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May 20, 2015 Cal Poly Report, Public Affairs Office

Cal Poly Report

No abstract provided.

Association Of The Lipoprotein Receptor Scarb1 Common Missense Variant Rs4238001 With Incident Coronary Heart Disease, Annabelle Rodriguez-Oquendo

UCHC Articles - Research

Background

Previous studies in mice and humans have implicated the lipoprotein receptor SCARB1 in association with atherosclerosis and lipid levels. In the current study, we sought to examine association of SCARB1 missense single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs4238001 with incident coronary heart disease (CHD).

Methods and Results

Genotypes for rs4238001 were imputed for 2,319 White, 1,570 African American, and 1,292 Hispanic-American MESA participants using the 1,000 Genomes reference set. Cox proportional hazards models were used to determine association of rs4238001 with incident CHD, with adjustments for age, sex, study site, principal components of ancestry, body mass index, diabetes status, serum creatinine, …

Easterner, Vol. 66, No. 28, May 20, 2015, Associated Students Of Eastern Washington University

Student Newspapers

This issue of the Easterner contains articles about the EWU World Cup, the track and field performance in the Big Sky championships, an upcoming campus performance by singer Andy Grammer, a survey that measured the perception of Eastern amongst Spokane County residents, and the theater capstone class.

Biomechanics Of Lower Limbs During Walking Among Candidates For Total Knee Arthroplasty With And Without Low Back Pain, David R. Burnett, Naira N. Campbell-Kyureghyan, Robert V. Topp, Peter M. Quesada

School of Nursing and Health Science: Faculty Scholarship

The effect of joint pathologies, such as unilateral knee osteoarthritis (UKOA) or low back pain (LBP), on bilateral gait symmetry has gained increased attention during the past decade. This study is the first to compare gait patterns between patients with UKOA and LBP in combination and with UKOA only. Temporal, kinematic, and kinetic variables were measured bilaterally during gait stance phase in 31 subjects with UKOA and LBP (Group I) and 11 subjects with only UKOA (Group II). Group I patients exhibited less hip rotation in the affected limb (A) than in the nonaffected (NA) limb during walking in contrast …

Utah State Signs 2-Year Research Deal With Korean Bio Medical Institute | Biological Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

May 20, 2015 – It was a meeting of East and West on Wednesday morning at the Innovation Campus where a new deal was signed by USU researchers that could help bring fresh answers in the fight against cancer, diabetes and other diseases.

The Search For Huntington's Disease Treatments Is Indeed 'Rocket Science' – And We Can All Help Build The Rocket, Kenneth P. Serbin

At Risk for Huntington's Disease

No abstract provided.

Collective Movement In The Tibetan Macaques (Macaca Thibetana): Early Joiners Write The Rule Of The Game, Xi Wang, Lixing Sun, Jinhua Li, Dongpo Xia, Binghua Sun, Dao Zhang

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Collective behavior has recently attracted a great deal of interest in both natural and social sciences. While the role of leadership has been closely scrutinized, the rules used by joiners in collective decision making have received far less attention. Two main hypotheses have been proposed concerning these rules: mimetism and quorum. Mimetism predicts that individuals are increasingly likely to join collective behavior as the number of participants increases. It can be further divided into selective mimetism, where relationships among the participants affect the process, and anonymous mimetism, where no such effect exists. Quorum predicts that a collective behavior occurs when …

Potential Use Of Basil And Lemongrass Essential Oils Against Human Bacterial Pathogens, Mary Riley, Jeremy Martell, Maryann Herman

Biology Faculty/Staff Publications

The increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistant bacterial infections fuels a continuing need to find effective antimicrobial agents. Basil (Ocimum basilicum) and lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus) essential oil activity against sixteen true and opportunistic human pathogenic bacterial strains was tested, including: S. aureus, S. epidermidis, B. cereus and E. aerogenes. Inhibition of microbial growth by both essential oils was determined using a Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion assay and results compared to common antibiotics. Results indicated that both essential oils possess antimicrobial compounds against select bacterial strains. Our data support phytomedicine as a plausible option to combat antibiotic …

Multi-Year Analysis Of Microbial Populations In The Rochester-Lake Ontario Embayment, Daniel Zimmerman, Laura Moore, Joseph Dora, J. A. Concha, N. Raqueno, Maryann Herman, Fernando Ontiveros

Biology Faculty/Staff Publications

The composition of freshwater bacterial populations is affected by a wide variety of factors. Temperature, acidity, organic matter, and environmental pollutants like industrial chemicals and antibiotics are a few examples. The impact that bodies of freshwater have on human activity and the wider ecosystem warrants the systematic identification of microbial flora, and in particular of species known to be pathogenic in plants and animals. In order to achieve the long term goal of using satellite imagery to predict the occurrence of specific bacterial species, our team is in the process of creating a multi-location, multi-year microbial flora database for the …

Sound Effects: Age, Gender, And Sound Symbolism In American English, Timothy Allen Krause

Dissertations and Theses

This mixed-method study investigated the correlation of sound symbolic associations with age and gender by analyzing data from a national survey of 292 American English speakers. Subjects used 10 semantic differential scales to rate six artificial brand names that targeted five phonemes. Subjects also described the potential products they imagined these artificial brand names to represent. Quantitative analysis alone provided insufficient evidence to conclude that age or gender affect sound symbolism in American English. While 26 out of 60 scales showed a monotonic shift among the means of the three age groups, only three were statistically significant. The evidence of …

Green Tea Facts And Evidences, Nouf Salman Alsuwailem

Research Papers

Green tea has been consumed in China and other Asian countries since ancient times. Nowadays, green tea is considered to be one of the most promising dietary agents for the prevention and treatment of many diseases and is consequently being studied extensively worldwide. The main objective of this research paper is to clarify the benefits and the impacts of green tea on human health. Numerous studies in humans and a variety of experimental animal models have demonstrated that green tea possess antioxidant, antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, and anticarcinogenic effects. Furthermore, green tea consumption has been reported to act positively against cardiovascular …

Scan Statistics For Detecting A Local Change In Variance For Normal Data, Bo Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation scan statistics for detecting a local change in variance are proposed for both one and two dimensional normal observations. When the size of the window where a local change has occurred is known, fixed window scan statistics are proposed. Approximations for the distributions of fixed window scan statistics are investigated. When the correct window size is unknown, variable window scan statistics based on generalized likelihood ratio tests and multiple window minimum P-value scan statistics are developed. When population variance, where the null hypotheses of no change in variance, is also unknown, a conditional approach is employed, for …

The Montclarion, May 20, 2015, The Montclarion

The Montclarion

Student Newspaper of Montclair State University

Paleopathologies Of A Nabataean Burial Site, Mariana L. F. Castroand, Dr. David Johnson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The purpose of this project was to examine the paleopathologies of Nabataean burial remains, with emphasis on the osteological evidences for diet, sex and age. The main goal of Archaeology is to uncover the past. However, this cannot be done if scholars and students do not engage in the process of excavation, analysis and consequent publication of the results. This project was important insofar that it put forward a better understanding of Nabataean burial practices and their treatment of the dead. This study can also help us better understand human limitations and past socio-cultural dilemmas, including gender related issues, political …

Firefly Evolution And Signaling Systems, Michael Swindle, Michael Whiting

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The goal of this project was to expand and clarify the relationships between the various subfamilies of fireflies. Lampyridae (the scientific name for fireflies) is a family within the beetle order, Coleoptera, and include about 2000 species across the world. Lampyridae is currently recognized as having nine separate subfamilies, but the relationships between these groups are unclear. This project was meant to determine clear relationsips between these groups and further determine the location of key species, such as Pterotus obscuripennis, whose phylogenetic position has remained uncertain after many attempts to place it firmly within a specific subfamily. However, this …

The Countering Effects Of Exercise On Stress Reduced Long-Term Potentiation In Mouse Hippocampi, Jacob Trotter, Dr. Jerffrey Edwards

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The hippocampus is an area of the brain that mediates learning and memory by changing the properties of synapses between its neurons. This ability of synapses to change is known as synaptic plasticity. Long-term potentiation (LTP), a long-lasting increase in signal transmission between two neurons, is one of several phenomena underlying synaptic plasticity and is the cellular correlate of memory and learning. Several studies of LTP in mice show that there is a marked impairment of LTP in hippocampal slices taken from rodents exposed to stress. Their data suggests that stress may lead to deficits in learning and memory. In …

The Effects Of Stress And Exercise On Learning And Memory, Teresa Nufer (St. Pierre), Jeffery G. Edwards

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Both stress and exercise have significant physiological effects. Researchers have studied these effects throughout the body, and current evidence suggests that exercise and stress also have profound effects on the brain. While stress decreases brain function, exercise has been show to enhance brain function. Recently, researchers have begun to investigate the effects of stress and exercise on the brain simultaneously, instead of studying the effects individually. Our lab has furthered these studies through the use of electrophysiology and behavioral experiments. Four groups of mice were studied: a control group, a group that experienced a chronic stress protocol, a group that …

Aquaporin 1 And 5 Expression Decreases During Human Intervertebral Disc Degeneration: Novel Hif-1-Mediated Regulation Of Aquaporins In Np Cells., Zariel I Johnson, Shilpa S Gogate, Rebecca Day, Abbie Binch, Dessislava Z Markova, Neil Chiverton, Ashley Cole, Matt Conner, Irving Shapiro, Christine L Le Maitre, Makarand V Risbud

Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Faculty Papers

Objectives of this study were to investigate whether AQP1 and AQP5 expression is altered during intervertebral disc degeneration and if hypoxia and HIF-1 regulate their expression in NP cells. AQP expression was measured in human tissues from different degenerative grades; regulation by hypoxia and HIF-1 was studied using promoter analysis and gain- and loss-of-function experiments. We show that both AQPs are expressed in the disc and that mRNA and protein levels decline with human disease severity. Bioinformatic analyses of AQP promoters showed multiple evolutionarily conserved HREs. Surprisingly, hypoxia failed to induce promoter activity or expression of either AQP. While genomic …

The Effect Of Positive And Negative Reinforcement On Sixth Graders’ Mental Math Performance, Tess Greene, Amber Todd

Medical Education Faculty Publications

We examined the relationship between different forms of reinforcement and subjects’ mathematical performance. Thirty sixth-grade students were asked to mentally calculate answers to fraction problems, while holding a heart rate monitor, after receiving a positive, negative, or neutral form of reinforcement. While the results suggest that any motivation, positive or negative, may result in higher grades, the positive reinforcement group displayed the largest gain. However, the results were not statistically significant, though the trend was consistent with prior research. The heart rates of the positively-reinforced group were significantly lower than those of the negatively-reinforced and control groups. These results suggest …

Identity Aperture: Self-Portraits, Genealogy, And Other Archives, Yuxiang Dong

Theses

As a foreigner in the United States, I need a passport, I-20, and visas to provide the answer to a very simple question: who am I? This body of work grew out of this urgent curiosity about identity. Meta-cultural and meta-biological factors like race, gender, and nationality give me a certain identity without me asking for it. However, I tend to forget the fact that my identity is negotiable and is constantly being negotiated around and inside me. At a certain point, I realize that in order to understand the man I have become, I need to re-encounter my journey …

Percutaneous Ultrasonic Debridement Of Tendinopathy—A Pilot Achilles Rabbit Model, Srinath Kamineni, Timothy Butterfield, Anthony Sinai

Orthopaedic Surgery and Sports Medicine Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Tendinopathy is a common clinical pathology, with mixed treatment results, especially when chronic. In this study, we examine the effects of an ultrasonic debridement modality in a rabbit tendinopathy model. We asked four questions: (1) Was it possible to create and visualize with ultrasound a tendinopathy lesion in a rabbit Achilles tendon? (2) Was it possible to guide a 19-gauge ultrasonic probe into the tendinopathy lesion? (3) Following ultrasonic treatment, was tendinopathy debris histologically present? and (4) Was the collagen profile qualitatively and quantitatively normalized following treatment?

METHODS: Skeletally mature female New Zealand white rabbits (n = 12) …

Prevalence Of Suspicious Ultrasound Findings In Patients With Mammographic Focal Asymmetry At Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi, Jacqueline Ndunge Mavuti

Master of Medicine in Imaging and Diagnostic Radiology

Background: Breast cancer has become the leading cancer in women in both economically developed and developing countries, accounting for 25% of all cancers diagnosed worldwide in 2012. The cornerstone of breast cancer control remains early detection in order to improve outcomes and survival. Thus far the only breast cancer screening method that has proved to be effective is mammography. Although mammography is the mainstay of early detection, a fundamental limitation is its low inherent contrast difference between the soft tissue structures in the breast. Mammographic specificity relies on the ability to distinguish benign from malignant breast lesions based on their …

Expressing And Characterizing Mechanosensitive Channels In Xenopus Oocytes, Grigory Maksaev, Elizabeth S. Haswell

Biology Faculty Research

The oocytes of the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) comprise one of the most widely used membrane protein expression systems. While frequently used for studies of transporters and ion channels, the application of this system to the study of mechanosensitive ion channels has been overlooked, perhaps due to a relative abundance of native expression systems. Recent advances, however, have illustrated the advantages of the oocyte system for studying plant and bacterial mechanosensitive channels. Here we describe in detail the methods used for heterologous expression and characterization of bacterial and plant mechanosensitive channels in Xenopus oocytes.

Comparison Of Quantitative Analysis To Qualitative Analysis For Interpretation Of Lower Limb Lymphoscintigraphy, Edward Chege Nganga

Master of Medicine in Imaging and Diagnostic Radiology

Background: Lymphoscintigraphy is now the primary imaging modality used in determining a diagnosis in patients with suspected extremity lymphedema. However, analysis is mainly by visual qualitative analysis which is subjective and has a wide inter-observer variability. Subtle differences in ilioinguinal uptake between normal and abnormal limbs may be missed with visual qualitative analysis. This study seeks to compare quantitative analysis to qualitative analysis by computing percentage ilioinguinal nodes uptake at 1.5 hours. Objectives: To compare quantitative analysis to qualitative analysis of lower limb lymphoscintigraphy in the diagnosis of lymphedema. To determine the diagnostic accuracy of quantitative lymphoscintigraphy analysis. Methodology: 52 …

Bacterial Symbionts, Buchnera, And Starvation On Wing Dimorphism In English Grain Aphid, Sitobion Avenae (F.) (Homoptera: Aphididae), Fangmei Zhang, Xiangrui Li, Yunhui Zhang, Brad Coates, Xuguo Joe Zhou, Dengfa Cheng

Entomology Faculty Publications

Wing dimorphism in aphids can be affected by multiple cues, including both biotic (nutrition, crowding, interspecific interactions, the presence of natural enemies, maternal and transgenerational effects, and alarm pheromone) and abiotic factors (temperature, humidity, and photoperiod). The majority of the phloem-feeding aphids carry Buchnera, an obligate symbiotic proteobacteria. Buchnera has a highly reduced genome size, but encode key enzymes in the tryptophan biosynthetic pathway and is crucial for nutritional balance, development and reproduction in aphids. In this study, we investigated the impact of two nutritional-based biotic factors, symbionts and starvation, on the wing dimorphism in the English grain aphid, …

Haemophilus Influenzae Responds To Glucocorticoids Used In Asthma Therapy By Modulation Of Biofilm Formation And Antibiotic Resistance, Chris S. Earl, Tee Wooi Keong, Shi-Qi An, Sarah Murdoch, Yvonne Mccarthy, Junkal Garmendia, Joseph Ward, J Maxwell Dow, Liang Yang, George A. O'Toole, Robert P. Ryan

Dartmouth Scholarship

Glucocorticosteroids are used as a main treatment to reduce airway inflammation in people with asthma who suffer from neutrophilic airway inflammation, a condition frequently associ- ated with Haemophilus influenzae colonization. Here we show that glucocorticosteroids have a direct influence on the behavior of H. influenzae that may account for associated difficulties with therapy. Using a mouse model of infection, we show that cortico- steroid treatment promotes H. influenzae persistence. Transcrip- tomic analysis of bacteria either isolated from infected mouse airway or grown in laboratory medium identified a number of genes encoding regulatory factors whose expression responded to the presence of …

Comparison Of Spatiotemporal Adaptive Indicators In Isolated And Confined Teams During The Concordia Stay, Tara Drift And Mars-500 Experiment, Carole Tafforin

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

The present study examines teams’ behavior monitored over long-term missions in isolation and confinement to highlight human performance for future interplanetary exploration. The theoretical model refers to rules governing self-organized systems based on the heterogeneity of their own elements, i.e. cultural, gender, and individual characteristics. We used ethological method based on observations of the adaptive strategies in daily life activities through temporal indicators and spatial indicators. The protocol of observations was implemented at meal times with data collected weekly during the Concordia stay and Tara drift, and every two weeks during the Mars-500 experiment. Behavioral monitoring consisted of localizing and …

Volume 52, Number 40: May 20, 2015, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

Expression Studies In Hypsibius Dujardini Exposed To Gamma Radiation, Shari Galvin

Theses (Pre-2016)

Tardigrades are well known for being resistant to extreme conditions, including tolerance to ionizing and UV radiation in both the hydrated and dehydrated state. It is well known that exposure to these factors may cause damage to DNA. The ability of tardigrades to survive high levels while in both states, may suggest that perhaps tardigrades rely on efficient DNA repair mechanisms. Although several studies have been done that observe their survival and reproductive ability to ionizing radiation, there have been few studies that focus on the expression of DNA repair genes. Gamma radiation has been known to induce significant amounts …

Adrenal Gland And Lung Lesions In Gulf Of Mexico Common Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus) Found Dead Following The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Stephanie Venn-Watson, Kathleen M. Colegrove, Jenny Litz, Michael Kinsel, Karen Terio, Jeremiah Saliki, Spencer Fire, Ruth Carmichael, Connie Chevis, Wendy Hatchett, Jonathan Pitchford, Mandy Tumlin, Cara Field, Suzanne Smith, Ruth Ewing, Deborah Fauquier, Gretchen Lovewell, Heidi Whitehead, David Rotstein, Wayne Mcfee, Erin Fougeres, Teri Rowles

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

A northern Gulf of Mexico (GoM) cetacean unusual mortality event (UME) involving primarily bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama began in February 2010 and continued into 2014. Overlapping in time and space with this UME was the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill, which was proposed as a contributing cause of adrenal disease, lung disease, and poor health in live dolphins examined during 2011 in Barataria Bay, Louisiana. To assess potential contributing factors and causes of deaths for stranded UME dolphins from June 2010 through December 2012, lung and adrenal gland tissues were histologically evaluated from 46 fresh …