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Effects Of Perfluorinated Compounds (Pfcs) On Metabolic Tissues And The Benefits Of Caloric Restriction, Deanna M. Salter

Open Access Dissertations

The CDC states that there has been a dramatic increase in obesity from 1990 to 2010. Type-II diabetes and obesity prevalence are increasing worldwide. Often, obesity and Type-II diabetes are concurrent, and predispose individuals to development of fatty liver disease, referred to as Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) are two commonly studied perfluorinated compounds (PFC’s) that are considered environmental toxicants that have the potential to elicit diabetic and NAFLD phenotypes. This dissertation presents novel findings of gaps within the literature to date. Traditionally, diabetes and obesity have been discussed in regard with …

Parental Psychological Control And Emotion Dysregulation Among Anxious Children: A Transactional Model, Monica M. Nanda

Open Access Dissertations

Existing research and theories have consistently highlighted the role of emotion regulation deficits and parental psychological control in the occurrence of childhood anxiety disorders. The aim of the present study was to continue to examine these relationships using observational methods amongst a clinically anxious sample. Additionally, the present study aimed to identify the direction of effects between parental psychological control and emotion dysregulation by examining whether there is a discernible sequence of parent and child behaviors forming a pattern of interaction between parents and their anxious children. This was completed using microanalytic coding methods to observe parental psychological control and …

Automated Essay Evaluation And The Computational Paradigm: Machine Scoring Enters The Classroom, Catherine M. Barrett

Open Access Dissertations

Grading papers is a "tedious, repetitive, and time-consuming" undertaking, one that invites the sort of sympathies one might receive upon the "death of a pet' (Baker, 2014, p. 36). Perhaps, though, the only thing more distasteful for an English professor than having to grade hundreds of essays each semester is having to hand the job over to the likes of a mindless software program. Automated Essay Evaluation (AEE), the process of scoring essays by computer, was developed in the 1960s but has mostly aroused suspicion and derogation from the composition community.

The parable of the blindfolded villagers describing the same …

Chemical Investigation Of Candidate Probiotics In Aquaculture And Formulation Of A Probiotic Agent For Oyster Larviculure, Christine Anh Dao

Open Access Dissertations

Aquaculture is a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide. The United States is a significant consumer to both fresh and marine aquaculture products. Aquaculture sales in Rhode Island have dramatically increased in the last 20 years. In Rhode Island nearly 4.3 million oysters were produced via aquaculture in 2012. Currently, hatcheries and nurseries in the United States produce large amounts of a variety of species of oysters, clams and scallops. Oysters are filter feeders and are exposed to many microbes in the hatchery. Infectious diseases from bacterial pathogens in the hatcheries can have serious impacts on production. Vibrio species are often responsible …

Off The Hip: A Thermodynamics Of The Cool, Rebecca Kanost

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation asserts that the cool’s significance in 20th-century American culture exceeds that assigned to it by current critiques. It assays a rhetorical model which describes coolness as stillness in behavior that surprises witnesses, given the assumptions they make about the still person and context for his or her behavior. Such stillness agitates witnesses’ normative assumptions about all those in the rhetorical situation, including assumptions about affect, gender, race, class and sexuality. Agitation may also lead to conjecture about what mindset could produce cool behavior. To test this model I investigate representations of coolness in James Baldwin’s short story, “Going …

An Investigation Of The Fisheries Ecosystem Dynamics In Rhode Island's Nearshore Waters, Anna Malek

Open Access Dissertations

This research was developed in response to recent interest in offshore wind energy development and the ongoing need for ecosystem-based spatial management planning in Rhode Island’s nearshore waters. Despite heavy use and close proximity to a number of marine science institutions, Rhode Island and Block Island Sounds have been neglected in terms of scientific research, resulting in a poor understanding of the fisheries ecosystem in this area. This research aimed to address this knowledge gap by assessing the biogeography, trophic dynamics and habitat associations of the fish and invertebrate communities in this region. Specifically, the goals of this research were …

Goal Representation Adaptive Dynamic Programming For Machine Intelligence, Zhen Ni

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation is focused on a general purpose new framework for machine intelligence based on adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) design. This research is significantly important for developing self-adaptive intelligent system that is highly robust and fault-tolerant to uncertain and unstructured environments. Generally, there are two key components toward building truly self-adaptive systems: fundamental understanding of brain intelligence and complex engineering designs. This dissertation will focus on general purpose computational intelligence methodologies from a biological inspired perspective, and develop a new self-learning machine intelligent system online over time. Furthermore, this new approach will also be explored on wide critical engineering applications. …

Climate And Weather Risk In Natural Resource Models, Nathaniel Henry Merrill

Open Access Dissertations

This work, consisting of three manuscripts, addresses natural resource management under risk due to variation in climate and weather. In three distinct but theoretically related applications, I quantify the role of natural resources in stabilizing economic outcomes. Manuscript 1 examines policies for controlling the risk of outbreaks of cyanobacteria, algae blooms, stimulated by excess nutrient loading transported by uncertain and possibly changing rainfall patterns for a drinking water watershed in Rhode Island. The manuscript is based on a paper co-authored with Jim Opaluch. Manuscript 2 addresses welfare outcomes of optimal, as well as open access, extraction of a groundwater resource …

Role Of Nuclear Factor E2 Related Factor 2 (Nrf2) In Environmental Chemical Induced Steatosis And Adipogenesis, Prajakta Shimpi

Open Access Dissertations

Prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and obesity both in the young and adult population is increasing at an alarming rate globally. Along with traditional risk factors, such as diet and sedentary life style, exposure of environmental chemicals is suspected to be a risk factor for metabolic disruption. Moreover, the ‘fetal basis of adult disease’ hypothesis implicates that early life exposure to environmental chemicals is more impactful in causing lipid homeostasis disturbances than exposure in maturity. Nuclear factor E2 related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a cytoprotective transcription factor known to combat oxidative stress. The contribution of Nrf2 to other …

Prescription Stimulant Misuse And Adhd Symptomatology Among College Students In Iceland, Bergljot Gyda Gudmundsdottir

Open Access Dissertations

As growing numbers of students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) pursue postsecondary education, the availability of psychostimulant medications on college campuses has steadily increased. Although a large body of research has documented that misuse of prescription stimulant medication is a prevalent problem on American college campuses, few studies have been conducted beyond the United States. Iceland, closely followed by the United States, has the highest stimulant medication prescription rates in the world; however, no systematic efforts have been made to investigate to what extent these medications are being misused within the Icelandic college student population. Therefore, the purpose of …

A General Equilibrium Theory Of Contracts In Community Supported Agriculture, Thomas W. Sproul, Jaclyn D. Kropp

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Faculty Publications

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) contracts allow consumers to buy claims on a farm's future production. In turn, the consumer provides working capital to the farm during the growing season. CSA contracts also provide risk management for farmers with limited access to Federal crop insurance by transferring part of the farm's risk to the consumer. We derive a theory of CSA contract pricing for the two most prevalent types of CSA contracts: yield contracts, in which consumers receive a percentage of the farm's production, and weight contracts, in which consumers receive fixed quantities. We develop a two-period model in which expected …

The Recreational Use Of Provincetown Harbor And Attitudes Towards Shellfish Aquaculture, Daniel Maggio

Open Access Master's Theses

Aquaculture refers to the breeding, rearing, and harvesting of plants and animals in all types of water environments including ponds, rivers, lakes, and the ocean (NOAA, 2014). In the United States shellfish aquaculture of mollusks experienced significant economic growth from 2005-2013. In 2005 the mollusk shellfish aquaculture industry was worth approximately $203,183,000, which grew to $328,567,000 in 2013 (USDA;NASS, 2013). In Provincetown, Massachusetts the interest of growth and development of shellfish aquaculture from local fishermen and town officials is increasing (Wisbauer, 2015).

Surveys were administered to four categories of users, as defined by the town's definitions: residents, non-residents, occupants, and …

C3d Adjuvant Effects Are Mediated Through The Activation Of C3d-Specific Autoreactive T Cells, Anne S. De Groot, Ted M. Ross, Lauren Levitz, Timothy J. Messitt, Ryan Tassone, Christine M. Boyle, Amber J. Vincelli, Leonard Moise, William Martin, Paul M. Knopf

Institute for Immunology and Informatics Faculty Publications

Complement fragment C3d covalently attached to antigens enhances immune responses, particularly for antigens lacking T cell epitopes. Enhancement has been attributed to receptor cross-linking between complement receptor CR2 (CD21) and polysaccharide antigen to surface IgM on naïve B cells. Paradoxically, C3d has still been shown to increase immune responses in CD21 KO mice, suggesting that an auxiliary activation pathway exists. In prior studies, we demonstrated the CD21-independent C3d adjuvant effect might be due to T cell recognition of C3d T helper epitopes processed and presented by MHC class II on the B cell surface. C3d peptide sequences containing concentrated clusters …

Ivax: An Integrated Toolkit For The Selection And Optimization Of Antigens And The Design Of Epitope-Driven Vaccines, Leonard Moise, Andres H. Gutierrez, Farzana Kibria, Rebecca Martin, Ryan Tassone, Rui Liu, Francis Terry, William Martin, Anne S. De Groot

Institute for Immunology and Informatics Faculty Publications

Computational vaccine design, also known as computational vaccinology, encompasses epitope mapping, antigen selection and immunogen design using computational tools. The iVAX toolkit is an integrated set of tools that has been in development since 1998 by De Groot and Martin. It comprises a suite of immunoinformatics algorithms for triaging candidate antigens, selecting immunogenic and conserved T cell epitopes, eliminating regulatory T cell epitopes, and optimizing antigens for immunogenicity and protection against disease. iVAX has been applied to vaccine development programs for emerging infectious diseases, cancer antigens and biodefense targets. Several iVAX vaccine design projects have had success in pre-clinical studies …

A Plasmid-Based Reporter System For Live Cell Imaging Of Dengue Infected Cells, Carey L. Medin, Sierra Valois, Chinmay G. Patkar, Alan Rothman

Institute for Immunology and Informatics Faculty Publications

Cell culture models are used widely to study the effects of dengue virus (DENV) on host cell function. Current methods of identification of cells infected with an unmodified DENV requires fixation and permeablization of cells to allow DENV-specific antibody staining. This method does not permit imaging of viable cells over time. In this report, a plasmid-based reporter was developed to allow non-destructive identification of DENV-infected cells. The plasmid-based reporter was demonstrated to be broadly applicable to the four DENV serotypes, including low-passaged strains, and was specifically cleaved by the viral protease with minimal interference on viral production. This study reveals …

Comparative Biogeochemistry–Ecosystem–Human Interactions On Dynamic Continental Margins, Lisa A. Levin, Kon-Kee Liu, Kay-Christian Emeis, Denise L. Breitburg, James Cloern, Curtis Deutsch, Michele Giani, Anne Goffart, Eileen E. Hofmann, Zouhair Lachkar, Karin Limburg, Su-Mei Liu, Enrique Montes, Wajih Naqvi, Olivier Ragueneau, Christopher Rabouille, Santosh Kumar Sarkar, Dennis P. Swaney, Paul Wassman, Karen F. Wishner

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The oceans' continental margins face strong and rapid change, forced by a combination of direct human activity, anthropogenic CO₂-induced climate change, and natural variability. Stimulated by discussions in Goa, India at the IMBER IMBIZO III, we (1) provide an overview of the drivers of biogeochemical variation and change on margins, (2) compare temporal trends in hydrographic and biogeochemical data across different margins, (3) review ecosystem responses to these changes, (4) highlight the importance of margin time series for detecting and attributing change and (5) examine societal responses to changing margin biogeochemistry and ecosystems. We synthesize information over a …

Human Tau Gene Expression In A Transgenic Animal Model Altered By Developmental Pb Exposure, Miriam Erline Dash

Open Access Master's Theses

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by a decline in memory and cognitive function. Demographics show that more than 90% of patients are first diagnosed with AD after the age of 65, classified as Late Onset AD (LOAD). The remaining 10% are said to have Early Onset AD. Research has shown that no mutation is linked to LOAD. Thus we hypothesize that environmental and/or epigenetic factors may be playing a major role in LOAD. AD traits coincide with the presence of two pathological hallmarks found in the brain: …

Parenting Styles And Their Relationship With Anxiety In Children, Alyssa Lungarini

Open Access Master's Theses

The current study aimed to determine the relationship between two aspects of parenting styles, demandingness and responsiveness, and the presence of anxiety in children. Additionally, this research aimed to identify differences between mothers and fathers in regard to how these aspects of their parenting styles affect child anxiety. Demandingness and responsiveness were explored as independent variables in order to determine how they relate to child anxiety, as well as how the relationships between the independent variables and anxiety differ by demographics including child gender, and parental age, race, income, and educational level. Results indicate differences in child anxiety reported by …

Rhetoric Of Flat Design And Skeuomorphism In Apple's Ios Graphical User Interface, Ambrose Curtis

Open Access Master's Theses

This work sets out to examine the visual rhetoric located within flat and skeuomorphic iterations of Apple's iOS graphical user interfaces. I argue that design scholar Richard Buchannan is correct in his assertions regarding ethos, pathos, and logos in product design, but in this work I apply his ideas to Apple's iOS graphical user interface.

Buchannan suggests that much of the effectiveness of a product is based on that product's ability to appeal to the user, by way of these Aristotelian proofs. This examination of ethos, pathos, and logos also calls upon the work of anthropologist Thomas J. Schlereth; specifically, …

Fermentable Carbohydrate Intake And Differences In Health Parameters In Us College Students, Brittany Navrkal

Open Access Master's Theses

Background

Indigestible, fermentable carbohydrates are bioactive dietary carbohydrates not digested by human enzymes but are fermented into short chain fatty acids and gases by colonic bacteria. These carbohydrates display prebiotic effects and may influence body mass index (BMI), glucose regulation, blood pressure, and blood cholesterol. However, intakes of fermentable carbohydrates have not been explored in the general US population and potential metabolic effects have not been well elucidated. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine consumption of total fermentable carbohydrates and subclasses, oligosaccharides and polyols, in US college students (n=359, body fat= 25.4±9.3%, 83% female) and potential health …

Synthesis Of 2-Amino-Α-Carboline And Analogues Relevant For Structural Investigations Of The Corresponding Dna Adducts, Matthew S. Blake

Open Access Master's Theses

In rational drug design, the most effective targets are identified when a mechanism-based understanding of a disease state’s proliferation and persistence is available. 2-amino-α-carboline (2-AαC) is a heterocyclic aromatic amine (HAA), which upon metabolic activation in vivo, can covalently bind to the C8-position of guanine. This modification elicits a response from the Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) system but, if left unrepaired, may result in mutations. The metabolites of 2-AαC are significantly more reactive towards adduct formation than those of 4-aminobiphenyl (4-ABP), a confirmed human bladder carcinogen. Furthermore, 2-AαC is found in cigarette smoke at concentrations 1000 times greater than …

Flourescence-Based Detection Of Pesticides Via Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticles, William Talbert

Open Access Master's Theses

The use of synthetic pesticides has played a large role in increasing crop yields throughout the world, but their adverse effects on humans and non-target animals is of major concern due to their toxicity and persistence in the environment. Some of the more persistent examples are organochlorine pesticides, particularly dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its metabolites. Reported herein is the development of a detection scheme using organic nanoparticles for the fluorescence detection of a range of pesticides. The nanoparticles were fabricated from a synthetic conjugated fluorescent polymer, and fluorescence experiments were performed using both nanoparticle solutions and polymer thin films.

The large …

Epidemiology Of Puffy Snout Syndrome In Tuna, Taylor M. Voorhees

Open Access Master's Theses

The domestication of tuna species has proven to be one of the most challenging endeavours in aquaculture. Among the issues yet unresolved is the occurrence of ‘puffy snout syndrome,’ a condition in which tumor-like growths form on the head. Ultimately, vision and feeding are impaired and long-term afflictions typically result in mortality. Though few mentions of puffy snout exist in the literature, evidence suggests that it is not uncommon among facilities that hold tunas in captivity. The specific aims of this study were to: a) describe pathological features of puffy snout, and b) investigate its etiology through the evaluation of …

Effects Of Gabab Ligands On The Gsh-Induced Electrical Activity Of The Hypostome In Hydra, Bianca M. Lauro

Open Access Master's Theses

Reduced glutathione, GSH, artificially induces the signature feeding behavior in the early-evolved metazoan, Hydra vulgaris. Evidence has shown that the mouth opening response is prolonged by the inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA. By making extracellular recordings of a detached reduced-tentacle hypostome, it is possible to record the electrical activity produced by GSH and to observe the effects of the inhibitory neurotransmitter, gamma-amino-butyric acid (GABA), the GABAB agonist (baclofen) and the GABAB antagonist, (phaclofen).

When an electrode is placed on the mouth of the hypostome, thus blocking the mouth opening, and the ligands are placed in the bath surrounding the base of …

Linkages Between New England Dolphin Stranding Frequency And North Atlantic Oscillation Variability, Charles Thomas Harry Ii

Open Access Master's Theses

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a dominant climatic driver that influences hydrographic and ecological parameters at multiple spatial scales and several trophic levels. To date, linkages between NAO variability and dolphin strandings on a regional scale have not been investigated. Stranding records of short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) and Atlantic white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus acutus) during 1990–2014 between Maine and New York were correlated against the winter NAO index at several time lags in order to explore the link between stranding variability and NAO. The stranding frequencies of the two species were positively correlated to one …

Winter Vertical Distributions Of Antarctic Krill As Seen Through A New Stereo Camera System, Mary Kane

Open Access Master's Theses

A new stereo camera system, encompassing a Sonde, acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP), and high-resolution-imaging cameras, was developed to improve our understanding of in situ Antarctic krill behaviors and distribution. Krill were observed on 18 deployments in 3 bays in the Western Antarctic Peninsula from May-June 2013. Observation conditions varied, including time of day, clear to stormy surface conditions, temperatures (-1.2ºC to 0.8ºC) and salinities (33.5ppt to 34.8ppt). Krill were observed in 61% of profiles. Krill distributions were found in two distinct profiles with regards to where highest abundances occurred: Type I profiles had maxima in the middle of the …

The Influence Of Salt Marsh Fucoid Algae (Ecads) On Sediment Dynamics Of Northwest Atlantic Marshes, M. C. Tyrrell, Carol S. Thornber, J. A. Burkhardt, M. Congretel

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Resilience is currently a key theme within salt marsh ecological studies. Understanding the factors that affect salt marsh accretion and elevation gains are of paramount importance if management of these ecosystems is to be successful under increasing synergistic stresses of storm surge, inundation period, and eutrophication. We present the results of salt marsh fucoid algae (ecads) removal experiments on Spartina alterniflora abundance, production and decomposition and the sedimentary dynamics of two marshes on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The presence of the thick layer of marsh fucoids had a significant and positive influence on sediment deposition, accretion, concentration of water column particulates, …

Top 10 Medicinal Plants And Their Groundbreaking Impact On Modern Medicine, Jordan N. Patterson, Joan Marie Lausier

Senior Honors Projects

This paper describes ten plants that having been groundbreaking drugs in the past century that were all derived from plants. I chose to do my project on this topic because of my family’s history with natural medicine. In 1999 my mother was diagnosed with Bile Duct cancer and the doctors gave her only a couple of weeks to live. The doctors recommended chemotherapy and radiation, but the results seemed negative for the situation. After some extensive research, my parents found St. Georges Medicinal Wellness Center located in the tiny village of Bad Aibling, Germany. This hospital along with offering traditional …

Aspartate Β-Hydroxylase Expression Promotes A Malignant Pancreatic Cellular Phenotype, Xiaoqun Dong, Qiushi Lin, Arihiro Aihara, Yu Li, Chiung-Kuei Huang, Waihong Chung, Qi Tang, Xuesong Chen, Rolf Carlson, Christina Nadolny, Gregory Gabriel, Mark Olsen, Jack Wands

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the leading causes of cancer related deaths due to aggressive progression and metastatic spread. Aspartate β-hydroxylase (ASPH), a cell surface protein that catalyzes the hydroxylation of epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like repeats in Notch receptors and ligands, is highly overexpressed in PC. ASPH upregulation confers a malignant phenotype characterized by enhanced cell proliferation, migration, invasion and colony formation in vitro as well as PC tumor growth in vivo. The transforming properties of ASPH depend on enzymatic activity. ASPH links PC growth factor signaling cascades to Notch activation. A small molecule inhibitor of β-hydroxylase activity …

Investigating The Effects Of Mobile Bottom Fishing On Benthic Biota: A Systematic Review Protocol, Kathryn M. Hughes, Michel J. Kaiser, Simon Jennings, Robert A. Mcconnaughey, Roland Pitcher, Ray Hilborn, Ricardo O. Amoroso, Jeremy Collie, Jan Geert Hiddink, Ana M. Parma, Adriaan Rijnsdorp

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Background:

Mobile bottom fishing, such as trawling and dredging, is the most widespread direct human impact on marine benthic systems. Knowledge of the impacts of different gear types on different habitats, the species most sensitive to impacts and the potential for habitats to recover are often needed to inform implementation of an ecosystem approach to fisheries and strategies for biodiversity conservation. This knowledge helps to identify management options that maximise fisheries yield whilst minimising negative impacts on benthic systems.

Methods/Design:

The methods are designed to identify and collate evidence from experimental studies (e.g. before/after, control/impact) and comparative studies (spanning a …