Digital Commons Network^™

Comparing Digit Morphology Of An Arboreal Salamander With Potential Competitors, Eric Hugh Diefenbacher

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Green Salamanders (Aneides aeneus) are the only salamanders in West Virginia to exhibit an arboreal lifestyle. The focus of this study was to determine the cellular anatomy of the distal digit structures and how these structures may influence climbing ability. Comparative histology, comparative morphometrics, and comparative osteology of Green Salamanders, Cumberland Plateau Salamanders (Plethodon kentucki), and Slimy Salamanders (Plethodon glutinosus), were also used to determine if Cumberland Plateau Salamanders had the potential to compete with Green Salamanders for arboreal habitats. Histologically, Cumberland Plateau Salamanders had cell layer thickening similar to that of Green Salamanders. Morphometrically, Green Salamanders and Cumberland Plateau …

Habitat Comparison Of Pseudacris F. Feriarum And Pseudacris C. Crucifer With Emphasis On Associated Plant Communities And Distribution Of Clemmys Guttata And Pseudacris F. Feriarum In West Virginia, Scott Joseph Albaugh

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Upland Chorus Frogs (Pseudacris f. feriarum) are a rare species in West Virginia. They occur in aquatic habitats across parts of the eastern and southern U.S. Pseudacris f. feriarum collection records in West Virginia suggest that their distribution is limited to the eastern panhandle and Ridge and Valley region where they are very rare and imperiled. Distribution information is needed for future management strategies. To help conserve this rare species, key life history habits were identified through the investigation of plant communities that are associated with them. Data on Pseudacris f. feriarum distribution in West Virginia was determined by conducting …

Will Travel : Journey Memoirs, Kelly Renee Broce

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Memoirs and poetry. Concerns the travels of a West Virginian woman, the granddaughter of a first generation Sicilian West Virginian, within the U.S., the Bahamas, Thailand, and China, where she taught English as a second language for two years from 2000-2002. Themes include identity (Appalachian, Persian, African-American, Chinese, and even Uigur), ethnicity and gender in West Virginia, fatalism, religion, poverty, Diaspora, travel, discrimination, the Ugly American/European, Ah Q, Imperialism, Orientalism, otherness, political asylum, victims and survival, substance abuse in West Virginia, feminist narrative, West Virginian authors, mountaintop removal, environmentalism, and protest.

Manganese Superoxide Dismutase Contributes To Cisplatin-Induced Cytotoxicity Rather Than All-Trans Retinoic Acid-Dependent Chemoresistance, Zina-Ann Cardozo

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Neuroblastoma is an extra-cranial solid tumor of the nervous system occurring predominantly in infants and children younger than five years of age. Neuroblastoma presents a challenge to therapy primarily due to a decreased responsiveness to anticancer agents like cisplatin (CDDP), leading to recurrence. Vitamin A and its derivatives, known as retinoids, are preventive against cancer and induce differentiation in some cell lines. Retinoids are now being tested clinically for the treatment of neuroblastoma. One major limitation to retinoid therapy is the development of chemoresistance. In the present study human SK-N-SH neuroblastoma cells pretreated with 10 μM all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) …

Factors That Influence The Distribution Of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria In The Mud River, Wv, Timothy Shaun Dotson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Background: Prior studies of the Ohio and Mud Rivers have shown that fecal contamination alone does not explain the distribution of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) in surface waters. The objectives of this study were to determine effects on the distribution of ARB in the Mud.

Methods: Water samples and physical parameters were collected twice per season in spring through fall at 12 sites on the Mud River. Aliquots were plated on R2A agar and R2A agar plus individual antibiotics for the enumeration of total cultivable bacteria, and cultivable bacteria resistant to ciprofloxacin, virginiamycin, or tetracycline respectively. The IDEXX Quanti-Tray/2000™ method …

Identification And Analysis Of Prohibitin In B16 Mouse Melanoma Cells, Christopher Francis

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Prohibitin, a highly conserved protein found in eukaryotic cells, has been found in recent years to possess a wide variety of functions in the cell. Whereas the mechanisms by which the protein functions are still largely unknown, it is clear that prohibitin possesses very strong anti-proliferative properties in the cell, as well as potentially both nuclear and mitochondrial functions based upon its movement and localization upon apoptotic signaling. Upon treatment with retinoic acid, transformed B16 mouse melanoma cells also indicate a differential expression of prohibitin in which production of the protein is increased. The purpose of this work was to …

Impaired Overload-Induced Hypertrophy In Obese Zucker Rat Slow-Twitch Skeletal Muscle, Anil Kumar Gutta

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

How insulin resistant muscle responds to mechanical overload (MOV) is not well understood. Using immunohistochemical analysis and immunoblotting, we investigated whether Lean Zucker (LZ) and insulin resistant Obese Zucker rats (OZ) respond in a similar fashion to MOV. Five young adult (2 months old) male LZ and OZ rats were subjected to a surgical ablation of the gastrocnemius muscle and overloaded for 8 weeks. MOV-induced increases in soleus muscle mass and average fiber cross-sectional area were attenuated in OZ compared to LZ animals. This reduction in OZ muscle adaptation was associated with decreased activity / phosphorylation levels of STAT3, β-catenin …

A Taxonomic Study Of The Genus Acris And The Status Of Acris Crepitans Blanchardi (Harper), Blanchard's Cricket Frog, In Southern Ohio And Western West Virginia, Amy M. Hamilton

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Distributions of Acris crepitans and Acris gryllus cover most of the eastern United States with some overlap, and the subspecies Acris crepitans blanchardi and Acris crepitans crepitans also occur sympathric in parts of their ranges. My study analyzed 15 morphological characteristics of A. c. blanchardi, A. c. crepitans, and A. g. gryllus using Canonical Discriminate Analysis. Results support current taxonomy, showing the most separation between A. crepitans and A. gryllus and some overlap between A. c. blanchardi and A. c. crepitans. Sexual dimorphism was seen only in A. c. blanchardi and A. c. crepitans with females being larger …

A Study On The Population Size And Natural History Of The Eastern Six‐Lined Racerunner, Aspidoscelis Sexlineata, In West Virginia, With Notes On Other Lizard Species, Emmy Johnson

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Species will expand ranges through natural or human‐alterations. Such an occurrence has happened in West Virginia with Eastern Six‐lined Racerunner, Aspidsocelis sexlineata, a species that has been found to thrive in areas of high disturbance from humans. While found abundantly in other states, they are thought to occur only in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia (Morgan County) where they are believed to have come from Maryland via a railroad bridge. Without the bridge, the Potomac River forms a natural barrier between these two states. The objectives of my study were to determine the population size and natural history …

Innovate Magazine / Annual Review 2007-2008, San Jose State University

Innovate Magazine (School of Information)

No abstract provided.

Binary Economics And The Case For Broader Ownership, Robert Ashford

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Binary economics simultaneously offers a paradigm for understanding economic efficiency, growth, and justice that is foundationally distinct from classical, neoclassical, Keynesian, and socialist economics. First proposed by Louis Kelso, binary economics also offers a prescription for establishing a more inclusive, competitive and democratic private property system, one that universalizes the right to acquire capital with the earnings of capital. Focusing on an important anomaly left unexplained or poorly explained classical, neoclassical, and Keynesian economics (i.e., the persistence of unutilized productive capacity in a context in which markets are supposedly becoming more efficient) and left unremedied by any approach yet applied, …

Managing Radical Disputes: Public Reason, The American Dream, And The Case Of Same-Sex Marriage, Keith J. Bybee, Cyril Ghosh

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This paper proposes that ambiguous arguments play a crucial role in the management of radical disputes in democratic deliberation. Lofty though it might be, public reason is an impoverished ideal, and its celebrated role in democratic deliberation is vastly overrated, particularly among liberal theorists. In the courts of law and in the larger world, radical disputes unfold as messy, incomplete, ambiguous arguments are proposed by parties. This does not mean that all communication between parties must break down because parties do not abide by the rules of argumentation and evidentiary reasoning. It only implies that the language of ambiguity offers …

La Memoria De Nuestra Tierra: Sites Of Public Memory, Judith F. Baca

Imagining America

Judith F. Baca, artist, educator, scholar/activist, and community arts pioneer, University of California, Los Angeles, explores an idea that is deceptively simple: the land has memory. She articulates this idea as much through images as words; indeed, images form the spine of the argument, specifically photographs of a mural along a flood control channel in the San Fernando Valley. Baca created this Great Wall of Los Angeles with people hungry to know forgotten histories of their land and inscribe them for the future. Each of these images excavates another layer of a complex story. Baca gives form to monuments that …

Sites Of Contention And Critical Thinking In The Elementary Art Classroom: A Political Cartooning Project, James Haywood Rolling

Teaching and Leadership - All Scholarship

In this paper, the author explores the concept of childhood as a social category that impedes the perception of youngsters as critical thinkers in a visual culture. The author interrogates regularities within contemporary public schooling that work to represent the intellectual and cultural development of youngsters as the project of adult industry. Contrary to this representation, the author recounts the critical awareness and personal agency exercised by a group of 4th graders who engaged in a political cartooning exercise while examining the theme of social justice. The article includes an examination of the social construction of the concept of childhood …

Metaphysics Without Pre-Critical Monism: Hegel On Lower-Level Natural Kinds And The Structure Of Reality, James Kreines

CMC Faculty Publications and Research

My focus here is on what Hegel has to say about nature and natural kinds, in ‘Observing Reason’ from the Phenomenology, and also in similar material from the Logic and Encyclopedia. I intend to argue that this material suggests a surprising way of stepping beyond the fundamental debate. There can of course be no question of elaborating and defending here a complete interpretation of Hegel’s entire theoretical philosophy. I will have to restrict myself to arguing for the unlikely conclusion that there is an approach that can combine and integrate the strongest points made by both sides in …

Arcadia, Vol. 3 (2008)

Arcadia: A Student Journal for Faith and Culture

No abstract provided.

Will The Real America Please Stand Up, Renate "Rennie" Simson

Books

This small volume is an attempt to analyze the reality of the "Two Americas". The gap between the two (the 'haves' and 'have nots') has been steadily widening and this book offers a clear and simple presentation of the facts and figures that depict this 'gap'.

Studying Gene Function In Caenorhabditis Elegans Using Rna-Mediated Interference, Eleanor M. Maine

Biology - All Scholarship

The RNA interference (RNAi) method for targeted gene silencing is widely used in Caenorhabditis elegans for large-scale functional genomic studies, analysis of limited gene sets and detailed analysis of individual gene function. The application of RNAi has identified genes that participate in various aspects of development, physiology and cell biology. In addition, RNAi has been used to identify interacting genes and to study functionally redundant genes. This review discusses the various applications of RNAi in C. elegans, focusing particularly on the analysis of developmental processes.

Pentimento: Fuels Reduction And Restoration In The Bosque Of The Middle Rio Grande, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico is the most extensive, remaining bosque, or cottonwood forest in the southwest. Alterations caused by humans—damming and channeling the river, controlling floods, and planting non-native trees—have disrupted the cycles of the earlier ecosystem. Without periodic flooding, native cottonwoods cannot regenerate. Invasive exotic plants such as Tamarisk, also known as salt cedar, and Russian olive have filled in the gaps and open spaces, increased fuel loads, and continue to replace native trees and shrubs after wildfires. Cottonwoods, not a fire-adapted species, are now at risk from wildfire and replacement by invasive plants. An array …

Fire Is For The Birds In Northern Mixed-Grass Prairie, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Roughly 25,000 acres of grassland in the National Wildlife Refuges of North Dakota and eastern Montana are treated every year with prescribed fi re, mostly on northern mixed-grass prairie. Although this shrinking ecosystem is fi readapted, there have been very few studies of the effects of prescribed fi re on wildlife, introduced and native plants, and wildlife-habitat relationships in this delicate ecosystem. For this project, researchers documented short- and long-term fi re effects on abundance, productivity, nest site selection and nest predation in migratory birds, especially grassland songbirds. They also measured the impacts of encroaching woody shrubs and trees on …

Something In The Air: Climate, Fire, And Ponderosa Pine In Southwestern Colorado, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Strong, abrupt climate changes on a time scale of annual to decadal length, can have widespread and long-lasting effects on forest communities. Climate affects forests by creating conditions that kill trees through severe drought, or that promote tree establishment during rainy periods that foster seedlings and saplings. Climate also affects disturbance events that produce the conditions that allow, or limit, fi re occurrence. In studying a ponderosa pine forest in southwestern Colorado, scientists found few trees older than a regional “megadrought” that lasted over two decades in the late 1500s. In the 1600s, a long rainy period allowed trees to …

Searching, Witnessing, Testing: Plants And Fire In Southern California, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Scant knowledge exists on how threatened, endangered, and sensitive (TES) plants on wildlands in southern California respond to fire. With little information to go on, land managers face diffi culties in deciding when to apply prescribed fire as a fuel reduction tool in sensitive habitats. By looking at the postfire landscape of the Manter Fire in the southern Sierra Nevada, which shares rare species with mountains farther south, scientists found the dramatic and dynamic effect of fire on short term recovery. Profuse wildflower displays and other annuals thrived in the first two years postfire, then diminished. Perennials persisted, including previously …

The Tao Of Treating Weeds: Reaching For Restoration In The Northern Rocky Mountains, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Noxious weeds are a serious problem that is spreading across the West. Herbicides such as Picloram have proven to be powerful tools in reducing weed invaders, although use of this tool has often produced unintended consequences. Broadleaf herbicides kill forbs, such as the noxious knapweed, but also harm native forbs such as arrowleaf balsamroot. Removing weedy forbs from a landscape creates opportunities for grasses to thrive—native as well as nonnative. Because of herbicide treatment, study sites experienced great increases in cheatgrass, a non-native grass of poor forage that also alters fire intensity and frequency. Managers should consider that efforts to …

Keep The Home Fires Burning: Rare Birds And Better Abodes In Southeastern Arizona, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The buff-breasted fl ycatcher is a rare bird that inhabits forests of the southwestern U.S. Long-term fire exclusion in these forests may have contributed to the buff-breasted fl ycatcher’s historical range contraction and recent population declines. Buff-breasted flycatchers today use less than 10% of their former U.S. breeding habitat. Researchers from the University of Arizona surveyed buff-breasted flycatchers along previously surveyed and new survey routes, some of which had burned during recent wildfires, within nine mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona. Sixty-three percent of the previously surveyed routes showed negative trends, a 10.5% annual decline in buff-breasted flycatcher numbers. Buffbreasted fl …

When Chaparral And Coastal Sage Scrub Burn: Consequences For Mammals, Management, And More, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The massive Cedar and Otay fires of 2003 in southern California offered researchers an unexpected opportunity to examine the effects of fi re on mammal communities. Jay Diffendorfer and his colleagues had already been sampling small mammal communities at the Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve where the Otay fi re broke out. There the researchers could see the difference in small mammal communities, pre- and postfire and the impacts of postfire, exotic grass invasion. At the Cleveland National Forest, where the Cedar fire occurred, the team examined whether the size and severity of the fire affected small mammal communities, as well …

Earth And Fire: Forests Rely On Healthy Soils For A Well-Rounded Diet, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Historically, frequent low-intensity, dormant-season fire shaped the landscape across a variety of forests in the United States, from eastern hardwood and hardwood/conifer mixtures to western coniferous forests. Decades of fire exclusion have resulted in heavy fuel loads and increased threat of severe wildfire compared to historic conditions in most forest types and also resulted in changes in forest composition compared to historic conditions. The Fire and Fire Surrogates Study (FFS) is the first to apply a standard experimental design to compare thinning, thinning followed by prescribed fire, and prescribed fire alone across a wide spectrum of ecological and economic variables. …

Synthesis Of Knowledge Of Hazardous Fuels Management In Loblolly Pine Forests, Douglas J. Marshall, Michael Wimberly, Pete Bettinger, John Stanturf

Joint Fire Science Program Synthesis Reports

This synthesis provides an overview of hazardous fuels management in loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) forests, as well as a reference guide on prescribed burning and alternative fuel management treatments. Available information is presented on treatment feasibility, approximate costs, and effects on soil, water quality, and wildlife. The objectives of fuel management in loblolly pine forests are to reduce the density of some targeted plant vegetation and change the structural condition of the forest, or both. Prescribed burning is the most common tool for managing fuels in the South due to the relatively low cost per acre and the ability to …

Synthesis Of Knowledge From Woody Biomass Removal Case Studies, Alexander M. Evans

Joint Fire Science Program Synthesis Reports

Interest in woody biomass from forests has increased because of rising fossil fuel costs, concerns about greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, and the threat of catastrophic wildfires. However, getting woody biomass from the forest to the consumer presents economic and logistical challenges. Woody biomass is the lowest-value material removed from the forest, usually logging slash, small-diameter trees, tops, limbs, or trees that can not be sold as timber. This report brings together 45 case studies of how biomass is removed from forests and used across the country to demonstrate the wide variety of successful strategies, funding sources, harvesting operations, …

Synergistic Effects Of Climate-Related Variables Suggest Future Physiological Impairment In A Top Oceanic Predator, Rui Rosa, Brad A. Seibel

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

By the end of this century, anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are expected to decrease the surface ocean pH by as much as 0.3 unit. At the same time, the ocean is expected to warm with an associated expansion of the oxygen minimum layer (OML). Thus, there is a growing demand to understand the response of the marine biota to these global changes. We show that ocean acidification will substantially depress metabolic rates (31%) and activity levels (45%) in the jumbo squid, Dosidicus gigas, a top predator in the Eastern Pacific. This effect is exacerbated by high …

January 2008, Pope Benedict Xvi

Marian Thoughts of Pope Benedict XVI

No abstract provided.