Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Beliefs And Self-Efficacy In Diet Adherence Among Type 2 Diabetics, Sonika Kravann Ung

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) is a global epidemic that disproportionately affects socioeconomic and ethnic minority populations (International Diabetes Federation, 2013). Mapuches, the largest Native American population in Chile, shifted from the lowest incidence of T2D to equal rates in comparison to mainstream Chileans within a decade (King & Rewers, 1991; Perez-Bravo et al., 2001). This may be due to economic growth and rapid nutritional shifts (Yu & Zinman, 2007). Previous research has identified the importance of cultural beliefs in explaining health behavior (Betancourt, Flynn, & Ormseth, 2011). This study, guided by Betancourt’s Integrative Model for Culture, Psychological Factors and Behavior …

Acclimatization To High-Altitude, Long-Term Hypoxia Alters Bk Channel Structure And Function, Xiaoxiao Tao

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

We examined the major possible mechanisms for the left shift of the BK channel I-V relationship in native basilar artery myocytes from the two LTH groups. These mechanisms included: differential expression of the accessary BK -1 subunit; differential phosphorylation of the BK subunit; and splice variation of the BK subunit. Using molecular cloning, heterologous expression, and patch-clamp electrophysiology techniques, we elucidated a mechanism that, at least in part, contributes to the differences we observed between channels from native normoxic and LTH myocytes.

Long-Term Hypoxia Alters Ovine Fetal Adrenal Enos And Cortisol Biosynthesis, Elizabeth Anne Newby

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Maintaining normal levels of cortisol in response to chronic stress, while retaining the ability to respond to acute stress, is important for ensuring normal fetal growth and development. Long-term hypoxia (LTH) causes adaptations in the fetal hypothalamopituitary- adrenal (HPA) axis that maintain basal cortisol levels but enhance production in response to a secondary stress. Nitric oxide (NO), produced by endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) in the adrenal cortex, plays a significant role in regulating cortisol production in the LTH fetus. The production of NO is regulated by eNOS activity which can be altered via phosphorylation through key signaling pathways. In …

Youth Adjustment To The Impact Of The Sierra Leone Civil War, Daniel S. Sandy

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Coping in post war settings following exposure to traumatic events often posed numerous challenges for youth health and well-being. This study explored familial and contextual factors associated with adjustment to the impact of the Sierra Leone civil war in a cross-sectional sample of 359 civilians and former recruited youth. Data were collected through a convenience sampling strategy with the use of survey questions administered face-to -face by trained research assistants in Sierra Leone from April through May of 2014. MANOVA test revealed similar adjustment status for civilians and former recruited youth twelve years after the end of the civil war. …

Exploring Intensive Longitudinal Measures Of Student Engagement In Blended Learning, Charles R. Graham

Faculty Publications

In this exploratory study we used an intensive longitudinal approach to measure student engagement in a blended educational technology course, collecting both self-report and observational data. The self-report measure included a simple survey of Likert-scale and open-ended questions given repeatedly during the semester. Observational data were student activity data extracted from the learning management system. We explored how engagement varied over time, both at the course level and between students, to identify patterns and influences of student engagement in a blended course. We found that clarity of instruction and relevance of activities influenced student satisfaction more than the medium of …

Disaster Relief And Psychological First Aid, Jenny Haeyeon Cho

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Many organizations that assist in the aftermath of disasters often do not provide psychological relief. Although people tend to be rather resilient in the face of traumatic events, the psychological distress and possible psychopathology that can ensue should not be taken lightly. This manual was created to be used as a training tool for those involved in disaster relief and aid work. A review of the literature, mental health disorders, basic information about disasters, common stress reactions, and Psychological First Aid are included. Although Psychological First Aid has not really been systematically studied, it appears to be promising in aiding …

Environmental And Adaptive Buffers That Mediate The Response Of Subalpine Ecosystems To Environmental Change, Lafe G. Conner

Student Works

This document reports the results of 4 studies of subalpine ecosystem ecology, describing ways that spatial heterogeneity in soils and plant communities mediate ecosystem responses to environmental change. Ecosystem responses to environmental change are also mediated by regional climate patterns and interannual variability in weather. In the first chapter we report the results of an experiment to test for the mediating effects of associational resistance in a forest community that experienced wide-spread beetle kill. We found that Engelmann spruce were more likely to survive a beetle outbreak when growing in low densities (host dilution) and not through other types of …

Public Goods With Punishment & Payment For Relative Rank, Terence C. Burnham

ESI Working Papers

A laboratory experiment designed to investigate the role of relative performance-based payoffs on cooperation in the context of punishment. Subjects play a repeated public goods game with high-powered punishment (50:1) and additional payoffs based on relative performance. Contributions to the public good are nearly maximal. Punishment levels are substantial, higher than the same game without relative rank payoffs, and sufficiently high that total payoffs are negative. The group would make much more money in the same setting without punishment. This study contributes to investigation of the role of altruism in human cooperation.

Depression As Sickness Behavior? A Test Of The Host Defense Hypothesis In A High Pathogen Population, Jonathan Stieglitz, Benjamin C. Trumble, Melissa Emery Thompson, Aaron D. Blackwell, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Sadness is an emotion universally recognized across cultures, suggesting it plays an important functional role in regulating human behavior. Numerous adaptive explanations of persistent sadness interfering with daily functioning (hereafter “depression”) have been proposed, but most do not explain frequent bidirectional associations between depression and greater immune activation. Here we test several predictions of the host defense hypothesis, which posits that depression is part of a broader coordinated evolved response to infection or tissue injury (i.e. “sickness behavior”) that promotes energy conservation and reallocation to facilitate immune activation. In a high pathogen population of lean and relatively egalitarian Bolivian foragerhorticulturalists, …

Sequencing Strategies And Characterization Of 721 Vervet Monkey Genomes For Future Genetic Analyses Of Medically Relevant Traits, Yu S. Huang, Vasily Ramensky, Susan K. Service, Anna J. Jasinska, Yoon Jung, Oi-Wa Choi, Rita M. Cantor, Thomas D. Dyer, John Blangero

School of Medicine Publications

Background

We report here the first genome-wide high-resolution polymorphism resource for non-human primate (NHP) association and linkage studies, constructed for the Caribbean-origin vervet monkey, or African green monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus), one of the most widely used NHPs in biomedical research. We generated this resource by whole genome sequencing (WGS) of monkeys from the Vervet Research Colony (VRC), an NIH-supported research resource for which extensive phenotypic data are available.

Results

We identified genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) by WGS of 721 members of an extended pedigree from the VRC. From high-depth WGS data we identified more than 4 …

High Salinity Stabilizes Bacterial Community Composition And Activity Through Time, Tylan Wayne Magnusson

Theses and Dissertations

Dormancy is a plausible strategy for bacteria to overcome the effects of temporal fluctuations in resources or stresses and await more “optimal” conditions to resume metabolic activity and growth. Seasonal changes in environmental conditions force microbes to adjust their metabolic activity accordingly, and community composition drastically shifts. In extreme environments, however, the overriding effects of a constant stress may constrain the need or benefit of bacteria entering dormancy. In hypersaline lakes, high metabolic activity is required to maintain adaptations that permit survival. Sampling from six lakes on a salinity gradient (0.05% – 30.3%), we measured seasonal fluctuations in bacterial dormancy …

Statistical Consulting - Senior Project, Cary Hernandez

Statistics

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Initial Forging Temperature, Cooling Rates, And Carbon Content On Primary Alpha Formation In Ti-6al-4v, James Tillman, Hui Wei

Materials Engineering

Ti-6Al-4V is an alpha-beta titanium alloy system, which contains both alpha and beta phases at room temperature. Both alpha and beta phases provide Ti-6Al-4V a range of different properties for a range of applications. In order to improve the energy efficiency and better satisfy customers’ requirements of less than 52% primary alpha phase, Weber Metals sponsored this project to study the effects of carbon content, forging temperature, and cooling rates on primary alpha formation in Ti-6Al-4V alloys. There has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not carbon, a known alpha stabilizer, will affect the microstructure in small …

Measuring Performance Of Paint Coating Via Laboratory And Field Testing, Eugene Leung, Rocco Lattanzio

Materials Engineering

No abstract provided.

Synthesis Of Co-Electrospun Lead Selenide Nanostructures Within Anatase Titania Nanotubes For Advanced Photovoltaics, Evan K. Wujcik, Stephanie R. Aceto, David R. Heskett, Arijit Bose

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Inorganic nano-scale heterostructures have many advantages over hybrid organic-inorganic dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC or Grätzel cells), including their resistance to photo-bleaching, thermal stability, large specific surface areas, and general robustness. This study presents a first-of-its-kind low-cost all-inorganic lead selenide-anatase titania (PbSe/TiO₂) nanotube heterostructure material for photovoltaic applications. Herein, PbSe nanostructures have been co-electrospun within a hollow TiO2 nanotube with high connectivity for highly efficient charge carrier flow and electron-hole pair separation. This material has been characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), electron diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) to show the morphology and material composition of the synthesized …

Lost And Found: The Third Molars Of Callimico Goeldii And The Evolution Of The Callitrichine Postcanine Dentition, Jeremiah E. Scott

Publications

This study tests the hypothesis that the third molars of Callimico goeldii represent a reversal in evolutionary tooth loss within the Callitrichinae. Loss of third molars is part of a suite of unusual characters that has been used to unite marmosets and tamarins in a clade to the exclusion of Callimico. However, molecular phylogenetic studies provide consistent support for the hypothesis that marmosets are more closely related to Callimico than to tamarins, raising the possibility that some or all of the features shared by marmosets and tamarins are homoplastic. Here, I use the binary-state speciation and extinction (BiSSE) model …

Synergistic Effects Of Fire And Elephants On Arboreal Animals In An African Savanna, Robert M. Pringle, Duncan M. Kimuyu, Ryan L. Sensenig, Todd M. Palmer, Corinna Riginos, Kari E. Veblen, Truman P. Young

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

1. Disturbance is a crucial determinant of animal abundance, distribution and community structure in many ecosystems, but the ways in which multiple disturbance types interact remain poorly understood. The effects of multiple-disturbance interactions can be additive, subadditive or super-additive (synergistic). Synergistic effects in particular can accelerate ecological change; thus, characterizing such synergies, the conditions under which they arise, and how long they persist has been identified as a major goal of ecology.
2. We factorially manipulated two principal sources of disturbance in African savannas, fire and elephants, and measured their independent and interactive effects on the numerically dominant vertebrate (the arboreal gekkonid …

Directional Sound Sensitivity In Utricular Afferents In The Toadfish Opsanus Tau, Karen P. Maruska, Allen F. Mensinger

Faculty Publications

© 2015 Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd. The inner ear of fishes contains three paired otolithic end organs, the saccule, lagena and utricle, which function as biological accelerometers. The saccule is the largest otolith in most fishes and much of our current understanding on auditory function in this diverse group of vertebrates is derived from anatomical and neurophysiological studies on this end organ. In contrast, less is known about how the utricle contributes to auditory functions. In this study, chronically implanted electrodes were used, along with neural telemetry or tethers to record primary afferent responses from the utricular …

Ucp1 Is An Essential Mediator Of The Effects Of Methionine Restriction On Energy Balance But Not Insulin Sensitivity, Desiree Wanders, David H. Burk, Cory C. Cortez, Nancy T. Van, Kirsten P. Stone, Mollye Baker, Tamra Mendoza, Randall L. Mynatt, Thomas W. Gettys

Faculty Publications

© FASEB. Dietary methionine restriction (MR) by 80%increases energy expenditure (EE), reduces adiposity, and improves insulin sensitivity. We propose that the MRinduced increase in EE limits fat deposition by increasing sympathetic nervous system-dependent remodeling of white adipose tissue and increasing uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) expression in both white and brown adipose tissue. In independent assessments of the role of UCP1 as a mediator of MR's effects on EE and insulin sensitivity, EE did not differ between wild-type (WT) and Ucp1^-/- mice on the control diet, butMR increased EE by 31%and reduced adiposity by 25% in WT mice. In contrast, …

Accelerating The Pace Of Protein Functional Annotation With Intel Xeon Phi Coprocessors, Wei P. Feinstein, Juana Moreno, Mark Jarrell, Michal Brylinski

Faculty Publications

© 2002-2011 IEEE. Intel Xeon Phi is a new addition to the family of powerful parallel accelerators. The range of its potential applications in computationally driven research is broad; however, at present, the repository of scientific codes is still relatively limited. In this study, we describe the development and benchmarking of a parallel version of {\mmb e}FindSite, a structural bioinformatics algorithm for the prediction of ligand-binding sites in proteins. Implemented for the Intel Xeon Phi platform, the parallelization of the structure alignment portion of {\mmb e}FindSite using pragma-based OpenMP brings about the desired performance improvements, which scale well with the …

Resistance To Aspergillus Flavus In Maize And Peanut: Molecular Biology, Breeding, Environmental Stress, And Future Perspectives, Jake C. Fountain, Pawan Khera, Liming Yang, Spurthi N. Nayak, Brian T. Scully, Robert D. Lee, Zhi Yuan Chen, Robert C. Kemerait, Rajeev K. Varshney, Baozhu Guo

Faculty Publications

The colonization of maize (Zea mays L.) and peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) by the fungal pathogen Aspergillus flavus results in the contamination of kernels with carcinogenic mycotoxins known as aflatoxins leading to economic losses and potential health threats to humans. The regulation of aflatoxin biosynthesis in various Aspergillus spp. has been extensively studied, and has been shown to be related to oxidative stress responses. Given that environmental stresses such as drought and heat stress result in the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) within host plant tissues, host-derived ROS may play an important role in cross-kingdom communication between host plants …

The Role Of Fire In Aspen Ecology And Restoration, Douglas J. Shinneman, Kevin D. Krasnow, Susan K. Mcilroy

Aspen Bibliography

Quaking aspen is generally considered to be a fire-adapted species because it regenerates prolifically after fire, and it can be replaced by more shade-tolerant tree species in the absence of fire. As early-successional aspen stands transition to greater conifer-dominance, they become increasingly fire prone, until fire returns, and aspen again temporarily dominate. While this disturbance-succession cycle is critical to the persistence of aspen on many landscapes, some aspen stands persist on the landscape without fire. The complex role of fire is an important consideration for developing conservation and restoration strategies intended to sustain aspen.

Memorandum Of Understanding, Regarding Quality Of Education -- Student Achievement By And Between Concerned Organization For The Quality Education Of Black Students, Inc., And The School Board Of Pinellas County, Florida, June 2015, Pinellas County School Board., Concerned Organization For Quality Education For Black Students, Inc.

Concerned Organization for Quality Education for Black Students, Inc.

A renewal of a memorandum of understanding between Leon Bradley as the plaintiff acting for the Concerned Organization for the Quality Education of Black Students, Inc. (COQEBS), and the Pinellas County School Board about student discipline and behavior.

Muslim Women Against Apartheid: Muslims For Universal Values, Georgina Jardim

Journal of Scriptural Reasoning

No abstract provided.

Guide To Ms067 B.F. Jenness, M.D. Papers, Carrie-Ann Chavez

Finding Aids

Burt Franklin Jenness was a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, physician, and adjunct professor for the College of Mines and Metallurgy (Texas Western) in El Paso, Texas. The B.F. Jenness papers date from 1921 to 1967, bulk 1955. Types of papers include blank medical forms, health notes, health bulletins, health reports, correspondence, research, class and lecture notes, publications, newspaper clippings, and photographs. These materials help document Dr. Jenness’s teaching career at the College of Mines and Metallurgy, role as the school’s Health Services Officer, and works of poetry.

Appendices: A Comparative Study Of The Population Dynamics Of Four Amaranthaceae Species, Lauren Michele Schwartz

Plant Biology Data Sets

Appendices for Lauren Schwartz's dissertation entitled "A Comparative Study of the Population Dynamics of Four Amaranthaceae Species."

Deconstructing The Lgbt-Victimization Association: The Case Of Sexual Assault And Alcohol-Related Problems, Shanna Felix, Justin Hoyle, Chad Posick, Bryan Lee Miller, John Stogner

Journal of Family Strengths

Research on lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) students has been gaining traction in the fields of criminology, victimology, and education, but available data lag behind the demand for studies on this underserved population. While LGBT students are often perceived to face greater risk of victimization and subsequent health problems than their counterparts, little research has investigated the mechanisms behind problematic outcomes for LGBT students. This research uses data from a Southeastern University to examine sexual assault among LGBT students and their experiences with alcohol-related problems. The results show that LGBT youth are at an increased risk for sexual victimization …

Math Department Newsletter, 2014-2015, Mathematics Department

Mathematics Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Contents, Anon

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Comments On Proposed Revisions To Subpart J Of The 1994 National Contingency Plan, Meghan Gavin

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP) provides the organizational structure and procedures for preparing for and responding to discharges of oil and releases of hazardous substances. Subpart J of the NCP governs the use of chemical agents to control oil discharges, setting forth the criteria for listing an agent on the Product Schedule—a list of the dispersants and other spill-mitigating substances that responders may use in carrying out the NCP. Dispersants are chemical agents that emulsify and disperse oil into the water column. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last amended Subpart J in September 1994. In …