Digital Commons Network^™

Super-Killers: Environmental Isolates That Antagonize Pathogenic Vibrio, Abigail Joy

Honors Projects

Vibrio are members of a bacterial group that thrive in diverse aquatic environments including on the surface of aquatic animals, free-living in the water column, and in association with suspended particles. The total Vibrio counts in the coastal ocean ranges from 10³-10⁵ per milliliter of water depending on seasons and water temperature. Although many different species of Vibrio persist in the water column, pathogenic strains, such as Vibrio cholerae and Vibrio parahaemolyticus are absent or rare in marine environments. We hypothesize that the low abundance of these pathogenic species may be due to interspecific competition among environmental …

Exploring Acceptance Of Using An Online Platform To Teach Parents Of Children With Autism Methods In Applied Behavior Analysis (Aba), Marwah S. Zagzoug

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Background and Purpose of the Study: A diagnosis of autism can lead to lifelong struggles for parents and children. These families face profound difficulties in coping with stress while seeking out early interventions and managing imperative service needs. Parents are increasingly turning to the internet for information, advice, and even formal training. Breakthroughs in technology have made the internet more accessible and more sophisticated. The involvement of parents in applying intervention strategies to help their autistic children has long been advocated as a useful approach. Enabling parents as interventionists provides renewed confidence and reduced stress for parents as well as …

Effectiveness Of Agricultural Drainage Systems On Contaminant Mitigation: The Influence Of Landscape Properties, Oluwayinka Omolara Iseyemi

Student Theses and Dissertations

Agricultural drainage systems are considered innovative best management practices (BMP) capable of many ecological functions, including flood control, edge of field nutrient filtration, as well as habitat for wildlife. Being an integral part of the production landscape and needing no additional cost for establishment, their use has been promoted in agriculture as cost effective BMPs that can be voluntarily adopted by farmers. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of drainage ditches (as influenced by their landscape properties) in mitigating edge-of-field nutrient runoff and measured additional ecosystem services rendered by these systems. Two experimental drainage types [conventional and controlled (with weirs) …

The Grizzly, December 10, 2015, Brian Thomas, William Diciurcio, Chi-E Low, Haruka Fuchida, Sarah Hojsak, Rachel Dickinson, La'shante P. Cox, Jordan Ostrum, Johnny Cope, Hunter Gellman

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Museum Studies Minor Coming in Spring 2016 • Students Demand Diversity • BEAR Pitch Competition Crowns Winners • International Perspective: Differences in Cultural Cleaning Routines • Flapjacks for Finals • Artists' Tribute to Chadwick • Bringing Safety to the Students • Opinions: Protests Prompt Hate on Yik Yak; Why Syrian Refugees Don't Pose a Threat • Outrunning the Competition • Men's Basketball Set to Take on Division I Penn

Genomic Legacy Of The African Cheetah, Acinonyx Jubatus, Pavel Dobrynin, Shiping Liu, Gaik Tamazian, Zijun Xiong, Andrey A. Yurchenko, Ksenia Krasheninnikova, Sergey Kliver, A. Schmidt-Kunzel, Klaus-Peter Koepfli, Warren E. Johnson, Lukas F. K. Kuderna, Raquel Garcia-Perez, Marc De Manuel, Ricardo Godinez, Aleksey Komissarov, Alexey Makunin, Vladimir Brukhin, Weilin Qiu, Long Zhou, Fang Li, Jian Yi, Carlos A. Driscoll, Agostinho Antunes, T. K. Oleksyk, Eduardo Eizirik, Polina Perelman, Melody E. Roelke, David E. Wildt, Mark Diekhans, Tomas Marques-Bonet, Laurie Marker, Jong Bhak, Jun Wang, Guojie Zhang, Stephen J. O'Brien

Biology Faculty Articles

Background

Patterns of genetic and genomic variance are informative in inferring population history for human, model species and endangered populations.

Results

Here the genome sequence of wild-born African cheetahs reveals extreme genomic depletion in SNV incidence, SNV density, SNVs of coding genes, MHC class I and II genes, and mitochondrial DNA SNVs. Cheetah genomes are on average 95 % homozygous compared to the genomes of the outbred domestic cat (24.08 % homozygous), Virunga Mountain Gorilla (78.12 %), inbred Abyssinian cat (62.63 %), Tasmanian devil, domestic dog and other mammalian species. Demographic estimators impute two ancestral population bottlenecks: one >100,000 years …

The Flow Of History Along Plum Run, Walter Cressler

Gordon Natural Area History & Strategic Plan Documents

Plum Run is a small tributary of Brandywine Creek that originates on the campus of West Chester University and flows for approximately three miles to the southwest to join the Brandywine just downstream from the Brandywine Picnic Park in Lenape. Its east branch flows through West Chester University's Robert B. Gordon Area of Environmental Studies.

The Bg News December 10, 2015, Bowling Green State University

BG News (Student Newspaper)

The BGSU campus student newspaper. December 10, 2015. Volume 95-Issue 32.

Contemporary And Historic Effects Of Fishing On Largemouth Bass Populations, Using Unexploited Populations For Reference, Jan-Michael Hessenauer

Doctoral Dissertations

Recreational fisheries represent complex coupled human and natural systems subject to intricate feedback loops. These feedback loops can affect anglers, fish populations, and the ecosystem. I studied the effects of recreational angling on Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides populations, using unexploited populations for references. Exploited populations contained significantly more individuals with low metabolic rates than unexploited populations, consistent with predictions of fisheries induced evolution. Naïve individuals from unexploited and exploited populations had equal initial angling vulnerability in standardized trials. However, individuals from exploited populations learned lure avoidance faster than unexploited individuals. The cumulative number of catch events best predicted catch rates, …

Infant Exposure To Potentially Traumatic Events In The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Amy L. D'Agata

Doctoral Dissertations

Infants who begin life in the medicalized environment of the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) do so under adverse conditions. The NICU experience exposes infants to experiences that are different from well newborns. The impact these cumulative adverse conditions have on long-term neurodevelopment has yet to be fully elucidated, however the literature reveals a broad scope of later life challenges for former NICU infants. This dissertation focuses on several novel inquiries that may shed light on individual vulnerabilities. First, a framework of infant trauma is proposed to support improved understanding of the infant experience. Context is provided for the history …

Mitigating N2o Emissions From Soil: From Patching Leaks To Transformative Action, C. Decock, Juhwan Lee, M. Necpalova, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira, D. M. Tendall, Johan Six

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Further progress in understanding and mitigating N2O emissions from soil lies within transdisciplinary research that reaches across spatial scales and takes an ambitious look into the future.

Exploration Of The Range Overlap Between Cynomys Leucurus And Cynomys Ludovicianus, Kenneth D. Choi

Honors Theses

The ranges of two species of prairie dogs, Cynomys leucurus and Cynomys ludovicianus, overlap in a narrow area in the western Great Plains in Wyoming. We used GIS software to map their distributions and infer land cover preferences within and on either side of the zone of overlap. In general, both species used habitats in proportion to their availability and did not display strong selection of their expected vegetation types (based on the literature). However, both species of prairie dogs were overrepresented in areas of human settlements and crops, which may indicate that these species prefer human-modified habitats, or perhaps …

Epigenetic Regulation Of Neurogenesis By Citron Kinase, Matthew Girgenti

Doctoral Dissertations

Patterns of neural progenitor division are controlled by a combination of asymmetries in cell division, extracellular signals, and changes in gene expression programs. In a screen for proteins that complex with citron kinase (CitK), a protein essential to cell division in developing brain, I identified the histone methyltransferase- euchromatic histone-lysine N-methyltransferse 2 (G9a). CitK is present in the nucleus and binds to positions in the genome clustered around transcription start sites of genes involved in neuronal development and differentiation. CitK and G9a co-occupy these genomic positions in S/G2-phase of the cell cycle in rat neural progenitors, and CitK functions with …

Efficient Methods For Mining Association Rules From Uncertain Data, Manal Hamed Alharbi

Doctoral Dissertations

Association rules mining is a common data mining problem that explores the relationships among items based on their occurrences in transactions. Traditional approaches to mine frequent patterns may not be applicable for several real life applications. There are many domains such as social networks, sensor networks, protein-protein interaction analysis, and inaccurate surveys where the data are uncertain. As opposed to deterministic or certain data where the occurrences of items in transactions are definite, in an uncertain database, the occurrence of an item in a transaction is characterized as a discrete random variable and thus represented by a probability distribution. In …

Kenyon Collegian - December 10, 2015

The Kenyon Collegian

No abstract provided.

Potential Cellular Mechanisms Of Estrogen's Effects On Maintaining Sperm Production In Aging Rats, Matthew Pate

Honors Theses

Testosterone production by Leydig cells declines during aging in both men and rodent models. Previous results from our lab demonstrated that daily sperm production also declines in aging rats and alterations in the estrogen environment of the testis contribute to this decline. Importantly, estrogen treatment during aging was able to attenuate the age-associated decline in sperm production. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which estrogen maintains sperm production remain unclear. These experiments were designed to further investigate the effects of estrogen on sperm production in an attempt to further define the cellular mechanisms regulated by estrogen within the testis. …

Precognition: Bodies In Network, Kate Hoyt

Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research

Precognition” is an installation that seeks to explore the liminal space between actor and environment, human and technology, and self and Other through the performativity of flow. Deleuze and Guattari use the term “flow” to describe a deliberately imprecise way of knowing or understanding meaning beyond, across, and within the existing category of the form (trans. 1987). Within the materialist ontology of poststructuralism, it is not the form that matters so much as the substance - energies and affects entangle us with our surroundings, affording a radical questioning of the rational, contained self that remains so central to the Western, …

Mesobuthus Eupeus (C.L. Koch, 1839) (Scorpiones: Buthidae) In Turkey, Ayşegül Karataş, Ahmet Karataş

Euscorpius

Distribution of Mesobuthus eupeus (C.L. Koch, 1839) (Scorpiones: Buthidae) in Turkey is investigated and new distributional records are given. In addition, data on the variation of the number of pectinal teeth, and some ecological features of M. eupeus are provided.

Proceedings Of The 3rd Scorpiology Symposium (American Arachnological Society, 28th Annual Meeting), Victor Fet, Michael E. Soleglad

Euscorpius

Table of Contents

Victor Fet and Douglas D. Gaffin. Preface p. i

Karen C. Bost and Douglas D. Gaffin. Sand scorpion home burrow navigation in the laboratory p. 1

Douglas D. Gaffin and Mark E. Walvoord. Scorpion peg sensilla: are they the same or are they different? p. 7

J. Zachary Porterfield, Douglas D. Gaffin, Caitlin Porterfield and Curtis Johnston. Screening for scorpions: A non-invasive approach to tracking the movements of arachnids in sand p. 17

Tsunemi Yamashita. Surface activity, biomass, and phenology of the striped scorpion, Centruroides vittatus (Scorpiones: Buthidae) in Arkansas, USA p. 25

C. Neal McReynolds. Temporal …

Prey Capture Behavior In The East African Scorpions Parabuthus Leiosoma (Ehrenberg, 1828) And P. Pallidus Pocock, 1895 (Scorpiones: Buthidae), Jan O. Rein

Euscorpius

Prey capture behavior in Parabuthus leiosoma (Ehrenberg, 1828) and P. pallidus Pocock, 1895 was studied in the laboratory. The behavioral components involved in prey capture were identified and an ethogram is presented. The occurrence of the different prey capture components are analyzed and discussed.

Oxidative Stress In Avian Embyros, Toshi Tsunekage

Dissertations

Oxidative stress has been implicated in mediating trade-offs in the evolution of life histories. Oxidative stress results from an imbalance in the production of free radicals and an organism’s antioxidant defenses. Higher metabolic rates associated with more rapid growth and shorter development periods may increase oxidative stress and accumulated cellular damage in embryonic tissues. In my dissertation I explored oxidative stress and antioxidant defenses in avian embryos. I measured levels of oxidative stress in tissues of different stage embryos of Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica), and tested if patterns of lipid peroxidation could be explained by changes in the developing embryo’s …

Geographic Variation, Null Hypotheses, And Subspecies Limits In The California Gnatcatcher: A Response To Mccormack And Maley, Robert M. Zink, Jeffrey G. Groth, Hernan Vázquez-Miranda

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

We interpreted the results of nuclear DNA sequencing to be inconsistent with the recognition of California Gnatcatcher (Polioptila californica) subspecies. McCormack and Maley (2015) suggested that our data did support 2 taxa, one of which was P. c. californica, listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). We summarize here how 2 sets of researchers with access to the same data reached different conclusions by including different analyses. We included the southern subspecies’ boundary from the taxonomy of Atwood (1991), the taxonomic basis for the ESA listing, which resulted in an Analysis of Molecular Variance that …

The First Bromeligenous Species Of Dendropsophus (Anura: Hylidae) From Brazil's Atlantic Forest, Rodrigo Barbosa Ferreira, Julián Faivovich, Karen H. Beard, José P. Pombal Jr

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

We describe a new treefrog species of Dendropsophus collected on rocky outcrops in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Ecologically, the new species can be distinguished from all known congeners by having a larval phase associated with rainwater accumulated in bromeliad phytotelms instead of temporary or lentic water bodies. Phylogenetic analysis based on molecular data confirms that the new species is a member of Dendropsophus; our analysis does not assign it to any recognized species group in the genus. Morphologically, based on comparison with the 96 known congeners, the new species is diagnosed by its small size, framed dorsal color pattern, and …

The Lumberjack, December 9, 2015, The Lumberjack Staff

2015

The student newspaper of Humboldt State University

Genetic Modification Of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells Helps To Reduce Adiposity And Improve Glucose Tolerance In An Obese Diabetic Mouse Model., Sabyasachi Sen, Cleyton C Domingues, Carol Rouphael, Cyril Chou, Chul Kim, Nagendra Yadava

Medicine Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION: Human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells that can differentiate into fat, muscle, bone and cartilage cells. Exposure of subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue derived AD-MSCs to high glucose (HG) leads to superoxide accumulation and up-regulation of inflammatory molecules. Our aim was to inquire how HG exposure affects MSCs differentiation and whether the mechanism is reversible.

METHODS: We exposed human adipose tissue derived MSCs to HG (25 mM) and compared it to normal glucose (NG, 5.5 mM) exposed cells at 7, 10 and 14 days. We examined mitochondrial superoxide accumulation (Mitosox-Red), cellular oxygen consumption rate (OCR, Seahorse) and gene …

The Anchor, Volume 129.12: December 9, 2015, Hope College

The Anchor: 2015

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). In recent years The Anchor moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. The Anchor is now published in print twice per academic semester. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

The Antelope, University Of Nebraska At Kearney

The Antelope

No abstract provided.

Systematic Literature Search For Mscr Thesis: Intrathecal Pain Pumps For The Treatment Of Neuropathic Pain, Kathleen L. Reyes, Karen R. Mcelfresh, Jonathan D. Eldredge

Clinical and Translational Science Center Scholarly Output

This search strategy sought to construct an evidence-based position on the use of intrathecal pumps. We identified literature pertaining to the safety and efficacy of intrathecal pumps for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Articles obtained using this search strategy provided the background information for our thesis manuscript, which sought to determine if delivering opioids via the secure, non-tamperable intrathecal pain pump, in combination with other synergistic medications, would show improved pain scores and reduced side effects in patients with chronic neuropathic pain.

The Murray Ledger And Times, December 9, 2015, The Murray Ledger And Times

The Murray Ledger & Times

No abstract provided.

Generosity Creates Its Own Ripple Effect, Traci Evison

UCF Forum

Sometimes we see an inspirational snippet of film on YouTube, hear an NPR broadcast or listen to a Ted Talk that materializes into action at what seems to be a random point in the future.

Daily Eastern News: December 09, 2015, Eastern Illinois University

December

No abstract provided.