Digital Commons Network^™

Foster Parents' Perceptions And Beliefs About Social Emotional Development In Infants And Toddlers, Susan R. Noel

DNP Projects

Infants and toddlers placed in foster care are at increased risk for social-emotional (SE) development dysregulation. Foster parents, as surrogate parents, play a critical role in a young child having the potential for healthy SE development. The transactional model supports the complex and intricate interplays and transactions of the child, the foster parent, and the environment that influences a healthy SE development. This qualitative descriptive study explored foster parent knowledge, behavioral cue recognitions, and role perception regarding a young child's SE development. Although the sample size was small, the study provides relevant information, from the on-going experiences of foster parents, …

Engineering Triterpene Metabolism In Tobacco, Zuodong Jiang

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Terpenes comprise a large diverse class of natural products and many of them attract interest because of their physiological function, therapeutic and industrial values. Triterpene oils including squalene (C30), botrycococcene (C30) and their methylated derivatives (C31-C37) generated by the green algae Botryococcus braunii race B, which have recently received significant attention because of their utility for advanced biofuels. However, the slow growth habit of B. braunii makes it impractical as a robust biofuel production system. In this thesis, we firstly evaluated the potential of generating high levels of triterpene (C30) production in tobacco plants by diverting carbon flux from cytosolic …

Conservation Agriculture In Kentucky: Investigating Nitrogen Loss And Dynamics In Corn Systems Following Wheat And Hairy Vetch Cover Crops, Rebecca Erin Shelton

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Unintentional nitrogen (N) loss from agroecosystems produces greenhouse gases, induces eutrophication, and is costly for farmers; therefore, adoption of conservation agricultural management practices, such as no-till and cover cropping, has increased. This study assessed N loss via leaching, NH₃ volatilization, N₂O emissions, and N retention in plant and soil pools of corn conservation agroecosystems across a year. Three systems were evaluated: 1) an unfertilized organic system with cover crops Vicia villosa, Triticum aestivum, or a mix of the two; 2) an organic system with a Vicia cover crop employing three fertilization schemes (0 N, organic N, …

Soil Management And Nitrogen Dynamics In Burley Tobacco Rotations, Congming Zou

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Agronomic practices, including tillage, crop rotation and N fertilization, have been developed to efficiently manage soil N dynamics and crop N nutrition. These practices can affect soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) sequestration, and consequently influence soil nitrogen mineralization (SNM) and crop N nutrition. However, little research has been systematically and simultaneously conducted to examine the effect of agronomic management on (1) SOC and STN stocks; (2) SNM; and (3) crop N nutrition. Burley tobacco (Nicotiana tobacum L.) is a N demanding crop and subject to inefficiency in N fertilization. Moreover, conservation tillage and rotation have been …

Unveiling Novel Aspects Of D-Amino Acid Metabolism In The Model Bacterium Pseudomonas Putida Kt2440, Atanas D. Radkov

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

D-amino acids (D-AAs) are the α-carbon enantiomers of L-amino acids (L- AAs), the building blocks of proteins in known organisms. It was largely believed that D-AAs are unnatural and must be toxic to most organisms, as they would compete with the L-counterparts for protein synthesis. Recently, new methods have been developed that allow scientists to chromatographically separate the two AA stereoisomers. Since that time, it has been discovered that D-AAs are vital molecules and they have been detected in many organisms. The work of this dissertation focuses on their place in bacterial metabolism. This specific area was selected due to …

Urea Formulations On The Productivity Of Bermudagrass And Bermudagrass-White Clover Pastures, Caitlin Timberlake

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L.) is a perennial warm-season grass that is very responsive to nitrogen (N) fertilization. Excessive N applications have negative environmental consequences and make maintaining mixed swards difficult. This study determined the effects of enhanced efficiency (EE) N fertilizers and fertilizer rate on bermudagrass yields, nutritive values, and white clover persistence. Nitrogen sources included urea, urea formulated with Agrotain^® (U+A), urea with Agrotain^® and dicyandiamide (SuperU), a polymer-coated urea (ESN), ESN+urea (75% ESN, 25% urea), and methylene urea (MU). In the urea formulation trial, SuperU and U+A maximized forage yields at lower N rates. The …

Development Of An Extraction Method For The Mass Spectral Analysis Of Organic Gunshot Residue From Clothing, Brent Casper

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

This dissertation will focus on the extraction of volatile organic compounds associated with gunshot residue from articles of clothing, followed by analysis with mass spectrometry. During the discharge of a weapon, a cloud of volatile organic gunshot residue (OGSR) is dispersed around a firearm. This will create a high probability of transfer between the OGSR and the clothing of individuals who are near a discharged weapon.

The first part of this dissertation will be the development of a method for removal of volatile OGSR from articles of clothing. Extraction of OGSR will be completed by solid phase microextraction (SPME), followed …

Nanoparticle Behavior In Biological Gels And Biofluids: The Impact Of Interactions With Charged Biogels And The Formation Of Protein Coronas On Nanoparticles, Xiaolu Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

With the rapid growth of nanotechnology, situations where nanomaterials will interact with biological systems will unquestionably grow. Therefore, it is increasingly understood that interactions between nanomaterials and biological environments will play an essential role in nanomedicine. Biological polymer networks, including mucus and the extracellular matrix, serve as a filter for the exchange of molecules and nanoparticles. Such polymer networks are complex and heterogeneous hydrogel environments that regulate transport processes through finely tuned particle-network interactions. In chapters 3 and 4, we investigate the role of electrostatics on the basic mechanisms governing the diffusion of charged molecules inside model polymer networks by …

Biomolecule Localization And Surface Engineering Within Size Tunable Nanoporous Silica Particles, Daniel M. Schlipf

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Mesoporous silica materials are versatile platforms for biological catalysis, isolation of small molecules for detection and separation applications. The design of mesoporous silica supports for tailored protein and biomolecule interactions has been limited by the techniques to demonstrate biomolecule location and functionality as a function of pore size. This work examines the interaction of proteins and lipid bilayers with engineered porous silica surfaces using spherical silica particles with tunable pore diameters (3 – 12 nm) in the range relevant to biomolecule uptake in the pores, and large particle sizes (5 - 15 µm) amenable to microscopy imaging

The differentiation of …

Nanomechanical And Scaling Behavior Of Nanoporous Gold, Nicolas J. Briot

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Nanoporous metals have recently been drawn significant interest in various fields of research. Their high surface-to-volume ratio present a strong potential for applications in sensing, catalysis, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and even in the medical field. However, the mechanical properties of nanoporous metals have not yet been well determined, as conducting mechanical tests was found to be challenging. Scaling relations linking the mechanical properties of porous materials to those of their dense counterparts are successfully and widely used for many porous metals. However, their applicability to nanoporous metals have recently been questioned, as estimations from the classic scaling relations were found …

Fundamental Studies Of Surfactant Templated Metal Oxide Materials Synthesis And Transformation For Adsorption And Energy Applications, Saikat Das

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

This work addresses fundamental aspects of designing templates and curing conditions for the synthesis of mesoporous metal oxide thin films. The first section addresses selection of cationic-carbohydrate surfactant mixtures to synthesize templated silica thin films for selective adsorption of simple carbohydrates based on molecular imprinting. Nuclear magnetic resonance and fluorescence spectroscopy results suggest a novel structure for mixtures of alkyl glucopyranosides or xylopyranosides with cationic (trimethylammonium) surfactants. Despite thermodynamically favorable mixing, the carbohydrate headgroups in the mixed micelle adopt an inverted configuration with their headgroups in the micelle core, and therefore are inaccessible for molecular imprinting. This orientation occurs even …

Synthesis, Structure, Properties And Applications Of Nanoporous Silicon And Palladium, Xu Jiang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Nanoporous (np) materials with pore size below 100 nano-meters exist naturally in biological and mineral structures, and synthetic np materials have been used industrially for centuries. Np materials have attracted significant research interest in recent decades, as the development of new characterization techniques and nanotechnology allow the observation and design of np materials at a new level. This study focuses on two np materials: nanoporous silicon (np-Si) and nanoporous palladium (np-Pd).

Silicon (Si), because of its high capacity to store lithium (Li), is increasingly becoming an attractive candidate as anode material for Li ion batteries (LIB). One significant problem with …

Interfacial Engineering Of Biomass Hydrolysis By Cellulase Enzymes And Mechanistic Modeling Of Hydrolysis Of Cellulose Substrates, Ravinder Kumar Garlapalli

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Lignocellulosic biomass is a sustainable and renewable energy resource that can be converted to fuels and other commodity chemicals, but this conversion is currently limited by its recalcitrance to enzymatic degradation. Because of this recalcitrance, the major challenges in the commercialization of enzymatic hydrolysis processes are the relatively low hydrolysis rates, limited cellulose conversion under some conditions, and high cost of enzymes.

Enzymatic hydrolysis is influenced by the structure of the biomass after pretreatment and the mode of enzyme action, but has also been shown to be enhanced by surfactant additives. The objective of this work was to elucidate the …

Unhindered Triangulene Salt Pairs: Substitution-Dependent Contact Ion Pairing And Complex Solvent-Separated Discotic Ions In Solution, Subrahmanyam Modekrutti

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

This work sought to enforce aromatic interactions between compatible π-molecular orbital systems with ionic bonding. In this case the interacting partners are oppositely charged discotic triangulene derivatives. The observed properties of the heterodimeric ion-pairs likely arise due to a hypothetical synergy between electrostatics and π-interactions. The work presented here describes investigation of putative covalency arising from this hypothetical synergy in the electrostatics driven π-stacking. In order to probe this, various hypotheses were made and experiments were designed to test their validity. The results from the experiments show existence of contact ion-pairs and complex solvent-separated discotic ions in solution. The formation …

Cocaine-Induced Behavioral Sensitization And Conditioned Place Preference In Japanese Quail (Coturnix Japonica): A Focus On Sex Differences And Dopaminergic Mechanisms, Karin E. Gill

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Research has indicated that gonadal hormones may mediate behavioral and biological responses to cocaine. Estrogen, in particular, has been shown to increase behavioral responding to cocaine in female rats relative to male rats. The use of Japanese quail may add to our knowledge of sex differences in drug abuse because of their advanced visual system and the ability to control their gonadal hormones via alterations in photoperiod. In three experiments, cocaine-induced behaviors were examined using this avian model.

In Experiment 1, I investigated the potential sex differences in cocaine-induced locomotor activity between male and female Japanese quail and I examined …

Development Of An Avian Model For Identifying Individual Differences In Drug Vulnerability, Beth A. Rice

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

The attribution of incentive salience to cues that become associated with drugs of abuse is a critical characteristic of individuals who may be vulnerable to drug addiction. Rodents with the propensity to sign track are thought to be vulnerable to drug abuse. The goal of the current work was to investigate whether sign trackers (STs) would acquire cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) to a discrete cue using an avian species. In Experiment 1, sign and goal trackers (GTs) were first identified using a one third rank order split. Following identification, cocaine-CPP was conducted with a discrete cue in each end …

The Effects Of Alcohol-Related Visual Stimuli On Inhibitory Control And Attentional Bias: Testing The Roles Of Classical Conditioning And Semantic Priming, Ramey G. Monem

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Alcohol research has shown that alcohol-related stimuli can disrupt behavioral control and attract more attention in alcohol drinkers. Stimuli typically used in tasks assessing these mechanisms are likely representative of an individual's history. Responses to visual stimuli that no longer closely resemble an individual's history may help shed light on whether these behaviors are due to classical conditioning or processes such as semantic priming. Hypotheses were tested using typical visual stimuli and modified, abstract versions in these tasks. 41 participants were exposed to these stimuli types while using a visual dot probe task. The difference in degree of attentional bias …

Parenting Behaviors Of Sleepy Parents: Associations With Emotion Regulation And Stress, Lauren R. Gilbert

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Over the last decade, the topic of sleep has garnered a great deal of interest from psychologists, due to the physiological, emotional, and behavioral outcomes associated with its deprivation. However, questions remain to be answered regarding sleep's influence in the day-to-day life of families. The current study examines the importance of sleep deprivation for parents’ parenting behaviors during problem solving discussions with their children; emotion regulation and stress reactivity are examined as mediators of these associations. Participants were 196 families with a child between the ages of 6-11. Parents filled out diaries for 7 days prior to their in-lab visit, …

Gαq-Associated Signaling Promotes Neuroadaptation To Ethanol And Withdrawal-Associated Hippocampal Damage, Anna R. Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Prolonged, heavy consumption of alcohol produces marked neuroadaptations in excitatory neurotransmission. These effects are accelerated following patterns of intermittent heavy drinking wherein periods of heavy consumption are followed by periods of abstinence. Studies have shown that neuroadaptive changes in the glutamatergic N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor produces excitotoxicity during periods of withdrawal; however, upstream targets were not adequately characterized. The present studies sought to identify these targets by assessing the role of group 1 metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR) and intracellular calcium in promoting cytotoxicity of hippocampal cell layers in vitro. It was hypothesized that ethanol-induced activity of mGluR1-and-5 contributes to hippocampal …

Effect Of Social Peers On Risky Decision Making In Male Sprague Dawley Rats, Virginia Weiss

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Adolescence is a time associated with increased risk taking and peer relations. Research has shown that adolescents are more vulnerable to peer pressure compared to adults, leading to exacerbated risk taking. Preclinical research suggests that these findings may also be applicable to adolescent rodents, which find social interaction rewarding and are prone to risky behavior. There is, however, little research on the effect of social interaction on rodent models of risky decision-making. This thesis utilized social chambers, which consisted of adjacent operant chambers separated by wire mesh. Adolescent rats performed a risky decision-making task in which they had a choice …

The Effects Of Alcohol And Hypoxia Exposure In The Developing Brain, Megan L. Carter

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Exposure to alcohol (ethanol (ETOH)) during fetal development results in a variety of cognitive/behavioral deficits. The effects of fetal ETOH exposure vary across individuals and numerous studies have shown that ETOH’s interaction with other variables can affect outcome in offspring. These studies investigated the effects of developmental ETOH and hypoxia. It was hypothesized that a history of ETOH during development alters the response to a subsequent hypoxic challenge, such as that which may occur during parturition; this results in central nervous system (CNS) damage and behavioral deficits.

The first study determined if developmental ETOH and hypoxia exposure produced behavioral deficits …

Left Ventricular Assist Device As Destination Therapy, Maya Guglin, Leslie W. Miller

The VAD Journal

Mechanical circulatory support is the most rapidly evolving strategy in heart failure management. The growing number of patients who need better results than medical therapy can offer, the limited pool of donors for cardiac transplantation, and several technological breakthroughs have all made the option of implanting a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) as destination therapy more important.

In this review, we outline the indications and decision making process of considering a patient for a destination therapy LVAD, as well as outcomes, complications, and issues related to management of patients on currently approved devices. The future direction of the field will …

The Bubbling Aorta, Hesham R. Omar, Maya Guglin

The VAD Journal

We are presenting the image of the bubbles in the descending aorta in a patient on VA ECMO.

Interfacial Polymerization For Colorimetric Labeling Of Protein Expression In Cells, Jacob L. Lilly, Phillip R. Sheldon, Liv J. Hoversten, Gabriela Romero, Vivek Balasubramaniam, Brad J. Berron

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Determining the location of rare proteins in cells typically requires the use of on-sample amplification. Antibody based recognition and enzymatic amplification is used to produce large amounts of visible label at the site of protein expression, but these techniques suffer from the presence of nonspecific reactivity in the biological sample and from poor spatial control over the label. Polymerization based amplification is a recently developed alternative means of creating an on-sample amplification for fluorescence applications, while not suffering from endogenous labels or loss of signal localization. This manuscript builds upon polymerization based amplification by developing a stable, archivable, and colorimetric …

The Promise Of Novel Molecular Markers In Bladder Cancer, Jahan Miremami, Natasha Kyprianou

Urology Faculty Publications

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common malignancy in the US and is associated with the highest cost per patient. A high likelihood of recurrence, mandating stringent surveillance protocols, has made the development of urinary markers a focus of intense pursuit with the hope of decreasing the burden this disease places on patients and the healthcare system. To date, routine use of markers is not recommended for screening or diagnosis. Interests include the development of a single urinary marker that can be used in place of or as an adjunct to current screening and surveillance techniques, as well identifying a …

Mtorc2 Is Required For Rit-Mediated Oxidative Stress Resistance, Weikang Cai, Douglas A. Andres

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Rit, a member of the Ras family of GTPases, has been shown to promote cell survival in response to oxidative stress, in part by directing an evolutionarily conserved p38 MAPK-Akt survival cascade. Aberrant Rit signaling has recently been implicated as a driver mutation in human cancer, adding importance to the characterization of critical Rit effector pathways. However, the mechanism by which Rit-p38 signaling regulated Akt activity was unknown. Here, we identify mTORC2 as a critical downstream mediator of Rit-dependent survival signaling in response to reactive oxygen species (ROS) stress. Rit interacts with Sin1 (MAPKAP1), and Rit loss compromises ROS-dependent mTORC2 …

Enzymes From Fungal And Plant Origin Required For Chemical Diversification Of Insecticidal Loline Alkaloids In Grass-Epichloë Symbiota, Juan Pan, Minakshi Bhardwaj, Padmaja Nagabhyru, Robert B. Grossman, Christopher L. Schardl

Chemistry Faculty Publications

The lolines are a class of bioprotective alkaloids that are produced by Epichloë species, fungal endophytes of grasses. These alkaloids are saturated 1-aminopyrrolizidines with a C2 to C7 ether bridge, and are structurally differentiated by the various modifications of the 1-amino group: -NH₂ (norloline), -NHCH₃ (loline), -N(CH₃)₂ (N-methylloline), -N(CH₃)Ac (N-acetylloline), -NHAc (N-acetylnorloline), and -N(CH₃)CHO (N-formylloline). Other than the LolP cytochrome P450, which is required for conversion of N-methylloline to N-formylloline, the enzymatic steps for loline diversification have not yet been established. …

Bovine Colostrum Supplementation Optimises Earnings, Performance And Recovery In Racing Thoroughbreds, C. K. Fenger, Thomas Tobin, P. J. Casey, Edward A. Roualdes, J. L. Langemeier, D. M. Haines

Maxwell H. Gluck Equine Research Center Faculty Publications

Bovine colostrum (BC) is the first milk produced by cows after calving and contains numerous beneficial substances for the immunity and development of the newborn calf. Because of the growth and immune factors in BC, it has become an attractive supplement for use by athletes to support immunity and health during athletic performance. In order to evaluate the effects of oral BC supplementation on equine athletes, this study evaluated the earnings, performance, recovery and incidence of upper respiratory infections (URTI) in racing horses. The study design was a randomized cross-over racing performance study. 21 horses in race training were randomly …

Mitochondria Dysfunction In Lung Cancer-Induced Muscle Wasting In C2c12 Myotubes, Julie B. Mclean, Jennifer S. Moylan, Francisco H. Andrade

Physiology Faculty Publications

Aims: Cancer cachexia is a syndrome which results in severe loss of muscle mass and marked fatigue. Conditioned media from cachexia-inducing cancer cells triggers metabolic dysfunction in skeletal muscle, including decreased mitochondrial respiration, which may contribute to fatigue. We hypothesized that Lewis lung carcinoma conditioned medium (LCM) would impair the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) and increase production of reactive oxygen species, ultimately leading to decreased mitochondrial respiration. We incubated C2C12 myotubes with LCM for 30 min, 2, 4, 24 or 48 h. We measured protein content by western blot; oxidant production by 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescin diacetate (DCF), 4-amino-5-methylamino-2′,7′-difluorofluorescein diacetate (DAF), and …

Cd151-Α3Β1 Integrin Complexes Suppress Ovarian Tumor Growth By Repressing Slug-Mediated Emt And Canonical Wnt Signaling, Lauren A. Baldwin, John T. Hoff, Jason Lefringhouse, Michael Zhang, Changhe Jia, Zeyi Liu, Sonia Erfani, Hongyan Jin, Mei Xu, Qing-Bai She, John R. Van Nagell Jr., Chi Wang, Li Chen, Rina Plattner, David M. Kaetzel, Jia Luo, Michael Lu, Dava West, Chunming Liu, Fred R. Ueland, Ronny Drapkin, Binhua P. Zhou, Xiuwei H. Yang

Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences Faculty Publications

Human ovarian cancer is diagnosed in the late, metastatic stages but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We report a surprising functional link between CD151-α3β1 integrin complexes and the malignancy of serous-type ovarian cancer. Analyses of clinical specimens indicate that CD151 expression is significantly reduced or diminished in 90% of metastatic lesions, while it remains detectable in 58% of primary tumors. These observations suggest a putative tumor-suppressing role of CD151 in ovarian cancer. Indeed, our analyses show that knocking down CD151 or α3 integrin enhances tumor cell proliferation, growth and ascites production in nude mice. These changes are accompanied by …