Digital Commons Network^™

Life In The Underworld: Anchialine Cave Biology In The Era Of Speleogenomics, Jorge L. Pérez-Moreno, Thomas M. Iliffe, Heather D. Bracken-Grissom

International Journal of Speleology

Anchialine caves contain haline bodies of water with underground connections to the ocean and limited exposure to open air. Despite being found on islands and peninsular coastlines around the world, the isolation of anchialine systems has facilitated the evolution of high levels of endemism among their inhabitants. The unique characteristics of anchialine caves and of their predominantly crustacean biodiversity nominate them as particularly interesting study subjects for evolutionary biology. However, there is presently a distinct scarcity of modern molecular methods being employed in the study of anchialine cave ecosystems. The use of current and emerging molecular techniques, e.g., next-generation sequencing …

Stem Integration: Using A Hydroponic Curriculum To Engage Stem Integration, Hui-Hui Wang, Sanjay Rebello, Petrus Langenhoven, Kathryn Orvis

Purdue P-12 Networking Summit & Poster Session

No abstract provided.

At The Water's Edge: Legal Protections And Funding For A New Generation Of Climate Change Refugees, Claire Dewitte

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

As climate change stimulates a rise in sea level, coastal communities and islands are experiencing destructive erosion of land and flooding of habitation. As a result, residents of low-lying communities and small islands are, and will continue to be, displaced due to the gradual, steady rise of sea level and its associated problems, such as increased destruction from flooding and other natural disasters. Millions of people will lose their homes and livelihoods, forcing them to seek alternative shelter within their own country, or cross borders in the hope of finding a new home and work. Climate change displacement is predicted …

Saving Salmo: Federalism And The Conservation Of Maine's Atlantic Salmon, Alison Rieser

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In the last decade of the twentieth century, state and federal officials reluctantly acknowledged that restoring wild salmon would take more than making more fish. The anadromous Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) once flourished in river systems throughout New England, but the economies of the nineteenth century unwittingly reduced the salmon’s range to a few river systems in Maine. In 2000, the remnant populations that returned to eight of the minor coastal river systems of eastern Maine were listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). The bitter fight that broke out between State of Maine officials …

Marine Scientific Research And The 1982 United Nations Convention On The Law Of The Sea, Marko Pavliha, Norman A. Martinez Gutiérrez

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

The expression “marine scientific research” refers to a variety of scientific disciplines, such as biology, biotechnology, geology, chemistry, physics, geophysics, hydrography, physical oceanography, and ocean drilling and coring, which are dedicated to the study of oceans, marine flora, fauna, and physical boundaries with the solid earth and the atmosphere. The purpose of such research is “to observe, to explain, and eventually to understand sufficiently well how to predict and explain changes in the natural (marine) world.” Marine scientific research thus contributes to the rational exploitation of the sea’s resources, the preservation of the marine environment, safer navigation, and military uses …

The Need For Comprehensive Action To Abate Ocean Pollution By Flame Retardants, Erin Dooling

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Flame retardants, used primarily in consumer products, such as furniture and electronics, have become pervasive in the marine environment within the last decade. There are an estimated 175 types of flame retardants. Many of them are polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), which are easily absorbed by humans and marine species. Harbor seals, an indicator species for the health of our oceans, reveal the presence of PBDEs and other chemical toxins in their habitat. Studying the effects chemicals have on seals can inform us about their potential effects on human health because seals and humans are both mammals, are at the top …

Redefining Coastal Wetland Policy In Search Of Economic And Environmental History, Paul J. Morrow

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In recent years, environmental awareness has come to the forefront as society continues to realize the negative environmental impacts that arise from the uninhibited growth of modern economies. Terms such as “green electricity,” “hybrid,” “Energy-Star,” and “organic” have come into common use. Likewise, concerns about global warming, ocean pollution, and Arctic melting have resulted in political activism across the world. At the same time, the benefits derived from modern economic development create an implicit need to balance the costs of such development with environmental sustainability. Like it or not, mankind’s impact on the environment will never be eliminated. Instead, creative …

China's Marine Legal System - An Overall Review, Wu Jilu

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Academic analysis of China’s legal system has largely been segmented by disciplinary boundaries. International law scholars generally focus on China's maritime zones (e.g., China’s territorial sea claims), as well as more specific issues such as innocent passage and maritime delimitation. In contrast, environmental law scholars study the development and utilization of ocean resources and environment protection, while civil law experts primarily focus on property rights issues. However, because of the breadth and complexity into which it has evolved, the study of China’s marine legal framework requires an interdisciplinary approach. This Article will advance the study of China’s marine legal regime …

Sector Allocation: A Misguided Solution, Shannon Carroll

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

On April 9, 2010, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued Amendment 16 to the New England Multispecies (groundfish) Fishery Management Plan, implementing what is known as “sector allocation.” In its simplest form, sector allocation is a method of allocating fishing privileges—the ability to harvest fish—to individual groups of fishermen, who are then able to use, buy, or sell those privileges. Sector allocation is a radical departure from traditional management practices in New England, and, after nearly three decades of pervasive overfishing, increasingly Draconian fishing regulations, and ongoing legal battles, it has the potential to signal a positive new direction …

The Aquadvantage Salmon: Who Owns Escaped Genetically Modified Animals?, Matthew Morgan

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

It is likely that the last Atlantic salmon you ate was not caught from the depths of the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, it is highly probable that the salmon was never caught at all. The vast majority of Atlantic salmon sold in the United States is “farm raised” salmon, which are salmon that never swim freely in any body of water other than a fish pen. This system of fish farming is known as aquaculture. The global production of salmon, which exceeded one million tons in 2008, is the top aquaculture money maker. Moreover, aquaculture accounts for seventythree percent of …

The U.S. National Ocean Policy: One Small Step For National Waters, But Will It Be The Giant Leap Needed For Our Blue Planet?, Angela T. Howe

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In 2009, as renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle accepted an award at the TED Conference, she described the ocean as “the blue heart of the planet” and implored the audience to support efforts to restore the oceans with “all means at our disposal.” The Obama administration has made ocean protection a priority for the United States, launching a new National Ocean Policy (NOP) in July of 2010 to unify management of the nation’s coasts and waters. In an era that demands both protection and productivity of our nation’s oceans, this is exactly what is needed: a strong, coherent national policy based …

Deepwater Liquefied Natural Gas Ports And The Shifting U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas Market, Sean T. Dixon

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

The United States has been historically at the “end of the pipeline” for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and regular imports are needed in some regions to augment seasonal shortages in supply. Because the United States has become a more significant producer of natural gas (highest in the world), regional markets here tend to no longer rely on LNG cargoes for gas supply. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), “LNG imports to the United States were generally not viewed as competitive with domestic supplies of natural gas and pipeline imports from Canada through the 1980s and 1990s.” In the early …

Mating In The Moonlight: The Battle To Save The American Horseshoe Crab, Sebastian B. Okun

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Horseshoe crabs have survived largely unchanged for over 350 million years. Their ancestors saw the dinosaurs rise and fall; they outlasted ice ages, asteroid impacts, and climate changes. However, despite demonstrating a remarkable ability to survive such adversity, the existence of the horseshoe crab is now threatened by human activities. Since the early 1990s, horseshoe crabs along the Atlantic seaboard of the United States have been in increasing demand by both the biomedical and commercial fishing industries. While horseshoe crabs were once abundant along the seaboard, overuse of the horseshoe crab resource by these industries has caused a significant decline …

Of Whales And Ships: Impacts On The Great Whales Of Underwater Noise Pollution From Commercial Shipping And Proposals For Regulation Under International Law, Lora L. Nordtvedt Reeve

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

On September 11, 2001 (“September 11”), a tragedy unfolded on the eastern seaboard of the United States that caused the sea to nearly empty of ships. This consequence of the terrible calamity in New York City opened an opportunity for a unique scientific study that may help to save the world’s whales. This rare experiment provides evidence that the undersea noise pollution generated by global commercial shipping slowly, chronically, and cumulatively cuts away at the lives of the great whales, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, Eubalaena glacialis (“right whales”). The North Atlantic right whales are baleen whales …

Arctic Bottleneck: Protecting The Bering Strait Region From Increased Vessel Traffic, Andrew Hartsig, Ivy Fredrickson, Carmen Yeung, Stan Senner

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Climate change in the circumpolar Arctic is reducing seasonal sea ice coverage and leading to longer periods when the ocean surface is relatively ice-free. The reduction in the temporal and geographic extent of sea ice is in turn driving increased interest in the pursuit of commercial and industrial activities throughout the Arctic, including oil and gas exploration and development, mining, tourism, and shipping. While these activities are already affecting various parts of the Arctic Ocean, the Bering Strait and surrounding waters are likely to experience especially significant impacts due to the increased vessel traffic associated with the expansion of commercial …

Battle To Determine The Meaning Of The Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation And Management Reauthorization Act Of 2006: A Survey Of Recent Judicial Decisions, Shaun M. Gehan, Michele Hallowell

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

During waning hours of its lame duck session, the 109th Congress passed the first major overhaul of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (“MSA”) since the 1996 Sustainable Fisheries Act (“SFA”). President Bush signed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization of 2006 (“Reauthorization Act”) on January 12, 2007, ushering a new and challenging era in fisheries management. These amendments effected deep changes to the nation’s fishery management laws by, among many other things, strengthening the MSA’s conservation objectives and fostering increased use of controversial, market-based fisheries management systems. The regulated fishing community, non- governmental organizations, and the government …

We Are...Marshall, May 18, 2016, Office Of Marshall University Communications

We Are ... Marshall: the Newsletter for Marshall University 1999-2023

No abstract provided.

Antioxidant And Hepatoprotective Effects Of Procyanidins Fromwild Grape (Vitis Amurensis) Seeds In Ethanol-Induced Cells And Rats, Min Ji Bak, Van-Long Truong, Se-Yeon Ko, Xuan Ngan Giang Nguyen, Pajaree Ingkasupart, Mira Jun, Jin Young Shin, Woo-Sik Jeong

Publications and Research

In the present study, we characterized the antioxidant and hepatoprotective mechanisms underlying of wild grape seed procyanidins (WGP) against oxidative stress damage in ethanol-treated HepG2 cell and Sprague-Dawley (SD)-rat models. In HepG2 cells, WGP not only diminished the ethanol (EtOH, 100 mM)-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation and cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1) expression, but also renovated both the activity and expression of antioxidant enzymes including catalase, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase. Additionally, to investigate the hepatoprotective effect of WGP, rats were orally administered 10 or 50 mg/kg WGP once daily for seven days prior to the single oral administration of …

Modeling A Circuit That Represents An Electrolytic Solution At Different Concentrations, Daniel C. Miller Ii

Senior Theses

Electrodes are often placed within bio samples in order to measure the electrical changes that occur within a system. In order to understand the information provided through the microelectrodes, this paper will describe an experiment to measure the capacitance and the resistance between two micro electrodes as an electrolyte becomes more concentrated. This resulted in a capacitance and a resistance that increased and decreased exponentially, respectively, as an electrolyte concentration increased logarithmically.

Detection And Quantification Of Gas-Phase Oxidized Mercury Compounds By Gc/Ms, Colleen P. Jones, Seth Lyman, Daniel A. Jaffe, Tanner Allen, Trevor L. O'Neil

USU Uintah Basin Faculty Publications

Most mercury pollution is emitted to the atmosphere, and the location and bioavailability of deposited mercury largely depends on poorly understood atmospheric chemical reactions that convert elemental mercury into oxidized mercury compounds. Current measurement methods do not speciate oxidized mercury, leading to uncertainty about which mercury compounds exist in the atmosphere and how oxidized mercury is formed. We have developed a gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC-MS)-based system for identification and quantification of atmospheric oxidized mercury compounds. The system consists of an ambient air collection device, a thermal desorption module, a cryofocusing system, a gas chromatograph, and an ultra-sensitive mass spectrometer. It …

Protein Folding & Self-Organized Criticality, Arun Bajracharya

Senior Theses

Proteins are known to fold into tertiary structures that determine their functionality in living organisms. However, the complex dynamics of protein folding and the way they consistently fold into the same structures is unknown. Experimental studies of the folding process are difficult as proteins are made of more than one subunit and possess a high degree of conformational flexibility. Theoretically, self-organized criticality (SOC) has provided a framework for understanding complex systems in various scientific disciplines through scale invariance and the associated "fractal" power law behavior. Evidence of this criticality phenomena has been found in neural systems, cell cultures, and anesthetized …

Npas1+ Pallidal Neurons Target Striatal Projection Neurons, Savio Chan, Kelly Glajch, Daniel Kelver, Daniel Hegeman, Qiaoling Cui, Harry Xenias, Elizabeth Augustine, Vivian Hernández, Neha Verma '17, Tina Huang, Minmin Luo, Nicholas Justice

Student Publications & Research

Compelling evidence demonstrates the external globus pallidus (GPe) plays a key role in processing sensorimotor information. An anatomical projection from the GPe to the dorsal striatum (dStr) has been described for decades. However, the cellular target and functional impact of this projection remain unknown. Using cell-specific transgenic mice, modern monosynaptic tracing techniques, and optogenetics-based mapping, we discovered that GPe neurons provide inhibitory inputs to direct- and indirect-pathway striatal projection neurons (SPNs). Our results indicate that the GPe input to SPNs arises primarily from Npas1- expressing neurons and is strengthened in a chronic Parkinson’s disease (PD) model. Alterations of the GPe-SPN …

Vis Gets Outstanding Faculty Research And Scholarship Award, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

The Utah Statesman, May 18, 2016, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

2016-May-18-Regents And Chancellor's Awards, University Marketing And Communications, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

No abstract provided.

A Multiple‐Scale Assessment Of Long‐Term Aspen Persistence And Elevational Range Shifts In The Colorado Front Range, Mario Bretfeld, Scott B. Franklin, Robert K. Peet

Aspen Bibliography

Aspen forests and woodlands are some of the most species‐rich forest communities in the northern hemisphere. Changing climate, altered disturbance regimes, land use, and increased herbivore pressure threaten these forests both in Eurasia and North America. In addition, rapid mortality dubbed “Sudden Aspen Decline” is a concern for aspen's long‐term presence in the western United States, especially Colorado and Utah. Yet it is still unclear whether aspen is persistent or declining at the landscape scale. We assessed aspen persistence at different spatial scales in the Colorado Front Range by resampling 89 plots containing aspen from among 305 vegetation plots sampled …

Interview With Judith Ramaley, Judith A. Ramaley, Clarence Hein

Portland State University Oral Histories

Dr. Ramaley discusses her career and accomplishments as President of Portland State University (PSU) from 1990-1997, with emphasis on the development of PSU's general education program, productive collaboration between students, faculty, and the urban community, and growing Portland State as Oregon's urban university.

A transcript of this interview is available for download.

The Function Of Shoc2: A Scaffold And Beyond, Eun Ryoung Jang, Emilia Galperin

Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK1/2) cascade regulates a myriad of functions in multicellular organisms. Scaffold proteins provide critical spatial and temporal control over the specificity of signaling. Shoc2 is a scaffold that accelerates activity of the ERK1/2 pathway. Loss of Shoc2 expression in mice results in embryonic lethality, thus highlighting the essential role of Shoc2 in embryogenesis. In agreement, patients carrying mutated Shoc2 suffer from a wide spectrum of developmental deficiencies. Efforts to understand the mechanisms by which Shoc2 controls ERK1/2 activity revealed the intricate machinery that governs the ability of Shoc2 to transduce signals of the ERK1/2 pathway. Understanding …

Tidal River Dynamics: Implications For Deltas, Ton Hoitink, David A. Jay

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Tidal rivers are a vital and little studied nexus between physical oceanography and hydrology. It is only in the last few decades that substantial research efforts have been focused on the interactions of river discharge with tidal waves and storm surges into regions beyond the limit of salinity intrusion, a realm that can extend inland hundreds of kilometers. One key phenomenon resulting from this interaction is the emergence of large fortnightly tides, which are forced long waves with amplitudes that may increase beyond the point where astronomical tides have become extinct. These can be larger than the linear tide itself …

Flow-Dependent Myosin Recruitment During Drosophila Cellularization Requires Zygotic Dunk Activity, Bing He, Adam Martin, Eric Wieschaus

Dartmouth Scholarship

Actomyosin contractility underlies force generation in morphogenesis ranging from cytokinesis to epithelial extension or invagination. In Drosophila, the cleavage of the syncytial blastoderm is initiated by an actomyosin network at the base of membrane furrows that invaginate from the surface of the embryo. It remains unclear how this network forms and how it affects tissue mechanics. Here, we show that during Drosophila cleavage, myosin recruitment to the cleavage furrows proceeds in temporally distinct phases of tension-driven cortical flow and direct recruitment, regulated by different zygotic genes. We identify the gene dunk, which we show is transiently transcribed when cellularization starts …