Digital Commons Network^™

Probing Structural Differences Of Recombinant Prion Isoforms Using Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Jessica Louise Gilbert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Conversion of prion protein (PrP) from its normal, cellular isoform, PrPC, to an infectious, misfolded, fibrillar isoform, PrPSc, is responsible for various neurodegenerative diseases in a variety of mammalian hosts. Although the structure of PrPC is well studied, the structure of PrPSc is not known. Obtaining structural information on the misfolded isoform of prion may lead to preventative therapies and treatments of prion diseases. In this study, six single-tryptophan mutants of recombinant PrP were expressed, purified, and refolded into PrPC or two misfolded isoforms of prion, PrPb and PrPF. Solvent accessibilities of the six tryptophan residues were probed among the …

National And Global Health Law: A Scholarly Examination Of The Most Pressing Health Hazards, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The health of individuals, families, and communities has deep, intuitive meaning. So much of what we aspire to be as individuals or as members of society relies on health. Our shared intuitions about the value of health manifest themselves in public and political concerns. The media widely reports threats to the public's health, such as a traveler with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, E-coli from contaminated spinach, miners' deaths, unsafe children's toys, and dangerous pharmaceuticals. Election years predictably spur new, or refashioned, proposals for health care reform. And there remain enduring, intractable health hazards, such as tobacco, obesity, motor vehicle crashes, and …

Fifty Years Of Memory Of College Grades: Accuracy And Distortions, Harry P. Bahrick, Lynda K. Hall, Laura A. Da Costa

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

One to 54 years after graduating, 276 alumni correctly recalled 3,025 of 3,967 college grades. Omission errors increased with the retention interval, and better students made fewer errors. Accuracy of recall increased with confidence in recall. Eighty-one percent of commission errors inflated the actual grade. Distortions occur soon after graduation, remain constant during the retention interval, and are greater for better students and for courses students enjoyed most. Confidence in recall is unrelated to distortion. Courses that were not freely recalled, but had to be cued, were recalled less accurately and with less distortion. The data support a supplementary theory …

Mirabile Dictu: The Bryn Mawr College Library Newsletter 12 (2008), Bryn Mawr College Library

Mirabile Dictu: Newsletter of the Bryn Mawr College Libraries

No abstract provided.

An Experimental Demographic Approach To Exotic Plant Success: Cynoglossum Officinale In Its Native And Introduced Ranges, Jennifer Lynn Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Invasive species often face novel abiotic and biotic environments with different selective regimes where they are introduced. How these changed conditions influence individual life-history traits, and what particular factors spur increases in population abundance in the introduced versus native range, are not well understood. I conducted parallel experiments in both the native and introduced ranges of a widespread plant invader in North America, houndstongue (Cynoglossum officinale). I combined these experimental results with demographic monitoring in each range, and population modeling, to explore how introduction has affected houndstongue demography and life-history evolution, and to determine the role of specialist …

Causes And Consequences Of Displacement Decision-Making In Banhine National Park, Mozambique, Chad Edward Dear

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Decision-making is looming regarding the displacement of people resident in and reliant on resources in strict protected areas around the world. This research investigated the causes and consequences of displacement decision-making in Banhine National Park (BNP), Mozambique. I investigated causes using political-economic, actor-centered, and post-structural perspectives on power. I investigated consequences using the Impoverishment Risk and Reconstruction (IRR) framework. Methods included interviews, focus groups, and observations involving BNP-area residents; park staff; district, provincial, and national-level government employees from various sectors; NGO and World Bank staff; and private consultants. I also analyzed numerous government and donor policies, plans, reports, and legal …

Chronic Low-Level Pb Exposure During Development Alters Proteins Involved In Energy Metabolism In Auditory Neurons Of The Brainstem, John Prins

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Low level lead (Pb) exposure is a risk factor for neurological dysfunction including ADHD. How Pb produces these behavioral deficits is unknown, but low-level exposure during development is associated with auditory temporal processing deficits, even though hearing remains normal. Pb disrupts cellular energy metabolism and efficient energy production is crucial for auditory neurons to maintain their high rates of synaptic activity. The voltage dependent ion channel (VDAC) is an ion channel involved in the regulation of mitochondrial physiology and is a critical component in controlling mitochondrial energy production. No studies to date have investigated the effect of Pb on VDAC, …

Images As A Layer Of Positive Rhetoric: A Values-Based Case Study Exploring The Interaction Between Visual And Verbal Elements Found On A Rural Natural Resources Non-Profit Organization Website, Vailferree Stilwell Brechtel

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

No Abstract.

Mindfulness As A Predictor Of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Symptomatology In An Experiential Avoidance Model, Brian Lantz Thompson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The purpose of this study was to examine the ability of measures of mindfulness to predict the variance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) avoidance symptom severity above and beyond measures of experiential avoidance. A sample of 378 introductory psychology students completed questionnaire packets in individuals rooms to insure confidentiality of sensitive material. Based on a pencil-and-paper self-report measure of PTSD symptoms, the sample was divided into 3 groups: PTSD group (n = 44); trauma-no PTSD (n = 147); and a control (no trauma) group (n = 123). A fourth traumatized group was subsequently created consisting of individuals who endorsed a …

Primer For U.S. Lawyers On European Union Government And Law, Charles H. Koch Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Unintelligent Design In Contract, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

Scholars have expended considerable energy in the effort to "discover" a normative theory of Contract. This Article surveys that effort and concludes that something fundamental about Contract has been missed and has frustrated the search from the outset. Succinctly, Contract doctrine resists the neat formulation theory requires. Theorists' perspectives on Contract may be generalized as attempts to impute either deontology or consequentialism to the Contract law. Focusing largely on deontological constructions of Contract, this Article demonstrates the inconsistencies among the extant heuristics-promise, reliance, and transfer-and more importantly, the failure of any of those constructions to provide a coherent explanation of …

Disruption Of 8-Hydroxy-2'-Deoxyguanosine Dna Glycosylase (Ogg1) Antioxidant Response Capacity By Sodium Arsenite, David Paul Cox

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine DNA glycosylase is the first step and rate-limiting enzyme involved in the removal of 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine via the base excision repair pathway. Transcriptional regulation of human Ogg1 is sensitive to redox changes via modulation of intracellular glutathione. In response to changes in glutathione, changes in hOgg1 transcription occur similar to genes regulated by the transcription factor Nrf2. It was determined that positions - 47 to - 44 in the hOgg1 promoter are necessary for basal transcription of Ogg1 determined by site-directed deletion. This region is capable of interacting with nuclear protein determined by binding assays. Furthermore, transcription factor Nrf2 is …

Peter Severinus: From Humours To Chemistry In The Sixteenth Century, Michael T. Walton, Robert M. Fineman

Quidditas

The re-discovery of the works of Mendel and others has added greatly to our understanding of genetics. Such is now the case of Peter Severinus, with the recent recovery (or re-discovery) of his seminal work, Idea Medicinae Philosophicae (1571). Severinus concurred with Paracelsus’s (1493-1541) concept of seeds (little chemical factories) that worked on matter to form living things; but he was also aware of transplantation (grafting and cross-pollination) that changed phenotypes and genotypes in plants. Severinus applied this understanding to hereditary diseases in humans and extended Paracelsian theory. He believed that certain diseases in one’s offspring were caused by a …

James L. Kugel. How To Read The Bible: A Guide To Scripture Then And Now, Eric A. Eliason

BYU Studies

James L. Kugel. How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now. New York: The Free Press, 2007

Race, Civil Rights, And Hate Speech In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

The emergence of the digital era has had unintended consequences for race, civil rights, and hate speech.This chapter looks at the prevalence of both overtly racist sites, such as Stormfront, and at "cloaked" sites, that purport to advocate civil rights but disguise a racist agenda.

Full Issue, Byu Studies

BYU Studies

No abstract provided.

Micropropagation Through Somatic Embryogenesis And Cotyledonary Nodal Culture In Sea Oats (Uniola Paniculata L.), Diptimayee Sahoo

LSU Master's Theses

Uniola paniculata, commonly known as sea oats, is a C4 perennial grass capable of stabilizing sand dunes. Although this species is extensively used in beach restoration projects, production and availability of sea oats seedlings is seriously constrained due to disappearance of the natural stands. Other limitations are poor seed production, seed dormancy, and low seedling survival. With increasing interest in dune restoration, an efficient micropropagation technique is essential to generate sea oats seedlings in mass scale. In this study an efficient, rapid and reproducible plant regeneration system was successfully established for sea oats through somatic embryogenesis and cotyledonary nodal culture. …

Real Property And Peoplehood, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

This Article proposes a theory of real property and peoplehood in which lands essential to the identity and survival of collective groups are entitled to heightened legal protection. Although many Americans are sympathetic to American Indian tribes and their quest for cultural survival, we remain unable to confront the uncomfortable truth that the very thing Indian peoples need is their land, the same land that the U.S. took from them. This is especially the case with regard to the sacred sites of Indian peoples, whose religions and cultures are inextricably linked to those sites. Federal law permits the United States …

Garbage Pails And Puppy Dog Tails: Is That What Katz Is Made Of?, Aya Gruber

Publications

This Article takes the opportunity of the fortieth anniversary of Katz v. U.S. to assess whether the revolutionary case's potential to provide broad and flexible privacy protection to individuals has been realized. Answering this question in a circumspect way, the Article pinpoints the language in Katz that was its eventual undoing and demonstrates how the Katz test has been plagued by two principle problems that have often rendered it more harmful to than protective of privacy. The manipulation problem describes the tendency of conservative courts to define reasonable expectations of privacy as lower than the expectations society actually entertains. The …

How Do Securities Laws Influence Affect, Happiness, & Trust?, Peter H. Huang

Publications

This Article advocates that securities regulators promulgate rules based upon taking into consideration their impacts upon investors' and others' affect, happiness, and trust. Examples of these impacts are consumer optimism, financial stress, anxiety over how thoroughly securities regulators deliberate over proposed rules, investor confidence in securities disclosures, market exuberance, social moods, and subjective well-being. These variables affect and are affected by traditional financial variables, such as consumer debt, expenditures, and wealth; corporate investment; initial public offerings; and securities market demand, liquidity, prices, supply, and volume. This Article proposes that securities regulators can and should evaluate rules based upon measures of …

American Indians, Climate Change, And Ethics For A Warming World, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Developing a sense of ourselves that would properly balance history and nature and space and time is a more difficult task than we would suspect and involves a radical reevaluation of the way we look at the world around us. Do we continue to exploit the earth or do we preserve it and preserve life? Whether we are prepared to embark on a painful intellectual journey to discover the parameters of reconciling history and nature is the question of this generation.

The Measure Of Government Speech: Identifying Expression's Source, Helen Norton

Publications

States and other governmental bodies increasingly invoke the government speech defense to First Amendment challenges by private parties who seek to alter or join what the government contends is its own expression. These disputes involve competing claims to the same speech: a private party maintains that a certain means of expression reflects (or should be allowed to reflect) her own views, while a public entity claims that same speech as its own, along with the ability to control its content.

In suggesting a framework for approaching these problems, this Article starts by examining the theoretical and practical justifications for insulating …

Why And How To Tax Carbon, Michael Waggoner

Publications

Increased concern about possible global warming due to rising levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide ("CO2") suggests the need to control emissions of CO2. This article explores a system of revenue-neutral carbon taxes as a supplement or alternative to other CO2 control systems such as subsidies, regulation, and cap-and-trade. A system of carbon taxation should be, the Article suggests, sufficiently fairer and simpler and more efficient than the other possible systems of CO2 control and that it merits serious consideration. Because the carbon tax that is suggested would be revenue neutral, it should be politically acceptable. Problems with …

Diverse Conceptions Of Emotions In Risk Regulation, Peter H. Huang

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Next Frontier For Network Neutrality, Philip J. Weiser

Publications

The challenge for policymakers evaluating calls to institute some form of network neutrality regulation is to bring reasoned analysis to bear on a topic that continues to generate more heat than light and that many telecommunications companies appear to believe will just fade away. Over the fall of 2007, the hopes of broadband providers that broadband networks could escape any form of regulatory oversight were dealt a blow when it was revealed that Comcast had degraded the experience of some users of Bittorent (a peer-to-peer application) and engaged in an undisclosed form of network management. This incident, as well as …

Interferon Alfacon 1 Inhibits Sars-Covinfection In Human Bronchial Epithelial Calu-3 Cells, Y. Kumaki, C. W. Day, M. K. Wandersee, B. P. Schow, J. S. Madsen, D. Grant, J. P. Roth, Donald F. Smee, L. M. Blatt, Dale L. Barnard

Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science Faculty Publications

The primary targets for SARS-CoV infection are the epithelial cells in the respiratory and intestinal tract. The angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2) has been identified as a functional receptor for SARS-CoV. ACE-2 has been shown to be expressed at the apical domain of polarized Calu-3 cells. In this report, interferon alfacon 1 was examined for inhibitory activities against SARS-CoV on human lung carcinoma epithelial Calu-3 cell line and the other three African green monkey kidney epithelial cell lines. Interferon alfacon 1 demonstrated significant antiviral activity in neutral red uptake assay and virus yield reduction assay. The data might provide an important …

Carrying A Good Joke Too Far, Peter A. Alces, Jason M. Hopkins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Removal Jurisdiction, Scott Dodson

Faculty Publications

The ubiquitous and somewhat careless use of the term “jurisdictional” by courts has spawned confusion over what is and is not jurisdictional in a variety of contexts, including removal. The issue has critical implications for litigants. Yet it lacks scholarly coverage and is the subject of deep divisions in the lower courts. In this article, I develop an initial framework for tackling the jurisdictional/procedural characterization issues of the removal statute. I build upon the groundwork laid by prior precedent and modify it to account for the quasi-jurisdictional nature of removal and its impact on the federal-state balance of power. I …

Ideological Cohesion And Precedent (Or Why The Court Only Cares About Precedent When Most Justices Agree With Each Other), Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the profound role that ideological cohesion plays in explaining the Supreme Court's willingness to advance a coherent vision of the law - either by overruling precedents inconsistent with that vision or by establishing rule-like precedents intended to bind the Supreme Court and lower courts in subsequent cases. Through case studies of the New Deal, Warren, and Rehnquist Courts, this Article calls attention to key differences between Courts in which five or more Justices pursue the same substantive objectives and Courts which lack a dominant voting block. In particular, when five or more Justices pursue the same substantive …

Expressing Community Values Through Family Law Adjudication, Vivian E. Hamilton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.