Digital Commons Network^™

A New England Food Vision, Brian Donahue, Joanne Burke, Molly Anderson, Amanda Beal, Tom Kelly, Mark Lapping, Hannah Ramer, Russell Libby, Linda Berlin

The Sustainability Institute Publications

No abstract provided.

Article: The Origins Of Civil Rights In America, G. Edward White

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Relationship Between Regulatory Reform In The States And State Regulatory Output, Stuart Shapiro, Debra Borie-Holtz

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fracking Bans, Taxation, And Environmental Policy, Robert D. Cheren

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teacher Perceptions Of Violence Prevention Approaches And Self-Efficacy: Where Do We Go From Here?, Kristie Jo Redfering

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This research project explored teachers’ beliefs of violence prevention approaches and self-efficacy. Relevant research indicates the value of violence prevention and conflict resolution education as well as the importance of teacher support of such programs. Theories of decision-making and self-efficacy provide the foundation for the variables that were examined through use of a survey instrument developed by Dr. K. King and Dr. T. Kandakai. Participants were sampled from two Florida school districts. Independent variables included teacher background and experience indicators including demographics and teaching/training experience. Dependent variables were comprised of multiple indicators of outcome value, efficacy expectation, and outcome expectation. …

How Does Bbr3 Cyclize O-Alkynylanisoles To Form Benzofurans?, Talon M. Kosak, Andrew L. Korich, Richard L. Lord

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Nature provides us with a wide array of chemicals that have beneficial uses. Cyclization reactions are important in the man-made creation of these chemicals. Past research by S3 scholar Samantha Ellis in Prof. Korich's lab showed an unexpected cyclization reaction with o-alkynylanisoles in the presence of BBr₃ instead of the expected ether cleavage reaction. We sought to understand this unusual reactivity using computational chemistry by comparing the energies of these competing pathways. However, we discovered that previously considered mechanisms for BBr₃ assisted ether cleavage are incomplete. In this work we present an alternative mechanism for ether cleavage …

Microgeographic Population Genetic Structure Of Baylisascaris Procyonis (Nematoda: Ascaroidae) In Western Michigan Indicates The Grand River Is A Barrier To Gene Flow, Christina A. Sarkissian, Douglas H. Graham

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

We developed eight polymorphic microsatellites from the parasitic nematode Baylisascaris procyonis. Amplification of these loci in a sample of 74 worms collected from 10 raccoons in Western Michigan revealed significant population structure. Bayesian clustering indicates two subpopulations, one on either side of the Grand River which bisects the region sampled. Estimates of F_ST, and results from AMOVA and isolation by distance, further corroborate a scenario whereby the river is acting as a barrier to gene flow, a rather unusual finding given the high vagility of raccoons and microgeographic scale of the analysis. We describe one possible mechanism …

Dorholt: An Original Fairy Tale As A Study In Creative Fantasy, Amy Conrad

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis presents a study in creative fantasy by detailing plans for an original novel with the purpose of entertaining, instructing, and encouraging young readers. The novel will fall under the genre of fairy tale and will be set in a fantasy world, but will exhibit realism in the personalities of its characters. The story will appeal to middle school and junior high readers through its presentation of the first person perspective of a young girl grappling with issues relating to family, friendship, and forgiveness. This thesis will include the rationale for the project as well as chapter synopses and …

Science Wars As Culture Wars: Fracking And The Battle For The Hearts And Minds Of Women, Jenrose D. Fitzgerald

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

In this thesis, I examine how claims regarding the environmental and health impacts of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” are constructed by industry advocates who promote the practice and environmental and social justice groups who reject it. More specifically, I examine the cultural underpinnings of the debate over fracking, and the prominence of gender as a central framing device in that debate. While the controversy over fracking is often presented as scientific or technical in nature, I maintain that it is as much a culture war as it is a science war. I demonstrate this by showing how both pro-fracking and …

Using Microbial Community Interactions Within Plant Microbiomes To Advance An Evergreen Agricultural Revolution, M. E. Lucero, Seth Debolt, A. Unc, A. Ruiz-Font, L. V. Reyes, Rebecca L. Mcculley, S. C. Alderman, R. D. Dinkins, J. R. Barrow, D. A. Samac

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Innovative plant breeding and technology transfer fostered the Green Revolution (GR), which transformed agriculture worldwide by increasing grain yields in developing countries. The GR temporarily alleviated world hunger, but also reduced biodiversity, nutrient cycling, and carbon (C) sequestration that agricultural lands can provide. Meanwhile, economic disparity and food insecurity within and among countries continues. Subsequent agricultural advances, focused on objectives such as increasing crop yields or reducing the risk of a specific pest, have failed to meet food demands at the local scale or to restore lost ecosystem services. An increasing human population, climate change, growing per capita food and …

Liposomes For The Controlled Delivery Of Multiple Drugs, Swapnil A. Malekar

Open Access Dissertations

Various pathological conditions, such as cancer, osteoporosis, AIDS, tuberculosis, and other pathologies, require the concurrent use of multiple drugs, known as combination therapy or polytherapy, for effective treatment. The concurrent delivery of multiple drugs in a single dosage form, such as a tablet, capsule or parenteral, has been demonstrated in a number of products, but current technologies for multiple drug delivery remain limited for broad application. Physicochemical incompatibility, limited aqueous and lipid solubility, and chemical instability of the individual drugs, as well as detrimental drug-drug and drug-excipient interactions within the multiple-component dosage form, may all compromise the development of stable, …

A Genomic And Electrophysiological Study Of Photoreception In The Eyeless Cnidarian Hydra Vulgaris, Stephanie L. Guertin

Open Access Dissertations

Hydra are tubular coelenterates with two germ layers, the endoderm and ectoderm. A ring of five to eight tentacles surround an oral pore, and the animal attaches to the substrate via adhesion of the peduncle at the opposite end. They possess a complete ectodermal nerve net, with nerve fibers running within the ectoderm throughout the body and along the length of the tentacles (Hufnagel 1976.) Hydra has two nerve rings. One nerve ring surrounds the mouth and is thought to coordinate mouth opening. A second ring, located at the base of the tentacles, coordinates movements of the body, tentacles, mouth, …

Risk, Promotive, And Protective Influences On Adolescent Alcohol Use Milestones, Scott D. Martin

Open Access Dissertations

Research focused on the initiation and development of alcohol use among adolescents can inform professionals, families, and preventative strategies. Much of the research on adolescent substance use among this population focuses on risk. This study investigated a model of the initiation of adolescent alcohol use milestones including first full drink, first time engaging in heavy drinking, and first time being drunk, extending the risk perspective by emphasizing a model of resilience. This was done by simultaneously including risk, promotive, and protective influences in a single model. It was hypothesized that parental monitoring and reasons for abstaining and limiting drinking would …

Argument, Rhetoric, And Transcendence: “The Adherence Of Minds” Within The Discourse Of Spirituality, Gavin Forrest Hurley

Open Access Dissertations

My study, “Argument, Rhetoric, and Transcendence: The ‘Adherence of Minds’ within a Discourse of Spirituality,” addresses the questions: What persuades Americans to adhere to contemporary discourses of spirituality? What persuades audiences to adhere to the experiential truths found with this discourse? Furthermore, how exactly do contemporary writers of spirituality adhere audiences to reasonable understanding and pursuit of a union with a higher power? Using Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca’s The New Rhetoric as a framework, I analyze how the persuasive machinery of current Catholic and Anglican spirituality texts guides readers to experience and understand a subjective union with an ineffable …

Phytochemical And Biological Investigation Of Gallotannins From Red Maple (Acer Rubrum) Species, Hang Ma

Open Access Dissertations

This study investigated the phytochemical constituents, primarily gallotannins, present in a proprietary extract, namely MaplifaTM, from leaves of the red maple (Acer rubrum L.) species as well as their biological activities and mechanisms of action. Although the red maple species has been traditionally used as folk medicine by Native American Indians for numerous health benefits, the bioactive chemical constituents of the leaves of the red maple still remain unknown. This study carried out the identification of phytochemicals targeting gallotannins, a class of polyphenols, from red maple leaves by using various chromatographic separation techniques and spectroscopic approaches. Furthermore, compounds from the …

Neuropilin In The Vascular System: Mechanistic Basis Of Angiogenesis, Hou-Fu Guo

Theses and Dissertations--Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

The vascular system is critical for maintaining homeostasis in all vertebrates. Structural studies of Neuropilin (Nrp), an essential angiogenic receptor, have defined its role in regulating angiogenesis, the formation of new vessels from the existing vasculature. Utilizing biochemical and biophysical tools we describe the ability of Nrp to function as a co-receptor for the VEGFR receptor tyrosine kinase. Two families of Nrp-1 ligands, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A (VEGF-A) and Semaphorin3F (Sema3F), physically compete for binding to the Nrp-1 b1 domain, and have opposite roles. VEGF-A is a potent pro-angiogenic cytokine while Sema3F is an angiogenesis inhibitor. Using coupled structural …

Regulation Of Glucose Homeostasis By The Phlpp1 Phosphatase, Kara L. Larson

Theses and Dissertations--Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease that affects one in ten people in the United States. It is caused by a combination of genetics and lifestyle factors. Disease progression begins with insulin resistance in peripheral tissues followed by pancreatic beta-cell failure. The mechanisms behind disease progression are not completely understood. PH domain leucine rich repeat protein phosphatase 1 (PHLPP1) is a known regulator of Akt and other members of the AGC kinase family. Akt has been established to play a role in numerous metabolic signaling pathways, including insulin action. It is hypothesized that as a regulator of Akt, …

Leptin Resistance Induced Obesity And Diabetes Promote Neuropathological Changes In The Aging Brain, Thomas Platt

Theses and Dissertations--Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

The aging brain is prone to the development of pathology and dementia. With a rapidly growing elderly population diagnoses of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and Parkinson’s disease are on the rise. Additionally, diabetes and obesity are linked to an increased risk of dementia. The convergence of this increasingly aged population with the obesity and diabetes epidemic give rise to new concerns regarding the future of prevention and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Our lab has previously shown that leptin, an adipokine involved in signaling satiety to the hypothalamus, can modulate the generation of the amyloid …

J. Hector St. John De Crèvecoeur’S Niagara: Redefining A Sublime Landmark, James P. Myers Jr.

English Faculty Publications

Working from Crèvecoeur’s two accounts of visits to the Niagara peninsula, together with the two maps accompanying those narratives, this essay argues that Crèvecoeur never visited the area during the years he claims, 1785 and 1789. Although the narratives thus reflect the centuries-old convention of the traveler/explorer as liar, more significantly they reveal Crèvecoeur’s substantial reworking of the received eighteenth-century response to the natural sublime. Both the 1785 Letter to his son and the longer retelling of his supposed 1789 visit in A Journey into Northern Pennsylvania and the State of New York predictably record an initial, expected reaction to …

Side A, Side B, Hong Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

I believe that aural and visual language can contribute and inspire one another. Sound evokes the emotions and the senses. It is a catalyst for our imagination. It can be combined with imagery for the purpose of communication, harmoniously or contrastively. Both have corresponding characteristics—color/timbre, brightness/pitch, length/duration, scale/volume, composition/rhythm—and thus provide ways of transforming each other back and forth as input and output. Computer technology has increased the ease of transforming and manipulating the two. In my thesis project, I explore sound visualization, sound/image transformation and combination.

Generating More Profit From Your Farm Business, Tamara Stretch

All other publications

This report outlines the main drivers of profit – price, production, costs and management. Knowing a farm’s profit drivers assists managers to analyse the risk and resilience of their business and to make more informed expenditure decisions. With significant volatility in both prices and production, farm managers need to have strategies that smooth price volatility and allow adjustments to costs of production.

When analysing business profitability it is important to look beyond gross margins and capture all cost items particularly large fixed costs like finance and machinery allowance costs. By critically examining the full cost structure of their business managers …

Morphological And Biometrical Comparisons Of The Baculum In The Genus Nannospalax Palmer, 1903 (Rodentia: Spalacidae) From Turkey With Consideration Of Its Taxonomic Importance, Teoman Kankiliç, Tolga Kankiliç, Peri̇nçek Seçki̇n Ozan Şeker, Erkut Kivanç

Turkish Journal of Zoology

The morphological variability of the baculum (os penis) of 147 adult specimens of species in the genus Nannospalax from 58 localities in Turkey was examined using morphological and numerical taxonomic methods. Significant differences among all of the Turkish species in the genus were determined by morphological and biometrical comparison of the bacula, and the results of this study showed that N. nehringi and N. xanthodon are separate species and that the names are not synonyms. Additionally, because the central Anatolian mole rat populations that were classified by previous studies as members of N. nehringi or N. xanthodon had highly different …

Efficient B Cell Responses To Borrelia Hermsii Infection Depend On Baff And Baffr But Not Taci., Gregory S. Dickinson, Phd, Guizhi Sun, Richard J Bram, Kishore Alugupalli

Department of Microbiology and Immunology Faculty Papers

T cell-independent antibody responses develop rapidly, within 3 to 4 days, and are critical for preventing blood-borne pathogens from evolving into life-threatening infections. The interaction of BAFF, also known as BLyS, with its receptors BAFFR and TACI on B cells is critical for B cell homeostasis and function. Using a synthetic polysaccharide antigen, it has previously been shown that TACI is critical for T cell-independent antibody responses. To examine the role of BAFFR and TACI in T cell-independent antibody responses to an active infection, we utilized the Borrelia hermsii infection system. In this infection system, T cell-independent responses mediated by …

Investigating The Effects Of Applied Electric Fields On Microglial Cell Behaviour, Eman Bani

Theses and Dissertations

As surveyors of the central nervous system (CNS), microglial cells play an integral part in the inflammatory response following traumatic injuries. Thus, they have been implicated in the limited capability of neurons to regenerate in the CNS. Additionally, the roles of endogenous electric fields in the regenerative process of neurons in the mammalian peripheral nervous system (PNS) or amphibian CNS have long been studied. Further, previous studies in our lab have shown that physiological electric fields are capable of directing behaviours in astrocytes and schwann cells. Therefore in this study, a BV-2 microglia cell line was utilized to investigate whether …

Identification Of Peptidases In Highly-Pathogenic Versus Weakly-Pathogenic Naegleria Fowleri Amebae, Ishan Vyas

Theses and Dissertations

Naegleria fowleri, a free-living ameba, is the causative agent of Primary Amebic Meningoencephalitis. Highly-pathogenic mouse-passaged amebae (Mp) and weakly-pathogenic axenically-grown (Ax) N. fowleri were examined for peptidase activity. Zymography and azocasein peptidase activity assays demonstrated that Mp and Ax N. fowleri exhibited a similar peptidase pattern. Prominent for whole cell lysates, membranes and conditioned medium from Mp and Ax amebae were the presence of an activity band of approximately 58kDa and 100 kDa bands susceptible to the action of cysteine and metallopeptidase inhibitors, respectively. Further roles of the peptidases during the invasion process were examined by in vitro invasion assays …

Modified Seed Growth Of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles In Benzyl Alcohol: Magnetic Nanoparticles For Radio Frequency Hyperthermia Treatment Of Cancer, Stanley E. Gilliland Iii

Theses and Dissertations

Iron oxide nanoparticles have received sustained interest for biomedical applications as synthetic approaches are continually developed for precise control of nanoparticle properties. This thesis presents an investigation of parameters in the benzyl alcohol synthesis of iron oxide nanoparticles. A modified seed growth method was designed for obtaining optimal nanoparticle properties for magnetic fluid hyperthermia. With a one or two addition process, iron oxide nanoparticles were produced with crystallite sizes ranging from 5-20 nm using only benzyl alcohol and iron precursor. The effects of reaction environment, temperature, concentration, and modified seed growth parameters were investigated to obtain precise control over properties …

Using Structural Analysis To Investigate The Function Of Suppressor Of Ikk-Epsilon (Sike), Sean W. Mckinley

Theses and Dissertations

The innate immune system provides the body’s first line of defense against pathogenic challenge through pathogen recognition and initiation of the immune response. Among the various cellular mechanisms of pathogen recognition in mammals, Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) recognizes viral dsRNA. Stimulation of TLR3 signaling pathway leads to transcription of pro-inflammatory cytokines and type-1 Interferons. Suppressor of IKKε (SIKE) interacts with two kinases in the signaling pathway, IKKε and TANK binding kinase 1 (TBK1), inhibiting the transcription of type I interferons. Recently, the Bell Laboratory discovered that SIKE blocks TBK1-mediated activation of type I interferons by acting as a high affinity, …

Charitable Nonprofits’ Use Of Noncompetition Agreements: Having The Best Of Both Worlds, Lindsey D. Blanchard

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Structure Assignment And H/D-Exchange Behavior Of Several Glycosylated Polyphenols, Andreas H. Franz, Ilona Serebnitskaya, Gurbir Gudial, Christopher Wallis

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

The NMR-structures of six polyphenols, resveratrol (1), (-)-epicatechin (2), pelargonidin chloride (3), cyanidin chloride (4), cyanin chloride (5), and keracyanin chloride (6), were fully assigned. For the glycosylated polyphenols 5 and 6, the three-dimensional solution structure and long-range 1 H- 13C-coupling constants across the glycosidic bond were measured. Satisfactory fit to standard Karplus-equations was achieved for glycosides directly attached to the aromatic core in cyanin chloride. Molecular dynamics simulation data in vacuum at the AM1-level of theory were shown to approximate the NMR-solution data reasonably well. Selective HCl-catalyzed H/D-exchange was observed for aromatic protons H6 and H8 in flavonoid structures …

Characterization Of Small Conductance Calcium-Activated Potassium Channels In A Human Lens Epithelium Cell Line (B3), Wedad Ali Saqar

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Small conductance calcium-activated potassium (SK) channels belong to the family of K+ channels. They play a significant role in cell volume regulation and in lens homeostasis, and thus are associated with cataract formation. This study was designed to demonstrate the presence of the four different isoforms of SK channels (SK1, SK2, SK3, and SK4) in human lens epithelial (HLE)-B3 cell line using Western blot (WB), immunofluorescence (IF), and reverse transcriptase coupled to the polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Cataract formation involves SK-mediated K+ loss and gain of Na+ ions by lens cells. Further, it has been shown in previous studies that …