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Proteomic Analysis Of Endodontic Infections By Liquid Chromatography–Tandem Mass Spectrometry, R. Nandakumar, Nandakumar Madayiputhiya, A. F. Fouad

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Introduction—Endodontic infections are very prevalent and have a polymicrobial etiology characterized by complex interrelationships between endodontic microorganisms and the host defenses. Proteomic analysis of endodontic infections can provide global insights into the invasion, pathogenicity mechanisms, and multifactorial interactions existing between root canal bacteria and the host in the initiation and progression of apical periodontitis. The purpose of this study was to apply proteomic techniques such as liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/ MS) for the identification of proteins of bacterial origin present in endodontic infections.

Methods—Endodontic specimens were aseptically obtained from seven patients with root canal infections. Protein mixtures were subjected …

Uab Magazine - Fall 2009, University Of Alabama At Birmingham

UAB Magazine

No abstract provided.

Men And Women Of The Bar: The Impact Of Gender On Legal Careers, Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Marc S. Galanter, Kaushik Mukhopadhaya, Kathleen E. Hull

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

In the last three and a half decades, the legal profession has undergone a dramatic transformation in the gender composition of its members. During that time, the number of women applying to law school and entering the profession has gone from a few gallant pioneers to roughly equal representation with that of men. Between 1970 and 2000, the proportion of first-year law students who were female climbed from 8% to 49%. Because the existing bar consisted primarily of male lawyers, the percent of women in the legal profession changed more slowly, but still rose dramatically. Women, as a percent of …

Coherence, Complexity, And Information Flow: Self-Organizing Processes In Psychotherapy, David Pincus

Psychology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"This chapter is written in the spirit of optimism, suggesting that self-organization is just such a general theory that may assist in providing a deeper, scientifically grounded understanding of the complex biopsychosocial processes involved in psychotherapy. To provide some foundation to this rather grand suggestion, the following review rests on five more specific theoretical propositions stemming from self-organization theory... The analysis of these propositions begins with an integrative review of traditional theories of interpersonal process through the lens of nonlinear dynamical systems (NDS) and self-organization theory in particular. Next, the contemporary empirical and theoretical developments using NDS to understand psychotherapy …

Ada News Convention Daily - 2009 Day 4, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

ADA News

The ADA News Daily (also called the ADA News Convention Daily) is a special edition of the ADA News published each day during American Dental Association Annual Sessions.

Ksr Fallout: Questions Of Law Based On Findings Of Fact And The Continuing Problem Of Hindsight Bias, Adam Powell

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

The KSR v. Teleflex decision marked the Supreme Court's first significant return to the issue of "obviousness" in over four decades. While KSR may make it easier to invalidate a patent by a finding of obviousness, it is unclear how lower courts will implement the decision. The resulting uncertainty presents an opportunity to rethink the jury's role in an obviousness determination. This note discusses current model jury instructions and jury verdict forms, the jury's continuing role in obviousness decisions, and how new jury instructions that conform to KSR's standards can aid lower courts in addressing a jury's use of hindsight.

Managing Livestock Manure To Protect Environmental Quality, Brian L. Benham, Richard B. Ferguson, Christopher G. Henry, Michael A. Reynolds, Charles A. Shapiro, James P. Stack, Charles S. Wortmann

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Proper utilization of livestock manure is a major environmental concern. Livestock manure has typically been considered a ‘waste product’ of livestock production. A more accurate name for this material is a ‘recycled resource’ from the production of livestock. By managing livestock manure, the producer has a second chance to utilize the nutrients that have already been paid for but not fully utilized by the animal. Collecting, containing, and properly spreading livestock manure will incur additional costs for the producer. However, these costs can be offset or justified by the producer in terms of the yield enhancement and nutrient credits that …

Integrated Capture And Spectroscopic Detection Of Viruses, Crystal A. Vargas, Allison A. Wilhelm, Jeremy Williams, Pierre Lucas, Kelly A. Reynolds, Mark R. Riley

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The goal of this work is to develop an online monitoring scheme for detection of viruses in flowing drinking water. The approach applies an electrodeposition process that is similar to the use of charged membrane filters previously employed for collection of viruses from aqueous samples. In the present approach, charged materials are driven onto a robust optical sensing element which has high transparency to infrared light. A spectroscopic measurement is performed using the evanescent wave that penetrates no more than 1 m from the surface of an infrared optical element in an attenuated total reflectance measurement scheme. The infrared measurement …

Time Production And Representation In A Conceptual And Computational Cognitive Model, J. Snaider, R. Mccall, S. Franklin

CCRG Papers

No abstract provided.

"Chasing A Ghost": Addressing The Opalescence/Aggregation Relationship Of An Igg 1 Antibody, John C. Champagne

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was conducted to address the aggregation/opalescence relationship of an IgG 1 therapeutic antibody under a variety of conditions. The opalescence characteristics of three antibodies, Mab 1, 2 and 3, were examined as a function of salt dependence, protein concentration and temperature, using a variety of biophysical techniques. The high molecular weight species were initially identified using batch static and dynamic light scattering and separated by asymmetric flow field flow fractionation. When the salt dependence was examined, any structural changes were characterized using differential scanning calorimetry, circular dichroism and fluorescence, while the association state and temperature dependence was measured …

The Mental Demands Of Marine Ecosystem -Based Management: A Constructive Developmental Lens, Verna Gerard Delauer

Doctoral Dissertations

Ecosystem-based Management (EBM) is a relatively new and promising approach to the management of marine systems. EBM is holistic by seeking to include ail stakeholders affected by marine policy. Stakeholders may include individuals from ail levels of government, academia, environmental organizations, and marine-dependent businesses and industry. This dissertation lays out the substantive differences of marine EBM stakeholder engagement processes versus other, single sector processes. EBM processes are more complex than existing stakeholder engagement mechanisms, to sufficiently require a more sophisticated conceptual understanding of the process and the people involved. There are implicit cognitive, interpersonal, and intra-personal demands of EBM that …

Emotional Responses To Environmental Messages: Implications For Future Environmentally Responsible Behavioral Intentions, Jeffrey L. Perrin

Doctoral Dissertations

The present study analyzed the role of environmental message characteristics (message modality and message valence) and emotional arousal (positive and negative) in predicting environmentally responsible behavioral intentions. Using an experimental protocol designed to induce emotions in the laboratory, I measured specific emotional responses to gains-framed and losses-framed video and text-only environmental messages, and investigated the relation between intensity of emotional responses to environmental messages and environmentally responsible behavioral intentions. The sample consisted of 161 college students (116 women, 45 men). A hierarchical linear multiple regression was computed to assess the contributions of background variables (environmental knowledge, environmental beliefs, and outdoor …

Absent Meaning: Fascination, Narrative, And Trauma In The Holocaust Imaginary, Christopher Scott Massey

Doctoral Dissertations

Examining post-1970 representations of the Holocaust and Nazism along with critical responses to these representations, the dissertation demonstrates how a use of the term "fascination" has shaped contemporary understandings of how the Holocaust should and should not be represented and remembered. My argument is that despite its pervasive and influential usage in the discourse of Holocaust representation, no critical attention has been given to what the term means. In as much as the term's usage draws the historical and ethical boundaries across which representations of the Holocaust cannot pass, this dearth of critical attention given to the term means that …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Functional Polymers With Controlled Architecture And Their Application As Anticorrosion Primers, Anne S. Quincy

Doctoral Dissertations

There are over 2900 ballast tanks in the U.S. Navy inventory and their annual maintenance cost amounted to 415 million dollars in 2006, half of which was directly correlated to corrosion. Ballast tanks which form the basic skeleton of a vessel, are subjected to very corrosive conditions. Epoxy based protective coatings are used by the Navy for minimizing corrosion and they currently offer five to seven years of protection. The work described in this thesis is in line with a major program instigated by the U.S. Navy to improve the reliability of tank coatings.

This thesis investigates the synthesis and …

Genetic Variation Within The Daphnia Pulex Genome, Abraham Eaton Tucker

Doctoral Dissertations

Genetic variation within the diploid Daphnia pulex genome was examined using a high quality de novo assembly and shotgun reads from two distinct D. pulex clones. Patterns of variation and divergence at single nucleotides were examined in physical and functional regions of the genome using comparative assembly output and available annotations. Additionally, mitochondrial genomes of the same D. pulex clones were assembled and compared for patterns of divergence, and substitutional biases. Intron presence/absence polymorphisms were identified computationally and verified experimentally. Finally, gene duplicate demographics were examined for patterns of divergence and estimates of gene birth rates.

Engaged Scholarship At Land-Grant Institutions: Factors Affecting Faculty Participation, Lisa Townson

Doctoral Dissertations

At a time when universities and their faculty are called to work in partnership with partners to address important societal issues, engaged scholarship has become an important movement in higher education. This research examines the perceptions of tenured and tenure-eligible faculty members at land-grant institutions and describes how disciplinary differences influence faculty members' expression of and likelihood to practice engaged scholarship; work with community partners; and how they perceive engaged scholarship is recognized and rewarded by their institutions. A stratified random sample of tenure-track faculty members from all 1862 land-grant institutions was surveyed via the Internet and data were analyzed …

A Wild Web: The Tangled History Of Attitudes Toward Wildlife In A Dynamic New England Culture, 1945--1985, Mary H. Hopkins

Doctoral Dissertations

Attitudes toward wildlife are considerably more complex than one might suspect. This dissertation started with a hypothesis that population growth would correlate with increasing negative attitudes toward wildlife, but historical evidence only partially supports this hypothesis. Information about the frequency and types of wildlife references appearing in newspapers between 1945 and 1985 was gathered from a systematic sampling of six New Hampshire newspapers that represented towns with differing growth trends. While analysis of quantitative data minimized any correlation between growth and negative attitudes, qualitative data from newspaper articles, archival sources, government reports, books and articles, and other sources provided evidence …

A Modified Synthesis, C-Functionalization, Resolution And Racemization Kinetics Of Cross -Bridged Tetraazamacrocycles, Antoinette Yolanda Odendaal

Doctoral Dissertations

Modifications to the literature-reported procedure for the synthesis of cross-bridged cyclam and homocyclen tetraamines are presented. The synthesis involves the use of a cis-tricyclic bisaminal intermediate for the preparation of tetracyclic bisaminals and the microwave-assisted reductive ring opening of N,N'-dibenzyl bisaminal salts. The cis-tricyclic bisaminal was also used in the preparation of a C-functionalized cross-bridged cyclam. The resolution of racemic cross-bridged cyclam by selective crystallization of its diastereomeric salt of L-(+)-tartaric acid is described. Additionally, the kinetics of racemization of enantiopure cross-bridged cyclam is presented.

Wavelet Regression With Long Memory Infinite Moving Average Errors, Juan Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

For more than a decade there has been great interest in wavelets and wavelet-based methods. Among the most successful applications of wavelets is nonparametric statistical estimation, following the pioneering work of Donoho and Johnstone (1994, 1995) and Donoho et al. (1995). In this thesis, we consider the wavelet-based estimators of the mean regression function with long memory infinite moving average errors, and investigate the rates of convergence of estimators based on thresholding of empirical wavelet coefficients. We show that these estimators achieve nearly optimal minimax convergence rates within a logarithmic term over a large class of non-smooth functions that involve …

Modeling Congenital Disorders Of Glycosylation In Caenorhabditis Elegans: Genetic Influences And Structural Consequences Of N-Linked Glycosylation, Weston Booth Struwe

Doctoral Dissertations

The attachment of oligosaccharides to the amide nitrogen of asparagine side chains in proteins is a fundamental process occurring in all metazoans. This process, known as N-glycosylation, is complex and is achieved by the precise interactions of various cellular components. The initial stage of N-glycosylation occurs in the endolasmic reticulum and is preserved among eukaryotes. Glycans are further developed in the Golgi and the structural complexity depends greatly on the animal species, tissue and developmental stage. Oligosaccharides are unique biomolecules because unlike DNA or proteins, no primary sequence exists nor is its' synthesis template driven. A major goal of glycobiologist …

Photosynthetic And Oxidative Stress In The Green Alga Dunaliella Tertiolecta: The Effects Of Uv-B And Uv-A Radiation, Priya Sampath Wiley

Doctoral Dissertations

The penetration of ultraviolet-B (UV-B; 290-320 nm) into the biosphere has increased in response to decreased stratospheric ozone. As a consequence, significant attempts have been made to elucidate the effects of UV-B radiation on primary producers such as phytoplankton and plants. Considerably less effort has been devoted to describing the role played by ultraviolet-A (UV-A; 320-400 nm) radiation, which is not attenuated by stratospheric ozone. The present work details the independent and combined effects of UV-B and UV-A radiation on photosynthetic and oxidative stress responses using the unicellular green alga Dunaliella tertiolecta as a model organism. A UV-B spectral profile …

Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone In Agnathans, Scott Ira Kavanaugh

Doctoral Dissertations

Hagfish and lampreys are the only two representatives of Agnathans among extant vertebrates. The regulatory hypothalamic neurohormone, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), regulates reproduction in all vertebrates through the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. Most vertebrates have at least two forms of GnRH in the brain. In hagfish the primary amino acid structure of GnRH has not been identified as yet, however, indirect methods have shown an immunoreactive GnRH or a GnRH-like peptide in the brain of hagfish. In addition concentrations of brain immunoreactive-GnRH have been correlated with reproductive stages in the Atlantic hagfish ( Myxine glutinosa). Therefore the objective of the first study was …

Mathematics Of Double-Walled Carbon Nanotube Model: Asymptotic Spectral And Stability Analysis, Miriam Rojas-Arenaza

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is devoted to analytical study of a contemporary model of a double-walled carbon nano-tube. Carbon nano-tubes have been considered outstanding candidates to innovate and to promote emerging technologies, due to their remarkable chemical, mechanical, and physical properties. For these technologies, there is a need to develop mathematical models that capture the nature of the responses of these structures under a variety of physical conditions. Developing these models is challenging because the behavior lies on the borderline between classical and quantum systems. The main goal of the present dissertation is to prove mathematically rigorous results concerning the vibrational behavior …

Biologically Inspired Feature Extraction For Rotation And Scale Tolerant Pattern Analysis, Dragan Vidacic

Doctoral Dissertations

Biologically motivated information processing has been an important area of scientific research for decades. The central topic addressed in this dissertation is utilization of lateral inhibition and more generally, linear networks with recurrent connectivity along with complex-log conformal mapping in machine based implementations of information encoding, feature extraction and pattern recognition. The reasoning behind and method for spatially uniform implementation of inhibitory/excitatory network model in the framework of non-uniform log-polar transform is presented. For the space invariant connectivity model characterized by Topelitz-Block-Toeplitz matrix, the overall network response is obtained without matrix inverse operations providing the connection matrix generating function is …

Glycan Characterizations With Application In Metal Ion Binding, The 1918 Influenza Virus Neuraminidase Formation And Human Receptors, Hui Zhou

Doctoral Dissertations

The EP glycoprotein, the major protein component isolated from the EP fluid of the mollusc, Mytilus edulis, is known to bind many metal ions and to contain 14.3% of carbohydrate in weight. To structurally evaluate the sugar function of this glycoprotein, a new mass spectrometry-based strategy was applied with a focus on the comprehensive characterization of its N-glycans. This included: (a) accurate mass measurement and GC/MS to determine the monosaccharide compositions; (b) positive ion CID-MS n to disassemble the deuterated permethylated derivates (CD3 ) to reveal the antenna sequence, and natural methoxyl group location; (c) negative ion CID-MSn on native …

Flow Within The Engineering Pipeline: Motivation Of High -Achieving Students During The High School To College Transition, Nick Tatar

Doctoral Dissertations

Student motivation is often related to perceptions of the learning environment, making the transition from high school to college a critical period as students adjust to new learning environments. It is also a critical time for engineering programs as high-achieving students who drop out of engineering during this period are not likely to be replaced.

A web-based survey including nine scales assessing personal motivation, perceived classroom goal structures, and academic related beliefs and behaviors was administered to eighty-eight students who participated at two time points---the end of senior year in high school and the end of the first semester in …

Understanding Sla Through Peer Interactions In A Chinese Classroom: A Sociocultural Perspective, Lei Wu

Doctoral Dissertations

Second language learning and development is a complex process that is situated in sociocultural settings. Classrooms provide such daily life settings in which language acquisition occurs via social interactions among peers and the instructor as well as other mediated means. The purpose of this research study was to examine the roles of peer interaction in a Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) classroom and how different types of peer interaction affect learners' second language development in a classroom setting, and what roles peer interactions played in such a setting. Based on the sociocultural theory, the study explored the opportunities for …

Tracking Diet And Movement Of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus Thynnus) Using Carbon And Nitrogen Stable Isotopes, John Logan

Doctoral Dissertations

Atlantic bluefin tuna (ABFT; Thunnus thynnus) are important top predators in pelagic ecosystems. Understanding their diet and movements is necessary for proper management, but existing methods are costly and logistically challenging. Naturally occurring stable isotopes have been used to study diet and movement in many aquatic ecosystems and offer a novel approach for studying these large pelagic fishes.

Lipids, which have lower carbon isotope values than protein, can affect isotope analyses of bulk tissue. Both chemical and mathematical corrections were used to address lipid effects on ABFT and the prey. All chemical extraction methods altered nitrogen isotope values. Mathematical corrections …

"It's Just Part Of What We Do": Adolescent Interactions With Multimodal Texts Across Social Spaces, Anita S. Charles

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores how adolescents are interacting with text across shifting social spaces, and how they learn to be literate across a range of social, academic, print, and digital contexts. The intent of the study is to help articulate the boundedness and fluidity of multiple discourses, and to better clarify how teens maneuver across these boundaries successfully. My research approach incorporates ethnographic methodology with a framework of critical sociocultural theory, drawing heavily upon Gee's (2005) work in discourse analysis.

New technologies have broken down bounded spaces and dichotomous views of what it means to be literate, creating interrelationships among literacies …

Chemical Sensors Based On Swellable Polymer Microparticles And Molecular Imprinted Polymers, John Ong'any Osambo

Doctoral Dissertations

Swellable thermoresponsive and lightly cross-linked polymer microparticles were prepared for the development of chemical sensors for various target analytes. The swelling and shrinking of the polymer particles as a function of concentration of target analytes has been investigated using turbidity and fluorescence measurements at suitable pH values.

Chemical sensors that respond to transition metal ions such as Cu 2+, Ni2+, Zn2+, and Pb2+ were prepared by copolymerizing N-Isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) with ligands such as; 2,2'-acylamidodiacetic acid (AIDA), dibutyl-2,2'-(3 vinylphenylazanediyl) diacetate (DVPAA), N-((4'-methyl-2,2'-bipyridin-4yl)methyl)-N-propylacrylamide (NMPPAAm), and N,N-bis(pyridine-2-ylmethyl)prop-2-en-1-amine (NBPMPA). The microparticles were either labeled with 9-vinylanthracene (9-VA)/2-Naphthylmethacrylate (2-NMA), or fluorescein o-acrylate/methacryloxethyl thiocarbonyl rhodamine B …