Digital Commons Network^™

Lps And Pan-Induced Podocyte Injury In An In Vitro Model Of Minimal Change Disease: Changes In Tlr Profile., Tarak Srivastava, Mukut Sharma, Kok-Hooi Yew, Ram Sharma, R Scott Duncan, Moin A. Saleem, Ellen T. Mccarthy, Alexander Kats, Patricia A. Cudmore, Uri S. Alon, Christopher J. Harrison

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Minimal change disease (MCD), the most common idiopathic nephrotic syndrome in children, is characterized by proteinuria and loss of glomerular visceral epithelial cell (podocyte) ultrastructure. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and puromycin aminonucleoside (PAN) are used to study podocyte injury in models of MCD in vivo and in vitro. We hypothesized that LPS and PAN influence components of the innate immune system in podocytes such as the Toll-Like Receptor (TLRs), TLR adapter molecules, and associated cytokines. Our results show that cultured human podocytes constitutively express TLRs 1-6 and TLR-10, but not TLRs 7-9. LPS (25 μg/ml) or PAN (60 μg/ml) caused comparable derangement …

Automated Sleep Classification Using The New Sleep Stage Standards, Elizabeth Fehrmann

Theses

Sleep is fundamental for physical health and good quality of life, and clinicians and researchers have long debated how best to understand it. Manual approaches to sleep classification have been in use for over 40 years, and in 2007, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) published a new sleep scoring manual. Over the years, many attempts have been made to introduce and validate machine learning and automated classification techniques in the sleep research field, with the goals of improving consistency and reliability. This thesis explored and assessed the use of automated classification systems with the updated sleep stage definitions …

The Functioning Of Species-Specific Olfactory Pheromones In The Biology Of A Mosquito-Eating Jumping Spider From East Africa, Fiona R. Cross, Robert R. Jackson

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Having unique, complex eyes and vision based on exceptional spatial acuity, salticid spiders are known for their vision-based predatory and mating strategies. Yet Evarcha culicivora, the salticid we consider here, is known for predatory and mating strategies based strongly on the interplay of vision and olfaction. This unusual East African species feeds indirectly on vertebrate blood by choosing blood-carrying female mosquitoes as preferred prey, which it can identify by sight and by smell. Moreover, E. culicivora's mating strategy is unusual because, unlike the prevailing general pattern among spiders, where males are more active in courtship and females are more active …

Characterization Of Myxococcus Xanthus Mazf And Implications For A New Point Of Regulation, Tye O. Boynton, Jonathan L. Mcmurry, Lawrence J. Shimkets

Faculty Articles

During development, Myxococcus xanthus cells undergo programmed cell death (PCD) whereby 80% of vegetative cells die. Previously, the MazF RNA interferase has been implicated in this role. Recently, it was shown that deletion of the mazF gene does not eliminate PCD in wild-type strain DK1622 as originally seen in DZF1. To clarify the role of MazF, recombinant enzyme was characterized using a highly sensitive assay in the presence and absence of the proposed antitoxin MrpC. In contrast to previous reports that MrpC inhibits MazF activity, the hydrolysis rate was enhanced in a concentration-dependent manner with MrpC or MrpC2, an N-terminally …

Affinity Monolith Chromatography: A Review Of Principles And Recent Analytical Applications, Erika L. Pfaunmiller, Marie Laura Paulemond, Courtney M. Dupper, David S. Hage

David Hage Publications

Affinity monolith chromatography (AMC) is a type of liquid chromatography that uses a monolithic support and a biologically-related binding agent as a stationary phase. AMC is a powerful method for the selective separation, analysis or studies of specific target compounds in a sample. This review discusses the basic principles of AMC and recent developments or applications of this method, with particular emphasis being given to work that has appeared in the last five years. Various materials that have been used to prepare columns for AMC are examined, including organic monoliths, silica monoliths, agarose monoliths and cryogels. These supports have been …

Mapping Long-Term Spatial Trends Of The Taimyr Wild Reindeer Population, Andrey N. Petrov, Anna V. Pestereva, Leonid A. Kolpashchikov, Vladimir V. Mikhailov

Faculty Publications

This report presents preliminary results of mapping and analyzing wild reindeer spatial dynamics in Taimyr, Russia. We collected, spatially referenced, and systematized comprehensive aerial and land survey information spanning from 1969 to 2003, which is the most complete long-term data available about a wild reindeer herd in Eurasia. The report introduces some of the mapping products and presents a summary of our observations on spatiotemporal changes in reindeer distribution and migration. Using these data and new digital products in the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) environment, we were able to observe the long-term shift of the Taimyr Reindeer Herd's summer, winter, …

Recognizing The Feminization Of Displacement: A Proposal For A Gender-Focused Approach To Local Integration In Ecuador, Johanna L. Gusman

Washington International Law Journal

The feminization of displacement refers to the phenomenon in which women represent an increasingly disproportionate percentage of displaced populations worldwide. The objective of this comment is to raise awareness of this growing problem and recommend that policymakers craft legal responses to better address this reality, using Ecuador as an example. Specifically, this comment outlines how a gender-focused approach to local integration in Ecuador can rectify a refugee policy that never once mentions gender and is silent on the most pressing issues facing refugee women and girls in the area: sexual and gender-based violence. Through the proposal put forth in this …

Healthcare Seeking Behavior Among Subjects With Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Saudi Medical Journal

The behaviors exhibited by individuals who seek healthcare for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are numerous, varied, and sometimes controversial, and/or inconsistent. This study aims to review the factors associated with these healthcare seeking behaviors. Through a selective review of the literature, articles were identified by using the following search terms: IBS, healthcare seeking, conventional and non-conventional treatment, cultural factors, and gender differences. The roles of different factors associated with healthcare seeking are discussed.

High C Reactive Protein Associated With Increased Pulse Wave Velocity Among Urban Men With Metabolic Syndrome In Malaysia, Amilia Aminuddin, Zaiton Zakaria, Ahmad F. Fuad, Jaarin Kamsiah, Faizah Othman, Srijit Das, Yusof Kamisah, Haji S. Qodriyah, Zakiah Jubri, Noranita M. Nordin, Wan Z. Ngah

Saudi Medical Journal

OBJECTIVE: To determine the association between carotid femoral pulse wave velocity (PWVCF); augmentation index (AI); and high-sensitivity C reactive protein (hs-CRP) with metabolic syndrome (MetS), and to determine the influence of ethnicity on PWVCF and AI, and the association between high hs-CRP and increased PWV, and AI in MetS. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from September 2009 to September 2011. Three hundred and eighty men (Chinese and Malays) were recruited from the study. The PWVCF and AI were measured by Vicorder (SMT Medical, Wuerzburg, Germany). The hs-CRP level was also …

Ilizarov Method With Bone Segment Extension For Treating Large Defects Of The Tibia Caused By Infected Nonunion, Zhang H. Feng, Zhang Yuan, Li Z. Jun, Zhang Tao, Zheng Y. Fa, Ma X. Long

Saudi Medical Journal

No abstract provided.

Somatic Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (Nf1) Inactivation Characterizes Nf1-Associated Pilocytic Astrocytoma, David H. Gutmann, Michael D. Mclellan, Ibrahim Hussain, John W. Wallis, Lucinda L. Fulton, Robert S. Fulton, Vincent Magrini, Ryan Demeter, Todd Wylie, Cyriac Kandoth, Jeffrey R. Leonard, Abhijit Guha, Christopher A. Miller, Li Ding, Elaine R. Mardis

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Missouri S&T Magazine Spring 2013, Missouri S&T Marketing And Communications Department, Miner Alumni Association

Missouri S&T Magazine

No abstract provided.

Spring 2013 E-Certi Newsletter, Center For Educational Research And Teaching Innovation

CAFE Faculty Newsletters

Hello S&T instructors: Time to catch your second wind as we approach mid-semester and St. Pat’s break. In this edition, read about how faculty handle classes of 100-plus on a regular basis, predictions from an internationally known engineering educator about upcoming changes in teaching engineers, being proactive about end-of-course evaluations, and other news.

Born To Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, And The Greatest Race The World Has Never Seen (Book Review), Sherri B. Lantinga

Pro Rege

Reviewed Title: MacDougall, Christopher. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. New York: Vintage Books, 2009. 304 pages. ISBN: 9780307279187.

Data Visualization On Interactive Surfaces: A Research Agenda, Petra Isenberg, Tobias Isenberg, Tobias Hesselmann, Bongshin Lee, Ulrich Von Zadow, Anthony Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Interactive tabletops and surfaces (ITSs) provide rich opportunities for data visualization and analysis and consequently are used increasingly in such settings. A research agenda of some of the most pressing challenges related to visualization on ITSs emerged from discussions with researchers and practitioners in human-computer interaction, computer-supported collaborative work, and a variety of visualization fields at the 2011 Workshop on Data Exploration for Interactive Surfaces (Dexis 2011)

Food, Culture, And Identity In Vittorini's Conversation In Sicily And Kofman's Rue Ordener, Rue Labat, Brangwen J. Stone

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Food, Culture, and Identity in Vittorini's Conversation in Sicily and Kofman's Rue Ordener, Rue Labat" Brangwen J. Stone discusses Elio Vittorini's novel about the protagonist's journey to his Sicilian hometown in fascist Italy and Sarah Kofman's memoir about her childhood memories of hiding in Paris during World War II. The prevalence of food in Conversations in Sicily and Rue Ordener is not surprising given the extreme shortage of food during wartime, but food goes beyond simply illustrating the everyday in both texts. Stone explores how food and collective identity are linked in the texts and how …

Text, Textile, And The Body In Baudelaire's 'A Une Mendiante Rousse' And Devi's Indian Tango, Michelle C. Lee

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Text, Textile, and the Body in Baudelaire's 'A une mendiante rousse' and Devi's Indian Tango," Michelle C. Lee aims to rethink the post-romantic division between aesthetics and politics through a reconsideration of the idea of complicity in Charles Baudelaire's poem and Ananda Devi's novel. Lee argues against the claim that aesthetics needs to remain autonomous in order to be able to radically critique bourgeois society. Through a reading of the trope of clothing in each of the texts, Lee re-evaluates the formation of autonomous modernist aesthetics and attempts to show that avant-garde self-reflexivity engages in the …

Achebe's Work, Postcoloniality, And Human Rights, Eric Sipyinyu Njeng

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Achebe's Work, Postcoloniality, and Human Rights" Eric Sipyinyu Njeng argues that Chinua Achebe exposes failings in the fabric of African society and engages with violations of human rights. Achebe is careful not to hurt the pride of Africans who in the Zeitgeist of the nationalist ferment of the 1950s were wary of European powers. Achebe does not "write back" to the empire: he writes the empire in and he lays bare the weaknesses in African culture grounded in the father-son-grandson trajectory he narrates. Achebe presents what may be termed a cultural dialectics: the thesis (flawed African customs …

Science, Technology, And Catholic Identity In The Education Of Professionals, Keith Douglass Warner O.F.M., David S. Caudill

Faculty Publications

The reception of Ex corde ecclesiae has been uneven across the disciplines, with scant interest in distinctly Catholic pedagogies outside of the humanities. This essay argues that Catholic universities can distinguish themselves by how they present science and technology in their curriculum by drawing from the interdisciplinary field of “science, technology & society,” or STS. We argue that discussions about Catholic identity, science, and human values can and should extend into the curriculum while simultaneously safeguarding academic freedom, and that this can readily be done in professional schools, such as law and engineering. We outline the contributions that STS as …

Short Note: Repeated Non-Agonistic Interactions Between A Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus) And Sperm Whales (Physeter Macrocephalus) In Azorean Waters, Alexander D.M. Wilson

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Tracking Knee Joint Functional Axes Through Tikhonov Filtering And Plűcker Coordinates, Wangdo Kim, Yoon-Hyuk Kim, António P. Veloso, Sean S. Kohles

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Researchers have reported several compensation methods to estimate bone and joint position from a cluster of skin-mounted markers as influenced by Soft Tissue Artifacts (STA). Tikhonov Regularization Filtering (TRF) as a means to estimate Instantaneous Screw Axes (ISA) was introduced here as a means to reduce the displacement of a rigid body to its simplest geometric form. Recent studies have suggested that the ISA of the knee, i.e., Knee Functional Axes (KFA), might be closely connected to the estimation of constraint forces such as those due to medial and lateral connective tissues. The estimations of ISAs were known to be …

Testing The Hypothesis Of Accelerated Cerebral White Matter Aging In Schizophrenia And Major Depression, Peter Kochunov, David C. Glahn, Laura M. Rowland, Rene L. Olvera, Anderson M. Winkler, Hemalatha Sampath, Ravi Duggirala, Joanne E. Curran, John Blangero, L. Elliot Hong

School of Medicine Publications

Background

Elevated rate of aging-related biological and functional decline, termed “accelerated aging,” is reported in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and major depressive disorder (MDD). We used diffusion tensor imaging derived fractional anisotropy (FA) as a biomarker of aging-related decline in white matter (WM) integrity to test the hypotheses of accelerated aging in SCZ and MDD.

Methods

The SCZ cohort comprised 58 SCZ patients and 60 controls (aged 20–60 years). The MDD cohort comprised 136 MDD patients and 351 controls (aged 20–79 years). The main outcome measures were the diagnosis-by-age interaction on whole-brain-averaged WM FA values and FA values from 12 …

Genomics And Autism Spectrum Disorder, Norah L. Johnson

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose: To present the current state of the evidence regarding translation of genetics (the study of single genes) and genomics (the study of all genes and gene-gene or gene-environment interactions) into health care of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Methods: This article presents an overview of ASD as an international health challenge, the emerging science related to broad diagnostic criteria, and the role of the nurse in research, education, and practice.

Findings: Much progress is being made in the understanding of genetics and genomics of ASD. Environmental factors are thought to contribute to the risk of developing ASD by …

A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial Of Oral Montelukast In Acute Asthma Exacerbation., Ali Bin Sarwar Zubairi, Nawal Salahuddin, Ali Khawaja, Safia Awan, Adil Aijaz Shah, Ahmed Suleman Haque, Shahid Javed Husain, Nisar Rao, Javaid Khan

Department of Medicine

Background: Leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs) are well established in the management of outpatient asthma. However, there is very little information as to their role in acute asthma exacerbations. We hypothesized that LTRAs may accelerate lung function recovery when given in an acute exacerbation.

Methods: A randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital to assess the efficacy of oral montelukast on patients of 16 years of age and above who were hospitalized with acute asthma exacerbation. The patients were given either montelukast or placebo along with standard therapy throughout the hospital stay for acute asthma. …

Computational Science, Demystified...The Future, Revealed...And Cise, 2013, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

What are some of the exciting avenues that computational science is exploring, and how can we best give a voice to such emerging ideas?

Imagination And Experience: An Integrative Framework, Mark Fettes

Democracy & Education

Three variations of experience identified in the educational literature entail different ways of thinking about and developing learners’ imaginations. The relationship between these different imaginative modes resembles shifts between different kinds of understanding in Kieran Egan’s theory of imaginative development. From this theoretical collision, a new framework emerges that gives greater weight to the connections between experience and imagination, and that may help to guide new forms of democratic educational practice.

Session 1 Paper And Presentation - Wave Buoys: Using The Right Tool For The Right Job, Robert G. Williams, C. Reid Nichols, Tony Ethier

Ocean Waves Workshop

No abstract provided.

A Touch Of History - Lake Pontchartrain And The Higgins Boat, Charles R. Nichols

Ocean Waves Workshop

No abstract provided.

Measuring Material Relaxation And Creep Recovery In A Microfluidic Device, Alison E. Patteson (Koser), Lichao Pan, Nathan C. Keim, Paulo E. Arratia

Physics - All Scholarship

We present a novel method of testing creep recovery in a microfluidic device. This method allows for the measurement of relaxation time of fluids at low strain. After applying a steady pressure-driven flow along a microchannel, the pressure is released and the fluid is allowed to relax and come to rest. Local strains are observed via the time-dependent velocity profiles and are fit to a general viscoelastic model to obtain the fluids' relaxation times. The use of polymeric solutions of various molecular weights allows for the observation of time scales for strains ranging from 0.01 to 10. Results are consistent …

Nicotinic Receptor β2 Determines Nk Cell-Dependent Metastasis In A Murine Model Of Metastatic Lung Cancer, Junwei Hao, Fu Dong Shi, Mohammed Abdelwahab, Samuel X. Shi, Alain Simard, Paul Whiteaker, Ronald Lukas, Qinghua Zhou

Translational Neuroscience

Cigarette smoke exposure markedly compromises the ability of the immune system to protect against invading pathogens and tumorigenesis. Nicotine is a psychoactive component of tobacco products that acts as does the natural neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, on nicotinic receptors (nAChRs). Here we demonstrate that natural killer (NK) cells strongly express nAChR β2. Nicotine exposure impairs the ability of NK cells to kill target cells and release cytokines, a process that is largely abrogated by nAChR β2 deficiency. Further, nicotinic suppression of NF-κB-induced transcriptional activity in NK cells is dependent on nAChR β2. This nAChR subtype also plays a large role in the …