Digital Commons Network^™

Dispersion Of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes By A Natural Lung Surfactant For Pulmonary In Vitro And In Vivo Toxicity Studies, Liying Wang, Vincent Castranova, Anurag Mishra, Bean Chen, Robert R. Mercer, Diane Schwegler-Berry, Yon Rojanasakul

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Background

Accumulating evidence indicate that the degree of dispersion of nanoparticles has a strong influence on their biological activities. The aims of this study were to develop a simple and rapid method of nanoparticle dispersion using a natural lung surfactant and to evaluate the effect of dispersion status of SWCNT on cytotoxicity and fibrogenicity in vitro and in vivo.

Results

The natural lung surfactant Survanta® was used to disperse single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) in a biological medium. At physiologically relevant concentrations, Survanta®produced well dispersed SWCNT without causing a cytotoxic or fibrogenic effect. In vitrostudies show that Survanta®-dispersed SWCNT …

2009 Cancer Care Annual Report, Children's Mercy Hospital

Cancer Center Annual Reports

Annual report of cancer care and oncology services at the Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City MO, a pediatric medical center. This report has a focus on acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Pearson, Iqbal, And Procedural Judicial Activism, Goutam U. Jois

Florida State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of The Ecology Of Fear Against The Nonspeciesist Paradigm: A Shift In The Aims Of Intervention In Nature, Oscar Horta

Between the Species

Humans often intervene in the wild for anthropocentric or environmental reasons. An example of such interventions is the reintroduction of wolves in places where they no longer live in order to create what has been called an “ecology of fear”, which is being currently discussed in places such as Scotland. In the first part of this paper I discuss the reasons for this measure and argue that they are not compatible with a nonspeciesist approach. Then, I claim that if we abandon a speciesist viewpoint we should change completely the way in which we should intervene in nature. Rather than …

Competition Drives Specialization In Pollination Systems Through Costs To Male Fitness, Nathan Muchhala, Zachary Brown, W. Armbruster, Matthew Potts

Biology Department Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Sexually Transmitted Infections And Risk Of Prostate Cancer: Review Of Historical And Emerging Hypotheses., Siobhan Sutcliffe

Epidemiology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Waterfowl Of North America: Sources, Paul A. Johnsgard

Waterfowl of North America, Revised Edition (2010) by Paul A. Johnsgard

Approximately 500 citations.

See also the updated bibliography in the 2010 supplement: "North America’s Ducks, Geese and Swans in the 21st Century"

A Comparison Of Student Learning Using Two Teaching Methods: Case Study And Direct Instruction, Laura Elaine Elmer

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of using case studies as an instructional method.

Evaluation Of Five Methods For Total Dna Extraction From Western Corn Rootworm Beetles, Hong Chen, Murugesan Rangasamy, Sek Yee Tan, Haichuan Wang, Blair D. Siegfried

Department of Entomology: Faculty Publications

Background: DNA extraction is a routine step in many insect molecular studies. A variety of methods have been used to isolate DNA molecules from insects, and many commercial kits are available. Extraction methods need to be evaluated for their efficiency, cost, and side effects such as DNA degradation during extraction.

Methodology/Principal Findings: From individual western corn rootworm beetles, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera, DNA extractions by the SDS method, CTAB method, DNAzol reagent, Puregene solutions and DNeasy column were compared in terms of DNA quantity and quality, cost of materials, and time consumed. Although all five methods resulted in acceptable DNA …

In-Silico Prediction Of Blood-Secretory Human Proteins Using A Ranking Algorithm, Qi Liu, Juan Cui, Qiang Yang, Ying Xu

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Background: Computational identification of blood-secretory proteins, especially proteins with differentially expressed genes in diseased tissues, can provide highly useful information in linking transcriptomic data to proteomic studies for targeted disease biomarker discovery in serum.

Results: A new algorithm for prediction of blood-secretory proteins is presented using an information-retrieval technique, called manifold ranking. On a dataset containing 305 known blood-secretory human proteins and a large number of other proteins that are either not blood-secretory or unknown, the new method performs better than the previous published method, measured in terms of the area under the recall-precision curve (AUC). A key advantage …

Characterization Of Phytochemicals Isolated From Plants Of The Pacific Northwest And Western United States For Combating Fungal Multidrug Resistance, John David Schreiber

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Fungal multidrug resistance is an emerging problem for those suffering from fungal infections, and for those seeking to discover or produce novel fungicidal drugs. Plants native to the Pacific Northwest as well as in the Olympic national rainforest were collected and screened for phytochemicals which exhibit direct antifungal activity toward Candida and Saccharomyces spp. as well as those that inhibit fungal ABC transporters that are, in large part, responsible for the development of multidrug resistance. Dalea formosa (Fabaceae), a plant native to the American Southwest, was also screened for phytochemicals of medicinal interest. The methanolic extract of aerial portions of …

Physical And Chemical Interactions Between Marine Phytoplankton And Particle-Colonizing Bacteria, Jason Robert Graff

Open Access Dissertations

It is inherently difficult to study the direct interactions between marine microbes due to the size of the organisms and microscale environments in which they exist. Recent evidence suggests that the direct associations between marine phytoplankton and particle-colonizing bacteria can influence marine microbial community succession, microalgal primary production, toxin production by marine phytoplankton, and have potential implications for human health. The goal of this dissertation was to elucidate some of the physical and chemical mechanisms that regulate microbial interactions, particularly the colonization of phytoplankton and other marine particles by bacteria. To accomplish these goals, I used a creative and multi-disciplinary …

Induction And Regulation Of Autophagy By Novel Prenylation Inhibitors In Sts-26t Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor (Mpnst) Cells, Komal Madhukar Sane

Wayne State University Dissertations

Prenylation pathways have been targeted via several different compounds that inhibit farnesyl transferase (FTase) and/or geranylgeranyl transferase (GGTase) enzymes in many cellular and animal models of cancer. Some of these have also been evaluated in clinical trials with limited success. Multiple mechanisms of action have been elucidated for such compounds, including cell cycle arrest, proteasome inhibition, apoptosis and most recently, autophagy. However, there is still an urgent need of effective agents of this class of anti-tumor therapeutics. In this dissertation, I sought to delve into this issue by characterizing our novel prenylation inhibitors and their potential as anti-tumor agents. Novel …

Mechanisms Of Presynaptic Cav2 Calcium Channel Localization In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Yasunori Saheki

Student Theses and Dissertations

Neurotransmitter release at nerve terminals is a fundamental aspect of communication in the nervous system. Voltage changes in the presynaptic membrane are sensed by presynaptic voltage-gated calcium channels that mediate calcium influx at the nerve terminals to execute exocytosis of various kinds of neurotransmitters. Defects in presynaptic calcium channels lead to many neurological disorders, emphasizing the importance of these channels in the regulation of neuronal activities in the brain. Previous physiological studies have focused on opening kinetics of the channels and their modulation by auxiliary subunits. Cell biological questions such as trafficking and clustering of the channels at the presynaptic …

First Amendment Protection Of Teachers' Instructional Speech: Extending Rust V. Sullivan To Ensure That Teachers Do Not Distort The Government Message, Emily White Kirsch

Cleveland State Law Review

The emergence of political activism in the 2008 presidential election extended throughout the country and even to where partisan politics have no place: the public school classroom. In 2004, the New York City Board of Education enacted a regulation that prohibited teachers from wearing any material supporting political candidates or organizations. During the 2008 election, teachers who wanted to wear partisan political buttons in the classroom while teaching claimed that the regulation violated their First Amendment rights. Although the Southern District of New York ultimately held that the teachers had no First Amendment claim, the court's decision, which involved sorting …

Distillers Grains And Livestock Are Important To Ethanol Energy And Greenhouse Gas Balance, Virgil R. Bremer, Adam J. Liska, Haishun Yang, Daniel T. Walters, Galen E. Erickson, Terry J. Klopfenstein, Richard K. Koelsch, Kenneth G. Cassman

Nebraska Beef Cattle Reports

A life cycle assessment of the impact of distillers grains plus solubles (DGS) on mitigation of energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions comparing corn ethanol to gasoline demonstrates the importanceof feeding wet DGS (WDGS) to feedlot cattle to optimize the environmental benefit of ethanol production relative to gasoline. Ethanol produced in Nebraska has a superior environmentalimpact compared to ethanol produced in Iowa or Texas.

The Effect Of Soil Regimes And Topography On Tree Community Composition In The Gordon Natural Area, Calen Daugherty, William Hochella, Kyle Houser, Sarah Johnson, Carolyn Keene

Gordon Natural Area Soils Studies Documents

No abstract provided.

Soydb: A Knowledge Database Of Soybean Transcription Factors, Zheng Wang, Marc Libault, Trupti Joshi, Babu Valliyodan, Henry T. Nguyen, Dong Xu, Gary Stacey, Jianlin Cheng

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Background: Transcription factors play the crucial rule of regulating gene expression and influence almost all biological processes. Systematically identifying and annotating transcription factors can greatly aid further understanding their functions and mechanisms. In this article, we present SoyDB, a user friendly database containing comprehensive knowledge of soybean transcription factors.

Description: The soybean genome was recently sequenced by the Department of Energy-Joint Genome Institute (DOE-JGI) and is publicly available. Mining of this sequence identified 5,671 soybean genes as putative transcription factors. These genes were comprehensively annotated as an aid to the soybean research community. We developed SoyDB - a knowledge database …

Discrete Digital Filter Design For Microelectromechanical Systems (Mems) Accelerometers And Gyroscopes, Madison E. Martin

Harriet L Wilkes Honors College Theses 2010 - 2019

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers and gyroscopes are small scale sensors that measure changes in linear acceleration and rotational velocity, respectively. They are fabricated using electronic circuit techniques such as etching and deposition. MEMS motion sensors can be used in an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) that can be integrated with the Global Positioning System (GPS) to make a navigation system that is more accurate than each system alone. However, since MEMS-based IMUs are inherently noisy, we must overcome inaccuracies caused by the integration of random noise to find position. Accuracy can be increased by applying digital filters to the data before …

Mof And Histone H4 Acetylation At Lysine 16 Are Critical For Dna Damage Response And Double-Strand Break Repair, Girdhar G. Sharma, Sairei So, Arun Gupta, Rakesh Kumar, Christelle Cayrou, Nikita Avvakumov, Utpal Bhadra, Raj K. Pandita, Matthew H. Porteus, David J. Chen, Jacques Cote, Tej K. Pandita

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Presynaptic Dynamics In Processing Of Natural Spike Trains In Hippocampal Synapses, Umasankar Kandaswamy, Pan-Yue Deng, Charles F. Stevens, Vitaly A. Klyachko

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Uri Undergraduate And Graduate Course Catalog 2010-2011, University Of Rhode Island

URI Course Catalogs Archive

This is a digitized, downloadable version of the University of Rhode Island course catalog.

Local And Traditional Knowledge And The Historical Ecologyof Pacific Herring In Alaska, Thomas F. Thornton, Madonna L. Moss, Virginia L. Butler, Jamie Hebert, Fritz Funk

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

No abstract provided.

Science Based Authentication Of Dietary Supplements: Studies On The Chemical Constituents, Analytical Method And Biological Activities Of Scutellaria Spp And Pfaffia Paniculata, Jing Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the last decade, the use of herbal medicine has expanded globally and gained popularity. With the tremendous expansion in the use of herbal medicine worldwide, safety and efficacy as well as quality control of herbal medicines have become more and more issues of concern for both health authorities and the public. Although herbal medicine has been in use for hundreds to thousands years, very limited science-based data exist to explicit its chemical constituents, pharmacological activities and toxicity. Therefore, lack of scientific evidence for herbal medicine usage elicits the need for systematic studies of herbal medicine, including phytochemical, analytical, and …

Challenge Difficulty And Cardiovascular Responses In Mild Cognitive Impairment, Christopher Conley Stewart

All ETDs from UAB

This study examined the effect of challenge difficulty on cardiovascular responses in patients with Alzheimer's disease and amnestic mild cognitive impairment. It extended from a model characterizing the determinants and cardiovascular consequences of effort in people confronted with performance challenges. One component of this model holds that ability has the potential to accentuate, attenuate, or have no effect on cardiovascular responses. Specifically, lower ability should accentuate cardiovascular responses so long as performers' view a challenge possible and worthwhile. However, lower ability should attenuate cardiovascular responses when it leads to the perception that a challenge is excessively difficult or impossible. The …

Relationship Of Climate And Growth Of Quaking Aspen (Populus Tremuloides) In Yellowstone National Park, Erik S. Jules, Allyson L. Carroll, Matthew J. Kauffman

Aspen Bibliography

Quaking aspen is a widespread tree that is in decline across wide areas of western North America, and is predicted to experience a large range shift if future climate predictions are realized. The purpose of our study was to determine what climate factors have influenced aspen growth in Yellowstone National Park, USA, and to determine whether these climatic influences vary across a heterogeneous landscape. We extracted increment cores from 10-12 aspen in each of 16 stands spread across a 1,526 km2 area. Using ring widths, we created a182-year standardized chronology from 1821 to 2003 A.D. composed of 151 series. We …

Synthesis Of Functionalized Gpi Anchors And Related Glycoconjugates, Benjamin M. Swarts

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is divided into two chapters describing the background, significance, and synthesis of GPI anchors and GPI-anchored molecules. GPI anchors are a class of complex glycolipids with the primary purpose of attaching cell surface proteins/glycoproteins to the cell membrane. The first chapter is focused on the synthesis of functionalized GPI anchors, and begins with an introductory look at the discovery, structure, biosynthesis, and biological functions of GPIs. Then, after surveying progress and achievements in GPI synthesis, including discussion about current strategic shortcomings in the field that prevent the chemical synthesis of various GPI derivatives, our approach to accessing uniquely …

Activation Of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 5 In The Amygdala Modulates Pain-Like Behavior, Benedict J. Kolber, Michael C. Montana, Yarimar Carrasquillo, Jian Xu, Stephen F. Heinemann, Louis J. Muglia, Robert W. Gereau Iv

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Elucidating The Structure Of Protein Aggregates By Raman Spectroscopy, Ludmila A. Popova

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The structures and properties of amyloid fibrils are of considerable interest due to their associations with numerous neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and transmissible spongiform encephalopaties (prion diseases). Understanding fibrillogenesis at a molecular level requires detailed structural characterization of amyloid fibrils. However amyloid fibrils are difficult objects to study due to their non-crystalline and insoluble nature. These properties make the application of classical tools of structural biology, such as X-Ray crystallography and solution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy, impractical for structural characterization of protein fibrils.

Stability Studies Of Novel Oligodeoxynucleotides In Tlr-9 Mediated Cellular Invasion, Elise M. Ottenfeld, Jason S. Hudson, David E. Graves

Inquiro (undergraduate research journal)

pp. 84-86