Digital Commons Network^™

Tissue Engineering Strategies For The Treatment Of Peripheral Vascular Diseases, Hans Layman

Open Access Dissertations

Peripheral vascular diseases such as peripheral artery disease (PAD) and critical limb ischemia (CLI) are growing at an ever-increasing rate in the Western world due to an aging population and the incidence of type II diabetes. A growing economic burden continues because these diseases are common indicators of future heart attack or stroke. Common therapies are generally limited to pharmacologic agents or endovascular therapies which have had mixed results still ending in necrosis or limb loss. Therapeutic angiogenic strategies have become welcome options for patients suffering from PAD due to the restoration of blood flow in the extremities. Capillary sprouting …

Phylogeography Of The Marsh Rice Rat (Oryzomys Palustris) In Wetlands Of The Southeastern United States, Jane L. Indorf

Open Access Dissertations

The marsh rice rat (Oryzomys palustris) is a semi-aquatic rodent endemic to the southeastern United States. Unlike most terrestrial small mammals, the marsh rice rat can easily disperse over water and has a close association with wetlands. These specialized traits have likely greatly shaped the genetic structure and diversity within this species. I studied genetic patterns within the marsh rice rat to understand how this species' specialized ecology, as well as the geologic and climatic history of the southeastern United States, affected the genetic structuring within this species. The phylogeography of many species in the southeastern United States has been …

Interactions Between Water Chemistry And Waterborne Lead Exposure To Freshwater Organisms, Edward M. Mager

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation characterizes the influences of water chemistry on the acute toxicity of lead (Pb) to two of the long-standing sentinel test organisms commonly employed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) and daphnid (Ceriodaphnia dubia), for parameterization of an acute Pb Biotic Ligand Model (BLM). In addition, a toxicogenomic approach was employed to identify genes that might serve as molecular markers of Pb exposure and long-term effects, as well as provide new insights as to the underlying toxic mechanisms of chronic Pb exposure in P. promelas. The endpoints of growth, reproduction, Pb accumulation, …

Travel, Migration And Hiv:Comparing Risk Behaviors Betweennative And Migrant Jamaican Persons Infected With Hiv, Yoran T. Grant

Open Access Dissertations

Migration and travel have been significant factors in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic since its emergence in 1981. Understanding the current effects of migration and travel on HIV/AIDS transmission and survival is essential to intervention efforts, especially for immigrants. Previous research highlights differences between immigrants and native ethnic minorities, but few studies compare immigrant groups to their peers in the country of origin. The overall objective of this study was to explore the relationship between migration, travel and risk behavior among Jamaicans infected with HIV. This dissertation study analyzed HIV/AIDS registry data from the New York City Department of …

Fighting Bias With Statistics: Detecting Gender Differences In Responses On Items On A Preschool Science Assessment, Ariela Caren Greenberg

Open Access Dissertations

Differential item functioning (DIF) and differential distractor functioning (DDF) are methods used to screen for item bias (Camilli && Shepard, 1994; Penfield, 2008). Using an applied empirical example, this mixed-methods study examined the congruency and relationship of DIF and DDF methods in screening multiple-choice items. Data for Study I were drawn from item responses of 271 female and 236 male low-income children on a preschool science assessment. Item analyses employed a common statistical approach of the Mantel-Haenszel log-odds ratio (MH-LOR) to detect DIF in dichotomously scored items (Holland & Thayer, 1988), and extended the approach to identify DDF (Penfield, 2008). …

An Emerging Disease Causes Regional Population Collapse Of A Common North American Bat Species, Winifred F. Frick, Jacob F. Pollock, Alan C. Hicks

KIP Articles

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is an emerging disease affecting hibernating bats in eastern North America that causes mass mortality and precipitous population declines in winter hibernacula. First discovered in 2006 in New York State, WNS is spreading rapidly across eastern North America and currently affects seven species. Mortality associated with WNS is causing a regional population collapse and is predicted to lead to regional extinction of the little brown myotis (Myotis lucifugus), previously one of the most common bat species in North America. Novel diseases can have serious impacts on naïve wildlife populations, which in turn can have substantial impacts on …

Usa V. Maurice Dupree

2010 Decisions

USDC for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

Brief Amicus Curiae Of The American Center For School Choice In Support Of Petitioners, Richard W. Garnett, John E. Coons

Court Briefs

Nos. 09-987, 09-991
Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Kathleen M. Winn, Gale Garriott v. Kathleen M. Winn

On Writs of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

From the Introduction and Summary of the Argument

We agree entirely with Petitioners that the panel below misapplied this Court’s relevant doctrines and decisions – including Zelman – and that the ruling under review is neither required by, nor consistent with, the First Amendment to our Constitution. Arizona’s tax-credit program does not impermissibly “establish” or “endorse” religion. Instead, it is an entirely permissible (and promising) policy experiment …

21 Exceptional Students Receive Scholarships From Honors College, Special Academic Opportunities, Admin

University of Mississippi News

No abstract provided.

A Study Of The Effects Of Immersion On Short-Term Spatial Memory, Eric A. Johnson

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

Johnson, Eric Arthur. M.S., Purdue University, August, 2010. A Study of the Effects of Immersion on Short-term Spatial Memory. Major Professor: Nicoletta Adamo-Villani. The goal of the study was to determine whether the level of immersion of a virtual environment has a significant effect on the user’s short term spatial memory. Two previous virtual environment development projects are reviewed: the Muscatatuck Virtual Tour and the 21st Century World Future City (Adamo- Villani, et al. 2009, 2010)). These projects show the viability of producing a virtual environment and a partially immersive, low-cost virtual reality system ,i.e. a Fish- Tank system (The …

Turk, Assistant Professor Of English, Testifies In United States Copyright Office Hearing, University Relations

Campus News Archive

Turk researches the phenomenon of fan-made videos, whose makers are impacted by the recently released ruling.

Variation In Sound Production Of The Blue Catfish, Ictalurus Furcatus., Zachary Ghahramani

Theses and Dissertations

The blue catfish, Ictalurus furcatus, is an invasive species introduced to Virginia in 1974 and is the largest catfish in the United States. Like other Ictalurids, they are capable of producing disturbance calls via stridulation of the pectoral spine. These sounds can be made in air and water, and catfish can be preyed upon by both aerial and underwater predators. I characterized these putative distress calls by recording them in air and in the fish’s natural habitat. Sounds exhibited a wide variation in acoustic parameters relative to fish ontogeny: larger fish produced higher amplitude sounds with lower frequency bands. Sweep …

Building The Knowledge Of Human Perception Into E-Learning, Shalin Hai-Jew

SIDLIT Conference

Human perceptual systems—for sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell (and maybe even embodied proprioception)—may offer some guidelines for how to build multimedia e-learning: immersive 3D simulations, imagery for analysis, sight-and-sound distributions of information channels, and other applications. This will offer a brief overview of human perception (with a little human cognition thrown in) and some light applications to the design of e-learning.

Mustang Daily, August 5, 2010

Cal Poly Student Newspaper

Student newspaper of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA.

Before “Eye,” There Was “Paul”, Office Of Public Affairs

Press Releases

Artist Tony Tasset’s towering depiction of iconic woodsman Paul Bunyan made its debut in 2006 at Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park (NMSP) at Governors State University. “Paul” is one of 26 pieces, many by masters of contemporary sculpture, in NMSP’s permanent collection.

Since its unveiling this summer, Tasset’s “Eye” has quickly become one of Chicago’s most talked-about pieces of public art. “Eye” is on display at Pritzker Park, State and Van Buren streets, though October. The Chicago Loop Alliance, the gargantuan eye’s sponsor, says it is likely to become a destination for persons who live or work in the Loop, or …

Emotional Response Patterns And Emotional Numbing In Adult Female Victims Of Sexual Assault With Ptsd, Tristan A. Robinson

Dissertations

DSM symptoms of emotional numbing appear to have a major impact on the course and outcome of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet the construct definition of emotional numbing itself has not been clearly established. Two opposing conceptualizations of this construct have been proposed in the traumatic stress literature. One holds numbing to be a form of non-effortful emotional avoidance, akin to dissociation, that results in diminished responsiveness to emotional stimuli in general (Foa, Zinbarg, & Rothbaum, 1992; Foa & Hearst-Ikeda, 1996). The other suggests that numbing entails a deficit in responsiveness to positive emotional stimuli but not to negative emotional …

Don't Dress For Dinner, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2010 Summer Theatre

Don’t Dress For Dinner centers around Bernard and Jacqueline, a not-so-happily married couple, both of whom are having extramarital affairs. As Jacqueline prepares to go out of town to visit her mother, Bernard invites his mistress and Robert, his best friend (and also Jacqueline’s lover, unbeknownst to Bernard), over for the weekend. He’s even hired a Cordon Bleu chef to cater the evening. Jacqueline discovers Robert is coming to town and cancels her trip, causing Bernard to panic. When Robert arrives, Bernard asks him to pretend Suzanne is Robert’s mistress. Robert mistakes the chef (Suzette), for Bernard’s mistress (Suzanne), producing …

The Daily Egyptian, August 05. 2010, Daily Egyptian Staff

August 2010

No abstract provided.

The Pan American (2010-08-05), Kristen Cabrera

UTPA Archives - The Pan American Newspaper

Vol. 66, No. 31

"The Conceit Of This Inconstant Stay": Shakespeare's Philosophical Conquest Of Time Through Personification, Triche Roberson

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the procreation sonnets and those numerous sonnets that promise immortality through verse for Shakespeare's beloved young man, the poet personifies time as an agent of relentlessly destructive change. Yet Shakespeare's approach to the personification of time, as well as his reactions to time, changes over the course of the sequence. He transforms his fear of and obsession with time as a destroyer typical of most sonnets to an attitude of mastery over the once ominous force. The act of contemplating time's power by personification provides the speaker with a deeper awareness of time, love, and mutability that allows him …

Investigation Of Patient Perception Of Hospital Noise And Sound Level Measurements: Before, During, And After Renovations Of A Hospital Wing, Cassandra H. Wiese

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Acoustic conditions in hospitals have been shown to influence a patient’s physical and psychological health. Noise levels in an Omaha, Nebraska, hospital were measured and compared between various times: before, during, and after renovations of a hospital wing. The renovations included cosmetic changes and the installation of new in-room patient audio-visual systems. Sound pressure levels were logged every 10-seconds over a four-day period in three different locations: at the nurses' station, in the hallway, and in a nearby patient’s room. The resulting data were analyzed in terms of the hourly A-weighted equivalent sound pressure levels (��_��eq) as …

China Monetary Policy Report Quarter Two, 2010, People's Bank Of China: Monetary Policy Analysis Group

Documents

No abstract provided.

Hell On Earth: A Modern Day Inferno In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road, Emily Lane

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Dante's the Inferno contain textual and thematic comparisons. While the Inferno creates a world that exhibits the worst fears of the medieval Catholic subconscious of Dante's time, The Road paints a world of the darkest fears of the current American subconscious. Both texts reflect a critical dystopia that speculates on human spirituality and offers a critique of society through a tour of sin and suffering in a desolate setting.

The Interaction Of Pain And Morphine On Analgesia, Locomotion, And Cognitive Functioning, Brandon Baiamonte

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Opioid medications are medicine's best weapon against severe intractable pain, but prolonged use of these medications can be complicated by side effects like tolerance and mental clouding which, themselves, can be disabling. The present study examined the independent and combined effects of inflammatory pain and opioid medication on spatial memory for a well learned task in Sprague-Dawley rats. The Hargreaves method was used to verify the pain state of the animals after complete Freund's adjuvant injection and morphine treatment. Whereas pain had little effect on spatial memory, morphine had profound detrimental effects that persisted beyond the analgesic effectiveness of the …

Mact Implementation At An Organic Chemical Manufacturing Facility: Human Health Risk Reduction, Keith Gordon

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Human health risk assessments are used by environmental regulatory agencies to determine risk from Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs). In this study, the Human Exposure Model (HEM-3) was used to compare the cancer and non-cancer inhalation health effects of a single organic chemical manufacturing facility in Geismar, Louisiana prior to and after Maximum Achievable Control Technologies (MACT) were implemented. The results indicate significant reductions in both cancer risk and non-cancer hazards. The analysis also indicated that the equivalent cancer risk reduction could have been achieved by addressing MACT in only one production process and one single pollutant (ethylene dichloride) within that …

Soil Buoyancy As A Potential Indicator Of Hurricane Susceptibility In Louisiana Marshes, Alissa Gros

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Hurricanes rapidly destroy large expanses land in coastal Louisiana marsh. Research shows that freshwater marsh with organic soils experience increased destruction during hurricanes compared to other marsh. A relevant question surfaces, do some restoration projects create marsh similar to marshes that are more susceptible to hurricane damage. This study analyzes soil, bulk density, plant composition, and buoyancy of restoration projects and sites adjacent to those that experienced land loss during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Results indicate that high organic matter percentages in marsh soil increases hurricane susceptibility attributed to decreased bulk density and increased buoyancy. Buoyancy is episodic and is …

Harnessing The Effect Of Adoptively Transferred Tumor-Reactive T Cells On Endogenous (Host-Derived) Antitumor Immunity, Yolanda Nesbeth, Jose R. Conejo-Garcia

Dartmouth Scholarship

Adoptive T cell transfer therapy, the ex vivo activation, expansion, and subsequent administration of tumor-reactive T cells, is already the most effective therapy against certain types of cancer. However, recent evidence in animal models and clinical trials suggests that host conditioning interventions tailored for some of the most aggressive and frequent epithelial cancers will be needed to maximize the benefit of this approach. Similarly, the subsets, stage of differentiation, and ex vivo expansion procedure of tumor-reactive T cells to be adoptively transferred influence their in vivo effectiveness and may need to be adapted for different types of cancer and host …

"Who Will Remain Whole? Who?": The Pursuit Of Power And Place In "The Displaced Person", Katy L. Leedy

Masters Theses

In Flannery O ’Connor’s “The Displaced Person,” each character works to forcefully displace others from their positions in a way that can be likened to colonization. Farm owner Mrs. McIntyre thinks she can act as a colonizer, but instead she has merely a position of power. Because she believes in her authority, she works to defend it; since she has nothing to defend, her efforts are fruitless. With the death of Guizac, the question of power is resolved: she has none. Instead, she had the illusion of power since she had workers beneath her. With them gone, there is no …

Cannabinoid Receptors In The 3d Reconstructed Mouse Brain: Function And Regulation, Peter Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

CB1 receptors (CB1R) mediate the psychoactive and therapeutic effects of cannabinoids including ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive constituent in marijuana. However, therapeutic use is limited by side effects and tolerance and dependence with chronic administration. Tolerance to cannabinoid-mediated effects is associated with CB1R adaptations, including desensitization (receptor-G-protein uncoupling) and downregulation (receptor degradation). The objectives of this thesis are to investigate the regional-specificity in CB1R function and regulation. Previous studies have investigated CB1Rs in a subset of regions involved in cannabinoid effects, but an inclusive regional comparison of the relative efficacies of different classes of cannabinoids to activate G-proteins has not …

Use Of Environmental Variables To Infer Gene Flow And Population Structure In The Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus Polyphemus) And Predict The Seroprevalence Of An Emerging Infectious Disease, Rachel Wallace Clostio

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Understanding worldwide declines in reptiles due to factors such as habitat loss and emerging infectious disease has become an increasingly important focus in conservation biology. Here, I use novel approaches from the field of landscape genetics to combine spatial genetic data with landscape data at both regional and local spatial scales to explore natural and anthropogenic landscape features that shape population structure and gene flow in a federally threatened reptile, Gopherus polyphemus. I also utilize approaches from the field of spatial epidemiology to examine the extent to which environmental variables can be used to predict the seroprevalence of an associated …