Digital Commons Network^™

A Mechanistic-Based Approach To Reduce Biological Adhesion, Chelsey Del Grosso

Open Access Dissertations

Since the early ages of oceanic transportation, ship hulls have been encrusted with foulers including barnacles, oysters, and mussels. With the attachment of these animals, vessels exhibit a decrease in top speed while fuel consumption increases. This not only becomes expensive, but also has contributions to climate change. Current antifouling coatings function by releasing toxic copper into the water, keeping hulls clean at the expense of marine life. Consequently, there is great need to develop environmentally benign coatings to reduce biological adhesion. Recent mechanistic insights suggest that the marine mussel, Mytilus edulis, adheres with proteins that undergo oxidative cross-linking. Our …

Lake Michigan Tributary Characteristics, Nutrient Loading Trends, And River Plume Dynamics, Rebecca Rose Essig

Open Access Dissertations

In response to the increasing frequency of water quality impairment near tributary outlets, understanding the delivery of nutrients to the nearshore region of the Great Lakes is becoming increasingly important. This study assessed the transport of nutrients from tributaries to the nearshore region of lakes by evaluating the dynamics of tributaries and river plumes. Analysis focused on answering the following questions: (1) How do hydrologic characteristics of Lake Michigan tributaries vary historically and in comparison to each other; (2) How do nutrient concentrations vary episodically and chemostatically within Lake Michigan tributaries, and how does this impact nutrient loading; (3) How …

Identification And Quantification Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Oil And Natural Gas Operations Using An Aircraft-Based Mass Balance Technique, Tegan Noel Lavoie

Open Access Dissertations

Rapid advancements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques have led to a booming natural gas industry. Natural gas is considered a cleaner fuel alternative to coal, producing less carbon dioxide (CO2) upon combustion per unit energy produced, and therefore has been hailed as a bridge fuel during conversion from fossil fuels to renewable energies for electricity production. The primary component of natural gas is methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas with 28 times the global warming potential of CO2 on a 100 year timescale. At oil and natural gas facilities, CH4 leaks are common due to changes in operational …

Co-Orthologs Of Katanin1 Impact Plant Morphology And Show Differential Evolution In Maize, Kin Ho Lau

Open Access Dissertations

Understanding how the size and shape of crop plants and their specific organs are genetically controlled may allow for the development of cultivars with improved plant architecture. A microtubule-severing enzyme called katanin p60 is encoded by KATANIN1 (KTN1) in Arabidopsis or by an ortholog, dwarf and gladius leaf1 (dgl1), in rice. Katanin p60 has been implicated in the control of anisotropic cell growth, which is cell growth directed in a specific direction instead of equally in all directions. Anisotropic cell growth is crucial for proper plant shape and its disruption in ktn1/dgl1 mutants leads to morphological changes such as stunted …

Assessing The Impact Of Emerging Contaminants On Anaerobic Microbial Communities, Leila M. Nyberg

Open Access Dissertations

The impact of emerging contaminants on anaerobic microbial communities is critical and

Protein Kinase A Regulates Hyphal Growth By Relieving The Interaction Of Mosfl1 With The Cyc8-Tup1 Co-Repressor In Magnaporthe Oryzae, Yang Li

Open Access Dissertations

The cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) signal transduction pathway plays an important role in morphogenesis and virulence in plant pathogenic fungi. In the rice blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae, it regulates surface recognition, appressorium turgor generation, and invasive growth. Two genes in M. oryzae named CPKA and CPK2 encode the catalytic subunits of cAMP-dependent protein kinase A. Previous studies have shown that deletion of CPKA failed to block response to exogenous cAMP, suggesting the involvement of CPK2 in cAMP signaling. To further characterize the function of the catalytic subunits of PKA in infection-related development in M. oryzae, we generated the cpkA …

Nested Association Mapping To Identify Seed Composition Qtl In Diverse Soybean Lines, Mohammad Wali Salari

Open Access Dissertations

Soybeans are economically the most important legume grown worldwide. It provides quality protein and oil to food and feed markets in addition to being used for industrial products. The value of soybean could be enhanced by increasing protein, oil, and sucrose contents, while lowering anti-nutritional compounds such as oligosaccharides. Understanding the genetic and environmental factors controlling soybean seed composition is an essential prerequisite for such an endeavor. Three separate studies were initiated to understand the underlying genetics governing soybean seed compositional traits.

Saying The World Anew: A Philosophical Understanding Of Communication As Testimony, Jessica Nicole Sturgess

Open Access Dissertations

This study develops a philosophy of communication by investigating the crisis of directionality that follows from the dissolution of foundationalist metaphysics. Drawing from fundamental ontology and philosophical hermeneutics, this project suggests we shift our understanding of communication as a process of information exchange toward communication as an enactment of testimony. This leads to an examination of the rhetorical figure of hyperbole. It is argued that hyperbole offers unique insight into the ground of communication as all communicative acts are, in their ontological structure, hyperbolic. Moreover, this hyperbolic characterization of communication highlights the role of excess, inexpressibility, risk, and extravagance central …

The Mechanism Of Vitamin D Meidated Protection From Experimental Colitis, Fa Wang

Open Access Dissertations

ABSTRACT

1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D Regulation Of Triacylglycerol Accumulation In Differentiated Adipocytes, Brienna Larrick

Open Access Dissertations

Obesity is a major public health concern, both in the United States and worldwide. Therefore, identification of measures by which obesity may be prevented and reversed is of high priority. Epidemiological studies consistently demonstrate an inverse relationship between serum 25(OH)D levels, an indicator of vitamin D status, and measures of adiposity. These data suggest that vitamin D may play a role in the prevention of excessive adiposity. However, whether vitamin D impacts lipid storage and metabolism in terminally differentiated adipocytes is not yet known. The purpose of this work was to determine the impact of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D), the bioactive …

Africa Is Always Bringing Forth Something New: African Worlds And Worldviews In British Enlightenment Literature, 1660-1780, Rebekah Kurtz Mitsein

Open Access Dissertations

This dissertation argues that African worlds and worldviews left an indelible mark on British Enlightenment texts, whether their authors encountered the continent first or secondhand. As eighteenth-century thinkers began experimenting with empirical and categorical strategies for making sense of the globe, Africa was an important testing ground for these burgeoning epistemological methodologies. Travelers and writers tried to reconcile observer-based methods of knowledge production with the continent’s reputedly impenetrable landscapes, unfamiliar cultures, and strange animals. Such inquiries engendered broader philosophical debates about the natures of nature, the body, and the self. Yet, I contend Africa was not a passive participant in …

Violence, Militarism And The Environment In Contemporary South Asian Literature, Saba Pirzadeh

Open Access Dissertations

Current literary scholarship on the rise in violence and militarism within South

Structural Studies On Cell Entry Of Respiratory Enteroviruses, Yue Liu

Open Access Dissertations

Enteroviruses (EVs) represent a group of non-enveloped, positive strand RNA

Three Dimensional Unsteady Flow And Active Morphing Effect In Flapping Wings, Yun Liu

Open Access Dissertations

Bumble b ee cannot fly, if we ignore the significant differences b etween flapping

Tools And Methods To Analyze Multimodal Data In Collaborative Design Ideation, Ramaswamy Senthil Kumaran Chandrasegaran

Open Access Dissertations

Collaborative design ideation is typically characterized by informal acts of sketching, annotation, and discussion. Designers have always used the pencil-and-paper medium for this activity, partly because of the flexibility of the medium, and partly because the ambiguous and ill-defined nature of conceptual design cannot easily be supported by computers. However, recent computational tools for conceptual design have leveraged the availability of hand-held computing devices for creating and sharing ideas. In order to provide computer support for collaborative ideation in a way that augments traditional media rather than imitates it, it is necessary to study the affordances made available by digital …

The Thermomechanical Response Of Composite Energetic Materials Under High- And Low-Frequency Mechanical Excitations, Jacob Kress Miller

Open Access Dissertations

The preferential generation of heat within hidden explosive materials would be highly valuable to currently-existing explosives detection technologies, due to the associated increase in vapor pressure and thus concentration of detectable vapors. In this work, the thermomechanics of plastic-bonded explosives, propellants, and surrogates thereof are investigated due to their widespread adoption in improvised explosive devices. These classes of material consist of energetic crystals held within an inert plastic binding material. Understanding the composite nature of the material, two methods of heat generation are investigated: low-frequency excitation with wavelengths on the structural-scale and ultrasonic excitation with wavelengths on the crystal-scale.

Antimicrobial Characterization And Therapeutic Applications Of Novel Synthetic Thiazole Compounds Against Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococci And Enterococci, Haroon Mohammad

Open Access Dissertations

For more than a century, antibiotics have been valuable allies in combating an array of bacterial infections. However, each year nearly 23,000 people in the United States of America and 25,000 people in Europe die due to infections that are recalcitrant to currently available antimicrobials. The emergence of drug-resistant bacterial species, namely methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), has limited the efficacy of several classes of antibiotics. Compounding this problem further is that many large pharmaceutical companies have left the field of antibacterial drug discovery given the high cost of innovation and low return on investment. Collectively, this …

The Role Of Nadph Oxidase In Neurite Outgrowth And Zebrafish Neurodevelopment, Cory J. Weaver

Open Access Dissertations

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidases (NOX) are a family of enzymes that produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). The first NOX enzyme was discovered in leukocytes and associated with host defense in the immune system. Subsequent findings of ROS production in non-immune cells led to the identification of six additional NOX isoforms, and opened new avenues for research into NOX-mediated cellular functions. Since then, NOX-derived ROS have been found to be involved in a tremendous number of cell signaling pathways. Of particular interest is the well-established function of NOX-derived ROS in signaling pathways that drive cytoskeletal rearrangements and motility in several …

Processes For Identifying Important Chemistry And Biochemistry Concepts And Representations And Their Qualitative Assessment In Undergraduate Biology Courses, Rethabile Reginalda Tekane

Open Access Dissertations

Biology has become increasingly more interdisciplinary in nature. Therefore, the Association of American Medical Colleges-Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the National Research Council have called for reform in biology curricula. In particular, the Vision and Change report emphasized the importance of integrating biology with physical sciences such as chemistry and biochemistry in order to help biology majors understand the importance of biochemistry and chemistry to biology. The report also stipulated the need to design assessments that are informed by learning objectives in order to assess if students have attained the targeted conceptual knowledge. Currently, meetings and workshops have, and are …

Nanoparticle Depot For Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy Of Ovarian Cancer, Bo Sun

Open Access Dissertations

Intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy is a promising post-surgical therapy of ovarian cancer, with the full potential yet to be proven. To facilitate IP chemotherapy of ovarian cancer, we have developed a nanoparticle depot for IP chemotherapy consisted of paclitaxel (PTX) nanocrystals (PNC) and hyaluronic acid-based hydrogel (HA gel). PNC with a size of ~310 nm was produced by nonsolvent and temperature-induced crystallization. Dissolution kinetics of PNC could be determined by the light scattering method rather than the dialysis method due to drug reprecipitation caused by diffusion barrier. PTX release profiles from PNC-gel and PTX precipitate-gel (PPT-gel) were estimated in both sink- …

Requiems, Reports, Resurrections: Archives And The Alchemy Of Historical Inquiry, Tayana L. Hardin, Paul M. Farber, Grace L. Sanders-Johnson

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Writing at the "limit of the unspeakable and the unknown" in her 2008 article "Venus in Two Acts," literary critic Saidiya Hartman demonstrates how the "scandal and excess" of literature productively disrupts and unfailingly reifies the status of the archive as the exemplar of historical knowledge. [1] For Hartman, the facts and fictions of history bear traces of power and violence that are evident in what can and cannot be said about historical subjects like Venus, "the emblematic figure of the enslaved woman in the Atlantic world." Despite her ubiquity in "the archive of Atlantic slavery," Venus nonetheless …

Worldwide Cutaneous Malignant Melanoma Incidences Analyzed By Sex, Age, And Skin Type Over Time (1955–2007): Is Hpv Infection Of Androgenic Hair Follicular Melanocytes A Risk Factor For Developing Melanoma Exclusively In People Of European-Ancestry?, Stephen Merrill, Madhan Subramanian, Dianne E. Godar

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

The cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) incidence has been increasing in an exponential manner in certain populations around the world for over 7 decades. To help illuminate the etiology, we performed worldwide temporal (1955–2007) CMM incidence analysis by sex, age (0–14, 15–29, 30–49, 50–69, 70–85+), and skin type on 6 continents using data from the International Agency for Research on Cancer. We observe an exponential increase in the CMM incidence over time and an increase of about 2 orders of magnitude between age groups 0–14 and 15–29 exclusively in European-ancestry populations around the world independent of skin type (I–III or III–IV). …

The Relationship Of Chlamydia Antigen, Ad-Like Pathology, And Inflammation In The Brains Of Intranasally Infected Balb/C Mice, Brittany L. Kane

PCOM Biomedical Studies Student Scholarship

Alzheimer's' Disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects millions of elderly individuals in the western world. There are two forms of AD, sporadic late-onset AD and Familial AD. The neuropathy seen in both cases of AD is the same; neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) that are composed of modified tau protein, and neuritic senile plaques (NSPs) composed of deposited beta amyloid peptide. The objective of this study is to continue to investigate the role of infection as a possible risk factor for sporadic AD. Previous mouse models using Chlamydia pneumoniae demonstrated that intranasal inoculation with this organism induced AD-like pathology …

Fatty Acid Profile In Ruminal Content And Blood Plasma Of Finishing Beef Cattle, Supplemented With Different Sources Of Fat, Amanda Pesqueira

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

Eight steers were used in a replicated 4 x 4 Latin square design experiment to study the rumen metabolism of polyunsaturated fatty acids. The animals were fed a concentrate diet based on cracked corn grain, corn silage and hay fescue (K31). The dietary fat treatments were a negative control, tallow added at 60g/day, fish oil at 60g/day and heterotrophically grown microalgae high in DHA at 100g/day. Treatments were incorporated immediately prior to feeding each day and dosed through a ruminal fistula mixed with 0.45kg of the diet. Animals were fed at 1.75 x NEm once daily during adaptation then switched …

Towards Determination Of The Threonine Requirement Of Yearling Horses Fed Varying Dietary Compositions Using The Indicator Amino Acid Oxidation Method, Kelsey M. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

The amino acid requirements of growing horses are currently unknown, and studies suggest that threonine is a limiting amino acid in common horse diets. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the threonine requirement of growing horses fed two different forage to concentrate ratios using the indicator amino acid oxidation method. The study consisted of a high concentrate phase (HC; 60% concentrate and 40% forage) and a high forage phase (HF; 25% concentrate and 75% forage). Within each phase, 6 female yearling Thoroughbred horses were randomly assigned each of 6 dietary treatments in a 6 x 6 Latin …

Effects Of Dietary Amino Acid Supplementation On Measures Of Whole-Body And Muscle Protein Metabolism In Aged Horses, Christine M. Latham

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

Sarcopenia is a condition that is most common in aged animals, and is characterized by the loss of skeletal muscle mass and integrity, and can lead to physical disability and poor quality of life. Since skeletal muscle protein synthesis can be limited by the availability of amino acids, supplementation of limiting amino acids to ameliorate the progression of sarcopenia has become a topic of interest in companion animal research. Although there is some data to support the idea that amino acid supplementation improves maintenance of muscle mass in aged horses, the cellular mechanisms behind that improvement have yet to be …

Relationships Between Behavioral Measures And Productivity In Finishing Beef Cattle, Jasmyn Mimiko

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

The relationship between measures of temperament, growth performance, and social hierarchy in finishing beef cattle were explored in two experiments. In experiment 1, high OCS (objective chute score) steers had periods of significantly higher ADG (P < 0.01), but OCS had no relationship with dominance ranking (P > 0.47). Conversely, slow exit velocity (EV) correlated with higher ranking (P ≤ 0.06), but EV had no relationship with performance (P > 0.37) in a competitive environment. Rank showed no relationship with performance (P > .58). In experiment 2, steers with fast EV had periods of decreased growth (P ≤ .06), intake (P ≤ .06), and gain:feed (G:F; P = 0.02). There were no interactions between …

Specialty Poultry Production: Impact Of Genotype, Feed Strategies, Alternative Feedstuffs, And Dietary Enzymes On The Growth Performance And Carcass Characteristics Of Heritage Breed Chickens, Tatijana Fisher

Theses and Dissertations--Animal and Food Sciences

There is a growing market for specialty poultry production using alternative genotypes and management systems. However, producers interested in specialty poultry production face several challenges. One challenge is that little published data exists regarding the growth and production parameters for alternative genotypes like slow-growing meat strains and heritage breeds. To address this challenge, research at the University of Kentucky examined the effect of feed strategies, alternative feedstuffs, and dietary enzymes on the growth and performance of heritage breeds of chicken used for either egg- or meat-production. The first trial documented the growth and nutrient intake of pullets from three heritage …

Influence Of Shear Stress Magnitude And Direction On Atherosclerotic Plaque Composition, Ryan M. Pedrigi, Vikram V. Mehta, Sandra M. Bovens, Zahra Mohri, Christian Bo Poulsen, Willy Gsell, Jordi L. Tremoleda, Leila Towhidi, Ranil De Silva, Enrico Petretto, Rob Krams

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

The precise flow characteristics that promote different atherosclerotic plaque types remain unclear. We previously developed a blood flow-modifying cuff for ApoE^−/− mice that induces the development of advanced plaques with vulnerable and stable features upstream and downstream of the cuff, respectively. Herein, we sought to test the hypothesis that changes in flow magnitude promote formation of the upstream (vulnerable) plaque, whereas altered flow direction is important for development of the downstream (stable) plaque. We instrumented ApoE^−/− mice (n=7) with a cuff around the left carotid artery and imaged them with micro-CT (39.6 μm resolution) eight to nine weeks …

Mathematics Anxiety In Society: A Real Phenomena And A Real Solution, Joseph M. Furner, Carol A. Marinas

Transformations

While math anxiety still remains a real issue affecting student performance and confidence, today it is even more critical with the greater emphasis on producing more students for careers in STEM fields. In an effort to understand ways to ease math anxiety and encourage adaptive achievement behaviors to deal with such anxiety, this paper will explore the topic and provide research-based practices in providing a solution to this existing problem in our schools. There are many studies that show using technology in the teaching of mathematics will help to alleviate math anxiety and encourage students to enjoy learning mathematics. GeoGebra, …