Digital Commons Network^™

Structure Activity Relationship Studies Of An Anticryptosporidial Drug, Kirtika Chatri

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Cryptosporidium is an apicomplexan parasite responsible for waterborne outbreaks of diarrheal disease worldwide. There are two species of Cryptosporidium that are important enteric pathogens for humans. The disease, Cryptosporidiosis, is a major cause of childhood diarrhea and an important factor in childhood malnutrition and also a high rate of death (Sparks et al., 2015). It is also more frequent and severe in malnourished children under 3 years of age and immune-compromised individuals, such as AIDS and transplant patients. A common treatment which has greatly reduced diarrhea-associated mortality is oral rehydration therapy; however, enteric infections still persist (Guerrant, DeBoer, Moore, Scharf, …

Testing Resilience As A Moderator Of The Torture-Mental Health Relationship In Refugee Survivors Of Torture, Phyu Pannu Khin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

There may be as many as 1.3 million refugee survivors of torture currently living in the United States (Center for Victims of Torture, 2015). Torture is a unique predictor of various debilitating mental health conditions including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety (Quiroga & Jaranson, 2005). The current study focuses on a clinical sample of refugee survivors of torture to examine resilience-promoting factors including external protective factors, community engagement, employment, and English fluency, and an internal protective factor, psychological flexibility. This study conducted moderation analyses utilizing the PROCESS program in SPSS (Hayes, 2013) to better understand the moderating impacts …

Analysis Of Intracellular Calcium Events In Hypothalamic Neurons, Samantha Kolowrat

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) plays a critical role in regulating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, sympathetic activity, cardiovascular system and stress responses.1,2 This brain region is primarily controlled by GABA and glutamate inputs from the peri-PVN region.3 Two significant modulators of these GABA-glutamate systems are Angiotensin II (Ang II) and brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). It has been postulated that BDNF and Ang II signaling rely on each other via cross-activation of their receptors and by activation of the non-selective cation channel, the transient receptor channel type C3 (TRPC3).This thesis aims to study changes in intracellular calcium levels …

The Effects Of Interneuron Progenitor Cell Transplantation On Network Dynamics In An Animal Model Of Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, Willie Curry

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Epilepsy is associated with a very high incidence of cognitive and behavioral comorbidities that are detrimental to overall quality of life. Current treatments for epilepsy,namely anticonvulsant pharmacological agents, generally increase the amount of inhibitory drive in order to counteract the hyperexcitability observed in the disorder. However, administration of these agents, while effective for 70% of epilepsy sufferers, leave a residual 30% of patients who don’t become seizure-free. The concomitant adverse side effects of anticonvulsants - these can paradoxically include increased cognitive "fog" or confusion, automatisms, and even increased number of seizures - are a great additional concern, as is the …

Associative Structures Underlying Discriminated Three-Response Behavior Chains, Noelle Loren Michaud

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Instrumental behavior often consists of sequences of responses, or chains, that lead to a primary reinforcing outcome. These responses often differ in terms of both topography and the discriminative stimuli that set the occasion for them. Previous studies have focused on two response chains. They have shown that extinction of R1 weakens the associated R2, and conversely that extinction of R2 also weakens R1. To expand what little we know about discriminated instrumental chains, as well as the associative structure that underlies them, in the present experiments we test the effects of separately extinguishing individual responses on other target responses …

Structural Characterization Of The Novel Flightin Domain Wyr And Its Defining Role In The Thick Filament Structure And Mechanics, Lynda Menard

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The evolutionary success of Insecta has been attributed largely to the development of efficient means of motility: flight powered by muscle architecture harboring a largely conserved yet tunable system of power relay. The indirect flight muscle (IFM) of Drosophila melanogaster is a well-studied model for dissection of the structural and mechanical means by which muscle operates and evolves. Striated muscle, conserved throughout Animalia, is demarcated by an ordered array of thick- and thin-filaments prominently composed of the proteins myosin and actin. Flightin (fln) is a myosin binding thick filament protein essential for IFM stability, structure and function. The manner by …

An International Pilot Study Of Volunteer Stream Monitoring Groups: The Role Of Place Attachment In Volunteer Motivations, Rachel Pierson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Engaging the public in scientific research through volunteer monitoring (a form of community science) has potential to expand knowledge of conditions and to improve collaborative decision-making. Many studies have sought to understand motivations for participation and potential resulting actions or behaviors that benefit the environment. Place-based connections have been demonstrated to lead people to adopt environmentally responsible behaviors. However, few studies have considered possible differences in motivations across countries or the role place attachment may play as a driver of initial or sustained participation.

The aim of this research was to determine the extent to which place attachment influences people’s …

The Feasibility Of Over-Summer Snow Storage At The Craftsbury Outdoor Center, Craftsbury Vt, Hannah Sarah Weiss

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Climate change increases the unpredictability of winter weather and threatens the future of nordic skiing. Ski centers at high elevation and high latitude have employed over-summer snow storage, a climate change adaptation strategy, to ensure a consistent start-date to their winter ski season. Over-summer snow storage involves making a large pile of snow during winter and storing the snow beneath protective layers, such as wood chips or foam panels, to impede melt throughout the summer and fall. When ready to open the ski season, the ski center uncovers the pile and spreads the snow to create trails. Though many nordic …

The Effects Of Oxidized Biodiesel Fuel On Fatty Acid Methyl Ester Composition And Particulate Matter Emissions From A Light-Duty Diesel Engine, Jack Elliot Reed

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Diesel particulate matter (PM) is classified by the EPA as carcinogenic, with the transportation sector largely responsible these emissions within the United States. Biodiesel (B100) is derived from renewable sources, providing similar chemical composition to diesel fuel and is in the current diesel supply up to 5% across the nation. However, biodiesel has an inherent oxidation issue due to the unique mixture of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) molecules present in the biodiesel that are not in diesel. Biodiesel oxidation can only be delayed, and the inevitable process results in changes to the original fuel composition that may alter emissions …

Enhancing Ecosystem Services And Climate Resilience In Agriculture: A Transdisciplinary Approach, Alissa White

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A complex of social, economic and environmental factors influences agricultural management in the northeastern US. Farmers often balance goals of farm viability, environmental stewardship, and resilience to climate change, while also under public pressure to enhance the provisioning of ecosystem services from their landscapes. Changes in farm management have been identified as cost-effective ways to address both local water quality issues, and global anthropogenic influences on greenhouse gas concentrations. Individual decision-making on the part of farmers that determines the fate of ecosystem service provisioning from agroecosystems, placing increasing importance on understanding how policy, outreach and research can support farmers’ capacity …

Network And Cellular Effects Of The Mu Opioid Receptor In Cortical Interneurons, Adrian Dutkiewicz

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The µ opioid receptor (µOR) exerts a powerful excitatory effect in cortical circuits and cultured neurons by promoting glutamatergic activity after binding endogenous or exogenous opioids. While most research indicates that the receptor does this by decreasing activity or output of GABAergic interneurons that inhibit glutamate-releasing Pyramidal Neurons, other experiments suggest that the µOR directly upregulates excitatory Pyramidal Neurons instead. Thus, the cellular target of cortical opioid agonists remains unclear, and the µOR’s net excitatory mechanisms are not fully understood. Consequently, utilizing electrophysiology to detect µOR responses to the specific agonist [D-Ala2, N-Me-Phe4, Gly5-ol]-Enkephalin (DAMGO) has yielded incomplete information on …

Children's Conflict Appraisals, Temperamental Negative Affectivity, Affect And Arousal In The Context Of Interparental Conflict., Phuong Nguyen

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Children’s affect and physiological arousal when exposed to interparental conflict have been identified as prominent mechanisms connecting their experience of parental discord and adjustment outcomes (Buehler et al., 2007; Davies et al., 2007). However, how children feel emotionally and physiologically can vary greatly depending on their intrapersonal attributes, such as a temperamental tendency toward negative affect or perceptions of the conflict (Hentges et al., 2015; Weldon et al., 2019). Furthermore, conflict perceptions and temperament can work in conjunction to influence children’s affect and physiology when observing marital conflict (Grych & Fincham, 1990). More specifically, high levels of negative conflict perceptions …

Measurement On Stress-Time Avalanches Of Fiber Reinforced Concrete Beams During Flexure, Zhuang Liu

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Stress variations of loading histories on fiber reinforced concrete beams during flexure was investigated in this dissertation. A new experimental system was developed to collect the stress-time curves at 100 kHz sampling rate to measure temporal profiles in high resolution. Concrete beams prepared at the early age of seven days with different fiber types and fiber volume fractions were loaded at various rates during four-point bending tests. The four types of fiber used to make reinforced concrete were: steel fibers, basalt fibers, polypropylene (PP) fibers and recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers. Stress drops induced by interactions between fibers and cementitious …

A Case Study Of A School-Based Expanded Learning Summer Program, Karen S. Scott

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

For the Expanded Learning Summer Program (ELSP), at a midsized public school system in the Northeast, providing high quality programming that engages student interest and fosters active learning by all children was a top priority. This case study, undertaken during the summer of 2017, provided insight into how the ELSP aligned with the relevant literature on high quality programming for youth-focused summer learning programs and suggested improvements to improve quality. Using a case study research design, I sought to understand how the ELSP, funded through a federal 21st Century Community Learning Center grant, aligned with benchmarks of high quality short-term …

Phosphorus And Nitrogen Losses In Runoff From Fields With And Without Tile Drainage, Leanna Thalmann

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Nutrient losses in surface and subsurface drainage from crop fields have important water quality implications. The deterioration of water quality in segments of Lake Champlain has led to efforts to reduce phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) export from agricultural fields. This thesis presents data from two years of edge-of-field monitoring in two adjacent corn (Zea mays L.) silage fields in Keeseville, New York. One field has only surface drainage improvements with monitoring equipment, and the other has both surface and subsurface drainage modifications and monitoring equipment. The study took place from October 2018 to September 2020 and quantified flow and …

Effect Of Long-Term Dietary Fat Quality On Metabolic Health With A Special Focus On Dairy Fat, Allison L. Unger

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Diet, and particularly dietary fat quality (i.e., fatty acid composition), is a significant modifiable risk factor in the development of metabolic diseases. However, whether the manipulation of long-term dietary fat quality may serve as an effective dietary strategy to mitigate metabolic disease risk during aging is not well defined. Accordingly, this work sought to investigate the role of life-long consumption of bioactive fatty acids from various food sources, and particularly dairy fat, on health maintenance and metabolic disease risk later in life. To address this issue, I assessed how long-term supplementation of dairy fat (butter oil), echium oil, or fish …

Estimating Floodplain Storage And Prioritizing Floodplain Reconnection In The Northern Lake Champlain Basin In Vermont, Stephanie Drago

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Floodplains play a major role in maintaining the health and sustainability of riverine systems, but human interventions have reduced the connectivity between stream channels and floodplains. Geomorphic assessments of streams and rivers in Vermont (USA) show they have been significantly altered within the past two centuries due to straightening, berming, and armoring channels to accommodate development, agriculture, roads, and rail lines. These alterations in river-floodplain connectivity have decreased floodplain functioning, specifically their capacity to store water during flood events. Currently, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the amount of floodwater, sediment, and nutrient retention provided by Vermont’s floodplains. This …

Development And Validation Of The Smoker Self-Stigma Questionnaire (Sssq), Thomas Geist

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Though rates of smoking have declined for decades, the tobacco epidemic persists. During this time, denormalization of smoking and the tobacco industry emerged as viable strategies to decrease smoking rates. However, researchers have become increasingly concerned with denormalization strategies’ impact on the stigmatization of smokers, and have questioned their ethics and continued utility. Unfortunately, current research lacks a theoretically and psychometrically sound measure to represent smokers’ experience of stigma and help explore these issues. This study sought to develop and validate such a measure, the Smoker Self-Stigma Questionnaire (SSSQ). Initial items for the SSSQ were developed to cover three domains …

The Role Of Peroxiredoxin 4 And Er Redox Stress In Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, Evan Elko

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) is a disease that is characterized by excessive scar formation in the lung. IPF is a disease associated with aging and is believed to be the manifestation of repeated micro-injuries and lack of adequate repair over time. Notably increases in endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress of epithelial cells and excessive epithelial cell death have been identified as processes that drive the progression of fibrosis. Every year 34,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). The average survival time for these patients is only 3-5 years after diagnosis. Two available drugs stabilize patients …

Birth Registration And Educational Access In Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case For An Explanatory Spatial Research Design, Thomas Edward Griffin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In 2019, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated the global number of children under the age of 5 without birth registrations at 166 million, with the largest share being present in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the author witnessed firsthand while working in Cameroon, the lack of birth registration documentation (i.e. birth certificates) precluded students from progressing from primary to secondary education. Struck by this example of social exclusion, the purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which birth registration acted as a barrier to educational access in primary and secondary education systems elsewhere across Sub-Saharan Africa. An …

Healthcare Provider Communication In Teens With Type 1 Diabetes: Parental Overprotection And Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills, Tori Humiston

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a complex chronic illness requiring both complex daily treatments and ongoing healthcare provider interactions to support optimal glycemic levels necessary for long-term health and quality of life. Adolescents do not manage their T1D by themselves but rather in collaboration with parents who often help in health tasks and navigating healthcare provider interactions. Although parental support is critical for the adolescent’s development of disease-management skills, it requires parents maintain a delicate balance of allowing adolescent autonomy and providing parent support. When parental support shifts to parental overprotection, i.e., restricting and limiting an adolescent’s activity engagement, it …

Optimization Of Energy-Constrained Resources In Radial Distribution Networks With Solar Pv, Mohammad Nawaf Nazir

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The research objective of the proposed dissertation is to make best use of available distributed energy resources to meet dynamic market opportunities while accounting for AC physics of unbalanced distribution networks and the uncertainty of distributed solar photovoltaics (PV). With ever increasing levels of renewable generation, distribution system operations must shift from a mindset of static unidirectional power flows to dynamic, unpredictable bidirectional flows. To manage this variability, distributed energy resources (DERs; e.g.,solar PV inverters, inverter-based batteries, electric vehicles, water heaters, A/Cs) need to be coordinated for reliable and resilient operation. This introduces the challenge of coordinating such resources at …

Coastal Resilience At The Nexus Of Food, Energy, And Water: An Interdisciplinary Perspective For Resilience Planning, Kristin Raub

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Global climate change poses increased threats to coastal communities. The resilience of coastal communities relies on the protection and continued availability of essential services such as food, energy, and water (FEW) systems. However, the intersection of FEW nexus research and coastal resilience planning has not been well explored. This dissertation seeks to further the goal of operationalizing resilience planning by examining the usefulness of resilience tools and toolkits that have been developed in recent years and exploring how the FEW nexus approach has been applied to coastal resilience planning in both academic and grey literature. The first chapter provides the …

Organic Amendments Alter Soil Hydrology And Belowground Microbiome Of Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum), Taylor Readyhough

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Manure-derived organic amendments are a cost-effective tool that provide many potential benefits to plant and soil health. For example, amendment applications may increase soil fertility, improve soil structure, stimulate microbial activity, and suppress plant pathogens. Yet, responses to these applications may have unintended consequences. Inherent variability in the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of these materials can result in inconsistent outcomes observed after their application. These differences are manifested in plant growth, soil physiochemical properties, and soil microbial community composition. Popular manure-derived organic amendments include dairy manure compost and poultry manure pellets. Dairy manure is an abundant resource on many …

How Postmodernist Poetry Imagines, Seunghyun Shin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The central aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that, in establishing themselves as public intellectuals, poets writing since the turn of the twenty-first century have restored the referentiality of language in poetry. Thus, the thesis challenges and complicates postmodernist treatments of language that insist on the infinite regression of meaning, as have, for example, the Language poets. As the Language poets, feminists, queer theorists, and other post-Derridean theorists began to challenge the meaning of language in the last third or so of the twentieth century, they devalued the referential relationship between words and the world. Taking the Kantian sense …

The Effect Of Physically Effective Undegradable Neutral Detergent Fiber And Rumen Fermentable Starch On Lactating Holstein Cows, Katherine Mae Smith

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In the dairy industry, a common way of adding energy to the diet is in the form of fermentable starch. However, an overabundance of fermentable carbohydrates can cause a buildup of volatile fatty acids that exceed the buffering capacity of the rumen. These changes can lead to negative health consequences such as subacute rumen acidosis and milk fat depression. Not only does a cow need readily fermentable sources of energy in her diet, but she also needs physically effective structural carbohydrates.Fiber has been a difficult portion of the diet to characterize as both the chemical and physical properties are important …

“Can You Tell When There Is A Good Fire?”: Haunting And Ecogothic Violence In Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, And The Moonstone, Mckenzie Bergan

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This paper examines the intersection of haunting and ecocriticism in Victorian Gothic novels. Using the theoretical lenses of ecocriticism and Female Gothic studies, I explore the idea of ecogothic violence, or the means by which environmental forces create dangerous circumstances in events like fire, flood, or quicksand. Because the environment is often portrayed as neutral and the focus in fiction remains on human experiences, ecogothic violence has the potential to collaborate with disempowered figures in ways that disrupt and haunt the textual goals of each narrative.Bertha Mason from Jane Eyre, Rosanna Spearman from The Moonstone, and Miss Havisham from Great …

Modeling Moose Habitat Use And Fitness Consequences Of Habitat Selection In Vermont, Usa, Joshua Alexander Blouin

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The moose (Alces alces) population has been declining across the northeastern US largely due to the impacts of winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus). In epizootic years, an individual moose can host a staggering number of ticks (> 60,000), affecting both survival and reproduction. Habitat management may be used to improve the status of the moose population and health of individuals, but this requires knowledge of key habitat types used by moose and their spatial distribution. We investigated 1) habitat use by moose and 2) the fitness consequences of habitat selection during two critical winter tick life stages in northeastern Vermont. To …

Small-Scale Roll Coating As A Transitional Stage In The Scaling Of Organic Electronic Device Fabrication Techniques, Jared Benson

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Incredible achievements have been made in the field of organic electronics in small-scale laboratory settings. A topic of increasing importance is the realization of the potential for these technologies to be applied in an industrial setting. This is a deceptively challenging process, considering that many of the procedures used to attain exceptional results in a laboratory setting are not viable for translation to larger scale fabrication efforts. Moreover, upscaling fabrication is further complicated by the enormous barrier of entry due to the expensive equipment required to fabricate organic electronics at larger scale as well as the exponentially greater quantity of …

Spillover, Dilution, And Coinfection: Understanding The Spread Of Disease Within Managed And Native Bee Communities., Phillip A. Burnham

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Maintaining healthy pollinator communities is vital both for ensuring food securityand ecological diversity. However, managed honeybees and wild bee communities are under threat from an array of stressors including habitat loss, global change, pesticide use, poor beekeeping, and various pests and pathogens. Pathogens have been shown to be spilling over from managed bees into wild bee populations and are known to adversely affect colony function as well as increase mortality. Understanding transmission mechanisms related to general dynamics in this system will not only benefit pollinator health, but also gives us insight into important and understudied topics in disease ecology. In …