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Multidimensional Poverty Of The Ethnic Tibetan Farm And Herder Households In Gansu Province, China, Fan Yang, Krishna Paudel, Tianhui Zhuang, Yao Jiang

Faculty Publications

© 2019, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. All rights reserved. Ethnic Tibetan farm and herder households (FHH) in Gansu Province, China are stricken with poverty. Solving the poverty problem in this or other poverty pockets across China has special importance for the country’s political stability, ethnic unity, social well-being, and ecological security. This paper calculates the multidimensional poverty situation of ethnic Tibetan farm and herder households of Gansu Province, China by using the Alkire-Foster method. Twelve indicators are included in the multidimensional poverty indicator system. Results showed that 1) in the single indicator measure, the adult family members received at …

Mitofusin 2 Plays A Role In Oocyte And Follicle Development, And Is Required To Maintain Ovarian Follicular Reserve During Reproductive Aging, Man Zhang, Muhammed Burak Bener, Zongliang Jiang, Tianren Wang, Ecem Esencan, Richard Scott, Tamas Horvath, Emre Seli

Faculty Publications

© Zhang et al. Mitochondria change their shape through fusion and fission in order to adapt to their metabolic milieu. Mitofusin-2 (MFN2) is a key regulatory protein in this process, mediating mitochondrial fusion and interaction with endoplasmic reticulum. Targeted deletion of Mfn2 in oocytes resulted in mitochondrial dysfunction and female subfertility associated with impaired oocyte maturation and follicle development. Oocytes lacking MFN2 showed shortened telomeres and increased apoptosis, resulting in compromised oocyte quality and accelerated follicular depletion, consistent with a reproductive aging phenotype.

Dosage Compensation Of The X Chromosomes In Bovine Germline, Early Embryos, And Somatic Tissues, Jingyue Duan, Wei Shi, Nathaniel K. Jue, Zongliang Jiang, Lynn Kuo, Rachel O’Neill, Eckhard Wolf, Hong Dong, Xinbao Zheng, Jingbo Chen, Xiuchun Tian

Faculty Publications

© The Author(s) 2018. Dosage compensation of the mammalian X chromosome (X) was proposed by Susumu Ohno as a mechanism wherein the inactivation of one X in females would lead to doubling the expression of the other. This would resolve the dosage imbalance between eutherian females (XX) versus male (XY) and between a single active X versus autosome pairs (A). Expression ratio of X- and A-linked genes has been relatively well studied in humans and mice, despite controversial results over the existence of upregulation of X-linked genes. Here we report the first comprehensive test of Ohno’s hypothesis in bovine preattachment …

Methylome Dynamics Of Bovine Gametes And In Vivo Early Embryos, Jingyue Ellie Duan, Zongliang Carl Jiang, Fahad Alqahtani, Ion Mandoiu, Hong Dong, Xinbao Zheng, Sadie L. Marjani, Jingbo Chen, Xiuchun Cindy Tian

Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2019 Duan, Jiang, Alqahtani, Mandoiu, Dong, Zheng, Marjani, Chen and Tian. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. DNA methylation undergoes drastic fluctuation during early mammalian embryogenesis. The dynamics of global DNA methylation in bovine embryos, however, have …

Dosage Compensation And Gene Expression Of The X Chromosome In Sheep, Jingyue Duan, Kaleigh Flock, Nathanial Jue, Mingyuan Zhang, Amanda Jones, Sahar Al Seesi, Ion Mandoiu, Sambhu Pillai, Maria Hoffman, Rachel O'Neill, Steven Zinn, Kristen Govoni, Sarah Reed, Hesheng Jiang, Zongliang Jiang, Xiuchun Tian

Faculty Publications

© 2019 by the Genetics Society of America. Ohno's hypothesis predicts that the expression of the single X chromosome in males needs compensatory upregulation to balance its dosage with that of the diploid autosomes. Additionally, X chromosome inactivation ensures that quadruple expression of the two X chromosomes is avoided in females. These mechanisms have been actively studied in mice and humans but lag behind in domestic species. Using RNA sequencing data, we analyzed the X chromosome upregulation in sheep fetal tissues from day 135 of gestation under control, over or restricted maternal diets (100%, 140% and 60% of National Research …

Louisiana Agriculture Winter, 2019, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Normal Tissue Damage: Its Importance, History And Challenges For The Future, Jacqueline P. Williams, Wayne Newhauser

Faculty Publications

Sir Oliver Scott, a philanthropist and radiation biologist and, therefore, the epitome of a gentleman and a scholar, was an early Director of the BECC Radiobiology Research Unit at Mount Vernon. His tenure preceded that of Jack Fowler, with both contributing to basic, translational and clinical thought and application in radiation across the globe. With respect to this review, Fowler's name in particular has remained synonymous with the use of models, both animal and mathematical, that assess and quantify the biological mechanisms that underlie radiation-associated normal tissue toxicities. An understanding of these effects is critical to the optimal use of …

2019 Louisiana Summary: Agriculture And Natural Resources, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Summary: Agriculture and Natural Resources

This publication tabulates the value of Louisiana agriculture in 2019. Agents and specialists of the Louisiana Cooperative Extension Service, as well as other agencies — both private and public — compiled the data. Their analyses focus on the animal, forestry, fisheries, plant and wildlife commodities that constitute our vital agricultural industry. Agricultural and natural resource industries contribute significantly to our state's economy with the potential for increased economic benefits and job creation through value-added processing in urban and rural communities throughout Louisiana.

The 2019 growing and harvest season was a struggle for most producers. Wet conditions in the spring and …

Effects Of Lifestyle Intervention On Plasma Trimethylamine N-Oxide In Obese Adults, M L. Erickson, S K. Malin, Z N. Wang, J M. Brown, M L. Erickson, J P. Kirwan

Faculty Publications

Accumulating evidence linking trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk has prompted interest in developing therapeutic strategies to reduce its production. We compared two lifestyle intervention approaches: hypocaloric versus eucaloric diet, combined with exercise, on TMAO levels in relation to CVD risk factors. Sixteen obese adults (66.1 +/- 4.4 years, BMI (body mass index): 35.9 +/- 5.3 kg/m(2), fasting glucose: 106 +/- 16 mg/dL, 2-h PPG (postprandial glucose): 168 +/- 37 mg/dL) were randomly assigned to 12 weeks of exercise (5 days/week, 80-85% HRmax (maximal heart rate)) plus either a hypocaloric (HYPO) (-500 kcal) or a eucaloric (EU) diet. …

Ecogeographical Rules And The Macroecology Of Food Webs, Benjamin Baiser, Dominique Gravel, Alyssa R. Cirtwill, Jennifer A. Dunne, Ashkaan K. Fahimipour, Luis J. Gilarranz, Joshua A. Grochow, Daijiang Li, Neo D. Martinez, Alicia Mcgrew, Timothée Poisot, Tamara N. Romanuk, Daniel B. Stouffer, Lauren B. Trotta, Fernanda S. Valdovinos, Richard J. Williams, Spencer A. Wood, Justin D. Yeakel

Faculty Publications

© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Aim: How do factors such as space, time, climate and other ecological drivers influence food web structure and dynamics? Collections of well-studied food webs and replicate food webs from the same system that span biogeographical and ecological gradients now enable detailed, quantitative investigation of such questions and help integrate food web ecology and macroecology. Here, we integrate macroecology and food web ecology by focusing on how ecogeographical rules [the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), Bergmann's rule, the island rule and Rapoport's rule] are associated with the architecture of food webs. Location: Global. Time period: …

Population Expansion Of An Antarctic King Crab?, Michael E. Hellberg, Richard B. Aronson, Kathryn E. Smith, Mark I. Duhon, Shane T. Ahyong, Gustavo A. Lovrich, Sven Thatje, James B. Mcclintock

Faculty Publications

© 2019, the authors. Benthic assemblages of the Antarctic continental shelf are dominated by sessile and slow-moving, epifaunal invertebrates. This community structure persists because shell-crushing (durophagous) predators are absent or ecologically insignificant in shelf habitats. Durophagous teleosts, elasmobranchs, and crustaceans have been excluded by cold waters over the Antarctic shelf for millions of years. Now, as shallow waters warm rapidly, predatory king crabs (Lithodidae) living in the upper bathyal zone could emerge onto the shelf and into nearshore habitats. To assess the potential for a bathymetric expansion, we genetically inferred the historical demography of a population of the most abundant …

Role Of Type I Interferon (Ifn) In The Respiratory Syncytial Virus (Rsv) Immune Response And Disease Severity, Diego R. Hijano, Luan D. Vu, Lawrence M. Kauvar, Ralph A. Tripp, Fernando P. Polack, Stephania A. Cormier

Faculty Publications

© 2019 Hijano, Vu, Kauvar, Tripp, Polack and Cormier. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common cause of lower respiratory tract disease in children patients, such as premature infants, patients with cardiac …

Larval Pollen Stress Increases Adult Susceptibility To Clothianidin In Honey Bees, Christina L. Mogren, Robert G. Danka, Kristen B. Healy

Faculty Publications

Neonicotinoid insecticides have come under scrutiny for their potential role in honey bee declines. Additionally, reduced access to forage in agricultural areas creates the potential for risk interactions with these pesticides in regions critical for honey production. In this study, we sought to determine whether sufficient access to pollen during larval development could mitigate stress associated with oral clothianidin exposure in honey bee adults. An apiary was established where pollen traps deprived half of the colonies of pollen, which was then supplemented to the others. Adults were fed 0, 10, 40, 200, or 400 µg/L clothianidin in the laboratory, and …

Research At Cct (2019), Lsu Center For Computation And Technology

Components

No abstract provided.

Lsu General Catalog 2019-2020, Louisiana State University And Agricultural And Mechanical College

LSU General Catalog

The LSU General Catalog describes all undergraduate and graduate departments and programs with degree requirements and courses offered for each one. The LSU General Catalog includes information on registration and financial aid as well as academic services offered to all students.

Management Of Economically Important Insect Pests Of Millet, Ruparao T. Gahukar, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Tom Royer

Faculty Publications

Grain of various species of millet is a staple food of rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and China. In addition, millet is used as poultry and cattle feed in the United States, and the foliage is fodder for cattle in India. The crop is damaged by at least 150 insect pests during its growth and development. Although the current status of all of these pests is not known, shoot flies, stem borers, leaf-sucking, and the panicle-attacking insects are considered economically important. Control measures include the application of synthetic pesticides (as both seed treatment and foliar applications) and …

Using A Neonatal Model Of Recombinant Inbred Mice To Identify Quantitative Trait Loci Underlying Variation In Host Permissiveness To Hrsv Load, Scotty Alexander

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Contested Loyalty: Debates Over Patriotism In The Civil War North, Brian Matthew Jordan

Civil War Book Review

Editor Robert M. Sandow has assembled ten essays that demonstrate the complexities and rich interpretive possibilities of these questions. Contested Loyalty confirms that debates over appropriate wartime behavior reached well beyond the realm of politics, annexing “homes, city streets, places of work and worship, and onto college campuses” (1). No less significantly, this anthology reaches beyond the Midwest (owing to its reputation for shrill Copperheadism, it is the region most frequently associated with questions of loyalty) to consider how these contests played out in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Refreshingly, only one essay takes the Midwest as its principal focus.

Dosage Compensation Of The X Chromosomes In Bovine Germline, Early Embryos, And Somatic Tissues, Zongliang Jiang

Faculty Publications

Dosage compensation of the mammalian X chromosome (X) was proposed by Susumu Ohno as a mechanism wherein the inactivation of one X in females would lead to doubling the expression of the other. This would resolve the dosage imbalance between eutherian females (XX) versus male (XY) and between a single active X versus autosome pairs (A). Expression ratio of X- and A-linked genes has been relatively well studied in humans and mice, despite controversial results over the existence of upregulation of X-linked genes. Here we report the first comprehensive test of Ohno's hypothesis in bovine preattachment embryos, germline, and somatic …

Bottom-Up Trait-Mediated Indirect Effects Decrease Pathogen Transmission In A Tritrophic System, Bret D. Elderd

Faculty Publications

© 2018 by the Ecological Society of America A plant's induction of secondary defenses helps to decrease herbivore damage by changing resource quality. While these chemical or physical defenses may directly decrease herbivory, they can also have indirect consequences. In a tritrophic system consisting of a plant, an insect herbivore, and an insect pathogen, plant based trait-mediated indirect effects (TMIEs) can alter host–pathogen interactions and, thereby, indirectly affect disease transmission. In a series of field experiments, individual soybean plants (Glycine max) were sprayed with either a jasmonic acid (JA) solution to trigger induction of plant defenses or a similar control …

Diet Of Lesser Scaup Wintering On Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, Clay M. Stroud, Claire E. Caputo, Michael A. Poirrier, Kevin M. Ringelman

Faculty Publications

The lesser scaup Aythya affinis has been a species of conservation concern since continental breeding populations began declining in the 1980s. The causes of this decline are likely multifaceted, but cross-seasonal effects are believed to play a prominent role: females unable to acquire sufficient nutrient reserves during winter and spring migration have poor survival and breeding success. Understanding scaup diet composition and prey selection can help managers not only diagnose mechanisms underlying wintering scaup distributions, but may also help direct management actions to increase forage availability and quality. We evaluated the diet of 60 scaup collected from a major wintering …

Progesterone Alters The Bovine Uterine Fluid Lipidome During The Period Of Elongation, Constantine A. Simintiras, José M. Sánchez, Michael Mcdonald, Pat Lonergan

Faculty Publications

Successful bovine pregnancy establishment hinges on conceptus elongation, a key reproductive phenomenon coinciding with the period during which most pregnancies fail. Elongation is yet to be recapitulated in vitro, whereas in vivo it is directly driven by uterine secretions and indirectly influenced by prior circulating progesterone levels. To better understand the microenvironment evolved to facilitate this fundamental developmental event, uterine fluid was recovered on Days 12–14 of the oestrous cycle – the window of conceptus elongation initiation – from cycling heifers supplemented, or not, with progesterone. Subsequent lipidomic profiling of uterine luminal fluid by advanced high-throughput metabolomics revealed the consistent …

Aspects Of Embryo-Maternal Communication In Establishment Of Pregnancy In Cattle, José M. Sánchez, Constantine A. Simintiras, Patrick Lonergan

Faculty Publications

Establishment of pregnancy in mammals requires reciprocal molecular communication between the conceptus and endometrium that modifies the endometrial transcriptome and uterine luminal milieu to support pregnancy. Due to the small size of the early embryo and elongating conceptus relative to the volume of the uterine lumen, collection of endometrium adjacent to the developing conceptus is difficult following conventional uterine flushing methods in cattle. Use of endometrial explants in culture can overcome this challenge and reveal information about the dialogue between the developing embryo and the uterus. The aim of this short review is to summarize some of our recent findings …

Attachment Strength And On-Farm Die-Off Rate Of Escherichia Coli On Watermelon Surfaces, Vijay Singh Chhetri, Kathryn Fontenot, Ronald Strahan, Veerachandra K. Yemmireddy, Cameron Cason, Karuna Kharel, Achyut Adhikari

Faculty Publications

Pre-harvest contamination of produce has been a major food safety focus. Insight into the behavior of enteric pathogens on produce in pre-harvest conditions will aid in developing pre-harvest and post-harvest risk management strategies. In this study, the attachment strength (S R ) and die-off rate of E. coli on the surface of watermelon fruits and the efficacy of aqueous chlorine treatment against strongly attached E. coli population were investigated. Watermelon seedlings were transplanted into eighteen plots. Prior to harvesting, a cocktail of generic E. coli (ATCC 23716, 25922 and 11775) was inoculated on the surface of the watermelon fruits (n …

Food-Burying Behavior In Red Imported Fire Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Wenquan Qin, Xuan Chen, Linda M. Hooper-Bùi, Jiacheng Cai, Lei Wang, Zhaohui Sun, Xiujun Wen, Cai Wang

Faculty Publications

The food-burying behavior has been reported in many mammals and birds, but was rarely observed in invertebrates. The red imported fire ants, Solenopsis invicta Buren, is an invasive pest in many areas of the world that usually performing food-burying during the foraging processes. However, the impacted factors and measureable patterns of this behavior is largely unknown. In the present study, food-burying vs food-transport behaviors of Solenopsis invicta were observed under laboratory and field conditions. When starved (no food was provided for 37 days) in the laboratory, food (sausage) was consumed by large numbers of ants, and few burying behaviors were …

An Analysis Of The Effect Of Tooth Wear On Bovid Identification, Juliet K. Brophy, Gregory J. Matthews, George K. Thiruvathukal

Faculty Publications

Previous research provides a method for reducing the subjectivity in taxonomic identification of species in the family Bovidae by quantifying the occlusal surface of molar teeth using elliptical Fourier analysis. In this current study, we specifically test what effect medium to late tooth wear has on the identification of bovids when using the form (size and shape) of the occlusal surface to classify specimens. To achieve this, the classification results of teeth with ≥85% of their occlusal surface (training data set) were compared with the results of teeth with 87% of the time with both Alcelaphini and Reduncini classifying correctly …

A Strife Of Tongues: The Compromise Of 1850 And The Ideological Foundations Of The American Civil War, Joshua A. Lynn

Civil War Book Review

Antebellum politicians knew that words mattered. In 1856 Louisianan Judah P. Benjamin complained in the Senate that remarks made by antislavery colleague William H. Seward “will be spread through the machinery of the federal post office. It is printed in your [Congressional] Globe. It will be read, probably, by millions of people.” “No such faint voice as mine,” Benjamin whined, “can follow it to every village, to every hamlet, to every cottage to which it has spread.”The prospect of antislavery sentiment invading southern villages, hamlets, and cottages worried this slaveholding politician. Years after the Compromise of 1850 had supposedly achieved …

Recent Advances In Understanding The Terminal Ediacaran Earth-Life System In South China And Arctic Siberia, H. Cui, A. J. Kaufman, S. Xiao, D. V. Grazhdankin, S. Peek, A. J. Martin, N. V. Bykova, V. I. Rogov, X. M. Liu, F. Zhang, S. J. Romaniello, A. D. Anbar, Y. Peng, Y. Cai, J. D. Schiffbauer, M. Meyer, G. J. Gilleaudeau, R. E. Plummer, N. E. Sievers, S. Goderis, P. Claeys

Faculty Publications

Copyright: © 2019 CSIC. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial (by-nc) Spain 4.0 License. The terminal Ediacaran contains dramatic changes in biogeochemical cycles, many of which are closely coupled with evolutionary transitions in the corresponding fossil records. Dynamic redox conditions may have caused a profound impact on early animal evolution. Our work highlights the significance of integrated bio-, litho-, and chemo-stratigraphy in geobiology research of the deep time.

The Development Of A High-Throughput Screening Assay For Acetyl-Coa Carboxylase Using 1,3,6,8-Tetrahydroxynapthalene Synthase, Sarah Elayne Cohen

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

In Between Realms: The Search For Feminine Selfhood In The Essais Of Montaigne, Anna Suarez

Comparative Woman

My purpose is to explore factors of the Renaissance that determined women’s selfhood in Montaigne’s Essais. I argue that the shift into modernity is responsible for the loss of women’s autonomy as well as the anxiety experienced by men regarding their power as well as their potential. Montaigne and Renaissance discourse defines women only by their bodies (sexual organs) and I explore the elements that established biological essentialism. This paper exemplifies comparative literature in the sense that it combines literature, theory, and art for the purpose of creating a well-researched examination of the root causes for why women were …