Digital Commons Network^™

Comparative Life Histories Of Georgia And Virginia Cotton Rats, Bradley J. Bergstrom, Robert K. Rose

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Adult hispid cotton rats (Sigmodon hispidus) were collected from the field monthly for >2 years from populations near the northern edge of their range in Virginia and contemporaneously from south-central Georgia. Body measurements and weights were taken at capture, and after dissection embryos, corpora lutea, and placental scars were counted and measured; testes and seminal vesicles were dissected out, measured, and weighed. This allowed comparison of several life-history parameters between the populations and tests of several life-history hypotheses. The breeding season was up to 2 months longer in Georgia than in Virginia, where there was typically a 3-month …

Inter-Annual To Inter-Decadal Variability Of Upwelling And Anchovy Population Off Northern Chile, Jose L. Blanco-Garcia

OES Theses and Dissertations

The coastal ocean of northern Chile has persistent wind-driven upwelling that produces high nutrient and chlorophyll concentrations in a narrow band along the coast. The objective of this thesis is to study the low frequency temporal variability of the upwelling system, to understand the spatial and temporal changes in the wind field, and how these changes may affect the upwelling and anchovy variability. Data used in this thesis includes time series of wind, sea level, sea surface temperature, and atmospheric pressure at coastal stations, from 1960 to 2003, and oceanographic and acoustic cruises for the period 1993–2003. The time series …

An Investigation Of Dissolved Organic Matter In A Shallow Coastal Bay Subject To Aureococcus Anophagefferens Blooms, Jean-Paul Simjouw

OES Theses and Dissertations

Aureococcus anophagefferens, the pelagophyte responsible for brown tide blooms, was identified in Chincoteague Bay in 1997 and has “bloomed” there since at least 1998. Aureococcus anophagefferens is capable of using dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) substrates to support growth, and this utilization is hypothesized to give the organism a competitive advantage relative to other phytoplankton when inorganic nutrient concentrations are low or depleted. Because previous studies suggest dissolved organic matter (DOM) is important in initiating and sustaining brown tide blooms, a field study of the variations in DOC concentration and DOM composition was performed at …

Inner Shelf Circulation In Coastal Virginia: A Data Assimilation Approach, Hector Hito Sepulveda

OES Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this dissertation is to describe the tidal and subtidal flow patterns over the inner shelf of the Delmarva Peninsula, located in the Mid-Atlantic Bight of the United States (36.6–38.0 N), north of the Chesapeake Bay. The objective is pursued with a combination of direct measurements and numerical assimilative techniques. The dynamic balance of the study area is little known, and the distribution of tidal properties has not been described for this area since very rough descriptions in the 1950's. Hydrographic and current velocity profiles from four regional cruises in the inner shelf were used to study …

Status And Trends In Water Quality And Living Resources In The Virginia Chesapeake Bay: York River (1985-2002), Daniel M. Dauer, Harold G. Marshall, John R. Donat, Michael F. Lane, Suzanne Doughten, Frederick A. Hoffman

Status and Trends for Virginia Chesapeake Bay

The Virginia Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries continue to show some environmental trends indicating progress toward restoration of a more balanced and healthy ecosystem. However, the Bay system remains degraded and some areas and indicators show continuing degradation. Progress in reducing nutrient inputs has made demonstrable improvements and we expect that continued progress toward nutrient reduction goals, along with appropriate fisheries management and chemical contaminant controls, will result in additional improvements to the Bay. An overall summary of findings for the major VA Bay tributaries (i.e. James, York, and Rappahannock Rivers) is bulleted below while the remainder of this …

Status And Trends In Water Quality And Living Resources In The Virginia Chesapeake Bay: Rappahannock River (1985-2002), Daniel M. Dauer, Harold G. Marshall, John R. Donat, Michael F. Lane, Suzanne Doughten, Frederick A. Hoffman

Status and Trends for Virginia Chesapeake Bay

The Virginia Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries continue to show some environmental trends indicating progress toward restoration of a more balanced and healthy ecosystem. However, the Bay system remains degraded and some areas and indicators show continuing degradation. Progress in reducing nutrient inputs has made demonstrable improvements and we expect that continued progress toward nutrient reduction goals, along with appropriate fisheries management and chemical contaminant controls, will result in additional improvements to the Bay. An overall summary of findings for the major VA Bay tributaries (i.e. James, York and Rappahannock Rivers) is bulleted below while the remainder of this …

Status And Trends In Water Quality And Living Resources In The Virginia Chesapeake Bay: James River (1985-2002), Daniel M. Dauer, Harold G. Marshall, John R. Donat, Michael F. Lane, Suzanne C. Doughten, Frederick A. Hoffman

Status and Trends for Virginia Chesapeake Bay

The Virginia Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries continue to show some environmental trends indicating progress toward restoration of a more balanced and healthy ecosystem. However, the Bay system remains degraded and some areas and indicators show continuing degradation. Progress in reducing nutrient inputs has made demonstrable improvements and we expect that continued progress toward nutrient reduction goals, along with appropriate fisheries management and chemical contaminant controls, will result in additional improvements to the Bay. An overall summary of findings for the major VA Bay tributaries (i.e. James, York, and Rappahannock Rivers) is bulleted below while the remainder of this …

Benthic Biological Monitoring Program Of The Elizabeth River Watershed (2002), Daniel M. Dauer

Elizabeth River Reports

Executive Summary

A study of the macrobenthic communities of the Elizabeth River watershed was initiated in summer 1999. This report presents the data from the fourth year of sampling in 2002. The three objectives of the Benthic Biological Monitoring Program of the Elizabeth River watershed are: (1) To characterize the health of the tidal waters of the Elizabeth River watershed as indicated by the structure of the benthic communities. ( 2) To conduct trend analyses on long-term data at 14 fixed-point stations to relate temporal trends in the benthic communities to changes in water and/or sediment quality. Trend analyses will …

Decision Process For Identification Of Estuarine Benthic Impairments, Roberto J. Llansó, Jon H. Volstad, Daniel M. Dauer

Benthic Applications

To meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act, the States of Maryland and Virginia are in the process of developing biological criteria for evaluating estuarine waters. The Chesapeake Bay Benthic Index of Biotic Integrity (B-IBI) is the basis for these biological criteria. As an initial step, a Workgroup developed an interim framework for the application of the B-IBI to the States’ water quality inventory report (305b report) and list of impaired waters (303d list). The Workgroup included representatives of the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE), Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MDNR), Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), USEPA …

Adaptive Parallel Framework Algorithm (Apfa) For Environmental Engineering Applications, Lianghua Zhou

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This research proposes a new framework methodology for integrating environmental computer applications in flexible, open and adaptively and reusable manners so that the resulting application framework could be used to effectively, flexibly and rapidly handle various environmental problems and issues. Research also demonstrates the framework algorithm with a case study. The proposed algorithm is referred as Adaptive Parallel Framework Algorithm (APF A). Core concept of the APF A is based on a parallelism, "many-to-one" mode to communicate among environmental applications, and takes advantages of a loosely coupled technology that helps archiving the required flexibility, extensibility and usability of integrated systems. …

Feeding Responses Of Juvenile And Adult Streblospio Benedicti Webster (Spionidae) To Organic Chemicals Bound To Glass Microbeads, Heidi Kathryn Mahon

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Spionid polychaetes feed at the sediment-water interface using a pair of ciliated palps. Polychaetes select food particles based upon characteristics including size, texture, specific gravity and organic coatings. Juvenile and adult spionids have different stable isotopic carbon signals, indicating the potential to differentiate organic cues ontogenetically. In the present study, the feeding responses of juvenile and adult Streblospio benedicti Webster to seven organic coatings bound (five amino acids and two carbohydrates) to glass microbeads were tested. Juveniles and adults were highly selective for all seven types of organically coated beads. Juveniles were highly selective for threonine; whereas adults were highly …

A Body Of Her Own: Cultural Constructions Of The Female Body In A.S. Byatt's Strange Stories, Sabine Coelsch-Foisner

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Byatt's short fiction, from her first collection Sugar and Other Stories (1987) to Elementals (1998) is marked by a continuous preoccupation with the body: the body as the product of social signifying practices, the body as the site of desires, fears, and anxieties, the body as the source of experience, the body as creator and created. In brief, the body is treated as the centre of existence, consciousness and identity. Yet, these are constantly called into doubt in Byatt's stories, which depict heroines trapped between asserting their identity and submitting to cultural dictates of beauty and behavior. In …

Creating A Geographical Information System For Freshwater Crabs And Fishes In Greece, Eugene G. Maurakis, Walter R.T. Witschey, Panos S. Economidis, Dimitra Bobori

Virginia Journal of Science

A geographical information system (GIS) for freshwater crabs and fishes in Greece was created in response to the European Environmental Agency's (EEA) biodiversity initiative for European Union countries. A total of 1931 collections, made with seines, dipnets, and backpack electroshockers in 32 drainages of Greece, yielded 126 species of fishes and crabs in 2,359 data records including species, latitude, longitude, drainage, prefecture, and locality, 731 also include stream order, elevation, gradient, stream width and depth, pH, temperature, and distance to river mouth. Our GIS indicates current distributions of species, species rich and poor areas, anomalous species distributions, areas warranting further …

Jeffress Research Grant Awards, Virginia Journal Of Science

Virginia Journal of Science

Announcements of the Jeffress Research Grants that have been awarded in 2002.

Identification Key To Fishes In Fresh Waters Of Greece, Eugene G. Maurakis, Panos S. Economidis

Virginia Journal of Science

The European Environmental Agency formulated a biodiversity initiative in 1996 specifying a freshwater stream-monitoring program to inventory, identify and describe aquatic and terrestrial species in European Union countries. With one of the richest freshwater ichthyofaunas in Europe (126 fish taxa: 97 species and 29 subspecies of primary or secondary freshwater fishes), Greece has two extinct fish species, five listed as critically endangered, and 29 considered endangered and/or vulnerable. There are, however, no published identification guides that are available for identifying fish specimens from fresh waters in Greece. We present an English translation of the only available identification key (in Greek) …

On Nancy Ordover's American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, And The Science Of Nationalism, Markus Rheindorf

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Nancy Ordover's American Eugenics is a very personal book, not so much in terms of its content, but because of the convictions and a deep-felt sense of injustice that have inspired it. And while the author is straightforward in acknowledging her personal motivations, this is not to suggest that American Eugenics ever lapses into personal anecdote or polemic; far from it, the book is a serious and tightly argued attempt to grasp, in Ordover's words the resiliency of this often discredited but never dormant philosophy (xvi). In order to do this, Ordover goes on to argue in her …

Predicting Fish Species Diversity In Lotic Freshwaters Of Greece, Eugene G. Maurakis, David V. Grimes

Virginia Journal of Science

Objectives were to test the hypothesis that stream order and stream width alone account for species diversity in drainages of Greece, and to create a mathematical model that predicts fish diversity in small and medium sized freshwater streams in the southern Balkan Peninsula in accord with the stream classification system proposed by the European Environmental Agency (EEA). Thirty-seven species of fishes in 12 families (Petromyzontidae, Anguillidae, Cyprinidae, Moronidae, Centrarchidae, and Blenniidae) were collected in five stream orders (1-5) from 19 river drainages in Greece in 1993 and from 2000-2002. Numbers of species were significantly correlated with stream order (+), width …

Characterization Of Spy1600 A Putative Hyaluronidase Gene In Group A Streptococci, Karin M. Berling

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Group A Streptococci (GAS), also known as Streptococcus pyogenes, can cause a variety of human diseases ranging from asymptomatic to life threatening. Exactly how a single type of organism is able to inflict such a multitude of diseases remains to be fully understood. One possibility includes the large number of secreted virulence factors expressed by the organism. The recent sequencing of three streptococcal genomes has indicated the existence of several previously unknown genes, some of which may encode possible virulence factors. Among these is Spy1600, which based on its sequence similarities has been proposed to encode a hyaluronidase, a …

Brownian Dynamics Simulation Studies Of Ion Throughput During Cellular Electroporation, Juan A. Gonzalez-Cuevas

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the present research work is to analyze the flow of ions through pores formed in the plasma membrane of biological cells during electroporation. In this regard, simulations have been conducted to track the movement of ions in 3-D space based on a Brownian dynamics model, which is mostly deterministic but has some stochastic properties to account for ionic scattering. From the Brownian dynamics simulations, it has been possible to estimate the pore's conductance as well as transport parameters such as the diffusion coefficient and mobility within the pore region, of which there is no experimental data currently …

A Man's Home Is His Castle: A Look At The Relationship Between Fathers And Children In The Novels Of Jane Austen, Miranda M. Johnson-Parries

English Theses & Dissertations

In western society, the father is one of, if not the most, significant roles possible for a man. In the 18^th C bourgeois family, he was especially crucial. In the novels of Jane Austen, the father, even when absent, is a central figure: Dead fathers influence their children by their lack of planning and absence, while a physically present, but mentally distant father has much the same effect. I will analyze how seemingly peripheral male characters within Jane Austen's novels react to their stations in life and try to manipulate them in a similar way to Austen's much analyzed …

Parental Use Of Corporal Punishment As Related To Family Environment, Psychological Well-Being, And Personality In College Students, Corrine E. Leary

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The association between use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary technique and specific aspects of the family environment was examined through surveying undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes at Old Dominion University. Also investigated was the relationship between corporal punishment and certain affective and personality variables. The Conflict Tactics Scale CTSPC-CA was utilized to measure the level of corporal punishment experienced by all 274 participants. However, only those respondents with the 75 highest and 75 lowest corporal punishment scores were compared in statistical analyses. Results indicated a significant difference between the higher and lower corporal punishment groups on the variables …

Synthesis And Biological Evaluation Of Novel Capacitative Calcium Entry Blockers, Thadigiri Celina Mala

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Studies have shown that 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate (2-APB) inhibits thrombin-mediated influx of Ca^{2 +} through store-operated calcium channels in human platelets. Based on this molecule, two sets (boron analogues and the non-boron analogues) were synthesized and characterized by IR, NMR and CHN analysis and evaluated in human platelets to block thrombin-induced [Ca²⁺] elevation.

The synthesis of the non-boron compounds was performed in a simple one step process. According to the literature, some of these compounds were synthesized previously by a complicated two-step process.

All the compounds synthesized were tested for biological activity and the results showed that they …

Dissolved Humic Substances: Characterization Of Their Sorption Onto Iron Hydroxide Aluminum Hydroxide Kaolinite And Smectite, Sarah E. Diebel

OES Theses and Dissertations

Humic (HA) and fulvic (FA) acids participate in many geochemical processes and the mechanisms of their sorption to colloidal surfaces are numerous, indicating these substances are complex and heterogeneous. The current study focuses on the interactions of the Fe hydroxide (FE), Al hydroxide, Kaolinite (KA) and Smectite (SM) and these naturally occurring organic acids using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and DOC analysis at pH 4. FTIR was used for the initial functional group characterization, as well as the comparison of before and after adsorption spectra of the HA and FA. DOC examined the amounts of HA and FA adsorbed …

Characterization And Removal Of Tributyltin (Tbt) From Shipyard Washwasters Laboratory And Full-Scale Studies, Ram Prasad

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Tributyltin has long been used as a biocide in many consumer products to prevent biological growth and fouling. One of the persistent uses of tributyltin is as an antifouling agent in marine paints where its use prevents biological growths on hulls and greatly improves the fuel efficiency of ships. Due to observed adverse effects (tributyltin is an endocrine disrupter) on non-target organisms like shellfish, oysters and snails, the use of tributyltin in marine paints has been banned in many nations and its point source discharge is now regulated through the Virginia Permit Discharge Elimination System (VPDES) program (first state to …

Time Domain Dielectric Spectroscopy Analysis Of Hl-60 Cell Suspensions After Microsecond And Submicrosecond Pulsed Electric Fields, Allen Laurence Garner

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Pulsed electric fields (PEF's) above a certain voltage threshold cause electroporation for microsecond pulses and intracellular effects for submicrosecond pulses. Models describing these effects often depend on the electrical properties of the cell, which are altered by the PEF. Time domain dielectric spectroscopy was used to provide data for these models and to measure changes in the conductivity of HL-60 cell suspensions due to single 50 μs and 10 ns PEF's of the same energy. For 1.1 kV/cm, 50 μs pulses, the conductivity rose within a minute after the pulse and dropped dramatically approximately forty minutes after the pulse. For …

Virginia Junior Academy Of Science 2003 Award Winners, Virginia Journal Of Science

Virginia Journal of Science

Virginia Junior Academy of Science Awards for 2003, Presented at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, May 28, 2003.

New Fellow: Marion Blois Lobstein, Virginia Journal Of Science

Virginia Journal of Science

Marion Blois Lobstein has been named a Fellow of the Virginia Academy of Science.

Abstracts Of Papers, 81st Annual Meeting Of The Virginia Academy Of Science, May 27-30, 2003, University Of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia

Virginia Journal of Science

Abstracts of papers that were presented at the 81st Annual Meeting of the Virginia Academy of Science, May 27-30, 2003.

Sibling Death In Childhood: An Evaluation Of The Literature Regarding Inclusion Of Minority Cultures, 1990–2002, Joyce Kay L. Cherry

Community & Environmental Health Theses & Dissertations

This evaluation seeks to determine the extent to which the professional literature concerning bereaved children in the United States includes African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American children whose siblings have died in childhood.

A literature search identifies 58 articles, published between 1990 and 2002, concerning children under age 19 living in the United States whose siblings have died. Articles are sorted by time frame and classified by type. There are 31 descriptive articles consisting of five literature reviews, five commentaries, five case studies, and 16 narratives; there are 27 research articles. Analysis determines the extent to which race, culture, …

K+-Induced Smooth Muscle Calcium Sensitization Requires Rhoa Kinase (Rok) Translocation To Caveolae Which Is Inhibited In Non-Neuronal Cell Memory, Nicole Hairrell Urban

Theses and Dissertations in Biomedical Sciences

KC1 causes smooth muscle contraction by elevating intracellular free calcium ([Ca²⁺]i₎, while receptor stimulation activates an additional mechanism termed Ca²⁺- sensitization that can involve activation of ROK and PKC. However, recent studies support the hypothesis that KC1 may also increase Ca²⁺-sensitivity (36). Our data showed that the PKC inhibitor, GF-109203X, did not, while the ROK inhibitor, Y-27632, did inhibit KCl-induced tonic (5’) force and myosin light chain (MLC) phosphorylation in rabbit artery. Y-27632 also inhibited Bay K-8644- and ionomycin-induced MLC phosphorylation and force, but did not inhibit KCl-induced calcium entry or peak …