Digital Commons Network^™

Anoxia Tolerance Of Forensically Important Calliphorids, Melissa M. Lein

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Forensically important blow flies, Diptera: Calliphoridae, are among the first organisms to colonize carrion. After eggs hatch, the larvae of most blow fly species feed in an aggregation or “mass.” While in this mass larvae may experience periods of no oxygen (anoxia), little oxygen (hypoxia), or normal oxygen (normoxia), but the tolerance of blow fly larvae to severe hypoxic conditions is not known. I tested the anoxia tolerance of four species of calliphorids (Calliphora vicina, Cochliomyia macellaria, Lucilia sericata, and Phormia regina), using third stage larvae across five temperatures. Experiments were conducted by exposing larvae to pure nitrogen …

A Population Model For Walleye In Nebraska Irrigation Reservoirs, Robert A. Kill

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding how and why fish population size changes between years is a central theme in fisheries ecology. Fishery agencies have limited time and financial resources, thus there is a need for a quantitative way to direct the limited time and financial resources so agencies can manage fisheries more efficiently. I developed a tool for fishery managers that synthesizes common population indices and evaluated the relative importance of those indices given varying uncertainty in age-0 walleye Sander vitreus survival. Under most circumstances, I determined that resources are best utilized in reducing age-0 survival uncertainty when understanding walleye population growth. I applied …

Predicting Invasion Risk Of Non-Native Plants Using A Modified I-Rank Assessment, Justin B. Williams

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Biological invasions are a global problem responsible for native species declines worldwide. Understanding the invasion risk from non-native species is important in establishing management goals and making decisions for managing native ecosystems. Useful modeling methods for quantifying or predicting invasion risk should consider research needs, data availability, and operate at an appropriate scale. I evaluated risk assessment methods towards answering a specific research question; which plant species pose the greatest risk of becoming invasive or having the greatest negative impact in Nebraska? I selected the I-Rank assessment method, which consists of 20 questions grouped into four risk categories or Subranks: …

Determining Scaphirhynchus Sturgeon Population Demographics And Dynamics: Implications For Range-Wide Management, Recovery, And Conservation, Martin J. Hamel

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Sturgeons (Acipenseridae) have experienced world-wide declines as a result of anthropogenic effects such as over-harvest, habitat degradation, altered flow regimes, and pollution. Nearly all European and Asian sturgeon species have experienced population declines and have subsequently been classified as either threatened or endangered. North American sturgeons have experienced a similar plight in that all eight native sturgeon species are listed as endangered, threatened, or of special concern. Direct linkages between North American sturgeon declines and anthropogenic effects are difficult to assess due to scale considerations, fluctuating environmental conditions, difficulty in capture, and the interaction of all these effects. To recover, …

Witnessing Inter-Parental Violence At Home: Adolescents And School Achievement, Renita Dawn Robinson-Tyrance

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Children’s exposure to violence is a serious social problem, but little is known about the educational implications for adolescents witnessing violence between parents. This study uses social learning theory (SLT) to examine the relationship between high school-aged adolescent students who witness parental intimate partner violence (IPV) and academic performance demonstrated by their grade point averages (GPA). A secondary analysis of data collected from the survey of 1,132 adolescent students in a medium sized, suburban/rural city was conducted. Of the respondents, 83% of the students did not witness parental IPV between parents. Students witnessing the most parental IPV had the lowest …

The Development And Applications Of Nmr Metabolomics Analysis Of Bacterial Metabolomes, Steven M. Halouska

Department of Chemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Metabolomics is a relatively new field that involves the study of metabolic responses that are occurring within a biological system. Metabolite profiles of an organism, tissue extract, and biofluids are important indicators to determine the physiological state of a biological profile. Comparison of such profiles from different phenotypes can be used to identify specific metabolic changes leading to the understanding of metabolic pathways, disease progression, drug toxicity and efficacy, and cellular responses to different intracellular and extracellular conditions. Metabolomics investigations often use sophisticated analytical techniques such as NMR spectroscopy to provide an unbiased and comprehensive approach to evaluate metabolic perturbation …

Effects Of Messages Emphasizing Environmental Determinants Of Obesity On Intentions To Engage In Diet And Exercise Behaviors, Jeff Niederdeppe, Sungjong Roh, Michael A. Shapiro, Hye Kyung Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Reducing rates of obesity will require interventions that influence both individual decisions and environmental factors through changes in public policy. Previous work indicates that messages emphasizing environmental determinants increases support for public policies, but some suspect this strategy may undermine motivation to engage in diet and exercise. Emphasizing factors outside of personal control appears to enhance rather than undermine motivations to engage in healthy diet and exercise behavior.

Application Of The Optimal Homotopy Asymptotic Method For Solving The Cauchy Reaction-Diffusion Problem, H. Jafari, S. Gharbavy

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this paper, the optimal homotopy asymptotic method is applied on the Cauchy reaction-diffusion problems to check the effectiveness and performance of the method. The obtained solutions show that the OHAM is more effective, simpler and easier than other methods. Moreover, this technique does not require any discretization or linearization and therefore it reduces significantly the numerical computations. The results reveal that the method is explicit.

Obstacles And Solutions To Studying Functional Adhesives Using Vibrational Sum-Frequency Generation Spectroscopy, Angela Renee Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

Important aspects of adhesion occur at interfaces, including structures that may be different from those in the bulk materials. However, probing the orientation of molecules in functional adhesives poses a significant challenge because adhesive molecules are always located at a buried interface. The limited penetration depth of surface-specific analysis prohibits the study of buried interfaces using those techniques. The large quantity of bulk molecules relative to the adhesive molecules interacting at the interface results in the bulk signal swamping out adhesive signal in bulk analysis techniques. An interface-specific technique is required to study functional adhesives. One such technique that has …

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Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Gene Regulatory Network Analysis And Web-Based Application Development, Yi Yang

Dissertations

Microarray data is a valuable source for gene regulatory network analysis. Using earthworm microarray data analysis as an example, this dissertation demonstrates that a bioinformatics-guided reverse engineering approach can be applied to analyze time-series data to uncover the underlying molecular mechanism. My network reconstruction results reinforce previous findings that certain neurotransmitter pathways are the target of two chemicals - carbaryl and RDX. This study also concludes that perturbations to these pathways by sublethal concentrations of these two chemicals were temporary, and earthworms were capable of fully recovering. Moreover, differential networks (DNs) analysis indicates that many pathways other than those related …

An Insight Into Asymmetric Synthesis And Bioorganic Applications Of Novel Cα- Methyl-Lysine, - Proline, - Nipocotic Acid Analogues, Souvik Banerjee

Dissertations

Prochiral malonic diesters consisting of a quaternary carbon center have been successfully converted into a different set of tBoc-Fmoc-α2,2-methyllysine-OH analogues through chiral malonic half-ester intermediates achieved via enzymatic (Pig Liver Esterase, PLE) hydrolysis. The selection of chiral half-ester intermediates, which vary from 1 to 6 methylene units in the side chain, are achieved in high optical purity (92% - 97% ee) and in good yields (65% - 72%). The PLE hydrolysis of malonic diesters with a variety of side chain lengths observed to obey the Jones’s PLE model as evidenced from the stereochemical configurations of the resulting chiral half-esters. The …

Endocannabinoid-Dependent Long-Term Depression Of Ventral Tegmental Area Gaba Neurons, Jared Mark Weed

Theses and Dissertations

GABA neurons in the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain are important components in the brain's reward circuit. Long term changes in this circuit occur through the process of synaptic plasticity. It has been shown that high frequency stimulation, as well as treatment with endocannabinoids, can cause GABA neurons in the ventral tegmental area to undergo long term depression, a form of synaptic plasticity that decreases excitability of cells. The present study elaborates on the mechanism whereby high frequency stimulation can result in long term depression of ventral tegmental area GABA neurons. Using the whole cell patch clamp technique in …

Comparison Of Temperamental Rating Bilingually In Ukraine Using Child Behavioral Questionnaire (Cbq): Short Form, Nelly Ostrovsky

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The 2 goals of the present investigation were to 1) examine the reliability of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire: Short Form (CBQ) in a sample of 4-7 year-old children from the Ukraine and 2) compare those children’s temperament profiles to a) one another when the form was administered in 2 different languages and b) their American counterparts from the CBQ standardization sample. Three waves of data were collected from the parents of 167 children residing in Kiev, Ukraine. Internal reliability analyses showed good internal consistency of the instrument. Comparative analyses conducted both within and between cultures showed similarities and differences across …

Panorama December 2013, Southern Adventist University

Panorama Parent Newsletter

This issue of the Panorama parent newsletter provides advice for maintaining a spiritual life in college, announces the planning of the Sabbath Trail, contains a profile on Chaplain Brennon Kirstein, and highlights the Renewal and AfterGlow services.

Water Fat Separation With Multiple-Acquisition Balanced Steady-State Free Precession Mri, Michael A. Mendoza

Theses and Dissertations

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an important medical imaging technique for visualizing soft tissue structures in the body. It has the advantages of being noninvasive and, unlike x-ray, does not rely on ionizing radiation for imaging. In traditional hydrogen-based MRI, the strongest measured signals are generated from the hydrogen nuclei contained in water and fat molecules.Reliable and uniform water fat separation can be used to improve medical diagnosis. In many applications the water component is the primary signal of interest, while the fat component represents a signal which can obscure the underlying pathology or other features of interest. In other …

Characterization And Processing Evaluation Of Starch/High-Density Polyethylene Materials In Extrusion Blow Molding, Bradley Dale Bacigalupi

Theses and Dissertations

The growing negative impacts of non-biodegradable plastics derived from non-renewable materials have created increasing interest throughout the world for new materials that are both biodegradable and renewable, that can be combined with or replace traditional plastics. Plant-based thermoplastic starch (TPS), a promising alternative material to traditional petroleum based resin, is both biodegradable and renewable and has great potential for use in plastic manufacturing processes. Two major obstacles that prevent more widespread use of TPS include; TPS base material, which is typically manufactured in a flake or powder, is incompatible with standard plastics production equipment that require pelletized resin, the second …

Gfsa Encodes A Novel Galactofuranosyltransferase Involved In Biosynthesis Of Galactofuranose Antigen Of O-Glycan In Aspergillus Nidulans And Aspergillus Fumigatus, Yuji Komachi, Shintaro Hatakeyama, Haruka Motomatsu, Taiki Futagami, Karina Kizjakina, Pablo Sobrado, Keisuke Ekino, Kaoru Takegawa, Masatoshi Goto, Yoshiyuki Nomura, Takuji Oka

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Summary: The cells wall of filamentous fungi in the genus Aspergillus has galactofuranose (Galf)-containing polysaccharides and glycoconjugates, including O-glycans, N-glycans, fungal-type galactomannan and glycosylinositolphosphoceramide, which are important for cell wall integrity. Here, we attempted to identify galactofuranosyltransferases that couple Galf monomers onto other wall components in Aspergillus nidulans. Using reverse-genetic and biochemical approaches, we identified that the AN8677 gene encoded a galactofuranosyltransferase, which we called GfsA, involved in Galf antigen biosynthesis. Disruption of gfsA reduced binding of β-Galf-specific antibody EB-A2 to O-glycosylated WscA protein and galactomannoproteins. The results of an in-vitroGalf antigen synthase assay revealed that GfsA has β1,5- or …

Biodegradation Of Cresols Using Pseudomonas Putida Immobilized In Poly Vinyl Alcohol (Pva) Gel, Riham Mohamed Sorkatti Abu Bakr

Theses

The characteristics and viability of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a support material for biomass immobilization and utilization for the biodegradation of cresols have been evaluated. PVA gel pellets were prepared by repeated freezing-thawing method using different PVA compositions. The porous structures of the PVA pellets were examined using a Compound Microscope and SEM and revealed that the matrix structure and pore size distribution were affected by PVA composition. Mechanical properties of the PVA gel were also characterized to evaluate the PVA integrity as a matrix for immobilizing microbial cells and found to be dependent on the PVA mass composition. The …

An Mpi-Enabled Mapreduce Framework For Molecular Dynamics Simulation Applications, Shuju Bai, Ebrahim Khosravi, Seung Jong Park

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Computational technologies have been extensively investigated to be applied into many application domains. Since the presence of Hadoop, an implementation of MapReduce framework, scientists have applied it to biological sciences, chemistry, medical sciences, and other areas to efficiently process huge data sets. Although Hadoop is fault-tolerant and processes data in parallel, it does not support MPI in computing. The Map/Reduce tasks in Hadoop have to be serial, which results in inefficient scientific computations wrapped in Map/Reduce tasks. In the real world, many applications require MPI techniques due to their nature. Molecular dynamics simulation is one of them. In our research, …

Depauw University Computer Science Department History, Gloria Childress Townsend

Computer Science Faculty publications

The Fiftieth Anniversary of Computer Science Classes (and) The Twentieth Anniversary of the Department of Computer Science

Forward:

It is a pleasure to record the History of the Department of Computer Science, as I taught computer science throughout the first twenty years of the department's existence and the first thirty‐one years that DePauw University granted computer science majors. During these years, many faculty members joined the department, and many departed, each leaving an imprint on the department. The natural evolution of a new department necessitates the slow process of acquiring tenure track positions, as the numbers of majors increase. Several …

Augmented Sound, Berio Molina

Theses

A Computer Vision System for doing Interactive Installations

This thesis is a computer vision system for doing interactive-creative musical installations: A portable computer vision system based on video projection and a green laser, that allows the interaction with the projection itself, with the physical space where it is projected and with multiple users.

By using a green laser as a physical user interface, people create projections of sound balls that are projected on top of objects. These balls interact with the physical characteristics of the object where they are projected, as well as with other balls that where previously created …

Actuarial Review Of The Tenncare Program, Development Of Fiscal Year 2014 Per Member Costs, Tennessee. Division Of Tenncare.

TennCare Actuarial Report

No abstract provided.

Structural And Biochemical Characterization Of The Bilin Lyase Cpcs From Thermosynechococcus Elongatus, Wendy M. Schluchter

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Cyanobacterial phycobiliproteins have evolved to capture light energy over most of the visible spectrum due to their bilin chromophores, which are linear tetrapyrroles that have been covalently attached by enzymes called bilin lyases. We report here the crystalstructure of a bilin lyase of the CpcS family from Thermosynechococcus elongatus (TeCpcS-III). TeCpcS-III is a 10-stranded beta barrel with two alpha helices and belongs to the lipocalin structural family. TeCpcS-III catalyzes both cognate as well as noncognate bilin attachment to a variety of phycobiliprotein subunits. TeCpcS-III ligates phycocyanobilin, phycoerythrobilin, and phytochromobilin to the alpha and beta subunits of allophycocyanin and to the …

Science-Technology Division, Helen Josephine, Sarah K. Oelker, Joseph R. Kraus

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

An Improved Thin-Film Microelectrode Array And Signal Conditioning Board For Measuring Cardiac Surface Potentials., Christopher Hayward Osborne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The work outlined in this thesis expanded on previous work to improve a thin-film microfabricated electrode array intended for cardiac electrophysiology studies. A thin layer of silver was added in between titanium and platinum electrical trace layers to reduce electrode resistance. A 200 nm layer of silver decreased electrode resistance by an order of magnitude. In addition, a new high quality signal conditioning board was developed using precision operational amplifiers from Texas Instruments. Both new sensor and board design were verified together through in vivo studies using rabbit, goat, and dog hearts.

Biz Of Acq--Pda, Ebooks, Print Books Usage And Expenditures: Knowledge Ecosystem Remix, Antje Mays, Michelle Flinchbaugh

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

The Scholarly Publishing Scene--The Prose Awards, Myer Kutz

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Commercial Publisher Ebook Platforms, Cris Ferguson

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Little Red Herrings--We Have Met The Enemy, And He Is Us, Mark Y. Herring

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.