Digital Commons Network^™

Regulation Of Dimerization And Activation Of The Thrombopoietin Receptor, Miki Itaya

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

The thrombopoietin receptor (TpoR) is an indispensable receptor that regulates megakaryocytopoiesis and platelet formation in response to its ligand, thrombopoietin (Tpo). Mutations in TpoR result in an increased or decreased number of platelets, leading to various platelet disorders, such as essential thrombocythemia (ET) and primary myelofibrosis (PMF). Most of the clinically relevant mutations of TpoR are found in the transmembrane (TM) domain and juxtamembrane (JM) region of the receptor, suggesting that the TM-JM region may play a critical role in regulation of TpoR activity. However, the precise molecular mechanism by which this region affects the TpoR conformation and the resultant …

Stereocontrolled Synthesis Of Bicyclo[4.2.0]Octadienes For Snf 4435 C And D Analogs, Bielschowskysin, And (+/-)-Kingianin A, Keunsoo Kim

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

Despite a growing interest in biological activities of natural products that contain the bicyclo[4.2.0]octadiene ring system such as SNF 4435 C and SNF 4435 D, an asymmetric version of 8??, 6?? electrocyclization has remained unattained. While investigating (2E,4Z,6Z,8E)-tetraene substrates bearing amide- or oxazoline-based chiral auxiliaries, a rationally designed chiral 4,5-trans-diphenyl oxazoline auxiliary provided an impressive stereoselectivity (70 de%) in the 8?? ring closure. Confirmation of the major isomer from the diastereomeric bicyclooctadienes was determined based on X-ray structure analysis of a SNF analog bearing (S)-phenylglycinol moiety. This first example of chiral induction generated by the trans-4,5-diphenyl oxazoline auxiliary in 8?? …

Quantitative Computational And Biophysical Investigation Of Multivalent Proteins, Vadim Patsalo

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

The valency of a biological molecule is the number of interactions that it is able to make with other molecules. Multivalency arises in proteins which oligomerize or contain tandem repeats, and commonly involves the binding of carbohydrates. Biological processes which rely on multivalency include surface interactions (e.g. virus-cell adhesion and cell-cell binding) or de-mixing phenomena. The energetics of multivalent interactions can be significantly enhanced relative to their monovalent counterparts, and numerous multivalent inhibitors of viral infection have been identified. In this dissertation, we present computational and biophysical investigations of several multivalent proteins related to human viral pathogens. The bivalent lectin …

Human Disturbance And Birds Of The Northeast: What Makes Some Species Decline, While Others Are Just Fine?, Leone Marion Brown

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

Mounting evidence reveals the negative impacts of human activities on wildlife populations. However, studies investigating species' responses to human disturbance often rely on patterns of species' richness or abundance, and may not reflect underlying demographic processes. Is there evidence across geographic regions that humans are causing marked changes in species' survival, reproduction, and population growth? Do species' traits influence vulnerability? Can existing theories of ecology serve to predict or explain observable responses to human disturbance? I examined evidence of effects of human disturbance on populations of 24 breeding bird species across the northeastern United States. Based on reported literature and …

Inhibition Of Mammalian T Cells By Salmonella Enterica Serovar Typhimurium, Amy Laura Kullas

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

Bacterial pathogens must avoid clearance by the immune system to establish infection, yet many processes of bacterial immune subversion remain undefined. T cells are a key component of the mammalian immune system and are required for protective immunity against many bacterial pathogens. Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium avoid clearance by the host immune system by suppressing T cell responses, yet the mechanisms mediating this immunosuppression are still unknown. We show that S. Typhimurium inhibit T cell responses by producing L-asparaginase II, which catalyzes the hydrolysis of L-asparagine to aspartic acid and ammonia. L-asparaginase II is necessary and sufficient to suppress T …

How Does Climate Influence Speciation: Theoretical And Empirical Perspectives, Xia Hua

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

Many people are now familiar with the idea that climate change can cause extinction. Here, I show how climate change may also lead to the origin of new species. I explore two major aspects of how climate influences speciation. First, variation in climatic conditions over space and time can be a direct driver of speciation, via two mechanisms. Climate may drive allopatric speciation when a geographic barrier that consists of suboptimal climatic conditions for a species divides the species range and climatic niche conservatism of the species limits its adaptation to the climatic conditions, preventing gene flow between the two …

Assessing The Nutritional Health Outcomes Of African American Women With Hiv And Substance Abuse Disorders Using A Socioecological Approach, Meena Mahadevan, John Ruzsilla

Department of Nutrition and Food Studies Scholarship and Creative Works

It is well established that poor nutritional status leaves HIV-positive substance abusers especially vulnerable to an increased risk of opportunistic infections and other illnesses. Socioecological frameworks have been useful for identifying multiple influences on health risks, leading to the development and evaluation of promising community-based interventions for diseases such as cancer and diabetes. This article presents a conceptual model, based on the socioecological approach, to examine the mechanisms and pathways by which the various contextual factors unique to HIV-positive African American women with substance abuse disorders intersect to impact their nutritional health outcomes. The mediating effects of the interpersonal, environmental, …

Gender Role Personalities And Physical Attractiveness, Laura Bailly

HIM 1990-2015

The purpose of the current study was to explore whether personality dispositions can influence perceived physical appearance. Past research demonstrates that gendered and non-gendered characteristics lead to differential preferences for potential romantic interests among males and females (e.g., Cash & Smith, 1982). These previous studies have not, however, measured direct influence on pulchritude. In the present study, gendered and non-gendered personality descriptions were paired with pictures of average-looking individuals of both sexes to determine the influence of gender roles on perceived physical attractiveness. I hypothesized that males would find androgynous females more physically attractive than gender-typed and non-gender typed females. …

Life History Of The Southern Kingfish, Menticirrhus Americanus, From The North-Central Gulf Of Mexico, Samuel Dee Clardy

Master's Theses

Southern kingfish, Menticirrhus americanus, is a common sciaenid along the north-central Gulf of Mexico (GOM), but annual harvest has declined over the last decade. Little is known about the life history of southern kingfish in the north-central GOM, and thus the objectives of this study are to establish the spawning season, spawning frequency, fecundity, sex ratio, female size at 50% maturity, age, and standard morphometrics. Specimens were collected using hook and line in several locations within the Mississippi Sound. A total of 519 southern kingfish (434 females, 85 males) were captured from April 2008 through May 2009 by hook …

The Last Phase Of The South Sea Slave Trade: Jack London's Adventure, Philip Castille

Pacific Studies

This paper explores Jack London's failed 1907–08 South Pacific voyage aboard the Snark as a crucible for physical collapse, racial ideology, and literary production. Once a symbol of Anglo-Saxon strength, London suffered debilitating illness and personal humiliation in Melanesia, experiences that destabilized his self-concept and white supremacist beliefs. Despite abandoning his global journey, London produced significant nonfiction and fiction, most notably his 1911 novel Adventure. Drawing from his time in the Solomon Islands, the novel channels his physical and ideological decline into a narrative of colonial dominance, racial hierarchy, and survival. While Adventure adheres to Edwardian tropes of racial …

Pacific Studies Vol. 35, No. 3 - December 2012 Full Issue

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Long-Term Integrated Studies Show Complex And Surprising Effects Of Climate Change In The Northern Hardwood Forest, Peter M. Groffman, Charles T. Driscoll, Chris E. Johnson, Lindsey E. Rustad, Pamela H. Templer

Civil and Environmental Engineering - All Scholarship

Evaluations of the local effects of global change are often confounded by the interactions of natural and anthropogenic factors that overshadow the effects of climate changes on ecosystems. Long-term watershed and natural elevation gradient studies at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest and in the surrounding region show surprising results demonstrating the effects of climate change on hydrologic variables (e.g., evapotranspiration, streamflow, soil moisture); the importance of changes in phenology on water, carbon, and nitrogen fluxes during critical seasonal transition periods; winter climate change effects on plant and animal community composition and ecosystem services; and the effects of anthropogenic disturbances and …

Winter Microhabitat Foraging Preferences Of Sympatric Boreal And Black-Capped Chickadees In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Alec R. Lindsay Ph. D., Zach G. Gayk

Faculty Works

We examined differences in microhab- itat use between Boreal (Poecile hudsonicus) and Black- capped chickadees (P. atricapillus) where they co-occur near Marquette, Michigan, USA. Twenty-four Boreal and 37 Black-capped chickadees were followed during 60 hrs of field observation. Boreal Chickadees foraged only in three conifer species, 76% of which were black spruce (Picea mariana), while Black-capped Chickadees foraged widely across six coniferous and three deciduous tree species. Analysis of foraging data categorized by zones within conifer trees indicated high niche overlap (0.676) between Boreal and Black-capped chickadees across all foraging zones. Individual comparisons on a zone-by-zone basis revealed a significant …

Cues Used By The Black Fly, Simulium Annulus, For Attraction To The Common Loon (Gavia Immer), Meggin L. Weinandt, Michael W. Meyer, R. Mac Strand, Alec R. Lindsay Ph. D.

Faculty Works

The parasitic relationship between a black fly, Simulium annulus, and the common loon (Gavia immer) has been considered one of the most exclusive relationships between any host species and a black fly species. To test the host specificity of this blood-feeding insect, we made a series of bird decoy presentations to black flies on loon-inhabited lakes in northern Wisconsin, U.S.A. To examine the importance of chemical and visual cues for black fly detection of and attraction to hosts, we made decoy presentations with and without chemical cues. Flies attracted to the decoys were collected, identified to species, and quantified. Results …

The Connection, Winter 2012, Lindenwood University

The Connection (1989-2017)

Lindenwood University alumni magazine.

Phosphorus Transport And Distribution In Kentucky Soils Prepared Using Various Biochar Types, Anvesh Reddy

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Conserving the environment is an issue that is gaining popularity day by day. Phosphorus transfer from agricultural soils is an important environmental issue that is being closely observed as the transport of phosphorous to water bodies is adversely affecting water quality due to accelerated eutrophication. It is important to establish phosphorous models that accurately account for soil test phosphorous. Standard models like SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) and EPIC (Environmental Policy Integrated Climate) were designed for serving this purpose. They are now used as the basis for developing new models that can more accurately account for the phosphorus transport, …

Influences Of A Cladophora Bloom On The Diets Of Amblema Plicata And Elliptio Dilatata In The Upper Green River, Kentucky, Jennifer Maria Yates

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Freshwater mussels are the most imperiled group of freshwater invertebrates globally. Recent research suggests a better understanding of mussel feeding ecology may facilitate and improve conservation efforts. The use of stable isotopes is becoming an increasingly common method to study aquatic food webs. Carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) are two of the most frequently employed elements in food web studies. Differences in natural abundance of ¹³C/¹²C can indicate which food sources are the basal sources of carbon incorporated into a consumer’s tissue, while the ratio of ¹⁵N /¹⁴N provides a method of assessing trophic …

On Metal Synthesis Of Some Substituted Rhenium And Manganese Complexes, Jaron Michael Thomas

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Heterocyclic organic and organometallic compounds (i.e. polypyrrole), and their derivatives, have been of great interest for conductive polymers due to their novel properties and environmental stability as compared to their non-aromatic analogs (i.e. polyacetylene). Our current interest focus upon the potential role of metal ligand bound pyridazines as the next generation of electronic devices that utilize the metal ligands bound to organics as the semiconducting material. Pyridazine is a 6-membered aromatic ring with two adjacent nitrogen atoms. These are promising candidates for a variety of materials and commercial applications; but they are difficult to get a metal ligand to fuse …

The Relationship Between Eating Disorder Symptomology, Critical Body Comments, And Memory Recall, Morgan Littrell

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Previous research done in the area of eating disorders suggests many different variables, such as cognitive, biological, and social, that are thought to influence eating disorder development and maintenance. The present study attempts to combine cognitive and sociocultural research findings, memory recall and critical body comments, in an effort to see how, if at all, these two variables affect eating disorder symptomology. Participants for this study were 120 female students that were recruited via Study Board. Participants completed the demographics form, the Eating Disorder Inventory-3 RF, and the Social Hassles Questionnaire. The participants then watched an E-prime presentation of different …

Aesthetics And The Face In Levinas And James, Stuart Rosenbaum

Journal of Scriptural Reasoning

No abstract provided.

Draft Genome Sequence For Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Strain Pao579, A Mucoid Derivative Of Pao381, T. Ryan Withers, Shannon L. Johnson, Hongwei D. Yu

Biochemistry and Microbiology

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that establishes a chronic lung infection in individuals afflicted with cystic fibrosis. Here, we announce the draft genome of P. aeruginosa strain PAO579, an alginate-overproducing derivative of strain PAO381.

Designing Tools For Studying The Dynamic Glycome, John F. Rakus

Chemistry Faculty Research

Glycosylation involves the post-translational addition of carbohydrates to protein molecules and is an intricate and indispensable biochemical process. Study of this complicated network of interactions is hindered by the lack of a coding template analogous to the genetic code, and by the vast structural complexity inherent to carbohydrate polymers. We use lectins (non-enzymatic carbohydrate-binding proteins of non-immunological origin) as microarray probes to identify carbohydrate features expressed on cellular surfaces. Specifically, we utilized lectin microarray technology to investigate the differences in carbohydrates expressed by the cell lines of the Nation Cancer Institute’s NCI-60 panel. Our investigation identified tissue-specific expression differences in …

Judging A Book By Its Cover: Using Lectin Microarrays To Identify How Glycosylation Is Regulated, John F. Rakus

Chemistry Faculty Research

Glycosylation involves the post-translational addition of carbohydrates to protein molecules and is an intricate and indispensable biochemical process. Study of this complicated network of interactions is hindered by the lack of a coding template analogous to the genetic code, and by the vast structural complexity inherent to carbohydrate polymers. We use lectins (non-enzymatic carbohydrate-binding proteins of non-immunological origin) as microarray probes to identify carbohydrate features expressed on cellular surfaces. Specifically, we utilized lectin microarray technology to investigate the differences in carbohydrates expressed by the cell lines of the Nation Cancer Institute’s NCI-60 panel. Our investigation identified tissue-specific expression differences in …

Sagestep News, Winter 2012, No. 17, Sagestep

Newsletters

Seasonal newsletter of SageSTEP.

Creating Tomorrow, Fall 2012, College Of Engineering

College of Engineering Magazines

Annual magazine for the College of Engineering at Utah State University.

Marginalia No. 32, Merrill-Cazier Library

Marginalia

The Transformation of the Printed Page ... Richard W. Clement, Dean of Libraries

USU in Space Exhibition ... Text: Patrick Williams

The Human Library: Don't Judge a Book by its Cover ...Anne Hedrich, Reference

Special Collections: New Acquisitions by Friends ... Brad Cole, Special Collections

Welcome! New Merrill-Cazier Librarians: Becky Thoms and Katie Wesolek

Jack London Exhibition ... Clint Pumphrey, Special Collections

Library Faculty and Staff: Presentations and Publications

Wind Uprising: Merrill-Cazier Library Friends Fall Lecture: Edwin Stafford and Cathy Hartman.

Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomic Analysis Of The Matrix Microenvironment In Pluripotent Stem Cell Culture, Chris Hughes, Lida Radan, Wing Y. Chang, William L. Stanford, Dean H. Betts, Lynne Marie Postovit, Gilles A. Lajoie

Paediatrics Publications

The cellular microenvironment comprises soluble factors, support cells, and components of the extracellular matrix (ECM) that combine to regulate cellular behavior. Pluripotent stem cells utilize interactions between support cells and soluble factors in the microenvironment to assist in the maintenance of self-renewal and the process of differentiation. However, the ECM also plays a significant role in shaping the behavior of human pluripotent stem cells, including embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells. Moreover, it has recently been observed that deposited factors in a hESC-conditioned matrix have the potential to contribute to the reprogramming of metastatic melanoma cells. Therefore, …

Ecologists Engaging With Communities And Regional Decision-Makers: Organized Oral Session 14 At The 2011 Esa Annual Meeting In Austin, Texas, Nadine Lymn, George Middendorf

Department of Biology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Financial Communication In Romantic Relationships, Joy Nichole Smithson

Dissertations

Previous research indicates that financial disagreements are common among romantic couples. However, little theoretical development has been offered to explain such disagreements. This study integrates several areas of research pertinent to financial conflict, and proposes two typologies to explain couples’ recurrent arguments over finances. The first typology concerns financial attitudes that work together to create a financial style. The second typology concerns financial power in the relationship, which is comprised of contribution to household funds, dominance in financial decision-making, and keeping money separate from one’s partner.

Dyadic data was collected from 80 couples to test the typologies. Analyses revealed that …

Assessment Of Health-Related Quality Of Life (Hrqol) In A Sample Of Children Referred For An Adhd Evaluation, Maria Riccardi

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.