature, the solar irradiance, and the wind direction, speed, and RPM. A voltage divider has been built to step down the 90V DC voltage produced by the solar panels to 12V DC voltage required for the trainer electrical circuits. A LabVIEW data processing program is used to create instantaneous graphic displays of the collected data on a monitoring screen. The LabVolt trainer is equipped with two charge controller electronic devices, one is used for the sun tracking photovoltaic solar panels, and one is used for the wind turbine. They are used to control the flow of electrical energy through a set of electrical loading devices and a set of storages batteries. Additionally, the LabVolt trainer is equipped with two kilowatt-hour-meters counting the electrical energy consumed by the electrical loads. The trainer is also equipped with two inverters transforming the 12 V DC voltage collected from both energy producing devices to 120 V that can be used by the electrical loading devices. A brief description of all used electronic components and devices is provided in the paper, as well a detailed experiment set-up with a procedure to run them. The project has been divided into three consecutive phases. The first phase dealt with connecting the solar panels, wind turbine, and data collecting sensors to the LabVIEW data acquisition software. The second phase is currently dealing with setting up the trainer solar and wind electricity providing circuits. In the third upcoming phase, it is expected that the data collected by the sensors will be gradually archived using Excel files and analyzed for weather data correlation purposes. It is also expected that the training system will be used to teach upcoming mechanical engineering students about how to set up an independent renewable energy system and the necessary equipment required to run it.