Digital Commons Network^™

Elastin Like Polypeptides As Drug Delivery Vehicles In Regenerative Medicine Applications, Alex Leonard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Elastin like polypeptides (ELPs) are a class of naturally derived biomaterials that are non-immunogenic, genetically encodable, and biocompatible making them ideal for a variety of biomedical applications, ranging from drug delivery to tissue engineering. Also, ELPs undergo temperature-mediated inverse phase transitioning, which allows them to be purified in a relatively simple manner from bacterial expression hosts. Being able to genetically encode ELPs allows for the incorporation of bioactive peptides and functionalization of ELPs. This work utilizes ELPs for regenerative medicine and drug delivery.

The goal of the first study was to synthesize a biologically active epidermal growth factor-ELP (EGF-ELP) fusion …

Dietary Fat Intake And Reproductive Hormone Concentrations And Ovulation In Regularly Menstruating Women, Sunni L. Mumford, Jorge E. Chavarro, Cuilin Zhang, Neil J. Perkins, Lindsey A. Sjaarda, Anna Z. Pollack, Karen C. Schliep, Kara A. Michels, Shvetha M. Zarek, Torie C. Plowden, Rose G. Radin, Lynne C. Messer, Robyn A. Frankel, Jean Wactawski-Wende

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Emerging evidence suggests potential links between some dietary fatty acids and improved fertility, because specific fatty acids may affect prostaglandin synthesis and steroidogenesis.

Objective: The objective of this exploratory study was to evaluate associations between total and specific types of dietary fat intake and 1) hormone concentrations and 2) the risk of sporadic anovulation in a cohort of 259 regularly menstruating women in the BioCycle Study.

Design: Endogenous reproductive hormones were measured up to 8 times/cycle for up to 2 cycles, with visits scheduled with the use of fertility monitors. Dietary intake was assessed with up to …

Ecosystem Services In Managing Residential Landscapes: Priorities, Value Dimensions, And Cross-Regional Patterns, Kelli L. Larson, Jennifer L. Morse, Peter M. Groffman, Neil D. Bettez, Tara Trammell

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Although ecosystem services have been intensively examined in certain domains (e.g., forests and wetlands), little research has assessed ecosystem services for the most dominant landscape type in urban ecosystems—namely, residential yards. In this paper, we report findings of a cross-site survey of homeowners in six U.S. cities to 1) examine how residents subjectively value various ecosystem services, 2) explore distinctive dimensions of those values, and 3) test the urban homogenization hypothesis. This hypothesis posits that urbanization leads to similarities in the social-ecological dynamics across cities in diverse biomes. By extension, the thesis suggests that residents’ ecosystem service priorities for residential …

Climate Change Decreases Nitrogen Pools And Mineralization Rates In Northern Hardwood Forests, Jorge Durán, Jennifer L. Morse, Peter M. Groffman, John L. Campbell, Lynn M. Christenson, Charles T. Driscoll, Timothy J. Fahey, Melany C. Fisk, Gene E. Likens, Jerry M. Melillo, Myron J. Mitchell, Pamela H. Templer, Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nitrogen (N) supply often limits the productivity of temperate forests and is regulated by a complex mix of biological and climatic drivers. In excess, N is linked to a variety of soil, water, and air pollution issues. Here, we use results from an elevation gradient study and historical data from the long-term Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study (New Hampshire, USA) to examine relationships between changes in climate, especially during winter, and N supply to northern hardwood forest ecosystems. Low elevation plots with less snow, more soil freezing, and more freeze/thaw cycles supported lower rates of N mineralization than high elevation plots, …

Bioenergy Harvest, Climate Change, And Forest Carbon In The Oregon Coast Range, Megan K. Creutzburg, Robert M. Scheller, Melissa S. Lucash, Louisa B. Evers, Stephen D. Leduc, Mark G. Johnson

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Forests provide important ecological, economic and social services, and recent interest has emerged in the potential for using residue from timber harvest as a source of renewable woody bioenergy. The long-term consequences of such intensive harvest are unclear, particularly as forests face novel climatic conditions over the next century. We used a simulation model to project the long-term effects of management and climate change on above- and below ground carbon storage in a watershed in northwestern Oregon. The multi-ownership watershed has a diverse range of current management practices, including little-to-no harvesting on federal lands, short-rotation clear-cutting on industrial land, and …

Editorial: A Commentary On The Assessment And Analysis Of “Culture-Content” In Basic Psychology Texts, Walt Lonner

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

This commentary focuses on one basic question: “How and to what extent do beginning university students in North America (United States as well as Canada) learn about culture’s influence on behavior via introductory psychology texts that are almost always published in the U.S.?” An overarching question permeates the article: What objective methods have been used to find and evaluate the cultural content of beginning psychology texts? These questions are considered important in the teaching of psychology at the basic level and can influence the authors of texts that are central in psychology curricula in general and teaching cross-cultural psychology in …

The Introductory Psychology Text And Cross-Cultural Psychology: Beyond Ekman, Whorf, And Biased I.Q. Tests, Walt Lonner

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

This article is a reprint of the following paper: Lonner, W. J. (1989). The introductory psychology text and cross-cultural psychology: Beyond Ekman, Whorf, and biased I.Q. tests. In D. Keats, D. Munro, & L. Mann (Eds.), Heterogeneity in cross-cultural psychology. (pp. 4-22). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger. Some small changes and format modifications were applied.

An Investigation Into The Dietary And Health Behaviours Of Pregnant Women In Ireland, Laura Mullaney

Doctoral

Maternal obesity increases the risk of metabolic complications in pregnancy such as gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Effective weight management following childbirth may reduce long-term metabolic risks among women of child bearing age. The aim of this study was to investigate the diet and health behaviours of pregnant and postpartum women in Ireland. Accurate dietary assessment in pregnancy is often difficult to achieve. We have shown that dietary under-reporting is more likely among pregnant women who are younger, materially deprived, obese and who have increased adiposity. These findings suggest that dietary underreporting represents a source of potential bias in obstetric obesity …

Calling All Rebels!: Taco Bell Fights Fast Food Breakfast Fascism: A Rhetorical Analysis Of The “Routine Republic” Commercial Using Narrative Criticism And Intertextuality, Sharine Borslien

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Justification For Class 3 Permit Modification, Corrective Action Complete, Solid Waste Management Unit 502, Sandia National Laboratories/Nm

Corrective Action at SWMUs 8, 58, 68, 149, 154 and 502

This technical document contains the Justification for the Class 3 Permit Modification request for Solid Waste Management Unit (SWMU) 502. Contained within this document is the history of the site, descriptions of any investigations and/or remediation completed at the site, the regulatory background, and the rationale for the proposed future land-use of this site.

Spring 2016

Scientia

Stress busters: intervention study combats stress in African-American youth; Peer-to-peer health power; Research roundup; Notes from the field; Program accelerates health care careers; Deep dive: Alumnus researches underwater volcanoes; Lab notes

Forcespinning: A New Method For The Mass Production Of Sn/C Composite Nanofiber Anodes For Lithium Ion Batteries, Victor Agubra, Luis Zuniga, David De La Garza, Luis Gallegos, Madhab Pokhrel, Mataz Alcoutlabi

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Chemistry)

The development of nanostructured anode materials for rechargeable Lithium-ion Batteries has seen a growing interest. We herein report the use of a new scalable technique, Forcespinning (FS) to produce binder-free porous Sn/C composite nanofibers with different Sn particle size loading. The preparation process involves the FS of Sn/PAN precursor nanofibers and subsequently stabilizing in air at 280 °C followed by carbonization at 800 °C under an inert atmosphere. The Sn/C composite nanofibers are highly flexible and were directly used as binder-free anodes for lithium-ion batteries. The produced Sn/C composite nanofibers showed an improved discharge capacity of about 724 mA …

Analysis Of Enzyme-Responsive Peptide Surfaces By Raman Spectroscopy, Jugal Kishore Sahoo, Narayana M.S. Sirimuthu, Anne Canning, Mischa Zelzer, Duncan Graham, Rein V. Ulijn

Advanced Science Research Center

We report on the use of Raman spectroscopy as a tool to characterize model peptide functionalised surfaces. By taking advantage of Raman reporters built into the peptide sequence, the enzymatic hydrolysis of these peptides could be determined.

Metadata Page Hits For 2015-01-01 Throught 2015-12-31 For Scholars' Mine, James Roger Weaver

Scholars’ Mine Statistics

This report shows how often visitors have viewed the metadata page for an item. Most "hits" will come directly from full-text downloads, however some readers interact with the repository by browsing and searching the site, typing a URL from a citation, or clicking links in search results. These actions are reflected in the number of metadata page hits an item receives.

Genetic Diversity And Population Structure In The Clonal Plant Trillium Recurvatum, Kendall Major

QuaesitUM

No abstract provided.

Measuring Clonal Diversity In Stands Of Bamboo, Sara Brauninger

QuaesitUM

No abstract provided.

Power And Acculturation, Landon Boone

QuaesitUM

No abstract provided.

Moving Toward Change: A Shift From Silence To Parent Engagement, Danielle Davis

QuaesitUM

No abstract provided.

Alternative Regulation Of Myc In Lung Cancer, Patrick N. Backman

Open Access Theses

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, accounting for 27% of all cancer induced deaths1. In an attempt to create a effective targeted therapy for the treatment of lung cancer, a strategy used to treat an activated KrasG12D/+;p53 R172H/+ transgenic lung cancer mouse model was to deliver a known tumor suppressive microRNA (miRNA) to stop tumor growth. The tumor suppressive miRNA let-7 was lentivirally delivered in the form of its primary transcript, pri-let-7a-1, and resulted in increased lung size and inflammation compared to lungs exposed to a control lentivirus. It was identified …

Developing Costa And Kallick’S Habits Of Mind Thinking For Students With A Learning Disability And Special Education Teachers, Daniel Vollrath

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

Research has shown that although habits are easier to instill in the early years of children due to the neuroplasticity of the brain, new research has shown that the brains of older children retain the capacity for rewiring and change in habits (Costa & Kallick, 2014). For students with learning disabilities and special education teachers, it is well known that the delivery of instruction needs to accommodate the learning ability. As students with learning disabilities progress through school the goal is to develop successful habits of mind that are necessary to compete in the 21st century. Through researching the habits …

Digital Humanities And Publishing A Learned Journal, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Digital Humanities and Publishing a Learned Journal" Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek discusses digital humanities and the publishing scholarship online in the context of the politics of publishing scholarship specifically as it pertains to humanities. Funding for the publishing of humanities scholarship remains constricted worldwide whether in print or digital and the standard remains to publish journals by subscription fees. Based on his argumentation against the "colonialism of knowledge," Tötösy de Zepetnek argues for the publishing of humanities scholarship against subscription-based or author-pay models. Further, he presents suggestions as to the how-s of the founding of a digital …

Semantic Memory Modeling And Memory Interaction In Learning Agents, Wenwen Wang, Ah-Hwee Tan, Loo-Nin Teow

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Semantic memory plays a critical role in reasoning and decision making. It enables an agent to abstract useful knowledge learned from its past experience. Based on an extension of fusion adaptive resonance theory network, this paper presents a novel self-organizing memory model to represent and learn various types of semantic knowledge in a unified manner. The proposed model, called fusion adaptive resonance theory for multimemory learning, incorporates a set of neural processes, through which it may transfer knowledge and cooperate with other long-term memory systems, including episodic memory and procedural memory. Specifically, we present a generic learning process, under which …

Lost World Of Adam And Eve: Genesis 2-3 And The Human Origins Debate (Book Review), Joel Duff

Pro Rege

Reviewed Title: The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate. Walton, John H. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015. 256 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8308-2461-8.

Evaluating The Effects Of Strong Teens On High School Student Levels Of Internalizing Symptoms And Resilience, Austin J. Millet

Theses and Dissertations

Many adults suffering from mental health problems often report that the onset of these concerns began in adolescence, highlighting the importance of identifying and treating mental health concerns from an early age. In high schools, some students are identified as having externalizing or internalizing disorders. The majority of these students, especially those with internalizing symptoms, go untreated. One potential reason may be that limited school resources are used to correct behavior problems, leaving those with internalizing disorders to silently suffer, which often exacerbates the issues. Recent research suggests many individuals have high levels of resilience which can be taught, and …

Aminoacyl-Trna Synthetase Production For Unnatural Amino Acid Incorporation And Preservation Of Linear Expression Templates In Cell-Free Protein Synthesis Reactions, Andrew Broadbent

Theses and Dissertations

Proteins—polymers of amino acids—are a major class of biomolecules whose myriad functions facilitate many crucial biological processes. Accordingly, human control over these biological processes depends upon the ability to study, produce, and modify proteins. One innovative tool for accomplishing these aims is cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS). This technique, rather than using living cells to make protein, simply extracts the cells' natural protein-making machinery and then uses it to produce protein in vitro. Because living cells are no longer involved, scientists can freely adapt the protein production environment in ways not otherwise possible. However, improved versatility and yield of CFPS protein …

Semantic And Syntactic Processing In A Patient With Left Temporal Lobe Damage Secondary To Traumatic Brain Injury: An Fmri Study, Caitlin Moizer

Theses and Dissertations

The ability of the brain to change and form new neuropathways after brain injury is remarkable. The current study investigates the brains ability to form new pathways for language processing following traumatic brain injury (TBI), specifically a left temporal lobectomy. Two subjects participated in this study; one participant with TBI and one age-matched control. Sentence stimuli consisted of four types: semantically correct, semantically incorrect, syntactically correct, and syntactically incorrect. Participants underwent a fMRI scan while the auditory stimuli were presented in four blocks. Participants were asked to record if the sentence was correct or incorrect by pressing the corresponding button. …

Association Between Polymorphisms Associated With Major Depression, Cognitive Function, And Stress Regulation And Telomere Length In Older Community-Dwelling Adults And In Older Competitive Athletes, Cynthia Elizabeth Perry

Theses and Dissertations

Many factors detrimental to healthy aging have been proposed including depression, stress, cognitive decline, and telomere shortening. Of specific interest are the genetic factors that may contribute to these factors and subsequently lead to accelerated telomere shortening and aging, namely the Bcl1, 5-HT, DRD2, and ApoE polymorphisms. We sought to: 1) further clarify the role of depression, stress tolerance, and cognitive decline in aging by examining the effect of associated polymorphisms (Bcl1, 5-HT, DRD2, and ApoE) on telomere length in two samples of older adults and 2) determine the difference in absolute telomere length between the two groups. We examined …

Ductal Carcinoma In Situ Of The Breast: The Importance Of Morphologic And Molecular Interactions., Stacey K. Mardekian, Alessandro Bombonati, Juan P. Palazzo

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast is a lesion characterized by significant heterogeneity, in terms of morphology, immunohistochemical staining, molecular signatures, and clinical expression. For some patients, surgical excision provides adequate treatment, but a subset of patients will experience recurrence of DCIS or progression to invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). Recent years have seen extensive research aimed at identifying the molecular events that characterize the transition from normal epithelium to DCIS and IDC. Tumor epithelial cells, myoepithelial cells, and stromal cells undergo alterations in gene expression, which are most important in the early stages of breast carcinogenesis. Epigenetic modifications, …

Ucc Minutes March 15, 2016, University Curriculum Council

UCC Agendas/Minutes

No abstract provided.

Using A Concept Inventory To Assess The Reasoning Component Of Citizen-Level Science Literacy: Results From A 17,000-Student Study, Edward B. Nuhfer, Christopher B. Cogan, Carl Kloock, Gregory G. Wood, Anya Goodman, Natalie Zayas Delgado, Christopher W. Wheeler

School of Natural Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

After articulating 12 concepts for the reasoning component of citizen-level science literacy and restating these as assessable student learning outcomes (SLOs), we developed a valid and reliable assessment instrument for addressing the outcomes with a brief 25-item science literacy concept inventory (SLCI). In this paper, we report the results that we obtained from assessing the citizen-level science literacy of 17,382 undergraduate students, 149 graduate students, and 181 professors. We address only findings at or above the 99.9% confidence level. We found that general education (GE) science courses do not significantly advance understanding of science as a way of knowing. However, …