Digital Commons Network^™

Parentage-Based Dna Traceback In Beef And Dairy Cattle, Mike Heaton

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Why is animal ID needed?

Ways to physically label individual cattle

Disputes arise even when animal identification systems are in place

The dispute

The resolution

DNA is the label never removed from beef

A chromosome has genes and other DNA

Genes are encoded by sequences of DNA

What are SNPs?

Properties of SNPs

Ways to use DNA for traceback

Sometimes parentage testing is the last resort for DNA-based traceback

Using SNP markers for parentage

Accurate sire determination requires many DNA markers

Comparing the calf to the sire: elimination

Comparing the calf to a possible sire

The ideal parentage SNP markers …

Soil Quality Assessment: Past, Present And Future, Douglas L. Karlen, Susan S. Andrews, Brian J. Wienhold, Ted M. Zobeck

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Soil quality assessment may be one of the most contentious topics ever debated by the soil science community. Our objective is to examine the history, present status, and potential for using soil quality assessment as a tool to monitor soil physical, chemical, and biological effects of management decisions that may affect soil and water resources. Differences between inherent and dynamic soil quality and various approaches for assessment are identified and discussed. Four assessment indices, the Agroecosystem Performance Assessment Tool (AEPAT), Soil Conditioning Index (SCI), Cornell Soil Health Test, and Soil Management Assessment Framework (SMAF) are examined. The SCI predicts changes …

Nitrogen Mineralization From Broiler Litter Applied To Southeastern Coastal Plain Soils, R.K. Hubbard, D.D. Bosch, L.K. Marshall, T.C. Strickland, D. Rowland, T.S. Griffin, C.W. Honeycutt, S.L. Albrecht, K.R. Sistani, Ha Torbert, Brian J. Wienhold, B. L. Woodbury, J. M. Powell

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

A field study was conducted to determine nitrogen (N) mineralization from broiler litter (EL) in two Coastal Plain soils of differing texture, sandy (Tifton loamy sand) or clayey (Greenville sandy clay loam). These soils represented the broad range in surface textures commonly found in soils used for agricultural production in the southeastern Coastal Plain. Published protocols used for the study were designed by the ARS mineralization team. In addition to measuring ammonium (NH₄-N) and nitrate (NO₃-N) in the soil as a measure of N mineralization, both total C and total N were measured to determine the …

Improvement Of Perennial Forage Species As Feedstock For Bioenergy, William Anderson, Michael Casler, Brian S. Baldwin

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Both native and non-native forage species other than switchgrass are less commonly considered as potential lignocellulosic feedstocks for bioenergy in the United States. These species hold potential as bioenergy feedstocks because of the experience and infrastructure that is already in place for management and harvest, and in certain areas of the country they have greater yield potential than switchgrass or other feedstocks. The forage grasses consist of temperate cool-season (most commonly C3) grasses as well as tropical or sub-tropical warm-season (C4) grasses. Some legume species may also play a significant role in supplying useful bioenergy feedstocks. Most have been researched …

The Artiodactyl Apobec3 Innate Immune Repertoire Shows Evidence For A Multi-Functional Domain Organization That Existed In The Ancestor Of Placental Mammals, Rebecca Larue, Stefán Jónsson, Kevin Silverstein, Mathieu Lajoie, Denis Bertrand, Nadia El-Mabrouk, Isidro Hötzel, Valgerdur Andrésdóttir, Timothy Smith, Reuben Harris

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Background: APOBEC3 (A3) proteins deaminate DNA cytosines and block the replication of retroviruses and retrotransposons. Each A3 gene encodes a protein with one or two conserved zinccoordinating
motifs (Z1, Z2 or Z3). The presence of one A3 gene in mice (Z2–Z3) and seven in humans, A3A-H (Z1a, Z2a-Z1b, Z2b, Z2c-Z2d, Z2e-Z2f, Z2g-Z1c, Z3), suggests extraordinary evolutionary flexibility. To gain insights into the mechanism and timing of A3 gene expansion and into the functional modularity of these genes, we analyzed the genomic sequences, expressed cDNAs and activities of the full A3 repertoire of three artiodactyl lineages: sheep, cattle and pigs.
Results: …

Chapter 17. Nitrogen Management Modeling Techniques: Assessing Cropping Systems/Landscape Combinations, J. A. Delgado, M. J. Shaffer

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) in production agriculture is often low, which results in losses of excess N to groundwater as NO₃-N, to gaseous emissions of NH₃ and N₂O, and to N losses in surface runoff and erosion. Best management practices (BMPs) are needed to improve efficiency levels while maintaining proper nutrition for crops. Field studies designed to investigate potential BMPs are both time consuming and costly, and cannot cover all scenarios. Application of simulation models with N cycling components in conjunction with associated field investigations offers methodology that can help identify BMPs that show promise …

Genotype By Environment Interaction Due To Heat Stress, J. Bohmanova, University Of Georgia Misztal, S. Tsuruta, H. D. Norman, T. J. Lawlor

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Heat stress was evaluated as a factor in differences between regional evaluations for milk yield in the United States. The national data set (NA) consisted of 56 million first-parity, test-day milk yields on 6 million Holsteins. The Northeastern subset (NE) included 12.5 million records on 1.3 million first-calved heifers from 8 states, and the Southeastern subset (SE) included 3.5 million records on 0.4 million heifers from 11 states. Climatic data were available from 202 public weather stations. Each herd was assigned to the nearest weather station. Average daily temperature-humidity index (meanTHI) 3 d before test date was used as an …

Genomic Analysis Of Fusarium Verticillioides, D. W. Brown, R. A.E. Butchko, R. H. Proctor

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Fusarium verticillioides (teleomorph Gibberella moniliformis) can be either an endophyte of maize, causing no visible disease, or a pathogen-causing disease of ears, stalks, roots and seedlings. At any stage, this fungus can synthesize fumonisins, a family of mycotoxins structurally similar to the sphingolipid sphinganine. Ingestion of fumonisin-contaminated maize has been associated with a number of animal diseases, including cancer in rodents, and exposure has been correlated with human oesophageal cancer in some regions of the world, and some evidence suggests that fumonisins are a risk factor for neural tube defects. A primary goal of the authors’ laboratory is to …

Soil Properties And Macro Cations Status Impacted By Long-Term Applied Poultry Litter, Zhongqi He, Irenus A. Tazisong, Zachary N. Senwo, Donglin Zhang

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Most ethnic populations worldwide consume poultry products. Whereas poultry litter (PL) is a traditionally inexpensive and effective fertilizer to improve soil quality and agricultural productivity, overapplication to soils has raised concerns because excess nutrients in runoff could accelerate the eutrophication of fresh bodies of water. A long-term field experiment of land application of PL to soils used for pasture growth has been maintained for nearly two decades in the Sand Mountain region of north Alabama, USA. In this work, several soil parameters impacted by the long-term applied litter were characterized. The findings clearly support previous general observations that long-term applied …

Procedural Common Law, Amy Coney Barrett

Journal Articles

Debates about the common lawmaking power of the federal courts focus exclusively on substantive common law. But federal common law is not limited to matters of substance; it reaches matters of procedure as well. Federal law includes a robust body of what might be called procedural common law - common law primarily concerned with the regulation of internal court processes rather than substantive rights and obligations. This body of law includes many doctrines that are fixtures in the law of procedure and federal courts. For example, abstention, forum non conveniens, remittitur, stare decisis, and preclusion can all fairly be characterized …

Identification Of Yeast And Yeast-Like Fungal Species In The Upper Midwest Using Physiological And Dna Sequence Data, Scott Eric Danneman

All NMU Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Prophesist, William Robert Davie

All NMU Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

The Storyteller, Susan Renee Page

All NMU Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Small-Ruminant Lentivirus Enhances PrpSc Accumulation In Cultured Sheep Microglial Cells, James B. Stanton, Donald P. Knowles, Katherine I. O'Rourke, Lynn M. Herrmann-Hoesing, Bruce A. Mathison, Timothy V. Baszler

Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease: Publications

Sheep scrapie is the prototypical transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (prion disease), which has a fundamental pathogenesis involving conversion of normal cellular prion protein (PrP^C [C superscript stands for cellular]) to disease-associated prion protein (PrP^Sc [Sc superscript stands for sheep scrapie]). Sheep microglial cell cultures, derived from a prnp 136VV/171QQ near-term fetal brain, were developed to study sheep scrapie in the natural host and to investigate potential cofactors in the prion conversion process. Two culture systems, a primary cell culture and a cell line transformed with the large T antigen of simian virus 40, were developed, and both were identified …

Of Necessity, Mary-Kay Wildenhain Belant

All NMU Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Food Color, Flavor, And Conditioned Avoidance Among Red-Winged Blackbirds, Scott J. Werner, Bruce A. Kimball, Frederick D. Provenza

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The relationship between food flavors and postingestive feedback enables mammalian herbivores to procure nutrients and avoid toxins within ever-changing environments. We conducted four experiments with red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) in captivity to determine the relative roles of color and flavor cues paired with negative postingestive feedback. We first conducted baseline tests to assess preferences for colors and flavors. All blackbirds preferred red- to blue-colored food, and they preferred umami- (L-alanine) flavored to bitter/astringent food (tannic acid). We observed no difference in consumption of salty (NaCl) vs sour (citric acid) foods during baseline tests (i.e., neutral flavors). We then …

Transgenic Nonhuman Mammals Producing Fibrinogen In Milkand Methods Of Producing Fibrin, William H. Velander, William N. Drohan, Henryk Lubon, John L. Johnson

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Faculty Publications

A transgenic, non-human mammalian animal is capable of expressing a heterologous gene for human or other recombinant physiologically functional fibrinogen holoprotein or individual subunit chain polypeptides thereofora modified or fusion fibrinogen in mammary glands of the animals and secreting the expressed product into a body fluid. Methodol ogy employing such a mammal yields recombinant physiologically functional fibrinogens, subunit chain polypeptides thereof, and modified or fusion fibrinogens.

The Girl Was Naive, After All, Jacqueline Bazarte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Acute Cellular Uptake Of Abnormal Prion Protein Is Cell Type And Scrapie Strain Independent, Christopher Scott Greil

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are fatal neurodegenerative diseases that include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and sheep scrapie. TSE disease pathology and mechanisms within the central nervous system (CNS) of an infected host largely remains unclear. At the cellular level, the uptake of protease resistant prion protein (PrP-res), which strongly correlates with infectivity and is a valid marker for TSE infection, is one of the earliest events that must occur during TSE infection. Given the difficulty of clearly distinguishing input PrP-res from either PrP-res or protease-sensitive PrP (PrP-sen) made by the cell, the uptake of PrP-res from an infectious inoculum …

Cottonwood Establishment In A Gravel-Bed River, Claudio Ivan Meier

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

I investigated the processes of establishment of the cottonwood Populus trichocarpa T.&G. along the pristine, 5th order, wandering floodplain of the gravel-bed Flathead River, Montana, USA. The focus of my research was to determine the mechanisms explaining successful recruitment on recently formed, unvegetated bars, covering a range of spatial scales from within-bar (~ 1 to 10 m) to across-reach (~ 1 to 10 km). Results are based on field observations and measurements over three growth seasons (2005 through 2007), as well as outdoor and laboratory experiments.

At the within-bar scale, I used a paired-plot sampling design to compare closely-located sites …

Demography And Ecology Of A Declining Endemic: The Olympic Marmot, Suzanne Cox Griffin

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Protected areas serve to conserve species, habitats, and ecological processes. However, biological systems within even large parks are increasingly affected by outside perturbations. The Olympic marmots (Marmota olympus) are ground-dwelling squirrel that inhabit high-elevation meadows almost exclusively within Olympic National Park Despite this protection, anecdotal reports in the 1990's of disappearances from historically occupied locations suggested that the species was in decline. I used demographic monitoring, habitat surveys, and non-invasive genetic sampling to evaluate population status of the species and consider the effects of several possible stressors. Olympic marmots disappeared from ~50% of well-studied colonies, and abandoned burrow complexes were …

Pre- And Post-Copulatory Sexual Selection In The Tortoise Beetle Acromis Sparsa (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), Paula Alejandra Trillo

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Females in nearly all sexually reproducing taxa mate with multiple males. In these species, male fitness is dependent on traits used during both the pre-copulatory processes influencing mate acquisition, as well as the post-copulatory processes influencing fertilization. However, few studies have simultaneously examined pre- and post-copulatory sexual selection within a particular species, and we therefore have little understanding of how these processes interact to determine male reproductive success.

The objective of my study was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the evolution of sexually selected traits by examining the interactions between pre- and post-copulatory processes in the tortoise beetle …

Residential Development Patterns In Flathead County, Montana, Louis Anthony Jarvis

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Population growth in the Non-Metropolitan West has increased over the last two decades. Many researchers have argued that natural amenity concerns, the quality and diversity of the environment, and the rural nature of the non-metropolitan West are the chief factors influencing individuals’ decisions to settle. This research examines a single high-amenity county in Western Montana, Flathead County, and analyzes the factors affecting land values and the probability of residential development at the parcel level. This research develops spatial variables thought to affect land values in an ArcGIS 9.2 environment and develops a regression model that estimates land values based on …

Learning To See And Notice The Possibilities, Helen Lundberg Williams

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Revising Our Community: Revising Ourselves, Lisa Eddy

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

Writing Buddies: Developing Peer Support To Differentiate Instruction, Neha Shah, Jefferey R. Taylor

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

No abstract provided.

On Imaging Air Pollutants In An Urban Street Canyon Using Tomographic-Doas, Stephen O'Driscoll

Theses

A novel imaging technique based on the combination of differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) and tomographic reconstruction is presented. This approach, called Tomographic-DOAS, makes it possible to image the spatial distribution of multiple pollutants in an arbitrary region of the atmosphere. Tomographic-DOAS relies on a mathematical model relating measurements of differential optical density to an underlying spatial distribution of pollutants. This model requires the development of an optical system capable of generating multibeam paths or sensing geometries. The optical instrumentation used to construct such sensing geometries is described and a novel scanning beam arrangement that allows a single beam DOAS …

Gene Therapy Using Tet-Repressor System To Modulate Prostate Tumor Microenvironment, Nazita Yousefieh

Theses and Dissertations in Biomedical Sciences

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed malignancy in men in the United States and is projected to be the third most frequent cause of male cancer-related deaths in 2007 after lung and skin cancers. The initial treatment for prostate cancer at early stages is prostatectomy or radiation, which usually is curative. However, approximately 20% of patients are not cured by such treatments and their cancer recurs, sometimes with long latencies. In other patients prostate cancer is diagnosed only after the cancer has metastasized and there are no effective therapies at this stage. Therefore immunotherapy seems to be a promising …

Catalytic Wet Air Oxidation Of Mono Azo Dye Orange Ii: Catalyst Selection, Reaction Kinetics, And Modeling, Pinar Ozdural

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Wastewaters generated as byproducts of dyeing processes are not treatable with conventional methods. It has been estimated that among the 900,000 tons of different dyes produced annually in the world, approximately 10–15% are lost in wastewater streams during manufacturing and processing operations. Once in rivers and streams, dyes cause major problems, such as reducing light penetration, or displaying toxic effects on aquatic life. Therefore, it is essential that dyes are removed from wastewaters before being discharged into the environment.

This study focuses on the catalytic wet air oxidation (CWAO) of Orange II, a mono azo dye used in large amounts …