Digital Commons Network^™

Emerging Roles Of Jak-Stat Signaling Pathways In Adipocytes, Allison J. Richard, Jacqueline M. Stephens

Faculty Publications

Twenty years ago, adipocytes were largely considered to be inert energy-storage depots. We now know that fat cells are highly insulin-sensitive with significant endocrine functions. Alterations in adipocyte development or function can contribute to metabolic disease, in particular type 2 diabetes. The current obesity epidemic that plagues many nations provides a strong rationale for understanding basic adipocyte biology. The JAK-STAT signaling pathway mediates the action of a variety of hormones that have profound effects on adipocyte development and function. In addition, adipocytes secrete hormones that utilize this signaling pathway. This review summarizes research on the expression and function of JAKs …

Potassium, Phosphorus, Or Nitrogen Limit Root Allocation, Tree Growth, Or Litter Production In A Lowland Tropical Forest, S. Joseph Wright, Joseph B. Yavitt, Nina Wurzburger, Benjamin I. Turner, Edmund V.J. Tanner, Emma J. Sayer, Louis S. Santiago, Michael Kaspari, Lars O. Hedin, Kyle E. Harms, Milton N. Garcia, Marife D. Corre

Faculty Publications

We maintained a factorial nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) addition experiment for 11 years in a humid lowland forest growing on a relatively fertile soil in Panama to evaluate potential nutrient limitation of tree growth rates, fine-litter production, and fine-root biomass. We replicated the eight factorial treatments four times using 32 plots of 40×40 m each. The addition of K was associated with significant decreases in stand-level fineroot biomass and, in a companion study of seedlings, decreases in allocation to roots and increases in height growth rates. The addition of K and N together was associated with significant …

Role Of Ph In A Nitric Oxide-Dependent Increase In Cytosolic Cl - In Retinal Amacrine Cells, Emily Mcmains, Evanna Gleason

Faculty Publications

Nitric oxide (NO) synthase-expressing neurons are found throughout the vertebrate retina. Previous work by our laboratory has shown that NO can transiently convert inhibitory GABAergic synapses onto cultured retinal amacrine cells into excitatory synapses by releasing Cl - from an internal store in the postsynaptic cell. The mechanism underlying this Cl -release is currently unknown. Because transport of Cl - across internal membranes can be coupled to proton flux, we asked whether protons could be involved in the NO-dependent release of internal Cl -. Using pH imaging and whole cell voltage-clamp recording, we addressed the relationship between cytosolic pH and …

Identification Of Cytochrome P450 2c2 Protein Complexes In Mouse Liver, Bin Li, Peter Yau, Byron Kemper

Faculty Publications

Interactions of microsomal cytochromes P450 (CYPs) with other proteins in the microsomal membrane are important for their function. In addition to their redox partners, CYPs have been reported to interact with other proteins not directly involved in their enzymatic function. In this study, proteins were identified that interact with CYP2C2 in vivo in mouse liver. Flag-tagged CYP2C2 was expressed exogenously in mouse liver and was affinity purified, along with associated proteins which were identified by MS and confirmed by Western blotting. Over 20 proteins reproducibly copurified with CYP2C2. The heterogeneous sedimentation velocity of CYP2C2 and associated proteins by centrifugation in …

Temporal And Spatial Variability In Culturable Pathogenic Vibrio Spp. In Lake Pontchartrain, Louisiana, Following Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, Olivia D. Nigro, Aixin Hou, Gayatri Vithanage, Roger S. Fujioka, Grieg F. Steward

Faculty Publications

We investigated the abundance, distribution, and virulence gene content of Vibrio cholerae, V. parahaemolyticus, and V. vulnificus in the waters of southern Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana on four occasions from October 2005 to September 2006, using selective cultivation and molecular assays. The three targeted pathogenic vibrios were generally below the detection level in January 2006, when the water was cold (13°C), and most abundant in September 2006, when the lake water was warmest (30°C). The maximum values for these species were higher than reported previously for the lake by severalfold to orders of magnitude. The only variable consistently correlated with …

Some Low Homogenization Pressures Improve Certain Probiotic Characteristics Of Yogurt Culture Bacteria And Lactobacillus Acidophilus La-K1, T. Muramalla, K. J. Aryana

Faculty Publications

Lactobacillus delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus, Streptococcus salivarius ssp. thermophilus, and Lactobacillus acidophilus are dairy cultures widely used in the manufacture of cultured dairy products. Commonly used homogenization pressures in the dairy industry are 13.80 MPa or less. It is not known whether low homogenization pressures can stimulate bacteria to improve their probiotic characteristics. Objectives were to determine the effect of homogenization at 0, 3.45, 6.90, 10.34, and 13.80 MPa on acid tolerance, bile tolerance, protease activity, and growth of L. delbrueckii ssp. bulgaricus LB-12, S. salivarius ssp. thermophilus ST-M5, and L. acidophilus LA-K. The cultures were individually inoculated in cool autoclaved …

Genetic Architecture Of Aluminum Tolerance In Rice (Oryza Sativa) Determined Through Genome-Wide Association Analysis And Qtl Mapping, Adam N. Famoso, Keyan Zhao, Randy T. Clark, Chih Wei Tung, Mark H. Wright, Carlos Bustamante, Leon V. Kochian, Susan R. Mccouch

Faculty Publications

Aluminum (Al) toxicity is a primary limitation to crop productivity on acid soils, and rice has been demonstrated to be significantly more Al tolerant than other cereal crops. However, the mechanisms of rice Al tolerance are largely unknown, and no genes underlying natural variation have been reported. We screened 383 diverse rice accessions, conducted a genome-wide association (GWA) study, and conducted QTL mapping in two bi-parental populations using three estimates of Al tolerance based on root growth. Subpopulation structure explained 57% of the phenotypic variation, and the mean Al tolerance in Japonica was twice that of Indica. Forty-eight regions associated …

Infrared Laser Ablation Sample Transfer For Maldi And Electrospray, Sung Gun Park, Kermit King Murray

Faculty Publications

We have used an infrared laser to ablate materials under ambient conditions that were captured in solvent droplets. The droplets were either deposited on a MALDI target for off-line analysis by MALDI time-of-flight mass spectrometry or flow-injected into a nanoelectrospray source of an ion trap mass spectrometer. An infrared optical parametric oscillator (OPO) laser system at 2.94 μm wavelength and approximately 1 mJ pulse energy was focused onto samples for ablation at atmospheric pressure. The ablated material was captured in a solvent droplet 1-2 mm in diameter that was suspended from a silica capillary a few millimeters above the sample …

Strong Ties And Strong Influences: Social Networks And Hiv Prevention, Nicole M. Wengerd

Master's Theses - Sociology and Anthropology

This research builds on the social-oriented literature of HIV-risk behaviors in Gondar, Ethiopia by investigating influential social networks and why individuals would deviate from the norms established by their community.

Factors In Seventh Grade Academics Associated With Performance Levels On The Tenth Grade Biology End Of Course Test In Selected Middle And High Schools In Northwest Georgia, Jennifer Henry Ward

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study attempted to identify factors in seventh grade academics that are associated with overall success in tenth grade biology. The study addressed the following research questions: Are there significant differences in performance levels in seventh grade Criterion Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) scores in science, math, reading, and language arts associated with performance categories in tenth grade biology End of Course Test (EOCT) and the following demographic variables : gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability category, and English language proficiency level? Is there a relationship among the categorical variables on the tenth grade biology EOCT and the same five demographic variables? …

A Som+ Diagnostic System For Network Intrusion Detection, Chester Louis Langin

Dissertations

This research created a new theoretical Soft Computing (SC) hybridized network intrusion detection diagnostic system including complex hybridization of a 3D full color Self-Organizing Map (SOM), Artificial Immune System Danger Theory (AISDT), and a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). This SOM+ diagnostic archetype includes newly defined intrusion types to facilitate diagnostic analysis, a descriptive computational model, and an Invisible Mobile Network Bridge (IMNB) to collect data, while maintaining compatibility with traditional packet analysis. This system is modular, multitaskable, scalable, intuitive, adaptable to quickly changing scenarios, and uses relatively few resources.

Influence Of Teacher-Student Interactions On Kindergarten Children’S Developing Gender Identity Within The Pakistani Urban Classroom Culture, Almina Pardhan

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

In the current global push to explore the diverse and complex ways in which the school culture contributes to the shaping of young children's gender identity, early childhood teachers’ role in this process is an area of concern which has received limited attention. Furthermore, the schooling experiences of early years children in developing world contexts such as Pakistan remain largely absent. As such, this article discusses findings from a study investigating the role of women teachers’ practice in the construction of children's gender identities in the kindergarten classroom culture of one urban co‐education school in the highly gender‐segregated Pakistani context. …

Books For Laughing Out Loud, Barbara A. Ward, Terrell A. Young

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

While there are many moments in life that call for somberness and even prompt us to pause and reflect, there are also moments in which we simply celebrate the joy of being alive and savor the funny side of our days. Writer Mark Twain, an authority on what makes us laugh, once stated, “humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.” Humor and laughter certainly add to life’s pleasures, and sometimes it is a good idea not to take life or ourselves so seriously. Certainly, when it comes to humorous books, young readers cannot get enough of them. Teachers looking for a way …

Why Don’T You Understand?, Susan E. Murray

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

Atkins Wins Alumni Award For Excellence In Education, Samantha Snively

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

Best Organization Hosts First Research Symposium, Samantha Snively

Lake Union Herald

No abstract provided.

A Study Of Factors Related To Success For Nontraditional Versus Traditional Aged Students At A Public Urban Community College, Megan Mccormick

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Non-traditional students encounter many obstacles in attending college and earning a degree. Many of these obstacles, including work, family, and financial responsibilities have been shown to hinder older students’ academic success as well as their campus involvement. The purpose of this study was to determine whether there was a difference using a number of factors that relate to the success of non-traditional and traditional aged students at the Community College of Allegheny County, Boyce Campus. Success was determined by a number of factors including (a) whether a student has formally declared a major; (b) their grade point average; (c) their …

Factors Affecting School Administrators Decision To Join And Maintain Membership In A Professional Association, Kelly K. Coash-Johnson

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This paper explored factors that influence school administrator’s decision to join and maintain membership in a professional association. In addition, factors that influence school administrator’s decision not to join a professional association was also explored. The research showed the relationship between, age, gender, dues payment, attitude and importance of benefits. Results from this study will be significant to recruitment and retention for professional educational associations such as the Nebraska Council of School Administrators (NCSA). In addition, information gathered from open-ended questions as well as other survey questions from both members and non-members helped the researcher determine other challenges that have …

Pathways To Sexual Risk Taking Among Female Adolescent Detainees, Vera Lopez, Albert M. Kopak, Alyssa G. Robillard, Mary Rogers Gillmore, Rhonda Conerly Holliday, Ronald L. Braithwaite

Faculty Publications

Sexual risk taking among female delinquents represents a significant public health problem. Research is needed to understand the pathways leading to sexual risk taking among this population. This study sought to address this issue by identifying and testing two pathways from child maltreatment to non-condom use among 329 White and 484 African American female adolescent detainees: a relational pathway and a substance use coping pathway. The relational pathway indicated that child maltreatment would be related to non-condom use via depressive self-concept and condom use self-efficacy. The substance use coping pathway suggested that depressive self-concept and alcohol-based expectancies for sexual enhancement …

Classification For Mass Spectra And Comprehensive Two-Dimensional Chromatograms, Xue Tian

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Mass spectra contain characteristic information regarding the molecular structure and properties of compounds. The mass spectra of compounds from the same chemically related group are similar. Classification is one of the fundamental methodologies for analyzing mass spectral data. The primary goals of classification are to automatically group compounds based on their mass spectra, to find correlation between the properties of compounds and their mass spectra, and to provide a positive identification of unknown compounds.

This dissertation presents a new algorithm for the classification of mass spectra, the most similar neighbor with a probability-based spectrum similarity measure (MSN-PSSM). Experimental results demonstrate …

Non-Suicidal Self-Injury In The Transgender Community, Lore M. Dickey

Theses and Dissertations

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) has been increasing in clinical as well as non- clinical populations in recent years. There are few published reports of the investigation of this behavior in the transgender community. An online and paper and pencil survey was administered to transgender individuals over the course of six months. A total 977 people responded to the survey. Results indicated that 41.8 percent of the participants have a history of engaging in non-suicidal self-injury. Self-injury rates were significantly higher among female-to-male (FTM) participants than among male-to-female (MTF) participants. Further, individuals who have been prevented from transitioning were more likely to …

Factors Predicting Exercise Behavior Of Graduate Students, Bibha Gautam

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate school is often experienced as a time of increased demands/expectations resulting in heightened levels of stress due to academic work, family responsibilities, job demands, financial pressure, and other life related issues. Besides stress, graduate school also brings about significant physical inactivity due to the shift of the immediate priority to academic accomplishment. Reports of increasing prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among students highlight that this group may have particular risk not well-identified. Yet, relative risk can be reduced by lifestyle modifications, such as eating well, exercising, and stress reduction. The majority of the risk factors, to a …

Stress Response In Confined Arrays Of Frictional And Frictionless Particles, Abdullah Cakir, Leo Silbert

Publications

Stress transmission inside three-dimensional granular packings is investigated using computer simulations. Localized force perturbation techniques are implemented for frictionless and frictional shallow, ordered, granular arrays confined by solid boundaries for a range of system sizes. Stress response profiles for frictional packings agree well with the predictions for the semi-infinite half-plane of classical isotropic elasticity theory down to boxes of linear dimensions of approximately forty particle diameters and over several orders of magnitude in the applied force. The response profiles for frictionless packings exhibit a regime of transition to strongly anisotropic features with increasing box size. The differences between the natures …

Poe's Women : A Male Obsession With Fear, Richard R. Carpenter

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

While it is clear that women play an important role in many of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, in many of his stories that center around women, more specifically, “Morelia,” “Ligeia,” Berenice,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe, through his male protagonists, is conflicted over their characterization. On the one hand, these women are presented as extraordinarily powerful, which is manifested in either their intellectual or sexual dominance over their male counterparts. On the other, it is this dominance for which they are destroyed. In these tales the women must ultimately die—But why? In the case …

Randic And Sum Connectivity Indices Of Certain Trees, Jennifer L. Feiner

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The focus of this thesis is on new development of the Randic and Sum Connec­tivity Indices of certain molecular and symmetric trees representing acyclic alkanes, or aliphatic hydrocarbons. The Randic Connectivity Index is one of the most used molecular descriptors in Quantitative Structure-Property and Structure-Activity Relationship modeling because of the relation that the isomers have between their properties and their structure. The structure-boiling point relationship models of aliphatic alcohols have been studied using the Sum Connectivity Index and compared to the Randic Connectivity Index. A specific type of tree T_n,a, well-known in graph theory as a double star, …

Preparation And X-Ray Crystallographic Studies Of Copper N-Methylimidazole Complexes With Substituted N-Phthaloylalaninato Ligands, Mohit Singhal

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Quasiracemates contain two molecules (or ions) of opposite handedness, in which one enantiomer has a substitution of a chemically different, but similarly shaped group. Metal based complexes that are enantiomeric, racemic and quasiracemic were synthesized. Racemic metal compounds are synthesized from equimolar concenteration of chemically identical ligands having both handedness (R and S). Quasiracemic metal complexes were synthesized from two stercially similar, but chemically different ligands, and these complexes tend to mimic the centrosymmetric pattern in racemic metal complexes. This project was begun by previous master’s student, Hiral Patel, to study the crystal packing of metal based quasiracemic complexes, and …

Mathematical Methods For Biosensor Models, Qi Wang

Doctoral

A biosensor is defined as a compact analytical device incorporating a biological sensing element integrated within a physico-chemical transducer whose aim is to produce optical or electronic signals proportional to the concentration of an analyte in a sample. Biosensors offer enormous potential to detect a wide range of analytes in health care, the food industry, environmental monitoring, security and defence. The beneficial impact on society as a result of the availability of such systems is immense, therefore investigating any strategy that could reduce development times and costs and reveal alternative designs is of utmost importance. In particular, mathematical modelling and …

Indian Ocean Territories Aquaculture Development Plan : The Cocos (Keeling) Islands And Christmas Island, Department Of Fisheries

Fisheries Occasional Publications

No abstract provided.

"Who Is My Mother?": Family, Nation, Discipleship, And Debates On Immigration, Michael L. Budde

Journal of Scriptural Reasoning

No abstract provided.

Warnings And Disclosures, J. Craig Andrews

Marketing Faculty Research and Publications

This chapter reviews nearly six decades of research on warnings and disclosures, including common misperceptions and their importance to public health policy, and offers an answer to the key question, “Do warnings and disclosures really work?” Supporting theory and research applications are discussed.