Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing African National Adaptation Programmes Of Action: Giving A Voice To The Voiceless, Natalia Valenzuela-Cevallos

All Theses

ABSTRACT
The earth continues to experience climate change. Although it is occurring worldwide, the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are particularly in danger from various adverse consequences due to their low adaptive capability. In order to assist LDCs prepare for climate change, the United Nations (UN) established the National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs). Part of the rationale behind the creation of the NAPAs was to help LDCs prepare for climate change effects, while protecting the poor and using sound environmental management. To date, 47 LDCs have submitted NAPAs to the UN, from which 32 are African LDCs.
Prior to this …

Internalization Of F-Actin Monomers Into 3t3 Fibroblasts Via Thermal Inkjet Printing For Investigation Of Cytoskeleton Incorporation And Mechanics, Stephen Shuford

All Theses

ABSTRACT
We will review the conversion of a standard thermal inkjet printer into a bioprinting system and the effects of printing F-actin monomers with cells. The use of any printing system along with biological material or for biological or medical use has been termed bioprinting. Bioprinting has been used in vascular grafts, scaffold design, gene transfection, micro patterning and many other applications and is very diverse. Specifically we will look at the internalization of F-actin monomers into 3T3 fibroblasts as a result of cell membrane disruption from thermal inkjet printing. If the actin monomers were internalized and then incorporated into …

Enabling Marker-Assisted Breeding (Mab) For Blush In Peach [Prunus Persica (L.) Batsch], Terrence Frett

All Theses

ABSTRACT
Phenotyping is a crucial component for using DNA-based tools in gene discovery and marker development. Phenotypic and genotypic data are essential for linking genetic variation with biological function, thus documenting gene function. However, phenotypic data gathering is not keeping pace with the immensely increasing amount of available genomic information, brought forth by current Next Generation Sequencing technologies. Standardized phenotyping protocols for peach [Prunus persica (L.) Batsch] have been developed for 6 productivity traits (on the tree) and 16 fruit quality traits. Documentation of fruit quality phenotypes has been performed applying developed standardized phenotyping protocol in two seasons, at nine …

Quantitative Workload, Physical Activity, And Quality Of Sleep: An Investigation Of Nurses Working The Night Shift And 10 Hour Or Longer Shifts, Kyle Stanyar

All Theses

Approximately 30% to 40% of adults suffer from some form of insomnia in any given year. Insomnia-related productivity losses for organizations are estimated at $5 billion dollars annually. Long work weeks, shift work, and high workload have been linked to poor sleep quality. Currently, there is a gap in research on how physical activity affects quality of sleep among nurses who work long hours and nurses who work the night shift. Therefore two samples of nurses were examined; nurses who work 10 hour or longer shifts (N = 222) and nurses who work the night shift (N = 97). This …

The Evolving Philosophy Of Climate Control For Historic House Museums In Subtropical Climates: Recommendations For The Aiken-Rhett House, Charleston, South Carolina, Mariah C. Schwartz

All Theses

This study was designed to determine the most appropriate type of climate control system for the Aiken-Rhett House (1820-22), a historic house museum located in Charleston, South Carolina. The Aiken-Rhett property is unique in that it has never been restored and the current stewards of the museum have taken a conservation philosophy to the interpretation of the house. This house museum is rare because it is one of the few remaining unrestored antebellum structures in the South. Although grand mansions were never intended to exist in a state of decline, as the Aiken-Rhett does now, the preserved layers of time …

Sassafras Tea: Using A Traditional Method Of Preparation To Reduce The Carcinogenic Compound Safrole, Kate Cummings

All Theses

The purpose of this research is to quantify the carcinogenic compound safrole in the traditional preparation method of making sassafras tea from the root of Sassafras albidum. The traditional method investigated was typical of preparation by members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and other Appalachian peoples. Sassafras is a tree common to the eastern coast of the United States, especially in the mountainous regions. Historically and continuing until today, roots of the tree are used to prepare fragrant teas and syrups. These traditional uses can be found across cultures throughout its range. Products made from sassafras are banned …

Cooking And Menu Planning Confidence Of Children Participating In A Cooking Camp, Elizabeth Dixon

All Theses

Childhood obesity has been steadily increasing in recent decades. This study was conducted at cooking camp to analyze the cooking and menu planning self-efficacy of children and to determine if these skills could influence healthier eating habits. Four surveys were used to evaluate the participants. The Let's Eat Healthy Questionnaire observed significant increases in MyPlate and food group knowledge (p-valueCooking Skills and Food and Nutrition Skills Questionnaire reported significant increases in the ability to sautŽ (p-value=0.0026) and how to stir fry (p-value=0.0015), and significant increases in agreement for actions like limiting fat intake, limiting sugar intake, and eating more fiber …

Remote Detection Of Ephemeral Wetlands In Mid- Atlantic Coastal Plain Ecoregions: Lidar And High-Throughput Computing, Paul Leonard

All Theses

Ephemeral wetlands are ecologically important freshwater ecosystems that occur frequently throughout the Atlantic coastal plain ecoregions of North America. Despite the growing consensus of their importance and imperilment, these systems historically have not been a national conservation priority. They are often cryptic on the landscape and methods to detect ephemeral wetlands remotely have been ineffective at the landscape scales necessary for conservation planning and resource management. Therefore, this study fills information gaps by employing high-resolution light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data to create local relief models that elucidate small localized changes in concavity. Relief models were then processed with local …

Applying Chaotic Advection To Rheology: An In Situ Structuring Rheometer, Ramaswami Subrahmanian

All Dissertations

A prototype In Situ Structuring Rheometer (ISSR) was designed and implemented to study changes in shear viscosity of polymer blends and composites while processing them in such a way as to control the evolution of microstructure. The ISSR is based on a regime of fluid mechanics known as chaotic advection, in which simple time-periodic flow fields can cause fluid particles to move chaotically. Chaotic advection is also the basis of Smart Blending, a technology employed to process polymer blends having a variety of morphologies at a fixed composition, and polymer composites in which the additives have been arranged into layered …

Cuprate Mediated Allylic Substitutions On Vinylepoxides And Conjugate Additions On 2-Pyridones, Yaxin Huang

All Dissertations

Regioselective control in allylic substitution reactions of vinylepoxides is difficult due to the competition between SN2- substitution and SN2'- allylic substitution pathway. Although excellent SN2'/SN2- and anti/syn- ratios were achieved by CuCN derived organozinc cuprates on 4,5-epoxy-2,3-enoates, application of this methodology to the vinylepoxide, trans-1-(tert-butyldimethylsilyloxy)-2,3-epoxy-4-hexene, is explored. Dialkyzinc reagents mediated by catalytic amounts of CuCN provide excellent regio-(SN2'/SN2) and diastereo-(olefinic E/Z and anti/syn-) selectivity with n-Bu, Et and t-Bu ligands, while reduced E/Z and SN2'/SN2- ratios were achieved with aromatic ligands (e.g., furyl and Ph). The assignment of regio- and stereoisomers were achieved by alternative syntheses of the authentic compounds. …

Delineating The Wildland Urban Interface Using Publicly Available Geospatial Data, Mary Rozmajzl

Student Work

The Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), a human-designated area between undeveloped wildlands and urban areas, has been identified using many different kinds of data. The most common data used have been census housing densities to determine urban areas and a vegetation layer from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) to identify wildlands (Theobald and Romme 2007, Radeloff et al. 2005, Stewart et al. 2003, and Haight et al. 2004). Knowing the location and area of a WUI is important for federal land agencies because federal legislation (Federal Register Notice 2001, 66-3) has provided parameters to identify WUIs and has directed agencies …

The Effect Of A Zoo-Based Experiential Academic Science Program On High School Students' Math And Science Achievement And Perceptions Of School Climate, Elizabeth A. Mulkerrin

Student Work

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of an 11th-grade and 12th-grade zoo-based academic high school experiential science program compared to a same school-district school-based academic high school experiential science program on students' pretest and posttest science, math, and reading achievement, and student perceptions of program relevance, rigor, and relationships. Science coursework delivery site served as the study's independent variable for the two naturally formed groups representing students ( n = 18) who completed a zoo-based experiential academic high school science program and students (n = 18) who completed a school-based experiential academic high school science …

Interest-Balancing Vs. Fiduciary Duty: Two Models For National Security Law, Evan Fox-Decent, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Self‐Injury In The Organisation Of Behaviour, Curt A. Sandman, Aaron S. Kemp, Christopher Mabini, David Pincus, Magnus Magnusson

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Background—Self-injuring acts are among the most dramatic behaviours exhibited by human beings. There is no known single cause and there is no universally agreed upon treatment. Sophisticated sequential and temporal analysis of behaviour has provided alternative descriptions of self-injury that provide new insights into its initiation and maintenance.

Method—Forty hours of observations for each of 32 participants were collected in a contiguous two-week period. Twenty categories of behavioural and environmental events were recorded electronically that captured the precise time each observation occurred. Temporal behavioural/ environmental patterns associated with self-injurious events were revealed with a method (tpatterns; THEME) for …

Formation Of Molecularly Imprinted Polymer Matrices Using, William Erwin

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study serves as a proof of concept that a poly(acrylonitrile-co-acrylic acid) may be used to form an chiral selective polymer membrane for discrimination of L-tryptophan from racemic tryptophan. Due to the unavailability of necessary equipment, a polymer membrane was not tested, rather, two experiments were run in conjunction; (1) A membrane of L-tryptophan imprinted P(AN-co-AA) was cast and tested on a scanning electron microscope to determine the membrane density, and (2) Imprinted polymer was ground and tested for absorption of L-Tryptophan by finding circular dichroism and concentration for different samples. It was found that it is feasible that P(AN-co-AA) …

Green Ro Pretreatment, Elizabeth Fullerton

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The use of sea water desalination to produce potable water for maritime vessels is essential for eliminating storage of potable water. Reverse osmosis (RO) is the technology of choice for desalination purposes; however, raw seawater must undergo pretreatment to avoid rapid fouling and plugging of RO membranes and modules. Current pretreatment technology is effective in the open ocean but in coastal regions involves frequent replacement of filter cartridges and increased maintenance costs. The standard pretreatment process consists of 20 μm cartridge filters and 3 μm cartridge filters in series. Several technologies were considered as options for improving the current pretreatment …

Hollow Fiber Membranes In Increased Algae Growth For Biobutanol Production, Allison Mcatee

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Algae are a unique and remarkable species of plant that is capable of thriving on land deemed useless for the cultivation of food crops. They also breathe in the harmful greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. As the fastest living organism to complete a life cycle, algae is the single most effective user of carbon dioxide in the world thus making it an important ally for diminishing the threat of global warming. Furthermore, algae are comprised of high concentrations of lipids, rendering it an appealing option for use in biodiesel production, specifically butanol. Increasing the algae’s supply of carbon dioxide gas causes …

Using Capillary Electrophoresis To Detect Amyloid Protein Aggregation, Jennifer Kurtz

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the leading cause of dementia accounting for ½ to ¾ of all cases. AD is characterized by a progressive loss of cognitive function over a span of 10 years, ultimately ending in death. The main possible cause of AD being researched is the formation of soluble, oligomer amyloids. Amyloids are proteins that misfold and aggregate in the brain causing potent neurotoxic effects on neurons in the brain. Microchip electrophoresis and capillary electrophoresis are two potential methods of determining the level of amyloid aggregation. In order to detect at physiological concentrations, covalent dyes must be used to …

Elementary Teachers' Perceptions Of Their Teaching Practices To Foster Creative Thinking In Their Students, Jessica Roy

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

Divergent thinking is a 21st century skill that allows individuals to create innovative ways to alleviate some of the burdens on society by finding new solutions to old problems. However, creativity is often overlooked or ignored in the classroom environment because the rigid atmosphere of authority does not allow for the simultaneous use of multiple cognitive abilities. What can teachers do, or are they doing, to ensure that divergent thinking is fostered in their classrooms? Three surveys were administered to 32 elementary school teachers to determine if there is a disconnect between what teachers believe fosters creativity in relation to …

The Use Of Peer Mediated Interventions As An Academic Intervention For Students With Emotional Disorders, Jessica Corzine

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

International Adoption And Language Development, Stacy L. Nelson

Research Papers

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Property Rights On Ocean Resources: Two Possible Solutions To The Tragedy Of The Commons, Nathan David Miller

Honors Program Theses

Property rights affect how people use resources. Enforcement regimes are able to set clear laws with well-defined property rights. Governments set laws for conservation and economic success. Ocean resources suffer from overuse. Industry and the environment both benefit from regulations that promote ocean conservation. This paper will analyze how the current state of ocean property rights leads to the depletion of ocean resources. Though there are many possible solutions to overfishing, I will analyze two potential solutions to overexploitation in the commercial fishing industry: marine protected areas (MP As) and individual transferable quotas (ITQs ). A synthesis of previous research …

Investigation Of A Commercial Product (Biowish™) For Nitrogen Management, Eva Lee

Master's Theses

Abstract

Investigation of a Commercial Product (BiOWiSH­­^TM) for Nitrogen Management

Eva Lee

BiOWiSH–Aqua, which has the capability of treating nitrogen from wastewater through bioaugmentation, is a commercial product consisting of a blend of microorganisms developed by BiOWiSH Technologies. A study of the treatment of nitrogen compounds (i.e. , , and ) using Biowish–Aqua was conducted using small scale experiments (flask experiments) and large scale experiments (column reactor experiments). In this work, column reactors were created to test Biowish–Aqua’s nitrogen treating capabilities by providing enough depth to simulate the dissolved oxygen gradient that can be observed in a pond. …

American Pika (Ochotona Princeps): Persistence And Activity Patterns In A Changing Climate, Cody P. Massing

Master's Theses

An increasing amount of evidence suggests that as temperatures increase, montane animals are moving upward in elevation (IPCC 2007, Parmesan and Yohe 2003). As suitable habitats rise in elevation and then disappear altogether, these animals could be pushed to extinction. The American pika, Ochotona princeps, is a montane mammal that lives in western North America, usually at elevations above 1500 m (Smith and Weston 1990). Recent evidence suggests that pika population numbers are dropping in response to rising temperatures (Beever et al. 2010). The pika is a small herbivorous lagomorph, a relative of hares and rabbits. Its habitat is …

Autonomous Tracking And Following Of Sharks With An Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, Esfandiar Manii

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the integration of an acoustic tracking system within an autonomous underwater AUV (AUV) to enable real-time tracking of sharks tagged with artificial acoustic sources. The tracking system consists of two hydrophones and a receiver unit that outputs a measurement of the relative angle to the tagged shark. Since only two hydrophones are used, the sign of the relative angle measurement is unknown. To overcome this ambiguity, a particle filter algorithm was developed to estimate the position of the acoustic source. When combined with an active control system that drives vehicle to obtain different orientations with respect to …

Mechanical Properties Of Bone Due To Sost Expression: A 3-Point Bending Assessment Of Murine Femurs, Kainoa John Peterson

Master's Theses

Sclerostin, a protein coded for by the SOST gene, is an osteocyte-expressed negative regulator of bone formation. The absence of SOST in the genome may have an effect on bone formation both during skeletal maturation and full maturity. This study attempts to determine significant differences in the mechanical properties of bone that expresses SOST compared to bone that does not. One hundred femur samples from 6, 8, and 12 month old mice were obtained from Lawrence Livermore National Labs and loaded until failure using three-point bending. Results showed significant differences in treatment group effects for cross sectional area, yield force, …

Identification Of Amino Acids Essential For Estrone-3-Sulfate Transport Within Transmembrane Domain 2 Of Organic Anion Transporting Polypeptide 1b1, Nan Li, Weifang Hong, Hong Huang, Hanping Lu, Guangyun Lin, Mei Hong

School of Information Faculty Publications

As an important structure in membrane proteins, transmembrane domains have been found to be crucial for properly targeting the protein to cell membrane as well as carrying out transport functions in transporters. Computer analysis of OATP sequences revealed transmembrane domain 2 (TM2) is among those transmembrane domains that have high amino acid identities within different family members. In the present study, we identify four amino acids (Asp70, Phe73, Glu74, and Gly76) that are essential for the transport function of OATP1B1, an OATP member that is specifically expressed in the human liver. A substitution of these four amino acids with alanine …

Introductory Psychology Texts And The Inclusion Of Culture, Walter J. Lonner, Elke Murdock

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

This subunit and its future extensions are intended for use in courses of study that focus, either partially or completely, on psychology and culture. The content of these contributions are expected to be helpful to both teachers and students because they address the nature and scope of the inclusion of culture in basic psychology instruction – especially as it pertains to the coverage of culture in the ubiquitous (at least in the Western world) introductory psychology texts (IPTs). In this paper we present data that document the extent to which authors of IPTs have dealt with culture over a 20-year …

Genome-Wide Identification Of Conditionally Essential Genes In Salmonella Typhimurium Using Tn-Seq Method, Anita Khatiwara

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

As more whole genome sequences become available, there is an increasing need for high-throughput methods that link genes to phenotypes and facilitate discovery of new gene functions. The objective of this study was to develop a high-throughput method to study gene functions in bacteria and use this method to study gene functions of S. enterica serotype Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium) under various environmental conditions encountered during its life cycle. Chapter I of this dissertation reviews the history and evolution of functional genomics in bacteria with focus on Salmonella, along with the recent techniques available. Chapter II, deals with the development …

Specification Of The Neural Crest-Derived Pharyngeal Mesenchyme: The Role Of Pharyngeal Endoderm, Fgf And Bmp Signaling In The Establishment Of Prechondrogenic Identity And Initiation Of Chondrogenesis., Megha Kumar

All Dissertations

This study investigates the role of pharyngeal endoderm in the specification of prechondrogenic identity and initiation of chondrogenesis in the proximal mesenchyme of the second pharyngeal arch. The results show that pharyngeal endoderm is sufficient but not necessary for specification of prechondrogenic identity in the cranial neural crest derived arch mesenchyme. A number of Fgf genes - Fgf3, 4, 8 and 19 are expressed in the pharyngeal endoderm. Further, FGF signaling is sufficient and required for the specification of prechondrogenic identity, marked by Sox9 expression. However, FGF signaling is unable to maintain the Sox9 expression and initiate the chondrogenic program. …