Digital Commons Network^™

Activity Of Analogs Of Anticancer Drugs On The Serine Protease Enzymes Subtilisin And Chymotrypsin, Dhatri Ravipati

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The anticancer activity of several platinum compounds is due to the formation of complexes with DNA. We hypothesize that the size and shape of the platinum compounds would impact interaction with proteins, and these interactions may be partly responsible for the anticancer activity. Chymotrypsin and subtilisin are serine proteases that have a histidine residue in the active site. We are investigating the inhibition of the digestive enzymes chymotrypsin and subtilisin by analogs of the anticancer drug cisplatin and trying to discern trends in the inhibition as the active site residues vary. In our research, we found that the enzyme subtilisin …

Assessment Of Surface Transportation Security Training Needs And Delivery Preferences, Karen W. Lowrie, Judy A. Shaw, Michael R. Greenberg

Journal of Public Transportation

America’s surface transportation system features long and inter-connected routes and open access to stations and vehicles, making the system vulnerable to terrorist attack. While a variety of security-related training products exist for the transportation sector, government and other reports have called for improvements in the transportation security training curriculum in terms of quality and consistency. At the same time, tight economic times have left few extra financial resources available for systems to deliver adequate training to employees. This study assessed the needs for additional security training through focus groups and interviews with representatives of major surface transportation stakeholders and agencies. …

Observations Of Brachygnathia Superior (Underbite) In Wild Ruminates In Western Montana, Usa, J. A. Hoy, G. T. Haas, R. D. Hoy, Pamela Hallock

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Since spring of 1995 developmental malformations have been observed on many species of vertebrates. The most frequently observed of a range of skeletal anomalies is brachygnathia superior, also called mandibular prognathia, resulting from underdevelopment in length and width of the premaxillary bone forward of the upper premolars on ruminant species. To quantify these observations, facial anatomy was examined for bone and dental malformations on 1061 white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) that were accident-killed or died of natural causes between January 1996 and December 2010 in northern Ravalli County in the Bitterroot Valley of west-central, Montana, USA. Observations of brachygnathia …

Front Matter, The Texas Ornithological Society

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Late Summer Dietary Survey Of Scaled Quail (Callipepla Squamata), Jeff H. Bardwell, Christopher M. Ritzi, Scott P. Lerich, Alan M. Fedynich

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

This survey examines late summer dietary habits of a Scaled Quail (Callipepla squamata) population from Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Brewster County, Texas in 2002. Quail crop contents were quantified by frequency of occurrence and volumetric abundance. Results mirror summer and fall diet trends in the literature based on Scaled Quail populations in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Two age classes were examined (juvenile and adult) and between areas with and without spread dams. Newly documented genera included Amsinckia, Iva, and Stellari, while Opuntia was conspicuously absent. Food items of highest consumption based on volumetric abundance were Acalypha …

Dove Density In The Rio Grande Delta: 2007-2008, Michael F. Small, Margaret L. Collins, John T. Baccus, Jared B. Timmons

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

We used a grid sampling method to estimate Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) and White-winged Dove (Z. asiatica) densities in south Texas via distance sampling. We sampled over summers in 2007 and 2008 and calculated mean estimated density across years as well. Time (between years) did not affect density estimates for Mourning Doves but was significantly different for White-winged Doves. Species’ distribution and a separate banding study suggest a possible reason for the difference between years in White-winged Dove density estimates.

Influence Of Invasive Tanglehead Grass On Northern Bobwhite Nesting And Habitat Use In South Texas, Michael C. Buelow, Leonard A. Brennan, Fidel Hernández, Timothy E. Fulbright

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

Tanglehead grass (Heteropogon contortus; hereafter tanglehead) has historically occurred in small, isolated patches across south Texas. During the past 10–15 years, however, tanglehead has undergone a rapid expansion in south Texas similar to the spread of other introduced exotic grasses. Tanglehead can form extensive and exceptionally dense stands of grass that may result in reduced usable habitat space for the Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus; hereafter bobwhite) in south Texas. Our objectives were to assess how the presence of vast and dense areas of tanglehead influenced nesting and general habitat use by bobwhites on south Texas rangelands. We monitored bobwhite nesting …

Use Of Urban Bird Feeders By White-Winged Doves And Great-Tailed Grackles In Texas, Alayne B. Fronimos, John T. Baccus, Michael F. Small, Joseph A. Veech

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

As White-winged Doves (Zenaida asiatica) and Great-tailed Grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) expanded their range northward, these species have shown an increased affinity for urban areas, perhaps because of a constant supply of anthropogenic food sources. We compared use of bird feeders by both of these species to established avian species in urban central Texas. We used 15 feeding stations in San Marcos and 15 in San Antonio. We digitally recorded interaction events for half-hour intervals in summer 2009 and winter 2010. We used recordings to calculate total time spent by each species at each feeding station, count the number of aggressive …

Colonial Waterbird Survey, Brent Ortego, Marc Ealy, Greg Creacy, Larry Lebeau

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) staff and volunteers conducted ground and air surveys of inland colonial waterbird nest sites at 584 locations in Texas from 1973 through 2004. There was an average of 472,466 nesting pairs sighted per year at all colonies. Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis), Little Blue Heron (Egretta caerulea), Snowy Egret (Egretta thula) and Great Egret (Ardea alba) were the most abundant species. The Oaks and Prairie Bird Conservation Region (BCR 21) had the most colonies with 171 and 269,210 nesting pairs. The total for the average densities for each colony from ground surveys from 1981-1990 in …

Habitat Use By Great-Tailed Grackles (Quiscalus Mexicanus) In Urban And Peri-Urban Habitats Of San Marcos, Hays County, Texas, Corey M. King, Thomas R. Simpson, John T. Baccus, M. Clay Green

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

Great-tailed Grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) are habitat generalists occupying a wide variety of environments except dense forests and prairies lacking nearby water sources. Golf courses, campuses, lawns, parks, and avenue rights-of-way are inhabited in urban and suburban areas. However, examination of seasonal use of habitats in urban environments is limited. We documented seasonal use of urban and peri-urban habitats in San Marcos, Hays County, Texas. We compared habitat use by program Presence to apply the best fit model explaining occupancy within habitats. Principal components analysis suggested differences in woody vegetation among study sites. The best fit model incorporated occupancy, colonization, and …

Cassin’S Sparrows Nesting On The Southern High Plains Of Texas, Warren C. Conway, Eileen Johnson

Bulletin of the Texas Ornithological Society

We monitored 15 Cassin’s Sparrow (Peucaea cassini) nests in two mesquite (Prosopis spp.) dominated grassland sites on the Southern High Plains of Texas during 2001. Mayfield daily survival rate was 0.942 ± 0.194 (30% nest success) and two unsuccessful nests were parasitized by Brown-headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater). Although constrained by few nests in this study, we report a comparatively higher parasitism frequency (13%) and lower nest success than other regional (Texas) studies, but overall parasitism frequency in this study mirrors rates reported throughout the geographic range. The impacts of parasitism on Cassin’s Sparrow populations remain unknown. Future studies focusing upon …

The Texas Caver, Volume 57, No. 4, October - December 2011, Mark Alman

The Texas Caver

Contents: Assembling and Adjusting Vertical (Frogging) Gear - Gruta Escondida de Tara— - Return to the Deep— - Robber Baron Hosts Biggest Open House Yet! - NSS Board of Governors meeting in Houston, TX, October 21 – 23, 2011 - A Whole Lotta Longhorn! - Hutto’s Sinkhole (Satellite Sink) Trip Report - The Chuck Stuehm Award Winners and TCR Wrap-Up

Domestic Relations, Barry B. Mcgough, Elinor H. Hitt

Mercer Law Review

This survey period' saw continued evolution of domestic relations law.2 Legislation passed during the 2010 and 2011 Regular Session of the Georgia General Assembly took effect during this survey period, and the Georgia Supreme Court continued to accept nonfrivolous appeals in divorce cases, which provide guidance to those interested in domestic relations law.

Who And Where To Punish In A Criminally Loaded Conflict Of Northern Uganda: A Dilemmatic Juxtaposition Of Forms Of Juxtaposition Of Forms Of Justice In The Northern Uganda Conflict, Nathan Muwereza

African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies

Much has been said about the conflict in northern Uganda, a civil conflict that has caused untold suffering in Uganda and the general Great Lakes region of Africa. However, little is made concrete and precisely analysed about how applicable or whether different forms of justice can be used to construct and reconstruct social order in the region. In this article, some of the varied literature is contextualized within victims’ perceptions in northern Uganda. It links such perceptions to the choice of forms and approaches to justice and the implications and/or potential for outbreak of latent conflicts. Using inferences from field …

Corporate Office Employee Analysis: Transformation From Closed Office Layout To Open Floor Plan Environment, Stephanie J. Fanger

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

The office workplace within the United States has undergone monumental changes in the past century. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has cited that Americans spend an average of 90 percent of their time indoors. As human beings can often spend a majority of the hours in the day at their workplace, more so than their home, it is important to understand the effects of the built environment on the American office employee. In order to stay current with modern times, General Dynamics, a corporation located in Scottsdale, Arizona implemented a renovation of interior space. This thesis examines the transformation from …

Hexapod Herald - Vol. 23, No. 6, December 2011

Hexapod Herald and Other Entomology Department Newsletters

Welcome

Congratulations

Grants

Meet and Off Campus Student

This N' That

Faculty News

Student News

Blast from the Past

Travel

Herpetofaunal Diversity At Yankee Hill State Lake And Wildlife Management Area, Lancaster County, Nebraska, Shelby Klima

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

A survey for amphibians and reptiles was conducted in March through October 2011 at Yankee Hill Wildlife Management Area in Lancaster County, Nebraska. The survey was conducted using several different techniques including: visual and auditory encounters, artificial and natural cover objects, aquatic trappings and road surveys. A total of 145 individuals representing 12 species were identified including seven reptiles and five amphibians. A total of 48% of the species that may potentially occur on the site were encountered, all of which are common, widely distributed generalist species. Neither Graham’s Crayfish Snake nor the Massasauga, both target species for this survey, …

Pseudokarst Commission Newsletter, No. 22, December 2011, Jan Urban

Pseudokarst Commission Newsletter

Contents: Terminology and Genetic Types of Boulder Caves -- New Study on the Abrasion Caves near Auckland (New Zealand) -- Root Stalagmite Discovery No. 4 in Austria -- Karst and Pseudokarst at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, USA -- Second International Conference on Granite Caves, Sweden, 2011 -- Good News! -- 12th International Symposium on Pseudokarst, 11-14 September 2012, Tui, Galicia, Spain -- Sandstone Landscapes III, 25-28 April 2012, Stolowe Mountains National Park, Kudowa Zdroj, Poland -- Karl Mais, 1940-2012 -- Editorial Note

Heterogeneous Rates Of Molecular Evolution Among Cryptic Species Of The Ciliate Morphospecies Chilodonella Uncinata, Laura A. Katz, Jennifer Deberardinis, Meaghan S. Hall, Alexandra M. Kovner, Micah Dunthorn, Spencer V. Muse

Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

While molecular analyses have provided insight into the phylogeny of ciliates, the few studies assessing intraspecific variation have largely relied on just a single locus [e.g., nuclear small subunit rDNA (nSSUrDNA) or mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I]. In this study, we characterize the diversity of several nuclear protein-coding genes plus both nSSU-rDNA and mitochondrial small subunit rDNA (mtSSU-rDNA) of five isolates of the ciliate morphospecies Chilodonella uncinata. Although these isolates have nearly identical nSSU-rDNA sequences, they differ by up to 8.0% in mtSSU-rDNA. Comparative analyses of all loci, including b-tubulin paralogs, indicate a lack of recombination between strains, demonstrating that the …

Assessment Of Corrosion Potential Of Coarse Backfill Aggregates For Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls, Anita Thapalia, David M. Borrok, Soheil Nazarian, Jose Garibay

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The service life of mechanically stabilized earth walls depends on the rate of corrosion of the metallic reinforcements used in their construction. The assessment of corrosion potential requires an accurate evaluation of pH, resistivity, and sulfate and chloride concentrations of aqueous solutions in contact with the surrounding aggregate. Highway agencies tend to use larger aggregates that contain only a small amount of fine material (passing the Number 40 sieve) in the backfill. Evaluation of the electrochemical parameters of coarse aggregates is challenging because traditional evaluation methods call for the use of fine material. In this study, the suitability of traditional …

Cplop - Cal Poly's Library Of Pyroprints, Kevin Webb

Computer Engineering

California Polytechnic Library of Pyroprints, CPLOP, is a web driven data-base application that stores data from the biology’s departments E. coli Pyrosequencing project. Some of this data was stored in Excel datasheets, while data from the pyrosequencing machines was stored as just a list of random .xml files. There was no useful way to organize and store the massive amounts of data from multiple file sources in one location, nor to perform the complicated searches and comparisons that the project requires. CPLOP’s primary goal is to store such data in three organized tables that relate to one another. It was …

Physical And Electrical Properties Of Trimetallic Nitride Template Endohedral Metallofullerenes And Their Polymer Nanocomposites, Hanaa Mohammed Ahmed

Dissertations

The main objective of this study was characterization of pure metallic nitride fullerene, MNF, and MNF containing polymers to evaluate these materials as suitable devices for tunable applications. Polymer-fullerene nanocomposites consisting of linear polyurethane (PU) segments crosslinked via polyhydroxylated fullerenes (C₆₀ and Sc₃N@C₈₀, a metallic nitride fullerene) were prepared and characterized for their mechanical and dielectric properties using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and broadband dielectric spectroscopic techniques. Polyhydroxylated fullerenes C₆₀(OH)₂₉ and Sc₃N@C₈₀(OH)₁₈ were synthesized in a high yield through a solid-state high sheer ball-milling procedure and were …

Restoring Salt Marsh And Functions To Newly Acquired Shoreline In North Mill Pond, Portsmouth, David M. Burdick

PREP Reports & Publications

A berm of construction debris used to fill salt marsh and steepen the shoreline along North Mill Pond many decades ago was removed in 2010 after the land was deeded to the City. Removal of the berm reestablished regular tidal flooding to over 2,400 ft2 of tidal marsh. From 2009 to 2011, the fifth grade classes at New Franklin School learned about the project and planted mussels, shrubs and marsh plants at the site. Plant survival was excellent in the low marsh (94%) and good in the high marsh (77%). By September 2011 (Year Two) plant cover increased to 42% …

Testing Hypotheses Of The Demographic Transition In San Borja, Bolivia, Kristin Snopkowski

Anthropology ETDs

Understanding the demographic transition, a trend in which fertility drops after a period of population growth, has been an important area of anthropological and demographic research. This dissertation seeks to understand fertility change by testing five models that have been presented in the literature. The predictions that are unique to each hypothesis are tested in San Borja, Bolivia, a community currently undergoing a fertility transition. Low modern fertility seems counter-intuitive given the increase of individual wealth, but there have not been sufficient tests to lead to an understanding of why this occurs. Informational hypotheses explain fertility transition as a change …

Functional Analysis Of Poliovirus Protein 2catpase In Viral Rna Replication And Encapsidation Using Alanine Scanning Mutagenesis, Chunling Wang

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

Polypeptide 2CATPase is one of the most thoroughly studied but least understood proteins in the life cycle of poliovirus. Within the protein, multiple functional domains, important for uncoating, host cell membrane alterations, RNA replication and encapsidation have previously been identified. In this study, charged to alanine scanning mutagenesis was used to generate conditional-lethal mutations in hitherto uncharacterized domains of the 2CATPase polypeptide, particularly those possibly involved in morphogenesis. Adjacent or clustered charged amino acids (2-4), scattered along the 2CATPase coding sequence, were replaced with alanines. RNA transcripts of mutant poliovirus cDNA clones were transfected into HeLa cells. Subsequently, ten lethal, …

Synthesis Of Disulfide Iron Complexes, Jung-Chu Tsai

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

Iron sulfur proteins are the most commonly known proteins in all living organisms. The active sites of some iron sulfur protein are clusters that are the polynuclear combinations of iron and sulfur atoms. Iron-sulfur clusters perform various biochemical abilities, for example, electron transfer. Iron-sulfur clusters can also act as redox and non-redox catalysts. Creating model metal centers which mimic the electronic configuration of the active sites and the interaction between proteins is still an issue today. We decided to design simple and benzene thiols that imitate the side arm of cysteine (-CH₂-SH-). Therefore, we developed the H_{3 …}

Slaves, Trains, And Missionaries: British Moral Imperialism And The Development Of Precolonial East Africa, 1873-1901, Daniel Woulfin

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

This dissertation explores the role of moral imperialism in the late nineteenth century expansion of the British Empire using East Africa as a case study. Moral imperialism, the ideology that argued that the British had a moral duty to "civilize, "Christianize, "uplift, and economically "develop" non-Europeans and their territories, has not been taken as seriously by historians as other factors for British expansion, namely economic arguments and strategic geopolitics by British officials. By applying Alan Lester's model of three categories of colonial discourse in nineteenth century South Africa: governmentality, humanitarianism, and settler capitalism to East Africa between 1873 and 1901, …

Multiple Dna Binding Domains Mediate The Function Of Ercc1-Xpf In Nucleotide Excision Repair And Interstrand Crosslink Repair, Yan Su

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

Structure-specific endonucleases are widespread enzymes that incise phosphodiester bonds in DNA and play key roles in DNA transactions including the maintenance of genome stability. One such enzyme is ERCC1-XPF, which cleaves single-stranded/double-stranded DNA junctions, and is involved in nucleotide excision repair (NER), interstrand crosslink (ICL) repair, homologous recombination, and other pathways. Defects in ERCC1-XPF lead to several hereditary diseases, like xeroderma pigmentosum, XFE progeroid syndrome, cranio-occulo-facio-skeletal syndrome, and Fanconi anemia. In NER, ERCC1-XPF is recruited to DNA lesions by interaction with XPA and incises the DNA 5' to the lesion. In this dissertation, the roles of the four C-terminal DNA …

Minutes Of Board Of Directors 2011 Fall Meeting, Cyndi Routledge

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Clemson Commencement Program, December 2011, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.