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Protection Of Pifithrin-Α And Melatonin Against Doxorubicin-Induced Cardiotoxicity., Xuwan Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current studies were designed to explore the protective effects of pifithrin-α and melatonin against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity. Doxorubicin was injected at a dose of 22.5 mg/kg (i.p.) in mice to induce cardiotoxic effects. Meanwhile, doxorubicin caused a significant increase of cardiac cell apoptosis following injection (14.2 ± 1.1% for doxorubicin-5 d vs. 1.8 ± 0.12% for control, P < 0.01). Ribonuclease protection assays and Western blot analyses revealed that doxorubicin upregulated the p53-dependent genes Bax, BclxL, and MDM2 at least 2-fold. p53 was phosphorylated at Ser 15 in mouse hearts 1 h following doxorubicin injection, and p38 and ERK1/2 MAPKs mediated the phosphorylation of p53. In addition, caspases-3 and -9 were activated 24 h after doxorubicin injection. A p53 inhibitor, pifithrin-α, inhibited doxorubicin-induced apoptosis when administered at a dose of 2.2 mg/kg. Pifithrin-α abolished p53 transactivation activity, but did not influence doxorubicin-induced phosphorylation at Ser 15. By effectively inhibiting the expression of p53-dependent genes, pifithrin-α blocked doxorubicin-induced activation of caspases-3 and -9, thereby preventing cardiac apoptosis. In addition, pifithrin-α attenuated doxorubicin-induced structural and functional damages, without diminishing its anti-tumor efficacy on p53-null PC-3 cancer cells. The protective effects of melatonin and its metabolite 6-hydroxymelatonin on doxorubicin-induced cardiac dysfunction were evaluated in an isolated perfused mouse hearts and in vivo doxorubicin-treated mice. While perfusion of mouse hearts with 5 μM doxorubicin for 60 min resulted in a 50% suppression of HRxLVDP and a 50% reduction of coronary flow, pre-exposure of hearts to 1 μM melatonin or 6-hydroxymelatonin eased the cardiac …

Vitamin K As A Prophylaxis In The Infant, Michelle Whipple

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Since the mid-1960's, all infants in the US have received intramuscular vitamin K (IMVK) as a prophylactic measure against hemorrhagic disease of the newborn (HDN). Because the human race has obviously survived for so many years without this medical intervention, there is some question concerning the universal necessity of this practice.

Infants are born with comparatively low levels of vitamin K, a compound vital for the carboxylation of serum clotting factors. In the absence of adequately carboxylated clotting proteins, infants are at risk for developing HDN. This condition can cause severe complications, including mental retardation and death. IMVK significantly reduces …

Autoantibodies To Select Brain Regions In Autism, Wyatt Harlan Rivas

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder, may involve abnormal immune reaction such as autoimmunity to the brain. Autoimmunity is generally characterized by the presence of organ-specific autoantibodies, for example the brain-specific autoantibodies in autism. Thus, we conducted a study of autoantibodies against three brain regions, including the caudate-putamen nucleus (CP), cerebral cortex (CC), and cerebellum (CE). These brain regions were dissected out from the brain of a Sprague-Dawley rat and homogenized for protein separation by SDS-PAGE. Autoantibodies were detected by immunoblotting technique in the serum of autistic children (n=42) and normal children (n=11 ). We found that many autistic children had autoantibodies …

Analysis Of Performance Capacity Of Hand Grip Through An Integrated Learning Curve Model, Miguel Torres

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

There are few activities or work task in the manufacturing industry that does not involve grip strength. That is why it is in the best interest of the manufacturing industry to have an understanding of the optimum grip strength gain capacity over time that would lead to better performance, accuracy and most of all prevent hand grip related injuries. For that reason, this thesis was concentrated in discovering a possible basic working model for estimating grip strength over time for a specific grip strength activity. The first step was to observe the trend characteristics of the strength gain data over …

Status Of Migratory Shorebirds At An Inland Stopover Site In The Northern Plains Prairie Pothole Region, Corinne A. Carey

Theses and Dissertations

Teeming with macroinvertebrates, hundreds of tiny wetlands dotting the prairie region of North Dakota provide nutrient rich foraging sites for large numbers of migratory shorebirds. Because these wetlands are typically small, dispersed and ephemeral, documentation of shorebird numbers in the region has been a difficult task. Large variation in survey data has resulted in an overall underestimate in the value of this shorebird habitat.

To assess the status of local migratory shorebirds, I conducted weekly shorebird surveys at eight sites within Kelly's Slough National Wildlife Refuge. These surveys included a bi-weekly inventory of resident invertebrates, a well established prey base …

2003 May, Office Of Communications & Marketing, Morehead State University.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Morehead State University press releases for May of 2003.

Controlling Lead Exposure During The Process Of Cleaning Aviation Spark Plugs, Curtis E. Beers

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This study examines the process of removing lead bromide from aircraft spark plugs and the health hazards associated with the present method of cleaning the lead bromide accumulation from aviation spark plugs. Aviation maintenance technicians can be inadvertently exposed to lead while cleaning the lead bromide accumulation from the spark plug electrode during scheduled engine maintenance.

This study explores controlling the lead bromide particulate matter after it is removed from the spark plug electrode. Various control methods and/or procedural changes that may be employed to control the spread of lead bromide dust throughout the shop environment and the prevention of …

Affects Of Nest Availability On Behavior Of Crawfordapis Luctuosa, A Solitary Bee, May 2003, Erika Blackwell

Monteverde Institute: Tropical Ecology and Conservation

Intra-specific interference competition behavior arises when one organism prevents another from utilizing a resource (Begon, et al. 1990). This resource can be mating partners, a food source, or habitat, but it is often less expensive for the organism to defend the resource than to find another. In this study, 60 nest hole entrances were barred in percentages of 25%, and 50%, in order to study the interactions of Crawfordapis luctuosa (Apoidea, Colletidae, Diphaglossinae) in the presence of depleted nest hole availability. The study was conducted in Monteverde, Puntarenas Province, Costa Rica, at a large nest aggregation approximately 1740 meters in …

Poisoned Lives, Contaminated Lands: Marshall Islanders Are Paying A High Price For The United States Nuclear Arsenal, Zohl De Ishtar

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Ifeminism, Ashlie Warnick

Michigan Law Review

Laws should be judged not by their words or intentions, but by their effects and consequences. When government enacts laws designed to benefit one group, society should judge those laws first by examining whether they have, in practice, provided a net benefit to the law's intended beneficiaries. Next, any such benefit must be weighed against the costs imposed on the rest of society. If the benefits outweigh the costs, this is a socially efficient law. Government should repeal a law when the costs it imposes outweigh its benefits. When laws do not provide a net benefit to the group they …

Individual Vulnerability And Cultural Transformation, Eric J. Mitnick

Michigan Law Review

Perhaps the most pressing problem in multicultural theory and practice today is the problem of individual vulnerability. Most interested theorists and multicultural states now accept the basic premise that some degree of state accommodation of minority cultural practice is required as a matter of justice. Debate then shifts to the best justifications for, and the appropriate extent of, such groupdifferentiated policy. Too often lost amid these discussions is the plight of vulnerable members of accommodated cultural groups: individuals subject to repression within their cultural groups, but who lose a critical aspect of their identities upon exit; individuals who would retain …

The New Leviathan, Dennis Patterson

Michigan Law Review

Reputation in any field is an elusive phenomenon: part notoriety, part honor, part fame, part critical assessment. Even in legal scholarship it has an uneven, unpredictable quality. It is hard to imagine a book by a law professor that has had more immediate impact on world leaders than Philip Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles. Much of the national-security strategy devised by the U.S. administration after the September 11 attacks expresses ideas Bobbitt conceived long before; and from a different point on the political spectrum is the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose televised nationwide address in January explicitly took the book as …

Toward A More Communitarian Future? Fukuyama As The Fundamentalist Secular Humanist, June Carbone

Michigan Law Review

With The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama established himself as the prophet of liberal democracy and free markets, heralding their triumph as the only form of governance capable of commanding legitimacy. Asked to reflect on his predictions a decade later, Fukuyama concluded that the greatest threat to liberalism comes from biotechnology because it alone has the potential to remake the human nature that liberal democracy was designed to serve. Fukuyama makes a compelling case that biotechnology may produce developments that should concern us; he is ironically less persuasive in articulating a liberal-democratic framework for governing the …

Lochner'S Feminist Legacy, David E. Bernstein

Michigan Law Review

Professor Julie Novkov's Constituting Workers, Protecting Women examines the so-called Lochner era of American constitutional jurisprudence through the lens of the struggle over the constitutionality of "protective" labor legislation, such as maximum hours and minimum wage laws. Many of these laws applied only to women, and Novkov argues that the debate over the constitutionality of protective laws for women - laws that some women's rights advocates saw as discriminatory legislation against women - ultimately had more important implications for the constitutionality of protective labor legislation more generally. Liberally defined, the Lochner era lasted from the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873 - …

If History Mattered: John Marshall And Reframing The Constitution, Aviam Soifer

Michigan Law Review

What more can there be to learn about John Marshall? We have been blessed recently with a flood of fine books about Marshall and the Supreme Court over which he presided from 1801 until 1835. We also now have readily available an impressive collection of documents concerning the Court before Marshall, as well as a fine series collecting, introducing, and annotating Marshall's papers. With recent bicentennial celebrations marking the beginning of Marshall's career as Chief Justice and the anniversary of Marbury v. Madison, an outpouring of law review articles and scholarly symposia have offered learned exchanges about the great Chief …

Live And Let Love: Self-Determination In Matters Of Intimacy And Identity, Kim Forde-Mazrui

Michigan Law Review

Are you free to choose the race of your spouse, . . . of your child, . . . of yourself? Historically, the legal and social answer to these questions was No. Matters of racial identity and interracial intimacy were strictly circumscribed by ideologies of racial essentialism and separation, ostensibly rooted in science, morality, and religion. In contrast, according to Professor Randall Kennedy in his new book, Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption, the answer to all three questions should be a resounding Yes. The exclusive source of racial identification and intimacy should be individual choice, free from legal …

Spectrum, Volume 21, Issue 22, Sacred Heart University

Newspapers (Obelisk & Spectrum)

Highlights include: SHU Seniors Prepare for the Last Hurrah -- Despite Sound Problems, Chappelle Still a Success -- Benamati Moves to Improve Library -- Flashback to the 80's for the "SHU-Maican Me Crazy" Spring Week -- Gear Up For SHU's Big, Fat, Greek Weekend -- Learn the History of Fairfield County in a Fun, Unique Way -- Evaluating the Success of the War -- "Leave it to Bush" the New Reality Show on the American Government: The Disorganized Bush Administration and the War on Terror with Iraq -- Highlights & Hindsight's: Why Students Will Miss SHU -- Ditching Class for …

The Role Of Celebration In Building Classroom-Learning Communities., Virginia Farr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Today, teachers are expected to play a major role in the socialization of their students. Crafting strong classroom communities that incorporate celebration is one technique some teachers have developed to enhance a sense of belonging in their classroom.

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceptions of teachers regarding what the practice of celebration accomplishes for the teacher, student, and class in reference to building and maintaining a classroom learning community. This study also examined approaches that teachers found to be the most successful in creating celebrations.

A multiple-site study design was used to gather qualitative data at …

Optimization Of Single-Base-Pair Mismatch Discrimination In Oligonucleotide Microarrays, Hidetoshi Urakawa, Said El Fantroussi, H Smidt, James C. Smoot, Erik H. Tribou, John J. Kelly, Peter A. Noble, David A. Stahl

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The discrimination between perfect-match and single-base-pair-mismatched nucleic acid duplexes was investigated by using oligonucleotide DNA microarrays and nonequilibrium dissociation rates (melting profiles). DNA and RNA versions of two synthetic targets corresponding to the 16S rRNA sequences of Staphylococcus epidermidis (38 nucleotides) and Nitrosomonas eutropha (39 nucleotides) were hybridized to perfect-match probes (18-mer and 19-mer) and to a set of probes having all possible single-base-pair mismatches. The melting profiles of all probe-target duplexes were determined in parallel by using an imposed temperature step gradient. We derived an optimum wash temperature for each probe and target by using a simple formula to …

The 100th Meridian Initiative In Nevada: Assessing The Westward Movement Of The Zebra Mussel To The Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Megan Mccoy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Zebra mussels, Dreissena polymorpha, are a concern for all bodies of water in North America. East of the 100th Meridian, zebra mussels have infested the waters and dramatically changed the natural ecosystems. The US Fish and Wildlife Services set up the 100th Meridian Initiative project to monitor the boat traffic to and from infested and non-infested waters of the United States and Canada. Surveys were conducted from October 19, 2002 through March 31, 2003, focusing specifically on the Lake Mead National Recreation Area (LMNRA) for the scope of this thesis. This study addresses the movement of trailers, boats, and other …

Comparison Of Native Brushland, Replanted, And Unaided Secondary Succession Plant Communities In The Lower Rio Grande Valley Of Texas, Mitchell Allen Sternberg

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Biology)

Agriculture and urban development have destroyed 95% of native brushland habitat in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) of south Texas. Therefore, habitat restoration is an important issue in the LRGV. Since 1982, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been replanting areas in the LRGV to native brushland species to establish a wildlife corridor along the lower reach of the Rio Grande. Vegetation composition of a mature brushland, a replanted habitat and an unaided secondary succession site (fallow field) were examined at one locale in the LRGV in 1999. The mature brushland edge plot had the highest species richness …

The Bg News May 1, 2003, Bowling Green State University

BG News (Student Newspaper)

The BGSU campus student newspaper. May 1, 2003. Volume 92-Issue 70.

Finite Element Analysis Of Cell Subjected To Compressive Loading, Vidhyashankar Venkatesan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A 3D finite element model was built to study the mechanical response of the cell to load. The model included major structural components of a cell like cytoskeletal elements, cell membrane and the presence of internal fluid pressure. The cell was considered as a pressurized, fluid filled bag where inflation of the cell membrane is resisted by the cytoskeletal elements. The behavior of the cell model with microtubules prone to buckling and stabilized by actin filaments was also studied.;A point load was applied to a microtubule in a cell model with there buckling effect taken into consideration. The microtubule started …

Loss Count, Sonya Corin Russomanno

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

My prints encompass themes of loss of past experiences, poetics, repetition, and feeling. By remembering facts from past experiences, one can recall how a particular moment felt. My intention when producing a piece of work is to generalize themes of loss, time, and memory by using visual features of pattern, space, and repetition of forms to exemplify feelings in relation to loss, time, and memory. This thesis statement will first address themes of loss, time, memory, and the visual devices that are employed with one intention, that they exemplify features crucial in my work. In addition, I will address the …

In Situ Determination Of Strength And Stiffness Of Structural Lumber And Composite Products, Jody D. Gray

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Wood is prone to deterioration that reduces its load bearing capabilities. Periodically, older wooden members need to be inspected to ensure the strength and stability of the structure. Historically these inspection methods have consisted of visual inspections lacking scientific basis.;Non-destructive testing (NDT) methods were investigated by this research for the possibility of evaluating modulus of rupture and modulus of elasticity of built-in wooden members. Methods included stress wave timing for dynamic MOE determination and screw withdrawal force (SWF) for MOR and density prediction. Standard ASTM testing procedures were used to determine the actual properties and statistical relationships between these variables …

Afap-110 Is A Csrc Activator, Joseph Myers Baisden

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The cSrc oncogene directs the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton in both normal and transformed cells. Mutation of protein binding domains (SH2 and SH3) from cSrc results in the deregulation of the kinase and the transformation of cells, while deletion of these domains blocks transformation by active forms of Src. This indicates that SH2/SH3 binding partners for cSrc may play a crucial role in the regulation of this kinase as well as the fulfillment of cSrc-directed functions. One SH2/SH3 binding partner for cSrc being investigated for its role in cSrc transformation is the a&barbelow;ctin f&barbelow;ilament-a&barbelow;ssociated p&barbelow;rotein, AFAP-110. AFAP-110 represents a …

Pronunciation Difficulties In The Consonant System Experienced By Arabic Speakers When Learning English After The Age Of Puberty, Ana Marina Do Val Barros

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The current study investigates the difficulties Arabic speakers may encounter when pronouncing English consonants. All participants are adults who have been in contact with the American culture for at least four years. The results show that the Arabic speakers in this study had difficulties to pronounce eight English consonants. The results also demonstrate that the difficulties experienced by Arabic speakers may differ depending on the country they come from. For instance, a person from Kuwait may experience different problems with English consonants when compared to a person from Egypt. This study provides insights and assists ESL teachers with the development …

Gender Differences In Test Anxiety, Angela Marie Josephine Fiore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The research regarding overall general test anxiety and sex difference is contradictory at best. There is no clear answer to the research question concerning general test anxiety and sex difference according to the literature. An experiment using the modified Suinn Test Anxiety Behavior Scale (1971) was conducted to detect differences between the sexes with regard to test anxiety. There was no overall significant difference between the genders; however, when a multivariate regression was conducted to account for variability contributed by age and class, there was a statistically significant difference. This finding can be perceived as an indication that it is …

Measurement Of Attitude Toward Educational Use Of The Internet In An English Composition Course With A Comparison Of Traditional -Aged And Non-Traditional-Aged Students, Diana Gail Duran

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Attitude is tied to behavior, and writing behaviors seem to be affected by using a computer. Technological advances have forever changed the way educators view the process of writing, including the way students learn, how they feel about the way they are learning, and their subsequent behaviors. Numerous studies have indicated that using computers to write changes the way students write, what they write, and the quantity and quality of that writing. However, studies disagreed about how these changes occur, whether they are positive or negative (or neither), and what psychological dynamics, such as attitude, are involved, to what degree, …

Studies On The Regulation Of Mu Opioid Receptor Mrna Expression In Shsy-5y Human Neuroblastoma Cells, Xin Yu

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Prolonged exposure to morphine down-regulates mu opioid receptors (MOR) on both undifferentiated and differentiated (retinoic acid or phorbol ester treated) SHSY-5Y cells. However, morphine pretreatment does not alter MOR receptor affinity for morphine. To investigate the molecular basis for MOR regulation after exposure to its selective agonists, we have developed a quantitative competitive reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (QC-RT PCR) to quantify the expression of MOR in SHSY-SY cells. Differentiation of SHSY-5Y cells with retinoic acid or phorbol ester up regulated MOR mRNA expression by 30 % and 78%, respectively. A 24 hours treatment with morphine (10 µM) down regulated MOR …