Digital Commons Network^™

Electrochemical Study Of Protein Modification, Jing Zhao, Xiao-Li Zhu, Gen-Xi Li

Journal of Electrochemistry

Protein post-translational modification is a key physiological procedure, which has received more and more research interests from the scientists not only in protein science but also in some other fields. The usually employed techniques for the study of protein modification include mass spectrum, affinity chromatography, etc. Considering the complexity of protein modification and the urgent demand of such kind of study, it is highly required to develop new techniques to perform more studies. Electrochemical methods, which have been widely used in chemical study and analysis, are playing an increasingly important role in many fields of biological studies. The modification of …

Prevalence Of Childhood Obesity In Elementary Schools In Lincoln, Nebraska: A Study Of Children On Free Or Reduced Lunches, Eric Barth

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

The purpose of the project is to show that there is a direct relationship between childhood obesity and socioeconomic status. Other factors that go into this relationship include: physical activity and foods available in vending machines. My ultimate objective is to prove that children coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds are showing higher levels of obesity during childhood. I believe that this work, as well as other studies similar to this, can be used show that these children need more help and assistance. Many of these children are not taught proper eating habits; generally because cheaper foods are generally not nutrition …

Sources And Fates Of Nutrients In The Tidal, Freshwater James River, William Isenberg

Theses and Dissertations

Tidal freshwater reaches of estuaries may play an important role in mitigating nutrient fluxes from watersheds to the coastal zone due to their location at the interface between riverine and estuarine systems. We developed annual N and P budgets for the tidal, freshwater James River over 4 calendar years (2007-2010) taking into account riverine inputs at the Fall Line, local points sources (including CSO events), ungagued inputs, riverine outputs, and tidal exchange. The tidal freshwater James River experiences high areal loading rates of TN (383 mg/m2/d) and TP (70 mg/m2/d) due to the combined effects of large watershed area and …

2012 - The Seventeenth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Seventeenth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 10, 2012. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

I, Synthesis Of Β-Sitosterol And Phytosterol Esters. Ii, New Methodology For Singlet Oxygen Generation From 1,1-Dihydroperoxides, Jiliang Hang

Department of Chemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Phytosterols are steroid compounds structurally similar with cholesterol and vary in the nature of carbon side chain. β-Sitosterol is commercially available in preparative amount only as mixtures with other phytosterols. New semipreparative synthesis of pure β-sitosterol and sidechain-modified phytosterols is discussed in this dissertation. This new synthesis is achieved via a temporary masking of the stigmasterol 5,6-alkene as an epoxide. Following performance of the desired modification, the alkene is regenerated through a mild deoxygenation. Preparation of phytosterol esters for cholesterol metabolism study is also discussed in this dissertation.

Singlet oxygen (¹O₂) is the lowest excited state …

Evaluation And Verification Of Washing Practices On Pathogen Recovery And Survival On Produce, Wilbert Long Iii

Student Theses and Dissertations

Food sanitation is a very important issue that affects the global market. Proper sanitation can help reduce microbial pathogens which influence public health by causing illnesses and death and financial resources (e.g. time lost at work, loss of produce due to spoilage, and recalls). In a number of incidences, foods may be reported as extremely susceptible to pathogens and are denoted as potentially hazardous by health organizations such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and state institutions. Pathogenic contamination of foods may be caused by factors that include growing environment, handling, processing, produce structure, water activity (the amount of …

Past To Present: School Of Allied Health Professions To College Of Health Sciences And Contributions To Health Improvement In The Local Community And Beyond, Mohamed Kanu, Ronald Barredo, Elizabeth Williams, Revlon Briggs

The Journal of Tennessee State University

No abstract provided.

Tennessee State University: A Synopsis Of “A Touch Of Greatness,” 1912-2012, Bobby L. Lovett

The Journal of Tennessee State University

No abstract provided.

Chemistry & Biochemistry Newsletter, Department Of Chemistry & Biochemistry, South Dakota State University

Chemistry & Biochemistry Newsletter: 2002-2015

Inside:

Page 2 NSF Grant Challenges Traditional Teaching Strategies

Page 3 Economic Development Important CBC Research Outcome

Page 4 High-Tech Equipment Helps Department Study Molecules

Page 5 Chemistry Education Joins Western Regional Graduate Student Exchange; Alum Jared L. Anderson Joins LCGC’s Editorial Advisory board; Adam Hoppe Wins Berg Award for Research Excellence

Page 6 CBC Doctoral Candidate is SDSU’s Grad Student of the Year; The Robert and Katherine Burris Distinguished Lecture Series

Page 7 Universities & K-12 Schools Partner Up to Improve Math and Science; Recent Graduates

Page 8 Alum Update; Recent Grants; Another CBC Student Featured on SDSU’s Web …

New Approaches To The Green Revolution: Successes, Failures And New Rice For Africa, Maia S. Woluchem

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The nature of worldwide food insecurity is staggering, with thirteen percent of the world’s population currently malnourished. The situation is particularly dire in Sub- Saharan Africa, where 265 million people face hunger daily, with 30 to 50 million dying yearly. Solutions to the problem are often unsustainable, save a select few. Once such attempt, coined the Green Revolution, garnered both praise and notoriety through its relatively successful transformation of Southeast Asia in the 1960’s. Aimed at increasing food production, the project focused on small-holder farmers and their acquisition of more productive inputs such as high-yield seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. African …

Sharing Earth’S Most Valuable Resource: Cooperation In Transboundary Water Management, Olivia Nesbit

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Natural resources in general and water in particular are undeniably essential to human growth and development. However, in recent years, with rising demands for freshwater, sky-rocketing population growth rates, climate change, shrinking water resources and poor water management, scarcity of this critical resource is a growing problem around the world. A high percentage of the most severe water scarcity is due primarily to mismanagement and ineffective allocation of water resources. There is an overarching legal framework to govern the management of water internationally. The UN Watercourses Convention and the UNECE Water Convention are the two most important documents that govern …

Software Engineering For The Mobile Application Market, Jacob Schwartz

Honors Theses and Capstones

One of the goals of the current United States government is to lower healthcare costs. One of the solutions is to alter the behavior of the population to be more physically active and to eat healthier. This project will focus on the latter solution by writing applications for the Android and iOS mobile platforms that will allow a user to monitor their dietary intake to see and correct patterns in their eating behavior.

Organic Cacao Farming In Transamazônica: An Assessment Of Sustainable Livelihood Development, Stephanie Cesario

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Cacao production is growing in the newly opened forest frontiers of the Trans- Amazonian Highway in central Pará, the second biggest producer region in Brazil. This region has recently witnessed the growth of some of the first organic cocoa cooperatives in the country, initially formed in 2006. Cacao presents a unique option for agricultural livelihoods, because grows well in its native habitat under the shade of Amazon forest species, and there is a growing market demand for cocoa. This study aims to assess the organic certification’s effects on tree diversity and cocoa production in this Amazon frontier, together indicating sustainable …

The Update, April/May 2012, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Humanities, Arts And Sciences.

Update

Inside this issue:

-- Department of Mathematics Holds Annual Event
-- Department News
-- Earth Week 2012
-- National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association
-- Immigration Policy: Current Crisis & Future Challenges
-- Midwest Pressed Exhibits in New Orleans
-- SAVE: Students Against a Violent Environment
-- School of Music Events
-- Student Spotlight: Department of Physics:Byron Tasseff
-- Two Student Exhibitions Held in Dean's Triangle Gallery
-- UNI Hosts Regional and State Physics Competitions
-- Student Spotlight: Department of Computer Science: Aaron Mangel
-- UNI Forensics
-- UNI Mathematics Faculty Host Waterloo Schools Professional Development
-- Alumni Spotlight: …

Strawberry Growth, Yield, Fruit Nutrition, And Control Of Verticillium Wilt With Pre-Plant Soil Fumigants, Ozone, And Biological Control, Justin J. Scurich

Master's Theses

Verticillium wilt is a widespread soilborne disease of strawberry historically controlled by soil fumigation with methyl bromide (MB). MB was banned by the United Nations in 1995 and will be completely phased out by 2015. Research has concentrated on alternative methods of disease control without finding a single alternative able to replace MB in widespread disease control and yield increase. For the current study, strawberries were greenhouse grown in container pots filled with soil from both infested and non-infested areas of a commercial strawberry field in Watsonville, CA. Treatments included pre-plant soil fumigation with commercially available formulations of methyl bromide, …

Evaluating Ceres Fair Food As An Urban Sustainable Food Initiative: A Comparison Of Retail Pricing, Wholesale Pricing And Food Miles For A Healthy Food Basket, Stella Chung

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

CERES Fair Food, an organic food delivery system in Melbourne, VIC was evaluated in terms of its transportation resource consumption, ability to enhance food security, and support of local organic farmers, which are key factors in sustainable food systems for urban areas.

Transportation resource consumption was analyzed by calculating the food miles for a selection of Fair Food’s products and comparing them to data on typical products consumed in Victoria. Most of Fair Food’s products had similar or lower food miles, particularly the fresh produce. But many assumptions had to be made in the calculations due to limited information. Food …

How Pescadores Become Produtores: Gender, Family, And Sustainable Living On Brazil’S Northeast Coast, Wren Brennan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The familial structure of a Brazilian fishing community is explored through participant observation and eight in-depth ethnographic interviews conducted over the course of three weeks of emersion with a family of pescadores artesanais (artisanal fishermen) that now call themselves catadores de algas (seaweed collectors). Previous research suggests that the sexual division of labor in this community, along with coastal environment in which the community exists, is in a state of transition. This project explores the emerging the practice of communal seaweed cultivation as a form of work that exemplifies changing gender relations in conjunction with a changing coastal environment. It …

Health Nexus: A Serious Game Prototype For Prevention And Treatment Of Obesity And Diabetes, Joseph C. Miller

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Electronic games are a prevalent phenomenon of American culture and entertainment. Serious games are video games that take advantage of games' intrinsic entertaining and challenging characteristics for serious purposes, such as education, training, advertisement, and political campaigns. A significant number of serious games have been developed for a variety of diverse purposes. The last few years have witnessed the inception and growth of motion sensing technologies for games, including Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation Move, and Microsoft Kinect. These motion sensing technologies usually require game players' physical body movement in order to perform and achieve in the games, such as playing …

Electrocardiographic Abnormalities Among Mexican Americans: Correlations With Diabetes, Obesity, And The Metabolic Syndrome, Saulette R. Queen, Beverly Smulevitz, Anne R. Rentfro, Kristina Vatcheva, David D. Mcpherson, Susan P. Fisher-Hoch, Joseph B. Mccormick, Susan T. Laing

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Resting ischemic electrocardiographic abnormalities have been associated with cardiovascular mortality. Simple markers of abnormal autonomic tone have also been associated with diabetes, obesity, and the metabolic syndrome in some populations. Data on these electrocardiographic abnormalities and correlations with coronary risk factors are lacking among Mexican Americans wherein these conditions are prevalent.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the prevalent resting electrocardiographic abnormalities among community-dwelling Mexican Americans, and correlate these findings with coronary risk factors, particularly diabetes, obesity, and the metabolic syndrome.

Methods: Study subjects (n=1280) were drawn from the Cameron County Hispanic Cohort comprised of community-dwelling Mexican Americans living …

The Transcriptome And Proteome Of The Diatom Thalassiosira Pseudonana Reveal A Diverse Phosphorus Stress Response, Sonya T. Dyhrman, Bethany D. Jenkins, Tatiana A. Rynearson, Mak A. Saito, Melissa L. Mercier, Harriet Alexander, Leann P. Whitney, Andrea Drzewianowski, Vladimir V. Bulygin, Erin M. Bertrand, Zhijin Wu, Claudia R. Benitez-Nelson, Abigail Heithoff

Faculty Publications

Phosphorus (P) is a critical driver of phytoplankton growth and ecosystem function in the ocean. Diatoms are an abundant class of marine phytoplankton that are responsible for significant amounts of primary production. With the control they exert on the oceanic carbon cycle, there have been a number of studies focused on how diatoms respond to limiting macro and micronutrients such as iron and nitrogen. However, diatom physiological responses to P deficiency are poorly understood. Here, we couple deep sequencing of transcript tags and quantitative proteomics to analyze the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana grown under P-replete and P-deficient conditions. A total of …

A Women-Only Comparision Of The U.S. Air Force Fitness Test And The Marine Combat Fitness Test, Tarah D. Mitchell

Theses and Dissertations

In 2009, Captain Thomas Worden determined the Air Force Physical Fitness Test (AFPFT) poorly predicted combat capability for his 86 study participants. With only 5 of these 86 volunteers being women, this limited Worden's findings to primarily men. This follow-on research investigated whether these results carried over to women. We recruited 61 female volunteers and compared their performance on the AFPFT to the Marine Combat Fitness Test, the proxy for combat capability. Like Worden's research, we discovered little association between the two (R² of 0.161). However, this association significantly increased (adj R² of 0.572) when utilizing the raw …

An Ecological Assessment Of A Juvenile Estuarine Sportfish, Common Snook (Centropomus Undecimalis), In A Tidal Tributary Of Tampa Bay, Florida, Adam Benjamin Brame

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The common snook, Centropomus undecimalis, is an estuarine dependent sport fish that relies upon subtidal wetlands as nursery habitat. Despite the economic and recreational significance of this species, there are portions of its life history and biology that are poorly understood, particularly its early life history. Understanding juvenile snook use of wetland habitats is crucial given the rapid loss and degradation of these areas to anthropogenic impacts. Young-of-the-year snook were collected in pond and creek habitats of a single wetland system to assess early life ecology and habitat use. Proxies of habitat quality were used to determine which habitats …

A Review Of The Eocene Diodontids And Labrids From Transylvania, Emanuel Paul Dica

Studia UBB Geologia

This paper reviews two diodontids and labrids species: Chylomicterus hilgendorfi and Lachnolaimus multidens. The paleontological material is represented only from jaws and pharyngeal bones, which had been recently collected from Cluj Limestone (Cluj Napoca and Turbut̡a areas), and Nis̡ului Valley Formation (Turnu Ros̡u) as well as from older collections. The holotypes of these species are reconsidered and the paleoecological significances are also discussed.

The Effect Of Smoking On Tuberculosis Incidence In Burdened Countries, Natalie Noel Ellison

Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated that one third of the world's population is infected with tuberculosis. Though once thought a "dead" disease, tuberculosis is very much alive. The rise of drug resistant strains of tuberculosis, and TB-HIV coinfection have made tuberculosis an even greater worldwide threat. While HIV, poverty, and public health infrastructure are historically assumed to affect the burden of tuberculosis, recent research has been done to implicate smoking in this list. This analysis involves combining data from multiple sources in order determine if smoking is a statistically significant factor in predicting the number of incident tuberculosis cases in a country. …

Compound-Specific Stable Isotopic Analysis Of Protein Amino Acids: Ecological Applications In Modern And Ancient Systems, Greg Ellis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stable isotopic analysis of the major biochemically important elements is an increasingly utilized tool in the study of ecology. Patterns of isotopic fractionation in carbon and nitrogen are used to determine trophic linkages, nutrient pathways, and sources of primary production in numerous contexts. Traditional techniques rely on measurements made of bulk samples such as tissue, but emerging methods using individual chemical compounds provide a means of achieving deeper understanding in a variety of inquiries.

Amino acids, as the building blocks of proteins, are the dominant nitrogen-bearing biomolecules and are a major constituent of all life. Patterns of isotopic fractionation during …

Treatment Technology Validation For Water Softening Technology, Caitlin Brown, Nathan Dillon, Kevin Tweeten, Peixi Yan, Kayla Lester, Tim Lewis

Senior Design

MT Hard Water of Montana Tech of the University of Montana submits Task 3: Treatment Technology Validation for Water Softening Technology as an entry into the 2012 WERC Environmental Design Contest.

Currently, there are several commercially available technologies that treat water hardness. The objective of this project is to develop a strategy to evaluate and validate different water hardness treatment technologies. MT Hard Water (MTHW) has studied several technologies including: electromagnetic water treatment, ion exchange, and reverse osmosis. For validation purposes, an electromagnetic water treatment system (ScaleRID) was selected according to the WERC task description.

Anthropogenic Climate Change And Allergic Diseases, James Blando, Leonard Bielory, Viann Nguyen, Rafael Diaz, Hueiwang Anna Jeng

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Climate change is expected to have an impact on various aspects of health, including mucosal areas involved in allergic inflammatory disorders that include asthma, allergic rhinitis, allergic conjunctivitis and anaphylaxis. The evidence that links climate change to the exacerbation and the development of allergic disease is increasing and appears to be linked to changes in pollen seasons (duration, onset and intensity) and changes in allergen content of plants and their pollen as it relates to increased sensitization, allergenicity and exacerbations of allergic airway disease. This has significant implications for air quality and for the global food supply.

Farmer Panel--Managed Grazing And Profits, Bill Payne

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Profits are the goal of any business model and mine is no exception. My plan assumes that available natural resources are efficiently utilized in a responsible manner.I have chosen to implement that plan by producing, managing and marketing our forage resources by utilizing Management Intensive Grazing (MIG.)

Role And Importance Of Alfalfa In Beef Diets, Jeff Lehmkuhler

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Alfalfa is often referred to as the “Queen” of forage. Is this because of its high fertility needs and more finicky soil fertility needs along with greater management for optimal growth and persistency? Or is it because of it being on top of nearly all other forages for yield and quality? Truth be told, it is likely a combination of all these factors. Alfalfa is a versatile forage as it can be harvested for hay or silage and also grazed with proper management. For these reasons, this forage can fit well in beef operations.

Alfalfa Hay For Horses, Robert Coleman

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

When horse owners consider hay for their horses, a number of criteria are generally considered. Of major importance is the hay must be free of mold and dust. It needs to contain nutrients needed by the horse and it must be palatable. If these criteria are met, the type of hay should not matter. However, that is not the case with many horse owners. When discussing the selection of hay, many owners first consider the type of hay. Can it be alfalfa or should it be a grass or how about a mix of grass and a legume. If a …