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A Preliminary Systematic Analysis Of The Species Of Genus Physaria (Brassicaceae) Of Wyoming, Kayla Rethwisch

Honors Program Theses

Physaria is a recent and rapidly evolving genus of plants in the Brassicaceae family. Particularly problematic are the taxa in the “old” Physaria sensu stricto found in Wyoming, characterized by highly inflated, didymous fruits. Due to the plants in this group being of recent origin, the relationships among them are unknown. This study examined several samples from each taxon in a preliminary study of the taxonomy of these species. The resulting phylogenies were analyzed to determine relatedness among the species. By looking at gene regions, sections on the genomic sequence, it is possible to determine how these various plants are …

The Effects Of Hypergravity On Development Of The Heart And Behavior Of Xenopus Laevis, Stacey Howes

Honors Program Theses

Every living organism on earth has developed and evolved in a 1G environment. It is likely that any deviation from Earth’s standard gravity will influence development, particularly at early stages. Previous reports from this lab showed that body length is reduced and that ventricle size is increased during development at 7G. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of hypergravity on the development of the ventricular myocardial wall and neuromuscular responsiveness of Xenopus laevis. At early gastrulation, (Nieuwkoop and Faber Stage 10) embryos were placed in a centrifuge simulating 7G, 10G, 15G or 17G until they …

Rhetoric And Science: Examining And Identifying The Rhetorical Techniques Used By Students In A Composition Classroom, Amanda Arp

Honors Program Theses

Student use of rhetoric can provide insight into student learning since rhetoric is, in part, epistemological. Epistemology refers to the study of the way someone thinks about a topic. Rhetoric is epistemological, therefore, because rhetoric is, at its core, the way ideas are thought about and expressed. Therefore, identifying and analyzing student usage of rhetorical techniques has the potential to allow a glimpse at the epistemological state of the student mind concerning their rhetorical learning. Insight drawn from knowing what students do and do not know concerning rhetoric could be extremely valuable to teachers in that it could pinpoint opportunities …

Bacterial Inactivation By High Voltage Atmospheric Cold Plasma: Influence Of Process Parameters And Effects On Cell Leakage And Dna, Lu Han, Sonal Patil, Kevin M. Keener, Patrick J. Cullen, Paula Bourke

Articles

Aims: This study investigated a range of atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) process parameters for bacterial inactivation with further investigation of selected parameters on cell membrane integrity and DNA damage. The effects of high voltage levels, mode of exposure, gas mixture and treatment time against Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes were examined.

Methods and Results: 10⁸ CFU ml^-1 E. coli ATCC 25922, E. coli NCTC 12900 and L. monocytogenes NCTC11994 were ACP treated in 10ml phosphate buffered saline (PBS). Working gas mixtures used were; Air (gas mix 1), 90% N₂+10% O₂ (gas mix 2) and 65% …

The Ecology, Assembly, And Evolution Of Gypsophile Floras, Michael J. Moore, Juan F. Mota, Norman A. Douglas, Hilda Flores-Olvera, Helga Ochoterena

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) exposures and gypseous soils occupy over 100 million ha worldwide, primarily in arid and semiarid regions, with particularly large areas of surface gypsum in southwestern Asia, the Mediterranean region, the Horn of Africa and southwestern North America. Each of these areas hosts a diverse assemblage of gypsum endemic plant taxa, known as gypsophiles. Although plant biologists have been interested in the causes of gypsophily for well over a century, it has only been over the past few decades that gypsophile floras have received sustained ecological and evolutionary study. Recent work, principally in Spain, has revealed that both physical …

The Technological Humanity Of John Dewey, E. A. Chunn

University Honors Theses

John Dewey’s theory of inquiry, or instrumentalism, was conceived in response to certain orthodox philosophies. Dewey claims the knowledge we attain from inquiry is a tool for further inquiry. As such, philosophy is inquiry into the cultural conditions of how instruments are derived. John Dewey’s philosophy as a history of technology, as well as a tool for critiquing culture, is evidenced by his theory of inquiry. He finds artificial distinctions, as instruments to inquiry, to become necessary components to experience in several philosophies. Likewise, inquiries into the conditions of education, utilizing artificial models, corrupt the full potential within experience. Such …

Strengthening United Nation’S Global Human Rights Policies Against Exploitation By Multinational Corporations In South East Asia, Marcellius Smith

University Honors Theses

In this paper I will argue that multinational corporations have exploited the resources, endangered the environment and produced goods for profit at the expense of cheap labor by the inhabitants of less developed nations, specifically the people in South East Asia who sometimes work long hours in unsafe environmental conditions to maintain a decent living. I will also argue why it is important for all nation-states throughout the world have a moral obligation to strengthen the United Nation’s policies against such exploitation through regulations and other means deemed acceptable by the world populace.

Peripersonal Space In The Humanoid Robot Icub, Salomón Ramírez Contla

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Developing behaviours for interaction with objects close to the body is a primary goal for any organism to survive in the world. Being able to develop such behaviours will be an essential feature in autonomous humanoid robots in order to improve their integration into human environments. Adaptable spatial abilities will make robots safer and improve their social skills, human-robot and robot-robot collaboration abilities. This work investigated how a humanoid robot can explore and create action-based representations of its peripersonal space, the region immediately surrounding the body where reaching is possible without location displacement. It presents three empirical studies based on …

Dangers In De Facto Parenthood, Jeffrey A. Parness

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

The almost infinite variety of family relationships that pervade our everchanging society necessitate new forms of parentage for children with only one parent. These new forms arise long after the childrens’ births and are typically founded on the developed relationships between the children and their new second parents. Yet these informal adoptions leading to second parent childcare orders serve to diminish the superior parental rights of the existing parents. And these informal adoptions leading to second parent child support orders constitute property deprivations subject to due process limitations. To date the dangers in informal adoptions have not been well addressed …

Disidentified Masculinities, Jacqueline Hope Freedman

Scripps Senior Theses

My capstone is a conversation of the Millennial Generation’s views of individual identity and masculinity, with the hopes of deconstructing the socially constructed and exclusive notions of masculinity by defining a generation’s “common sense.”

My piece is inspired by the portraiture of Chad States in Masculinities (2011) as well as Loren Cameron’s work in Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits (1996). The theoretical basis of my project relies heavily on Antonio Gramsci’s concept of “common sense” as well as José Esteban Muñoz’s disidentification. Common sense refers to an instinctual, “uncritical and largely unconscious way of perceiving and understanding.” It “is a collective …

Effects Of Phylogeny On Structural Correlations Of Vertebrate Eyes, Amanda Yl Jacobs

Scripps Senior Theses

Common ancestry prevents scientists from using traditional statistical tests in dimensional comparisons that span entire clades. Data in these cases are non-independent, so a variety of special statistical methods have been developed specifically for phylogenetic comparative analyses. A phylogenetic least squares method was used to re-examine four published datasets detailing structural correlates of eyes while factoring in the different ways the phylogeny was expected to affect the covariance in trait values. All analyses were carried out in a strict phylogenetic context, using published time-calibrated phylogenies and the statistical platform R. Specifically, Pagel’s lambda was used to determine how much of …

Restoring, Rewriting, Reimagining: Asian American Science Fiction Writers And The Time Travel Narrative, Joanne Chern

Scripps Senior Theses

Asian American literature has continued to evolve since the emergence of first generation Asian American writers in 1975. Authors have continued to interact not only with Asian American content, but also with different forms to express that content – one of these forms is genre writing. Genre writing allows Asian American writers to interact with genre conventions, using them to inform Asian American tropes and vice versa. This thesis focuses on the genre of science fiction, specifically in the subgenre of time travel. Using three literary case studies – Ken Liu’s “The Man Who Ended History,” Charles Yu’s How …

Relative Importance Of Male Song On Female Mate Selection In The Zebra Finch (Taeniopygia Guttata), Casey Sprague

Scripps Senior Theses

In the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), song and its social context play an important role in female mate selection. The song of the zebra finch is unique in that it can only be produced by males, which makes the species ideal for analyzing the components of male song that influence female song preference and mate selection. There are three consistent features of zebra finch song that affect female mate preference: 1) the amount of time a male sings, 2) the size and complexity of his song repertoire, and 3) the structural conformation to species or population norms (reviewed …

Serotonin Receptor 2-Induced Mitochondrial Biogenesis As A Therapeutic Strategy For The Treatment Of Multiple Pathologies, Jennifer Linton Harmon

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Mitochondrial dysfunction is a common pathophysiological feature in many acute and chronic organ injury states. Often, this mitochondrial dysfunction is sub-lethal and persistent and is a major contributor to loss of cellular function in the absence of cell death. Mitochondrial biogenesis (MB) is the process by which new mitochondria are created, and studies have demonstrated that pharmacological induction of MB can reverse loss of mitochondrial content, improve mitochondrial function and reduce measures of acute organ injury. Several classes of pharmacological agents that induce MB through divergent mechanisms have been identified. Previous studies demonstrated that 2,5-Dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine (DOI), a potent but non-specific …

Simultaneous Bactericidal And Osteogenic Effect Of Nanoparticulate Calcium Phosphate Powders Loaded With Clindamycin On Osteoblasts Infected With Staphylococcus Aureus, Vuk Uskoković, Tejal A. Dasai

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

S aureus internalized by bone cells and shielded from the immune system provides a reservoir of bacteria in recurring osteomyelitis. Its targeting by the antibiotic therapy may thus be more relevant for treating chronic bone infection than eliminating only the pathogens colonizing the bone matrix. Assessed was the combined osteogenic and antibacterial effect of clindamycinloaded calcium phosphate nanoparticles of different monophasic compositions on co-cultures comprising osteoblasts infected with S aureus. Antibiotic-carrying particles were internalized by osteoblasts and minimized the concentration of intracellular bacteria. In vitro treatments of the infected cells, however, could not prevent cell necrosis due to the …

Nanoparticulate Drug Delivery Platforms For Advancing Bone Infection Therapies, Vuk Uskoković, Tejal A. Dasai

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction—The ongoing surge of resistance of bacterial pathogens to antibiotic therapies and the consistently aging median member of the human race signal an impending increase in the incidence of chronic bone infection. Nanotechnological platforms for local and sustained delivery of therapeutics hold the greatest potential for providing minimally invasive and maximally regenerative therapies for this rare but persistent condition.

Areas covered—Shortcomings of the clinically available treatment options, including poly(methyl methacrylate) beads and calcium sulfate cements, are discussed and their transcending using calcium-phosphate/polymeric nanoparticulate composites is foreseen. Bone is a composite wherein the weakness of each component alone is …

Discovery Of Pharmacological Compounds That Stimulate Renal Mitochondrial Biogenesis And Restore Kidney Function, Sean Robert Jesinkey

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Dysfunctional mitochondria are a primary pathological consequence of acute kidney injury (AKI). Mitochondrial homeostasis is disrupted up to 144 h after ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) induced-AKI in the renal cortical tissue of mice. Stimulation of mitochondrial biogenesis in renal cells after oxidant injury restores mitochondrial function. The primary goals of this project were to identify novel pharmacological compounds capable of inducing mitochondrial biogenesis in the renal proximal tubule and evaluate if this induction would promote the recovery of mitochondrial and/or renal function after in vivo AKI. The secondary goal was to employ our mitochondrial approach for drug discovery towards identifying a novel …

Phosphodiesterase Inhibition And Adenosine A2b Receptor Signaling In Mitochondrial Function: Pharmacology And Toxicology Of 3-Isobutyl 1-Methylxanthine (Ibmx) In The 661w Retina-Derived Cell Line, Anthony Presley Leonard

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

3-isobutyl 1-methylxanthine (IBMX) is a commonly used inhibitor of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDE) and G protein coupled adenosine receptors. Administration of IBMX to retina photoreceptor-derived 661w cell line results in decreased mitochondrial respiration followed by cell death, mimicking phenomena observed in inherited retina neurodegeneration in humans and animals and thus suggesting their use as a cell-based model of retina degeneration. In this dissertation, the temporal relationship between pathways altered by IBMX and how these pathways affect mitochondrial physiology are evaluated. These studies utilize a novel high content microscopic method for simultaneously measuring mitochondrial morphology and membrane potential in living cultured …

Amphiphilic Triazolyl Peptides: Synthesis And Evaluation As Nanostructures, Naser Sayeh, Amir Nasrolahi Shirazi, Donghoon Oh, Jiadong Sun, David Rowley, Antara Banerjee, Arpita Yadav, Rakesh Tiwari, Keykavous Parang

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

A new class of amphiphilic triazolyl peptides was designed and synthesized from peptide-based building blocks containing alkyne and azide functional groups namely linear (W(pG))3, cyclic[W(pG)]3, and Ac-K(N3)R-NH2,where W, R, K, and pG represent tryptophan, arginine, lysine, and propargylglycine residues, respectively. The linear (W(pG))3 and cyclic [W(pG)]3 peptides containing alkyne residues were conjugated with Ac-K(N3)R-NH2 functionalized with azide group through click chemistry in the presence of CuSO4.5H2O, Cu (powder), sodium ascorbate, and N,N-disopropylethylamine in methanol:water to afford amphiphilic triazolyl linear-linear (WG(triazole-KR-NH2))3 and cyclic-linear [WG(triazole-KR-NH2)]3 peptides, respectively. The secondary structures of both peptides were similar to a distorted α-helix as shown by …

Aiming Attention Using Selective Stimulation Of Locus Coeruleus And Its Medial Prefrontal Efferents, Zackary A. Cope

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Appropriate modification of behavior in response to dynamic environmental conditions is essential for the adaptation and survival of most biological organisms. This adaptability allows for organisms to maximize the benefit of behavior related energy expenditure (utility) while minimizing cost. Modern theories of locus coeruleus (LC) function implicate a pivotal role for the noradrenergic (NA) nucleus in mediating switches between focused behavior during periods of high utility (exploit) versus disengagement of behavior and exploration of other, more rewarding opportunities. Two modes of activity in LC neurons have been well characterized. During periods of accurate and focused behavior, LC neurons exhibit suppressed …

Development Of Decision Support System For Managing And Using Recreational Beaches, Zhiqiang Deng, Fulbert Namwamba, Zaihong Zhang

Faculty Publications

The paper presents a decision support system (DSS) for managing and using recreational beaches. The DSS consists of (1) a sensor-assisted water quality monitoring system, (2) a multiple linear regression (MLR) model, developed with the Virtual Beach (VB) program, for predicting enterococci levels, and (3) a web-enabled Geographic Information System (GIS) platform for displaying beach water quality conditions. The MLR model was tested using a total of 945 sets of environmental and bacteriological data collected over 6 swimming seasons. It is found that the MLR model is capable of correctly predicting over 88% of beach advisories and over 80% of …

Out Of Tune: Why Copyright Law Needs Music Lessons, Carys Craig

Articles & Book Chapters

This chapter offers a critical analysis of copyright law that integrates insights from music. The authors argue that the unique qualities of musical works magnify the mismatch between creative practices and copyright doctrine, and suggest that an interdisciplinary analysis can shine a revealing light on both the problem and potential paths to improvement. Beginning with an overview of copyright doctrine in Canada in respect of musical works and music infringement claims, the authors then borrow analytical concepts from the discipline of music theory to problematize copyright’s “reasonable listener” test for determining substantial copying. Using a specially-designed musical composition, the authors …

The Comprador Complex: Africa’S Iprs Elites, Neo-Colonialism And The Enduring Control Of African Ipr Agenda By External Interests, Ikechi Mgbeoji

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Professor Xavier Is A Gay Traitor! An Antiassimilationist Framework For Interpreting Ideology, Power And Statecraft, Michael Loadenthal

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Ideology is an integral component in the reproduction of power. Integral to this central tenet of statecraft is the regulation of identity and proscribed methods of social engagement—positive portrayals of "good citizenry" and delegitimized representations of those challenging hegemony. Through an Althusserian and linguistic analysis, positioning the X-Men movie franchise as an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), one can examine the lives of mutants portrayed in the text as indicative of preferred methods of state-legitimized sociopolitical interaction. This metaphorical and textual analysis is used to discuss the lived realities of queer persons resisting hegemony, and is located in the bodies and …

Mqvc: Measuring Quranic Verses Similarity And Sura Classification Using N-Gram, Mohammed Akour, Izzat Alsmadi, Iyad Alazzam

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extensive research efforts in the area of Information Retrieval were concentrated on developing retrieval systems related to Arabic language for the different natural language and information retrieval methodologies. However, little effort was conducted in those areas for knowledge extraction from the Holly Muslim book, the Quran. In this paper, we present an approach (MQVC) for retrieving the most similar verses in comparison with a user input verse as a query. To demonstrate the accuracy of our approach, we performed a set of experiments and compared the results with an evaluation from a Quran Specialist who manually identified all relevant chapters …

Rare Books And Social Science, Donald J. Polzella

Psychology Faculty Publications

An essay on the impact of the works in the Imprints and Impressions: Milestones in Human Progress, an exhibition of rare books from the collection of Stuart Rose. Exhibition was held Sept. 29-Nov. 9, 2014, at the University of Dayton.

Emotional Dysregulation And Borderline Personality Disorder: Explaining The Link Between Secondary Psychopathy And Alexithymia, Leigh Elizabeth Ridings, Catherine J. Lutz-Zois

Psychology Faculty Publications

Research explaining the overlap between psychopathy and alexithymia is in its infancy. A study by Lander, Lutz-Zois, Rye, and Goodnight (2012) revealed a significant positive correlation between secondary, but not primary, psychopathy and alexithymia. However, little is known about what accounts for this differential association. Because both alexithymia (Webb & McMurran, 2008) and secondary psychopathy (Blackburn, 1996) have been linked to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), the current study sought to determine if emotional processing deficits characteristic of BPD could explain the link between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. The results supported the hypothesis that BPD would mediate the association between secondary …

Relationships Between Traditional Music Audience Participation And Pro-Social Behaviors, Donald J. Polzella, Jeremy S. Forbis

Psychology Faculty Publications

In order to investigate the relationship between music audience participation and pro-social behaviors, this study analyzed data from 6239 households who took part in the 2008 U.S. Department of Commerce Current Population Survey: Participation in the Arts Supplement. The data were analyzed using logistic regression, in which three specific pro-social behaviors (i.e., voting in the most recent presidential election, making charitable donations or volunteering time, and attending community meetings) were regressed on participation in music (i.e., attending classical, jazz, or opera music concerts). After controlling for the effects of age, race, sex, income, education, marital status, and occupation class, it …

A Novel Waveform For Emergency Services Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks : The Link Layer Perspective, Sebastian Helmle

Theses

Existing wireless communication systems of emergency services mainly enable ordinary unicast or broadcast voice communications. The increasing demand for data services such as messaging, file transfer, maps, etc requires those long-range communication systems to provide higher data rates while maintaining robustness against link failures. In this thesis, various aspects of a link layer design specifically for narrowband mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs) that are targeted at emergency services are investigated.

The major aspect of this thesis is the optimisation of a time division multiple access (TDMA) design considering both efficient and reliable multicast resource reservation. An approach to mathematically describe a …

Estimating Sustainable Harvests Of Eastern Oysters, Crassostrea Virginica, Thomas M. Soniat, Nathan Cooper, Eric N. Powell, John M. Klinck, Mahdi Abdelguerfi, Shengru Tu, Roger Mann, Patrick D. Banks

CCPO Publications

Sustainability of a fishery is traditionally and typically considered achieved if the exploited population does not decline in numbers or biomass over time as a result of fishing relative to biological reference point goals. Oysters, however, exhibit atypical population dynamics compared with many other commercial species. The population dynamics often display extreme natural interannual variation in numbers and biomass, and oysters create their own habitat--the reef itself. With the worldwide decline of oyster reef habitat and the oyster fisheries dependent thereon, the maintenance of shell has received renewed attention as essential to population sustainability. We apply a shell budget model …