Life Sciences Commons^™

A Geospatial Based Decision Framework For Extending Marssim Regulatory Principles Into The Subsurface, Robert Nathan Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations

The Multi-Agency Radiological Site Survey Investigation Manual (MARSSIM) is a regulatory guidance document regarding compliance evaluation of radiologically contaminated soils and buildings (USNRC, 2000). Compliance is determined by comparing radiological measurements to established limits using a combination of hypothesis testing and scanning measurements. Scanning allows investigators to identify localized pockets of contamination missed during sampling and allows investigators to assess radiological exposure at different spatial scales. Scale is important in radiological dose assessment as regulatory limits can vary with the size of the contaminated area and sites are often evaluated at more than one scale (USNRC, 2000). Unfortunately, scanning is …

Gene By Bmi Interactions Influencing C-Reactive Protein Levels In European-Americans, Sarah Tudor

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

C-Reactive Protein (CRP) is a biomarker indicating tissue damage, inflammation, and infection. High-sensitivity CRP (hsCRP) is an emerging biomarker often used to estimate an individual’s risk for future coronary heart disease (CHD). hsCRP levels falling below 1.00 mg/l indicate a low risk for developing CHD, levels ranging between 1.00 mg/l and 3.00 mg/l indicate an elevated risk, and levels exceeding 3.00 mg/l indicate high risk. Multiple Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) have identified a number of genetic polymorphisms which influence CRP levels. SNPs implicated in such studies have been found in or near genes of interest including: CRP, APOE, APOC, IL-6, …

Climate Change And Community Dynamics: A Hierarchical Bayesian Model Of Resource-Driven Changes In A Desert Rodent Community, Glenda M. Yenni

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Predicting effects of climate change on species persistence often assumes that those species are responding to abiotic effects alone. However, biotic interactions between community members may affect species’ ability to respond to abiotic changes. Latent Gaussian models of resource availability using precipitation and NDVI and accounting for spatial autocorrelation and rodent group-level uncertainty in the process are developed to detect differences in seasons, groups, and the experimental removal of one group. Precipitation and NDVI have overall positive effects on rodent energy use as expected, but meaningful differences were detected. Differences in the importance of seasonality when the dominant group was …

Distributional Properties Of Inversions And Segmentation Algorithms For Rna Sequences, Sameera Dhananjaya Viswakula

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a long single stranded molecule made up of four types of nucleotide bases: Adenine (A), Cytosine(C), Guanine (G) and Uracil (U). It folds back on itself and forms C-G and A-U complementary base pairs. The set of such hydrogen-bonded pairs in an RNA molecule is called its secondary structure. Knowing the secondary structure of RNA is useful for understanding its biological function. Prediction of RNA secondary structure from the nucleotide sequence has been an important bioinformatics problem for over two decades.

The work in this thesis is motivated by the need to improve the secondary structure …

Computational Methods Of Hidden Markov Models With Respect To Cpg Island Prediction In Dna Sequences, Roberto Angel Ortega

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Hidden Markov models (HMM's) are a specific case of Markov models where, contrary to Markov chains, the observer is unaware of what state the model was in when the symbol is observed. Like Markov chains, HMM's assume that the future state of a sequence is dependent only on the current state of the sequence. The parameters associated with HMM's are transition and emission probabilities, where transition probabilities are associated with the probability of transitioning from one state to another, and emission probabilities are the probabilities associated with observing a symbol given it came from a specific state.

The structure of …

Analysis Of Differential Gene Expression And Alternative Splicing In The Liver And Gastrointestinal Tract In The Lactating Rat, Antony Thomas Athippozhy

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Rat exon microarrays were utilized to detect changes in mRNA expression and alternative splicing in the liver, duodenum, jejunum, and ileum of the lactating rat when compared to age-matched virgin controls. Analysis of data at the level of gene expression revealed differential expression of genes involved in cholesterol biosynthesis in each tissue examined, suggesting increased Sterol Response Element Binding Protein activity. We also detected decreased mRNA from components of the T-cell signaling pathway in the jejunum and ileum. We characterized expression of solute carrier and adenosine triphosphate binding cassette proteins. In addition to characterizing genes by pathway, we have also …

Class Discovery And Prediction Of Tumor With Microarray Data, Bo Liu

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Current microarray technology is able take a single tissue sample to construct an Affymetrix oglionucleotide array containing (estimated) expression levels of thousands of different genes for that tissue. The objective is to develop a more systematic approach to cancer classification based on Affymetrix oglionucleotide microarrays. For this purpose, I studied published colon cancer microarray data. Colon cancer, with 655,000 deaths worldwide per year, has become the fourth most common form of cancer in the United States and the third leading cause of cancer - related death in the Western world. This research has been focuses in two areas: class discovery, …

A Novel Device For Cell-Cell Electrofusion, Justin T. Stewart

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cell transplantation therapy is a potentially powerful tool and can be used to replace defective cells with healthy cells. This offers the possibility of alleviating the destructive symptoms for many diseases such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, stroke, spinal cord trauma, Type I diabetes and many more. While there are many diseases that could be positively impacted from cell transplantation therapy, the focus of this research is insulin dependent, Type I Diabetes.

The Islets of Langerhans are composed of various types of cells located in the pancreas and are responsible for a variety of biochemical functions. Specifically, the beta Islet …