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Ray Wilson, Ray Wilson, Daniel Maurer 2012

All oral histories

Ray Wilson taught courses in the Physics Department from 1962-1997. He continues to teach during May Term through the present (as of 2012).

G (Alpha) 12 Is Required For Thromboxane A2 To Regulate Tumor Cell Motility, Babar Malik

Theses

Thromboxane (TX) A₂ is a prostaglandin produced by metabolism of arachidonic acid through cyclooxygenases and thromboxane synthase. TXA₂ is biologically active, mainly through activating its cognate, seven transmembrane, G protein coupled receptor. It was previously reported that thromboxane A₂ receptor (TP) was expressed in prostate cancer, and further activation of this receptor elicited cell contraction and modulated tumor cell motility through regulating small GTPase RhoA[1]. This study aims to identify G alpha protein(s) involved in thromboxane A₂ signaling in tumor cell motility. Methods: The expression of G alpha proteins in the PC3MM cells was studied by …

The Beta-2 Adrenergic Receptor Polymorphisms And Risk Of Breast Cancer Among Hispanic And Non-Hispanic White Women From The 4-Corners Breast Cancer Study : A Population-Based Case-Control Examination., Avonne Elish Connor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Polymorphisms in the adrenergic receptor beta-2 (ADRB2) gene have been studied in relation to risk of Type 2 diabetes and obesity, but few studies have investigated associations with breast cancer. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the primary hypothesis that ADRB2 variants (rs1042713-Arg16Gly and rs1042714-Gln27Glu) are associated with breast cancer risk in non-Hispanic white (NHW) and Hispanic (H) women using data from a population-based case-control study conducted in the southwestern United States: 'The 4-Corners Breast Cancer Study'. A total of 1,244 NHW and 606 H cases with incident primary breast cancer were ascertained and 1,330 NHW and 728 …

In Search Of Mirna Function In The Mouse Neocortex And Cerebellum, Miao He

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

MicroRNAs (miRNA) are implicated in brain development and function, but the underlying mechanisms have been difficult to study in part due to the cellular heterogeneity in neural circuits. The cellular diversity of the brain necessitates studies at the level of individual neuron types. During my thesis research, I have taken two complementary approaches to study miRNA function in mouse neocortex and cerebellum. One is to analyze cell type specific miRNA expression profiles, and the other is to disrupt miRNA production in subpopulations of cortical GABAergic neurons. To establish genetic access of diverse interneuron subtypes, our laboratory has initiated the first …

Potential Landscape Of Adiabatic And Non-Adiabatic Non-Equilibrium Networks, Bo Han

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

We study the origin of robustness of yeast cell cycle cellular network through uncovering its underlying energy landscape. This is realized from the information of the steady steady probabilities by solving a discrete set of kinetic master equations for the network. We discovered that the potential landscape of yeast cell cycle network is funnelled towards the global minimum, G1 state. The ratio of the energy gap between G1 and average versus roughness of the landscape termed as robustness ratio (RR) becomes a quantitative measure of the robustness and stability for the network. The funnelled landscape is quite robust against random …

Statistical Methods For Biological Pathway Analysis, Xiao Wu

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This thesis features a novel theoretical development, as well as a novel application of the structural equation modeling (SEM) framework for biological pathway and biological measurement platform comparisons respectively. For the SEM methodology development, we have extended the covariate structural equation modeling (cSEM) method (Sharpe, 2010) for pathway comparisons that was limited to continuous variables on the pathway nodes and categorical variables as pathway covariates only, to allow both continuous and categorical variables as pathway nodes as well as pathway covariates. This novel mixed variable cSEM method will permit researchers to implement a pathway with both continuous variables such as …

Joint Genetic And Microrna Study Of The Human Thrombocytosis Under A System Biology Scheme, Xiao Xu

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The disease of human thrombocytosis is a type of myeloproliferative disorder (MPD) characterized by a complex alteration of genetic and epigenetic factors. Consequently, the pathological cellular environment is permeated by transcriptomic deregulation, interferomic aberrations, protein level irregularity and disrupted cellular pathways. In this dissertation, we present a novel study of the human thrombocytosis disease through a multi-layered genetic, microRNA and proteomic platelet modeling and analysis in a systems biology scheme. This includes (1) the extraction of distinctive messenger RNA and microRNA expression profiles in human platelets for two subtypes of thrombocytosis patients versus the normal control group, (2) the derivation …

A Mathematician Weighs In On The Evolution Debate, Kris H. Green

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

There are a variety of reasons underlying the lack of public acceptance for the theory of evolution in the United States. An overlooked cause is related to problems with the mathematics curriculum in the K-12 setting. In this essay, we examine this relationship and propose changes to the mathematics curriculum that could improve mathematical thinking while also providing a basis for understanding theories, like evolution, that are poorly understood.

Bayesian And Meta- Analyses Of Cell-Cycle Gene Expression Data, Mehmet Kocak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Gene expression experiments conducted under a variety of conditions can allow for concurrent tests of more than one hypothesis. It is common for such experiments to be conducted independently by different researchers, using possibly different microarray platforms. In the second and fourth chapter of this thesis, we propose a differential meta-analytic procedure to pool the data from various sources and test the relative significance of the hypotheses under consideration. The specific application made in this thesis is to 10 time-course cell-cycle experiments on fission yeast S. Pombe (Oliva et al., 2005; Peng et al., 2005; Rustici et al., 2004), and …

Racial Differences In The Responses To Shear Stress In Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells, Deborah L. Feairheller, Joon-Young Park, Victor Rizzo, Boa Kim, Michael D. Brown

Faculty Publications

African American ethnicity is an independent risk factor for exaggerated oxidative stress, which is related to inflammation, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Recently, we reported that in vitro oxidative stress and inflammation levels differ between African American and Caucasian human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), African American HUVECs having higher levels of both. However, it remains to be shown whether the cells would respond differently to external stimuli.

Biomedical Thrillers: Fiction Based In Fact, Or Just Fiction?, Emily F. Schmitt Lavin

Biology Faculty Proceedings, Presentations, Speeches, Lectures

No abstract provided.

Louisiana Agriculture Summer, 2011

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Biology, Saint Mary's College Of California

Academic Catalog

No abstract provided.

Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy For Promoting Osseointegration Around Dental Implants In Heavy Smokers, Fardos N. Rizk, Nasser Shaheen

Dentistry

Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) therapy on osseointegration of implants supporting mandibular overdenture in heavy smokers. Materials and Methods: Following two stage surgical protocol twelve completely edentulous male heavy smokers received implants placed bilaterally in the canine region to support mandibular overdenture. On the second day after the surgery patients were divided randomly into two equal groups. Patients of group I were placed on a protocol of five consecutive sessions of HBO therapy, while patients of group II received no therapy and served as control. Four months following the surgery …

An Alignment Approach To Identify Fish With Encoding Hydroacoustic Signal To Acoustics Alphabet Squences, Shih-Yen Ku, Hsueh-Jung Lu, Chi-Ting Tseng, Ker-Chau Li, Long-Jin Wu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

1D sequence homologous alignment tool, like FastA (FASTALL) [8] or BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) [1], has been widely used in bioinformatics field and perform elegant and fast searching for the sequences developed from the same kinds of species. In other word, it can classify through determining the homologous similarity which is not totally similar in sequences of protein sequences, structure or nucleotide sequences. An approach is proposed in this paper called AA-FAST (abbreviation for Acoustics Alphabet-FAST) which takes advantage of alignment tool and significant sequence encoding method. In this experiment, it could not only determine 4 fish species …

Fabrication And Selective Functionalization Of Amine-Reactive Polymer Multilayers On Topographically Patterned Microwell Cell Culture Arrays, Adam H. Broderick, Samira M. Azarin, Maren E. Buck, Sean P. Palecek, David M. Lynn

Chemistry: Faculty Publications

We report an approach to the fabrication and selective functionalization of amine-reactive polymer multilayers on the surfaces of 3-D polyurethane-based microwell cell culture arrays. "Reactive" layer-by-layer assembly of multilayers using branched polyethyleneimine (BPEI) and the azlactone- functionalized polymer poly(2-vinyl-4,4′-dimethylazlactone) (PVDMA) yielded film-coated microwell arrays that could be chemically functionalized postfabrication by treatment with different amine-functionalized macromolecules or small molecule primary amines. Treatment of film-coated arrays with the small molecule amine d-glucamine resulted in microwell surfaces that resisted the adhesion and proliferation of mammalian fibroblast cells in vitro. These and other experiments demonstrated that it was possible to functionalize different structural …

Synthesis, Spectroscopic And Biological Studies Of Some Metal Complexes With Orthoamino Hydrazo Benzene, Shaymaa H. Naji

Baghdad Science Journal

Ortho amino hydrazobenzene (L) has been prepared from the reaction of ortho amino phenyl thiol with phenyl hyrazan in mole ratio(1:1). It has been characterized by elemental analysis (C, H, N), IR, UV–Vis. The complexes of the bivalent ions (Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Pd, Cd, Hg and Pb) and the trivalent (Cr) have been prepared and characterized too. The structural have been established by elemental analysis(C,H,N), IR , UV – Vis spectra , conductivity measurements , atomic absorption and magnetic susceptibility . The complexes showed characteristic behaviour of octahedral geometry around the metal ion and the( N,N) ligand coordinated in …

Poetry And The Multiple Drafts Model: The Functional Similarity Of Cole Swensen's Verse And Human Consciousness, Connor Ryan Kreimeyer Fisher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project compares the operational methods of three of Cole Swensen's books of poetry (Such Rich Hour, Try, and Goest) with ways in which the human mind and consciousness function. I use Daniel Dennett's Multiple Drafts Model of consciousness, as described in Consciousness Explained, alongside concepts presented in several other philosophical works (from both analytic and continental traditions), to demonstrate that significant similarities exist between the operations of poetry and consciousness in general, and that these operational similarities are especially noticeable in Swensen's work. This thesis examines several operational modes that are present within the …

The Utility Of Transient Sensitivity For Wildlife Management And Conservation: Bison As A Case Study, Michael Buhnerkempe, Nathanial Burch, Sarah J. Hamilton, Kerry M. Byrne, Eddie Childers, Kirstin A. Holfelder, Lindsay Mcmanus, Matthew I. Pyne, Greg Schroeder, Paul F. Doherty

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Developing effective management strategies is essential to conservation biology. Population models and sensitivity analyses on model parameters have provided a means to quantitatively compare different management strategies, allowing managers to objectively assess the resulting impacts. Inference from traditional sensitivity analyses (i.e., eigenvalue sensitivity methods) is only valid for a population at its stable age distribution, while more recent methods have relaxed this assumption and instead focused on transient population dynamics. However, very few case studies, especially in long-lived vertebrates where transient dynamics are potentially most relevant, have applied these transient sensitivity methods and compared them to eigenvalue sensitivity methods. We …

Characterization Of A Pdms Microfluidic Reactor For Synthesizing Quantum Dots, Brian Harley

Materials Engineering

A PDMS microfluidic reactor was made in Cal Poly’s class 1000 clean room for the purpose of synthesizing quantum dots.  The device master mold was made from a silicon substrate and SU-8 features 50μm tall.  The PDMS reactor was cast from that mold.  The flow rates of fluid through the channels, heating of the reactor and pressure in the reactor were measured in order to characterize the potential for synthesizing quantum dots.  Flow rates of 20 mL/hr through 4 mL/hr were tested to characterize the consistency of amount of time the fluid remains in the reactor at a constant flow …

The Psycho-Economic Model Of Ecstasy Consumption And Related Consequences: A Multi-Site Study With Community Samples, Arbi Ben Abdallah

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

A Psycho-Economic Model of Ecstasy Consumption and Related Consequences: A Multi-Site Study with Community Samples By Arbi Ben Abdallah The consumption of mind-altering drugs is well recognized as a complex behavior entailing many different etiological precursors. To understand its complexity, drug use has to be considered from multiple perspectives. Over time, numerous theories have been advanced to explain drug use, the pattern of its use, and its related consequences. Because they approach such a behavior from slightly different vantage points, these theories offer unique explanations with different take on its genetic, physiological, psychological, and environment risk factors. A substantial body …

The Molecular Basis Of Aerobic Metabolic Remodeling In Threespine Stickleback In Response To Cold Acclimation, Julieanna Inez Orczewska

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Increases in mitochondrial density during cold acclimation have been documented in many fish species, however the mechanism regulating this process is not understood. The present study sought to characterize metabolic changes in response to cold acclimation and identify how these changes are regulated in oxidative muscle, glycolytic muscle and liver tissue of threespine stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus. Fish were warm (20°C) or cold (8°C) acclimated for 9 weeks and harvested during acclimation. Mitochondrial volume density was quantified using transmission electron microscopy and aerobic metabolic capacity assessed by measuring the maximal activity of citrate synthase and cytochrome c oxidase. The molecular mechanism …

Traditional Knowledge And Fish Biology: A Study Of Bering Cisco In The Yukon River Delta, Alaska, David Michael Runfola

Fisheries

Relatively little is known about the biology of whitefishes (subfamily Coregoninae) in Alaska. To address this shortcoming, I combined social and biological science methods to examine whitefish in the Yukon River delta, Alaska. This study had two objectives: (1) to collaborate with Yup'ik subsistence fishers in sharing their knowledge of whitefish; and (2) to describe the life history of Bering cisco Coregonus laurettae. In August 2004, interview participants discussed Yup'ik traditional knowledge of whitefish. Participants shared knowledge of Bering cisco and other whitefish species. Interviews demonstrated the need for greater awareness of traditional knowledge, and the importance of communicating this …

2011 Commencement Program, Whittier College

Commencement Programs

Whittier College's One Hundred Eighth Commencement, May 13, 2011

Commencement Address: Judith and Bill Moyers

Supplement file includes the One Hundred Eighth Whittier College Baccalaureate, May 12, 2011

College Of The Pacific And University College, Diploma And Hooding Ceremony, University Of The Pacific

Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

National Park Service Cave And Karst Resources Management Case Study: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Daniel C. Nolfi

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

As discussed in the National Parks Service’s (NPS) Directors Orders/Natural Resources Management Reference Manual #77 and the 2006 NPS Management Policy Handbook, implementing a management plan specifically for cave and karst resources within a national park is paramount to afford these resources appropriate protection. With support from the Federal Cave Resources Protection Act and the National Park Service Organic Act of 1906, management actions protecting caves has begun to place significant importance outside the traditional cave environment onto a broader karst landscape. The need to understand and protect the karst environment and caves as a karst resource has taken a …

A Quantitative, Technology Independent, Fidelity Metric For Evaluating Bioprinted Patterned Co-Cultures, Matthew Pepper

All Theses

The study of cell-cell interactions is crucial in the understanding of cell behaviors such as tumor genesis, proliferation, migration, metastasis, and apoptosis. To break down the complex web of signals in vivo, researchers must replicate some parts of this environment with in vitro tissue test systems, composed of multiple cell types arranged close enough to communicate with their neighbors, i.e. high-resolution co-culture patterns. The field of bioprinting is specifically focused on creating co-culture patterns for the purposes of cell studies, but the sample resolutions of most bioprinting systems are still too coarse to permit cell communication. No way currently exists …

A Biosynthetic Membrane-Anchor/Protein System Based On A Genetically Encoded "Aldehyde Tag", Chaojie Zhen

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Lipid membranes or bilayers serve as barriers for the cell and its organelles. A distinguishing feature of cellular function is the ability to monitor and process the biochemical information between the cells’ intra and extracellular environments in order to maintain the homeostatic reactions that are essential to life. Surface membrane proteins play a key role in mediating this information exchange by functionalizing the bilayer. As a result of their importance in living systems, proteins are integrated into biomimetic membrane systems to replicate their natural functions in biomedical technologies. Current protein integration methods are limited by the selection of commercially available …

Identification And Biochemical Characterization Of The Chlamydia Trachomatis Type Iii Secretion Chaperone, Slc1, And Its Role In The Translocation Of The Invasion-Associated Effector Tarp., Amanda J. Brinkworth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular pathogen that utilizes a type III secretion system to enter mammalian cells and establish an intracellular niche. TARP, the translocated actin recruitment protein, is a chlamydial invasion protein known to be type III secreted by the metabolically inert elementary body upon docking to the mammalian cell surface. Because immediate secretion of TARP into host cells is necessary for entry, I hypothesized that a chlamydial chaperone binds to TARP and facilitates its translocation through the type III secretion apparatus. Most effector-binding type III secretion chaperones are small (14-18 kDa), have an acidic pI, and share …

Design, Synthesis And Evaluation Of Novel Taxane-Based Anticancer Agents, Yuan Li

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Taxol® (paclitaxel) and Taxotère® (docetaxel) are the most widely used pharmaceuticals in cancer chemotherapy. These drugs have been approved by the FDA for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer, metastatic breast cancer, Kaposi Sarcoma, non-small cell lung cancer, etc. Both drugs are also under clinical development for additional cancer indications. Although established great success in the clinic, paclitaxel and docetaxel have exhibited a number of undesirable side effects as well as low efficiency against drug-resistant cancerphenotypes. Therefore the development of new analogs, which are expected to have higher potency and better pharmacological properties but fewer side effects, is of high …