Digital Commons Network^™

Myoglobin Post-Translational Modifications And Fresh Beef Color Stability, Yifei Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

Surface color of fresh beef is the major trait influencing consumers’ purchase decisions. Fresh beef color is determined by the myoglobin (Mb) redox stability. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play a critical role in regulating Mb structure and functionality. This thesis focuses on the PTMs in Mb and their impact on fresh beef color stability.

In the first experiment, Mb PTMs in beef longissimus lumborum (LL) muscle during postmortem aging and their influence on fresh beef color stability were examined. Beef LL muscle from nine (n = 9) beef carcasses (24 h postmortem) were subjected to wet-aging for 0, 7, 14 …

Mast Cells As Novel Effector Cells In The Pathogenesis Of Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease, Ethan Strattan

Theses and Dissertations--Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is most commonly a treatment for inborn defects of hematopoiesis or acute leukemias. Widespread use of HSCT, a potentially curative therapy, is hampered by onset of graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD), a condition wherein the donor cells recognize the patient tissues as non-self. GVHD can manifest anywhere from weeks to decades post-transplant and is classified as either acute or chronic GVHD, both of which are significant causes of transplant-related morbidity and mortality.

However, GVHD is a complex, multifactorial, and enigmatic disease. The factors driving GVHD at the cellular and molecular level are incompletely understood. Immunosuppression targeting T-cells has …

“Innocent Bystanders”: White Guilt And The Destruction Of Native Americans In Us Literature, 1824-1830, Noor Al-Attar

Theses and Dissertations--English

Stereotypes describing the Native Peoples as lacking in many attributes such as religion, civilization, self-control, and even family bonds originated in the early years of contact, popularized through captivity narratives, and used in nineteenth century writings to justify the “vanishing” of the Native people. My dissertation adds to the discussion of myth of the Vanishing American by focusing on overlooked representations of Native illness. Illness, a shared human experience, was preserved for white characters in white authors’ writings. Ailing Native peoples were either denied any stories narrating this experience of human vulnerability or were depicted as resorting to superstitious and …

Measuring Postsecondary Students’ Sense Of Belonging: Psychometric Investigations Into Student Demographics And Course Delivery Contexts, John Eric M. Novosel-Lingat

Theses and Dissertations--Educational, School, and Counseling Psychology

Research suggests sense of belonging in academic contexts influences student academic outcomes and well-being. Instruments (i.e., surveys, questionnaires) developed to measure sense of belonging mainly focus on the experience of students in middle grades. Few instruments measure sense of belonging experienced by postsecondary students, despite many colleges and universities seeking to improve retention, persistence, and graduation by addressing this complex construct. Furthermore, the rapid growth of online courses necessitates and presents an opportunity to employ psychometric investigations to explore the sense of belonging experienced by both face-to-face and online students. The first of the two studies conducted for this dissertation …

Better Devils Of Our Nature: The Role Of Violence-Justifying Ideologies In Opinion Formation, Steven Kaiser

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

Extensive theoretical and empirical research has examined the role that violence-justifying ideologies play in generating violent behavior. Yet, a substantial body of this work employs measures that are consistently associated with sexist attitudes and gender stereotypes. As a consequence, scholars are limited in our ability to fully comprehend individuals’ propensity to endorse, or even promote violent behavior – or how these attitudes influence perceptions of victims and related policy preferences.

I contribute to this line of research by creating a gender-neutral battery of anti-violence questions, in large part divorced from sexist stereotypes, to assess the consequence of those attitudes for …

From Hobbes To Habermas: The Anti-Cultural Turn In Western Political Thought, Ralph Gert Schoellhammer

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

The theme of this dissertation is the anti-cultural turn of Western Political Thought that has emerged out of Enlightenment thinking and was first turned into a comprehensive political idea by Thomas Hobbes.

Beginning with an overview of psychological research into the phenomenon of culture I put forward the argument that human beings are by nature social and individualistic, but that they oscillate between their ability to put group-interests before individual interests and vice versa. Culture is the main mechanism that influences which interest we give priority. This mechanism work through emotional attachments that create intuitions about what is morally right …

Judicial Elections, Public Opinion, And Their Impact On State Criminal Justice Policy, Travis N. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations--Political Science

This dissertation explores whether and how the re-election prospects faced by trial court judges in many American states influence criminal justice policy, specifically, state levels of incarceration, as well as the disparity in rates of incarceration for Whites and Blacks. Do states where trial court judges must worry about facing reelection tend to encourage judicial behavior that results in higher incarceration rates? And are levels of incarceration and racial disparities in the states influenced by the proportion of the state publics who want more punitive policies? These are clearly important questions because they speak directly to several normative and empirical …

Three Perspectives On Innovation In European Agriculture: From Public Research To The Circular Economy, Michele Vollaro

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

The dissertation examines the idea that current and future challenges faced by the European agricultural sector call for a multidimensional approach combining the classical path of productivity growth with more stringent commitments to environmental protection, and more incisive mitigation and adaptation actions to mitigate climate change, all within a policy context of a transition toward the cyclical management of resources (inputs, outputs and wastes) inspired by the circular economy concept. The three essays of the dissertation aim to show: that agricultural productivity in Europe is supported by complementarities between public and private investments in agricultural research with remarkable results in …

Fault Identification On Electrical Transmission Lines Using Artificial Neural Networks, Christopher W. Asbery

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Transmission lines are designed to transport large amounts of electrical power from the point of generation to the point of consumption. Since transmission lines are built to span over long distances, they are frequently exposed to many different situations that can cause abnormal conditions known as electrical faults. Electrical faults, when isolated, can cripple the transmission system as power flows are directed around these faults therefore leading to other numerous potential issues such as thermal and voltage violations, customer interruptions, or cascading events. When faults occur, protection systems installed near the faulted transmission lines will isolate these faults from the …

Exploring Crisis Communication And Information Dissemination On Social Media: Social Network Analysis Of Hurricane Irma Tweets, Xianlin Jin

Communication Graduate Research

This study utilized social network analysis to identify the top 10 Twitter influentials during the Hurricane Irma crisis period and examined the relationship between social media attributes and the bridge influence of controlling information flow. The number of a user’s followers and tweets significantly predicted one’s control of information. Crisis information tended to be shared in scattered subgroups. Social network boundaries impeded information diffusion, and the communication pattern was largely one-way. The findings partially supported the opinion leader argument while indicating that influentials can directly generate information, which is consistent with the social-mediated crisis communication model. Such findings will contribute …

Pathos And Spatial Possessions, Miranda Elizabeth Brown

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

In order to complete a rhetorical evaluation of one’s life experiences, a collection of prose was created based of special and personal encounters of the author. The author did so by comparing her own memories to those who were involved to see how the mind can distort the rhetoric of memory. The findings lie in the prose written in such a way for the audience to experience the works just as the author did through the power of rhetoric, specifically pathos.

Nhe1 And Tau Pathology: Tragically Tangled Together?, Caitlin Rae Wessel

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disease that poses a large public health challenge due to its complex, mixed pathology. One hallmark characteristic of AD is the development of toxic neurofibrillary tau tangles (NFT), which have been associated with the neurodegenerative component of AD. There is also compelling evidence that cerebrovascular disease puts individuals at a greater risk for experiencing the cognitive decline characteristic of dementias like AD. Past research has shown that individuals suffering from cerebrovascular disease and AD (not necessarily simultaneously) display an increased expression of the sodium-hydrogen antiporter-1 (NHE1), a plasma membrane protein ubiquitously expressed throughout …

Investigating Sex Differences In Cognitive Deficits Resulting From 24-Hour Water Deprivation, Ivanka Rainer

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

Dehydration can negatively affect cognitive ability. Females, however,may be protected from impairments in cognitive performance associated with dehydration due to the influence estrogens have on fluid balance and cognition. Previous work in our lab demonstrated that water deprivation impaired performance in a novel object recognition task in females during times of low, but not high,estrogen levels, suggesting that estrogens protect memory recall during dehydration. However, rats in this experiment were only dehydrated in the testing phase. Whether dehydration during training impairs task performance is unclear.We, therefore, tested the hypothesis that dehydration during training impairs performance in a recognition task, but …

Genetic Analysis Of The Endangered Gray Bat Species (Myotis Grisescens), Emma Fitzgerald

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

This study attempts to analyze the genetics using specific haplotype sequences of the endangered gray bat to determine genetic events that have happened in the past as well as determining how the species population has changed over time. We were able to conduct a Tajima’s D test to investigate whether a potential bottleneck has occurred. A linear regression of the genetic vs. geographical distance was produced to investigate the patterns of haplotype distribution. The species past distribution was compared to the current distribution using known collected specimens. A map of future predictions was constructed using present and future climate layers …

The Coffee In Your Cup: Reviewing Fair Trade’S Impact On Development, Elena Liu

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

Fair trade is one of many certification strategies available to coffee producers around the globe. The fair trade (FT) movement broke into the American coffee industry with strategies aimed at reducing global poverty among farmers in developing nations, primarily using the FMP and FP mechanisms. This review will discuss why research on the development effects of fair trade is increasingly nebulous, how researchers have analyzed it up until now, their findings, and future recommendations to improve the clarity of results. Current literature on fair trade’s impact provides consistent reports of higher prices attained, but inconclusive findings surrounding increased income and …

Feeding A Growing Population--Feasibility Of Leghemoglobin As Visual Marker For Facilitating Plant Genetics Based Nutritional Improvement, Rebecca E. Caldbeck

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

As the population continues to expand, it is becoming increasingly relevant to find sustainable and affordable sources of high-nutritional value food, specifically protein and fatty acids.

One such crop of interest is Glycine max, commonly known as soybean. The leguminous plant is of high importance globally with its far-reaching economic applicability. Soybeans are a versatile crop with a wide-ranging habitat, making them a readily available food source. Besides their abundance, this crop is also one of the most economical sources of protein on the planet.

With their already blanketed global reach, the introduction of improved genetics to facilitate improved nutritional …

Virus-Induced Changes In Nuclear Proteins And Membranes In Nicotiana Benthamiana Cells, Caleb Mathias

Theses and Dissertations--Plant Pathology

Viruses rely on host proteins to complete their life cycles. This results in alterations to normal cell physiology to processes which benefit viral processes such as replication and movement to other cells. This may involve the relocalization of host proteins away from their original subcellular targets to sites which may benefit the virus, a process that is not as well understood as it relates to the nucleus. To identify nuclear proteins that may be involved in such processes, a library of random Nicotiana benthamiana cDNAs were expressed as GFP fusions in a transgenic marker lines expressing a histone 2B:RFP nuclear …

Forage News [2020-01], Department Of Plant And Soil Sciences, University Of Kentucky

Forage News

No abstract provided.

A Quixotic Quest For Definition: Perceptions Of “Organic” And Implications For The Environment And For Market Participants, Becky L. Jacobs, Chelsea Jacobs

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Characterization And Use Of Pathogen Specific Bacteriophages To Reduce The Viability Of Escherichia Coli O157:H7 Contamination On Fresh Produce, Badrinath Vengarai Jagannathan

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

Fresh produce is one of the most common sources of food-borne outbreaks, involving various pathogenic microorganisms such as Escherichia coli. Recent outbreaks have clearly shown that post-harvest washing has limited effectiveness on decontaminating produce and may contribute to cross-contamination of produce due to various limitations. Excessive use of sanitizers and antibiotics has also led to the development of many antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that have made the food industry more vulnerable.

Bacteriophages are a bacterial viruses that can selectively infect and replicate within bacteria leading to cell lyse and death. Bacteriophages have become widely recognized due to their ability …

The Economics Of Milk Quality Management Practices And Milk Pricing In Simulated United States Dairy Herds, Derek Thomas Nolan

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

Mastitis is considered one of the most common and costly diseases in the dairy industry. Intramammary infection status at a herd level is measured using somatic cell count (SCC). Understanding the total cost of an elevated somatic cell count can help influence dairy farmers to lower SCC and select management practices to produce higher quality milk. The first objective of our research was to determine if the cost of an elevated somatic cell count to farms can be decreased through the adoption of management practices with varying expenses. Using stochastic simulation modeling, the adoption of three differently priced management practices …

Best Websites For Finding Streaming Movies And Tv For Free, Jennifer A. Bartlett

Library Faculty and Staff Publications

For browsing, here are only a few of the many websites that offer free, legal movie and TV show content with good video quality.

Shooting Fish, Michael L. Smith

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

Optimizing Monarch Butterfly And Bee Conservation Efforts In The Urban Landscape, Adam M. Baker

Theses and Dissertations--Entomology

The eastern migratory population of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) is in serious decline. Most of the efforts to conserve this iconic insect focus on habitat restoration in the US Midwest. Often overlooked are small butterfly-centric gardens that can act as stepping stones between urban and rural areas. These studies aim to optimize the conservation value of such gardens.

Eight milkweed (Asclepias) species varying in height, form, and leaf shape were compared over two years in a common-garden experiment. I measured milkweed growth, rhizome spread, and bloom periods, conducted bi-weekly counts of monarch eggs and larvae, evaluated …

Assessing The Effects Of An Authentic Project-Based Intervention On Secondary Students’ Understanding Of Ecosystems And Their Attitudes Toward And Interests In Stem, Kenneth Rolland Thompson

Theses and Dissertations--Education Sciences

There is a need for secondary schools to provide more authentic, hands-on experiences in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and specifically, project-based investigation (PBI) environments in the classroom that focus on real-world problems relevant to students’ experiences, interest, and lives that manifest the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) following practices they prescribe. This study investigated how, to what extent, a contextualized aquaponics PBI (APBI) 10-week model unit affected high school students’ attitudes toward STEM in general, and aquaculture and aquaponics in particular, and interests in future STEM-related disciplines and/or STEM career pathways. This study also measured changes in students’ …

Fertility, Belief, And Sexuality, Madison F. Von Deylen, Kaylynne M. Glover, Vincent M. Cassone

Posters-at-the-Capitol Presentations

The human ovulatory cycle lasts an average of 28 days and is highly variable both within and among women, making ovulation and the fertile window difficult to estimate in humans. Commonly used methods for estimating fertility assume length consistency during various cycle phases, an assumption that often miscategorizes women as fertile when not and vice versa. This experiment analyzes several of the common methods used to estimate fertility, including forwards and backwards-counting methods and actuarial methods, and compares them against hormonal testing to determine the most accurate method for fertility identification. Additionally, we used hormonal ovulation tests combined with daily …

Clinical Signs Associated With A Case Of Iatrogenic Poisoning By A Turpentine-Based Commercial Product In A 3-Day-Old Foal, Abelardo Morales Briceño, Hilal Al Mahrouqi, Abdallah Al Kayyoomi, Harmon Oliva, Kimberly Brewer, Thomas Tobin

Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center Faculty Publications

The aim of this study is to report a case of iatrogenic poisoning by a turpentine-based commercial product in a 3-day-old foal and the successful treatment of this condition. A 3-day-old male foal presented with acute cardio-respiratory collapse, anaphylactic shock, severe respiratory distress, dyspnea and pulmonary edema. The animal’s history included previous administration of a commercial veterinary product (UNITIPAN). Clinical examination revealed: temperature: (39.9 °C), pulse: 135 bpm, respiration: 51 bpm, mucous membranes: moist and congested, capillary refill time: 3 sec or less. The foal was treated with emergency hydration, duphalyte, steroidal anti-inflammatory, atropine sulphate and antibiotic. After 6 h …

Supporting Interests And Sharing Power: Insights From A Scottish Youth Program, Daniela Kruel Digiacomo

Information Science Faculty Publications

Light Up Learning (LUL) is a youth program in Scotland that supports young people in pursuing their curiosities and exploring their interests in a school-based informal learning setting. This article draws on interview and participant observation data to examine the social organization of teaching and learning activity within LUL. As a school-based program focused on supporting youth in pursuing their interests through the cultivation of a caring adult–youth relationship, LUL offers an empirical case that brings together insights from youth development and interest-driven learning research. Examination into the verbal and material interactions that shape adult–youth interactions yields insight into how …

Southeastern Law Librarian Winter 2020, Seaall

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Early Acid/Base And Electrolyte Changes In Permanent Middle Cerebral Artery Occlusion: Aged Male And Female Rats, Sarah R. Martha, Lisa A. Collier, Stephanie M. Davis, Sarah J. Goodwin, David Powell, Doug Lukins, Justin F. Fraser, Keith R. Pennypacker

Neurosurgery Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Early changes in acid/base and electrolyte concentrations could provide insights into the development of neuropathology at the onset of stroke. We evaluated associations between acid/base and electrolyte concentrations, and outcomes in permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (pMCAO) model.

METHODS: 18-month-old male and female Sprague-Dawley rats underwent pMCAO. Pre-, post- (7 min after occlusion), and at 72 hr of pMCAO venous blood samples provided pH, carbon dioxide, oxygen, glucose, hematocrit, hemoglobin, and electrolyte values of ionized calcium, potassium, and sodium. Multiple linear regression determined predictors of infarct and edema volumes from these values, Kaplan-Meier curve analyzed morality between males and …