Digital Commons Network^™

Urinformed August 2012, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Hybridization Of Common Reed In North America? The Answer Is Blowing In The Wind, Laura A. Meyerson, C. Lambertini, M. K. Mccormick, D. F. Whigham

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Background and aims: We review evidence for hybridization of Phragmites australis in North America and the implications for the persistence of native P. australis ssp. americanus populations in North America. We also highlight the need for an updated classification system, which takes P. australis intraspecific variation and hybridization into account.

Methodology: We reviewed available published, in press, and in preparation literature to assess the likelihood of hybridization and interbreeding in genotypes of Phragmites australis present in North America.

Principal results: Experimental results demonstrate that hybridization among introduced and native haplotypes is possible within the genus Phragmites …

Motivational Interviewing With Computer Assistance As An Intervention To Empower Women To Make Contraceptive Choices While Incarcerated: Study Protocol For Randomized Controlled Trial, Jennifer Clarke, Melanie A. Gold, Rachel E. Simon, Mary B. Roberts, L.A.R. Stein

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background:

Unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are important and costly public health problems in the United States resulting from unprotected sexual intercourse. Risk factors for unplanned pregnancies and STIs (poverty, low educational attainment, homelessness, substance abuse, lack of health insurance, history of an abusive environment, and practice of commercial sex work) are especially high among women with a history of incarceration. Project CARE (Contraceptive Awareness and Reproductive Education) is designed to evaluate an innovative intervention, Motivational Interviewing with Computer Assistance (MICA), aimed at enhancing contraceptive initiation and maintenance among incarcerated women who do not want a pregnancy within …

Synergistic Association Of Ptgs2 And Cyp2e1 Genetic Polymorphisms With Lung Cancer Risk In Northeastern Chinese, Shujie Guo, Xiaobo Li, Min Gao, Hong Kong, Yuqiong Li, Mingliang Gu, Xiaoqun Dong, Wenquan Niu

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of five extensively-studied polymorphisms in PTGS2 (rs689466, rs5275, rs20417) and CYP2E1 (rs2031920, rs6413432) genes with lung cancer risk in a large northeastern Chinese population.

Methodology/Principal Findings: This is a hospital-based case-control study involving 684 patients with lung cancer and 604 cancer-free controls. Genotyping was performed using the PCR-LDR method. Data were analyzed using Haplo.stats and MDR programs. There were significant differences between patients and controls in allele/genotype distributions of rs5275 (P = 0.002/0.003) and rs6413432 …

Quantitative Analysis Of Some Important Metals And Metalloids In Tobacco Products By Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (Icp-Ms), Syed Ghulam Musharraf, Muhammad Shoaib, Amna Jabbar Siddiqui, Muhammad Najam-Ul-Haq, Aftab Ahmed

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background:

Large scale usage of tobacco causes a lot of health troubles in human. Various formulations of tobacco are extensively used by the people particularly in developing world. Besides several toxic tobacco constituents some metals and metalloids are also believed to pose health risks. This paper describes inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometric (ICP-MS) quantification of some important metals and metalloids in various brands of smoked, sniffed, dipped and chewed tobacco products.

Results:

A microwave-assisted digestion method was used for sample preparation. The method was validated by analyzing a certified reference material. Percentage relative standard deviation (% R.S.D.) between recovered and certified …

Digital Community Voices Committee Programming Inventory For July 2012 Meeting, Dana Neugent, Joseph A. Santiago

Digital Community Voices Committee

Digital Community Voices Committee Programming Inventory for the July 2012 meeting. This will be used by the committee to decide what to show on PBS and RI Interstate in order to showcase past and future diversity programing here at URI.

Ocean Exploration : A Guide To Information Resources, Judith B. Barnett

Technical Services Faculty Publications

An overview and selective guide to the literature of ocean exploration is provided

for reference, research and collection development purposes. Books,

encyclopedias, bibliographies, databases and websites are identified and

described. Both historical background and current information

on the subject are covered.

Energy-Based Carrying Capacities Of Bufflehead Bucephala Albeola Wintering Habitats, Richard A. Mckinney, Scott R. Mcwilliams

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

We present a model for calculating energy-based carrying capacities for bufflehead (Bucephala albeola), a small North American sea duck wintering in coastal and estuarine habitats. Our model uses estimates of the seasonal energy expenditures that incorporate site-specific energetic costs of thermoregulation, along with available prey energy densities to calculate carrying capacities in numbers of birds per winter. The model was used to calculate carrying capacities under several foraging scenarios for bufflehead wintering at three urban and three rural sites in the coastal northeast U.S. We found that energy-based carrying capacities varied from 20 – 320 birds per site …

In Vitro Coagulation Effects Of Ophthalmic Doses Of Bevacizumab, Kerry L. Laplante, Li, Paul B. Greenberg, Victoria Tseng, Suzanne B. Woodmansee, Aisling R. Caffrey, Wen-Chih Wu, Peter D. Friedmann

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Purpose: In vitro coagulation effects of bevacizumab, a drug with potential risks for severe hemorrhagic and arterial thromboembolic events (ATEs), are unknown. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of bevacizumab, including the common ophthalmic dose of 1.25 mg, on the coagulation cascade.

Methods: Bevacizumab doses of 0.25, 0.5, 1.0, 1.25, 2.0, 2.5, and 4.0 mg were incubated at 37 C in the presence of pooled normal plasma (PNP) to determine its biological activity via activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) and prothrombin time (PT) at 30 min, 1 h, and 2 h. The control consisted …

A Single Amino Acid Mutation In An Abc Transporter Gene Causes Resistance To Bt Toxin Cry1ab In The Silkworm, Bombyx Mori, Shogo Atsumi, Kazuhisa Miyamoto, Kimiko Yamamoto, Junko Narukawa, Sawako Kawai, Hideki Sezutsu, Isao Kobayashi, Keiro Uchino, Toshiki Tamura, Kazuei Mita, Keiko Kadono-Okuda, Sanae Wada, Kohzo Kanda, Marian R. Goldsmith

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Bt toxins derived from the arthropod bacterial pathogen Bacillus thuringiensis are widely used for insect control as insecticides or in transgenic crops. Bt resistance has been found in field populations of several lepidopteran pests and in laboratory strains selected with Bt toxin. Widespread planting of crops expressing Bt toxins has raised concerns about the potential increase of resistance mutations in targeted insects. By using Bombyx mori as a model, we identified a candidate gene for a recessive form of resistance to Cry1Ab toxin on chromosome 15 by positional cloning. BGIBMGA007792-93, which encodes an ATP-binding cassette transporter similar to human multidrug …

Gender: An Infinite And Evolving Theory, Julia Churchill Schoellkopf

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Center

Many perceive sex and gender to be the same concept or at least related to each other, but this is not the case. If they do perceive it as different concepts, it is usually understood simply as biological sex. For many people gender is part of daily routine and questioning it is absurd. In virtually all societies gender is defined by characteristics associated with one’s sex. This definition stems from the social construction of gender, meaning that gender is not based solely on physiological qualities. This paper explores the social construct of sex and gender.

The Glycosyltransferase Repertoire Of The Spikemoss Selaginella Moellendorffii And A Comparative Study Of Its Cell Wall, Jesper Harholt, Iben Sørensen, Jonatan Fangel, Alison Roberts, William G.T. Willats, Henrik Vibe Scheller, Bent Larsen Petersen, Jo Ann Banks, Peter Ulvskov

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Spike mosses are among the most basal vascular plants, and one species, Selaginella moellendorffii, was recently selected for full genome sequencing by the Joint Genome Institute (JGI). Glycosyltransferases (GTs) are involved in many aspects of a plant life, including cell wall biosynthesis, protein glycosylation, primary and secondary metabolism. Here, we present a comparative study of the S. moellendorffii genome across 92 GT families and an additional family (DUF266) likely to include GTs. The study encompasses the moss Physcomitrella patens, a non-vascular land plant, while rice and Arabidopsis represent commelinid and non-commelinid seed plants. Analysis of the subset of …

Mutation And Complementation Of A Cellulose Synthase (Cesa) Gene, Ahmed Y. El-Araby

Senior Honors Projects

Cellulose is a carbohydrate polymer that is composed of repeating glucose subunits. Being the most abundant organic compound in the biosphere and comprising a large percentage of all plant biomass, cellulose is extremely plentiful and has a significant role in nature. Cellulose is present in plant cell walls, in commercial products such as those made from wood or cotton, and is of interest to the biofuel industry as a potential alternative fuel source. Although indigestible by humans, cellulose is nutritionally valuable, serving as a dietary fiber. Because of its ubiquity and importance in many areas, studying cellulose will prove to …

Improving The Quality Of Life Of A Homeless Person Using Co-Design And Paul Polak's 12 Steps To Practical Problem Solving, Nana Ama Ofei-Tenkorang

Senior Honors Projects

Improving the Quality of Life of Homeless Persons using Co-Design and Paul Polack’s

12 Steps for Practical Problem Solving

Nana Ofei-Tenkorang

Sponsor: Vinka Oyanedel-Craver, Civil and Environmental Engineering

The Stewart B. McKinney Act (1994) defines a homeless person as one who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence; and has a primary night time residency that is (A) either a publicly or privately supervised operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations, (B) a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings and, (C) an institution that provides a …

The End Of Nowhere: The History Of Tuberculosis In Ri, Emma G. Sconyers

Senior Honors Projects

The World Health Organization estimates that approximately one third of the word's current population had been infected with tuberculosis. Prior to the 1940's TB was considered an incurable, chronic affliction. Historically, many people were forcibly detained in tuberculosis sanatoria to lessen the spread of the disease; my great granfather being one of them. In 1939, without warning, he was taken from his pregnant, jobless wife and one-year-old daughter, who were left to fend for themselves for two years without government planning or assistance. He spent those two years at Wallum Lake Sanitorium in northern Rhode Island, a place my great-grandmother's …

A Mathematical Model For Dengue Fever In A Virgin Environment, Jason K. Bowman

Senior Honors Projects

Dengue is a mosquito-borne viral infection found in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. The disease was named in 1779 and the first recorded epidemic of it occurred simultaneously on three continents within the following decade. Dengue is characterized by flu-like symptoms and, while its symptoms are generally reported as quite unpleasant, is rarely fatal. However, in some cases patients can contract a more serious form of the disease, known as Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, which is far more dangerous. The World Health Organization estimates that today over 2.5 billion people are at risk for Dengue (over 40% of the …

Big Blue And You: An Interdisciplinary Look At Science And The Ocean, A Students Teaching Students Course, Megan M. Nepshinsky, Alexa Kretsch, Benjamin Negrete

Senior Honors Projects

This class is the second project under the new Honors Program initiative, Students Teaching Students (STS). STS was brought to URI and implemented by Bridget Griffith as part of her Senior Honors Project in 2011. Students apply in their Junior year to design, research, and teach an honors course on a topic about which they are passionate. The STS program allows motivated honors students to have a unique opportunity to lead a class as student professors. This allows students a freedom of creativity on the topic, assignments, and teaching style. Drawing on our own experiences, we were able to create …

Big Blue And You: An Interdisciplinary Look At Science And The Ocean, A Students Teaching Students Course, Benjamin Negrete Jr., Megan Nepshinsky, Alexa Kretsch

Senior Honors Projects

This class is the second project under the new Honors Program initiative, Students Teaching Students (STS). STS was brought to URI and implemented by Bridget Griffith as part of her Senior Honors Project in 2011. Students apply in their Junior year to design, research, and teach an honors course on a topic about which they are passionate. The STS program allows motivated honors students to have a unique opportunity to lead a class as student professors. This allows students a freedom of creativity on the topic, assignments, and teaching style. Drawing on our own experiences, we were able to create …

Conformational And Thermodynamic Properties Modulate The Nucleotide Excision Repair Of 2-Aminofluorene And 2-Acetylaminofluorene Dg Adducts In The Nari Sequence, Vipin Jain, Benjamin Hilton, Satyakam Patnaik, Yue Zou, M. Paul Chiarelli, Bongsup P. Cho

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Nucleotide excision repair (NER) is a major repair pathway that recognizes and corrects various lesions in cellular DNA. We hypothesize that damage recognition is an initial step in NER that senses conformational anomalies in the DNA caused by lesions. We prepared three DNA duplexes containing the carcinogen adduct N-(2'-deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-7-fluoro-2-acetylaminofluorene (FAAF) at G₁, G₂ or G₃ of NarI sequence (5'^_-CCG₁G₂ CG₃CC-3'). Our ¹⁹F-NMR/ICD results showed that FAAF at G₁ and G₃ prefer syn S- and W-conformers, whereas anti B-conformer was predominant for …

Make It Bright Foundation, Jessica Peterson

Senior Honors Projects

Imagine yourself at the age of four or five; picture your biggest worries, your biggest fears. Did these emotions even exist? Would you ever have considered yourself a “survivor” as a toddler? One Colombian boy I interviewed has answered these questions, and surprisingly, he answered yes. Yes, he had substantial worries and fears. Yes, he always has been a survivor. By the time he was a toddler, Andres began to evolve into becoming the person he is today. He had no other choice. He has gone through battles that most people do not encounter throughout their entire lifetime. Andres is …

Urinformed May 2012, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Into Project Management: A Grassroots Experience In A Developing Nation, Brittany L. O'Brien

Senior Honors Projects

As a senior at the University of Rhode Island, it has been my experience that the knowledge that has been most successfully retained within my mind has been that which I gained through active learning. As an international development minor I have taken many courses on how developmental aid is provided around the world, and throughout these courses I have learned that the drive for creating those endeavors came from an understanding of need. In order to best complete my education on international development I created a sustainable developmental aid project which provided education for specific needs in Malawi, Africa. …

Road Map To Becoming A Physician Assistant, Maguire J. Miller

Senior Honors Projects

The field of medicine is under constant change and reconstruction, especially when it comes to healthcare practitioners. When a demand is placed on the system, healthcare providers must figure out how they can satisfy the medical needs of the population. Within the past few decades there has been a shortage of people who are capable of fulfilling these needs. For this reason a new profession has been developed; it is called a Physician Assistant (PA). Professionals with this title have been through a rigorous training modeled after what a medical student goes through, but it is condensed into a much …

The Herring River Estuary: Understanding Salt Marsh Restoration And How To Predict The Response Of Phragmites Australis To Increased Tidal Flow, Theresa Murphy

Senior Honors Projects

My presentation invites you to learn about what is involved in planning a salt marsh restoration project. The Herring River Estuary is a disturbed salt marsh ecosystem at Cape Cod National Seashore which has been diked since 1909. The National Park Service (NPS), in cooperation with many partners, is engaged in efforts to restore the now impacted 1,100 acre estuary by re-introducing tidal flow. There is significant complexity involved in trying to restore such an intricate system- from the multitude of environmental factors to important social and economic consequences. There are also several benefits to restored tidal flow. My thesis …

Moss Mural, Chelsea Fredrikson

Senior Honors Projects

Moss Mural: Bridging the Arts and Sciences

Chelsea Fredrikson

Major: Fine Arts

Advisor: Robert Dilworth

Advisor Department: Fine Arts

Date 5-2012

Abstract

When we are young, in elementary school, we are encouraged to learn subjects together. Fine arts, science, math, and literature all work as one, and overlap to teach us valuable lessons and tools we can use as we grow. But as we become older school systems segregate subjects, forcing students to chose a direction. Do I have a creative mind, or a logical mind?

As an art student I’ve tried over the course of my college …

Exploring The Function Of Gt2 In Physcomitrella Patens, Tess Scavuzzo-Duggan

Senior Honors Projects

Plant cell walls are composed of a variety of carbohydrates, among them cellulose, pectin and hemicellulose. Cellulose is deposited in the cell wall as microfibrils via cellulose synthesis complexes (CSCs). These complexes contain the cellulose synthase proteins (CESAs) and come in two different morphological forms: rosettes and linear complexes. Rosette shaped cellulose synthesis complexes occur in land plants, whilst linear complexes are commonly found in red algae. However, some land plants, notably bryophytes (mosses) and seedless vascular plants, contain genes that encode both CESAs of the type that form rosette CSCs and also genes similar to those found in red …

Emergency Preparedness Nursing, Emily A. Ganjei, Patricia Grimes

Senior Honors Projects

Emergency Preparedness at Newport Hospital

Emily A. Ganjei

Sponsors: Carolyn Hames and Lisa Lima-Tessier, Nursing

The subject of my project is emergency nursing and emergency preparedness in the Emergency Department (ED) of Newport Hospital. I am working alongside Lisa Lima-Tessier, Clinical Nurse Manager of the ED, and Pat Grimes, Assistant Clinical Nurse Manager/Emergency Preparedness Coordinator.

As an undergraduate in the College of Nursing, the topic of emergency preparedness has been discussed in many courses, in particular community health nursing. In community nursing we discussed different types of disaster situations and reviewed hospital policies regarding triage and the nurse’s role in …

Understanding The Importance Of The Zinc Binding Domain In Cesa Protein Interaction: Some Assembly Required, Alfred Schupp Iii

Senior Honors Projects

Understanding the Importance of the zinc binding domain in the cellulose synthase complex: Some Assembly Required

Alfred Schupp

Sponsor: Alison Roberts, Biological Sciences

Cellulose microfibrils are vital components of the cell wall. A microfibril is made up of multiple strands of glucose chains, and these cellulose microfibrils are produced by protein complexes in the plasma membrane called cellulose synthase complexes, or CSCs for short. Each complex is made up of 36 subunits called Cellulose Synthase proteins, or CESAs. Each CESA produces a glucose polymer made from beta-1,4 glucan linkages. It is known that CESA proteins aggregate to form CSCs, and …

Potential Impact Of Herbivorous Fish On Ulva Bloom Biomass, Tanja Schollmeier

Senior Honors Projects

Potential Impact of Herbivorous Fish on Ulva Bloom Biomass

Tanja Schollmeier

Sponsor: Carol Thornber, Biological Sciences

The addition of anthropogenically produced nitrogen and phosphorous to coastal habitats is a major problem that frequently results in the rapid growth, or bloom, of macroalgae. Within Narragansett Bay, RI, blooms are commonly formed by two species: Ulva compressa and U. rigida. These blooms co-occur with a number of invertebrates that have been previously studied for their impacts on bloom biomass. However, few studies have examined the abundance or potential grazing impacts of herbivorous fish. To address this information gap, we conducted surveys …

Hydra Vulgaris As A High Throughput Invertebrate For Anti-Epilepsy Drugs, Bianca Marie Lauro

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.