Digital Commons Network^™

Complementary Therapies As Stress-Reduction In Children With Mental-Illness, Meghan M. Neubauer

Senior Honors Projects

Meghan Neubauer

Abstract: Complementary Therapies as Stress-Reduction in Children with Mental Illness

Mental Illness is being diagnosed at a faster rate and in younger populations than in the past. While children with Mental Illness face a number of physical, social, and emotional concerns, how can we balance a child’s physical, social, emotional, and developmental needs while supporting mental wellness? The National Institute for Mental Health identifies current treatment for children with mental illness to include psychotherapy and medications. Complementary therapies can help support children’s therapy by reducing stress in children with mental illness. If we can reduce stress in children …

Deep-Sea Octopus (Graneledone Boreopacifica) Conducts The Longest-Known Egg-Brooding Period Of Any Animal, Bruce Robison, Brad A. Seibel, Jeffrey Drazen

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Octopuses typically have a single reproductive period and then they die (semelparity). Once a clutch of fertilized eggs has been produced, the female protects and tends them until they hatch. In most shallow-water species this period of parental care can last from 1 to 3 months, but very little is known about the brooding of deep-living species. In the cold, dark waters of the deep ocean, metabolic processes are often slower than their counterparts at shallower depths. Extrapolations from data on shallow-water octopus species suggest that lower temperatures would prolong embryonic development periods. Likewise, laboratory studies have linked lower temperatures …

What They Don’T Want You To Know About Planet X: Surviving 2012 And The Aesthetics Of Conspiracy Rhetoric, Ian Reyes, Jason K. Smith

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Predictions of catastrophe at the end of the year 2012 are popular enough to be exploited by Hollywood and debunked by NASA. Drawing from a YouTube video series predicting a 2012 cataclysm caused by “Planet X,” we ask whether the discourse in question is a conspiracy theory and demonstrate how it exemplifies the challenges of analyzing rhetoric in the “paranoid style.” Examining these videos in terms of evidence, credibility, and inter-textuality, this article articulates an aesthetic of conspiracism, going beyond identifying the components of paranoid style to answer what makes a good conspiracy theory as such.

Facile, Regio- And Diastereoselective Synthesis Of Spiro-Pyrrolidine And Pyrrolizine Derivatives And Evaluation Of Their Antiproliferative Activities, Abdulrahman I. Almansour, Raju Suresh Kumar, Farzana Beevi, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi, Hasnah Osman, Rusli Ismail, Tan Soo Choon, Brian Sullivan, Kellen Mccaffrey, Alaa Nahhas, Keykavous Parang, Mohamed Ashraf Ali

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

A number of novel spiro-pyrrolidines/pyrrolizines derivatives were synthesized through [3+2]-cycloaddition of azomethine ylides with 3,5-bis[(E)-arylmethylidene]tetrahydro-4(1H)-pyridinones 2a–n. Azomethine ylides were generated in situ from the reaction of 1H-indole-2,3-dione (isatin, 3) with N-methylglycine (sarcosine), phenylglycine, or proline. All compounds (50 μM) were evaluated for their antiproliferative activity against human breast carcinoma (MDA-MB-231), leukemia lymphoblastic (CCRF-CEM), and ovarian carcinoma (SK-OV-3) cells. N-α-Phenyl substituted spiro-pyrrolidine derivatives (5a–n) showed higher antiproliferative activity in MDA-MB-231 than other cancer cell lines. Among spiro-pyrrolizines 6a–n, a number of derivatives …

Clinical Implication Of Changes In Serum Adiponectin In Patients With Hepatogenic Diabetes, Zhongying Bao, Xiaodong Yuan, Shuhong Duan, Xiaoqun Dong

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Adiponectin is a protein hormone that modulates glucose metabolism and fatty acid oxidation. Weexplored the clinical implication of serum adiponectin in hepatogenic diabetes. Serum adiponectin levels were determined using enzyme–linked immunochemistry assay in 78 individuals including 19 hepatogenic diabetes, 20 type 2 diabetes (T2D), 20 chronic liver disease and 19 healthy controls. Cases and controls were matched by gender and body mass index (BMI). There is no difference in serum adiponectin levels among hepatogenic diabetic, T2D and healthy control groups. The levels of adiponectin are highest in chronic liver disease and lowest in T2D. Insulin levels are highest in hepatic …

The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (Mmetsp): Illuminating The Functional Diversity Of Eukaryotic Life In The Oceans Through Transcriptome Sequencing, Patrick J. Keeling, Bethany D. Jenkins, Susanne Menden-Deuer, Et Al

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Funding: This project was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (GBMF; Grants GBMF2637 and GBMF3111) to the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) and the National Center for Marine Algae and Microbiota (NCMA). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Authors apart from NCGR and NCMA affiliates, FB and HMW (who performed 18S rRNA gene analyses), are community members who submitted samples for sequencing, including members of the advisory committee, but did not receive GBMF funds directly in support of these efforts.

Overwintering Strategies Of Bloom-Forming Ulva Species In Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, Usa, Shelby Rinehart, Michele Guidone, Amanda Ziegler, Tanja Schollmeier, Carol S. Thornber

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Temperate coastal estuaries worldwide, such as Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, are influenced by seasonal macroalgal blooms (e.g., Ulva) during warm months, whereas bloom-forming macroalgae are rarely encountered during winter. We assessed the ability of distromatic Ulva to overwinter through fragments, recruits, and/or microscopic propagules. We documented (a) small tissue fragments in sediment cores and the water column, (b) recruits and microscopic propagules on field-based settlement tiles, and (c) production of reproductive propagules, throughout the winter months. Laboratory culturing experiments indicated that both fragments and propagules are viable. Our data indicate that bloom-forming overwintering Ulva simultaneously use multiple reproductive strategies.

Heterochrony, Modularity, And The Functional Evolution Of The Mechanosensory Lateral Line Canal System Of Fishes, Nathan C. Bird, Jacqueline F. Webb

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: The canals of the mechanosensory lateral line system are components of the dermatocranium, and demonstrate phenotypic variation in bony fishes. Widened lateral line canals evolved convergently in a limited number of families of teleost fishes and it had been hypothesized that they evolved from narrow canals via heterochrony and explore modularity in the lateral line system. Two species of cichlids with different canal phenotypes were used to test a hypothesis of heterochrony. Histological material prepared from ontogenetic series of Aulonocara stuartgranti (widened canals) and Tramitichromis sp. (narrow canals) was analyzed using ANCOVA to determine rates of increase in canal …

Introduced And Native Congeners Use Different Resource Allocation Strategies To Maintain Performance During Infection, Courtney A.C. Coon, Amber J. Brace, Scott R. Mcwilliams, Marshall D. Mccue, Lynn B. Martin

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Hosts can manage parasitic infections using an array of tactics, which are likely to vary contingent on coevolutionary history between the host and the parasite. Here we asked whether coping ability of congeners that differ in host-parasite coevolutionary history differed in response to experimental infections with a coccidian parasite. House sparrows (Passer domesticus) and gray-headed sparrows (Passer griseus) are sympatric and ecologically similar, but house sparrows are recent colonizers of Kenya, the site of our comparison, whereas gray-headed sparrows are native. We evaluated three variables as barometers of infection coping ability: vertical flight, pectoral muscle size, …

Effect Of Long-Term Dietary Arginyl-Fructose (Af) On Hyperglycemia And Hba1c In Diabetic Db/Db Mice, Kwang-Hyoung Lee, Kyoung-Soo Ha, Sung-Hoon Jo, Chong M. Lee, Young-Cheul Kim, Kwang-Hoe Chung, Young-In Kwon

Nutrition Faculty Publications

We have previously reported that Amadori compounds exert anti-diabetic effects by lowering sucrose-induced hyperglycemia in normal Sprague-Dawley rats. In the present study we extended our recent findings to evaluate whether α-glucosidase inhibitor arginyl-fructose (AF) lowers blood glucose level in diabetic db/db mice, a genetic model for type 2 diabetes. The db/db mice were randomly assigned to high-carbohydrate diets (66.1% corn starch) with and without AF (4% in the diet) for 6 weeks. Changes in body weight, blood glucose level, and food intake were measured daily for 42 days. Dietary supplementation of AF resulted in a significant …

A Lack Of Parasitic Reduction In The Obligate Parasitic Green Alga Helicosporidium, Jean-François Pombert, Nicolas Achille Blouin, Christopher E. Lane, Drion Boucias, Patrick J. Keeling

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The evolution of an obligate parasitic lifestyle is often associated with genomic reduction, in particular with the loss of functions associated with increasing host-dependence. This is evident in many parasites, but perhaps the most extreme transitions are from free-living autotrophic algae to obligate parasites. The best-known examples of this are the apicomplexans such as Plasmodium, which evolved from algae with red secondary plastids. However, an analogous transition also took place independently in the Helicosporidia, where an obligate parasite of animals with an intracellular infection mechanism evolved from algae with green primary plastids. We characterised the nuclear genome of Helicosporidium …

Curricular Affairs Committee Report #515, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Curricular Affairs Committee Report #515 Appendices A-E, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Graduate Council Report No. 2013-2014-8, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Defining The Sites Of Interaction Of The Fancd2, Fance, And Fancl Proteins, Joseph Mcclanaghan

Senior Honors Projects

Fanconi anemia (FA) is a rare genetic disease characterized by congenital defects, bone marrow failure and increased cancer susceptibility. FA is caused by mutations in any one of 16 genes. These genes encode for proteins that function in the FA-BRCA pathway to repair damaged DNA. Because of its important r­­­ole in DNA repair, this pathway is considered a major cellular tumor suppressor pathway, i.e. is critical for the prevention of cancer. Underscoring this fact, several of the FA genes - including BRCA2, BRIP1, PALB2, and RAD51C - are bona fide breast and ovarian cancer susceptibility genes.

My …

Molecular Chaperone Tools For Use Against Neurodegenerative Diseases, Matthew Tinkham

Senior Honors Projects

A noted characteristic found in several neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain. Amyloid plaques contain deposits of fibrillar aggregates of misfolded proteins that disrupt normal functionality in neurons. Certain variants of these misfolded proteins are self-replicating; these self-replicating amyloids are termed prions (for infectious protein). We are interested in how protein misfolding contributes to amyloid formation and how molecular chaperone proteins can change the formation of amyloid deposits. Chaperone proteins function by catalyzing the proper folding of other proteins, the refolding of misfolded proteins, …

Annual Report Honors Program And Visiting Scholars Committee 2013-2014, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Macroinvertebrate Assemblages And Dynamic Soil Properties: Influence Of Dredging, Bianca N. Ross

Senior Honors Projects

Bianca Peixoto

Senior Honors Project

Macroinvertebrate Assemblages and Dynamic Soil Properties: Influence of Dredging: Abstract

The habitat characterization of subaqueous soils is important for inventorying natural resources and monitoring changes in ecosystem processes. This project aimed to characterize benthic communities within coastal ponds of southern Rhode Island, and develop an understanding of how these communities change due to habitat alterations. I explored the distribution of benthic biology among a range of estuarine subaqueous soils and the effect of anthropogenic disturbance (dredging) on these distributions. The term “benthic” refers to the collection of organisms living in the substrate at the interface …

Lrh1 As A Driving Factor For Cancer Development, Alissa M. Margraf

Senior Honors Projects

LRH1 as a driving factor for cancer development

Alissa Margraf, Qi Tang, Qiushi Lin, Xiaoqun Dong

Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Science, College of Pharmacy, The University of Rhode Island, Pharmacy Building, 7 Greenhouse Road, Kingston, RI 02881 USA

Cancer is a major public health problem worldwide. Colon cancer ranks as the third most common causes of cancer mortality in the United States, with an estimated 96,830 new cases and 50,310 deaths in 2014. Colon cancer develops in the digestive tract where benign growths called polyps transform into malignant tumors. Colon cancer cells invade and destroy nearby tissue and can …

Retrospective Writing, Melissa B. Cavaliero

Senior Honors Projects

The past four years I have devoted my studies to science and mathematics. While I have loved studying these subjects, I wanted to take the opportunity of the Senior Honors Project to explore a different field. I chose the field of writing. Being able to tell a story is one thing, but being able to tell a story well and in writing is another. The focus of my project is retrospective writing. The six written essays will be from the age of five when I entered first grade through my college years. A series of pictures will correlate with each …

Clpxp Modulates Cell Growth And Morphology In Cell Shape Mutants Of E.Coli, Ryann Murphy

Senior Honors Projects

ClpXP modulates cell growth and morphology in cell shape mutants of E. coli

Ryann Murphy¹ and Jodi L. Camberg¹

¹University of Rhode Island, Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Kingston, RI, 02881

Penicillin Binding Proteins (PBPs) are a family of prokaryotic membrane proteins named for their propensity to bind the antibiotic penicillin and are involved in remodeling and deposition of peptidoglycan. In wild type Escherichia coli cells, the uniform rod shape is conserved across generations. E.coli cells containing multiple deletions of Low Molecular Weight (LMW) PBPs exhibit irregular shapes. LMW PBP5 (dacA) is a potential …

Reconstruction Of Pacific Ocean Bottom Water Salinity During The Last Glacial Maximum, Tania Lado Insua, Arthur J. Spivack, Dennis Graham, Steven D'Hondt, Kathryn Moran

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Knowledge of salinity in the deep ocean is important for understanding past ocean circulation and climate. Based on sedimentary pore fluid chloride measurements of a single Pacific site, Adkins et al. (2002) suggested that, during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the Pacific deep bottom water was saltier than expected based on lower sea level alone. Here we present high-resolution salinity profiles from five sites in the South, Equatorial, and North Pacific Ocean. Our study greatly constrains understanding of LGM salinity in the Pacific Ocean. Our results show that LGM chloride concentrations of deep Pacific bottom water were 4.09 …

Global Period-Doubling Bifurcation Of Quadratic Fractional Second Order Difference Equation, Senada Kalabušić, Mustafa Rs Kulenović, M. Mehuljić

Mathematics Faculty Publications

We investigate the local stability and the global asymptotic stability of the difference equation x_n+1 = (αx²_n + βx_n x_n-1 + yx_n−1) / (Ax²_n + Bx_nx_n-1 + Cx_n-1), n = 0, 1, …. with nonnegative parameters and initial conditions such that Ax²_n + Bxnx_n-1 + Cx_n-1 > 0, for all n ≥ 0. We obtain the local stability of the equilibrium for all values of parameters and give some global asymptotic stability results …

Rs744166 Polymorphism Of The Stat3 Gene Is Associated With Risk Of Gastric Cancer In A Chinese Population, Kevin Yuan, Huimin Liu, Lina Huang, Xiyun Ren, Jingjing Liu, Xiaoqun Dong, Wenjing Tian, Yunhe Jia

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

The aim of this study was to explore the association between polymorphisms in signal transducer and activator of transcription protein 3 (STAT3) and the risk of gastric cancer. In the present study, a case-control study was conducted in which rs2293152 and rs744166 polymorphisms in STAT3 were analyzed in 209 Chinese patients with gastric cancer and 294 cancer-free controls. The genotypes were determined by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism method. For the rs744166 polymorphism, the TC genotype (adjusted OR = 0.60, 95% CI = 0.39–0.92, and P = 0.020) and CC genotype (adjusted OR = 0.41, 95% CI = …

Curricular Affairs Committee Report #514, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Graduate Council Report No. 2013-2014-7, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Human Immune Responses To H. Pylori Hla Class Ii Epitopes Identified By Immunoinformatic Methods, Songhua Zhang, Joseph Desrosiers, Jose R. Aponte-Pieras, Kristen Dasilva, Loren D. Fast, Frances Terry, William D. Martin, Anne S. De Groot, Leonard Moise, Steven F. Moss

Institute for Immunology and Informatics Faculty Publications

H. pylori persists in the human stomach over decades and promotes several adverse clinical sequelae including gastritis, peptic ulcers and gastric cancer that are linked to the induction and subsequent evasion of chronic gastric inflammation. Emerging evidence indicates that H. pylori infection may also protect against asthma and some other immune-mediated conditions through regulatory T cell effects outside the stomach. To characterize the complexity of the CD4+ T cell response generated during H. pylori infection, computational methods were previously used to generate a panel of 90 predicted epitopes conserved among H. pylori genomes that broadly cover HLA Class II diversity …

The Five Stable Noble Gases Are Sensitive Unambiguous Tracers Of Glacial Meltwater, B. Loose, W. J. Jenkins

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The five inert noble gases—He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe—exhibit a unique dissolved gas saturation pattern resulting from the formation and addition of glacial meltwater to seawater. He and Ne become oversaturated, and Ar, Kr, and Xe become undersaturated to varying percentages. For example, addition of 10‰ glacial meltwater to seawater results in a saturation anomaly of ΔHe = 12.8%, ΔNe = 8.9%, ΔAr = −0.5%, ΔKr = −2.2%, and ΔXe = −3.3%. This pattern in noble gas saturation reflects a unique meltwater signature that is distinct from the other major physical processes that modify the gas concentration and saturation, …

Adverse Moisture Events Predict Seasonal Abundance Of Lyme Disease Vector Ticks (Ixodes Scapularis), Kathryn A. Berger, Howard S. Ginsberg, Katherine D. Dugas, Lutz H. Hamel, Thomas N. Mather

Plant Sciences and Entomology Faculty Publications

Background

Lyme borreliosis (LB) is the most commonly reported vector-borne disease in north temperate regions worldwide, affecting an estimated 300,000 people annually in the United States alone. The incidence of LB is correlated with human exposure to its vector, the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis). To date, attempts to model tick encounter risk based on environmental parameters have been equivocal. Previous studies have not considered (1) the differences between relative humidity (RH) in leaf litter and at weather stations, (2) the RH threshold that affects nymphal blacklegged tick survival, and (3) the time required below the threshold to …

Report Of The Uri Council For Research 2013 - 2014 Academic Year, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.