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2011

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Quantitative Assessment Of Lung Microstructure In Healthy Mice Using An Mr-Based 3he Lung Morphometry Technique, Emir Osmanagic Jan 2011

Quantitative Assessment Of Lung Microstructure In Healthy Mice Using An Mr-Based 3he Lung Morphometry Technique, Emir Osmanagic

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Recently developed in our laboratory the MRI-based technique - 3He Lung Morphometry - is a unique tool allowing in vivo measurements of lung microstructural parameters such as alveolar volume, surface-to-volume ratio and alveolar density. These parameters are commonly used by lung physiologists and pathologists but were previously available only from invasive biopsy studies. 3He Lung Morphometry was originally developed for human studies but there is a need to expand it for studies of small animals like mice and rats that are used to advance our knowledge of lung physiology in health and disease and for development of drugs. Such an …

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Low-Impact Profiling Of Streaming, Heterogeneous Applications, Joseph Lancaster Jan 2011

Low-Impact Profiling Of Streaming, Heterogeneous Applications, Joseph Lancaster

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Computer engineers are continually faced with the task of translating improvements in fabrication process technology: i.e., Moore's Law) into architectures that allow computer scientists to accelerate application performance. As feature-size continues to shrink, architects of commodity processors are designing increasingly more cores on a chip. While additional cores can operate independently with some tasks: e.g. the OS and user tasks), many applications see little to no improvement from adding more processor cores alone. For many applications, heterogeneous systems offer a path toward higher performance. Significant performance and power gains have been realized by combining specialized processors: e.g., Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, …

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Pathological And Biomedical Characteristics Of Spinal Cord Injury Determined Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Tsang-Wei Tu Jan 2011

Pathological And Biomedical Characteristics Of Spinal Cord Injury Determined Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Tsang-Wei Tu

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Traumatic spinal cord injury: SCI) is the most devastating injury that often causes the victim permanent paralysis and undergo a lifetime of therapy and care. It is caused by a mechanical impact that ultimately causes pathophysiological consequences which at this moment in time are an unresolved scientific challenge of great social impact. Scientists have long used animal contusion models to study the pathophysiology of SCI in the discovery of progressive secondary tissue degeneration, demyelination, and apoptosis. More importantly, most therapies that have gone to human clinical trial were first validated in spinal cord contusion models. Magnetic resonance imaging: MRI) is …

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Mechanics Of Heart Tube Formation In The Early Chick Embryo, Victor Varner Jan 2011

Mechanics Of Heart Tube Formation In The Early Chick Embryo, Victor Varner

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The heart is the first functioning organ to form in the embryo. For decades, biologists have worked to identify many of the genetic and molecular factors involved in heart development, and over the years, these efforts have helped elucidate the vast biochemical signaling networks, which drive cardiac specification and differentiation in the embryo. Still, the biophysical mechanisms which link these molecular factors to actual, physical changes in cardiac morphology remain unclear. The aim of this thesis is to identify some of the mechanical forces which drive heart tube assembly in the early chick embryo. A unique feature of this work …

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Aerosol Synthesis Of Cathode Materials For Li-Ion Batteries, Xiaofeng Zhang Jan 2011

Aerosol Synthesis Of Cathode Materials For Li-Ion Batteries, Xiaofeng Zhang

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Rapid advancement of technologies for production of next-generation Li-ion batteries will be critical to address the Nation's need for clean, efficient and secure transportation system and renewable energy storage system. Advancements in materials are believed to be essential to meet the growing demand of high-performance materials for Li-ion batteries, as well as to bring down the battery cost: material cost) to a reasonable level. In the past decade, the primary focus in the Li-ion battery research has been to develop new materials, which are essential to improve the performance of the electrodes in terms of energy density, power density and …

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Inelastic Seismic Response Of Reinforced Concrete Buildings With Floor Diaphragm Openings, Mohamed Al Harash Jan 2011

Inelastic Seismic Response Of Reinforced Concrete Buildings With Floor Diaphragm Openings, Mohamed Al Harash

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Floor and roof systems are designed to carry gravity loads and transfer these loads to supporting beams, columns or walls. Furthermore, they play a key role in distributing earthquake-induced loads to the lateral load resisting systems by diaphragm action. In reinforced concrete buildings, the in-plane flexibility of the floor diaphragms is often ignored for simplicity in practical design: i.e., the floor systems are frequently treated as perfectly rigid diaphragms). In recent building standards: ASCE-7, 2005), it is acknowledged that this assumption can result in considerable errors when predicting the seismic response of reinforced concrete buildings with diaphragm plan aspect ratio …

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Molecular Mechanism Of The Allosteric Coupling For Ca(2+) Activation Of The Voltage- And Ca(2+)-Activated K(+) (Bk) Channels, Junqiu Yang Jan 2011

Molecular Mechanism Of The Allosteric Coupling For Ca(2+) Activation Of The Voltage- And Ca(2+)-Activated K(+) (Bk) Channels, Junqiu Yang

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The large conductance voltage- and Ca2+-activated K+: BK) channel is important for many physiological functions. The BK channel is activated by both membrane depolarization and intracellular Ca2+ so that it integrates these two important cellular signals. Ca2+ sensing of the BK channel is mediated by two binding sites, both located on the cytosolic domain. The structure of the cytosolic domain indicates that both binding sites are away from the pore-gate domain, suggesting that a coupling mechanism between the binding sites and the gate is required for Ca2+-dependent activation. The work in this dissertation focuses on the coupling mechanism, which can …

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Clinical Interpretation Of Novel Copy Number Variations, Clifton Carey Jan 2011

Clinical Interpretation Of Novel Copy Number Variations, Clifton Carey

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Copy Number Variations: CNVs) are a significant source of human genetic diversity and are believed to be responsible for a wide variety of phenotypic variation. Recent advances in microarray-based genomic hybridization techniques have facilitated CNV analysis as a viable diagnostic technique in the clinic, and several public databases of well-characterized CNVs are being compiled, but a standard for interpreting uncharacterized CNVs has yet to emerge. This thesis examines the clinical interpretation of uncharacterized CNVs as a multiple instance binary classification problem. We analyze the current state of clinical techniques, then present and test several novel statistical approaches to the problem.

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Ns-3 Simulation Of Wimax Networks, Christopher Thomas Jan 2011

Ns-3 Simulation Of Wimax Networks, Christopher Thomas

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Simulation is a powerful tool for analysis and improvement of networking technologies, and many simulation packages are available. One that is growing in popularity is NS-3, the successor to the popular NS-2. It is a significant departure from NS-2, and offers many advantages and disadvantages. In this thesis, we translate and update a sophisticated WiMAX simulation model from NS-2 to NS-3, and use this experience to investigate the major differences between NS-2 and NS-3, and the relative strengths of each package. We then use the NS-3 simulation model to provide analysis on a new WiMAX OFDMA downlink subframe mapping algorithm.

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Computable Performance Analysis Of Recovering Signals With Low-Dimensional Structures, Gongguo Tang Jan 2011

Computable Performance Analysis Of Recovering Signals With Low-Dimensional Structures, Gongguo Tang

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The last decade witnessed the burgeoning development in the reconstruction of signals by exploiting their low-dimensional structures, particularly, the sparsity, the block-sparsity, the low-rankness, and the low-dimensional manifold structures of general nonlinear data sets. The reconstruction performance of these signals relies heavily on the structure of the sensing matrix/operator. In many applications, there is a flexibility to select the optimal sensing matrix among a class of them. A prerequisite for optimal sensing matrix design is the computability of the performance for different recovery algorithms. I present a computational framework for analyzing the recovery performance of signals with low-dimensional structures. I …

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Engineering Noble-Metal Nanoparticles For Sensing And Imaging With Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering, Matthew Rycenga Jan 2011

Engineering Noble-Metal Nanoparticles For Sensing And Imaging With Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering, Matthew Rycenga

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This research investigated the surface-enhanced Raman scattering: SERS) from Ag and Au nanoparticles with an aim to better understand the SERS mechanism and to implement this technique for single-molecule detection and imaging. In addition, SERS was used as a sensitive probe to study molecules confined to a nanoparticle's surface. The first part of this work focused on measuring the SERS from different Ag and Au nanoparticles and determining how their structural and physical properties affect SERS. The effects of shape, size, and Au-Ag composition on SERS are determined using Ag nanocubes, Ag nanospheres, and Au-based nanocages. I also demonstrate several …

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Optimal Control In Gene Mutation, Juanyi Yu Jan 2011

Optimal Control In Gene Mutation, Juanyi Yu

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Gene mutations are the radical causes of many diseases, including inheritance diseases and cancers. Current medical treatments usually focus on changing the concentrations of related chemicals or mRNAs at the cellular level to stop protein productions or cell duplications, which can only control the diseases under certain circumstances but cannot cure them. Little research work has been done at the molecular level, the fundamental of inheritance, to search possible ways to cure those severe diseases. In this dissertation, we propose a molecular level control system view of the gene mutations in DNA replication from the finite field concept. By treating …

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A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis Of Three Formative Period Wankarani Sites Located In The Department Of Oruro, Bolivia, Brieanna Langlie Jan 2011

A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis Of Three Formative Period Wankarani Sites Located In The Department Of Oruro, Bolivia, Brieanna Langlie

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The Wankarani people are often cited as an example of early camelid pastoralism in South America. However, research on early camelid pastoralism has ignored the importance of plants, especially the cultivation of domesticated plants in this region. The Wankarani people lived in the central altiplano of the south-central Andes during the Formative period: 2000 B.C.-A.D. 400). Previous research has assumed that the Wankarani people were cultivating domestic plants. This research explores the evidence for both wild and domesticated plant use among the Wankarani while furthering the understanding of the development of subsistence strategies of pastoralists cultures. Using paleoethnobotanical methods of …

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Evaluation Of Response To Intervention As A Method Of Improving Student Achievement, Ronald Bruce Farquharson Jan 2011

Evaluation Of Response To Intervention As A Method Of Improving Student Achievement, Ronald Bruce Farquharson

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education ETD Archive

This applied dissertation was designed to evaluate if implementation of the Response to Intervention (RTI) model had an effect on student academic gains at the target school. The problem that prompted this study was that information on the effectiveness of the RTI model had not yet been determined. The reauthorization of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act allowed the use of the RTI model as a viable alternative for identifying students who may be experiencing academic difficulties rather than the traditional wait-and-fail model. Data and state assessment scores for sixth-grade students indicated that remediation was necessary. The RTI model allows …

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Examining The Effectiveness Of Multiple Imputation: A Case Study On Hiv Risk Behaviors In Women Receiving Treatment For Substance Use Disorders, Raphiel Murden Jan 2011

Examining The Effectiveness Of Multiple Imputation: A Case Study On Hiv Risk Behaviors In Women Receiving Treatment For Substance Use Disorders, Raphiel Murden

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Women in the United States are becoming infected with HIV more quickly now than ever before; many of whom are at higher risk because of their substance use habits or that of their partners.: CDC, 2010) This study analyzes cross sectional data regarding the risk behaviors and addiction severity of a sample of women receiving treatment for substance use disorders: SUDs). The data was gathered between 2006 and 2010 at a women's substance use treatment center in St. Louis, Missouri: MO), the name of which cannot be disclosed. We develop a scale, the HIV Risk Scale: HRS), to quantify a …

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The Earned Income Tax Credit And Financial Capability Among Native Households, Kristen Wagner Jan 2011

The Earned Income Tax Credit And Financial Capability Among Native Households, Kristen Wagner

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

EITC refunds are often substantial sums of money entering households of working families each year. Many households use the EITC to meet their basic needs such as rent, utilities, food, groceries, clothing, and other household expenses. Other EITC recipients view the tax system as a savings mechanism. This is the first study of how the EITC is being used among Native populations. Study data includes 9,482 household surveys collected in over 80 urban, rural, and reservation communities across the U.S. Surveys were completed by EITC eligible households, both Native and non-Native in tax years 2005 - 2008. Results from this …

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Spontaneous Recognition Memory Measured By Performance In A Memory Stroop Paradigm, Benjamin Anderson Jan 2011

Spontaneous Recognition Memory Measured By Performance In A Memory Stroop Paradigm, Benjamin Anderson

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Studies of recognition memory have generally involved tests in which the participant's memory is directly questioned. There are occasions, however, in which memory is more spontaneous in nature: e.g., recognizing an acquaintance out of context). The current studies investigated spontaneous recognition memory through the use of a memory Stroop paradigm, which involved study of pictures and words followed by recognition memory decisions on either the picture or word component of stimuli with an old or new word superimposed over an old or new picture. Spontaneous recognition was measured by comparing the influence of old as compared to new distracters on …

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How It Began: The Rise Of The Women's Suffrage Movement In Britain, Shihui Yun Jan 2011

How It Began: The Rise Of The Women's Suffrage Movement In Britain, Shihui Yun

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

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Markov Chains Derived From Lagrangian Mechanical Systems, Scott Cook Jan 2011

Markov Chains Derived From Lagrangian Mechanical Systems, Scott Cook

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The theory of Markov chains with countable state spaces is a greatly developed and successful area of probability theory and statistics. There is much interest in continuing to develop the theory of Markov chains beyond countable state spaces. One needs good and well motivated model systems in this effort. In this thesis, we propose to produce such systems by introducing randomness into familiar deterministic systems so that we can draw upon the existing: deterministic) results to aid the analysis of our Markov chains. We will focus most heavily on models drawn from Lagrangian mechanical systems with collisions: billiards).

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Not Just A Pretty Voice: Cathy Berberian As Collaborator, Composer And Creator, Kate Meehan Jan 2011

Not Just A Pretty Voice: Cathy Berberian As Collaborator, Composer And Creator, Kate Meehan

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

During her relatively brief career, Cathy Berberian: 1925-83) became arguably the best-known singer of avant-garde vocal music in Europe and the United States. After 1950, when she married Italian composer Luciano Berio, Berberian premiered almost thirty new works by seventeen different composers and received the dedications of several more. Composers connected to her include: John Cage, Igor Stravinsky, Darius Milhaud, Sylvano Bussotti, Henri Pousseur, Bruno Maderna, Bernard Rands, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, and of course, Berio. Berberian's creative activities ranged widely and she participated many of the major postwar musical movements, including tape and electronic music, music theater, the baroque music revival, …

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De Ornanda Instruendaque Urbe, Anne Truetzel Jan 2011

De Ornanda Instruendaque Urbe, Anne Truetzel

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No abstract provided.

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From Sanguo Zhi To Sanguo Zhi Yanyi: The Role Of Sun Quan And The Development Of The Three Kingdoms Historiography, Hyung-Jong Lee Jan 2011

From Sanguo Zhi To Sanguo Zhi Yanyi: The Role Of Sun Quan And The Development Of The Three Kingdoms Historiography, Hyung-Jong Lee

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No abstract provided.

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Mechanisms Of Observed Neuroprotection Of Dopaminergic Neurons In Wallerian Degeneration Slow (Wlds) Mice, Jo Ann Antenor-Dorsey Jan 2011

Mechanisms Of Observed Neuroprotection Of Dopaminergic Neurons In Wallerian Degeneration Slow (Wlds) Mice, Jo Ann Antenor-Dorsey

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

An emerging hypothesis in Parkinson's disease: PD) is that dopaminergic: DA) neurons degenerate through a "dying back" axonopathy wherein degeneration begins in the distal axon and progresses over time towards the cell body. Impaired axonal transport also appears to play an early, pivotal role in PD. Thus processes that delay axonal transport dysfunction and/or axonal degeneration might slow PD progression. Previously, we and others have found that the WldS mouse mutant: "Wallerian degeneration-slow"), which exhibits delayed axonal degeneration after peripheral axonopathy, also protects DA terminal fields from the PD-mimetics 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine: MPTP) and 6-hydroxydopamine: 6-OHDA) in vivo. To understand the mechanisms …

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A Marginal Returns Theory Of Politics, Carlos Costa Jan 2011

A Marginal Returns Theory Of Politics, Carlos Costa

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A great deal of contemporary social science rests on a basic, ``primitive'', principle that rational agents are motivated by a quest for marginal returns to investment of time, money, and other resources. In this manuscript we argue that an analogue fundamental principle guides much of modern political science, but has remained largely This manuscript sets out to unearth, reshape and polish this principle into what we term a marginal return theory of politics. We then apply this theory to the study of electioneering in Latin America, focusing on two main elements of vote seeking: the returns of specific votes and …

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Development Of Speed, Memory, And Fluid Reasoning In Children, Duneesha De Alwis Jan 2011

Development Of Speed, Memory, And Fluid Reasoning In Children, Duneesha De Alwis

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Children's memory and higher-order cognitive abilities such as fluid reasoning improve with age, but the relationships between these abilities are not well understood. The developmental cascade model proposed by Fry and Hale: 1996) suggests that age related improvements in speed of processing are related to improvements in working memory, which in turn influence fluid reasoning. Recent research in adults suggests secondary memory is also an important predictor of fluid reasoning. The relations between working memory and fluid reasoning have been studied extensively in both adults and children. However, the relationships between working memory, secondary memory, and fluid reasoning have not …

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Lustmord And Loving The Other: A History Of Sexual Murder In Modern Germany And Austria (1873-1932), Amber Aragon-Yoshida Jan 2011

Lustmord And Loving The Other: A History Of Sexual Murder In Modern Germany And Austria (1873-1932), Amber Aragon-Yoshida

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Lustmord and Loving the Other: A History of Sexual Murder in Modern Germany and Austria: 1873–1932) examines the historical significance of German–speaking Europeans’ responses to crises of modernity vis–Ã –vis their fin de siècle cultural fascination with crimes and representations of Lustmord. I address the emergence and development of the concept of Lustmord, particularly the changing ways in which medical, legal, and criminal experts, survivors, perpetrators, neighbors, the press, and artists understood and attempted to explain this modern phenomenon. I demonstrate the ways in which a society came to name, understand, and, to some degree, even accept a troubling new …

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Mass Spectrometry For Determination Of Conformation And Dynamics Of Proteins And Structure And Biosynthesis Of Bacterial Peptidoglycan, Jiawei Chen Jan 2011

Mass Spectrometry For Determination Of Conformation And Dynamics Of Proteins And Structure And Biosynthesis Of Bacterial Peptidoglycan, Jiawei Chen

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Mass spectrometry: MS) has emerged as an important tool for analyzing and characterizing large biomolecules. In this dissertation, two aspects of the development and application of MS-based approaches are presented; they include: 1) protein conformation and folding dynamics: in Chapters 2 to 5) and bacterial peptidoglycan: PG) structure and biosynthesis: Chapters 6 to 8). Chapter 1 serves as the introduction for both aspects. Part I of the dissertation focuses on the development of analytical methods combining fast photochemical oxidation of proteins: FPOP) and mass spectrometry analysis. In chapter 2 to 4, we discuss protein folding with sub-millisecond time resolution by …

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Joachim Du Bellay's Occasional Poetry: The Poetics Of Female Patronage, Elizabeth Landers Jan 2011

Joachim Du Bellay's Occasional Poetry: The Poetics Of Female Patronage, Elizabeth Landers

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

This study seeks to demonstrate that female patrons at the Valois court--particularly Marguerite de France, and, to a lesser extent Diane de Poitiers--had a defining influence on both the career and the aesthetic choices of the sixteenth-century French poet Joachim Du Bellay. Although it has often been acknowledged that Du Bellay and Marguerite enjoyed a special relationship, the current study reveals the extent to which Marguerite served as an organizing principal for Du Bellay's entire writing life. As an admired patron, she provided moral support and networking opportunities that encouraged and rewarded Du Bellay's poetic production; her erudition and literary …

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Strategic Management In Nonprofit Mental Health Service Organizations: Understanding Processes And Impact On Performance, Jennifer Schurer Coldiron Jan 2011

Strategic Management In Nonprofit Mental Health Service Organizations: Understanding Processes And Impact On Performance, Jennifer Schurer Coldiron

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Managing the performance of social service-providing nonprofit organizations: NPOs) has become more and more complex in the past few decades as executives have had to cope with increasing competition, demands from a diversified set of stakeholders, rapidly changing technologies, and mounting scrutiny from funders and consumers. To help reduce the complexity of strategic management, organizations have been encouraged to adopt formal strategy formation processes, such as highly-structured strategic planning models. However, there are no demonstrated "best practices" or conclusive evidence of the utility of formal strategy formation within the nonprofit sector. The stakes of mismanagement are high for the organizations …

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The Role Of The Membrane Proximal Region Of The M2 Cytoplasmic Tail In Virus Replication, Shaun Stewart Jan 2011

The Role Of The Membrane Proximal Region Of The M2 Cytoplasmic Tail In Virus Replication, Shaun Stewart

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

Influenza A virus encodes M2, a proton channel that has been shown to be important during virus entry and assembly. The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate the role of the membrane proximal region, residues 46-69, of the M2 cytoplasmic tail during virus replication. A cholesterol recognition/interaction amino consensus: CRAC) motif, previously identified in the membrane proximal region of M2 in some influenza A virus strains, was suggested to play a role in virus replication by mediating incorporation of M2 into budding virus particles. Alteration or completion of the M2 CRAC motif in two different recombinant virus strains …

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