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Genotoxin-Induced Acetylation Of The Werner Syndrome Protein (Wrn) And Effect On Its Dna Metabolic Function, Enerlyn Meliza Lozada Santiago

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Loss of function of the WRN protein causes the genetic disorder Werner Syndrome that is characterized by increased cancer and premature aging. WRN belongs to the RecQ helicase family that plays key roles in preventing genome instability. In response to treatment with genotoxins, WRN is subject to post-translational modification. The relationship of post-translational modification of WRN with its function in DNA metabolism is unknown. There is accumulating evidence suggesting that WRN contributes to the maintenance of genomic integrity through its involvement in DNA replication. Consistent with this notion, WS cells are sensitive to DNA replication inhibitors and DNA damaging agents …

Traumatic Brain Injury: Cyclophilin D As A Therapeutic Target And The Neuropathology Caused By Blast, Ryan Douglas Readnower

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

With an estimated incidence of 1.5 million each year, traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States. Opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP) is a key event contributing to TBI pathology. Cyclophilin D (CypD), a matrix peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase, is believed to be the regulating component of the mPTP. Cyclosporin A, an immunosuppressant drug, inhibits CypD and blocks mPTP formation and has been shown to be neuroprotective following TBI. However, it is unclear if CsA’s neuroprotective mechanism is due to inhibition of CypD and/or immuno-suppression. Therefore to directly assess the …

Dementia Caregiving Outcomes: The Impact Of Caregiving Onset, Role Occupancy, And Care-Recipient Decline, Katherina Nikzad-Terhune

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Dementia is characterized as a progressive loss of brain function that results in the deterioration of many cognitive and physical abilities. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, causing steady declines in memory, functional abilities, and mental functioning. With a projected increase of degenerative illnesses, such as AD, family caregiving for individuals with the disease is also steadily increasing. Caring for an individual with AD has been characterized as a “career,” and within this career are a number of key transitions, including the onset of caregiving. Preexisting caregiving research reveals a number of negative consequences for AD …

Application Of The Hill Criteria To The Causal Association Between Post-Traumatic Headache And Assault, Michael D. Freeman, Sean S. Kohles

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Post-traumatic headache (PTH) is a common and disabling symptom secondary to the traumatic event. It is known that assault is associated with a wide range of physical symptoms including PTH. In this work, the general causation approach provided by the Hill criteria is described as an assessment tool for specific causation with regards to PTH and sexual assault. Time-dependent models of probability and, in-turn, relative risk are described as quantitative algorithms for addressing inductive and abductive conclusions of causation in forensic science.

Learning Through Quests And Contests: Games In Information Literacy Instruction, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

Games-based learning is an innovative pedagogical strategy employed at all levels of education, and much research in education, psychology, and other disciplines supports its effectiveness in engaging and motivating students, as well as increasing student learning. Many libraries have incorporated games into their collections and program-ming. College and university libraries have begun to use games for information literacy and library instruction. Academic librarians use commercially-produced games, create their own games, and employ game principles and mechanics to enhance their tradi-tional instructional offerings. While there may be impediments to implementing games-based learning for information literacy, the promising benefits of this approach …

2011-2012 Graduate Catalog, Morehead State University

Morehead State Catalog Archive

2011-2012 graduate catalog for Morehead State University.

2011-2012 Undergraduate Catalog, Morehead State University

Morehead State Catalog Archive

2011-2012 undergraduate catalog for Morehead State University.

One Hand Does Not Catch A Buffalo: 50 Years Of Amazing Peace Corps Stories, Aaron Barlow

Publications and Research

Stories from Peace Corp workers based in Africa.

Identifying Modifiable Factors Associated With Depression Across The Lifespan In Stroke Survivor-Spouse Dyads, Michael Joseph Mccarthy

Dissertations and Theses

Depression is the most common psychological sequela associated with stroke, affecting approximately 33% of stroke survivors (Hackett, Yapa, Parag, & Anderson, 2005) with corresponding impacts on spouses, partners, or other informal caregivers (Han & Haley, 1999; Low, Payne, & Roderick, 1999). Although stroke is more common in older persons, persons of all ages are at risk for stroke and especially post-stroke depression (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2007; Barker-Collo, 2007; Hughes, Giobbie-Hurder, Weaver, Kubal, & Henderson, 1999). One of the factors which could explain increased risk of depression is "biographical disruption" (Bury, 1982), which happens when couples experience …

A Multi-Level Study Of The Predictors Of Family-Supportive Supervision, Ginger Charmagne Hanson

Dissertations and Theses

There is a growing awareness that informal supports such as family-supportive supervision are critical in assuring the success of work-life policies and benefits. Furthermore, it is believed that family-supportive supervision may have positive effects regardless of the number or quality of work-life polices and benefits an organization has in place. Given this recognition, work-life experts have emphasized the need for supervisor training to increase family-supportive supervision. To date however, there has been a paucity of research on the predictors of family-supportive supervision which could be used as the target of such a training intervention. This dissertation had three major aims: …

An Investigation Of The Relationships Between Violence Exposure, Internalizing And Externalizing Problems, And Adolescent Alcohol Use, Gregory Lloyd Forehand

Dissertations and Theses

Adolescent Alcohol Use (AAU) is widespread and potentially harmful to the health of youth. Substantial research and theoretical development suggest that both violence exposure and internalizing and externalizing problems of adolescents are associated with AAU. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the roles of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescents to determine if the two types of symptoms are differential mediators of the link between violence exposure and AAU for females and males. Using Developmental Systems Theory as a framework, three primary hypotheses were examined: 1) Increased violence exposure at home and in the community are associated …

Perceptions And Voices Of South Sudanese About The North-South Sudan Conflict, Machar Wek Aleu-Baak

Dissertations and Theses

The conflict in Sudan reflects historic hatred and ethnic discrimination between Northern Arab Muslims and Southern African Christians and Animists. The longest and worst conflict began in 1983 and ended in 2005, when African Christians and Animists struggled to form an interim autonomous government. This conflict claimed 2 million lives from both sides and displaced almost 4 million people from the South. This thesis attempts to understand how people from Southern Sudan perceive the root causes and sustaining factors of the Sudanese conflict between Arab Muslims and African Christians. This research looks specifically into the roles of ethnic differences and …

An Exploration Of Heterogeneous Networks On Chip, Allen Gary Grimm

Dissertations and Theses

As the the number of cores on a single chip continue to grow, communication increasingly becomes the bottleneck to performance. Networks on Chips (NoC) is an interconnection paradigm showing promise to allow system size to increase while maintaining acceptable performance. One of the challenges of this paradigm is in constructing the network of inter-core connections. Using the traditional wire interconnect as long range links is proving insufficient due to the increase in relative delay as miniaturization progresses. Novel link types are capable of delivering single-hop long-range communication. We investigate the potential benefits of constructing networks with many link types applied …

Developing And Calibrating The Hydrodynamic And Water Quality Model Ce-Qual-W2 For Banks Lake Washington, Andrew John Mcculloch

Dissertations and Theses

Located in central Washington State, Banks Lake serves as an irrigation storage reservoir for the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project and is home to a diverse fisheries population. The current hydrologic management strategies used for Banks Lake have been chosen to serve two purposes: to adequately store and provide irrigation water for the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project and to maintain a healthy aquatic environment suitable for the growth and habitation of local flora and fauna. Increased needs for irrigation water within arid central Washington poses additional challenges to reservoir managers so that irrigation needs are met without damaging the present aquatic …

Implications Of Hydrologic Data Assimilation In Improving Suspended Sediment Load Estimation In Lake Tahoe, California, Marc Leisenring

Dissertations and Theses

Pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act (CWA), when a water body has been listed as impaired, Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for the water quality constituents causing the impairment must be developed. A TMDL is the maximum daily mass flux of a pollutant that a waterbody can receive and still safely meet water quality standards. The development of a TMDL and demonstrating compliance with a TMDL requires pollutant load estimation. By definition, a pollutant load is the time integral product of flows and concentrations. Consequently, the accuracy of pollutant load estimation is highly dependent on the accuracy of runoff …

Electronic Pillbox Logger For People With Parkinson's Disease, Beenish Zia

Dissertations and Theses

Parkinson' Disease (PD) is a motor disorder characterized by rigidity, tremor, and hypokinesia with secondary manifestations like defective posture and gait, mask like face and dementia. Over the years it may lead to inability to move, breath and ultimately patient may succumb to chest infection and embolism. Prevalence studies show that more than six million people around the world suffer from PD. At present, there is no cure for PD but there are effective treatments that can slow the progression of the disease and regulate its affects. PD results from a deficiency of dopamine so most drugs that produce a …

Logic Realization Using Regular Structures In Quantum-Dot Cellular Automata (Qca), Rahul Singhal

Dissertations and Theses

Semiconductor industry seems to approach a wall where physical geometry and power density issues could possibly render the device fabrication infeasible. Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is a new nanotechnology that claims to offer the potential of manufacturing even denser integrated circuits, which can operate at high frequencies and low power consumption. In QCA technology, the signal propagation occurs as a result of electrostatic interaction among the electrons as opposed to flow to the electrons in a wire. The basic building block of QCA technology is a QCA cell which encodes binary information with the relative position of electrons in it. …

Analysis And Characterization Of Debris Flows In November, 2006, Mount Adams, Washington., Kendra Justine Williams

Dissertations and Theses

Debris flows caused by heavy rains occurred in November of 2006 on several Cascade volcanoes. Mt. Adams experienced debris flows in seven of eighteen drainages including Adams Creek, Big Muddy Creek, Lewis Creek, Little Muddy Creek, Muddy Fork, Rusk Creek and Salt Creek. Six debris flows occurred on the northeast side of the mountain. A landslide initiated one debris flow, three were initiated by heavy water flow and in channel landslides, and three were initiated by a coalescence of eroded channels (headless debris flows). Four pre-2006 debris flows were found in the Cascade Creek, Crofton Creek, Hellroaring Creek and Morrison …

"You Can See It In Their Eyes:" A Communication Ethnography Of A Humane Society, Sara Victoria Kaufman

Dissertations and Theses

This study sought to understand the culture-sharing group of people working within the shelter area of a Pacific Northwest animal shelter through the Ethnography of Communication. About 63% of households in the United States live with a companion animal (Risley-Curtis et al., 2006). Recently, there has been a shift toward closer examination into the ways in which humans interact with animals, particularly companion animals. The guiding questions of this study were: RQ1: What are the cultural communication forms performed in the context of the humane society? RQ2: How do shelter workers communicate about companion animals? RQ3: What cultural meanings are …

Emotion Language And Emotion Narratives Of Turkish-English Late Bilinguals, Melike Yücel Koç

Dissertations and Theses

The primary focus of this research was to investigate the emotion language and emotion narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals who have been living in the U.S. Previous research has shown that the emotion language and narratives of second language learners and native speakers of English are different. This study focused on late bilinguals who had learnt English in instructed settings in their home country, and came to the U.S. for M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. The study consisted of two parts. In the first part, the elicited personal narratives of Turkish-English late bilinguals in English were compared to those elicited from …

Factoring Semiprimes Using Pg2n Prime Graph Multiagent Search, Keith Eirik Wilson

Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis a heuristic method for factoring semiprimes by multiagent depth-limited search of PG^2_N graphs is presented. An analysis of PG^2_Nn graph connectivity is used to generate heuristics for multiagent search. Further analysis is presented including the requirements on choosing prime numbers to generate 'hard' semiprimes; the lack of connectivity in PG^1_N graphs; the counts of spanning trees in PG^2_N graphs; the upper bound of a PG^2_N graph diameter and a conjecture on the frequency distribution of prime numbers on Hamming distance. We further demonstrated the feasibility of …

Model-Based Information Extraction From Synthetic Aperture Radar Signals, Shari Matzner

Dissertations and Theses

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a remote sensing technology for imaging areas of the earth's surface. SAR has been successfully used for monitoring characteristics of the natural environment such as land cover type and tree density. With the advent of higher resolution sensors, it is now theoretically possible to extract information about individual structures such as buildings from SAR imagery. This information could be used for disaster response and security-related intelligence. SAR has an advantage over other remote sensing technologies for these applications because SAR data can be collected during the night and in rainy or cloudy conditions. This research …

Microbial Ecology Of Active Marine Hydrothermal Vent Deposits: The Influence Of Geologic Setting On Microbial Communities, Gilberto Eugene Flores

Dissertations and Theses

The discovery of deep-sea hydrothermal vents in 1977 revealed an ecosystem supported by chemosynthesis with a rich diversity of invertebrates, Archaea and Bacteria. While the invertebrate vent communities are largely composed of endemic species and exist in different biogeographical provinces, the possible factors influencing the distribution patterns of free-living Archaea and Bacteria are still being explored. In particular, how differences in the geologic setting of vent fields influence microbial communities and populations associated with active vent deposits remains largely unknown. The overall goal of the studies presented in this dissertation was to examine the links between the geologic setting of …

Differences In Sexual Dimorphism And Influences Of Sexual Dichromatism On Crypsis Among Populations Of The Jumping Spider Habronattus Oregonensis, Jason Bazzano

Dissertations and Theses

Crypsis can be an important mechanism of predator avoidance for organisms. However, many species exhibit sexual dichromatism, in which the males possess a suite of colorations in order to attract female attention. The resulting differences in crypsis between the males and females can provide insight into the relative strengths of the sexually and naturally selective forces shaping the coloration of the organism, as well as clues regarding potential sensory biases of the selecting sex. In this study, I examine variation in the coloration of four Pacific Northwest populations of the sexually dimorphic and dichromatic polygynous species of jumping spider Habronattus …

Campus Sexual Assault: How Oregon University System Schools Respond, Michael William Murphy

Dissertations and Theses

College is usually thought of as a time where students, often living alone for their first time, are encouraged towards healthy risk-taking behavior, as well as social, intellectual, and vocational development. Unfortunately for female students, college becomes the time of their lives where they are exposed to the highest risk of sexual victimization. Many colleges across America have taken steps to address the significant problem of sexual assault on their campuses. However, even with rising concern about the sexual victimization of college students, there remains very little systematic information published about the content of sexual assault policies, protocols and programs …

Designing And Using Virtual Field Environments To Enhance And Extend Field Experience In Professional Development Programs In Geology For K-12 Teachers, Frank Douglas Granshaw

Dissertations and Theses

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used to acquaint geoscience novices with some of the observation, data gathering, and problem solving done in actual field situations by geoscientists. VR environments in a variety of forms are used to prepare students for doing geologic fieldwork, as well as to provide proxies for such experience when venturing into the field is not possible. However, despite increased use of VR for these purposes, there is little research on how students learn using these environments, how using them impacts student field experience, or what constitutes effective design in light of emerging theories of geocognition.

To …

Runaway And Homeless Youth: Changing The Discourse By Legitimizing Youth Voice, Donald Dale Schweitzer

Dissertations and Theses

Undoubtedly, runaway and homeless youth (RHY) are one of the most vulnerable, yet underserved groups in our country. Well-meaning advocates have developed programs and services in an attempt to remedy this, yet there is little evidence of their effectiveness. Moreover, according to the research literature, a low utilization rate of current services by youth is a major concern. From a constructivist theoretical position, this study posits that the missing element is youth voice and the researcher hired formerly homeless youth to conduct the analysis of focus group data gathered from RHY who were participating in a range of services funded …

Youth Voices Of Bounty And Opportunity: High School Students' Experiences With Food And Community, Kara Marie Gilbert

Dissertations and Theses

Currently, garden-based research does not include input from young adults about their experiences and perspectives as individuals in garden-based programs, specifically those that address issues of food and community. To address this void, this qualitative research examines youth perspectives and engagement in garden-based community projects in Olympia, Washington, and Medford, Oregon. The sample of 11 students was chosen from these projects that use food as a means to engage the community and educate underprivileged young adults about local food systems. The main question that the research addresses is: Why, and in what ways, are young adults appropriate agents for community …

Writing Her Way To Spiritual Perfection: The Diary Of 1751 Of Maria De Jesus Felipa, Stephanie Oliver

Dissertations and Theses

Throughout the colonial period of Mexican history, cloistered nuns wrote spiritual journals at the request of their confessors. These documents were read and scrutinized, not only by the confessors, but also by others in the hierarchy of their Orders. They are important sources of study for historians in that they provide a window into the religious culture of the times and the spiritual mentality of their authors. This thesis will examine one such record, discovered in a collection of volumes at the Historical Franciscan Archive of Michoacán in Celaya, Mexico. The diary covers eleven months of 1751 in the life …

Genetic Substructure Of Pacific Harbor Seal (Phoca Vitulina Richardsi) Populations Along The Coasts Of Oregon And Washington, Diana Lynn Dishman

Dissertations and Theses

It has been assumed that the considerable dispersal ability of many marine species would prevent genetic divergence in the absence of geographic isolation. However, recent work has shown that many marine species often develop differentiation among areas within their known dispersal range. This 'paradox' of marine divergence is particularly important among marine mammal species where behavior can restrict gene flow. To investigate genetic substructure within such a species, I used tissue samples collected from 63 stranded Pacific harbor seals (Phoca vitulina richardsi) in Washington and Oregon between 2006 and 2010 for population stock analysis. DNA was extracted from frozen tissues, …