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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Computational Modeling-Driven Study Of Signaling Pathway Affecting Cleft Formation During Submandibular Salivary Gland Development, Shayoni Ray Jan 2014

Computational Modeling-Driven Study Of Signaling Pathway Affecting Cleft Formation During Submandibular Salivary Gland Development, Shayoni Ray

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Branching morphogenesis is a conserved mechanism of mammalian organ development (salivary glands, lungs, mammary glands, pancreas, kidney, etc.), and has been a classic topic of study for generations of developmental biologists. During the process of tissue formation, several cellular and molecular and protein signaling events occur at successive stages enabling proper formation of tissue shape and structure. In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the process of branching morphogenesis, we need a systems level approach to integrate multifactorial information. My overall global hypothesis is that multiple mathematical modeling approaches can be utilized to extract crucial cellular and tissue level …


Monitoring Ligand-Induced Nucleic Acid Conformational Changes Using Ion Mobility Spectrometry-Mass Spectrometry, Bill Kenneth Redick Jan 2014

Monitoring Ligand-Induced Nucleic Acid Conformational Changes Using Ion Mobility Spectrometry-Mass Spectrometry, Bill Kenneth Redick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Three-dimensional structures of biopolymers frequently dictate the biological role those molecules play. As such, investigation into structure of nucleic acids can provide important information pertaining to how those nucleic acids work. Many nucleic acid species, especially single-stranded RNA, fold into unique structures that allow them to function properly. Metals, and other cationic species, are often bound to the nucleic acid to make folding into the proper structure more favorable by neutralizing the negative charge on the nucleic acid imparted by the phosphate group. This investigation explores tertiary structure of nucleic acids that have been folded in the presence of ligands …


Raman Spectroscopy Of Blood Serum And Cerebrospinal Fluid And Multivariate Data Analysis For Alzheimer's Disease Diagnostics, Elena Ryzhikova Jan 2014

Raman Spectroscopy Of Blood Serum And Cerebrospinal Fluid And Multivariate Data Analysis For Alzheimer's Disease Diagnostics, Elena Ryzhikova

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The efficient and accurate diagnosis at the early stages of dementia is a key moment for effective treatment and productive research to find a new ways to combat the disease. It is especially true for Alzheimer's disease (AD) for which there is no effective cure, but several treatments are known to allow slowing down the degenerative processes. Alzheimer's disease (AD) displays only non-specific clinical symptoms of mental decline for decades after the initiation and is very challenging to differentiate even at the later stages when it becomes very aggressive. Despite the great need, current diagnostic tests are unable to diagnose …


Modeling The Early, Aging-Related Changes In Human Recombinant Gammas-Crystallin In Vitro, Christiana Oluwaseun Salami Jan 2014

Modeling The Early, Aging-Related Changes In Human Recombinant Gammas-Crystallin In Vitro, Christiana Oluwaseun Salami

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Cataract is the leading cause of blindness in the world. Cataractous lenses scatter a significant part of the light entering the eye. Cataract can be of several types: Age-related cataract, secondary cataract, traumatic cataract, congenital cataract, and radiation cataract. Age-related cataract is the most common type of cataract. Several factors contribute to age-onset cataract; among them are the Post-Translational Modifications (PTMs) to the major lens proteins or crystallins, which constitute about 80-90% of the protein content of the lens. Predominant PTMs of the crystallins are oxidation, deamidation, phosphorylation, glycation, and disulfide crosslinking, which tend to increase as the lens ages.


Time Will Tell : Temporal Reasoning In Clinical Narratives And Beyond, Weiyi Sun Jan 2014

Time Will Tell : Temporal Reasoning In Clinical Narratives And Beyond, Weiyi Sun

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Temporal reasoning in natural language refers to the extraction and understanding of time-related information conveyed in free text. A clinical narrative temporal reasoning component can enable a spectrum of medical natural language processing (NLP) applications that directly improve patient care documentation efficiency, accessibility and accountability. This dissertation contributes in three subtasks under temporal reasoning: temporal annotation, temporal expression extraction and temporal relation inferences. The temporal annotation work described in the dissertation produced one of the first publicly available clinical narratives. We published one of the first sets of temporal


Probing Secondary And Tertiary Rna Folding Using Force And Temperature, William Stephenson Jan 2014

Probing Secondary And Tertiary Rna Folding Using Force And Temperature, William Stephenson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

RNA folding is the process whereby a single stranded RNA molecule assumes its three-dimensional functional conformation. Along with the protein folding problem, the RNA folding problem remains as one of the great unsolved problems in biophysics. Generally RNA folding occurs in a hierarchical manner whereby the sequence of an RNA (primary structure) determines which regions will form helical segments (secondary structure) before further rearrangement and base pairing of secondary structure motifs (tertiary structure). Due to the intimate connection between structure and function within molecular biology, increased familiarity with the thermodynamic and kinetic factors that govern RNA folding will permit the …


Community Forests : A Study Of New Hampshire's Town-Owned Forests, Anna Christie-Carnicella Jan 2014

Community Forests : A Study Of New Hampshire's Town-Owned Forests, Anna Christie-Carnicella

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

New England states have a long history of forest management, beginning in the seventeenth century, with community forests evolving over time from communal forests during colonial times to town-owned forests managed by conservation commissions in the present time. New Hampshire towns provided a case study of the current state of town-owned forest protection and management, with a focus on timber management. I administered a survey to 50 randomly sampled towns and received data from 29 about permanent protection and management activities on town-owned forestland (≥ 50 acres). I used this data, demographic, and landscape data, to evaluate permanent protection and …


Refining Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Community Metrics For The Assessment Of Headwater Streams In New York State, Brian T. Duffy Jan 2014

Refining Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Community Metrics For The Assessment Of Headwater Streams In New York State, Brian T. Duffy

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The River Continuum Concept describes the structural and functional shift that occurs from sensitive headwater streams to the lowest reaches of large, non-wadeable rivers. New York State (NYS) maintains a long-established biological monitoring program using macroinvertebrate community assemblages for water quality assessment. However, headwater streams are rarely assessed, and no reference models are available, except those calibrated for lower-continuum wadeable streams and rivers. Current patterns of rural landuse change emphasize the need for more accurate assessment of previously neglected headwaters, in order to set natural reference standards for more accurate assessments of water quality. Ecoregion, drainage area (DA), elevation (elev.), …


Effects Of Extreme Hydrologic Events On Trout Populations And Fish Communities In A Catskill Mountain River, Scott Daniel George Jan 2014

Effects Of Extreme Hydrologic Events On Trout Populations And Fish Communities In A Catskill Mountain River, Scott Daniel George

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Extreme hydrologic events are becoming more common with changing climatic conditions. Although the impacts of winter and spring floods on lotic ecosystems have been well studied, the effects of summer floods on fish assemblages in mountain streams are less well known. This study took advantage of an extreme precipitation event during the course of an ongoing monitoring program, which allowed the opportunity to quantify the effects of a severe late summer flood on fish communities in a montane watershed. We also evaluated the effect of the flood on the density and age structure of two ecologically important populations of sport …


Improving The Microbial Source Tracking Toolbox : Evaluating The Use Of Selective Enrichments And Artificial Sweeteners In A Multi-Tiered Approach, Stacey A. Helming Jan 2014

Improving The Microbial Source Tracking Toolbox : Evaluating The Use Of Selective Enrichments And Artificial Sweeteners In A Multi-Tiered Approach, Stacey A. Helming

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Microbial contamination of surface waters is a public health concern world-wide, with non-point source fecal input contributing to millions of cases of waterborne illness annually. Numerous techniques have been proposed to monitor for non-point source fecal contamination, but few studies have explored the correlation of multiple chemical and microbial fecal source tracking markers in ambient waters. Therefore, the purpose of these studies was to evaluate the use of multiple "ideal" markers of fecal contamination and improve upon any analytical techniques required to identify species-specific fecal contamination in surface waters. The use of selective enrichments to improve the sensitivity of end-point …


Uncovering Organosulfur Natural Products In The "Shy-Plant" Mimosa Pudica Via Direct Analysis In Real Time Mass Spectrometry : Volatiles Emission From Touch Sensitive Roots, Max Jacob Maron Jan 2014

Uncovering Organosulfur Natural Products In The "Shy-Plant" Mimosa Pudica Via Direct Analysis In Real Time Mass Spectrometry : Volatiles Emission From Touch Sensitive Roots, Max Jacob Maron

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Mimosa pudica L. (Mimosaceae) is a small shrub endemic to South America, now pantropically distributed. M. pudica displays the properties of seismonasty where the leaves fold and stems droop in response to both touch, as well as nyctinasty, a type of circadian rhythm. It was previously reported that the principal component of the odor that is produced when M. pudica is uprooted is caused by CS2 and COS, both of which were detected by GC-MS. The present study has found that the roots emit a foul odor in response to direct root stimulation. Further, neither CS2 nor COS were observed …