Digital Commons Network^™

Summer 2015: Dedicated To Faith And Reason, Jeffrey Frick

St. Norbert College Magazine 2013-2018

The “Dedicated to Faith and Reason” article from St. Norbert College Magazine’s Spring 2015 issue, written by Dean Jeffrey Frick, celebrates the dedication of the Gehl-Mulva Science Center, a state-of-the-art facility that embodies the college’s commitment to both academic excellence and spiritual tradition. Highlighting the building’s intentional alignment with Old St. Joe’s steeple, Frick emphasizes the harmony between faith and reason. The article also honors the contributions of faculty, especially Larry Scheich, and reflects on the center’s transformative impact on students, faculty, and the future of science education at St. Norbert College.

Retrieving Spin Textures On Curved Magnetic Thin Films With Full-Field Soft X-Ray Microscopies, Robert Streubel, Florian Kronast, Peter Fischer, Dula Parkinson, Oliver G. Schmidt, Denys Makarov

Robert Streubel Papers

X-ray tomography is a well-established technique to characterize 3D structures in material sciences and biology; its magnetic analogue - magnetic X-ray tomography - is yet to be developed. Here we demonstrate the visualization and reconstruction of magnetic domain structures in a 3D curved magnetic thin films with tubular shape by means of full-field soft X-ray microscopies. The 3D arrangement of the magnetization is retrieved from a set of 2D projections by analysing the evolution of the magnetic contrast with varying projection angle. Using reconstruction algorithms to analyse the angular evolution of 2D projections provides quantitative information about domain patterns and …

Bacterially-Based Immune Challenges And Trauma Elicit Terminal Investment In Male Aedes Aegypti, Molly K. Schumacher

Theses and Dissertations

Investment in life history traits such as immune function and reproduction is constrained by finite available resources. A cost-of-immunity trade-off may occur in response to infection when resources are diverted away from reproductive effort and into an immune response. Alternatively, an infected individual may enhance reproductive effort to maximize terminal reproductive success in response to the survival threat inherent to infection (terminal investment). We measured male Aedes aegypti reproductive behavior following inoculations with: living bacteria; killed bacteria as an immune elicitor; and a sham control. Mating competitiveness relative to naïve males was also determined through a binary mate choice experiment …

Physical Attractiveness And Femininity: Helpful Or Hurtful For Female Attorneys, Peggy Li

Akron Law Review

This paper aims to use social science research to explore how a woman’s perceived physical attractiveness and femininity affects how others perceive her competence, skills, and abilities in male-dominated professions and in the law specifically. I will use the terms attractiveness and femininity interchangeably since women who are judged as being more attractive are typically seen as more feminine and women who are viewed as being more feminine are typically viewed as being more attractive. In Part II, I discuss the “Beauty is Good” and “Beauty is Beastly” stereotypes and their effects on women in male-dominated professions. In Part III, …

Connecting General Education Programming With Regionally-Engaged Learning Economies: The Results Of A Community Inquiry And Dialogue, Brandon W. Kliewer, Daniel Cox, Bryan Cooney, Briana Stiehl

PRISM: A Journal of Regional Engagement

There is a growing effort to more intentionally situate higher education as an anchor institution within a larger regional, social, political, and economic ecosystem. This paper describes the civic process and outcomes of a community inquiry that considered the relationship between general education programming at comprehensive universities and the trajectory of regional economies. The community inquiry leveraged intergroup dialogue techniques to provide a unique community perspective on potential ways general education can inform engaged learning economies. The result of this community inquiry and dialogue highlight three broad themes that could connect general education programs to engaged learning economies in other …

Design And Fabrication Of Optical Polymer Waveguide Devices For Optical Interconnects And Integrated Optical Coherence Tomography, Guomin Jiang

Open Access Dissertations

Optical interconnects is a promising technique to boost the speed of electronic systems through replacing high speed electrical data buses using optical ones. Optical coherence tomography is an attractive imaging technique that has been widely used in medical imaging applications with capability of high resolution subsurface cross sectional imaging in living tissues. Both the optical interconnects and the optical coherence tomography imaging may benefit from the use of integrated optics technology in particular polymer waveguides that can be designed and fabricated to improve the device capability, system compactness, and performance reliability. In this dissertation, we first present our innovative design …

Early Detection And Intervention Strategies For Acute Cartilage Injury After Intact Joint Impact: In-Vitro Porcine Knee Model, Amaris Aileen Genemaras

Open Access Dissertations

Traumatic injury to cartilage has been shown to lead to Post-traumatic Osteoarthritis (PTOA). The acute phase of PTOA is characterized with increased expression of aggrecanases and inflammatory cytokines in the injured cartilage. Aberrant regulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the cartilage has been associated with the pathogenesis of PTOA. The objective of this dissertation work was to elucidate potential early detection and intervention strategies for acute knee injury based on the miRNA and genetic changes of knee joint tissues. An ex-vivo intact joint impact injury model was created to examine the miRNA and inflammatory and degenerative gene expression in cartilage and …

Rationale, Design And Respondent Characteristics Of The 2013–2014 New York City Health And Nutrition Examination Survey (Nyc Hanes 2013–2014), Lorna E. Thorpe, Carolyn Greene, Amy Freeman, Elisabeth Snell, Jesica S. Rodriguez-Lopez, Martin Frankel, Amado Punsalang Jr., Claudia Chernov, Elizabeth Lurie, Mark Friedman, Ram Koppaka, Sharon E. Perlman

Publications and Research

Purpose. Capacity to monitor non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at state or local levels is limited. Emerging approaches include using biomeasures and electronic health record (EHR) data. In 2004, New York City (NYC) performed a population-based health study on adult residents using biomeasures (NYC Health and Nutrition Examination Study, or NYC HANES), modeled after NHANES. A second NYC HANES was launched in 2013 to examine change over time, evaluate municipal policies, and validate a proposed EHR-based surveillance system. We describe the rationale and methods of NYC HANES 2013–2014.

Methods. NYC HANES was a population-based, cross-sectional survey of NYC adults using three-stage cluster …

Preservice Teacher Understanding And Implementation Of Caring Teaching-Learning Student Relationships, Daniel J. Shafer

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

This study was motivated by the interactions I have had with preservice teachers over the past 15 years as a science teacher who builds relationships with students to impact their motivation and success in school. The research focuses on the use of specific research-based relationship building strategies used with high school biology students. The purpose of this single case study was to explore the natural phenomenon that occur in a biology classroom when a cooperating teacher models these strategies for a preservice teacher during their student teaching experience. This study was supported with high school student perception data, as well …

Uab Faculty Development Grant Program Awards Nearly $100,000 To School Of Medicine Faculty, Dorothy Efird

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Distribution Of Three Congeneric Shrub Species Along An Aridity Gradient Is Related To Seed Germination And Seedling Emergence, Liming Lai, Yuan Tian, Yongji Wang, Xuechun Zhao, Lianhe Jiang, Jerry M. Baskin, Carol C. Baskin, Yuanrun Zheng

Biology Faculty Publications

Environmental tolerance of a species has been shown to correlate positively with its geographical range. On the Ordos Plateau, three Caragana species are distributed sequentially along the precipitation gradient. We hypothesized that this geographical distribution pattern is related to environmental tolerances of the three Caragana species during seed germination and seedling emergence stages. To test this hypothesis, we examined seed germination under different temperature, light and water potentials, and monitored seedling emergence for seeds buried at eight sand depths and given different amounts of water. Seeds of C. korshinskii germinated to high percentages at 5 : 15 to 25 : …

Using Technology And Phenology To Increase Students’ Observation Skills, Sondra Tokarczyk

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this study was, will the use of technology and phenology increase students’ observation skills? The catalysts for this capstone were research using observation as an everyday skill fundamental to all scientific disciplines, and the importance of teaching children how to observe and document their observations. The capstone describes the process of integrating phenology, knowledge of the five senses, and iPad technology to teach students the importance of observation and its relevance to their everyday lives. The author concludes that: 1) although the collected data did not show a significant increase in observations, students’ observations became …

Plastin 3 Expression Does Not Modify Spinal Muscular Atrophy Severity In The ∆7 Sma Mouse, Vicki L. Mcgovern, Aurelie Massoni-Laporte, Xueyong Wang, Thanh T. Le, Hao T. Le, Mark M. Rich, Arthur H. M. Burghes

Neuroscience, Cell Biology & Physiology Faculty Publications

Spinal muscular atrophy is caused by loss of the SMN1 gene and retention of SMN2. TheSMN2 copy number inversely correlates with phenotypic severity and is a modifier of disease outcome. The SMN2 gene essentially differs from SMN1 by a single nucleotide in exon 7 that modulates the incorporation of exon 7 into the final SMN transcript. The majority of the SMN2transcripts lack exon 7 and this leads to a SMN protein that does not effectively oligomerize and is rapidly degraded. However theSMN2 gene does produce some full-length SMN and theSMN2 copy number along with how …

Fort Hays State University Tiger Weekly, July 2, 2015, University Relations

Tiger Weekly Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Lesion-Specific Immune Response In Granulomas Of Patients With Pulmonary Tuberculosis: A Pilot Study, Selvakumar Subbian, Liana Tsenova, Mi-Jeong Kim, Helen C. Wainwright, Annalie Visser, Nirmalya Bandyopadhyay, Joel S. Bader, Petros C. Karakousis, Gabriele B. Murrmann, Linda-Gail Bekker, David G. Russell, Gilla Kaplan

Publications and Research

The formation and maintenance of granulomas is central to the host response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection. It is widely accepted that the lungs of patients with tuberculosis (TB) usually contain multiple infection foci, and that the granulomas evolve and differentiate independently, resulting in considerable heterogeneity. Although gene expression profiles of human blood cells have been proposed as biomarkers of Mtb infection and/or active disease, the immune profiles of discrete lesion types has not been studied extensively. Using histology, immunopathology and genome-wide transcriptome analysis, we explored the immunological profile of human lung TB granulomas. We show that although the different …

Epstein–Barr Virus-Encoded Microrna Bart1 Induces Tumour Metastasis By Regulating Pten-Dependent Pathways In Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma, L Cai, Y Ye, Q Jiang, Y Chen, Et Al

Peninsula Medical School

Epstein–Barr virus (EBV), aetiologically linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), is the first human virus found to encode many miRNAs. However, how these viral miRNAs precisely regulate the tumour metastasis in NPC remains obscure. Here we report that EBV-miR-BART1 is highly expressed in NPC and closely associated with pathological and advanced clinical stages of NPC. Alteration of EBV-miR-BART1 expression results in an increase in migration and invasion of NPC cells in vitro and causes tumour metastasis in vivo. Mechanistically, EBV-miR-BART1 directly targets the cellular tumour suppressor PTEN. Reduction of PTEN dosage by EBV-miR-BART1 activates PTEN-dependent pathways including PI3K-Akt, FAK-p130Cas and Shc-MAPK/ERK1/2 …

Intellectual Property Rights In Virtual Environments: Considering The Rights Of Owners, Programmers And Virtual Avatars, Woodrow Barfield

Akron Law Review

An emerging issue in online role-playing games is whether the licensor or participant owns the virtual property (such as a virtual avatar) created while the game is being played...Such rights have real world consequences for the objects created in the virtual world...Commercial software has been designed to allow people to create their own interactive, emoting 3D avatar using photographs of their individual faces, and their own unique voice as templates...Virtual environments can be designed for single inhabitants, such as a solo flight trainee, or for many, simultaneous participants... Further, people who spend significant amounts of time in virtual environments are …

The Constitutional Jurisprudence Of Sandra Day O'Conor: A Refusal To "Foreclose The Unanticipated", Wilson Ray Huhn

Akron Law Review

Part I of this essay covers an early period on the Court when Justice O’Connor seemed principally concerned with questions of jurisdiction and appellate process, during which she was frequently inclined to dispose of cases on technical or procedural grounds. Part II discusses Justice O’Connor’s attention to detail and consideration of factual context and her tendency to adjust the traditional standards of review in light of the circumstances of the case. Part III outlines Justice O’Connor’s respect for precedent and commitment to the principle of stare decisis particularly as it relates to her refusal to overrule Roe v. Wade. Part …

Beyond The Sex-Ed Wars: Addressing Disadvantaged Single Mothers' Search For Community, Helen M. Alvaré

Akron Law Review

This article—inspired by the relatively recent availability of a great variety of quantitative and qualitative evidence about disadvantaged single women’s decision-making about sex and pregnancy—proposes that future efforts by the state and cooperating entities take single women’s thinking more into account...Part II will set forth the current qualitative and quantitative data showcasing young and often educationally and economically disadvantaged single women’s thinking about the meaning of sex and reproduction. It will suggest that their testimonies reveal how they link sexual and reproductive choices with the goals of making a community for themselves, and taking a place in that community as …

Growin' Up: An Assessment Of Adult Self-Image In Clinical Law Students, Judith L. Ritter

Akron Law Review

A novice at any age will understandably lack the confidence that only experience can foster. Nevertheless, the thesis of this article is that the clinic student’s self-image inhibits his or her confidence in a different way...This paper will draw upon theories of psychological and moral development to explore the ingredients of being an adult and having an adult self-image. Part II describes various useful measures for determining the commencement of adulthood. Part III applies the criteria explained in Part II and asks, then attempts to answer, the question of whether the majority of clinic law students are adults. Part IV …

Corporal Punishment And Child Development, Jason Fuller

Akron Law Review

Growing academic, political, and media pressure has persuaded twenty countries to ban physical discipline—that is, to take children from their families because of spanking...However, if youth violence and dysfunction is increasing at the same time that corporal punishment is decreasing, we should be open enough to consider whether the two trends are related. Maybe there is no connection. But maybe lawmakers and child welfare workers should pay more attention to the research suggesting that physical discipline can be helpful in certain contexts...To function in society, people must learn to control themselves enough to not break the law or harm other …

The "Printed Publication" Bar After Klopfenstein: Has The Federal Circuit Changed The Way Professors Should Talk About Science?, Sean B. Seymore

Akron Law Review

The key question for universities is how Klopfenstein will affect the way that science professors talk about science. To answer this question, Part II explores the conflict between a professor’s need to disseminate research and the university’s potential interest in seeking patent protection. The research talk, one of the most important forums for communication in the science community, is an objective measure of research success and scholarship. When a professor produces a patentable invention, university TTOs must balance the professor’s need to discuss the research against the strict statutory requirement to file within one year of public disclosure. If a …

Judicial Notice And The Law's "Scientific" Search For Truth, Christopher Onstott

Akron Law Review

Part I of this Article begins by introducing the concept of judicial notice followed by a short background defining the scope of scientific and technical principles. Part II addresses the problems created by the current judicial notice standard. The standard’s text is problematic, and courts’ diverse interpretations of the standard have also created problems. Part III analyzes whether scientific and technical principles merit a different judicial notice standard specifically for them. This Part concludes that the inherent inconsistency of science and technical knowledge with the current standard and the judicial shortcomings in scientific/technical competence justify different legal treatment. Finally, Part …

Chimeras: Double The Dna-Double The Fun For Crime Scene Investigators, Prosecutors, And Defense Attorneys?, Catherine Arcabascio

Akron Law Review

This article first explores the mythological origins of the term “chimera.” It then explores the causes and scientific explanations of chimerism and the various conditions covered by the term chimera in the area of genetics. Although this article will discuss the various chimeric conditions that are thought to exist, its primary focus is on chimerism that is the result of the fusing of embryos in utero. Next, the article will discuss recent cases of chimerism – and of alleged chimerism – and how the genetic differences between chimeras and the general population came to light. It also will discuss the …

The Right To Freely Have Sex? Beyond Biology: Reproductive Rights And Sexual Self-Determination, Yakaré-Oulé Jansen

Akron Law Review

Part I will briefly set out how sexual rights are approached in the national legal arena. The way the U.S. Supreme Court treats reproductive rights provides a good example as it has some analogies with the treatment of reproductive rights under international human rights law; the Court focuses primarily on the biological aspects of sexuality and has been reluctant to acknowledge rights that fall within the realm of sexual self-determination. This case study is followed in Part II by an analysis of to what extent the treaty bodies of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), International Covenant …

Tribal, State, And Federal Cooperation To Achieve Good Governance, Elizabeth Burleson

Akron Law Review

This article considers tribal, state, and federal cooperation to achieve good governance. Part II discusses the patchwork of laws affecting Indian country and analyzes the ways in which criminal jurisdictional uncertainty affects native sovereignty and public safety. Where the legal analysis does not depend upon the use of the term “Indian,” the following discussion uses the term indigenous peoples. Part III addresses civil jurisdiction over non-Indians in general and tribal water quality regulation in particular. Management of natural resources remains one of the core aspects of sovereignty that tribes have retained. The section examines judicial recognition of tribal water rights …

Why Martha Stewart Did Not Violate Rule 10b-5: On Tipping, Piggybacking, Front-Running And The Fiduciary Duties Of Securities Brokers©, Ray J. Grzebielski

Akron Law Review

This article will set out to show that Martha Stewart did not engage in insider trading. First, the article will present the legal standards for insider trading. Then, the article will examine whether Martha Stewart received an improper tip from Sam Waksal, the president of ImClone and a personal friend of Martha Stewart. The article will then proceed to look at whether Martha Stewart’s knowledge of Waksal’s attempted trading constituted material nonpublic information on which she improperly traded. Lastly, the article will examine whether Peter Bacanovic’s breach of Merrill Lynch’s confidentiality policy in telling Martha Stewart of another customer’s trading …

Holding On To What Is Most Precious: Ohio Juvenile Law After In Re C.R., Rose Semple, Esq.

Akron Law Review

This article will endeavor to show that the Ohio Supreme Court’s ruling in In re C.R. makes it too difficult for parents to retain custody of their own children. By exploring United States Supreme Court precedent, it will be shown that the rule emerging from In re C.R. does not pass procedural due process muster. It will also be shown that the Ohio Supreme Court disregarded its own precedent and in doing so, created a rule that undermines the policies of its own juvenile law system. By providing the rudiments of juvenile jurisprudence, the facts and decision of In re …

Do Law Schools Mistreat Women Faculty? Or, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Dan Subotnik

Akron Law Review

How much fire, if any, is there to charges, first leveled more than fifteen years ago and continuing today, that a harsh law school culture oppresses women faculty? As Martha Chamallas, a well-known feminist law critic, writes,—and perhaps professes in class as well—“[f]or both new and senior women law professors, gender bias is still a major fact of life.”... After evaluating the complaints against law schools, which I spell out below—and renouncing any presumption in my favor—I conclude, unindignantly, that the charges are almost entirely unproven...The principal charges leveled against the male establishment in terms of hiring, retention and promotion …

Doma And Diffusion Theory: Ending Animus Legislation Through A Rational Basis Approach, David J. Herzig

Akron Law Review

The purpose of this Article is to expand the scope of the discussion from one of morality to include a sociological approach, called Diffusion Theory...Section II of this Article explains Diffusion Theory. Section III explores the background of DOMA and the factual background in which DOMA is being challenged by the states and private citizens. Section IV discusses the fundamentals behind the Florida adoption ban and how the change in the message by the challengers has proven effective. The final part, Section V, analyzes whether the approach should center on the inevitability of the change, as reflected in the Justice …