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Biology News, Winter 2011, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Biology.

Biology News

Contents:

-- Greetings from the Department of Biology
-- Focus on UNI Biology Alumni
-- Let us hear from you...
-- Twenty Second North American Prairie Conference: Restoring a National Treasure
-- Faculty and Staff News
-- Summer Research
-- Trip to West Virginia's eastern panhandle was a success
-- Thurman on PDA in Brasil
-- Taiwan Exchange Program
-- Climate change impacts report
-- Focus on UNI Biology Students
-- Student Clubs
-- Pre-Physical Therapy Club
-- Faculty Changes - Retirements
-- You make a difference! Message from our donors
-- Why support undergraduate biological research at UNI
-- …

Post-Transcriptional Control Of Type I Interferon Genes By Ksrp In The Innate Immune Response Against Viral Infection, Wei-Jye Lin

All ETDs from UAB

Several strategies are used in eukaryotic cells in order to determine the gene expression level, including the transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms. One of the post-transcriptional mechanisms is the regulation of mRNA stability, which varies considerably from one mRNA species to another. Previous studies have shown that inherently unstable mRNAs encoding cytokines and proto-oncogenes contain the AU-rich elements (AREs) in the 3' untranslated regions (UTRs). Their decay requires decay-promoting RNA-binding proteins that recognize the AREs and recruit mRNA decay machineries to facilitate the rapid decay of targeting mRNA. KH-type splicing regulatory protein (KSRP) was previously identified as an ARE decay promoting …

Admissions Brochure 2011-2012, William & Mary Law School

Admissions Brochures

No abstract provided.

Mining Canonical Views From Internet Image Collections, Lin Yang

All ETDs from UAB

Recent years have seen an explosion of internet image collections. The explosion was brought about by the popularity of photo sharing sites such as Flickr and Picasa Web Albums, where millions of internet users upload their personal photos online and share these photos with the public. The wealth of images provides an excellent resource for perceiving the world through the eyes of others. However, the gigantic volume of images also poses a challenge to the consumption of this unorganized visual information. In this dissertation, we present research on canonical view mining. Given an image collection, we leverage a combination of …

The Behavioral Economics Of Mergers And Acquisitions, Donald C. Langevoort

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The world of mergers and acquisitions seems like a setting in which rationality necessarily dominates. There are high stakes, focused and sustained attention, and expert advisers who are repeat players. In the economics and management literature, however, there has been a great deal of research on what might be called “behavioral M&A”—using insights from psychology to explain observed patterns of behavior in the acquisitions marketplace. To date, the law has largely been uninterested in the psychological dynamics of corporate acquisitions. This essay looks at recent research on such issues as the role of overconfidence, hubris, anchoring, etc. in explaining buy-side …

Sox2/Parylated Parp1 Complexes Regulate Pluripotency, Yi-Shin Lai

All ETDs from UAB

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) were first derived from the inner cell mass (ICM) of blastocyst-stage embryos. ESCs are distinguished from other cell types by their pluripotency and unlimited self-replication. ESCs are able to differentiate into multiple cell types that represent all three primary germ layers (ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm) and can form an entire adult organism. Under defined conditions, ESCs are self-renewable and have an extended life-span without compromising pluripotency. The plasticity of ESCs provides opportunities for regenerative medicine. The recent production of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) offers an ideal "personalized" substitute for ESCs. Overexpression of four transcription factors, …

Biology And Conservation Of The Diamondback Terrapin, Malaclemys Terrapin Pileata, In Alabama, Andy Coleman

All ETDs from UAB

The diamondback terrapin is the only obligate estuarine turtle in North America and is considered an integral member of the salt marsh ecosystem. Unfortunately, many populations throughout the terrapin's range have experienced size declines due to past overexploitation and have been unable to rebound due to current threats including crab trap mortality, habitat degradation, nest predation, and road mortality. The current study was the first comprehensive study examining various population and conservation parameters of Mississippi diamondback terrapins in Alabama. Through various field survey methods conducted in numerous salt marshes along the Gulf Coast of Alabama, it was concluded that Cedar …

Understanding Molecular Mechanisms Of Breast Cancer Metastasis Using Genetically-Engineered Mice, Leah M. Cook

All ETDs from UAB

Morbidity and mortality of breast cancer patients are drastically increased when primary tumor cells metastasize to distant organ sites. Effective treatment of metastatic disease has been limited; therefore, an increased molecular understanding to identify biomarkers and therapeutic targets is needed. Breast cancer metastasis suppressor 1 (BRMS1) suppresses development of metastases when expressed in a variety of cancer types, including metastatic mammary carcinoma. Little is known of Brms1 function throughout the initiation and progression of mammary carcinoma. Thus Brms1 transgenic mice (derived on C57BL/6 background) were generated by utilizing MMTV promoter expression (for mammary-selective overexpression) or the beta-actin promoter (for ubiquitous …

In Vitro Inhibitory Activity Of Black Seed Oil And Potassium Chloride Against The Biomarkers Of Triple Negative Breast Cancer, Tamaratina Jombai

LSU Master's Theses

Breast cancer is the leading cause of death among women and is highly heterogeneous in nature. One very aggressive subtype of this disease is Triple Negative Breast Cancer. Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC), is a very aggressive disease characterized by the lack of expression of estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2). TNBC patients account for approximately 15% of total breast cancer patients. This breast cancer subtype is characterized by high mortality rate, and is typically associated with poor prognosis. Current clinical methods have proven to have low success rates against TNBC, it is …

Priceless Portals: The Bronze Doors Of The Florentine Baptistery, Sarah P. Cambas

LSU Master's Theses

The Baptistery of San Giovanni represents a complex historical precedent for Italian Renaissance art. Located within the heart of Florence, across from the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in the Piazza del Duomo, the Baptistery holds three sets of gilded bronze doors spanning more than a century: the south set of doors by Andrea Pisano, and the north and east sets of doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The stylistic qualities and compositional sources of each door have been the subject of much discussion since their completion, and these are re-examined in this paper. Special attention is also devoted to the …

A Molecular Genetic Study On The Tofl/Tofr Quorum-Sensing System Of Burkholderia Glumae: The Major Pathogen That Causes Bacterial Panicle Blight Of Rice, Ruoxi Chen

LSU Master's Theses

Burkholderia glumae is the major causal agent of an economically important rice disease, bacterial panicle blight (BPB). The known virulence factors of B. glumae share the TofI/TofR quorum sensing system as their regulator. tofI and tofR genes encode the N-acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) synthase for the B. glumae quorum sensing signals, N-octanoyl homoserine lactone (C8-HSL) and N-hexanoyl homoserine lactone (C6-HSL), and the receptor for AHL, respectively. To better understand the relationship between quorum sensing and known virulence factors (toxoflavin, flagella and lipase), as well as, putative virulence factors (i.e. extracellular polysaccharide), mutagenetic and phenotypic analyses were applied to this study. …

Development And Permeability Of Equine Blastocysts, Brittany Reshel Scott

LSU Master's Theses

Equine embryo cryopreservation is unsuccessful in larger, more easily collected, day-7 embryos. It is imperative that methods to successfully cryopreserve large equine embryos or develop reliable methods to determine embryo size before collection. Therefore the objectives for this study were to quantify the amount of tritiated glycerol that would permeate various sizes of equine embryos and to determine if circulating progesterone concentration was correlated with in utero embryo size. Mean embryo diameter (± SEM) across treatments (1.4M and 3.4M tritiated glycerol) was 696.5µm ± 108.6µm and 925.9 µm ± 214.1µm, respectively and were not different (P=0.44). The percent permeation for …

Seed Rain And Advance Regeneration In Secondary Succession In The Brazilian Amazon, Lindsay Michelle Wieland

LSU Master's Theses

Forest regeneration on abandoned land in the Brazilian Amazon depends first and foremost on prior land-use history. Abandoned clearcuts become dominated by Cecropia trees, but contain a rich mix of other arboreal genera and succession proceeds rapidly to a diverse forest. In contrast, abandoned land that has been burned repeatedly for pastures becomes dominated almost completely by Vismia trees and remains in monogeneric stands gaining few new genera over the same time interval. I tested the hypothesis that areas with repeated burns would have more re-sprouts, particularly Vismia re-sprouts. I also predicted that in monogeneric Vismia stands, seed dispersal would …

Development Of A Total Nutrient Treatment System For Alligator And Dairy Parlor Wastewater Using Hydrated Lime And Organic Bacterial Growth Media, Troy Francis Davis

LSU Master's Theses

Over application of phosphorus and the loss of ammonia-nitrogen to runoff and volatilization have resulted in the buildup of phosphorus in agricultural top soils around the world, and especially in the United States. Over the past few decades, raising livestock has trended towards the development of the Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO’s) which produce large volumes of wastes that need to be treated before being land applied. Nutrient treatment systems have typically focused on one nutrient singularly: either nitrogen or phosphorus. In order to develop a total nutrient system a phosphorus and nitrogen system had to be developed and evaluated …

Sensing Synesthesia, Jeffrey Harlan Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

Sensing Synesthesia is an exhibition of experiments, carried out through the medium of graphic design as an attempt to generate a synesthesiac experience by visualizing sound. Since many elements within the realms of sound and sight are relative, creating a genuine synesthesiac experience for a viewing audience proved challenging. To address this problem, I created visual elements that corresponded with personal convictions, emotions and proclamations and presented them in a way congruent to the sounds being heard. Through these experiments, I discovered the personal growth of myself: the sharpened skills as a graphic designer, initiated interest in hand-rendered type as …

Communiplaytion: Getting Our Hands Dirty Together, Brooke Tyson Cassady

LSU Master's Theses

CommuniPLAYtion: getting our hands dirty together is a weeklong installation of a collective ceramics studio implanted in Foster Gallery. It is a participatory and interactive exhibition that demonstrates how material play creates moments for personal reflection and contemplation, while also facilitating communication and social relations within a specific place. CommuniPLAYtion is an opportunity for an altruistic exchange among individuals in contrast to the monetary transactions that momentarily connect strangers. These engagements, similar to the “Do-It-Yourself Geopolitics” of other contemporary artists, empower individuals to develop modes of interaction that suit their interpersonal needs. The exhibition, communiPLAYtion enables the basic precursors that …

Copyright As Property In The Post-Industrial Economy: A Research Agenda, Julie E. Cohen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The incentives-for-authors formulation of copyright’s purpose is so deeply ingrained in our discourse and our thought processes that it is astonishingly hard to avoid invoking, even when one is consciously trying not to do so. Yet avoiding that formulation is exactly what we ought to be doing. Everything we know about creativity and creative processes suggests that copyright plays very little role in motivating creative work. In the contemporary information society, the purpose of copyright is to enable the provision of capital and organization so that creative work may be exploited. And the choice of copyright as a principal means …

The Effects Of Runx2 Deficiency In Cartilaginous And Mineralized Craniofacial Element, David Summerford

All ETDs from UAB

The development of the orofacial structure in mammals is a highly ordered process that is coordinated activity of epithelial and mesenchymal cells. Chondrocytes and osteoblasts work in close association for development of many cartilaginous skeletal structures and cartilaginous orofacial structures. Two major orofacial structures are the palate and the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). The transcription factor, Runx2, is obligatory for differentiation of mesenchymal cells into chondrocytes and osteoblasts. However, specific contributions of chondrocyte in cartilaginous and mineralized structures of the craniofacial skeleton are not known. Thus, the objective of this study was to discover the regulatory role of Runx2 in chondrocyte …

Looking At The Lanham Act: Images In Trademark And Advertising Law, Rebecca Tushnet

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Words are the prototypical regulatory subjects for trademark and advertising law, despite our increasingly audiovisual economy. This word-focused baseline means that the Lanham Act often misconceives its object, resulting in confusion and incoherence. This Article explores some of the ways courts have attempted to fit images into a word-centric model, while not fully recognizing the particular ways in which images make meaning in trademark and other forms of advertising. While problems interpreting images are likely to persist, this Article suggests some ways in which courts could pay closer attention to the special features of images as compared to words.

Limited Transplantation Of Antigen-Expressing Hematopoietic Stem Cells Induces Long-Lasting Cytotoxic T Cell Responses And Effect Of Altered Suppressive Myeloid Population On Hiv-Disease Progression, Warren L. Denning

All ETDs from UAB

While each type of cancer and chronic viral infection has its own specific pathology, they share two common mechanisms of immune evasion. The first mechanism is the exhaustion or deletion of antigen-specific T cells. The second mechanism is the formation of an immunosuppressive environment responsible for the block of T cell function. Elicitation of antigen-specific T cells be accomplished by immunotherapy in place of conventional treatments such as HAART and chemotherapy. In addition, immunotherapy can alleviate the side-effects associated with long-term use of conventional therapies while reducing the total cost. The results presented here provide an alternative to conventional methods …

Testing And Characterization Of Second-Order Differential Microphones, Joshua H. Merlis

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The focus of this thesis is the testing and characterizing of directional microphones, designed based on the ear of the fly Ormia ochracea. The response of these microphones is modeled as a linear combination of the gradients of the sound field. A least squares approach is employed in order to determine the transfer functions between the response and these gradients. Knowledge of these complex transfer functions is crucial in understanding the nature and quality of the response of these microphones.

Once determined, these transfer functions are used to simulate the plane wave response of differential microphones. This process is invaluable …

2010 Annual Report Lempster, New Hampshire., Lempster Town Representatives

Lempster, NH Annual Reports

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire.

Ground Zero Project Development In Burma : Appropriating The Future Through History, Identity, And Imagination In Assessment, Alyssa A. Bahr

Doctoral Dissertations

unavailable

Modernity And Otavalo Dress In Ecuador And Abroad, Daisy Dominguez

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Restoring Health To Health Reform: Integrating Medicine And Public Health To Advance The Population's Wellbeing, Lawrence O. Gostin, Peter D. Jacobson, Katherine L. Record, Lorian E. Hardcastle

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a major achievement in improving access to health care services.  However, evidence indicates that the nation could achieve greater improvements in health outcomes, at a lower cost, by shifting its focus to public health.  By focusing nearly exclusively on health care, policy makers have chronically starved public health of adequate and stable funding and political support.  The lack of support for public health is exacerbated by the fact that health care and public health are generally conceptualized, organized, and funded as two separate systems.  In order to maximize gains in health status …

Carl Schmitt And The Critique Of Lawfare, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

“Lawfare” is the use of law as a weapon of war against a military adversary. Lawfare critics complain that self-proclaimed “humanitarians” are really engaged in the partisan and political abuse of law—lawfare. This paper turns the mirror on lawfare critics themselves, and argues that the critique of lawfare is no less abusive and political than the alleged lawfare it attacks. Radical lawfare critics view humanitarian law with suspicion, as nothing more than an instrument used by weak adversaries against strong military powers. Casting suspicion on humanitarian law by attacking the motives of humanitarian lawyers, they undermine disinterested argument, and ultimately …

Biodefense And Constitutional Constraints, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The United States and United Kingdom have different approaches to quarantine law that reflect each country’s unique historical context and constitutional structure. Under the Tudors, England vested quarantine authority in the monarch, with its subsequent exercise conducted by the military. As the constitutional structure changed, the manner in which quarantine was given effect subtly shifted, leading to constitutional reforms. Authorities transferred first to the Privy Council and, subsequently, to Parliament, where commercial interests successfully lobbied them out of existence. By the end of the 19th Century, quarantine authorities had been pushed down to the local port authorities. In the United …

The Beasts In The Jungle: Animal Welfare In International Law, Catherine Sykes

LLM Theses

Animal welfare has emerged as a pervasive concern in modern international law. The purpose of this study is to situate the international legal principle protecting the welfare of animals within the broader framework of international law. The study uses a constructivist model to develop a theory of the place of animal welfare in the international legal regime that has due regard for cultural differences and the diversity of international society. The historical antecedents for an obligation to protect animal welfare in various global cultures are considered. The argument posits an internationally recognized principle of humane treatment of animals based on …

Helping Ideas Have Consequences: Political And Intellectual Investment In The Unitary Executive Theory, 1981-2000, Amanda Hollis-Brusky

Denver Law Review

No abstract provided.

Female Genital Mutilation Practices In Kenya: The Role Of Alternative Rites Of Passage. A Case Study Of Kisii And Kuria Districts, Habil Oloo, Monica Wanjiru, Katy Newell-Jones

Reproductive Health

This research was undertaken by the Population Council to better understand female genital mutilation (FGM) as currently practiced by the Kuria and Kisii communities in Kenya. The study investigated current attitudes and practices in relation to FGM, awareness and attitudes toward the alternative rite of passage (ARP), and factors which encourage individuals to make decisions to abandon FGM. The findings show that FGM is still a celebrated public event among the Kuria, whereas in Kisii, it is a private family affair. The study suggests that the success of ARP as an approach to abandoning FGM is strongly dependent on the …