Digital Commons Network^™

Phthalocyanine-Peptide Conjugates For Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Targeting, Benson G. Ongarora, Krystal R. Fontenot, Xiaoke Hu, Inder Sehgal, Seetharama D. Satyanarayana-Jois, Dm Graça H. Vicente

Faculty Publications

Four phthalocyanine (Pc)-peptide conjugates designed to target the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) were synthesized and evaluated in vitro using four cell lines: human carcinoma A431 and HEp2, human colorectal HT-29, and kidney Vero (negative control) cells. Two peptide ligands for EGFR were investigated: EGFR-L1 and -L2, bearing 6 and 13 amino acid residues, respectively. The peptides and Pc-conjugates were shown to bind to EGFR using both theoretical (Autodock) and experimental (SPR) investigations. The Pc-EGFR-L1 conjugates 5a and 5b efficiently targeted EGFR and were internalized, in part due to their cationic charge, whereas the uncharged Pc-EGFR-L2 conjugates 4b and 6a …

Sustainability: More About The Toolmaker Than The Tools, R. Eugene Turner

Faculty Publications

A sustainable system is not necessarily a high-quality one, but it could be. We could, for example, “survive” on the desperate edge, as the remnants in a self-fouled and deteriorating environment. Why won’t a future sustainable system be just another industrial model of mass efficiency and throughput? Perhaps the incompatible outcomes are a choice between the sometimes nearly invisible civilizing aspects of culture nurturing respect, equality, and cooperation on one hand, and the greed and self-indulgences undermining social tolerance, empathy, and cooperation that ends up promoting violence and dehumanization. The human heritage is subtle, indestructible, and worth nurturing if we …

A Plant Virus Substrate Induces Early Upregulation Of Bmp2 For Rapid Bone Formation, Pongkwan Sitasuwan, L. Andrew Lee, Peng Bo, Erin N. Davis, Yuan Lin, Qian Wang

Faculty Publications

Many nanoscale materials have been developed to investigate the effects on stem cell differentiations via topographical and chemical cues for applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The use of plant viruses as cell supporting substrates has been of particular interest due to the rapid induction of bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) towards osteogenic cells. In this study, the role of Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and its early effects on osteoinduction with particular emphasis on the regulation of bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP2) was examined. We observed that the cells on the virus substrate immediately aggregated and formed bone-like …

Thirty Years Of Sn 1980k: Evidence For Light Echoes, Ben E.K. Sugerman, Jennifer E. Andrews, Michael J. Barlow, Geoffrey C. Clayton, Barbara Ercolano, Parviz Ghavamian, Robert C. Kennicutt, Oliver Krause, Margaret Meixner, Masaaki Otsuka

Faculty Publications

We report optical and mid-infrared photometry of SN 1980K between 2004 and 2010, which shows slow monotonic fading consistent with previous spectroscopic and photometric observations made 8-17yr after outburst. The slow rate of change over two decades suggests that this evolution may result from scattered and thermal light echoes off of extended circumstellar material. We present a semi-analytic dust radiative-transfer model that uses an empirically corrected effective optical depth to provide a fast and robust alternative to full Monte Carlo radiative-transfer modeling for homogenous dust at low to intermediate optical depths. We find that unresolved echoes from a thin circumstellar …

Ionically Self-Assembled, Multi-Luminophore One-Dimensional Micro- And Nanoscale Aggregates Of Thiacarbocyanine Gumbos, Sergio L. De Rooy, Susmita Das, Min Li, Bilal El-Zahab, Atiya Jordan, Ridgely Lodes, Anna Weber, Lin Chandler, Gary A. Baker, Isiah M. Warner

Faculty Publications

Groups of uniform materials based on organic salts (GUMBOS), derived from thiacarbocyanine (TC)-based dyes with increasing methyne chain lengths, were prepared through a single-step metathesis reaction between the iodide form of the TC dye and lithium bis(perfluoroethylsulfonyl)imide as the lipophilic anion source. Ionic self-assembly of these fluorescent hydrophobic GUMBOS resulted in aqueous dispersions of one-dimensional micro- and nanoscale molecular aggregates. Blended binary and ternary aggregates containing multiple TC GUMBOS were also prepared. These nanostructures exhibited a variety of aspect ratios, affording tunable Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) and aggregation-dependent spectroscopic properties. © 2012 American Chemical Society.

Choral Intelligibility When Recording With An Orchestra: An Audio Engineer's Perspective, Michael F. Gates

Faculty Publications

From an audio engineer's perspective, producing a recording that features a choir and orchestra requires many careful considerations. It is reasonable to suggest that paramount to the final product is the intelligibility of the sung text. It is well known that the singer's formant, visible as a spectral peak around 3,000 Hz, assists a singer to be heard over an orchestra. Research indicates however that in choral singing this region is much lower in amplitude than in operatic singing. Because of many acoustic variables, the singing may well be masked and the text obscured. Critical listening analysis of recordings of …

"Everyone Who Hears Will Laugh With Me": Humor And Telling God's Truth, Rolf A. Jacobson, Karl Jacobson

Faculty Publications

Since humor is an essential part of human nature, speaking the truth, including the biblical truth, seems to require the use of humor. Humor exposes our flaws and opens us to new vistas—or in theological terms, it preaches both law and gospel.

The Ethical And Professional Risks Of Engaged Scholarship, Kathleen F. Mcconnell

Faculty Publications

The article reviews several books including "Save the World on Your Own Time," by Stanley Fish, "Challenging the Prison-Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts & Educational Alternatives," edited by Stephen John Hartnett, and "The Ethics and Politics of Speech: Communication and Rhetoric in the Twentieth Century," by Pat J. Gehrke.

International Trademark Protection And Global Public Health: A Just-Compensation Regime For Expropriations And Regulatory Takings, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

Lawmakers in developed and developing countries are expanding legal protections for trademarks – words, combinations of colors, signs, letters, numerals, figurative elements and designs meant to convey the origin and quality of firms’ goods or services. The purported rationales underlying trademark protection are promotion of competition and reduction of consumers’ information costs. Trademark law promotes competition by giving trademark holders an incentive to invest in the quality of goods or services and then associate that quality with a relatively easy-to-identify brand, mark or logo. The law punishes private actors who attempt to free-ride on the goodwill built by the trademark …

Tailoring Remedies To Spur Innovation, Sarah R. Wasserman Rajec

Faculty Publications

An emerging rule in the district courts—thus far endorsed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit—allows a victorious patent holder to receive a permanent injunction against an infringer if she is able to show that she has suffered a loss of market share due to the infringement. The larger the loss of market share the patent holder can prove, the more likely the court will issue an injunction. This “market share rule” is a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., exhorting lower courts to engage in equitable balancing before awarding …

Trehalose Transporter From African Chironomid Larvae Improves Desiccation Tolerance Of Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells, Nilay Chakraborty, Michael A. Menze, Heidi Elmoazzen, Halong Vu, Martin L. Yarmush, Steven C. Hand, Mehmet Toner

Faculty Publications

Dry preservation has been explored as an energy-efficient alternative to cryopreservation, but the high sensitivity of mammalian cells to desiccation stress has been one of the major hurdles in storing cells in the desiccated state. An important strategy to reduce desiccation sensitivity involves use of the disaccharide trehalose. Trehalose is known to improve desiccation tolerance in mammalian cells when present on both sides of the cell membrane. Because trehalose is membrane impermeant the development of desiccation strategies involving this promising sugar is hindered. We explored the potential of using a high-capacity trehalose transporter (TRET1) from the African chironomid Polypedilum vanderplanki …

St. John's Wort Inhibits Insulin Signaling In Murine And Human Adipocytes, Allison J. Richard, Zhaleh J. Amini, David M. Ribnicky, Jacqueline M. Stephens

Faculty Publications

Adipocytes are insulin-sensitive cells that play a major role in energy homeostasis. Obesity is the primary disease of fat cells and a major risk factor for the development of Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic syndrome. The use of botanicals in the treatment of metabolic diseases is an emerging area of research. In previous studies, we screened over 425 botanical extracts for their ability to modulate adipogenesis and insulin sensitivity. We identified St. John's Wort (SJW) extracts as inhibitors of adipogenesis of 3T3-L1 cells and demonstrated that these extracts also inhibited insulin-sensitive glucose uptake in mature fat cells. In …

Angiogenic Deficiency And Adipose Tissue Dysfunction Are Associated With Macrophage Malfunction In Sirt1 -/- Mice, Fen Xu, David Burk, Zhanguo Gao, Jun Yin, Xia Zhang, Jianping Weng, Jianping Ye

Faculty Publications

The histone deacetylase sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) inhibits adipocyte differentiation and suppresses inflammation by targeting the transcription factors peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ and nuclear factor κB. Although this suggests that adiposity and inflammation should be enhanced when SIRT1 activity is inactivated in the body, this hypothesis has not been tested in SIRT1 null (SIRT1 -/-) mice. In this study, we addressed this issue by investigating the adipose tissue in SIRT1 -/-mice. Compared with their wild-type littermates, SIRT1 null mice exhibited a significant reduction in body weight. In adipose tissue, the average size of adipocytes was smaller, the content of extracellular matrix …

Plant Science In Forest Canopies - The First 30 Years Of Advances And Challenges (1980-2010), Margaret D. Lowman, Timothy D. Schowalter

Faculty Publications

Contents: Summary 12 I. Introduction 12 II. History of canopy access 13 III. Consequences of whole-tree approaches to forest science 15 IV. Canopy communities - their inhabitants, environment, and processes 16 V. The role of forest canopies in providing ecosystem services 21 VI. Using canopy science as a 'hook' to inspire forest conservation 21 VII. Conclusions -'black boxes' in canopy science that remain 22 Acknowledgements 23 References 24 Summary: As an emerging subdiscipline of forest biology, canopy science has undergone a transition from observational, 'oh-wow' exploration to a more hypothesis-driven, experimental arena for rigorous field biology. Although efforts to explore …

Sierra Leone's Peaceful Resistance To Authoritarian Rule, Robert Press

Faculty Publications

This study examines the nonviolent resistance starting in 1977 that students, lawyers, journalists, women's organizations, and others, mounted against repressive rule in Sierra Leone, a country known to many mostly for its violent civil war (1991–2002) and “blood diamonds” that helped fuel it. The study argues that social movement theories, though developed in the West, can help explain such resistance–but only with some revisions. The resistance in Sierra Leone took place without the kind of exogenous “opportunities” and resources normally associated with movements in the democratic West. The study offers alternative explanations that expand the usual concept of social movements …

Everybody Is Their Own Island: Teacher Disconnection In A Virtual School, Abigail Hawkins, Charles R. Graham, Michael K. Barbour

Faculty Publications

Virtual schooling is a recent phenomenon in K-12 online learning. As such, the roles of the online teachers are emerging and differ from those of the traditional classroom teacher. Using qualitative interviews of eight virtual high school teachers, this study explored teachers' perceptions of their online teaching role. Teachers expressed a sense of disconnection from their students, the profession, and their peers as a result of limited interactions due to significant institutional barriers. Researchers discuss the implications of this disconnection as well as future avenues for research.

Telomere Maintenance Genes Sirt1 And Xrcc6 Impact Age-Related Decline In Telomere Length But Only Sirt1 Is Associated With Human Longevity, Sangkyu Kim, Xiuhua Bi, Malwina Czarny-Ratajczak, Jianliang Dai, David A. Welsh, Leann Myers, Michael A. Welsch, Katie E. Cherry, Jonathan Arnold, Leonard W. Poon, Michal Jazwinski

Faculty Publications

Leukocyte telomere length is widely considered a biomarker of human age and in many studies indicative of health or disease. We have obtained quantitative estimates of telomere length from blood leukocytes in a population sample, confirming results of previous studies that telomere length significantly decreases with age. Telomere length was also positively associated with several measures of healthy aging, but this relationship was dependent on age. We screened two genes known to be involved in telomere maintenance for association with the age-related decline in telomere length observed in our population to identify candidate longevity-associated genes. A single-nucleotide polymorphism located in …

The Effects Of Video Formats In Online News: A Study Of Recall And Stickiness, August Grant, Diane Guerrazzi, Jack Karlis

Faculty Publications

News organizations putting content on their websites may better engage their audience by offering a choice of raw video rather than packages. A two-by-three experiment studied the relationships among video format, time spent, and recall for online news. Test subjects viewed a traditional, broadcast-type standard news “package,” a disassembled package, and raw video with text. Results showed users spent significantly more time with the raw video format than with the other two formats. Time spent was strongly correlated with post-test recall of elements of each story, but there was no direct relationship between format and recall. A model is proposed …

Associations Between Screen-Based Sedentary Behavior And Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors In Korean Youth, Wonwoo Byun, Marsha Dowda, Russell R. Pate

Faculty Publications

The purposes of this study were to: 1) describe the patterns of screen-based sedentary behaviors, and 2) examine the association between screen-based sedentary behavior and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors in representative Korean children and adolescents, aged 12 to 18 yr, in the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Screen-based sedentary behavior was measured using self-report questionnaires that included items for time spent watching TV and playing PC/video games. Physical activity was measured using items for frequency and duration of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). CVD risk factors such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, …

Mexican Adolescents' Risky Sexual Behavior And Migration Intentions, Stephanie L. Ayers, Flavio F. Marsiglia, Steven Hoffman, Jildyz Urbaeva, Jaime Booth

Faculty Publications

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to identify the association between risky sexual behaviors and migration intentions among adolescents living in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected by self-administered questionnaires to students enrolled in an alternative schooling system in Guanajuato, Mexico, during the school year of 2006-2007. The sample size for this study includes 538 unmarried students, 35 percent male, ages 14-19. Ordinal logistic regression is used to estimate the odds of engaging in risky sexual behaviors.

Findings - The results reveal that male adolescents with higher intentions to migrate have significantly higher odds of engaging in …

Mediation And Post-Election Litigation: A Way Forward, Rebecca Green

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Private Policing Of Environmental Performance: Does It Further Public Goals?, Sarah L. Stafford

Faculty Publications

Over the past two decades the role of private parties in the policing of environmental regulation has grown dramatically. In some cases the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has led this effort. In other situations, private parties have provided the impetus for new policing activities that are conducted independently from the EPA. Private policing can be beneficial when the increased involvement of the private sector either decreases the costs of achieving a particular level of environmental performance or increases environmental performance in a cost-effective manner. Private parties, however, could also divert regulated entities away from regulatory objectives. This Article explores the …

Low-Loss Meta-Atom For Improved Resonance Response, Derrick Langley, Ronald Coutu Jr., Peter J. Collins

Faculty Publications

Measurements of a meta-atom integrated with a low noise amplifier into the split-ring resonator are presented. A comparison is made between baseline meta-atoms and one integrated with a GaAs low noise amplifier. S-parameter measurements in a RF strip-line show the resonant frequency location. The resonance null is more prominent for the integrated meta-atom. Biasing the low noise amplifier from 0 to 7 VDC showed that the resonant null improved with biasing voltage. As the biasing voltage increases, the transmission null reduced from -11.82 to -23.21 dB for biases from 0 to 7 VDC at resonant frequency.

Boundary Work: Transcendence And Authoriality In Religious And Secular Law, David S. Caudill

Faculty Publications

The semiotic investigation of the divine or transcendent authoriality of religious law involves, in the context of discussions concerning the propriety or impropriety of the influence of religion in ‘‘secular’’ political and legal systems, preliminary boundary work to discern the meanings of ‘‘religion’’, ‘‘secular’’, and ‘‘belief.’’ Jeremy Waldron’s account of the propriety of religion in ‘‘secular’’ politics, mirroring but reversing John Rawls’ account of religion’s impropriety in that context, can be contrasted with neo-Calvinist (and other) conceptions of pluralism and the inevitability of fundamental ‘‘beliefs’’ in all political and legal thought. In the latter perspectives, religious believers are neither unique …

Evidence That Thaxtomin C Is A Pathogenicity Determinant Of Streptomyces Ipomoeae, The Causative Agent Of Streptomyces Soil Rot Disease Of Sweet Potato, Dongli Guan, Brenda L. Grau, Christopher A. Clark, Carol M. Taylor, Rosemary Loria, Gregg S. Pettis

Faculty Publications

Streptomyces ipomoeae is the causal agent of Streptomyces soil rot of sweet potato, a disease marked by highly necrotic destruction of adventitious roots, including the development of necrotic lesions on the fleshy storage roots. Streptomyces potato scab pathogens produce a phytotoxin (thaxtomin A) that appears to facilitate their entrance into host plants. S. ipomoeae produces a less-modified thaxtomin derivative (thaxtomin C) whose role in pathogenicity has not been examined. Here, we cloned and sequenced the thaxtomin gene cluster (txt) of S. ipomoeae, and we then constructed targeted txt mutants that no longer produced thaxtomin C. The mutants were unable to …

Perfect State Distinguishability And Computational Speedups With Postselected Closed Timelike Curves, Todd A. Brun, Mark M. Wilde

Faculty Publications

Bennett and Schumacher's postselected quantum teleportation is a model of closed timelike curves (CTCs) that leads to results physically different from Deutsch's model. We show that even a single qubit passing through a postselected CTC (P-CTC) is sufficient to do any postselected quantum measurement with certainty, and we discuss an important difference between "Deutschian" CTCs (D-CTCs) and P-CTCs in which the future existence of a P-CTC might affect the present outcome of an experiment. Then, based on a suggestion of Bennett and Smith, we explicitly show how a party assisted by P-CTCs can distinguish a set of linearly independent quantum …

Tshkt1;2, A Hkt1 Homolog From The Extremophile Arabidopsis Relative Thellungiella Salsuginea, Shows K + Specificity In The Presence Of Nacl, Zahir Ali, Hyeong Cheol Park, Akhtar Ali, Dong Ha Oh, Rashid Aman, Anna Kropornicka, Hyewon Hong, Wonkyun Choi, Woo Sik Chung, Woe Yeon Kim, Ray A. Bressan, Hans J. Bohnert, Sang Yeol Lee, Dae Jin Yun

Faculty Publications

Cellular Na +/K + ratio is a crucial parameter determining plant salinity stress resistance. We tested the function of plasma membrane Na +/K + cotransporters in the High-affinity K + Transporter (HKT) family from the halophytic Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) relative Thellungiella salsuginea. T. salsuginea contains at least two HKT genes. TsHKT1;1 is expressed at very low levels, while the abundant TsHKT1;2 is transcriptionally strongly up-regulated by salt stress. TsHKT-based RNA interference in T. salsuginea resulted in Na + sensitivity and K + deficiency. The athkt1 mutant lines overexpressing TsHKT1;2 proved less sensitive to Na + and showed less K + …

Genetic Effects Of Traits Associated To Nitrogen Use Efficiency In Maize, Júlio César Dovale, Roberto Fritsche-Neto, Felipe Bermudez, Glauco Vieira Miranda

Faculty Publications

The objectives of this work were to determine the genetic control of nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), to identify the importance of N acquisition (NAE) and utilization (NUtE) efficiencies on its composition, and to quantify the relation between production of shoot (SDM) and root dry matter mass with NUE and its components. Forty-one hybrid combinations were evaluated in two N availabilities: low (LN) and high (HN). A randomized complete block design with two replicates, in a simple factorial arrangement (hybrid combination x N availability), was used. Statistical analyses were done using mixed model equations. High magnitude correlations were detected between NAE …

The Ubiquitin Ligase Siah2 Regulates Pparγ Activity In Adipocytes, Gail Kilroy, Heather Kirk-Ballard, Lauren E. Carter, Z. Elizabeth Floyd

Faculty Publications

Moderate reductions in peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)γ levels control insulin sensitivity as effectively as activation of PPARγ in adipocytes by the thiazolidinediones. That observation suggests that PPARγ activity can be regulated by modulating the amount of PPARγ protein in adipocytes. Activation of PPARγ in adipocytes is linked to changes in PPARγ protein levels via increased degradation of PPARγ proteins by the ubiquitin proteasome system. Identification of the ubiquitin ligase or ligases that recognize ligand bound PPARγ is an essential step in determining the physiological significance of the relationship between activation and ubiquitin-dependent degradation of PPARγ. Using an RNA interference-based screen, …

Conformational Temperature-Dependent Behavior Of A Histone H2ax: A Coarse-Grained Monte Carlo Approach Via Knowledge-Based Interaction Potentials, Miriam Fritsche, Ras B. Pandey, Barry L. Farmer, Dieter W. Heerman

Faculty Publications

Histone proteins are not only important due to their vital role in cellular processes such as DNA compaction, replication and repair but also show intriguing structural properties that might be exploited for bioengineering purposes such as the development of nano-materials. Based on their biological and technological implications, it is interesting to investigate the structural properties of proteins as a function of temperature. In this work, we study the spatial response dynamics of the histone H2AX, consisting of 143 residues, by a coarse-grained bond fluctuating model for a broad range of normalized temperatures. A knowledge-based interaction matrix is used as input …