Digital Commons Network^™

PrpSc Accumulation In Fetal Cotyledons Of Scrapieresistant Lambs Is Influenced By Fetus Location In The Uterus, Janet Alverson, Katherine I. O'Rourke, Timothy V. Baszler

Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease: Publications

Placentae from scrapie-infected ewes have been shown to accumulate PrP^Sc when the genotype of the fetus is of a susceptible genotype (VRQ/VRQ, ARQ/VRQ or ARQ/ARQ). Cotyledons from fetuses of genotypes ARR/ARR, ARQ/ARR and ARQ/VRR have previously been shown to be resistant to PrP^Sc accumulation. By using ewes from a naturally infected scrapie flock, cotyledons from fetuses of multiple births of different genotypes were examined. PrP^Sc was detected in fetal cotyledons of genotype ARQ/ARQ, but not in cotyledons from their dizygotic twin of genotype ARQ/ARR. This confirms earlier reports of single fetuses of these genotypes, but is the …

A Novel Statistical Method To Estimate The Effective Snp Size In Vertebrate Genomes And Categorized Genomic Regions, Deakwan Seo, Cizhong Jiang, Zhongming Zhao

Psychiatry Publications

Background

The local environment of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) contains abundant genetic information for the study of mechanisms of mutation, genome evolution, and causes of diseases. Recent studies revealed that neighboring-nucleotide biases on SNPs were strong and the genome-wide bias patterns could be represented by a small subset of the total SNPs. It remains unsolved for the estimation of the effective SNP size, the number of SNPs that are sufficient to represent the bias patterns observed from the whole SNP data.

Results

To estimate the effective SNP size, we developed a novel statistical method, SNPKS, which considers both the statistical …

Bioinspired-Green-Supramolecular-Nano Photochemistry: Photoproducts Control Through Weak Intermolecular Forces, Lakshmi S. Kaanumalle, Arunkumar Natarajan, Karthikeyan Sivasubramanian, Raja Kaliappan, Mahesh Pattabiraman, V. Ramamurthy

The Spectrum

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Volume 19 Issue 3, Spectrum Editors

The Spectrum

No abstract provided.

Focus On: News Of Interest In The Photochemical Sciences, Spectrum Editors

The Spectrum

Includes: Changing Trends in Doctoral Degrees in the United States; Digital Imaging Technology Helps Preserve Ancient Hindu Text; Digital Imaging Technology Helps Preserve Ancient Hindu Text; Champion Buys Kodak Photochemicals; In-situ Photopolymerization Could Simplify Manufacture of Display Devices; Why CEO Compensation Does Matter; Atmospheric Photochemistry: New Role for Winds; More Effective Use of Light in Architecture; The New Windows Vista

Review And Recommendations For The City Of Cedar Falls, Iowa Regarding Phase Ii Compliance With The Federal Clean Water Act: The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, Rebecca Kauten

Graduate Research Papers

As the United States developed into an urban and industrial economy, the physical landscape of the nation changed. Wilderness gave weigh to civilization and, over time, the urban lifestyle evolved. Since then, unpaved right-of-way has become impervious skeletons that hold modern cities intact. Lined with buildings and rooftops, parking lots and driveways, water can only be directed from above ground to other locations when it rains or snows. This paper is a literature review of the history of stormwater management practices, description of the Phase II program within the Federal Clean Water Act, and a descriptive analysis of structural and …

Changes In Land Cover And Breeding Bird Populations With Restoration Of Riparian Habitats In East-Central Iowa, Thomas J. Benson, James J. Dinsmore, William L. Hohman

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Conversion of Midwestern riparian areas for agricultural production has greatly altered their function and suitability for birds and other wildlife. Recently, however, restoration of riparian functions has been a major focus of land management agencies in the Midwest. We used historic land-use data to describe land-cover changes since European settlement and the subsequent effects of habitat restoration efforts on the landscape along a section of the Iowa River in east-central Iowa. We then used bird-density data collected in a subset of the study area in 2001 and 2002 to estimate changes in breeding bird populations of the entire study area …

Research Plan And Preliminary Results - A Field Research Site For Emerging Contaminants In Iowa, Douglas J. Schnoebelen, Dana W. Kolpin, Larry B. Barber, Edward T. Furlong, Michael M. Meyer, Mary Skopec

Journal of the Iowa Academy of Science: JIAS

Research has recently documented the prevalence of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals and other emerging contaminants (ECs) in streams across the United States. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) have been found to be an important source and collection point of ECs to streams as many ECs are incompletely removed during treatment. To investigate the complex instream processes (e.g., dilution, sorption, degradation, dispersion, etc.) chat can affect ECs following their input from a WWTP and determining if such input is having an effect on the aquatic ecosystem requires the integration of multi-disciplinary efforts at a carefully selected field site. Preliminary work has …

Volume 1

McNair Scholars Journal

No abstract provided.

Man-Made Menopause, Madeline Horwitz

Undergraduate Research Symposium (UGRS)

In this study I suggest that there are three distinct time periods mark new developments in society’s understanding of menopause, Victorian America in the mid and late nineteenth century, mid-twentieth century America, and contemporary America. This is the case not only in terms of advances in biological science, but also the ways in which the medical establishment has viewed menopause has also changed, and in terms of changes in prevalent gender assumptions. In this paper I hope to expose the ways science, history, and society has medicalized menopause, and the ways in which menopause has been viewed by individual women, …

Population Briefs, Vol. 12, No. 1, Population Council

Population Briefs

IN THIS ISSUE: Unexplored elements of adolescence in the developing world | Low morale found among South African nurses | Surviving catastrophe: The elderly in Cambodia | Ethical implications of working with children | Council researchers wrestle with SUMO

Population Briefs, Vol. 12, No. 2, Population Council

Population Briefs

IN THIS ISSUE: Ishraq expands horizons for girls in rural Upper Egypt | Council biologist discovers stem Leydig cells | Meeting explores pricing of pharmaceutical products | Could eliminating malaria significantly extend life expectancy? | Poverty and school dropout in Pakistan

The Geochemical Record Of The Last 17,000 Years In The Guaymas Basin, Gulf Of California, Walter E. Dean

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Sediments deposited on the western slope of the Guaymas Basin in the central Gulf of California are composed predominantly of detrital clastic material and biogenic silica (biopal), with minor organic material (average of 2.8% organic carbon) and calcium carbonate. The CaCO₃ is derived from calcareous plankton and is highly variable ranging from 0% to 16%. In general, the CaCO₃ content of the sediments varies inversely with the biopal content, reflecting the relative abundance of calcareous and siliceous plankton in the photic zone. Siliceous plankton dominate when winds are predominantly out of the northwest producing strong upwelling. Calcareous plankton …

The Brook Fall 2006, V. 7, N. 01, Stony Brook University Office Of Communications.

The Brook

v.: ill. ; 30 cm (original analog pub.),Brook

The Brook Winter 2005-2006, V. 6, N. 02, Stony Brook University Office Of Communications.

The Brook

v.: ill. ; 30 cm (original analog pub.),Brook

Alcohol And Nicotine Dependence: Shared Mechanisms, Stephanie O'Malley

Presentations

No abstract provided.

A Mathematical Formulation Of Dna Computation, Mingjun Zhang, Maggie Xiaoyan Cheng, Tzyh-Jong Tarn

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

DNA computation is to use DNA molecules for information storing and processing. The task is accomplished by encoding and interpreting DNA molecules in suspended solutions before and after the complementary binding reactions. DNA computation is attractive, due to its fast parallel information processing, remarkable energy efficiency, and high storing capacity. Challenges currently faced by DNA computation are (1) lack of theoretical computational models for applications, and (2) high error rate for implementation. This paper attempts to address these problems from mathematical modeling and genetic coding aspects. The first part of this paper presents a mathematical formulation of DNA computation. The …

Front Matter 22 (1)

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

No abstract provided.

Placing The Monocots: Conflicting Signal From Trigenomic Analyses, Melvin R. Duvall, Sarah Matthews, Neill Mohammad, Tammy Russel

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Despite recent significant advances in understanding angiosperm phylogeny, the position of monocots remains uncertain. We present here a phylogeny inferred from four genes that unambiguously unite monocots with eumagnoliids. A well-supported position for the monocots was obtained only after we replaced the available nuclear 18S rDNA sequence data with data from phytochrome C in a matrix that also included plastid rbcL and ndhF and mitochondrial atp1. Over 5000 base pairs of sequence data from 42 taxa were analyzed using Bayesian inference. The results of these analyses united monocots with the eumagnoliids in a well-supported clade. Although the …

Perianth Development In The Basal Monocot Triglochin Maritima (Juncaginaceae), Matyas Buzgo, Douglas E. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis, Sangtae Kim, Hong Ma, Bernard A. Hauser, Jim Lebens-Mack, Bo Johansen

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Basal monocots exhibit considerable variation in inflorescence and floral structure. In some cases, such as Triglochin maritima, it is not clear whether the lateral and terminal structures of the inflorescence are flowers or pseudanthia, or where the limits between flowers and inflorescence lie. To address these questions, morphological studies were carried out, and the results show that in T. maritima both terminal and lateral structures are flowers, not pseudanthia. The terminal flower of T. maritima develops from the apical inflorescence meristem, suggesting that the apical meristem identity changes from "inflorescence" to "flower" during inflorescence development. In addition, distal flowers …

Patterns Of Floral Structure And Orientation In Japonolirion , Narthecium, And Tofieldia, Margarita V. Remizowa, Dmitry D. Sokoloff, Paula J. Rudall

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Floral evolution requires reassessment in basal monocots, including species formerly assigned to Melanthiaceae, in the light of recent developments in the molecular phylogenetics of monocots. We have investigated flowers of Tofieldia (Tofieldiaceae), Japonolirion (Petrosaviaceae), and Narthecium (Nartheciaceae). We confirm Engler's (1888) hypothesis that orientation of lateral flowers in monocots is dependent on presence and position of additional phyllomes on the pedicel. The type of floral orientation that occurs in Tofieldia is unusual for monocots, since the additional phyllomes are represented by calyculus scales rather than a bracteole, and the outer whorl tepals are initiated alternating with the calyculus scales. In …

Recommendations And Goals For Evo-Devo Research, Michael J. Frohlich

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

The rapidly growing field of evolutionary-developmental biology (evo-devo) arises from the fusion of formerly disjunct scientific disciplines that traditionally generate very different scientific products. What should the scientific product of evo-devo be? I propose it should be a testable evolutionary scenario. Evolutionary scenarios have suffered eclipse and even opprobrium in recent years, but analysis of genes that control development may make evo-devo scenarios testable, hence scientifically valid. Hypothesis-based studies are more likely than descriptive studies to generate testable evolutionary scenarios. Candidate-gene studies are risky if only one or a few genes are known in the pathway that is putatively responsible …

Further Evidence For Seed Size Variation In The Genus Zostera: Exploratory Studies With Z. Japonica And Z. Asiatica, Sandy Wyllie-Echeverria, Victoria R. Wyllie-Echeverria, Algernon C. Churchill, Paul A. Cox

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Recent studies found seed size variation within the seagrass Zostera marina, one of nine species in the genus Zostera. The objectives of this study were to determine if variation also exists in the seeds of two other species Zostera japonica and Zostera asiatica within this genus. Results indicate that: (1) length and weight varied between two populations (one indigenous population from Akkeshi-Ko, Japan, and one exotic population from Willapa Bay, Washington, USA) of the small-bodied intertidal seagrass species Z. japonica, and (2) seed-size classes were discernable. Preliminary investigations were also initiated with a Japanese population of Z. asiatica …

Phylogeny Of Agavaceae Based On Ndhf, Rbcl, And Its Sequences, David J. Bogler, J. Chris Pires, Javier Francisco-Ortega

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Great advances have been made in our understanding of the phylogeny and classification of Agavaceae in the last 20 years. In older systems Agavaceae were paraphyletic due to overemphasis of ovary position or habit. Discovery of a unique bimodal karyotype in Agave and Yucca eventually led to a reexamination of concepts and relationships in all the lilioid monocots, which continues to the present day. Developments in cytogenetics, microscopy, phylogenetic systematics, and most recently DNA technology have led to remarkable new insights. Large-scale rbcL sequence studies placed Agavaceae with the core Asparagales and identified closely related taxa. Analysis of cpDNA …

The Role Of Phylogenetic Constraints In The Evolution Of Pollination Mechanisms In Iridaceae Of Sub-Saharan Africa, Peter Bernhardt, Peter Goldblatt

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Novel, specialized systems exploiting bibionid flies, oil-collecting bees, wasps, or crepuscular settling moths as pollen vectors are added to the range of recorded pollination mechanisms in sub-Saharan Africa Iridaceae, while knowledge of the pollination of previously understudied genera such as Aristea, Bahiana, Ferraria, Hesperantha, and Tritoniopsis is expanded. The pollination of 357 species of the sub-Saharan African Iridaceae now includes 17 discrete systems. Based on repetitive interlinked suites of floral attractants and rewards we now infer pollination mechanisms for an additional 883 species. Many pollination systems recur in genera containing > 10 species. The ancestral pollination in African Iridaceae, and …

A Comparison And Combination Of Plastid Atpb And Rbcl Gene Sequences For Inferring Phylogenetic Relationships Within Orchidaceae, Kenneth M. Cameron

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Parsimony analyses of DNA sequences from the plastid genes atpB and rbcL were completed for 173 species of Orchidaceae (representing 150 different genera) and nine genera from outgroup families in Asparagales. The atpB tree topology is similar to the rbcL tree, although the atpB data contain less homoplasy and provide greater jackknife support than rbcL alone. In combination, the two-gene tree recovers five monophyletic clades corresponding to subfamilies within Orchidaceae, and fully resolves them with moderate to high jackknife support as follows: Epidendroideae are sister to Orchidoideae, followed by Cypripedioideae, then Vanilloideae, and with …

Molecular Phylogentics Systematics In Dendrobieae (Orchidaceae), Mark A. Clements

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Molecular systematic research, using DNA sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the 18-26S nuclear ribosomal repeat unit, was conducted on a broadly representative sample of the tribe Dendrobieae. The results provide independent support, in addition to evidence from plastid DNA analysis and morphology, for the phylogenetic reassessment of the taxon. At a broad level, Dendrobieae are polyphyletic with Dendrobium sect. Oxystophyllum being deeply embedded within one of the outgroup taxa, subtribe Eriinae: Podochileae. The remaining taxa form a weakly supported monophyletic group consisting of three major clades, Epigeneium, sister to predominantly Asian and Australasian clades. This author …

Subtribal Relationships In Tribe Tradescantieae (Commelinaceae)Based On Molecular And Morphological Data, Dylan J. Wade, Timothy M. Evans, Robert B. Faden

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Tribe Tradescantieae (Commelinaceae) consists of seven subtribes and 25 genera. Previous attempts to evaluate phylogenetic relationships within the group using morphology or the chloroplast-encoded rbcL have either been highly homoplasious (morphology) or provided only weak support for subtribal relationships due to insufficient variability (rbcL). In this study, phylogenetic analysis of nucleotide sequence data from the chloroplast-encoded ndhF and rbcL genes, as well as 47 morphological and anatomical characters, were used to evaluate relationships within and among the subtribes of Tradescantieae. The addition of ndhF resulted in a more highly resolved phylogeny and greater bootstrap …

Systematic Floral Anatomy Of Pontederiaceae, Michael G. Simpson, Darren H. Burton

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Twenty species of Pontederiaceae and six species of the outgroup families Haemodoraceae and Philydraceae were investigated with regard to floral anatomy, using standard histological methods and graphic reconstructions. Variation is described in several features, including functional carpel number, the distribution of floral aerenchyma, the presence of unusual floral epithelial cells, the presence, type, and distribution of tannin cells, crystal type and distribution, aspects of placentation, ovule number, number of ovule rows per carpel, and septal nectary presence. In order to better assess character homology, one of these features, placentation, was divided into three discrete characters: septal fusion, placenta position, and …

A Molecular Phylogenetic Study Of Generic And Subgeneric Relationships In The Southwest Australian Endemics Conostylis And Blancoa (Haemodoraceae), Stephen D. Hopper, Mark W. Chase, Michael F. Fay

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

We sequenced the plastid gene matK and the nuclear ribosomal spacer ITS for 39 of the 47+ species of Conostylis as well as its monotypic sister genus Blancoa, which some authors have included within Conostylis. Conostylis received 99% bootstrap support as monophyletic, with 100% support that Blancoa is its sister. Within Conostylis, the study provides strong support for two large sister clades, which we refer to as clades A (100%) and B (99%). Clade A consists of C. subgen. Conostylis plus the recently discovered C. glabra of C. subgen. Pendula sect. Divaricata (100%), and C. subgen. Pendula sect. Appendicula (100%). …