Digital Commons Network^™

Biophysical Understanding Of Novel Synthetic Amyloid-Β (Aβ) Prions In Alzheimer's Disease, Amit Kumar

Dissertations

Oligomers of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide are the primary toxic agents that play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Oligomers are the intermediates formed during the Aβ aggregation process leading up to insoluble fibrils. It is important to know that oligomers can also be formed via pathways that do not lead to fibril formation. Such ‘off-pathway’ oligomers would have significantly longer half-lives than the ‘on-pathway’ ones, which may result in prolonged toxicity to neuronal cells. Furthermore, neither the mechanism of neurotoxicity nor the potential mechanisms of propagation and proliferation to neighboring cells are well understood. Moreover, recent …

The Predictors Of Calling And The Role Of Career Satisfaction In Working Adults, Kari Ann Leavell

Dissertations

A significant amount of time in adult life is spent working. Individuals enter into their world of work by many circumstances, including feeling called to a given career or viewing their work as a calling. The psychological construct of calling has been shown to have considerable implications for career-related outcomes, including career satisfaction. Further, satisfaction with work has demonstrated a considerable impact on more global areas such as satisfaction with and quality of life, meaning in life, and religiousness. Increased understanding of the construct of calling and its contribution to career development and career-related outcomes can clarify how individuals’ experiences …

The Effect Of Asian Origin, Culture And Learning Beliefs On High School Students' Physical Science Learning Beliefs, Xiaolan Li

Dissertations

Asian Americans have been recognized as the model minority in the United States since the 1960s. Students from Asian countries are winning in international competitions, especially in science and mathematics. Modern Western scholars working within the constructivist learning theory advocate malleable intelligence and effort, which actually corresponds to Asian learning beliefs and learning behaviors. This research is designed to test if American high school students and Chinese students from the mainland of China who are motivated to attend American universities are different in their learning beliefs of physical science and what accounts for the difference if there is any.

The Role Of Distress Tolerance In Aggressive Behavior, Anne Winston Mcintyre

Dissertations

Berkowitz (1989) proposed that the degree of negative affect experienced following a frustrating event determines whether one will respond aggressively, suggesting that one possesses a certain amount of tolerance for distressing emotions. However, little research has been conducted on the relation between distress tolerance and aggression. Moreover, no published study has examined the relation between distress tolerance and behavioral aggression using a multi-modal assessment approach, nor examined the potential mediating role of negative affect in the relation between distress tolerance and aggression. To address this gap in the literature, college students (N = 87) aged 18 to 49 years (M …

Involvement Of Cytochromep4504a In Adenosine A1 Receptor Mediated Regulation Of Vascular Tone, Swati S Kunduri

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. The regulation of vascular tone plays an important role in normal cardiovascular function. Adenosine, an autacoid has several physiological and pathophysiological roles, apart from the regulation of vascular tone. Adenosine receptor (AR) contracts and relaxes blood vessels through all four subtypes (A1, A2A, A2B, and A3) linked to different signaling mechanisms. Deciphering complex tissue responses remains difficult because relationships of individual receptor subtypes and various end-effectors (e.g., ion channels) are yet to be identified. Apart from adenosine, 20-HETE, a cytochrome P4504a (Cyp4a) metabolite of arachidonic acid (AA) …

The Involvement Of Sigma Receptor Modulation In The Antidepressant Effects Of Ketamine And The Neurotoxic Actions Of Methamphetamine, Matthew J. Robson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Depression is estimated to affect at least 30% of the world's population at some point during their lives. Currently marketed antidepressants require a period of at least 2 to 3 weeks to display any antidepressant effects in clinical populations and rates of clinical resistance to the antidepressant effects of these drugs are high. Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist and dissociative anesthetic that has been shown to display rapid acting and prolonged antidepressant activity in smallscale human clinical trials. Ketamine also binds to sigma receptors, which are believed to be protein targets for a potential new class of antidepressant medications. …

A Study Of The Effects Of Computer Animated Character Body Style On Perception Of Facial Expression, Katherine Cissell

Department of Computer Graphics Technology Degree Theses

This study examined if there is a difference in viewer perception of computer animated character facial expressions based on character body style, specifically, realistic and stylized character body styles. Participants viewed twenty clips of computer animated characters expressing one of five emotions: sadness, happiness, anger, surprise and fear. They then named the emotion and rated the sincerity, intensity, and typicality of each clip. The results indicated that for recognition, participants were more slightly more likely to recognize a stylized character although it was not a significant difference. Stylized characters were on average rated higher for sincerity and intensity and realistic …

Holographic Visualization Of Sound Radiation From Computer Hard Drives, J Stuart Bolton, Yong T. Cho

Publications of the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories

No abstract provided.

Population Genetic Structure Of N. American And European Phalaris Arundinacea L. As Inferred From Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat Markers, Michael F. Nelson, Neil O. Anderson, Michael D. Casler, Andrew R. Jakubowski

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Phalaris arundinacea L. (reed canarygrass) has become one of the most aggressive invaders of North American wetlands. P. arundinacea is native to temperate N. America, Europe, and Asia, but repeated introductions of European genotypes to N. America, recent range expansions, and the planting of forage and ornamental cultivars complicate the resolution of its demographic history. Molecular tools can help to unravel the demographic and invasion history of populations of invasive species. In this study, inter-simple sequence repeat markers were used to analyze the population genetic structure of European and N. American populations of reed canary grass as well as forage …

Aquacultured Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus Mykiss) Possess A Large Core Intestinal Microbiota That Is Resistant To Variation In Diet And Rearing Density, Sandi Wong, Thomas Waldrop, Steven Summerfelt, John Davidson, Frederic Barrows, P. Brett Kenney, Timothy Welch, Gregory D. Wiens, Kevin Snekvik, John F. Rawls, Christopher Good

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

As global aquaculture fish production continues to expand, an improved understanding of how environmental factors interact in fish health and production is needed. Significant advances have been made toward economical alternatives to costly fishmealbased diets, such as grain-based formulations, and toward defining the effect of rearing density on fish health and production. Little research, however, has examined the effects of fishmeal- and grain-based diets in combination with alterations in rearing density. Moreover, it is unknown whether interactions between rearing density and diet impact the composition of the fish intestinal microbiota, which might in turn impact fish health and production. We …

Characteristics Of White-Tailed Deer Visits To Cattle Farms: Implications For Disease Transmission At The Wildlife-Livestock Interface, Are R. Berentsen, Ryan S. Miller, Regina Misiewicz, Jennifer L. Malmberg, Mike R. Dunbar

Zoonotics and Wildlife Disease: Publications

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is endemic in free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in MI, USA. Currently, the rates of farm visitation by deer and co-use of forage resources by cattle and deer are poorly understood. To evaluate the extent deer and livestock may share forage resources, we investigated farm, yard, and cattle-use area visitation by white-tailed deer and compared visitation with common livestock management practices. We fitted 25 female white-tailed deer near the bTB-infected zone in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula with global positioning system collars. Livestock management practices associated with farm visitation included presence of confined feeding pastures, number of …

Life History And Environmental Tolerance Of The Invasive Oriental Weatherfish (Misgurnus Anguillicaudatus) In Southwestern Idaho, Usa, Alexander N. Urquhart

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Invasive fish species have been identified as a major threat to aquatic biodiversity world-wide. The most successful of these invaders share several life history characteristics such as long lifespan, high fecundity, multiple reproductive events, generalized omnivorous diet, and tolerance for a wide range of environmental conditions. Although many studies have focused on well-known and economically costly invaders, there are many invasive fish about which very little is known. In this series of studies, I describe some life history characteristics of one such invasive fish, the oriental weatherfish (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus). I collected 586 specimens from water bodies connected with …

Warming Winters And Changing Habitats: Interactive Effects On Raptor Populations And Implications For Conservation, Neil A. Paprocki

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Studies across multiple spatial and temporal scales will improve understanding of the drivers of global change including habitat degradation, invasive species, and climate change. How global drivers affect the ecology of wintering raptors in western North America and the Great Basin may have important implications for changes in distribution and abundance, and consequently population persistence. I examined the winter distributions of six western North America raptor species using Christmas Bird Count data from 1975-2011 to assess range shifts over time and in relation to temperature. Also, I considered whether population patterns within Bird Conservation Regions (BCR) were best explained by …

The Neglected Canon: The Use Of Speech In Composition Courses, Rebecca Rae Jolley

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

All college students are required to take basic courses in certain core subjects; this includes the universal requirement of composition. In composition instruction, the rhetorical canons of invention, arrangement, and style are the only skills taught in most writing programs. However, there are two other canons, both related to public speech: memory and delivery. This thesis will focus only on the canon of delivery and defines it as speaking in person before an audience of any size.

The ability to communicate through speech is no less important than the ability to communicate through writing. However, the education system, both collegiate …

Political Advertising In The 2012 Presidential Election: How Visual And Aural Techniques Are Used To Convey Meaning, James Lake Poston

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This paper looked at presidential television advertising in the 2012 U.S. election. The author has undertaken a deep analysis of the way audio and visual elements are used to construct meanings in televised political ads. Meaning is suggested through the visual and aural means of expression available to ad creators.

The organizing principle of this study is information manipulation for the purposes of influencing our perception of candidates and issues. This manipulation was revealed by examining the most prominent visual and aural dimensions within specific ads. The paper identified recurring aural and visual patterns in all the ads and then …

Uncovering Multimodality In Composition, Kevin Jacob Kelley

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Moje points out that “scholars have argued that some media, texts, and literacy practices that get counted as new are actually old, but our attention to them is new” (352), and this is true of multimodality. We are being re-engaged with multimodality because of the rise of technologies that allow writers to blend media in seemingly new ways, but we have known before the digital turn that reading and writing are inherently multimodal processes, we just did not have a phrase to describe the multiple semiotic channels that are used to compose until “multimodality.” Early university compositionists conceptualized writing as …

Impacts Of Wind Energy Development On Breeding Buteo Hawks In The Columbia Plateau Ecoregion, Patrick Shea Kolar

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Post-construction raptor fatality and nest monitoring is typically conducted at wind energy projects nationwide. However, pre- and post-construction surveys may fail to locate all breeding pairs and most studies at individual wind projects lack the necessary sample size or survey design to assess the effects of turbines on nesting raptors after construction. To address these potential issues, I used an information-theoretic approach to examine the influence of multiple spatial and temporal variables on reproductive success, post-fledging survival, and the distribution of breeding pairs from three sympatric Buteo species in the Columbia Plateau Ecoregion (CPE). Although the probability of detecting breeding …

Preparing Adults To Work With Youth: An Environmental Scan Of Professional Development, Jennifer Gerdes, Tonia R. Durden, Claudia C. Mincemoyer, Kathleen Lodl

Journal of Youth Development

This feature article shares the results of a national environmental scan conducted to identify professional development programs offered for school age providers across the nation through the Cooperative Extension System. A purposeful sample comprised of representatives from state extension offices throughout the country included 135 respondents from 48 states. Results showed 139 professional development programs for school age providers were offered through the Cooperative Extension System. The majority of programs offered professional development in the areas of health, nutrition, safety, youth development, and quality afterschool environments. This article summarizes the findings of the environmental scan, including number of contact hours, …

Invasive Plants In U. S. National Wildlife Refuges: A Coordinated Research Project Using Undergraduate Ecology Students, Martha F. Hoopes, David M. Marsh, Karen H. Beard, Nisse Goldberg, Alberto Aparicio, Annie Arbuthnot, Benjamin Hixon, Danelle Laflower, Lucas Lee, Amanda Little, Emily Mooney, April Pallette, Alison Ravenscraft, Stephen Scheele, Kyle Stowe, Colin Sykes, Robert Watson, Blia Yang

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Answering large-scale questions in ecology can involve time-consuming data compilation. We show how networks of undergraduate classes can make these projects more manageable and provide an authentic research experience for students. With this approach, we examined the factors associated with plant species richness in US national wildlife refuges. We found that the richness of harmful invasive plants and the richness of native plants were positively correlated in mainland refuges but negatively correlated in island refuges. Nonnative richness and invasive richness were also positively correlated with colonization pressure as indicated by nonnative richness around each refuge. Associations between refuge characteristics and …

All Bite And No Bark: Nonspecific Magic Words Sweep Aside Constitutional Concerns And Remove The Northern Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf From Endangered Species Act Protection In Alliance For The Wild Rockies V. Salazar, Emily A. Cathcart

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Post-Injury Calcium Chelation Rescues Skeletal Muscle Regeneration In Mice, Matthew D. Magda

Honors Scholar Theses

During aging the ability of skeletal muscle to regenerate after injury wanes until muscle integrity cannot be maintained. In this study it is shown that calcium chelation can restore young-like regenerative ability in an aged mouse model of skeletal muscle regeneration.

Journal Of Cave And Karst Studies, Volume 75, No. 2, August 2013, Malcom S. Field

KIP Articles

Contents: Subterranean Aquatic Planarians of Sardinia, with a Discussion on the Penial Flagellum and the Bursal Canal Sphincter in the Genus Dendrocoelum (Platyhelminthes, Tricladida, Dendrocoelidae) -- Occurrence of Troglobitic Clivinines in China (Insecta: Coleoptera: Carabidae) -- The First Cavernicolous Nicoletiidae (Insecta: Zygentoma) from the United Arab Emirates -- The View of Maya Cave Ritual from the Overlook Rockshelter, Caves Branch River Valley, Central Belize -- Flow Characterization in the Santee Cave System in the Chapel Branch Creek Watershed, Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina, USA -- New Species and New Records of Springtails (Hexapoda: Collembola) from Caves in the Salem …

Under Construction: Viewing Manipulated Space, Michael David Farrell Jr.

Theses

North America, the United States in particular, has established an unique and distinct connection to the the wildspaces outside of urban environments. The two spaces, urban and wilderness, are placed in opposition to one another in a sliding valuation scale that is based on the degradation experienced in these urban areas, due to industrialized capitalist means of production, by the inhabitants. These effects are the source of both literary and visual art protests that originate in the 19th century in both generations of the Hudson River School painters, American pastoral writing, philosophy, and photographs. These romanticized views of natural space …

Establishment Guide For Sub-Tropical Grasses : Key Steps To Success, Geoff Allan Moore, Ronald J. Yates, Phil Barrett-Lennard, Phil Nichols, Brad Wintle, John Titterington, Chris Loo

Bulletins 4000 -

Sub-tropical perennial grasses are now widely sown in the Northern Agricultural region (NAR) and on the south coast of Western Australia (WA). Since 2000, more than 50 000 ha have been sown to perennial grasses in the NAR and about 150 000 ha on the south coast, mainly kikuyu.

Adjusted Variance Components For Unbalanced Clustered Binary Data Models, Intesar N. Abdoslam

Dissertations

In practice, it is very common to have clustered binary responses, where binary data are naturally grouped by sampling technique or some property of the sampling units. Often these clusters are unbalanced. The preferred class of models for clustered binary data is the Hierarchical Generalized Linear Model (HGLM), where random effects are used to account for the overdispersion known to exist for clustered binary data. There are many methods to estimate the parameters in Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models, but none of the current methods allowed the overdispersion to vary from cluster to cluster. As clustered binary data led to overdispersion, …

Effect Of Endurance Exercise On The Combination Of Streptoxotocin Induced Diabetes And Doxorubicin, Stephanie Erin Greufe

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Interrelationships Among Attachment Style, Personality Traits, Interpersonal Competency, And Facebook Use, Michael A. Jenkins-Guarnieri

Dissertations

Online social media has become a popular way to communicate and develop interpersonal relationships. Facebook use in particular has become an important topic for researchers and clinicians, as young adults are increasingly integrating this use into their daily lives and social behavior. As empirical work on the personality traits and interpersonal competency associated with use and the potential consequences of use on social behavior is still emerging, the present study sought to investigate the interrelationships among constructs relevant to the developmental tasks associated with emerging adulthood, including adult attachment style, Five Factor Model personality traits, interpersonal competency, and Facebook use. …

Africom At 5 Years: The Maturation Of A New U.S. Combatant Command, David E. Brown Mr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

View the Executive Summary

The U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM), newest of the six U.S. Department of Defense geographic combatant commands (CCMDs), was created in 2007 amid great controversy in both Africa and the United States over its location and mission. Over the last 5 years, AFRICOM has matured greatly, overcoming much of the initial resistance from African stakeholders through careful public messaging, and by addressing most of the U.S. interagency concerns about the Command’s size and proper role within the U.S. national security/foreign policy community. This Letort Paper describes the geostrategic, operational, and intellectual changes that explain why AFRICOM was …

Systemic Leptin Modulates The Expression Of E-Cadherin, Β-Catenin In The Ovary Of Dietary-Induced Obese Infertile Rats, Olufunke A. Sokan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the numerous complications of obesity is infertility. Leptin has been shown to reverse infertility; however, exact mechanism is poorly understood. Recent evidence indicates Ecadherin/ β-catenin complex, which is a structural constituent of adherens junction, is expressed in the rat ovary during folliculogenesis. We hypothesized that systemic leptin modulates the expression of E-cadherin and β-catenin in dietary-induced obese infertile rats to reverse infertility. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either regular chow diet (RCD) (n=6) or high fat diet (HFD) (n=14). Oestrus cycles were monitored daily until their cycles became irregular. 100 ug/ml of leptin was given intraperitoneally to HFD-fed …

Barbary Pirates: Thomas Jefferson, William Eaton, And The Evolution Of U.S. Diplomacy In The Mediterranean, Patrick N. Teye

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzes U.S. relations with the Barbary States from 1784 to 1805. After the American Revolution, the young nation found its commerce menaced in the Mediterranean by North African pirates sponsored by the rulers of Morocco, Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli. As the U.S. sought to find a solution to end piracy and the practice of paying tributes or ransom to free Americans held captive, Thomas Jefferson proposed several solutions as a diplomat, vice president, and as president when he authorized the Tripolitan War (1801-1805). Thus, this look at U.S. relations with the Barbary States focuses on Jefferson’s evolving foreign …