Life Sciences Commons^™

Minerva 2008, The Honors College

Minerva

This issue of Minerva includes an article on the completion of the restoration of Colvin Hall; a reflection by Ruth Nadelhaft, former UMaine Honors program director; and an article on Honors alumnus and Nobel Peace Prize winner Bernard Lown and his 2008 Rezendes Visiting Scholar in Ethics Lecture/Distinguished Honors Graduate Lecture.

Flowability And Handling Characteristics Of Bulk Solids And Powders—A Review With Implications For Ddgs, V. Ganesan, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Kasiviswanathan Muthukumarappan

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Much research regarding handling and storage characteristics of bulk solids has been conducted over the years. Physical properties of granular solids play a significant role in their resulting storage and flow behaviour, and are therefore essential to design appropriate, efficient, and economic bulk solids handling and storage equipment and structures. Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS) is a bulk material that has been widely used as a protein source for ruminants and non-ruminants for more than two decades. Distillers grains are energy and nutrient dense, and are often used as a replacement for corn in animal diets. With the exponential …

Gene Order Phylogeny Of The Genus Prochlorococcus, Haiwei Luo, Jian Shi, William Arndt, Jijun Tang, Robert Friedman

Faculty Publications

Background
Using gene order as a phylogenetic character has the potential to resolve previously unresolved species relationships. This character was used to resolve the evolutionary history within the genus Prochlorococcus, a group of marine cyanobacteria.

Methodology/Principal Findings
Orthologous gene sets and their genomic positions were identified from 12 species of Prochlorococcus and 1 outgroup species of Synechococcus. From this data, inversion and breakpoint distance-based phylogenetic trees were computed by GRAPPA and FastME. Statistical support of the resulting topology was obtained by application of a 50% jackknife resampling technique. The result was consistent and congruent with nucleotide sequence-based and gene-content based …

Comparison Of Electrically Mediated And Liposome-Complexed Plasmid Dna Delivery To The Skin, Loree C. Heller, Mark J. Jaroszeski, Domenico Coppola, Richard Heller

Bioelectrics Publications

BACKGROUND: Electroporation is an established technique for enhancing plasmid delivery to many tissues in vivo, including the skin. We have previously demonstrated efficient delivery of plasmid DNA to the skin utilizing a custom-built four-plate electrode. The experiments described here further evaluate cutaneous plasmid delivery using in vivo electroporation. Plasmid expression levels are compared to those after liposome mediated delivery.

METHODS: Enhanced electrically-mediated delivery, and less extensively, liposome complexed delivery, of a plasmid encoding the reporter luciferase was tested in rodent skin. Expression kinetics and tissue damage were explored as well as testing in a second rodent model.

RESULTS: Experiments …

Estimating Total Phosphorus And Total Suspended Solids Loads From High Frequency Data, Amber Spackman Jones

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Frequently measured turbidity was examined as a surrogate for total phosphorus (TP) and total suspended solids (TSS) loads at two locations in the Little Bear River, Utah, USA. Using regression techniques, equations were developed for TP and TSS as functions of turbidity. The equations accounted for censored data, and additional explanatory variables to represent hydrological conditions were considered for inclusion in the equations. By using the resulting surrogate relationships with high frequency turbidity measurements, high frequency estimates of TP and TSS concentrations were calculated. To examine the effect of sampling frequency, reference loads were determined from the concentration records for …

Dechlorinating And Iron Reducing Bacteria Distribution In A Trichloroethene Contaminated Aquifer, Carmen Lourdes Yupanqui Zaa

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Operable Unit 5 (OU 5) area of Hill Air Force Base currently has two trichloroethene-contaminated groundwater plumes underneath residential areas in Sunset and Clinton, Utah. Bioremediation by biological reductive dechlorination can be an important mechanism for the removal of chlorinated compounds from the plumes. The presence of suitable bacteria to carry on reductive dechlorination is the key in the bioremediation process. The goal of this study was to determine the distribution and population density of the 16S rRNA genes of Bacteria, Dehalococcoides ethenogenes, Desulfuromonas michiganensis, Geobacter spp and Rhodoferax ferrireducens-like bacteria, as well as the functional genes trichloroethene reductive …

Transcriptome Analysis Identifies Novel Responses And Potential Regulatory Genes Involved In Seasonal Dormancy Transitions Of Leafy Spurge (Euphorbia Esula L.), David P. Horvath, Wun S. Chao, Jeffrey C. Suttle, Jyothi Thimmapuram, James V. Anderson

Cyber Center Publications

Dormancy of buds is a critical developmental process that allows perennial plants to survive extreme seasonal variations in climate. Dormancy transitions in underground crown buds of the model herbaceous perennial weed leafy spurge were investigated using a 23 K element cDNA microarray. These data represent the first large-scale transcriptome analysis of dormancy in underground buds of an herbaceous perennial species. Crown buds collected monthly from August through December, over a five year period, were used to monitor the changes in the transcriptome during dormancy transitions.

Multi-Break Rearrangements And Breakpoint Re-Uses: From Circular To Linear Genomes, Max A. Alekseyev

Faculty Publications

Multi-break rearrangements break a genome into multiple fragments and further glue them together in a new order. While 2-break rearrangements represent standard reversals, fusions, fissions, and translocations, 3-break rearrangements represent a natural generalization of transpositions. Alekseyev and Pevzner (2007a, 2008a) studied multi-break rearrangements in circular genomes and further applied them to the analysis of chromosomal evolution in mammalian genomes. In this paper, we extend these results to the more difficult case of linear genomes. In particular, we give lower bounds for the rearrangement distance between linear genomes and for the breakpoint re-use rate as functions of the number and proportion …

Improving Reversal Median Computation Using Commuting Reversals And Cycle Information, William Arndt, Jijun Tang

Faculty Publications

In the past decade, genome rearrangements have attracted increasing attention from both biologists and computer scientists as a new type of data for phylogenetic analysis. Methods for reconstructing phylogeny from genome rearrangements include distance-based methods, MCMC methods, and direct optimization methods. The latter, pioneered by Sankoff and extended with the software suites GRAPPA and MGR, is the most accurate approach, but is very limited due to the difficulty of its scoring procedure—it must solve multiple instances of the reversal median problem to compute the score of a given tree. The reversal median problem is known to be NP-hard and all …

Leading Firms As Knowledge Gatekeepers In A Networked Environment, Deogratias Harorimana Mr

Dr Deogratias Harorimana

This chapter introduces the role of the knowledge gatekeeper as a mechanism by which knowledge is created and transferred in a networked environment. Knowledge creation and transfer are essential for building a knowledge based economy. The chapter considers obstacles that inhibit this process and argues that leading firms create a shared socio-cultural context that enables the condivision of tacit meanings and codification of knowledge. Leading firms act as gatekeepers of knowledge through the creation of shared virtual platforms. There will be a leading firm that connects several networks of clients and suppliers may not interact directly with one another, but …

Understanding Consumer Preference For Functional Barley Tortillas Through Sensory, Demographic, And Behavioral Data, Ayako Toma, Maria Botero Omary, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Elizabeth A. Arndt, Naruemon Prasopsunwattana, Sutida Chongcham, Rolando A. Flores

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Consumption of whole grains as part of a health-promoting diet is encouraged among Americans due to beneficial nutrients and phytochemicals. The main objectives of this study were to investigate the effect of whole barley flour particle size on consumer acceptance of whole grain and soluble fiber-enriched tortillas; to examine the effect of demographic and behavioral data on consumer acceptance; and to establish relationships between consumer acceptance and survey results to identify market opportunities among particular groups of consumers. Four experimental tortillas and two representative commercial brands were tested by 95 untrained panelists using a 9-point hedonic scale for appearance, color, …

No Evidence That Bacillus Thuringiensis Genes And Their Products Influence The Susceptibility Of Corn Residue To Decomposition, R. Michael Lehman, Shannon L. Osborne, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

The possibility that Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn (Zea mays L.) residues resist decomposition compared to non-Bt residues would present direct (soil carbon turnover times) and indirect (changes in tillage practices) effects on carbon budgets in agricultural systems. We evaluated the relative decomposition of residue from two pairs of Bt and non-Bt corn hybrids from different seed manufacturers buried in the root zone of adjacent Bt and non-Bt corn plots over a period of 384 d. We found no persistent differences in residue decomposition among the different hybrids regardless of the seed manufacturer or the presence of the Bt genes (both …

Determination Of Machining Parameters Of Corn Byproduct Filled Plastics, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

In a collaborative project between the USDA and Northern Illinois University, the use of ethanol corn processing by-products as bio-filler materials in the compression molding of phenolic plastics has been studied. This paper reports on the results of a machinability study in the milling of various grades of this material. Three types of samples were studied: 100%, 75% and 50% phenolic samples. The milling operation was carried out with a fixed depth of cut of 2.0 mm using a 12.5 mm diameter two-fluted end-mill. The cutting speed was varied between 120 and 160 m/min at feeds between 200 and 300 …

2008 Scholars And Artists Bibliography, Rajshehkar G. Javalgi Dr., Michael Schwartz Library, Cleveland State University, Friends Of The Michael Schwartz Library

Scholars and Artists Bibliographies

This bibliography was created for the annual Friends of the Michael Schwartz Library Scholars and Artists Reception, recognizing scholarly and creative achievements of Cleveland State University faculty, staff and emeriti. Dr. Rajshekhar Javalgi was the guest speaker.

Flow Properties Of Ddgs With Varying Soluble And Moisture Contents Using Jenike Shear Testing, V. Ganesan, Kasiviswanathan Muthukumarappan, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) are an excellent source of energy, minerals, and bypass protein for ruminants and are used in monogastric rations as well. With the remarkable growth of the US fuel ethanol industry in the past decade, large quantities of distillers grains are now being produced. Flow of DDGS is often restricted by caking and bridging during its storage and transportation. In our previous works, the Carr powder tester was used to measure various flow properties of DDGS. The objective of this study was to measure the flow properties (cohesion, effective angle of friction, internal angle of …

Development And Annotation Of Perennial Triticeae Ests And Ssr Markers., B.S. Bushman, S R Larson, I W Mott, P F Cliften, R R Wang, N J Chatterton, A G Hernandez, S Ali, R W Kim, Jyothi Thimmapuram, G Gong, L Liu, M A Mikel

Cyber Center Publications

Triticeae contains hundreds of species of both annual and perennial types. Although substantial genomic tools are available for annual Triticeae cereals such as wheat and barley, the perennial Triticeae lack sufficient genomic resources for genetic mapping or diversity research. To increase the amount of sequence information available in the perennial Triticeae, three expressed sequence tag (EST) libraries were developed and annotated for Pseudoroegneria spicata, a mixture of both Elymus wawawaiensis and E. lanceolatus, and a Leymus cinereus x L. triticoides interspecific hybrid. The ESTs were combined into unigene sets of 8 780 unigenes for P. spicata, 11 281 unigenes for …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 50 Number 2, Fall 2008, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

10 - MEET MOUNTAIN By Lisa Taggart. A Q&A with SCU women's basketball coach Jennifer Mountain.

12 - KATRINA AT THREE By Pat Semansky '06. A New Orleans photo essay.

16 - THE MEDDLING PRIEST FROM OZ By Emily Elrod '05. An interview with Australian Jesuit John Brennan, S.J.-lauded as a "national treasure" and an "ethical burr."

18 - 20/20 VISION By Robert M. Senkewicz. How has the presidency of Paul Locatelli, S.J., transformed the University-as a place-and as an idea?

28 - GO WITH YOUR HEART By Francisco Jimenez. An exclusive excerpt from his new memoir, Reaching Out.

32 …

A Transcendental To Changing Metal Powder Characteristics, Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, Rama Mohan Tallapragada

Mahendra Kumar Trivedi

• https://www.trivedieffect.com/science/a-transcendental-approach-to-changing-metal-powder-characteristics
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026065708701450

Metabolic Engineering Of A Thermophilic Bacterium To Produce Ethanol At High Yield, A. Joe Shaw, Kara K. Podkaminer, Sunil G. Desai, John S. Bardsley, Stephen R. Rogers, Philip G. Thorne, David A. Hogsett, Lee R. Lynd

Dartmouth Scholarship

We report engineering Thermoanaerobacterium saccharolyticum, a thermophilic anaerobic bacterium that ferments xylan and biomass-derived sugars, to produce ethanol at high yield. Knockout of genes involved in organic acid formation (acetate kinase, phosphate acetyltransferase, and L-lactate dehydrogenase) resulted in a strain able to produce ethanol as the only detectable organic product and substantial changes in electron flow relative to the wild type. Ethanol formation in the engineered strain (ALK2) utilizes pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase with electrons transferred from ferredoxin to NAD(P), a pathway different from that in previously described microbes with a homoethanol fermentation. The homoethanologenic phenotype was stable for >150 generations …

Web-Based Information Management System For The Long Term Ecological Research Program In Kenting, Taiwan, Yang-Chi Chang, Meng-Tsung Lee, Kun-Chi Lai

Journal of Marine Science and Technology

This paper introduces a web-based information management system which has been set up as a collaborative facility to allow key environmental and ecological information access for the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) in Kenting, Taiwan. The coral reef ecosystem degradation in Kenting has concerned both public and private sectors, for which a LTER team was formed to investigate the problem. A multi-functional web-based system integrates diverse data collections and analyses efforts of team members during the project span. It also provides authorities with effective information and knowledge for sustainable coral reef management. Three information technologies, web Database Management System (DBMS), …

Phylogenetic Reconstruction From Transpositions, Feng Yue, Meng Zhang, Jijun Tang

Faculty Publications

Background
Because of the advent of high-throughput sequencing and the consequent reduction in the cost of sequencing, many organisms have been completely sequenced and most of their genes identified. It thus has become possible to represent whole genomes as ordered lists of gene identifiers and to study the rearrangement of these entities through computational means. As a result, genome rearrangement data has attracted increasing attentions from both biologists and computer scientists as a new type of data for phylogenetic analysis. The main events of genome rearrangements include inversions, transpositions and transversions. To date, GRAPPA and MGR are the most accurate …

Improved Uses And Values For The Byproducts Of The Developing Biofuels Industry, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

No abstract provided.

On The Physical Properties Of Distillers Dried Grains With Solubles (Ddgs), Klein Ileleji, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) is a complex heterogeneous granular solid that exhibit a wide range of physical and chemical properties. This fact is one of the major reasons that livestock nutritionists often find it difficult to include it in their feed rations. The rapid growth of the corn ethanol industry, the primary generator of DDGS, has resulted in a huge influx of this product into the marketplace. Unfortunately, the lack of standard methods for product quality determination and reporting is becoming a bottleneck to expanding the market for this product. Challenges in the logistics of moving DDGS through …

Effect Of Moisture Content And Soluble Level On The Physical, Chemical, And Flow Properties Of Distillers Dried Grains With Solubles (Ddgs), Vykundeshwari Ganesan, Kasiviswanathan Muthukumarappan, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS) is a bulk material that has been widely used as a protein source for ruminants and nonruminants for more than two decades. DDGS is the nonfermentable processing residue (i.e., protein, fiber, fat, and ash) from fuel ethanol manufacturing. With the exponential growth of the fuel ethanol industry in the past several years, significant quantities (≈13.0 million tons in 2007) of distillers grains are now being produced. To effectively utilize these coproduct streams in the domestic market, DDGS must be transported greater distances and must be stored until final use. DDGS flow is often problematic …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 50 Number 1, Summer 2008, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

10 - SPEED RACERS An interview by Gwen Knapp. Cycling legend Greg LeMond talks ethics and doping in sports.

14 - MEET THE NEW FATHER GENERAL By Steven Boyd Saum. Introducing Adolfo Nicols, S.J., the new Superior General of the Society of Jesus.

16 - NO SIMPLE HIGHWAY By Juan Velasco. The Casa de la Solidaridad is less a place than a journey—one that offers a new understanding of solidarity. And a new meaning of home.

22 - EXILES By Ron Hansen. A tale of a shipwreck, a priest, and a poet. Hansen tells the story behind his new novel, …

Nanoengineered Templates For Controlled Delivery Of Bioactive Compounds, Nalinkanth Ghone Veerabadran

Doctoral Dissertations

The significance of any drugs, therapeutic proteins, or any bioactive compounds, is based not only on their effects on diseases but also on how specifically, how readily, how controllable and how prolonged their effects on the disease without having any side effects. Thus the techniques involved in the drug encapsulation and its controlled release for a longer duration of time form one of the important processes of drug reformulation. In recent years nanoparticles have created overwhelming attention for delivering drugs by nanoencapsulation. The smaller size of nanoparticles has longer circulation time and higher cellular uptake when compared with larger size …

Not Just Informative, But Necessary: Infusing Green And Sustainable Topics Into Engineering And Technology Curricula, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Elif Kongar

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Generally accepted duties of engineers and technologists encompass designing and implementing solutions to problems. When so doing, it is their responsibility to be cognizant of the impacts of their designs on, and thus their accountability to, not only society in general, but also subsequent effects upon the environment. They need to be able to concurrently satisfy these competing needs, as well as constraints specific to the design challenges at hand. Responding to these requirements are the growing fields of green engineering and sustainable engineering. Both of these areas encompass many concepts, ideas, and tools, all of which are essential information …

The Biomass Bandwagon: Three Ideas For Engineering And Technology Programs To Get Onboard, Kurt A. Rosentrater, Jerry Visser

Kurt A. Rosentrater

As society demands more energy and material goods, engineers and technologists will be relied upon to design and implement systems to produce and deliver these. There is growing interest in using renewable resources to produce fuels, chemicals, and finished products to meet these increasing needs. Additionally, popularity is gaining, both in research as well as industry, in developing and commercializing biobased products. Within this arena, there are tremendous opportunities for teaching innovations as well. To date, very limited discussions at ASEE regarding these potentials have occurred. The goal of this paper is to discuss possibilities for augmenting engineering and technology …

Genes Controlling Plant Growth Habit In Leymus (Triticeae): Maize Barren Stalk1 (Ba1), Rice Lax Panicle, And Wheat Tiller Inhibition (Tin3) Genes As Possible Candidates., Paraminder Kaur, Steven R. Larson, B.S. Bushman, Richard R. Wang, Ivan W. Mott, Jyothi Thimmapuram, George Gong, Lei Liu

Cyber Center Publications

Leymus cinereus and L. triticoides are large caespitose and rhizomatous perennial grasses, respectively. Previous studies detected quantitative trait loci (QTL) controlling rhizome spreading near the viviparous1 (vp1) gene markers on linkage groups LG3a and LG3b in two families, TTC1 and TTC2, derived from Leymus triticoides x Leymus cinereus hybrids. The wheat tiller inhibition gene (tin3) is located on Triticum monococcum chromosome 3 A(m)L near vp1. Triticeae group 3 is reportedly collinear with rice chromosome 1, which also contains the maize barren stalk1 and rice lax branching orthogene near vp1. However, previous studies lacked cross-species markers for comparative mapping and showed …

Effects Of Feed And Extruder Parameters On Extrudates Containing Ddgs, S. Kannadhason, Kasiviswanathan Muthukumarappan, Kurt A. Rosentrater

Kurt A. Rosentrater

Twenty seven isocaloric (3.05 kcal/g) ingredient blends were factorially formulated using three levels each of DDGS (20, 25, and 30% db), protein (30, 32.5, and 35% db), and feed moisture content (25, 35, and 45% db), along with appropriate quantities of cassava starch, soybean meal, fish meal, whey, vitamin, and mineral mix to produce a balanced diet for tilapia feed. The ingredient blends were extruded using a laboratory-scale single screw extruder with varying screw speeds (100, 150, and 200 rpm) and extruder barrel temperatures (100, 125, and 150 o C). The resulting extrudates were subjected to extensive analyses of physical …