Digital Commons Network^™

Use-Dependent Plasticity Regulates Sleep Need In Drosophila Melanogaster, Jeffrey Donlea

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Although the necessary functions of sleep have not been identified, sleep has been shown to play an important role in the consolidation of memories. Recent studies have shown that, in addition to playing a strong role in sleep regulation, the circadian clock also influences processes associated with learning and memory. Thus, the neural circuits that control circadian rhythms are uniquely positioned to play an important role in coordinating interactions between sleep and memory. Drosophila melanogaster exhibit increased sleep following several days of social experience and require sleep to consolidate long-term memories: LTM) after Courtship Conditioning, an associative memory assay. We …

Mechanisms Of Copper Deficiency In The Zebrafish Embryo, Erik Madsen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Proper maternal nutrition is critical for early embryonic development. Despite overwhelming epidemiologic data indicating the benefits nutrient supplementation for the developing organism we do not fully understand the genetics of predisposition to abnormal developmental phenotypes when faced with suboptimal nutrient levels. Copper is an essential nutrient required for critical biochemical processes. Severe defects in copper homeostasis lead to significant disease typified by the X-linked recessive disorder Menkes disease. Patients with Menkes disease have cutis laxa, bone deformities, hypopigmentation, arterial malformation, and neurodegeneration due to copper deficiency caused by loss-of-function mutations in ATP7A, a copper transport protein. Despite the critical requirement …

The Role Of Tcr Specificity In The Regulation Of The Immune Response To Self And Commensal Antigens, Stephanie Lathrop

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Role of TCR Specificity in the Regulation of the Immune Response to Self and Commensal Antigens by Stephanie K. Lathrop Doctor of Philosophy in Biology and Biomedical Sciences: Immunology) Washington University in St. Louis, 2010 Dr. Chyi-Song Hsieh, Chairperson The immune system must be able to fight potentially pathogenic microbial invaders without mounting an attack on its own tissues, food antigens, and harmless or beneficial commensal species. Despite the elimination of many self-reactive T cells in the thymus, some T cells with the ability to recognize self and potentially cause autoimmune disease are present in …

Dact Family Molecules In Wnt Signaling In Mouse Development, Daniel Fisher

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The Wnt: Wingless-Integration) molecular signaling pathways are known to be integral in the embryonic patterning of multicellular animals, and are misregulated in multiple types of cancer. Wnt signaling includes multiple biochemical signaling pathways downstream of the Wnt family of secreted proteins and their receptors. Many, and possibly all, of these pathways converge on the intracellular protein Dishevelled, whose interactions appear essential in determining the cell-autonomous effects of the Wnt signal. Dact: Dapper, Antagonist of Beta Catenin Targeting) proteins were identified based on their binding to Dishevelled. There are three Dact encoding genes in mammals, and these show unique expression patterns …

Regulation Of Human T-Cell Leukemia Virus Type 1 Infection And Replication, Gunjan Choudhary

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Retroviruses have evolved complex mechanisms to regulate their cellular tropism and gene expression. It is generally accepted that productive infections proceed via interactions between viral envelope molecules and specific receptors on the host cell surface. Currently, there is no known receptor for HTLV-1, though a number of factors that enhance entry have been identified. In an effort to identify a cellular receptor or attachment factor for HTLV-1, we carried out a retroviral cDNA library screen, in which cDNA from permissive HeLa S3 cells was introduced into poorly susceptible NIH 3T3 cells. These cells were selected after infection with HTLV-1 envelope …

Inbreeding Depression And Competition In The Square-Stemmed Monkey-Flower (Mimulus Ringens), Nicholas Griffin

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Matings between biologically related individuals often produce offspring with reduced fitness, a phenomenon known as inbreeding depression. The magnitude of inbreeding depression can play an important role in determining the overall fitness, and persistence, of populations, and is often considered one of the key factors driving the evolution of mating systems and their associated traits. Recent research has shown that the strength of inbreeding depression is often highly sensitive to environmental conditions, such as the availability of abiotic resources or variation in the strengths of ecological interactions between organisms. In plant populations, drought, plant density, herbivory, and infection by pathogens, …

The Partnership Approach To Environmental Governance: The Case Of The Moor Trees Partnership Network, Clive Bastin

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

Academic discussion of policy-making and governing indicates a significant shift in the model of governance away from top-down state control to the bottom-up approach of engaging non-state actors (Goodwin and Painter, 1996; Jessop, 1998; Stoker, 1993, 1998). Central to governance theory are new forms of policy organisation, in effect, a shift from state monopoly of decision-making towards partnering with non-state (and, therefore, non-elected) actors for the formulation and delivery of sustainability objectives. It is argued that these partnerships are a key aspect of governance, which, in turn has become one of the main themes in environmental politics (Imrie and Raco, …

Understanding Gravel Beach Dynamics By Measuring And Modelling Annual, Seasonal And Storm-Induced Morphological Response, Amaia Ruiz De Alegria Arzaburu

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

The aim of this study is to gain a better understanding of the medium-term (weeks to years) morphological evolution of gravel beaches. In particular, this project aims to better understand and parameterise gravel beach/barrier evolution processes at storm, seasonal and annual time-scales. For this purpose, the morphological variability of the Slapton Sands macrotidal gravel beach/barrier (Devon, UK) was measured over a 3-year period using an Argus video-system, and carrying fortnightly and event-driven RTK-GPS field surveys. Concurrent nearshore hydrodynamic measurements were collected by a directional wave buoy located 2km off Slapton Sands, and tidal data were obtained from a tidal model …

An Investigation Into Sustainable Forest Policies And Practices In Syria, Rim Rateb Al Berni

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

Appreciation of how forest land can be managed in a sustainable way in arid and semi-arid zones (ASAZs) of centralized countries is limited. Accordingly, this thesis seeks to analyse the role of government and communities, including women, in the formulation and implementation of sustainable forest management (SFM) policy and practices in the semi-arid environment of Syria where such land is limited in extent (e.g. 3% forest and 57% rangeland) and yet where its high biodiversity value is of international significance. The thesis employs a variety of methods: a case study approach (Syria); a questionnaire (i.e. 142 respondents); face-to-face interviews (i.e. …

Regulating Geopolitical Space: Eu Interaction With East Africa, Veit Klemens Bachmann

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

Relations with developing countries have been a field of collective European policy for more than fifty years. Yet, European development policy remains fragmented; conducted on different levels through a variety of actors with multiple instruments applied in various policy fields. Articulations of Europe's collective role in the world first emerged in the 1970s under the idea of Europe as a civilian power (Duchene 1972, 1973b). These initial elaborations have served as a key point of departure in political and academic debates on the international identity and role of an integrated/integrating Europe (see for example Solana 2002; Ferrero- Waldner 2007; also …

Utilizing Multimedia Case Studies To Teach The Professional Side Of Project Management, Cassandra C. Elrod, Susan L. Murray, Barry B. Flachsbart, Karl E. Burgher, Drew M. Foth

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

This research was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of using a LITEE multimedia case study to teaching concepts in engineering courses. The LITEE Superstar case study was implemented in an engineering Project Management course. Numerous surveys regarding student expectations, outcomes, and attitudes were collected and results are presented herein. Overall, the study provided evidence that the students felt that the LITEE case study added value to the course via the different methods of teaching material, aided in the understanding of the project selection process, and ultimately helped them be successful in their course project which was conducted for a real …

Nucleation Control In Size And Dispersity In Metallic Nanoparticles: The Prominent Role Of Particle Aggregation, Vernal Richards

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The aim of this project is to investigate the effect of aggregative nucleation and growth on the final size and dispersity in metallic nanoparticle systems. Aggregative nucleation functions are determined for the first time for three nanocrystal systems, namely gold: Au), silver: Ag) and bismuth: Bi). These nucleation functions give critical information that correlates closely with the size and dispersity of t+X123he nanocrystals synthesized. The aggregative nucleation functions and growth kinetics of pre-synthesized Au nanoparticles as a function of tetra-n-octylammonium bromide: n-octyl4NBr) is investigated. For each kinetic trial, the time dependence of the aggregative nucleation rate is extracted from the …

Properties Of Truncated Toeplitz Operators, Nicholas Sedlock

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

We discuss the multiplication of truncated Toeplitz operators: or TTOs) on backward shift invariant subspaces of the Hardy space of the unit disc. Specifically we discuss when the product of two TTOs is itself a TTO, finding an equivalent to a similar result of Brown and Halmos for ordinary Toeplitz operators. This leads us to investigate the commutants of certain rank-one perturbations of the compressed shift operator, deriving a symbol calculus for TTOs, as well as several other results.

The Makapansgat Hominins: A Descriptive And Comparative Morphological Study, Tafline Arbor

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The primary focus of this thesis is to extensively describe the cranial, mandibular, and dental specimens from Makapansgat and to compare the assemblage to other South African early hominin samples. The fossils examined here include previously undescribed fossils from the fossiliferous ex-situ breccia piles of the Makapansgat Limeworks. Data analyses incorporated extant humans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and macaques to provide a comparative base with which to discuss intraspecific and interspecific variation in currently recognized taxa of South African Australopithecus. Results support previous assertions that the Makapansgat specimens share morphological similarities with both Australopithecus africanus and Australopithecus robustus and that these taxa …

Perception And Nonconceptual Apprehension, Arnon Cahen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

My dissertation articulates and resolves a problem at the heart of debates about how perception guides our actions and deliberations. The problem arises from the independent plausibility but mutual inconsistency of the following theses: * Some perceptions provide us reasons * Only belief-like states provide us reasons * No perception is belief-like I argue that this problem is deeper than has been acknowledged. Simply rejecting any one thesis leads to serious challenges. Nonetheless, I argue that we can unravel the link between having reasons and having belief-like states in a way that explains the initial plausibility of the first thesis. …

Orientation-Specific Control Of Attention, Feng Du

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Previous studies have shown that an irrelevant distractor matched to a sought-for color captures attention involuntarily, thus violating either temporal or spatial control of attention. However, whether an irrelevant distractor that matches a sought-for orientation can capture attention is still unknown. A task of rapid serial visual presentation: RSVP) was developed to examine whether an irrelevant distractor oriented in the same way as the target can capture attention. Participants were presented with a sequence of letters at fixation and were required to search for the target letter with a specific orientation. In all five experiments, six peripheral bars flanked the …

Design, Synthesis And Characterization Of Synthetic Ion Receptors As Biologically Functional Ion Carriers And Channels, Carl Yamnitz

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The study of proteins and natural molecules that transport cations and anions across biological membranes has been a major focus of biochemistry and cellular biology for more than a century. The function of ion transporters is vital for all known forms of life. Natural and synthetic transporters can have applications as antimicrobial agents, in nerve impulse transduction and cell signaling. The current work was performed to further the understanding of a diverse array of novel and previously-studied synthetic molecules as membrane-active ion transporters. In the process, important facets such as ion binding capacity, aggregation behavior, ion transport functionality, and antimicrobial …

Thomas Hoccleve And The Poetics Of Reading, Elon Lang

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Thomas Hoccleve, the early fifteenth-century London poet who first promoted the notion that Chaucer was the father of English literature, demonstrates an acute awareness that readers would change the form of his own texts over time. Although many scholars consider Hoccleve's style to be derivative of his English predecessors, I argue that his awareness of readers contributed to an innovative style that casts writing and reading as mutually dependent acts of performance. Thus, in depictions of manuscript production and circulation processes, Hoccleve treats his audiences as his creative collaborators. The rich surviving manuscript history for Hoccleve reveals how his texts …

Discovery And Identification Of New Dna Photoproducts And Investigation Of The Redox Mechanism Of Human Apurinic/Apyrimidinic Endonuclease 1 (Hape1) Protein, Dian Su

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Exposure of cells to ultraviolet light results in the formation of DNA photoproducts, many of which have been linked to skin cancer. The majority of these photoproducts arise from a photoreaction between two pyrimidines. Irradiation of double stranded B form DNA under physiological conditions mainly produces adjacent dimers. Nonadjacent photodimers of both intrastrand and interstrand types are much rarer. Intrastrand-type nonadjacent dimers form when one or more nucleotides between two pyrimidines become extrahelical owing to the formation of single strand DNA or a slipped structure. This allows the two pyrimidines to photodimerize in a colinear arrangement, as if the intervening …

Breaking Bad News: Effect Of Physician Communication On Analog Patients' Response, Emily Porensky

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Breaking bad news is a difficult, yet unavoidable part of healthcare for physicians and patients alike. Although expert opinion suggests that certain strategies for breaking bad news may be better than others, there is little methodologically rigorous research to support current guidelines. This study used an experimental paradigm to test two communication strategies, forecasting bad news and framing prognostic information, when giving people a life-limiting diagnosis of colon cancer. Videotapes depicted a physician disclosing a diagnosis of cancer and discussing prognosis. Participants: N = 128) were asked to imagine they were going to see a doctor for physical symptoms they …

Novel Algorithms For Structural Alignment Of Non-Coding Rnas, Diana Kolbe

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Non-coding RNAs are biologically important molecules, with a variety of catalytic and regulatory activities mediated by their secondary and tertiary structures. Base-pairing interactions, particularly at the secondary structure level, are an important tool for identifying and studying these structural RNAs, but also present some unique challenges for sequence analysis. Probabilistic covariance models are effective representations of structural RNAs, with generally high sensitivity and specificity but slow computational speed. New algorithms for dealing with structural RNAs are developed to address some of the practical deficiencies of covariance models. A new model of local alignment improves accuracy for fragmentary data, such as …

Role Of The Ajuba Lim Proteins In Epithelial Growth Regulation, Meghna Das Thakur

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The mammalian Ajuba LIM proteins: Ajuba, LIMD1, WTIP) are cytosolic adapter proteins recruited to nascent epithelial adherens junctions, where they are thought to contribute to junctional assembly and/or stability. They also shuttle into the nucleus acting as corepressors of the Snail family of transcriptional repressors, thereby contributing to epithelial mesenchymal transition. As such they have the potential to communicate cell adhesive events with nuclear responses to remodel epithelia. Determining their role(s) in vivo, however, has been challenging due to shared interacting proteins, overlapping tissue expression and functional redundancy in cells. Thus, we turned to the Drosophila model system where a …

Editorial: Introducing Formations, The Formations Collective

Publications and Research

This journal is about the process of formation: the formation of our social worlds, and the formation of concepts we develop to understand and intervene in those worlds.

Elizabeth Findley Shores Collection Of Roland M. Harper, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

This collection consists of articles and letters-to-the-editor written by Roland M. Harper for publication in scholarly journals. Sometimes in typescript, his works focus on botany, conservation, and social conditions, primarily in the southeastern United States. Spanning 1906-1965, additional documents, photographs and audio visual materials pertaining to Roland M. Harper’s family history are included. The collection’s creator, Elizabeth Findley Shores, is the author of the biography On Harper's Trail: Roland McMillan Harper, Pioneering Botanist of the Southern Coastal Plain (2008).

Find this collection in the University Libraries' catalog.

Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes Collection, Zach S. Henderson Library Special Collections

Finding Aids

This collection consists of the research papers and recordings compiled by English author Michael Gray during the writing of his book on Georgia blues legend Blind Willie McTell, one of the earliest blues performers to record. Materials range from 1991 to 2010, and include recordings and transcripts of interviews with witnesses and folklorists, images of relevant census records, copies of court records, manuscript drafts, extensive correspondence, and the unissued complete recording of McTell’s last studio session in Atlanta, 1956.

Find this collection in the University Libraries' catalog.

Evaluation Of A Web-Based Learning Tool For Teaching Gis Within The Context Of Transportation Engineering, Ashley Banaszek, Hong Sheng, Richard H. Hall, Ronaldo Luna, Ghulam Bham

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

An Exploratory Study Was Conducted to Evaluate a Web-Based Learning Module for Teaching Geographic Information Systems to Civil Engineering Students within the Context of a Problem Related to Crash Data Analysis. This Module is One Part of a National Science Foundation Course, Curricula, and Laboratory Improvement Project in Which GIS Modules Are Being Developed for Several Areas of Civil Engineering. the Module Was Used as a Laboratory Assignment in a Transportation Engineering Course. Two Days Later Students Completed Both an Objective Multiple-Choice Quiz over the Material Covered in the Lab and a Subjective Questionnaire. Quantitative Analysis Was Carried Out on …

"He Is Our Master": Jesus In The Thought Of Swami Prabhupada, Ravi M. Gupta

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

"Now that steam, electricity, and the printing press have brought into closer communication the different races that inhabit the earth, and have expanded the minds of men, tending to dispel the illusion that God Almighty especially favours any particular people, it is time to proclaim to the world, that if a messenger of God appeared in Judea about nineteen hundred years ago, it is no less true that a messenger from the same God appeared in the quiet town of Navadweep (popularly known as Nadia) in Bengal, some fifteen centuries later. The former is known by the name of Jesus …

Vidyaranya Swami's "Pañca Viveka" And Thomas Aquinas' "Quinque Viae" In The Light Of Today's Science, Klaus K. Klostermaier

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

In the context of recent attempts to shore up atheism with philosophical and scientific arguments the construction of rational proofs for the existence of God is receiving renewed attention. Over against the assertion of some scientists that religious belief is both unscientific and irrational, philosophers and theologians argue that the study of nature itself offers a great deal of evidence for the existence of a Creator. They are supported by numerous reputable scientists, the authors of book titles like The Language of God or The Mind of God and many others. it is noteworthy that Google has over two million …

Book Review: "Jesus As Guru: The Images Of Christ Among Hindus And Christians In India", Swasti Bhattacharyya

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

A review of Jesus as Guru: The Images of Christ Among Hindus and Christians in India by Jan Peter Schouten.

Technology Resources And Software Recommended For Young Children And Teachers And Evaluating Web Sites, Lee Allen, Satomi Izumi-Taylor, Clif Mims, Sally Blake, Yu-Yuan Lee, Vivian Gunn Morris, Rene Crow, Jorge Lopez, Cheri Lewis Smith, Andrew Neil Gibbons, Maria Eugenia Lopez, Denise Winsor, Michael M. Grant, Zelda Mcmurtry

Teacher Education Faculty Publications

Technology is being designed for children of all ages, even as young as nine months (Morrison, 2007). The software market is growing rapidly for children from infant to preschool age, with programs for children under five representing the fastest-growing educational softwarea area (Morrison 2007). The Internet provides access to a great collection of resources available for young children and teachers. The following pages may be of interest to educators of young children. There are web sites included for software and articles of interest related to issues concerning technology and young children selected by all authors of our book.