Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing The Bioconfinement Potential Of A Nicotiana Hybrid Platform For Use In Plant Molecular Farming Applications, J. Hollis Rice, Richard E. Mundell, Reginald J. Millwood, Orlando D. Chambers, C. Neal Stewart, H. Maelor Davies

Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: The introduction of pharmaceutical traits in tobacco for commercial production could benefit from the utilization of a transgene bioconfinement system. It has been observed that interspecific F1Nicotiana hybrids (Nicotiana tabacum × Nicotiana glauca) are sterile and thus proposed that hybrids could be suitable bioconfined hosts for biomanufacturing. We genetically tagged hybrids with green fluorescent protein (GFP), which was used as a visual marker to enable gene flow tracking and quantification for field and greenhouse studies. GFP was used as a useful proxy for pharmaceutical transgenes.

RESULTS: Analysis of DNA content revealed significant genomic downsizing of the hybrid relative to …

Evolver: An Optimization Engine For Evolving Protein Sequences To Stabilize The Respective Structures, Michal Brylinski

Faculty Publications

Background: Many structural bioinformatics approaches employ sequence profile-based threading techniques. To improve fold recognition rates, homology searching may include artificially evolved amino acid sequences, which were demonstrated to enhance the sensitivity of protein threading in targeting midnight zone templates. Findings. We describe implementation details of eVolver, an optimization algorithm that evolves protein sequences to stabilize the respective structures by a variety of potentials, which are compatible with those commonly used in protein threading. In a case study focusing on LARG PDZ domain, we show that artificially evolved sequences have quite high capabilities to recognize the correct protein structures using standard …

Method Of Controlled Delivery For Use In Electrochemical Power Sources, Andres M. Cardenas-Valencia, Norma A. Alcantar, Xiaoling Ding, Ryan G. Toomey, Lawrence C. Langebrake

USF Patents

A system and method for improving electrochemical power sources through the dispensing encapsulation and dispersion into galvanic chambers of an electrochemical cell. Features of the method include the optimization of the concentration levels of chemicals involved in desired energy producing reactions.

See-Through Abdomen Display For Minimally Invasive Surgery, Yu Sun, Richard D. Gitlin, Adam Anderson, Alexander Rosemurgy, Sharona Ross

USF Patents

This invention is in the domain of minimally invasive surgery and is a method and apparatus that transforms and displays images of internal organs and tissues taken from internally located imaging devices on external skin. The image displayed on the skin aligns with the actual physical location, orientation, and size of the internal organs and tissues in a way that viewers have the perception that the skin is transparent. This method and apparatus enables surgeons to have the same hand-eye coordination as in an open surgery during a minimally invasive surgery.

Oyster Sustainability Modeling As A Public Resource, Nathan A. Cooper

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

A simulation algorithm based on biological references points proposed by Powell and Klink (2007) is implemented for predicting the total allowable catch of eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) from Louisiana’s coast. The model accepts initial per-square-meter shell mass and oyster size distributions as input. Fishing effort is provided as fractions removed of each resource for each month of the season. The model outputs the expected remaining shell mass and harvests of sack and seed oysters after discrete fishing months. Oyster mortality credits the shell budget, while fishing fractions debit oyster and shell resources. Surviving oysters grow larger along a …

The Intersecting And Integrating Identities Of Rural Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Christians, Brandi Woodell

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The majority of discussions of gay and lesbian experiences in the United States associate gay culture with urban areas. However, there is still a significant population of LGBT people living in the rural United States (Baumle et al 2009). Many of these individuals identify with rural spaces and seek to maintain “country” identities. As with rural spaces, there is an assumption that Christian identities directly conflict with those of non-heterosexual identities. This study examines the ways in which these individuals create and negotiate stereotypically conflicting identities regarding their sexuality, their rural identities and their religious identities. The goal of this …

Path To Pa, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Where Do We Go From Here? Multiliteracy And The Future Of Narrative, Dustin W. Mccrory

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Words on a page are insufficient vehicles for complex ideas. When images and words appear together on the page, as in comics, the process of meaning-making through narrative functions more efficiently. Building on this idea, we must establish a “graphic narratology” to understand the process whereby meaning is transmitted. Analysis of narratological conventions, as well as the conventions of mass-market comics, provides a framework for this new narratology.

Critiquing Academic Culture With Satire Through Lady Lazarus, A Fictional Biography, Amber R. Perry

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the tradition of academic satire, Lady Lazarus is the fictional biography of the daughter of American rock musicians. In her late teens she rises to fame as confessional poet, who, despite only publishing one collection of poems during her brief life, becomes an overnight sensation. Author Andrew Altschul is satirizing academia’s need to be a part of popular culture and in doing so, privileges the ability to use controversy and conventional beauty to sell books as opposed to creating quality art. By focusing on how the author uses Hans Robert Jauss’ horizons of expectations, unreliable narrators, anecdotes in biography …

A Study On The Regulation Of Amino Acids And Glucose Sensing Pathways In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Mengying Chiang

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Nutrient availability regulates eukaryotic cell growth. This study focuses on two signaling pathways, involved in sensing amino acids and carbon sources, which allow cells to respond appropriately to their presence. The first part of this study shows that Ssy1, a plasma membrane localized sensor in the Ssy1-Ptr3-Ssy5 (SPS) amino acid sensing pathway, can detect 19 common L-amino acids with different potencies and affinities based on the physiochemical structure of amino acids. Substituents around alpha carbon are critical for amino acid sensing by Ssy1. Furthermore, a high concentration of cysteine is toxic to cells. Inactivation of SPS signaling confers resistance to …

Approaches For Improved Positional Proteomics, Yanjie Jiang

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Positional proteomics is emerging as an attractive technique to characterize protein termini, which play important biological roles in cells. Even with the advances in past decades, there still are areas for improvement. This thesis focuses on improving data quality and assignment confidence in positional proteomics.

A novel workflow was designed for the large-scale identification of protein N-terminal sequences. 4-sulfophenyl isothiocyanate (SPITC) is used for N-termini sulfonation; Upon higher energy collisional dissociation (HCD), SPITC peptides in electrospray ionization ESI generate predominately y-type ion series; such simplification of spectra enables the identification of N-termini with high fidelity. The presence of b_{1 …}

The Challenges Of Using Polyethylene Passive Samplers To Determine Dissolved Concentrations Of Parent And Alkylated Pahs Under Cold And Saline Conditions, Pamela J. Reitsma, Dave Adelman, Rainer Lohmann

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Passive samplers can be useful tools to determine truly dissolved concentrations of organic contaminants in the water. Polyethylene (PE) samplers were validated for measuring polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), with a focus on alkylated PAHs that can dominate in an oil spill. Equilibrium partition coefficients (K_PEw) between water and PE passive samplers were measured for 41 PAHs both at ambient conditions (20 °C, no salt), down to -15 °C and 245 psu present in ice brine. For each additional alkylated carbon, log K_PEw increased by an average of 0.40 (± 0.20) log units, close to predictions. The …

Functional Connectivity In The First Year Of Life In Infants At-Risk For Autism: A Preliminary Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study, Brandon Keehn, Jennifer B. Wagner, Helen Tager-Flusberg, Charles A. Nelson

Publications and Research

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been called a “developmental disconnection syndrome,” however the majority of the research examining connectivity in ASD has been conducted exclusively with older children and adults. Yet, prior ASD research suggests that perturbations in neurodevelopmental trajectories begin as early as the first year of life. Prospective longitudinal studies of infants at risk for ASD may provide a window into the emergence of these aberrant patterns of connectivity. The current study employed functional connectivity near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in order to examine the development of intra- and inter-hemispheric functional connectivity in high- and low-risk infants across the …

Antibacterial And Herbicidal Activity Of Ring-Substituted 2-Hydroxynaphthalene-1-Carboxanilides, Rodeney Govender, Et. Al.

Department of Biological Sciences Publications

In this study, a series of twenty-two ring-substituted 2-hydroxynaphthalene-1-carboxanilides were prepared and characterized. Primary in vitro screening of the synthesized compounds was performed against Staphylococcus aureus, three methicillin-resistant S. aureus strains, Mycobacterium marinum, M. kasasii, M. smegmatis. and M. avium paratuberculosis. The compounds were also tested for their activity related to inhibition of photosynthetic electron transport (PET) in spinach (Spinacia oleracea L.) chloroplasts. 2-Hydroxy-N-phenylnaphthalene-1-carboxanilide and 2-hydroxy-N-(3-trifluoromethylphenyl)naphthalene-1-carboxamide (IC50 = 29 µmol/L) were the most active PET inhibitors. Some of tested compounds showed the antibacterial and antimycobacterial activity against the tested strains comparable or higher than the standards ampicillin or isoniazid. Thus, …

Attention Shifts And Anxiety Change: A Dose-Response Relationship, Janine Domingues

Doctoral Dissertations

Attention biases toward negative stimuli in the environment have been associated with high levels of anxiety symptoms. Adults with heightened levels of anxiety as well as anxiety disorders both evidenced this negative attentional bias. Shifting attention biases away from negative threat through attention modification training (AMT) has demonstrated decreases in emotional lability and anxiety. AMT is based on cognitive models of anxiety that posit that information-processing biases play a role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety. Thus attention training is emerging as a potential treatment component for anxiety disorders. While studies suggest promising results for AMTs in reducing attention …

An Applied Numerical Simulation Of Entrained-Flow Coal Gasification With Improved Sub-Models, Xijia Lu

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The United States holds the world's largest estimated reserves of coal and is also a net exporter of it. Coal gasification provides a cleaner way to utilize coal than directly burning it. Gasification is an incomplete oxidation process that converts various carbon-based feedstocks into clean synthetic gas (syngas), which can be used to produce electricity and mechanical power with significantly reduced emissions. Syngas can also be used as feedstock for making chemicals and various materials.

A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) scheme has been used to simulate the gasification process for many years. However, many sub-models still need to be developed …

Neighborhood Cohesion And Daily Well-Being: Results From A Diary Study, Jennifer W. Robinette, Susan T. Charles, Jacqueline A. Mogle, David M. Almeida

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Neighborly cohesiveness has documented benefits for health. Furthermore, high perceived neighborhood cohesion offsets the adverse health effects of neighborhood socioeconomic adversity. One potential way neighborhood cohesion influences health is through daily stress processes. The current study uses participants (n = 2022, age 30–84 years) from The Midlife in the United States II and the National Study of Daily Experiences II, collected between 2004 and 2006, to examine this hypothesis using a within-person, daily diary design. We predicted that people who perceive high neighborhood cohesion are exposed to fewer daily stressors, such as interpersonal arguments, lower daily physical symptoms and negative …

Overuse Of Fluoride In Public Water Systems: Stimulating Fluorosis Rather Than Preventing Dental Caries, Kaixin Chen

UROP Posters

In the early 1940’s, researchers sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discovered an inverse correlation between the prevalence of dental caries and the quantity of fluoride consumption and exposure. As a result of this finding, the Environmental Protection Agency under the advisement of the CDC instructed municipalities in the United States to fluoridate their public water systems in order to increase fluoride exposure. More recently though, other researchers have concluded that there is a positive correlation between another dental condition, dental fluorosis, and fluoride consumption and have made recommendations to decrease fluoride consumption due to the …

Utilizing The Individual Placement And Support Model In The Recovery Process Of Individuals With Serious Mental Illness, Lisa A. Sone

Research Papers

Individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) have a high unemployment rate when compared to individuals without mental illness. Qualitative studies have shown that many individuals with SMI desire to work and see employment as an important step in their recovery processes, but they need assistance in securing and maintaining employment. A supported employment approach that research has proven effective with the SMI population is the individual placement and support (IPS) model. Tested against other vocational rehabilitation methods, IPS results in more competitive employment outcomes. This paper reviews the literature on SMI, compares the IPS process to other employment programs, addresses …

A Matter Of Contract: The Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Traditional Surrogacy Agreements Are Enforceable, Joanna L. Grossman

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

In a recent ruling, In re Paternity of F.T.R., the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that surrogacy arrangements, even those in which the surrogate uses her own egg, are enforceable as long as they are in the best interests of the child. Although this produced the right outcome in that particular case, the court’s ruling does not confront many important issues regarding surrogacy contracts and leaves open the answers to some crucial questions.

Perceived And Actual Emotional Control Among Youth: Are There Differential Relations With Anxiety And Aggression?, Brandon Scott

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The perception of and actual ability to control emotional responses during stressful, taxing situations are important to an individual’s well-being. Studies have shown that both low perceived control and a low actual ability for emotional control are related to internalizing and externalizing problems in youth. However, significant gaps in research exist in terms of testing theoretical predictions about how perceived and actual emotional control are associated with anxiety and aggressive behavior problems, particularly among adolescents. The first goal of this study was to examine two objective measures of actual control (i.e., vagal tone and vagal regulation) and their link with …

Debunking The Pseudo-Science Behind ‘Boy Brains’ And ‘Girl Brains’, Cordelia Fine

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Concurrent Session Block 2

High Ability Learning And Brain Processes: How Neuroscience Can Help Us Understand How Gifted And Talented Students Learn And The Implications For Teaching, John K. Munro

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Concurrent Session Block 2

From The Laboratory To The Classroom : Translating The Learning Sciences For Use In Technology-Enhanced Learning, Jason Lodge

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Concurrent Session Block 2

Learning And Fearing Mathematics : Insights From Psychology And Neuroscience, Sarah Buckley, Kate Reid

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Concurrent Session Block 2

Plenary 2 – The Woman Who Changed Her Brain, Barbara Arrowsmith-Young

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

No abstract provided.

When The Educational Neuroscience Meets The Australian Curriculum : A Strategic Approach To Teaching And Learning, Martin Westwell

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

Concurrent Session Block 1

Plenary 1 – Our Learning/Teaching Brains : What Can Be Expected From Neuroscience, And How? What Should Not Be Expected From Neuroscience, And Why?, Bruno Della Chiesa

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

No abstract provided.

Revised Vertebral Count In The "Longest-Necked Vertebrate" Elasmosaurus Platyurus Cope 1868, And Clarification Of The Cervical-Dorsal Transition In Plesiosauria, Sven Sachs, Benjamin P. Kear, Michael J. Everhart

Sternberg Museum of Natural History Faculty Publications

Elasmosaurid plesiosaurians are renowned for their immensely long necks, and indeed, possessed the highest number of cervical vertebrae for any known vertebrate. Historically, the largest count has been attributed to the iconic Elasmosaurus platyurus from the Late Cretaceous of Kansas, but estimates for the total neck series in this taxon have varied between published reports. Accurately determining the number of vertebral centra vis-à-vis the maximum length of the neck in plesiosaurians has significant implications for phylogenetic character designations, as well as the inconsistent terminology applied to some osteological structures. With these issues in mind, we reassessed the holotype of E. …

Ada News - 08/05/2013, American Dental Association, Publishing Division

ADA News

Established in 1970 as the official newspaper of the American Dental Association, the ADA News serves practicing dentists and others allied to the dental profession in the U.S. and internationally. It is the No. 1 source of news and information about the many benefits and services the ADA delivers to members daily as well as timely information on scientific, social, political and economic developments affecting dentistry and health care.