Understanding the mechanisms that regulate local species diversity and community structure is a perennial goal of ecology. Local community structure can be viewed as the result of numerous local and regional processes; these processes act as filters that reduce the regional species pool down to the observed local community. In...
T cells are one of the key cells in the immune system. Although they are not the first line of defense against a pathogen, their functions can greatly enhance the phagocytosis and destruction of pathogens as well as the development of antibody responses. Furthermore, even when responding T cells have...
The immune system has been identified as a very sensitive target for the toxic effects of 2,3,7,S-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). Exposure to TCDD has been shown to disrupt the generation of both cell-mediated and humoral T cell-dependent immunity in laboratory animals; however, the mechanism remains unknown. In this dissertation, the hypothesis is...
In the problem of testing the median using a random sample from a
certain distribution, and if no other parametric family is suggested,
the t-test is known to be the optimal procedure when this distribution
is normal. If the sample appears to be non-normal, one has the choice
either to...
2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and related compounds are well-recognized for their immunosuppressive activity, which is mediated through an intracellular receptor and transcription factor, aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). Laboratory animals exposed to TCDD are less resistant to infection and have severely impaired humoral and cell-mediated immune responses. This dissertation addressed the hypothesis that...
The decay of Pd¹⁰⁹, Pd¹¹¹ [superscript g], and Pd¹¹¹ [superscript m] produced by thermal neutron irradiation of palladium targets has been investigated. Gamma ray energies and relative intensities have been measured with a high resolution Ge(Li) spectrometer. From energy sums and relative intensity considerations level schemes for Ag ¹⁰⁹ and...