Digital Commons Network^™

Hyperarousal And Beyond: New Insights To The Pathophysiology Of Insomnia Disorder Through Functional Neuroimaging Studies, Daniel Kay, Daniel J. Buysse

Faculty Publications

Neuroimaging studies have produced seemingly contradictory findings in regards to the pathophysiology of insomnia. Although most study results are interpreted from the perspective of a “hyperarousal” model, the aggregate findings from neuroimaging studies suggest a more complex model is needed. We provide a review of the major findings from neuroimaging studies, then discuss them in relation to a heuristic model of sleep-wake states that involves three major factors: wake drive, sleep drive, and level of conscious awareness. We propose that insomnia involves dysregulation in these factors, resulting in subtle dysregulation of sleep-wake states throughout the 24 h light/dark cycle.

Diet Of The Mohave Ground Squirrel (Xerospermophilus Mohavensis) In Relation To Season And Rainfall, Barbara M. Leitner, Philip Leitner

Western North American Naturalist

The Mohave ground squirrel (Xerospermophilus mohavensis) is endemic to the western Mojave Desert of California. It is listed as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act, yet there is little published information on its habitat requirements. We studied the diet of Mohave ground squirrels at 4 sites in desert scrub habitat in Inyo County, California, primarily by microhistological analysis of 754 samples of fecal pellets collected from live-trapped animals. Over all sites and seasons, shrub foliage was the largest component of the diet (39.8% relative density) and mainly derived from several taxa of Chenopodiaceae: winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata …

Learning Letters Puppy, Liz Kazandzhy

Children's Book and Media Review

Created by the well-known and respected Fisher-Price company, Learning Letters Puppy is a fun way for young children to learn their ABC’s, numbers, and shapes in an interactive way. Upon first opening the app, parents can read a very helpful page of “Play Tips” to optimize the use of the app for their child’s development. On the main screen are four categories to choose from. First, the ABC portion takes the child through the alphabet one at a time with progressions occurring as the child taps the screen. Each letter is accompanied by a cute and moving animation that matches …

Goldie & Bear: The Birthday Chair/Big Bear, Kristie Hinckley

Children's Book and Media Review

Goldie is a thoughtful friend who has gone to the trouble of throwing Bear a surprise birthday party. At the last minute, she realizes that she forgot to get Bear a gift. She finds the remains of Bear’s chair (that she accidentally broke) and decides to repair it for him. In the end, it’s the perfect gift for Bear. Next, Bear is tired of hearing that he needs to “wait until he’s bigger” before he can do fun things. When he gets a hold of some magic beans from Jack, he becomes big. At first, Bear is helpful, but then …

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures, Kristie Hinckley

Children's Book and Media Review

What would you do if you came across a squirrel with super powers? And your mom was as upset about having a possibly rabid animal in the house like Flora’s mom was, what would you do? This squirrel could save the world! After a tragic run-in with Flora's household vacuum, a normal squirrel transforms into a high-flying, ridiculously strong, and beautifully poetic super squirrel! This hybrid of a traditional chapter book and a graphic novel will keep you at the edge of your seat! Come along as Flora, her neighbors, and her parents interact with Flora’s new best friend and …

The First Drawing, Lori Cunningham

Children's Book and Media Review

Imagine...30,000 years ago, before your creative thoughts were put into drawings, where most people only saw clouds as clouds. One day a modern-day boy and his dog are transported in time to show you where it all began. Long ago, the people can't see the mammoth in the clouds, the bear in the rock, or the elk on the walls. The boy is the “Child who sees whats not there.” One day though while searching for stones with his father he looks up, and sees a woolly mammoth right in front of him. The young boy searches the eyes of …

Curious George: Librarian For A Day, Kelsie Ward

Children's Book and Media Review

Like many of the Curious George programs on PBS-TV as well as the different books, the reader is taken on a journey with a small, child-like, monkey named George, as he goes on yet another curious adventure. In Librarian For a Day, the librarian, Mrs. Dewey leaves George in charge. George finds himself in quite the dilemma, as he has never organized books appropriately for a library before. He makes attempts to organize them by color, then by size. He finally receives help and realizes that the books are alphabetized by classification, and is able to finish fixing the books …

Sinbad: Legend Of The Seven Seas, Abigail Packard

Children's Book and Media Review

Eris, the goddess of chaos, makes a deal with Sinbad: bring her the Book of Peace and she’ll make him rich. Sinbad agrees and follows Proteus, Sinbad’s boyhood friend, to Syracuse, intent on stealing the book. But Eris disguises herself as Sinbad and steals the book herself, framing Sinbad who is then sentenced to death. Proteus takes his place and Sinbad is granted ten days to find the book and return it or else Proteus will be executed in Sinbad’s stead. Sinbad and his crew set out for Tartarus to find Eris. Their journey is fraught with obstacles—a swarm of …

Tigers, Cynthia Phillips

Children's Book and Media Review

Did you know that tigers don’t leave claw marks in their tracks because they retract their claws while walking? You can learn facts about tigers, from where they live to how they cool off in hot weather, in this fun book all about tigers. There is also a quick quiz at the end so you can know whether you truly know about tigers. Make sure to also check out the glossary for those big words.

Lost Cat, Cynthia Frazier

Children's Book and Media Review

During the chaos of moving day, Slippers the cat is accidentally left behind. No matter how hard she tries, Slippers can’t catch the car as it drives away. So, Slippers decides to find a new owner to adopt. Though she meets many people on her search, there is something wrong with each one. Sometimes there is a scary animal like a dog or a horse that causes Slipper to move on from a potential new home. Sometimes it is a noisy truck or motorcycle that frightens Slippers away. Once, Slippers had to climb a tree to escape from a boy …

Pet Rescue Saga, Liz Kazandzhy

Children's Book and Media Review

From the creators of the well-known Candy Crush Saga and Farm Heroes Saga comes this similar puzzle game built on the plot of rescuing captured pets. Each level shows a variety of colored blocks with different animals in different places. The goal of the game is to tap on groups of blocks to remove them, thus rescuing the pets by bringing them down to the bottom of the puzzle. A variety of “boosters” also become available throughout the game which help achieve these purposes--like a rocket that will remove all blocks in a vertical line, or a hammer that will …

The Sub-Chronic Vascular Response To Water-Borne Embolic Coacervates., Joshua P. Jones, Monika Sima, Russell J. Stewart

Biomedical Engineering Western Regional Conference

Water-borne coacervates that solidify in response to decreasing ionic strength have been developed as an agent for small vessel transcatheter embolization. Here, the sub-chronic vascular response to these agents will be presented. Embolic coacervates demonstrated a benign foreign body response, which supported tissue ingrowth and stabilized vessel occlusion out to 28 days. As with other liquid embolics, occlusion is dependent upon mechanical obstruction of the vessel and native thrombus. Over time, the thrombus becomes more organized by fibroblasts. Continuation of the processes seen at 28 days will likely result in fibrous encapsulation of the embolic coacervate, further stabilizing the occlusion.

A Nanocomposite Sensor Neck Sleeve For Tracking In Vivo Spine Kinematics In The Alpaca, Colton Porter Graham, Anton Bowden

Biomedical Engineering Western Regional Conference

Chronic low back pain in the US is often attributed to intervertebral disc degeneration. Camelids, particularly alpacas, pose a potential model for spinal treatment due to similarity of the spinal structure and vertical loading. Alpacas also exhibit a high rate of natural disc degeneration. To gain more understanding about how disc degeneration is caused in alpacas it is necessary to understand the loading and motion of the alpaca cervical spine. The goal of the present work was to incorporate nanocomposite sensors into a custom-designed neck sleeve to track the daily in-vivo neck motion of an alpaca in its natural environment.

Developing A Renal Cell Carcinoma Kidney-Tumor-On-A-Chip To Mimic Tumor-Induced Angiogenesis, Connor Tsuchida, Chris Miller, Ying Zheng

Biomedical Engineering Western Regional Conference

Currently, models for testing developing cancer therapeutics are inaccurate. To address this issue, the Zheng Lab is developing a kidney-tumor-on-a-chip to mimic tumor-induced angiogenesis. Initial steps were taken toward this ultimate goal by creating an in vitro study between human kidney microvascular endothelial cells and renal cell carcinoma spheroids. The experiments showed an increase in endothelial sprouts in the presence of renal cell carcinoma spheroids vs. normal kidney cortex spheroids.

High-Speed Video Capture Of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tear, Steven L. Cook, Devon T. Smith

Biomedical Engineering Western Regional Conference

High-speed Video Capture of Anterior Cruciate Ligament Tear

Ultrasonic Power Transfer For Medical Implants, Kee S. Moon, Yusuf Ozturk, Sung Q. Lee, Woosub Youm, Guun Hwang, H. W. Park

Biomedical Engineering Western Regional Conference

Wireless power transmission is an attractive alternative to low-power biomedical implants to overcome the power limitation of the primary battery. In this paper, we are presenting an efficient ultrasonic wireless power transmission system for implantable medical devices. It is known that the ultrasonic wireless power transmission has a longer power transmission distance as well as free from electromagnetic interference and absorption in the human body. In this research, an ultrasonic resonance will be applied to improve the power transmission efficiency as well as the distance.

A Model Of Gradual Dopamine Depletion In The Rat, Christine Henry, Heidi Y. Febinger, Alan Dorval

Biomedical Engineering Western Regional Conference

No abstract provided.

José, Joe, Zé Carioca: Walt Disney's Good Neighbor Colonial "Monument" In Brazil, Andrew Kelly Nelson

Theses and Dissertations

Although Walt Disney's early animated feature films were successful, a variety of economic, operational, and external forces required him to continually be on the cutting edge of new ideas and technologies in order for his studio to continue operations. Latin America became the studio's source of inspiration in the early 1940s, sprouting from Walt Disney's involvement with the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros were the result. While many critics have decried Disney's involvement in Latin America as being an apparatus of cultural imperialism and economic exploitation, they almost universally give him credit …

Psychological Well-Being Among Latter-Day Saint Polynesian American Emerging Adults, Melissa Lynn Aiono

Theses and Dissertations

There is a dearth of psychological research with Polynesian populations in the United States Research on this population is needed to meet the demands of this increasingly growing population. This study aims to investigate the psychological well-being of an understudied Latter-day Saint (LDS) Polynesian American emerging adult group in order to better provide them with cultural-specific professional psychological services. The sample included 327 LDS Polynesian American emerging adults ranging from 18 to 26 years of age (191 females, 136 males). Specifically, this study examines the associations among coping strategies, religiosity, ethnic identity, depression, anxiety, and self-esteem. An online questionnaire was …

Progressive Deterioration Of Thalamic Nuclei Relates To Cortical Network Decline In Schizophrenia, Derin J. Cobia, Matthew J. Smith, Ilse Salinas, Charlene Ng, Mohktar Gado, John G. Csernansky, Lei Wang

Faculty Publications

Thalamic abnormalities are considered part of the complex pathophysiology of schizophrenia, particularly the involvement of specific thalamic nuclei. The goals of this study were to: introduce a novel atlas-based parcellation scheme for defining various thalamic nuclei; compare their integrity in a schizophrenia sample against healthy individuals at baseline and follow-up time points, as well as rates of change over time; examine relationships between the nuclei and abnormalities in known connected cortical regions; and finally, to determine if schizophreniarelated thalamic nuclei changes relate to cognitive functioning and clinical symptoms. Subjects were from a larger longitudinal 2-year follow-up study, schizophrenia (n=20) and …

Conspecific Pollen On Insects Visiting Female Flowers Of Phoradendron Juniperinum (Viscaceae) In Western Arizona, William D. Wiesenborn

Western North American Naturalist

Phoradendron juniperinum (Viscaceae) is a dioecious, parasitic plant of juniper trees ( Juniperus [Cupressaceae]) that occurs from eastern California to New Mexico and into northern Mexico. The species produces minute, spherical flowers during early summer. Dioecious flowering requires pollinating insects to carry pollen from male to female plants. I investigated the pollination of P. juniperinum parasitizing Juniperus osteosperma trees in the Cerbat Mountains in western Arizona during June–July 2016. I examined pollen from male flowers, aspirated insects from female flowers, counted conspecific pollen grains on insects, and estimated floral constancy from proportions of conspecific pollen in pollen loads. The tricolpate …

Deuterateer: A Tool For Quantifying Peptide Isotope Precision And Kinetic Proteomics, Bradley C. Naylor, Michael T. Porter, Elise Wilson, Adam Herring, Spencer Lofthouse, Austin Hannemann, Stephen R. Piccolo, Alan L. Rockwood, John C. Price

Faculty Publications

Motivation

Using mass spectrometry to measure the concentration and turnover of the individual proteins in a proteome, enables the calculation of individual synthesis and degradation rates for each protein. Software to analyze concentration is readily available, but software to analyze turnover is lacking. Data analysis workflows typically don’t access the full breadth of information about instrument precision and accuracy that is present in each peptide isotopic envelope measurement. This method utilizes both isotope distribution and changes in neutromer spacing, which benefits the analysis of both concentration and turnover.

Results

We have developed a data analysis tool, DeuteRater, to measure protein …

Starfall Free, Liz Kazandzhy

Children's Book and Media Review

The Starfall app is designed by the Starfall Education Foundation, which seeks to “create free and low-cost experiences whereby children can successfully learn through exploration” (according to their app page). This program in particular, which requires an internet connection to run, is focused on a variety of core skills mostly related to reading and math. It is set up in a way that young children can easily explore, with a large home screen featuring over a dozen categories which can be clicked on and looked into with a variety of options to select. The free version includes access to only …

Curious George 3: Back To The Jungle, Amanda Durrant

Children's Book and Media Review

The RDS on a space satellite that controls the flow of dams in Africa is broken, but there are no space ships that can hold a human available to go to space to fix it. Mr. Houston asks Ted (The Man in the Yellow Hat) if George can complete the mission to save all the animals from the severe flooding in Africa. Ted is reluctant as first, as he fears for George's safety, but agrees to let George complete the training. George passes all the space training and goes off to retrieve the RDS from the satellite to bring back …

Polar Bear Night, Kati Penovich

Children's Book and Media Review

On a cold, clear night, a polar bear cub wakes inside her den. Her mother is still sleeping, but she feels drawn to go outside. The curious little polar bear wanders past walruses, seals, and whales. Everyone is sleeping but her. An expectant hush covers the snowy landscape, and still she keeps walking. Finally, the cub finds herself on a snowy hill where she witnesses a beautiful star shower that illuminates everything around her. The little polar bear watches in awe and then, sleepy once more, returns to her mother in their warm, safe den.

Arthur Christmas, Amanda Durrant

Children's Book and Media Review

It's Christmas eve in the North Pole as the current Santa is preparing for what is thought to be his 70th and final mission of delivering presents. He doesn't use just an ordinary sleigh though, but a highly advanced spaceship called the S-1 that is managed by Santa's eldest son Steve. In the hustle and bustle of packing the sleigh, a present falls off the conveyor belt and is left behind. Santa's youngest son Arthur is on a mission to get the present delivered in time for Christmas morning, but Arthur is only responsible for the mail as he often …

The Christmas Quiet Book, Ariel Woodbury

Children's Book and Media Review

The Christmas season has lots of noises. There are carolers and bells, but there are also lots of quiet moments. Children are quietly searching for presents and sitting quietly in timeout after getting caught. They try to knock on a door with mittens on and watch their breath turn to fog outside.

Amelia Bedelia Hits The Trail, Liz Kazandzhy

Children's Book and Media Review

Amelia Bedelia’s class is taking a field trip out into nature. After seeing all sorts of interesting plants and animals, the class stops to have lunch by the stream. When Amelia Bedelia misunderstands the teacher’s comment, “Let’s go, Wade!” she rushes into the stream to wade, and soon the whole class joins her in the fun. During the hike, each student is expected to find something for the nature table back at the school. Amelia Bedelia’s classmates all find things relatively quickly, but she searches far and wide for her own item. At first she gathers leaves, but when a …

The Smartest Animals: Elephants, Aylea Stephens

Children's Book and Media Review

Elephants are among the smartest animals. This book talks about how elephants use their intelligence to survive. Their intelligence allows them to live in herds, under direction of the matriarch and other adult females to teach calves how to behave. They communicate with other elephants, use their trunks as tools, help injured elephants survive, and have excellent memories. The book also talks about basic elephant facts like what they eat and what is threatening them in their natural habitats. A list of facts in the back tells more simple information about elephants, and a glossary can help readers who are …

Samson In The Snow, Whitney Troxel

Children's Book and Media Review

On sunny days Samson the Mammoth likes to tend his dandelion patch while he waits for a friend to appear. One day, a little red bird appears and asks if she can take some flowers to a friend who is having a bad day. When it starts to snow, Samson starts to worry about the red bird. He decides to look for her and make sure she is okay. Along the way, Samson finds a little mouse in the snow who is also looking for someone. They search together and find the red bird. Samson takes the bird and the …