Digital Commons Network^™

Collapsible Space Telescope (Cst) For Nanosatellite Imaging And Observation, Elwood Agasid, Kimberly Ennico-Smith, Abraham Rademacher

Small Satellite Conference

Nanosatellites have gained broad use within the university and scientific communities for a variety of applications ranging from Space Weather, Space Biology and Astrobiology. There is great interest to develop high-quality nanosatellite imaging applications to support Earth Observations, Astrophysics and Heliophysics Missions. NASA Ames Research Center is developing a low cost, deployable telescope that, when coupled with the appropriate imager, will provide high-resolution imaging for Earth and Space Observations. The collapsible telescope design is a Strain Deployable Ritchey Chrétien Cassegrain telescope that can fit within the volume of 1U x 4U portion of a 6U nanosatellite platform. Additional telescope optical …

Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Ligands Inhibit Igf-Ii And Adipokine Stimulated Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation, Travis B. Salisbury, Gary Z. Morris, Justin K. Tomblin, Ateeq R. Chaudhry, Carla Cook, Nalini Santanam

Pharmaceutical Science and Research

Obesity increases human cancer risk and the risk for cancer recurrence. Adipocytes secrete paracrine factors termed adipokines that stimulate signaling in cancer cells that induce proliferation. The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) is a ligand-activated transcription factor that plays roles in tumorigenesis, is regulated by exogenous lipophilic chemicals, and has been explored as a therapeutic target for cancer therapy. Whether exogenous AHR ligands modulate adipokine stimulated breast cancer cell proliferation has not been investigated. We provide evidence that adipocytes secrete insulin-like growth factor 2 (IGF-2) at levels that stimulate the proliferation of human estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer cells. Using …

Veterinary Medicine, Jeffrey Tucker, Dr. Michael Mackay

Journal of Undergraduate Research

It is not an overstatement to claim that the work Dr. Michael MacKay and I were able to conduct through the benevolence of the ORCA programme represents the cutting of history of medicine research. We have engaged a field that is strikingly underdeveloped, yet extremely relevant to early modern history. Within the last five years the World Association for the History of Veterinary Medicine has fostered new interests in veterinary history throughout this world. Our scholarship questions current interpretations of the emergence of veterinary science and demonstrates that through the creation of organized horse hospitals systematized veterinary medicine developed almost …

Third World Water Filtration System Implementation, Christopher Welton, Perry Carter

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Approximately 70 million people in rural India do not have access to clean water. Chemicals such as cesium, arsenic, and others contaminate India’s drinking water, rendering it unsafe. Biological contaminates pose increased health risks to those drinking the water. If a water source is bad, large populations need to relocate to find a better source of water. Creating an economic water filtration system capable of being obtained through a micro-loan is beginning alleviate this problem. By creating an affordable and quality system, clean water is becoming a reality for the world’s poor, especially in Third World countries. Through my efforts …

Uncertainty In Population Estimates For Endangered Animals And Improving The Recovery Process, Dale D. Goble

Articles

United States recovery plans contain biological information for a species listed under the Endangered Species Act and specify recovery criteria to provide basis for species recovery. The objective of our study was to evaluate whether recovery plans provide uncertainty (e.g., variance) with estimates of population size. We reviewed all finalized recovery plans for listed terrestrial vertebrate species to record the following data: (1) if a current population size was given, (2) if a measure of uncertainty or variance was associated with current estimates of population size and (3) if population size was stipulated for recovery. We found that 59% of …

Increasing Bilayer Membrance Fusion Rates By Increasing Cholesterol Content, David Lee, Dr. Dixon Woodbury

Journal of Undergraduate Research

A bilayer is a two-layered membrane made of lipids that form around cells. These membranes are formed by hydrophobic tails (water fearing) and hydrophilic heads (water loving) that align such that the tails are isolated from water, while the heads are exposed to water to form micelles, liposomes, or sheets (Fig. 1). They are used to regulate what can enter and exit a cell. A fusion event occurs when a liposome fuses with a sheet. In our experiments, we are able to see the effects on fusion rate by altering the cholesterol content of the sheets.

Bridging The Gap Between Simulation And Experiment With Multi-State Protein Folding, Jacob Lewis, Dr. Thomas Knotts

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Proteins are made up of extremely long chains of amino acids. Depending on it constituent amino acids, proteins fold in many 3-dimensional patterns to facilitate various biochemical processes such as catalyzing chemical reactions which allow us to live. How proteins fold is thought to be the “holy grail” of biochemistry research and, as of yet, no one has been able to predict exactly how a given sequence of amino acids will fold a priori. Protein folding has been probed in experiment and simulated on computers, but there are discrepancies between the two methods. Naturally, the experimental results are what computer …

Transformative Processes In Marriage: Effects On Father-Adolescent Relationships, Brandon Mcdaniel, Dr. Erin Holmes

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Researchers suggest that marital processes and the father-child relationship are linked (Holmes, Duncan, Bair, & White, 2007). Unfortunately, much of this work focuses on negative marital processes. For example, low marital satisfaction, emotional distance between spouses, and high marital conflict undermine father involvement by increasing risk for divorce (Clements, Stanley, & Markman, 2004), lowering parenting quality (Erel & Burman, 1995), and decreasing child adjustment (Grych & Fincham, 2001).

Rates And Patterns Of Great Ape Retrotransposition, Fereydoun Hormozdiari, Miriam K. Konkel, Javier Prado-Martinez, Giorgia Chiatante, Irene Hernando Herraez, Jerilyn A. Walker, Benjamin Nelson, Can Alkan, Peter H. Sudmant, John Huddleston, Claudia R. Catacchio, Arthur Ko, Maika Malig, Carl Baker, Tomas Marques-Bonet, Mario Ventura, Mark A. Batzer, Evan E. Eichler

Faculty Publications

We analyzed 83 fully sequenced great ape genomes for mobile element insertions, predicting a total of 49,452 fixed and polymorphic Alu and long interspersed element 1 (L1) insertions not present in the human reference assembly and assigning each retrotransposition event to a different time point during great ape evolution. We used these homoplasy-free markers to construct a mobile element insertions-based phylogeny of humans and great apes and demonstrate their differential power to discern ape subspecies and populations. Within this context, we find a good correlation between L1 diversity and single-nucleotide polymorphism heterozygosity (r2 =0.65) in contrast to Alu repeats, which …

Jellyfish Body Plans Provide Allometric Advantages Beyond Low Carbon Content, Kylie A. Pitt, Carlos M. Duarte, Cathy H. Lucas, Kelly R. Sutherland, Robert H. Condon, Hermes Mianzan, Jennifer E. Purcell, Kelly L. Robinson, Shin-Ichi Uye

Faculty Publications

Jellyfish form spectacular blooms throughout the world's oceans. Jellyfish body plans are characterised by high water and low carbon contents which enables them to grow much larger than non-gelatinous animals of equivalent carbon content and to deviate from non-gelatinous pelagic animals when incorporated into allometric relationships. Jellyfish have, however, been argued to conform to allometric relationships when carbon content is used as the metric for comparison. Here we test the hypothesis that differences in allometric relationships for several key functional parameters remain for jellyfish even after their body sizes are scaled to their carbon content. Data on carbon and nitrogen …

Novel Structural And Physiological Functions Of High Conductance K+ Channels Of The Slo Family, Gonzalo Budelli

All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)

The SLO family channels are high conductance K+ channels that are gated both by voltage and intracellular ions. Structurally they resemble voltage gated channels but have additional large conserved intracellular domains appended on the C-terminal that allow them to be gated by different intracellular ions. Two members of this unique family of K+ channels are Slo1: BK) which is activated by Ca2+, and Slo2.2: Slack) which is activated by sodium. Both channels are widely expressed in the brain and other tissues in many species from C. elegans to humans.

The large conductance Ca2+- activated K+ channel: Slo1 or BK for …

Substituent Effects On Reactivity And Allergenicity Of Benzoquinone, Wilbes Mbiya

Dissertations and Theses

Benzoquinone (BQ) is an extremely potent electrophilic contact allergen that haptenates endogenous proteins through Michael addition (MA). It is also hypothesized that BQ may haptenate proteins via free radical formation. The objective of this study was to assess the inductive effects (activating and deactivating) of substituents on BQ reactivity and the mechanistic pathway of covalent binding to nucleophilic thiols. The BQ binding by Cys34 on human serum albumin was studied, and for reactivity studies, nitrobenzenethiol (NBT) was used as a surrogate for protein binding of the BQ and benzoquinone derivatives (BQD). Stopped flow techniques were used to determine pseudo-first order …

Systems And Methods For Controlling Objects, Aristide Dogariu, Gabriel Biener, Kiminobu Sugaya

UCF Patents

Systems and methods for controlling an object are disclosed. In one embodiment, a system and method pertain to irradiating the object with polarized electromagnetic radiation for a duration of time sufficient to effect a physical change with the object.

A Hierarchical Coarse-Grained (All-Atom-To-All-Residue) Computer Simulation Approach: Self-Assembly Of Peptides, Ras B. Pandey, Zhifeng Kuang, Barry L. Farmer

Faculty Publications

A hierarchical computational approach (all-atom residue to all-residue peptide) is introduced to study self-organizing structures of peptides as a function of temperature. A simulated residue-residue interaction involving all-atom description, analogous to knowledge-based analysis (with different input), is used as an input to a phenomenological coarse-grained interaction for large scales computer simulations. A set of short peptides P1 (¹H ²S ³S ⁴Y ⁵W ⁶Y ⁷A ⁸F ⁹N ¹⁰N ¹¹K ¹²T) is considered as an example to illustrate the utility. We find that peptides assemble rather fast into globular …

Ccaat/Enhancer-Binding Protein Delta (C/Ebp-Delta) Expression In Antarctic Fishes: Implications For Cell Cycle And Apoptosis, Isaac Martin Sleadd

Dissertations and Theses

Chapter 1: Antarctic fishes are extremely cold adapted. Despite their inability to upregulate heat shock proteins, recent studies have demonstrated a capacity for heat response in these animals. A cDNA microarray study looked at the Notothenioid fish Trematomus bernacchii and revealed heat sensitivities for hundreds of genes, two of which code for members of the CCAAT/Enhancer-binding protein (C/EBP) family of transcription factors. These molecular switches are best known for their roles in apoptosis, inflammation and cell cycle arrest. This dissertation further elucidates the role of C/EBP-delta in the Antarctic fishes T. bernacchii and Pagothenia borchgrevinki.

Chapter 2: C/EBP-delta is constitutively …

An Emergent Approach To Analogical Inference, Paul Thibodeau, Stephen J. Flusberg, Jeremy J. Glick, Daniel A. Sternberg

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In recent years, a growing number of researchers have proposed that analogy is a core component of human cognition. According to the dominant theoretical viewpoint, analogical reasoning requires a specific suite of cognitive machinery, including explicitly coded symbolic representations and a mapping or binding mechanism that operates over these representations. Here we offer an alternative approach: we find that analogical inference can emerge naturally and spontaneously from a relatively simple, error-driven learning mechanism without the need to posit any additional analogy-specific machinery. The results also parallel findings from the developmental literature on analogy, demonstrating a shift from an initial reliance …

Colour And Odour Drive Fruit Selection And Seed Dispersal By Mouse Lemurs, Kim Valenta, Ryan J. Burke, Sarah A. Styler, Derek A. Jackson, Amanda D. Melin, Shawn M. Lehman

Dartmouth Scholarship

Animals and fruiting plants are involved in a complex set of interactions, with animals relying on fruiting trees as food resources, and fruiting trees relying on animals for seed dispersal. This interdependence shapes fruit signals such as colour and odour, to increase fruit detectability, and animal sensory systems, such as colour vision and olfaction to facilitate food identification and selection. Despite the ecological and evolutionary importance of plant-animal interactions for shaping animal sensory adaptations and plant characteristics, the details of the relationship are poorly understood. Here we examine the role of fruit chromaticity, luminance and odour on seed dispersal by …

Phytoestrogens: Effects On Male Sexual Health Parameters, Trevor Hansen, Dr. Edwin Lephart

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Phytoestrogens are estrogen-like molecules derived from soy-based foodstuffs such as soybeans, tofu and even certain cereals. In particular, our study focused on a subclass of phytoestrogens called isoflavones. Of the many isoflavones, daidzene and genistein are thought to exert the most potent estrogenic hormone activity, and thus have been the subject of much recent research.

Causes, Consequences, And Treatment Of Osteoporosis In Men, Jameela Banu

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications

Men undergo gradual bone loss with aging, resulting in fragile bones. It is estimated that one in five men will suffer an osteoporotic fracture during their lifetime. The prognosis for men after a hip fracture is very grim. A major cause is reduction of free testosterone. Many other factors result in secondary osteoporosis, including treatment for other diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Patients should be screened not only for bone density but also assessed for their nutritional status, physical activity, and drug intake. Therapy should be chosen based on the type of osteoporosis. Available therapies include testosterone replacement, bisphosphonates, …

Hcmv Promotes Breast Cancer Metastasis: Impacts Of Cmvil-10 In The Tumor Microenvironment, Robin Bishop

Master's Theses

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a highly species-specific, common human pathogen. While a large majority of people are infected with HCMV worldwide, infection is typically asymptomatic in immune competent individuals. To enhance virus persistence and avoid immune detection by the host, HCMV exploits the strategy of encoding homologs of cellular cytokines. One factor produced by HCMV-infected cells is the viral cytokine cmvIL-10, which acts through the cellular IL-10 receptor to induce downstream cell signaling. In instances where HCMV-infected cells infiltrate the tumor microenvironment, the presence of cmvIL-10 in may initiate events that promote a more invasive tumor phenotype. Cancer cells that …

Responsive Website Design For First Unitarian Church And Louis Kahn, Chen Zhang

Theses

Responsive Website Design for First Unitarian Church and Louis Kahn is a thesis project for Master Degree of Fine Arts in Computer Graphics Design program at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This thesis project is to design a responsive website for the First Unitarian Church, a website which has three user experiences: a desktop site, tablet site and a mobile site. The website audience is architecture or design students, professors, and enthusiasts. There are three objectives in this thesis project: first, to design a responsive website for cross-platform experience for users; second, to provide users a real digital visiting experience …

Timing Of Favorable Conditions, Competition And Fertility Interact To Govern Recruitment Of Invasive Chinese Tallow Tree In Stressful Environments, Christopher A. Gabler, Evan Siemann

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

The rate of new exotic recruitment following removal of adult invaders (reinvasion pressure) influences restoration outcomes and costs but is highly variable and poorly understood. We hypothesize that broad variation in average reinvasion pressure of Triadica sebifera (Chinese tallow tree, a major invader) arises from differences among habitats in spatiotemporal availability of realized recruitment windows. These windows are periods of variable duration long enough to permit establishment given local environmental conditions. We tested this hypothesis via a greenhouse mesocosm experiment that quantified how the duration of favorable moisture conditions prior to flood or drought stress (window duration), competition and nutrient …

“Forty Years On: Women Lawyers? Still On That? And Ecofeminism . . . Again?”, Daniel M. Warner, Steven Hancher

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

Forty years ago, environmentally concerned law students put hope for sustainability in two trends. First, the burgeoning number of women law-school students held promise: upon reaching professional stride in their forties and fifties (the late 1980s and 1990s), surely their influence would disabuse law and society of enough of its patriarchal, hierarchical domination—domination over nature here—to move society toward a new, sustainable course. Second—and related—the emerging philosophy of ecofeminism promised to call out the ecocrisis and push on with positive responses. But women never assumed influential roles in the important “big firms,” and ecofeminism lost focus and dissipated in a …

Identification Of Novel Gene Targets And Functions Of P21-Activated Kinase 1 During Dna Damage By Gene Expression Profiling, Mona Motwani, Da-Qiang Li, Anelia Horvath, Rakesh Kumar

Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine Faculty Publications

P21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1), a serine/threonine protein kinase, modulates many cellular processes by phosphorylating its downstream substrates. In addition to its role in the cytoplasm, PAK1 also affects gene transcription due to its nuclear localization and association with chromatin. It is now recognized that PAK1 kinase activity and its nuclear translocation are rapidly stimulated by ionizing radiation (IR), and that PAK1 activation is a component of the DNA damage response. Owing to the role of PAK1 in the cell survival, its association with the chromatin, and now, stimulation by ionizing radiation, we hypothesize that PAK1 may be contributing to modulation …

Biofouling : A Means Of Aquatic Species Transfer, Anne Bouyssou, Josefin Madjidian

NSBWO

Ships carry seawater in their ballast tanks when they are not fully loaded with cargo, in order to maintain adequate trim, draught and stability, adjust list and limit stresses on the hull. It is now well documented that the water pumped into the ship contains aquatic organisms – which can also sink to the sediments at the bottom of tanks – and that these organisms are thereby transferred from the port of origin to the destination. But it is seldom mentioned that aquatic organisms are also found on the outside of ships, attached on their hulls and appendages, as a …

2012-13 Arkansas Test Results, Michael L. Crouch, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

In early August, the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) released the 2012-2013 test score results. The following brief will highlight the results of these tests, compare achievement scores over time, and provide a glimpse of regional achievement results for the following exams:  Benchmark Exam (Grades 3-8)  End-of-Course Exam (Algebra I, Geometry, Biology, and Grade 11 Literacy).  Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Grades 1-9)

A River Continuum Analysis Of An Anthropogenically-Impacted System: The Little Bear River, Utah, Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh, Nicholas A. Heredia, Patsy Palacios, Jared Baker, Chance Broderius, Katie Fisher, Jason Fuller, G. Andrew Pappas, Christian Smith, Marc Weston

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

In September 2012 the Aquatic Ecology Practicum class from Utah State University studied the 51km river continuum of the Little Bear River located in northern Utah (Figure 1). The relatively pristine headwaters of the river begin in the Wasatch Mountain Range at an altitude of 1800 m. The river flows northward into Cache Valley where it terminates in Cutler Reservoir (1345 m elevation). Agricultural development and urbanization have modified the natural terrain and chemical characteristics of the river, and Hyrum Reservoir, located midway along the gradient causes a discontinuity in river processes. The results from analyses of stream condition indicators …

A Note On Pigs’ Knowledge Of Hidden Objects, Christian Nawroth, Mirjam Ebersbach, Eberhard Von Borell

Memory Collection

Object permanence is the notion that objects continue to exist even when they are out of observer’s sight. This ability is adaptive for free ranging animals who have to cope with a dangerous and highly changeable environment and allows them to be aware of predators sneaking in their proximity or to keep track of conspecifics or food sources, even when out of sight. Farm animals might also benefit from object permanence because the ability to follow the trajectory of hidden food or objects may lead to a higher predictability of subjects’ environment, which in turn might affect the level of …

Anthropogenic Impacts On The Longitudinal Gradient Of Nutrients In The Little Bear River, Jason Fuller

Natural Resources and Environmental Issues

I measured the anthropogenic impacts from land use on nutrient concentrations along the Little Bear River in Cache Valley, Utah. Water samples from twelve stations along the Little Bear River were collected and analyzed using an auto analyzer in order to determine conductivity and concentrations of total nitrogen, total phosphorus, soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP), ammonia (NH3), and nitrate (NO3-). Samples were collected at stations thought to reveal anthropogenically influenced nutrient loading. Some of the anthropogenic land usages that potentially impact the nutrient concentrations include agricultural land use, urban land use, Hyrum Reservoir, the Trout of Paradise fishing reserve located near …

A Fisheries Investigation Of The Previously Un-Surveyed Little Bear River, Christian Smith

Natural Resources and Environmental Issues

To evaluate the effects of human impacts on the composition and abundances of fishes on the Little Bear River, the 2012 Aquatic Ecology Practicum class conducted backpack electrofishing surveys in four sites of the river on 29 September and 4 October 2012. At these sites, species composition, biomass, and abundances were documented utilizing 2-pass electrofishing. In total, ten species were captured, with native species being represented by Bonneville cutthroat trout (Oncoryhnchus clarki Utah) and mottled sculpin (Cottus bairdii). Mottled sculpin comprised the majority of native fish captured (n= 241), while brown trout accounted for the majority of nonnatives …