Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Louisiana State University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 2221 - 2250 of 9751

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Lsu Research Fall 2018, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College Oct 2018

Lsu Research Fall 2018, Louisiana State University And Agricultural & Mechanical College

Research Magazine

LSU Research is published annually by the Office of Research & Economic Development, Louisiana State University.


Louisiana Agriculture Fall, 2018, Lsu Agcenter Oct 2018

Louisiana Agriculture Fall, 2018, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.


Louisiana Agriculture Fall, 2018, Lsu Agcenter Oct 2018

Louisiana Agriculture Fall, 2018, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.


Community Phylogeny Of The Globally Critically Imperiled Pine Rockland Ecosystem, Lauren B. Trotta, Benjamin Baiser, Jennifer Possley, Daijiang Li, James Lange, Sarah Martin, Emily B. Sessa Oct 2018

Community Phylogeny Of The Globally Critically Imperiled Pine Rockland Ecosystem, Lauren B. Trotta, Benjamin Baiser, Jennifer Possley, Daijiang Li, James Lange, Sarah Martin, Emily B. Sessa

Faculty Publications

© 2018 Botanical Society of America Premise of the Study: Community phylogenetic methods incorporate information on evolutionary relationships into studies of organismal assemblages. We used a community phylogenetic framework to investigate relationships and biogeographic affinities and to calculate phylogenetic signal of endemism and invasiveness for the flora of the pine rocklands—a globally critically imperiled ecosystem with a significant portion of its distribution in South Florida, United States. Methods: We reconstructed phylogenetic relationships of 538 vascular plant taxa, which represent 92.28% of the vascular flora of the pine rocklands. We estimated phylogenetic signal for endemism and invasiveness using phylogenetic generalized linear …


Trans-Allelic Mutational Effects At The Peg3 Imprinted Locus, Corey L. Bretz, Joomyeong Kim Oct 2018

Trans-Allelic Mutational Effects At The Peg3 Imprinted Locus, Corey L. Bretz, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

© 2018 Bretz, Kim. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. How one allele interacts with the other for the function of a gene is not well understood. In this study, we tested potential allelic interaction at the Peg3 imprinted locus with several mutant alleles targeting an Imprinting Control Region, the Peg3-DMR. According to the results, maternal deletion of the Peg3-DMR resulted in 2-fold up-regulation of two paternally expressed genes, Peg3 and Usp29. …


The Underdevelopment Of Foucauldian Subjectivity And Freedom, Matthew Koshak Oct 2018

The Underdevelopment Of Foucauldian Subjectivity And Freedom, Matthew Koshak

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.


Fall 2018 Catalog, Lsu Press Oct 2018

Fall 2018 Catalog, Lsu Press

LSU Press Seasonal Catalogs

No abstract provided.


Design And Cost Analysis Of A Self-Contained Mobile Laboratory For Commercial-Scale Aquatic Species Cryopreservation, William M. Childress, Rex H. Caffey, Terrence R. Tiersch Oct 2018

Design And Cost Analysis Of A Self-Contained Mobile Laboratory For Commercial-Scale Aquatic Species Cryopreservation, William M. Childress, Rex H. Caffey, Terrence R. Tiersch

Faculty Publications

© Copyright by the World Aquaculture Society 2018 Although aquatic species cryopreservation protocols have been studied around the world over the past 60 yr., germplasm repository development efforts and commercialization have begun only recently. The goal of this project was to develop a self-contained mobile laboratory for on-site high-throughput cryopreservation of aquatic species. The objectives of this study were to: (1) identify how a mobile laboratory would function in different operational scenarios, (2) customize an enclosed cargo trailer to function as a mobile laboratory, (3) evaluate the laboratory layout and ability of cryopreservation equipment to operate from generator power, and …


Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 20, 2018, Faculty Senate Sep 2018

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 20, 2018, Faculty Senate

LSU Faculty Senate Publications

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes September 20, 2018


Using Improvisation To Increase Students' Self-Efficacy, Oral Proficiency, And Learning Satisfaction In Second Language Learning, Margaret Weston Piccoli Sep 2018

Using Improvisation To Increase Students' Self-Efficacy, Oral Proficiency, And Learning Satisfaction In Second Language Learning, Margaret Weston Piccoli

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Second Language teachers are challenged to consistently create communicative and meaningful activities while maintaining a low-anxiety classroom for language acquisition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of the theatrical technique of improvisation and to understand if the technique improved students’ self-efficacy, oral proficiency, and learning satisfaction. This mixed method study was conducted with an experimental group (n = 10) and a control group (n = 3) at an English language program on a university campus through convenience sampling. Qualitative data were collected through class observations, student interviews, student journals, and video observations and three quantitative pre …


Quality Of United States And Bangladesh Shrimp Due To Growth And Post-Harvest Practices, Murshida Khan Sep 2018

Quality Of United States And Bangladesh Shrimp Due To Growth And Post-Harvest Practices, Murshida Khan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Shrimp is one of the most consumed and traded seafood, and due to its high demand, consumers depend on both wild caught and farmed products. Post-harvest practices can greatly affect health, safety, and quality, and the goal of this project was to study the effects of chemicals, bacteria, and antibiotics on shrimp from Louisiana and Bangladesh. Quality changes (proximate composition, color, texture and total plate count of bacteria) in shrimp from Louisiana (Farfantepenaeus aztecus and Litopenaeus setiferus) and Bangladesh (Penaeus monodon and Macrobrachium rosenbergii) were determined due to the application of melanosis preventing compounds (sulfite powder, …


The 'Happiest' Corner Of London: Bethnal Green, 1550-1945, Audrey Lynne Gray Sep 2018

The 'Happiest' Corner Of London: Bethnal Green, 1550-1945, Audrey Lynne Gray

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

How is a cultural identity created, defined, and used? In this study, I have traced Bethnal Green’s cultural identity in the period between 1550 and1945. It was a cultural identity defined by poverty, but also by hope; residents were poor but scrappy, able to make do with the worst of circumstances. That cultural identity defined the area to outsiders; it was also embraced by the residents. Following the area’s path from an idyllic and genteel area to an overcrowded slum, I have traced the experience of poverty, and the development and impact of poverty relief, from the perspective of both …


Comparison Of Thermally Actuated Retro-Diels-Alder Release Groups For Nanoparticle Based Nucleic Acid Delivery, Mohammad Abu-Laban, Raju R. Kumal, Jonathan Casey, Jeff Becca, Daniel Lamaster, Carlos N. Pacheco, Dan G. Sykes, Lasse Jensen, Louis H. Haber, Daniel J. Hayes Sep 2018

Comparison Of Thermally Actuated Retro-Diels-Alder Release Groups For Nanoparticle Based Nucleic Acid Delivery, Mohammad Abu-Laban, Raju R. Kumal, Jonathan Casey, Jeff Becca, Daniel Lamaster, Carlos N. Pacheco, Dan G. Sykes, Lasse Jensen, Louis H. Haber, Daniel J. Hayes

Faculty Publications

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. The present study explores alternate pericyclic chemistries for tethering amine-terminal biomolecules onto silver nanoparticles. Employing the versatile tool of the retro-Diels-Alder (rDA) reaction, three thermally-labile cycloadducts are constructed that cleave at variable temperature ranges. While the reaction between furan and maleimide has widely been reported, the current study also evaluates the reverse reaction kinetics between thiophene-maleimide, and pyrrole-maleimide cycloadducts. Density Functional Theorem (DFT) calculations used to model and plan the experiments, predict energy barriers for the thiophene-maleimide reverse reaction to be greatest, and the pyrrole-maleimide barriers the lowest. Based on the computational analyses, it is projected …


Edwardsiella Ictaluri Type Iii Secretion System (T3ss) Effector Esen Is A Phosphothreonine Lyase That Inactivates Erk1/2, Lidiya P. Dubytska, Ronald L. Thune Sep 2018

Edwardsiella Ictaluri Type Iii Secretion System (T3ss) Effector Esen Is A Phosphothreonine Lyase That Inactivates Erk1/2, Lidiya P. Dubytska, Ronald L. Thune

Faculty Publications

© The authors 2018. EseN is a type III secretion system (T3SS) effector that is encoded on the Edwardsiella ictaluri chromosome and is homologous to a family of T3SS effector proteins with phosphothreonine lyase (PTL) activity, including OspF from Shigella and SpvC from Salmonella. A yeast-2-hybrid system was used to identify the major vault protein (MVP) as a specific host-cell binding partner for EseN, and the proximity ligation assay (PLA) confirmed the interaction. Similar to other pathogens, E. ictaluri invasion activates extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) early in the infection, which are subsequently inactivated by EseN. Structurally, EseN …


Managing The Risks And Rewards Of Death In Eusocial Insects, Qian Sun, Kenneth F. Haynes, Xuguo Zhou Sep 2018

Managing The Risks And Rewards Of Death In Eusocial Insects, Qian Sun, Kenneth F. Haynes, Xuguo Zhou

Faculty Publications

Eusocial insects frequently face death of colony members as a consequence of living in large groups where the success of the colony is not dependent on the fate of the individual. Whereas death of conspecifics commonly triggers aversion in many group-living species due to risk of pathogens, eusocial insects perform cooperative corpse management. The causes and social context of the death, as well as feeding and nesting ecology of the species, influence the way that corpses are treated. The corpse itself releases cues that dictate the colony's response. As a result, social insects exhibit behavioural responses that promote disease resistance, …


Transgene-Assisted Genetic Screen Identifies Rsd-6 And Novel Genes As Key Components Of Antiviral Rna Interference In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Tianyun Long, Fei Meng, Rui Lu Sep 2018

Transgene-Assisted Genetic Screen Identifies Rsd-6 And Novel Genes As Key Components Of Antiviral Rna Interference In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Tianyun Long, Fei Meng, Rui Lu

Faculty Publications

© 2018 American Society for Microbiology. RNA interference (RNAi) is a widespread antiviral mechanism triggered by virus-produced double-stranded RNAs (dsRNAs). In Caenorhabditis elegans, antiviral RNAi involves a RIG-I-like RNA helicase, termed DRH-1 (dicer related RNA helicase 1), that is not required for classical RNAi triggered by artificial dsRNA. Currently, whether antiviral RNAi in C. elegans involves novel factors that are dispensable for classical RNAi remains an open question. To address this question, we designed and carried out a genetic screen that aims to identify novel genes involved in worm antiviral RNAi. By introducing extra copies of known antiviral RNAi genes …


Gene Regulation By Redox-Sensitive Burkholderia Thailandensis Ohrr And Its Role In Bacterial Killing Of Caenorhabditis Elegans, Anuja Pande, Todd C. Veale, Anne Grove Sep 2018

Gene Regulation By Redox-Sensitive Burkholderia Thailandensis Ohrr And Its Role In Bacterial Killing Of Caenorhabditis Elegans, Anuja Pande, Todd C. Veale, Anne Grove

Faculty Publications

© 2018 American Society for Microbiology. Fatty acid hydroperoxides are involved in host-pathogen interactions. In both plants and mammals, polyunsaturated fatty acids are liberated during infection and enzymatically oxidized to the corresponding toxic hydroperoxides during the defensive oxidative burst that is designed to thwart the infection. The bacterial transcription factor OhrR (organic hydroperoxide reductase regulator) is oxidized by organic hydroperoxides, as a result of which the ohr gene encoding organic hydroperoxide reductase is induced. This enzyme converts the hydroperoxides to less toxic alcohols. We show here that OhrR from Burkholderia thailandensis represses expression of ohr. Gene expression is induced by …


Circular Rna Identified From Peg3 And Igf2r, Bambarendage P.U. Perera, Subash Ghimire, Joomyeong Kim Sep 2018

Circular Rna Identified From Peg3 And Igf2r, Bambarendage P.U. Perera, Subash Ghimire, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

Copyright: © 2018 Perera et al. Circular RNA is a newly discovered class of non-coding RNA generated through the back-splicing of linear pre-mRNA. In the current study, we characterized two circular RNAs that had been identified through NGS-based 5'RACE experiments. According to the results, the Peg3 locus contains a 214-nucleotide-long circular RNA, circPeg3, that is detected in low abundance from the neonatal brain, lung and ovary. In contrast, the Igf2r locus contains a group of highly abundant circular RNAs, circIgf2r, showing multiple forms with various exon combinations. In both cases, the expression patterns of circPeg3 and circIgf2r among individual tissues …


4c-Seq Characterization Of Drosophila Beaf Binding Regions Provides Evidence For Highly Variable Long-Distance Interactions Between Active Chromatin, Shraddha Shrestha, Dong Ha Oh, J. Keller Mckowen, Maheshi Dassanayake, Craig M. Hart Sep 2018

4c-Seq Characterization Of Drosophila Beaf Binding Regions Provides Evidence For Highly Variable Long-Distance Interactions Between Active Chromatin, Shraddha Shrestha, Dong Ha Oh, J. Keller Mckowen, Maheshi Dassanayake, Craig M. Hart

Faculty Publications

© 2018 Shrestha et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Chromatin organization is crucial for nuclear functions such as gene regulation, DNA replication and DNA repair. Insulator binding proteins, such as the Drosophila Boundary Element-Associated Factor (BEAF), are involved in chromatin organization. To further understand the role of BEAF, we detected cis-and trans-interaction partners of four BEAF binding regions (viewpoints) using 4C (circular chromosome conformation capture) and analyzed their association with …


Adipose Tissue Dysfunction Occurs Independently Of Obesity In Adipocyte-Specific Oncostatin Receptor Knockout Mice, Jacqueline M. Stephens, Jennifer L. Bailey, Hardy Hang, Victoria Rittell, Marilyn A. Dietrich, Randall L. Mynatt, Carrie M. Elks Sep 2018

Adipose Tissue Dysfunction Occurs Independently Of Obesity In Adipocyte-Specific Oncostatin Receptor Knockout Mice, Jacqueline M. Stephens, Jennifer L. Bailey, Hardy Hang, Victoria Rittell, Marilyn A. Dietrich, Randall L. Mynatt, Carrie M. Elks

Faculty Publications

© 2018 The Obesity Society Objective: This study examined the phenotypic effects of adipocyte-specific oncostatin M receptor (OSMR) loss in chow-fed mice. Methods: Chow-fed adipocyte-specific OSMR knockout (FKO) mice and littermate OSMRfl/fl controls were studied. Tissue weights, insulin sensitivity, adipokine production, and stromal cell immunophenotypes were assessed in epididymal fat (eWAT); serum adipokine production was also assessed. In vitro, adipocytes were treated with oncostatin M, and adipokine gene expression was assessed. Results: Body weights, fasting blood glucose levels, and eWAT weights did not differ between genotypes. However, the eWAT of OSMRFKO mice was modestly less responsive to insulin stimulation than …


Variation Across Mitochondrial Gene Trees Provides Evidence For Systematic Error: How Much Gene Tree Variation Is Biological?, E J. Richards, J M. Brown, A J. Barley, R A. Chong, E J. Richards Sep 2018

Variation Across Mitochondrial Gene Trees Provides Evidence For Systematic Error: How Much Gene Tree Variation Is Biological?, E J. Richards, J M. Brown, A J. Barley, R A. Chong, E J. Richards

Faculty Publications

The use of large genomic data sets in phylogenetics has highlighted extensive topological variation across genes. Much of this discordance is assumed to result from biological processes. However, variation among gene trees can also be a consequence of systematic error driven by poor model fit, and the relative importance of biological vs. methodological factors in explaining gene tree variation is a major unresolved question. Using mitochondrial genomes to control for biological causes of gene tree variation, we estimate the extent of gene tree discordance driven by systematic error and employ posterior prediction to highlight the role of model fit in …


Variation Across Mitochondrial Gene Trees Provides Evidence For Systematic Error: How Much Gene Tree Variation Is Biological?, E J. Richards, J M. Brown, A J. Barley, R A. Chong, E J. Richards Sep 2018

Variation Across Mitochondrial Gene Trees Provides Evidence For Systematic Error: How Much Gene Tree Variation Is Biological?, E J. Richards, J M. Brown, A J. Barley, R A. Chong, E J. Richards

Faculty Publications

The use of large genomic data sets in phylogenetics has highlighted extensive topological variation across genes. Much of this discordance is assumed to result from biological processes. However, variation among gene trees can also be a consequence of systematic error driven by poor model fit, and the relative importance of biological vs. methodological factors in explaining gene tree variation is a major unresolved question. Using mitochondrial genomes to control for biological causes of gene tree variation, we estimate the extent of gene tree discordance driven by systematic error and employ posterior prediction to highlight the role of model fit in …


An Overview Of Extant Conifer Evolution From The Perspective Of The Fossil Record, Andrew B. Leslie, Jeremy Beaulieu, Garth Holman, Christopher S. Campbell, Wenbin Mei, Linda R. Raubeson, Sarah Mathews Sep 2018

An Overview Of Extant Conifer Evolution From The Perspective Of The Fossil Record, Andrew B. Leslie, Jeremy Beaulieu, Garth Holman, Christopher S. Campbell, Wenbin Mei, Linda R. Raubeson, Sarah Mathews

Faculty Publications

© 2018 Botanical Society of America Premise of the Study: Conifers are an important living seed plant lineage with an extensive fossil record spanning more than 300 million years. The group therefore provides an excellent opportunity to explore congruence and conflict between dated molecular phylogenies and the fossil record. Methods: We surveyed the current state of knowledge in conifer phylogenetics to present a new time-calibrated molecular tree that samples ~90% of extant species diversity. We compared phylogenetic relationships and estimated divergence ages in this new phylogeny with the paleobotanical record, focusing on clades that are species-rich and well known from …


New Mouse Model Of Pulmonary Hypertension Induced By Respiratory Syncytial Virus Bronchiolitis, Dai Kimura, Jordy Saravia, Sridhar Jaligama, Isabella Mcnamara, Luan D. Vu, Ryan D. Sullivan, Salvatore Mancarella, Dahui You, Stephania A. Cormier Sep 2018

New Mouse Model Of Pulmonary Hypertension Induced By Respiratory Syncytial Virus Bronchiolitis, Dai Kimura, Jordy Saravia, Sridhar Jaligama, Isabella Mcnamara, Luan D. Vu, Ryan D. Sullivan, Salvatore Mancarella, Dahui You, Stephania A. Cormier

Faculty Publications

© 2018 American Physiological Society. All rights reserved. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) has been observed in up to 75% of infants with moderate to severe respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) bronchiolitis and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality in infants with congenital heart disease. The purpose of the present study was to establish a mouse model of PH secondary to RSV bronchiolitis that mimics the disease etiology as it occurs in infants. Neonatal mice were infected with RSV at 5 days of age and then reinfected 4 wk later. Serum-free medium was administered to age-matched mice as a control. Echocardiography and …


Dispersal Records Of The Sugarcane Aphid, Melanaphis Sacchari (Zehntner) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), Through The Midwest Suction Trap Network, Doris Lagos-Kutz, David Voegtlin, Jeffrey Davis, Glen Hartman Sep 2018

Dispersal Records Of The Sugarcane Aphid, Melanaphis Sacchari (Zehntner) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), Through The Midwest Suction Trap Network, Doris Lagos-Kutz, David Voegtlin, Jeffrey Davis, Glen Hartman

Faculty Publications

Summary Melanaphis sacchari (Zehntner) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), the sugarcane aphid, is an invasive species in the United States. This species is a threat to crops of economic importance including sorghum and sugar cane. Therefore, monitoring dispersal of this pest is necessary to document its geographic expansion. Based on trap catches obtained from the Midwest Suction Trap Network during 2015 to 2017, sugarcane aphids arrived late in the growing season as far as northern Wisconsin. We will continue to monitor the dispersal of this aphid species through the Midwest Suction Trap Network in order to provide information to researchers, extension agents, and …


Production Of Live Young With Cryopreserved Sperm From The Endangered Livebearing Fish Redtail Splitfin (Xenotoca Eiseni, Rutter, 1896), Yue Liu, Harry Grier, Terrence R. Tiersch Sep 2018

Production Of Live Young With Cryopreserved Sperm From The Endangered Livebearing Fish Redtail Splitfin (Xenotoca Eiseni, Rutter, 1896), Yue Liu, Harry Grier, Terrence R. Tiersch

Faculty Publications

Previous studies of sperm cryopreservation of livebearing fish have been limited to two genera within the family Poeciliidae. The goal of the present study was to investigate the feasibility to produce live young of livebearing goodeids (family Goodeidae) with cryopreserved sperm, using aquarium-trade populations of the endangered species Redtail Splitfin (Xenotoca eiseni, Rutter, 1896). Reproductive condition of females was evaluated by histological categorization of ovarian development. A total of 117 females were inseminated with cryopreserved sperm, 81 were inseminated with fresh sperm, 27 were mixed with males for natural breeding, and 30 were maintained without males or insemination. Histological images …


Isolation By Marine Barriers And Climate Explain Areas Of Endemism In An Island Rodent, Thomas C. Giarla, Sean P. Maher, Anang S. Achmadi, Meagan K. Moore, Mark T. Swanson, Kevin C. Rowe, Jacob A. Esselstyn Sep 2018

Isolation By Marine Barriers And Climate Explain Areas Of Endemism In An Island Rodent, Thomas C. Giarla, Sean P. Maher, Anang S. Achmadi, Meagan K. Moore, Mark T. Swanson, Kevin C. Rowe, Jacob A. Esselstyn

Faculty Publications

Aim: The Indonesian island of Sulawesi is home to thousands of endemic terrestrial animal species. Phylogeographical studies of some of these taxa revealed concordant distribution patterns (areas of endemism; AoEs), suggestive of a shared evolutionary or ecological mechanism driving divergence among various terrestrial taxa. Generally, AoEs have been attributed to Pleistocene marine incursions, geological fault zones and Sulawesi's history as an archipelago. We test, for the first time, the hypothesis that population divergences are associated with unsuitable climate spaces at the boundaries between these areas. Location: Sulawesi, Indonesia. Taxon: Maxomys musschenbroekii, a common murid rodent endemic to Sulawesi. Methods: We …


Ants Alter Molecular Characteristics Of Soil Organic Carbon Determined By Pyrolysis-Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry, Zhongsheng Zhang, Zhuo Wei, Jim Jian Wang, Ran Xiao, Yili Meng, Haitao Wu, Xianguo Lyu Sep 2018

Ants Alter Molecular Characteristics Of Soil Organic Carbon Determined By Pyrolysis-Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry, Zhongsheng Zhang, Zhuo Wei, Jim Jian Wang, Ran Xiao, Yili Meng, Haitao Wu, Xianguo Lyu

Faculty Publications

Colonization by ecosystem engineers, such as ants, have important but occasionally unnoticed roles in regulating soil carbon cycles. However, little information is available pertaining to ant effects on changing molecular features of soil organic matter. In this study, we characterized total soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen, water extractable organic carbon (WEOC) as well as molecular characteristics of humic acids (HAs) of ant mound soils (SoilAnt) and the surrounding soils (SoilCon) using pyrolysis-chromatography/mass (py-GC/MS). SOC, total nitrogen and WEOC contents of SoilAnt were significantly lower than those of SoilCon. SoilAnt samples had significant higher nitrogen containing compounds proportions in pyrolysis …


Bgge: A New Package For Genomic-Enabled Prediction Incorporating Genotype × Environment Interaction Models, Italo Granato, Jaime Cuevas, Francisco Luna-Vázquez, Jose Crossa, Osval Montesinos-López, Juan Burgueño, Roberto Fritsche-Neto Sep 2018

Bgge: A New Package For Genomic-Enabled Prediction Incorporating Genotype × Environment Interaction Models, Italo Granato, Jaime Cuevas, Francisco Luna-Vázquez, Jose Crossa, Osval Montesinos-López, Juan Burgueño, Roberto Fritsche-Neto

Faculty Publications

One of the major issues in plant breeding is the occurrence of genotype × environment (GE) interaction. Several models have been created to understand this phenomenon and explore it. In the genomic era, several models were employed to improve selection by using markers and account for GE interaction simultaneously. Some of these models use special genetic covariance matrices. In addition, the scale of multi-environment trials is getting larger, and this increases the computational challenges. In this context, we propose an R package that, in general, allows building GE genomic covariance matrices and fitting linear mixed models, in particular, to a …


The (B)Link Between Amotivation And Dopamine In Psychosis: What Phasic Eye Blink Rate Reveals, Jessica Elaina Mcgovern Aug 2018

The (B)Link Between Amotivation And Dopamine In Psychosis: What Phasic Eye Blink Rate Reveals, Jessica Elaina Mcgovern

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Motivation deficits (i.e., avolition or amotivation) are a cardinal feature of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs) and are linked to worse functional outcomes. Accumulating evidence implicates underactive dopamine responses in reward areas of the brain (e.g., striatum) in the etiology of amotivation. Phasic dopamine firing in the striatum purportedly has a role in increasing the perceived value of a potential reward that, in effect, helps “push” the organism toward initiating and persisting in the action to pursue rewards. Previous research has suggested that eye blink rate (EBR) may be a reliable and valid index of striatal dopamine. Amotivation (clinician-rated and self-reported) …