Digital Commons Network^™

Multiphoton Fluorescence Spectroscopy To Monitor The Unfolding Of The Green Fluorescent Protein, Ibtesam Y. Alja'afreh, Ramakrishna Guda, David Huffman

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Green fluorescent protein (GFP), from Aequorea coerulescens, has been expressed as a His-tag fusion protein in E. coli cells and purified using metal chelate affinity and gel filtration chromatography. The protein fluoresces at 510 nm due to its natural chromophore that is spontaneously formed after properly folding and remains stable and intact after protein unfolding. The chromophore is buried in a beta barrel and has a permanent dipole moment in both the ground state and the excited state. The difference between permanent dipole moments Δμ_ge is highly proportional to the electrostatic environment around the chromophore. Since Δμ_{ge …}

Religious Rx: The Roles Of Faith And A Religious Community In The Treatment Of Mental Illness, Autumn Elizabeth Shroyer

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

One in seventeen Americans is diagnosed with serious mental illness (NIMH 2009). Despite its prevalence people with mental illness are stigmatized, creating barriers to effective treatments and recovery. The best treatments today are highly effective; between 70 and 90 percent of individuals have significant reduction of symptoms and improved quality of life with a combination of medication and psychological therapies (NAMI 2011). Additionally, studies have shown benefits of social supports.

For those with religious belief, participation in a religious community could offer social support and provide incentive to maintain treatments. However, historically some religious institutions have marginalized those with mental …

Laboratory Testing Of Capillary Rise In Fine-Grained Sands And Silts, Rachel Salim

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Data for the height of capillary rise in fine-grained sands, silts, and clays is inconclusive. The literature gives a wide range of values and equations. Once source (Applied Hydrogeology, 3rd ed., C.W. Fetter, p. 182) claimed that the height of capillary rise varies from 100 cm in fine-grained sand up to 750 cm in fine silt. We found these numbers unbelievable, and asked the late C.W. Fetter to put better numbers in his 4th ed. Instead, he deleted the table in the 4th ed. The equation which generated his numbers was used by Adamski et al. (2005)* to explain free …

Science Faculty Grading Practices On Quantitative Problems: Are Their Values Consistent With Their Practices?, Jeffrey Barney, Jacinta Macinta

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Grading practices can send a powerful message to students about what is expected. Research in physics education has identified a misalignment between what college instructors value and their actual scoring of quantitative student solutions. This work identified three values that guide grading decisions: (1) a desire to see students’ reasoning, (2) a readiness to deduct points from solutions with obvious errors and a reluctance to deduct points from solutions that might be correct, and (3) a tendency to assume correct reasoning when solutions are ambiguous. When values are in conflict, the conflict is resolved by placing the burden of proof …

Tairo: Trust-Aware Automatic Incremental Routing For Oppnets, Joseph W. Baird

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Trust Awareness and Automatic Incremental Routing should be well-suited to Oppnets, due to the central purpose of Oppnets, and due to the way Oppnets grow. We believe that TAIRO can provide trustworthy routing for Oppnets.

Time Dependent Photoionization Of Gas Outflows In Agn, Ehab Elhoussieny

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

We study the dynamic effects of time varying UV ionizing continuum on radiation bounded photoionized outflows in AGN. We use a 1D hydrodynamics numerical code to verify the predictions of Bautista & Dunn (2010). It is seen that variations in the UV ionizing continuum yield nonequilibrium conditions in the plasma and create supersonic cooling and heating fronts that give the outflows. Thus, large pressure imbalances arise in the cloud, which are compensated by flow motions leading to fragmentation of the wind and dense shells at the leading ends of the outflowing clouds.

Protecting Privacy Of Users' Electronic Health Records With The Abttp Scheme, Raed M. Salih

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

The digital form of healthcare information is becoming more and more widespread in healthcare information systems, replacing “paper” medical records with Electronic Health Records (EHRs) or Electronic Medical Records.

The use of EHRs has a number of goals: (i) improving safety, quality, and efficiency of healthcare; (ii) reducing healthcare costs; and (iii) enriching healthcare research and public health monitoring.

However, facilitating data exchange via use of patients’ EHRs can increase privacy threats due to easier copying and dissemination of these EHRs among more entities (health insurance companies, federal or state government agencies, and research centers).

Multiphoton Fluorescence Spectroscopy To Monitor The Folding/Unfolding Of The N-Terminal Domains 5-6 Of Wilson Disease Protein, Ibtesam Y. Alja'afreh, Ramakrishna Guda, David Huffman

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Denaturation of the N-terminal domains 5-6 of Wilson Disease protein has been monitored through its mutant WLN5-6Cys51 by circular dichroism (CD), one and two-photon fluorescence spectroscopy after binding it to the thiolreactive dye 7-diethylamino-3-(4‘-maleimidylphenyl) -4-methylcoumarin (CPM). Far-UV CD measurements have shown that the mutations and the binding of the dye did not affect the secondary structure of the protein as the unfolding transition remained constant. The fluorescence maximum of the dye changed with the denaturant concentration and followed the trend obtained from CD and shown that one dye labeled protein can be used to monitor the unfolding of protein. Interestingly, …

The Implementation Of The Recovery Oriented Systems Of Care In Southwest Michigan, Gisele Tchamba

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

The Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (ROSC) is in part an ecological systems theory that demonstrates comprehensive ways to meet the needs of individuals and families seeking alcohol, drug and mental health services. When compared to its alternative, Acute Care (AC) model, the ROSC provides long-term recovery outcomes, requires the participation of all stakeholders, and facilitates dialogue among service providers and clients. This study intended to increase public knowledge of the ROSC, its feasibility for practice, and its relevance for behavioral health research. Data collection was done using a purposeful sample, which consisted of N = 7 consenting adults currently …

As Life Stressors Increase, Do Emergency Department Visits Increase?, Catherine L. Kothari

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Study goal: To examine whether type of stressor and number of stressors predict emergency department utilization among perinatal women.

Methods: Study data was collected via mixed methods: Telephone survey interviews, retrospective medical chart reviews and secondary data analysis. The 326 study participants were recruited during their postpartum hospital stay. Information was collected assessing stressors across five domains: Basic living needs, relational, social, mental health and health. The outcome variable of interest was number of emergency department visits.

Results: More than four out of five (82.8%) of women experience life stressors, many of them (68.1%) across multiple domains. Only …

A Rank-Based Estimate For Cell Lineage Data, Tamer M. Elbayoumi, Jeffrey Terpstra

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

The presence of aberrant observations (i.e. outliers) in cell lineage data is quite common. As such, it is desirable to have an outlier-resistant estimation procedure as an alternative to least squares estimation (maximum likelihood estimation under normality). In this work, we consider rankbased estimates of the parameters of a first order bifurcating autoregressive [BAR(1)] model. The BAR(1) model was proposed by Cowan and Staudte (1986) for cell lineage data. In it, each line of descendents follows a first order autoregressive [AR(1)] model and allows sister cells from the same mother to be correlated. Real examples and a simulation study are …

The Aspiration Of The Spanish Grapheme ‘H’, Carolina Gonzalo-Llera

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

One aspect of Spanish pronunciation that differs from English pronunciation is the phonetic treatment of the letter ‘h’. While this grapheme corresponds to a voiceless glottal fricative [h] in English (also known as “aspirated [h]”), it has no phonetic realization in Spanish. In other words, the letter ‘h’ in Spanish is not pronounced at all or is “silent”. This difference often results in Spanish pronunciation errors by L2 learners of the language. The present study aims to deepen our understanding of the erroneous pronunciation of ‘h’ by exploring how prevalent the error really is in the speech of beginning and …

Purkinje Cell Association With Microglia/Macrophages In Degenerating Cerebellum Of Multiple System Atrophy Patients, Ashley A. Mckinney

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) is a sporadic neurodegenerative disease with unknown etiology, involving Parkinson's disease, Autonomic Failure, and Olivopontocerebellar Atrophy (OPCA). To define a possible relationship between phagocytic immune cells and loss of Purkinje cells in MSA/OPCA, we measured the incidence of microglial/macrophages in close association with Purkinje cells and/or their axons and dendrites. Using immunocytochemistry methods on cerebellar sections from MSA and control brains from the New York Brain Bank at Columbia University, we identified Purkinje cells and their processes using anti-calbindin, and microglia/macrophages using anti-CD68. Calbindin labeled Purkinje cell body, axon, and dendritic profiles were counted in the …

Arts & Sciences 99 A Celebration Of Research & Creative Activities, College Of Arts And Sciences

Research and Creative Activities Poster Day

This month long event was designed to showcase the outstanding achievements of our faculty and students that make us a "Student Centered Research Institution." The College of Arts & Sciences has played a major role in the development of Western Michigan University as a research institution. With about half of the faculty in the University, ore than 70% of the federal research funding is attributable to A&S researchers. Currently A&S faculty are supported by more than $10 million per year in external funding. But research funding alone does not indicate the breadth of research and creative activities in the College. …