Digital Commons Network^™

Development And Evolution Of The Amniote Integument: Current Landscape And Future Horizon, Cheng Ming Chuong, Dominique G. Homberger

Faculty Publications

This special issue on the development and evolution of the amniote integument begins with a discussion of the adaptations to terrestrial conditions, the acquisition of water-impermeability by the reptilian integument, and the initial formation of filamentous integumentary appendages that pave the way towards avian flight. Recent feather fossils are reviewed and a definition of feathers is developed. Hierarchical models are proposed for the formation of complex structures, such as feathers. Molecular signals that alter the phenotype of integumentary appendages at different levels of the hierarchy are presented. Tissue interactions and the roles of keratins in evolution are discussed and linked …

Explaining And Predicting Patterns In Stochastic Population Systems, Shandelle M. Henson, Aaron A. King, R. F. Costantino, J. M. Cushing, Brian Dennis, Robert A. Desharnais

Faculty Publications

Lattice effects in ecological time-series are patterns that arise because of the inherent discreteness of animal numbers. In this paper, we suggest a systematic approach for predicting lattice effects. We also show that an explanation of all the patterns in a population time-series may require more than one deterministic model, especially when the dynamics are complex.

Recently Integrated Alu Elements And Human Genomic Diversity, Abdel Halim Salem, Gail E. Kilroy, W. Scott Watkins, Lynn B. Jorde, Mark A. Batzer

Faculty Publications

A comprehensive analysis of two Alu Y lineage subfamilies was undertaken to assess Alu-associated genomic diversity and identify new Alu insertion polymorphisms for the study of human population genetics. Recently integrated Alu elements (283) from the Yg6 and Yi6 subfamilies were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and 25 of the loci analyzed were polymorphic for insertion presence/absence within the genomes of a diverse array of human populations. These newly identified Alu insertion polymorphisms will be useful tools for the study of human genomic diversity. Our screening of the Alu insertion loci also resulted in the recovery of several "young" …

T-Splines And T-Nurccs, Thomas W. Sederberg, Jianmin Zheng, Almaz Bakenov, Ahmad Nasri

Faculty Publications

This paper presents a generalization of non-uniform B-spline surfaces called T-splines. T-spline control grids permit T-junctions, so lines of control points need not traverse the entire control grid. T-splines support many valuable operations within a consistent framework, such as local refinement, and the merging of several B-spline surfaces that have different knot vectors into a single gap-free model. The paper focuses on T-splines of degree three, which are C2 (in the absence of multiple knots). T-NURCCs (Non-Uniform Rational Catmull-Clark Surfaces with T-junctions) are a superset of both T-splines and Catmull-Clark surfaces. Thus, a modeling program for T-NURCCs can handle any …

Methacholine-Induced Airway Hyperresponsiveness Is Dependent On GαQ Signaling, Michael T. Borchers, T. Biechele, J. P. Justice, T. Ansay, S. Cormier, V. Mancino, T. M. Wilkie, M. I. Simon, N. A. Lee, J. J. Lee

Faculty Publications

Airway function in health and disease as well as in response to bronchospastic stimuli (i.e., irritants, allergens, and inflammatory mediators) is controlled, in part, by cholinergic muscarinic receptor regulation of smooth muscle. In particular, the dependence of airway smooth muscle contraction/relaxation on heterotrimeric G protein-coupled receptor signaling suggests that these events underlie the responses regulating airway function. Gαq-containing G proteins are proposed to be a prominent signaling pathway, and the availability of knockout mice deficient of this subunit has allowed for an investigation of its potential role in airway function. Airway responses in Gαq-deficient mice (activities assessed by both tracheal …

Common And Distinguishing Regulatory And Expression Characteristics Of The Highly Related Korb Proteins Of Streptomycete Plasmids Pij101 And Psb24.2, Matthew J. Ducote, Gregg S. Pettis

Faculty Publications

The conjugative plasmid pIJ101 of the spore-forming bacterium Streptomyces lividans contains a regulatory gene, korB, whose product is required to repress potentially lethal expression of the pIJ101 kilB gene. The KorB protein also auto-regulates korB gene expression and may be involved in control of pIJ101 copy number. KorB (pIJ101) is expressed as a 10-kDa protein in S. lividans that is immediately processed to a mature 6-kDa repressor molecule. The conjugative Streptomyces cyanogenus plasmid pSB24.1 is deleted upon entry into S. lividans to form pSB24.2, a nonconjugative derivative that contains a korB gene nearly identical to that of pIJ101. Previous evidence …

Justice By Paperwork: A Day In The Life Of A Court Scribe In Bourbon Mexico City, Michael C. Scardaville

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Patterns Of Elite Faunal Utilization In Moundville, Alabama, H. Edwin Jackson, Susan L. Scott

Faculty Publications

In recent years, zooarchaeological research has begun to examine the roles of animals as part of the suite of symbols employed at the ongoing social, ceremonial, and political dynamics of prehistoric cultural systems. In the southeastern United States, studies of late prehistoric Mississippian chiefdoms have documented differences in species composition and meat cuts associated with particular social contexts of consumption-for instance, ceremonial feasting vs. private meals-and also with gross distinctions in social rank-elite vs. commoner. Differences in the latter reflect elite control of procurement as well as cultural rides that assign meanings to certain species, which in so doing regulates …

Design And Testing Of Spacecraft Power Systems Using Vtb, Zhenhua Jiang, Shengyi Liu, Roger A. Dougal

Faculty Publications

A study is presented on the design and testing of spacecraft power systems using the virtual test bed (VTB). The interdisciplinary components such as solar array and battery systems were first modeled in native VTB format and validated by experiment data. The shunt regulator and battery charge controller were designed in Simulink according to the system requirements and imported to VTB. Two spacecraft power systems were then designed and tested together with the control systems.

A Road To No Warez: The No Electronic Theft Act And Criminal Copyright Infringement, Eric Goldman

Faculty Publications

In the second half of the 1990s, copyright owners repeatedly sought Congress's help addressing the challenges posed by the Internet and other new technologies. Congress responded with a suite of new protections, including restrictions against circumvention, longer copyright terms, increased statutory damages, and criminalization of willful non-commercial infringement.

This Article examines the latter of those changes, effectuated through the No Electronic Theft Act (the "Act" or the "NET Act"). The Act represents a significant change to copyright law be cause it subtly shifts the paradigm underlying criminal copyright infringement.

Part I of this Article discusses the Act's development, from the …

Bring Back The Draft?, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Chromatin Of Endoreduplicated Pavement Cells Has Greater Range Of Movement Than That Of Diploid Guard Cells In Arabidopsis Thaliana, Naohiro Kato, Eric Lam

Faculty Publications

In the current model of chromatin organization in the interphase cell nucleus, chromosomes are organized into territories. Although constrained diffusion of chromatin in interphase cells has been confirmed in all cell types examined, little is known about chromatin dynamics in plant interphase cells. In this work, we measured for the first time interphase chromatin dynamics in plants using the green-fluorescent-protein-mediated chromatin-tagging system. Moreover, we compared the dynamics of diploid guard cells and endoreduplicated pavement cells. The movement of tagged loci in live seedlings shows constrained behavior in both types of nuclei. However, we found that the apparent confinement area for …

Habitat Selection Of The Channel Darter, Percina (Cottogaster) Copelandi, A Surrogate For The Imperiled Pearl Darter, Percina Aurora, Pamela J. Schofield, Stephen T. Ross

Faculty Publications

Percina (Cottogaster) aurora is an imperiled species under consideration for listing by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. To better understand habitat use of P. aurora, we studied a related and more abundant Cottogaster species, Percina copelandi, from the Ouachita River, Arkansas. We used a laboratory stream system to examine mesohabitat selection (pools versus riffles) and microhabitat selection (substratum particle size) of P. copelandi over three temperature regimes (summer, spring, and winter). Percina copelandi selected pool habitats over riffles and selected pools with coarse substrata (e.g., cobble) over fine substrata (e.g., gravel). In riffles, …

If You Don't Go, Don't Hinder Me: The African American Song Tradition, Chris J. Goertzen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Predicting Irregularities In Population Cycles, Shandelle M. Henson, James R. Reilly, Suzanne L. Robertson, Matthew C. Schu, Eric W. D. Rozier, J. M. Cushing

Faculty Publications

Oscillating population data often exhibit cycle irregularities such as episodes of damped oscillation and abrupt changes of cycle phase. The prediction of such irregularities is of interest in applications ranging from food production to wildlife management. We use concepts from dynamical systems theory to present a model-based method for quantifying the risk of impending cycle irregularity.

Bacteriological Water Quality Of Forested And Pastured Streams Receiving Land-Applied Poultry Litter, Matthew W. Mcbroom, Chang Mingteh, Charles Wells

Faculty Publications

Poultry production is a growing industry in East Texas, generating about 360,000 m tons of broiler litter each year as a by-product for application on pasturelands. Grab samples of fecal coliform (FC) and fecal streptococcus (FS) were collected monthly between March and December 1996 and FC and E-coli samples were collected weekly between July and October 2001 at six sites on the Waffelo and Terrapin Creeks in Nacogdoches County, Texas to assess possible impacts of poultry litter application on bacterial water quality. Sites were grouped by three pairs with each pair consisting of one upstream site in predominantly forested area …

Production Of The Siderophore 2,3-Dihydroxybenzoic Acid Is Required For Wild-Type Growth Of Brucella Abortus In The Presence Of Erythritol Under Low-Iron Conditions In Vitro, Bryan H. Bellaire, Philip H. Elzer, Cynthia L. Baldwin, R. Martin Roop

Faculty Publications

Production of the siderophore 2,3-dihyroxybenzoic acid (2,3-DHBA) is required for the wild-type virulence of Brucella abortus in cattle. A possible explanation for this requirement was uncovered when it was determined that a B. abortus dhbC mutant (BHB1) defective in 2,3-DHBA production displays marked growth restriction in comparison to its parent strain, B. abortus 2308, when cultured in the presence of erythritol under low-iron conditions. This phenotype is not displayed when these strains are cultured under low-iron conditions in the presence of other readily utilizable carbon and energy sources. The addition of either exogenous 2,3-DHBA or FeCl3 relieves this growth defect, …

Linkage For Bmi At 3q27 Region Confirmed In An African-American Population, Amy Luke, Xiaodong Wu, Xiaofeng Zhu, Donghui Kan, Yan Su, Richard Cooper

Faculty Publications

Significant and suggestive linkage for BMI on 3q27 has been reported by several groups, including our own study in African Americans. To further establish the linkage evidence on 3q27, we recruited an independent African-American sample comprising 545 individuals in 128 families. We genotyped 15 short tandem-repeat markers evenly spaced in the 112 cM region around the peak on 3q27 identified in our earlier study. Multipoint linkage analysis by GENEHUNTER2 gave the maximum logarithm of odds (LOD) score 2.4 at map position 188 cM in this sample. When we combined the two samples, linkage evidence was increased to a maximum LOD …

Rapid Prototyping Of Digital Controls For Power Electronics, Antonello Monti, Enrico Santi, Roger A. Dougal, Marco Riva

Faculty Publications

The process for designing digital controls for power electronics is typically quite convoluted and affords many opportunities for errors to occur. We present here a new and complete, method for rapid prototyping of digital controls that allows rapid realization of new designs. The approach uses a collection of tools that include both software (the virtual test bed (VTB) and Matlab/Simulink) and hardware (dSpace DSP). An example application of the methodology completes the discussion.

Evidence For Survival Of Pleistocene Climatic Changes In Northern Refugia By The Land Snail Trochoidea Geyeri, David Posada, Markus Pfenninger, Frederic Magnin

Faculty Publications

The study of organisms with restricted dispersal abilities and presence in the fossil record is particularly adequate to understand the impact of climate changes on the distribution and genetic structure of species. Trochoidea geyeri (Soos 1926) is a land snail restricted to a patchy, insular distribution in Germany and France. Fossil evidence suggests that current populations of T. geyeri are relicts of a much more widespread distribution during more favourable climatic periods in the Pleistocene. Results: Phylogeographic analysis of the mitochondrial 16S rDNA and nuclear ITS-1 sequence variation was used to infer the history of the remnant populations of T. …

Normal Proliferation And Differentiation Of Hoxc-8 Transgenic Chondrocytes In Vitro, Stephania A. Cormier, Maria Alice Mello, Claudia Kappen

Faculty Publications

Background: Hox genes encode transcription factors that are involved in pattern formation in the skeleton, and recent evidence suggests that they also play a role in the regulation of endochondral ossification. To analyze the role of Hoxc-8 in this process in more detail, we applied in vitro culture systems, using high density cultures of primary chondrocytes from neonatal mouse ribs. Results: Cultured cells were characterized on the basis of morphology (light microscopy) and production of cartilage-specific extracellular matrix (sulfated proteoglycans and type II Collagen). Hypertrophy was demonstrated by increase in cell size, alkaline phosphatase activity and type X Collagen immunohistochemistry. …

Genetic Organization And Iron-Responsive Regulation Of The Brucella Abortus 2,3-Dihydroxybenzoic Acid Biosynthesis Operon, A Cluster Of Genes Required For Wild-Type Virulence In Pregnant Cattle, Bryan H. Bellaire, Philip H. Elzer, Sue Hagius, Joel Walker, Cynthia L. Baldwin, R. Martin Roop

Faculty Publications

Brucella abortus reportedly produces the monocatechol siderophore 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,3-DHBA) in response to iron limitation. Nucleotide sequence analysis of the cloned DHBA biosynthesis locus from virulent B. abortus 2308 and genetic complementation of defined Escherichia coli mutants were used to identify the B. abortus genes (designated dhbC, -B, and -A) responsible for synthesis of this siderophore. Reverse transcriptase PCR analysis of total RNA with dhb-specific primers demonstrated that dhbC, -B, and -A are transcribed as components of an operon, together with dhbE, a functional homolog of the Escherichia coli entE gene. Homologs of the E. coli entD and Vibrio cholerae …

Duo Glossaria. Anonymi Montepessulanensis Dictionarius: Le Glossaire Latin-Français Du Ms. Montpellier H236, Scott Gwara

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Religions Of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis Of Parallactic Approaches, By Ziony Zevit, Gerald Klingbeil

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

To Be Or Not To Be Ideophonically Impoverished, Janis B. Nuckolls

Faculty Publications

This paper addresses a current debate over the universality of ideophones, a class of expressions that are used to simulate, through performative foregrounding, the salient processes and perceptions of everyday life experience. Using data from Quechua-speaking Runa in Amazonian Ecuador, I argue for a view of ideophones as a type of cultural discourse through which speakers align themselves with nonhuman life forms and forces of nature. This alignment is suggested by the special performative properties of ideophones, which collapse the distinction between a speech event and a narrated event, thus compelling a speaker to become an action, event, or process, …

Inhibition Of Heparanase Activity And Heparanase-Induced Angiogenesis By Suramin Analogues, Dario Marchetti, Jane Reiland, Brad Erwin, Madhuchhanda Roy

Faculty Publications

Heparanase, a heparan sulfate-specific endo-β-D-glucuronidase, plays an important role in tumor cell metastasis through the degradation of extracellular matrix heparan sulfate proteoglycans (ECM HSPG). Heparanase activity correlates with the metastatic propensity of tumor cells. Suramin, a polysulfonated naphthylurea, is an inhibitor of heparanase with suramin analogues shown to possess antiangiogenic and antiproliferative properties. We investigated the effects of selected suramin analogues (NF 127, NF 145 and NF 171) on heparanase activity and heparanase-driven angiogenesis. Studies of the ability of cellular extracts and purified heparanase from human, highly invasive and brain-metastatic melanoma (70W) cells revealed that heparanase expressed by these cells …

A Causative Relationship Exists Between Eosinophils And The Development Of Allergic Pulmonary Pathologies In The Mouse, Hua Hao H. Shen, Sergei I. Ochkur, Michael P. Mcgarry, Jeffrey R. Crosby, Edie M. Hines, Michael T. Borchers, Huiying Wang, Travis L. Biechelle, Katie R. O'Neill, Tracy L. Ansay, Dana C. Colbert, Stephania A. Cormier, J. Paul Justice, Nancy A. Lee, James J. Lee

Faculty Publications

Asthma and mouse models of allergic respiratory inflammation are invariably associated with a pulmonary eosinophilia; however, this association has remained correlative. In this report, a causative relationship between eosinophils and allergen-provoked pathologies was established using eosinophil adoptive transfer. Eosinophils were transferred directly into the lungs of either naive or OVA-treated IL-5-/- mice. This strategy resulted in a pulmonary eosinophilia equivalent to that observed in OVA-treated wild-type animals. A concomitant consequence of this eosinophil transfer was an increase in Th2 bronchoalveolar lavage cytokine levels and the restoration of intracellular epithelial mucus in OVA-treated IL-5-/- mice equivalent to OVA-treated wild-type levels. Moreover, …

Bacillus Anthracis Virulence In Guinea Pigs Vaccinated With Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed Is Linked To Plasmid Quantities And Clonality, Pamala R. Coker, Kimothy L. Smith, Patricia F. Fellows, Galena Rybachuck, Konstantin G. Kousoulas, Martin E. Hugh-Jones

Faculty Publications

Bacillus anthracis is a bacterial pathogen of great importance, both historically and in the present. This study presents data collected from several investigations and indicates that B. anthracis virulence is associated with the clonality and virulence of plasmids pXO1 and pXO2. Guinea pigs vaccinated with Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed were challenged with 20 B. anthracis isolates representative of worldwide genetic diversity. These same isolates were characterized with respect to plasmid copy number by using a novel method of quantitative PCR developed for rapid and efficient detection of B. anthracis from environmental samples. We found that the copy numbers for both pXO1 …

Bioengineered ‘Golden’ Indica Rice Cultivars With Β-Carotene Metabolism In The Endosperm With Hygromycin And Mannose Selection Systems, Karabi Datta, Niranjan Baisakh, Norman Oliva, Lina Torrizo, Editha Abrigo, Jing Tan, Mayank Rai, Sayda Rehana, Salim Al-Babili, Peter Beyer, Ingo Potrykus, Swapan K. Datta

Faculty Publications

Vitamin-A deficiency (VAD) is a major malnutrition problem in South Asia, where indica rice is the staple food. Indica-type rice varieties feed more than 2 billion people. Hence, we introduced a combination of transgenes using the biolistic system of transformation enabling biosynthesis of provitamin A in the endosperm of several indica rice cultivars adapted to diverse ecosystems of different countries. The rice seed-specific glutelin promoter (Gt-1 P) was used to drive the expression of phytoene synthase (psy), while lycopene β-cyclase (lcy) and phytoene desaturase (crtI), fused to the transit peptide sequence of the pea-Rubisco small subunit, were driven by the …

Biochemical Composition Of Embryonic Blue Crabs Callinectes Sapidus Rathbun 1896 (Crustacea : Decapoda) From The Gulf Of Mexico, Janet R. Jacobs, Patricia M. Biesiot, Harriet M. Perry, Christine Trigg

Faculty Publications

Blue crab Callinectes sapidus embryos from the Mississippi Sound were sampled in spring and in late summer to determine patterns of biochemical composition and of yolk utilization during embryogenesis and to ascertain potential seasonal differences in biochemical composition. The diameter of spring embryos was similar to 6% greater than summer embryos but this significant size difference was due to increased water content, not to increased organic content. The general trend in initial biochemical composition was similar in both seasons; protein was the primary component at similar to 50% of initial dry weight followed by lipid (similar to 30%), ash (similar …