Digital Commons Network^™

A Study On Taiwanese International Students And Taiwanese American Students: The Interface Between Naming And Identity, Yi-An Chen

Master's Theses

In this study, I analyze how Chinese and English naming practices influence name adoption and explicate how the use and choice of names by Taiwanese international students and Taiwanese American students at San José State University, California, are structured through social interaction and cultural context. The data were collected from in-depth interviews with 10 Taiwanese international students and 10 Taiwanese American students. The interviews focused on how they construct their identities and produce social relations with others through their choice and use of ethnic and/or English names.

The study findings help to illuminate areas that until now have not received …

Genetic Population Structure And Cryptic Speciation Of Ghost Shrimp (Neotrypaea Californiensis) In North American West Coast Estuaries, Daphne Anne Gille

Master's Theses

Many marine species produce larvae that disperse and develop into post-larvae in the open ocean over a period of weeks to months. However, the patterns and potential of larvae to disperse across long geographic distances are poorly understood. Here genetic variation found at the mitochondrial locus, cytochrome C oxidase subunit I, in adult ghost shrimp, Neotrypaea californiensis, was used as a proxy to infer dispersal potential of ghost shrimp larvae found in estuaries along the west coast of the United States. Multiple haplotypes were shared among 346 adult ghost shrimp specimens collected from estuaries in Washington, Oregon, and California indicated …

The Effects Of Restored Aquatic Large Woody Debris Structures On Invertebrate Populations In The Napa River, Clayton Christopher Leal

Master's Theses

Agricultural encroachment and habitat destruction within the riparian zone of many California ecosystems have created a need for restoration of stream hydrology in order to enhance and support native flora and fauna. On the Napa River, adjacent vineyards have caused the channel to become deeply incised, so that the stream now lacks geomorphic variability and biodiversity. In order to restore channel complexity, large woody debris (LWD) structures were installed in the river in the summer of 2010. In this study I evaluated the effects of installing LWD structures within the Napa River on benthic invertebrates in the first year after …

Investigation Of The Role Of Dietary Flavonoids On Cell Death: Evidence To Support A Non-Classical Apoptotic Mechanism, Tetiana Lialiutska

Master's Theses

Flavonoids are polyphenolic compounds widely distributed in plants and have been shown to be cytotoxic to cancer cells. Our lab has previously shown that some flavonoids are able to induce cytotoxicity and inhibit caspase activity in human breast cancer cell lines. The goal of our study was to identify the specific molecular pathways required for flavonoid-induced cytotoxicity. MDA-MB-231 cells, mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) lacking caspase 3 and 7, and primary baby mouse kidney epithelial cells lacking Bax and Bak were cultured. Flavonoid-treated MDA-MB-231 cells showed cytochrome c release. We detected caspase 3 activation and PARP cleavage in MDA-MB-231 cells after …

A Descriptive Study Of Old-Growth Sequoia Sempervirens Growth Form And Canopy Structure On A Pygmy Forest Ecotone In Mendocino County, Zuhayl Rochin Lambert

Master's Theses

The tallest tree in the world is the coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, a species endemic to a 16-km-wide coastal belt extending from Big Sur, California, to southern Oregon. Old-growth redwood forests are home to other plant and animal species that depend on structural characteristics that have formed over hundreds of years. While a great deal of research regarding growth form and structure has taken place on highly productive stands, little work has been done on marginal sites, where redwoods are on the edge of their ecological tolerance. In the Northern California County of Mendocino, hydrophobic spodosol are host to …

Utilization Of Protein Tertiary Contacts To Improve Protein Structure Prediction Using Sequence Homology, Trung Thanh Nguyen

Master's Theses

The structure of a protein ultimately determines its function; therefore, knowledge of three-dimensional structure is essential for understanding its function and mechanism of action. The two most common methods for determining protein structure are x-ray crystallography and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. These methods are quite successful but can be very time-intensive and costly. An alternative method is protein structure prediction, where structure is computationally predicted from amino acid sequence. As opposed to x-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy, protein structure prediction is not encumbered by potential experimental problems. In this research, we attempted to determine if certain protein structure features, …

Profiling Flavonoid Cytotoxicity In Human Breast Cancer Cell Lines, Sina Yadegarynia

Master's Theses

Flavonoids are part of a large family of polyphenols that are found extensively in fruits and vegetables. This class of compounds has been of considerable medical interest due to their anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities. Although extensive effort has been made to identify the biological effects responsible for the chemopreventive activity of these compounds, the exact molecular mechanisms involved are not fully understood. In this study, we focused on the cytotoxic effects of fourteen different flavonoids against a series of breast cancer cell lines and evaluated the induction of cell cycle arrest at G1 or G2/M phase as result of such …

The Effect Of Glucose On Transcription At Cpxr- And Ompr-Regulated Promoters, Andrew Charles Cosgrove

Master's Theses

While reversible acetylation of proteins has been well studied in eukaryotes and is now recognized in bacteria, global protein acetylation in bacteria is a recently appreciated phenomenon. Protein acetylation is known to affect almost every aspect of cellular physiology in eukaryotes and there is proteomic evidence that this may also hold true in bacteria. In eukaryotes, lysines are acetylated by acetyltransferases that use acetyl-CoA as the acetyl group source, and de-acetylated by deacetylases. In bacteria, this reversible process uses enzymes homologous to those used by eukaryotes.

Our lab has recently found that acetylation of RNA polymerase (RNAP) can activate transcription …

Evaluation Of The Performance Of Non-Covalent Molecular Mechanical Models For Zn2+ And Mg2+ Metal Ions, Maria Magdalena Kamm

Master's Theses

Computer simulations using molecular dynamics (MD) on classical molecular mechanical

(MM) interatomic potentials can provide valuable information and quantitative

predictions about these systems. In MD calculations binding free energies of ions to

host molecules can be studied if correct ion solvation free energies in aqueous solution

are obtained. However, no MM models exist that parametrize various Zn2+ and

transition metals consistently and consider both structural and thermodynamic data

simultaneously.

The first part of our work focused on MD free energy perturbation (FEP) simulations

to derive MM interaction parameters for Zn2+ and Mg2+ ions in aqueous

solution. To obtain these parameters …

Deconstructing Demand For Women And Girls' Education, Linda Lu

Master's Theses

There is an increasing focus on the recognition of women and girls' education as a universal right. Many feminist scholars have questioned this rights-based approach to gender education and evaluated the challenges and solutions based on the international policy discourse. What is notably absent from this scholarship is a comprehensive look at how women and girls' demand for education is constructed though such universal declarations.

This thesis uses a postcolonial feminist framework to analyze how women and girls' demand for education is constructed through international gender education policy. Ultimately, through an analysis of policy and an assessment of the feminist …

(Women's) Archival Spaces And Trans Voices? A (Re)Search And Proposal, Jeremy Curtis Main

Master's Theses

Transgender has been silenced, exiled, forgotten, erased, ignored, maltreated, killed, and ultimately, in a major theme of this research project, excluded from histories. Yet, like women, African-Americans, and gay men and lesbians before them, transgender and their allies are working toward inclusion and independence. History, it seems, can no longer ignore them. One of the surest ways to "prove" a history is to have the original items of that history in an archives. So, what representation do we find among various United States' archives concerning transgender people? Unfortunately, like with many other marginalized groups, much work has to be investigated …

Organization And Composition Of The Α21-Ii Region Of Human Chromosome 21, William Ziccardi

Master's Theses

The purpose of this project was to develop a better map of the alpha 21-II region of human chromosome 21 in regards to size and primary sequence of the five alphoid clusters that comprise the region and to explore the evolutionary relationships that exist within and between these clusters. Several HC21 BACs were identified as containing strong sequence identities to alpha 21-II clones and were mapped to various alpha 21-II clusters. It was revealed that both monomeric and HOR alphoid clusters can be found in the alpha 21-II region. Phylogenetic analysis revealed separate evolutionary histories for the monomeric and HOR …

Resveratrol + Ethanol Preconditioning And Neuroprotection, Nastaran Khodaie

Master's Theses

Our lab established that moderate ethanol preconditioning (MEP) for 6 days blocked the Aâ25-35 toxicity in cerebellar mixed cell cultures and It has been shown that MEP cause the up regulation of the pre-survival enzymes such as proxiredoxin2 (PRX2), which suggests MEP can activate the cell survival pathways against upcoming toxins.

This study was performed to verify the possible combinatory effect of ethanol and resveratrol against Aâ25-35 toxicity. Both ethanol and resveratrol sub-protective concentrations were detected against Aâ25-35 in cerebellar mixed cell cultures. The combination of sub-protective levels of ethanol and resveratrol showed the significantly reduction in number of Aâ25-35 …

Determination Of An Interaction Between Nipped B-Like Protein And Mll, Adam Robert Marek

Master's Theses

The Mixed Lineage Leukemia (MLL) protein serves as a positive transcriptional regulator during hematopoietic and embryonic development. The MLL gene can undergo chromosomal translocations producing leukemia-causing fusions that retain the MLL amino-terminus, including the repression domain. A recent yeast two-hybrid screening used the MLL repression domain as bait and yielded nine positive clones of Nipped B-like (NIPBL).

NIPBL is a crucial member of the cohesin complex, which functions in the segregation of sister chromatids during cell division. However, recent evidence suggests the cohesin complex can also function as a transcriptional regulator.

In this study, we wanted to confirm this interaction …

The Impact Of Algal Community Succession, Taxonomic Composition And Biomass Accrual, On Denitrification Potential Of Stream Periphyton, Allison Daley

Master's Theses

We investigated the relationship between algal taxonomy, community succession and biomass accrual and denitrification potential (DNP) within stream periphyton. Field research was conducted in 6 DuPage County, II forest preserve streams with diverse physical and chemical characteristics and in an experiment in the artificial stream facility at Loyola University Chicago in which 2 sets of streams were amended with nutrients and compared to an unamended set of streams. Algal communities in the field study streams were sampled over 12 weeks late spring/summer and NMDS ordination plots identified 4 distinct communities. Correlations with algal community NMDS axis scores and the relative …

Invisible Margin: Marginalization And Activism Of Adivasi Women In Researches In Bangladesh, Aanmona Priyadarshini

Master's Theses

In the context of historical marginalization of indigenous people from diverse ethnic communities in Bangladesh, this study will investigate how mainstream researches and writings, in books, research reports, newspapers, and blogs on indigenous issues have ignored women's relegation by homogenizing women's distinctive problems with communities' marginalization. The research will explore indigenous women's subordinations in diverse sphere of lives and activism against the power structure that mainstream researches have overlooked. The study will also investigate the possible pathways of solidarity to challenge the systems of power that create control over indigenous people's lives. Thus this research will explore following research questions: …

Evolution Of Interactomes, Monica Micek

Master's Theses

Protein-protein interactions are part of all biological processes and are responsible for directing the development and maintenance of all systems in a species. Identifying such interactions provides insight into molecular processes in addition to their importance in understanding disease. Identifying protein-protein interactions experimentally is expensive, both in terms of cost and effort, and can generate erroneous results. Thus computational methods are key in reducing the scope of experimental assays, providing predictions for subsequent verification. Herein I present a new computational tool for the prediction of protein-protein interactions which, looking at sequence data alone, can identify putative interacting proteins as a …

Organization Of The Centromeric Satellite I Cluster And D21z1 Short Arm Junction Region Of Human Chromosome 21, Riddhi V. Patel

Master's Theses

To study chromosomal segregation errors causing Down syndrome one needs a chromosome 21 (HC21) specific centromeric marker, which presently does not exist. Alphoid DNA is the only repetitive sequence at all human centromeres. The current map of HC21 has a gap in the p-arm alphoid (D21Z1) junction region and the centromeric satellite I (satI) sequence. This satellite I cluster was shown not to be a specific centromeric marker since it is also on HC13. There are actually multiple satI families on both HC13 and HC21. This project also filled the gap in the HC21map and characterized the D21Z1 p- arm …

Self-Control As A Determining Factor In Aftercare Compliance And Recidivism Of Sheridan Correctional Center Releasees, Jana R. Krepel

Master's Theses

This study looked to Self–Control Theory to explore relationships between self–control and aftercare completion and recidivism in a cohort of Sheridan Correctional Center releases (N=604). The data set was obtained by Dr. David Olson (Olson & Rozhon, 2011) of Loyola University Chicago. Utilizing an existing inmate evaluation tool, the Client Evaluation of Self and Treatment, a new index of self–control was created, and the scales of this index became the predictor variables. After logistic regression, it was determined that none of the self–control scales were significant predictors of either aftercare compliance or recidivism. In fact, when all variables were considered, …

Cristo Rey And Christ The King Jesuit High School: Two Schools, Two Demographics, Two Realities: One Model, Alfredo Astorga-Velasquez

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze two Catholic high schools that follow the same innovative private urban model called the Cristo Rey Model. In this model the students work one day per week in entry-level jobs in Chicago area firms and through this work-study program students earn money in order to pay a portion of their tuition. Both high schools are in Chicago, are run by Jesuits, and serve youths from low-income families. The model and goals are the same even though the schools serve different demographic groups and communities: one Latino and the other African American. The …

Understanding The Regulation Of Metabolic Enzyme Acetylation In E. Coli, Arti Walker-Peddakotla

Master's Theses

Global protein acetylation is a newly discovered phenomenon in bacteria. Of the more than 250 acetylations reported in E. coli, many are of metabolic enzymes. Thus, acetylation could represent a novel posttranslational mechanism of metabolic control. Yet, almost nothing is known about the regulation of these acetylations or of their metabolic outcomes. Here, we report that the cAMP receptor protein (CRP) regulates protein acetylation in E. coli and provide evidence that protein acetylation modulates the flux of carbon through central metabolism. When we grew cells in mixed amino acids supplemented with glucose and cAMP, global protein acetylation increased in a …

Characterization Of The Coca Chemokine Receptor Four Agonist Activity Of Ubiquitin, Daniel M. Staren

Master's Theses

Ubiquitin has previously been identified as another natural agonist of CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4). In addition, recent evidence suggests that ubiquitin may activate CXCR4 through a binding site on the receptor, which is distinct from the binding site for the cognate ligand stromal cell-derived factor (SDF)-1α. The cellular consequences of ubiquitin induced CXCR4 activation, however, are still poorly defined and a side-by-side comparison of CXCR4 mediated functions after activation with SDF-1α and ubiquitin is lacking. Such information will be instrumental to better understand the physiological function of CXCR4 and to further define its role as a therapeutic target in …

Kv7 K+ Channels In Airway Smooth Muscle Cells As Target For Asthma Therapy, Priyanka Prakash Kakad

Master's Theses

Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) is an important etiological feature of asthma, the molecular mechanisms of which are poorly understood, thus preventing development of specific and effective therapies. We investigate the role played by Kv7 voltage-activated potassium channels in the pathophysiology of AHR and evaluate the significance of their regulation in treatment of asthma. Our studies provide the first evidence for expression of multiple Kv7 channels in guinea pig and human airways and demonstrate that the expression of Kv7 channels is reduced in allergen-sensitized guinea pig airways. Our ex vivo functional studies reveal that clinically available Kv7 channel activators attenuate the bronchoconstrictor …

Agreement And Disagreement In Parent And Child Perceptions Of Spina Bifida Medical Responsibilities During The Transition To Adolescence, Alexandra Psihogios

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of informant discrepancies by evaluating levels of parent-child agreement and disagreement over who takes responsibility for SB medical tasks in relation to family conflict and medical adherence. Participants were 140 preadolescents with SB. Data used in this study are taken from the first wave of data collection (when adolescents were between the ages of 8-15) in a larger longitudinal study. Although disagreement levels predicting family conflict and medical adherence were non-significant (p > .05), a significant main effect of agreement and two significant Agreement x Conflict interactions predicting medical adherence were …

When Theory Meets Practice: Challenging Racial Inequality In A Post-Civil Rights Era, Victoria Brockett

Master's Theses

Knowledge about racial inequality is important because it can inform racially just practices. To this end, multiple scholars have shown how racial inequality operates and how it can be challenged in various facets of social life. However, what does challenging racism look like when theory meets practice? Building on racial formation theory, this thesis examines a racial justice organization's (RJO) training and consulting services through the lens of a political project that is rearticulating the meaning of race and thus, the role of race in the social structure. Evidenced by observations and interviews with RJO staff and their clients, this …

Midwife Or Med-Wife: Examining Emotion Work With Midwifery Students In Clinical Training, Jessica Anna Cebulak

Master's Theses

Midwives follow a holistic philosophy of care that goes beyond just medical intervention, providing support to both mother and family through the various stages of pregnancy and child birth. Yet, there is a lack of research in the US that examines how midwives invest emotion in their work, and the challenges they face when doing so. Drawing on the concept of Arlie Hochschild's (1979) emotion work as a lens for this study, I examine how midwifery students experience and manage emotion when delivering care to patients during clinical training in a large, urban hospital. Using eight qualitative, in-depth interviews with …

Reproductive Success Of Gulls In The Larus Glaucescens-Occidentalis Complex On Protection Island, Washington, Libby C. Megna

Master's Theses

Glaucous-winged Gulls (Larus glaucescens) and Western Gulls (Larus occidentalis) hybridize extensively where their ranges meet along the coasts of Washington and Oregon, producing a continuum of phenotypic intergrades between the two parental species. Previous work has shown that hybrids can experience greater reproductive success than parental types by combining adaptive behaviors, such as nest site selection, of both parental species, although success of hybrids may be affected by shifts in the ecotone between marine upwelling and non-upwelling environments. I investigated whether there is a correlation between phenotype, reproductive success, and nest site choice for gulls in Protection Island National Wildlife …

Temporal Dynamics Of Galapagos Marine Iguna (Amblyhynchus Cristatus) Haulout, Brianna Gale Payne

Master's Theses

Galápagos marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) briefly forage in marine habitats but spend their remaining time hauled out on land. A wide range of diurnal activities, from social and thermoregulatory behaviors to sleep and food processing, occurs during haulout. To understand the dynamics of haulout and foraging in relation to environmental factors, I fit compartmental models derived from ordinary differential equations to field data collected daily from 30 April to 16 May 2011 at two sites—one Sandy and one Rocky—at Cabo Douglas, Isla Fernandina. The best model for haulout at the Sandy site accounts for 77–80% of observed variability and includes …

Automatic Document Classification In Small Environments, Jonathan David Mcelroy

Master's Theses

Document classification is used to sort and label documents. This gives users quicker access to relevant data. Users that work with large inflow of documents spend time filing and categorizing them to allow for easier procurement. The Automatic Classification and Document Filing (ACDF) system proposed here is designed to allow users working with files or documents to rely on the system to classify and store them with little manual attention. By using a system built on Hidden Markov Models, the documents in a smaller desktop environment are categorized with better results than the traditional Naive Bayes implementation of classification.

The Impact Of Breast Cancer Screening On Sleep, Affect, And Immune Functioning, Caitlin Burbridge

Master's Theses

Despite great strides that have been made over the past several decades in terms of diagnosis and treatment, breast cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American women and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality for women in the United States. Although the benefits of early detection of breast cancer have been clearly established, the advantages of screening must also be weighed against a potential corresponding negative psychological impact of screening procedures. The purpose of the present study was to further investigate the impact of breast cancer screening on previously unstudied or understudied aspects of psychological and physiological …