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Optogenetic Stimulation Of Drosophila Heart Rate At Different Temperatures And Ca2+ Concentrations, Yuechen Zhu, Henry Uradu, Zana R. Majeed, Robin L. Cooper

Biology Faculty Publications

Optogenetics is a revolutionary technique that enables noninvasive activation of electrically excitable cells. In mammals, heart rate has traditionally been modulated with pharmacological agents or direct stimulation of cardiac tissue with electrodes. However, implanted wires have been known to cause physical damage and damage from electrical currents. Here, we describe a proof of concept to optically drive cardiac function in a model organism, Drosophila melanogaster. We expressed the light sensitive channelrhodopsin protein ChR2.XXL in larval Drosophila hearts and examined light‐induced activation of cardiac tissue. After demonstrating optical stimulation of larval heart rate, the approach was tested at low temperature …

Georgia Southern Football Adds 27 To Roster On National Signing Day, Georgia Southern University

Athletics: News & Publications

• Georgia Southern Football Adds 27 to Roster on National Signing Day
• Class rated best in SBC by several recruiting services

The Guardian, February 03, 2016, Wright State University Student Body

The Guardian Student Newspaper

Twelve page issue of The Guardian, the official student-run newspaper for Wright State University. The Guardian has been published regularly since March of 1965.

Lambda Red-Mediated Recombineering In The Attaching And Effacing Pathogen Escherichia Albertii., Marisa Egan, Jasmine Ramirez, Christian Xander, Chirag Upreti, Shantanu Bhatt

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: The ability to introduce site-specific mutations in bacterial pathogens is essential towards understanding their molecular mechanisms of pathogenicity. This has been greatly facilitated by the genetic engineering technique of recombineering. In recombineering, linear double- or single-stranded DNA molecules with two terminal homology arms are electroporated into hyperrecombinogenic bacteria that express a phage-encoded recombinase. The recombinase catalyzes the replacement of the endogenous allele with the exogenous allele to generate selectable or screenable recombinants. In particular, lambda red recombinase has been instrumental in engineering mutations to characterize the virulence arsenal of the attaching and effacing (A/E) pathogens enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC), …

State V. West-Eaton Appellant's Brief Dckt. 43473

Not Reported

No abstract provided.

The Anchor, Volume 129.15: February 3, 2016, Hope College

The Anchor: 2016

The Anchor began in 1887 and was first issued weekly in 1914. Covering national and campus news alike, Hope College’s student-run newspaper has grown over the years to encompass over two-dozen editors, reporters, and staff. For much of The Anchor's history, the latest issue was distributed across campus each Wednesday throughout the academic school year (with few exceptions). In recent years The Anchor moved to monthly print issues and a more frequently updated website. The Anchor is now published in print twice per academic semester. Occasionally, the volume and/or issue numbering is irregular.

Evaluation Of Near-Infrared Contrast Agents For Cancer Detection Using Optical Imaging Techniques, Akram Abuteen

Doctoral Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer among women, with an estimated 2.8 million diagnosed in the United States. Many cancers cannot be detected by their intrinsic vascular contrast, especially in their early stages. This necessitates the use of an exogenous contrast agent. Photoacoustic Imaging (PAI) and Fluorescence imaging (FI) are promising non-invasive in vivo cancer diagnostic methods. To further improve the tumor to background contrast, researchers are investigating various exogenous contrast agents for PAI and fluorescence imaging that target tumor vasculature and hypoxia.

This dissertation is structured into two main sections. In the first part, the …

Marital Satisfaction, Error-Observation, And The Brain: Harmful Or Beneficial Effects Of Spouse Observation?, Chelsea Romney, Michael Larson

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Romney, Chelsea Marital Satisfaction, Error-observation, and the Brain: Harmful or Beneficial Effects of Spouse Observation? Faculty Mentor: Larson, Michael, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Introduction Rewarding marital relationships are associated with many positive outcomes in one’s physical and mental health (Robles, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2003). These benefits include improved cardiovascular functioning (Kiecolt-Glaser, & Newton, 2001), decreased depression risk (Robins & Reiger, 1991), higher self-reported levels of happiness (Proulx & Snyder-Rivas, 2013), and overall lower rates of mortality (Manzoli, Villari, Pirone & Boccia, 2007). Furthermore, positive health outcomes are not only due to marital status, but also to the quality of one’s …

Presenilin E318g Variant And Alzheimer’S Disease Risk: The Cache Country Study, Ariel Hippen, John Kauwe

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Alzheimer’s disease is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly and the third most common cause of death in the United States. A vast number of genes regulate Alzheimer’s disease, including Presenilin 1 (PSEN1). It is possible that novel variants in the PSEN1 gene have an effect on Alzheimer’s disease status. A recent study suggested that one of these variants, PSEN1 E318G, significantly affects Alzheimer’s disease status in a large case-control dataset, particularly in connection with the APOEε4 allele [1].

Contrasting Soil Nitrogen Dynamics Across A Montane Meadow And Urban Lawn In A Semi-Arid Watershed, Steven J. Hall, Michelle A. Baker, Scott B. Jones, John M. Stark, David R. Bowling

Biology Faculty Publications

Urbanization substantially increases nitrogen (N) inputs and hydrologic losses relative to wildland ecosystems, although the fate of N additions to lawns and remnant grasslands remains contested. In montane semi-arid ecosystems, N cycling is often closely coupled to snowmelt (the dominant period of infiltration) and snow cover, which impact soil temperature and moisture. Here, we compared soil N dynamics between a fertilized and irrigated urban lawn and nearby riparian meadow in Salt Lake City, Utah during a snow manipulation experiment. Snow removal increased freeze/thaw events but did not affect N pools, microbial biomass, denitrification potential, or soil oxygen (O2). Mineral N …

Host Stage Preference And Performance Of The Aphid Parasitoid Diaeretiella Rapae (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) On Brevicoryne Brassicae And Lipaphis Pseudobrassicae (Hemiptera: Aphididae), Sylvia W.R. Khakasa, Samira A. Mohamed, Zipporah O. Lagat, Fathiya M. Khamis, Chrysantus M. Tanga

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

We assessed the host stage preference and performance of the aphid parasitoid Diaeretiella rapae (McIntosh) on two aphid species, Brevicoryne brassicae (L.) and Lipaphis pseudobrassicae (Davis). Although the parasitoid parasitized all nymphal instars of both aphid species, it showed a higher oviposition preference for 2nd (48.2 ± 7.74%) and 3rd (41.0 ± 7.82%) instars of L. pseudobrassicae, and for the 3rd (40.0 ± 4.59%) instar of B. brassicae. Across the host species, there was no significant difference in parasitoid preference between the 3rd and 4th instars, while 1st and 2nd instars of L. pseudobrassicae were significantly more preferred than their …

Biology's Matt Heard Explains Worries Over Zika, Winthrop University

Winthrop News 2016

• Heard says experts believe the Zika virus concentrated in Brazil in 2014 or 2015 based on World Cup travel.
• Zika was first found in Africa in 1947.

Spectator 2016-02-03, Editors Of The Spectator

The Spectator

No abstract provided.

The Sensitivity Of Carbon Exchanges In Great Plains Grasslands To Precipitation Variability, M.D. Petrie, N. A. Brunsell, R. Vargas, Scott L. Collins, L.B. Flanagan, N.P. Hanan, M.E. Litvak, A. E. Suyker

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

In the Great Plains, grassland carbon dynamics differ across broad gradients of precipitation and temperature, yet finer-scale variation in these variables may also affect grassland processes. Despite the importance of grasslands, there is little information on how fine-scale relationships compare between them regionally. We compared grassland C exchanges, energy partitioning and precipitation variability in eight sites in the eastern and western Great Plains using eddy covariance and meteorological data. During our study, both eastern and western grasslands varied between an average net carbon sink and a net source. Eastern grasslands had a moderate vapor pressure deficit (VPD = 0.95 kPa) …

Prevalence And Spectrum Of Brca Germline Variants In Mainland Chinese Familial Breast And Ovarian Cancer Patients., Yeong C. Kim, Linli Zhao, Hanwen Zhang, Ye Huang, Jian Cui, Fengxia Xiao, Bradley Downs, San Ming Wang

Journal Articles: Genetics, Cell Biology & Anatomy

Germline mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 are the most penetrating genetic predispositions for breast and ovarian cancer, and their presence is largely ethnic-specific. Comprehensive information about the prevalence and spectrum of BRCA mutations has been collected in European and North American populations. However, similar information is lacking in other populations, including the mainland Chinese population despite its large size of 1.4 billion accounting for one fifth of the world's population. Herein, we performed an extensive literature analysis to collect BRCA variants identified from mainland Chinese familial breast and ovarian cancer patients. We observed 137 distinct BRCA1 variants in 409 of …

Sensory Integration In Zebrafish Larvae, Hannah Waddel, Dr. Arminda Suli

Journal of Undergraduate Research

A major task of the central nervous system is to make sense of the environment and mount an appropriate reaction. The ability to organize and integrate inputs from different sensory systems is critical for survival in animals. Sensory integration dysfunction is implicated in human disorders such as autism and dyslexia. Swimming behaviors such as rheotaxis, defined as swimming against a current, require the integration of different sensory systems such as mechanosensory hair cells, the visual system, and the vestibular system. In this project, we attempted to create an assay to measure the rheotaxis behavior of Danio rerio (zebrafish) larvae, in …

International Collaborators Study Nuclear Level Density At Accelerator, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.

North Korea 2025: Alternate Futures And Policy Challenges, Phillip C. Saunders, James J. Przystup, David F. Helvey

Conferences and Events

National Defense University (NDU), the National Intelligence Council (NIC), and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) held a symposium in November 2015 that brought leading experts together to explore four alternative futures for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea). The futures were: 1) A Status Quo Peninsula in a Changing Northeast Asia; 2) Korea Reunified; 3) A Reforming DPRK; and 4) The DPRK Must Be Stopped! This report summarizes key findings from this non-attribution symposium, which focused on the interests and potential actions of external powers rather than DPRK internal dynamics.

The Malleability Of University Students' Beliefs, Values, And Attitudes In The Classroom Setting, Glory Emmanuel

Psychology ETDs

Beliefs, values, and attitudes (BVAs) are central to a persons identity and worldview but can be refined and influenced through the individual's surrounding environment and experience. The academic setting is one environment that impacts BVAs. This study examined if university students' BVAs are influenced over a semester by students' attributes, their professor, and the classroom context by testing three main hypotheses: 1) students demonstrate BVA change over time while professors' BVAs remain relatively stable over time; 2) students' attributes influence BVA change; and 3) students, especially those who have a positive experience in the class, assimilate to their professor's BVAs. …

Begomovirus-Associated Satellite Dna Diversity Captured Through Vector-Enabled Metagenomic (Vem) Surveys Using Whiteflies (Aleyrodidae), Karyna Rosario, Christian Marr, Arvind Varsani, Simona Kraberger, Daisy Stainton, Enrique Moriones, Jane E Polston, Mya Breitbart

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Monopartite begomoviruses (Geminiviridae), which are whitefly-transmitted single-stranded DNA viruses known for causing devastating crop diseases, are often associated with satellite DNAs. Since begomovirus acquisition or exchange of satellite DNAs may lead to adaptation to new plant hosts and emergence of new disease complexes, it is important to investigate the diversity and distribution of these molecules. This study reports begomovirus-associated satellite DNAs identified during a vector-enabled metagenomic (VEM) survey of begomoviruses using whiteflies collected in various locations (California (USA), Guatemala, Israel, Puerto Rico, and Spain). Protein-encoding satellite DNAs, including alphasatellites and betasatellites, were identified in Israel, Puerto Rico, and Guatemala. Novel …

Emu Today, February 2, 2016, Eastern Michigan University

EMU Today

No abstract provided.

Late Pleistocene Fishes Of The Tennessee River Basin: An Analysis Of A Late Pleistocene Freshwater Fish Fauna From Bell Cave (Site Acb-2) In Colbert County, Alabama, Usa, Stephen J. Jacquemin, Jun A. Ebersole, William C. Dickenson, Charles Ciampaglio

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The Tennessee River Basin is considered one of the most important regions for freshwater biodiversity anywhere on the globe. The Tennessee River Basin currently includes populations of at least half of the described contemporary diversity of extant North American freshwater fishes, crayfish, mussel, and gastropod species. However, comparatively little is known about the biodiversity of this basin from the Pleistocene Epoch, particularly the late Pleistocene (∼10,000 to 30,000 years B.P.) leading to modern Holocene fish diversity patterns. The objective of this study was to describe the fish assemblages of the Tennessee River Basin from the late Pleistocene using a series …

Genome Assembly And Geospatial Phylogenomics Of The Bed Bug Cimex Lectularius, Jeffrey A. Rosenfeld, Darryl Reeves, Mercer R. Brugler, Apurva Narechania, Sabrina Simon, Russell Durrett, Jonathan Foox, Kevin Shianna, Michael C. Schatz, Jorge Gandara, Ebrahim Afshinnekoo, Ernest T. Lam, Alex R. Hastie, Saki Chan, Han Cao, Michael Saghbini, Alex Kentsis, Paul J. Planet, Vladyslav Kholodovych, Michael Tessler, Richard Baker, Rob Desalle, Louis N. Sorkin, Sergios-Orestis Kolokotronis, Mark E. Siddall, George Amato, Christopher E. Mason

Publications and Research

The common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) has been a persistent pest of humans for thousands of years, yet the genetic basis of the bed bug’s basic biology and adaptation to dense human environments is largely unknown. Here we report the assembly, annotation and phylogenetic mapping of the 697.9-Mb Cimex lectularius genome, with an N50 of 971 kb, using both long and short read technologies. A RNA-seq time course across all five developmental stages and male and female adults generated 36,985 coding and noncoding gene models. The most pronounced change in gene expression during the life cycle occurs after feeding on …

Gardner-Webb Centered Student-Athlete On Nursing Career Field, Office Of University Communications

Gardner-Webb NewsCenter Archive

When Ashanti McPhee came to Gardner-Webb University to play football, he never expected he would discover his career in nursing. Through a curriculum that broadly exposed him to a variety of subjects, he uncovered an interest in the profession and an opportunity to help others. McPhee initially thought he wanted to pursue a degree and career in marine biology, but a general biology course helped him realize it was the human body that fascinated him enough to pursue further studies.

Systems And Methods For Maximizing Dissolved Gas Concentration Of A Single Species Of Gas From A Mixture Of Multiple Gases, Gregory S. Osborn

Patents Granted

An apparatus and method for maximizing the dissolved concentration of ozone in a liquid. The apparatus includes a dissolution tank having a pressure vessel configured to contain a treated fluid and at least one gas in a head space above the treated fluid, an inlet configured to permit passage of an untreated fluid into the head space, and an outlet configured to permit passage of the treated fluid out of the vessel; a gas supply system configured to transport the at least one gas to the head space; a fluid supply system configured to provide the untreated fluid to the …

Diversity Speakers Series: Leadership In Medicine, Oliver Bullock, Pcom Office Of Diversity And Community Relations

Diversity and Inclusion

Program for "Leadership in Medicine" by Oliver Bullock, DO '78, OJ Snyder Memorial Medal Reipient

Shape Ontogeny Of The Distal Femur In The Hominidae With Implications For The Evolution Of Bipedality, Melissa Tallman

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

Heterochrony has been invoked to explain differences in the morphology of modern humans as compared to other great apes. The distal femur is one area where heterochrony has been hypothesized to explain morphological differentiation among Plio-Pleistocene hominins. This hypothesis is evaluated here using geometric morphometric data to describe the ontogenetic shape trajectories of extant hominine distal femora and place Plio-Pleistocene hominins within that context. Results of multivariate statistical analyses showed that in both Homo and Gorilla, the shape of the distal femur changes significantly over the course of development, whereas that of Pan changes very little. Development of the …

Unique Features Of A Global Human Ectoparasite Identified Through Sequencing Of The Bed Bug Genome, Joshua B. Benoit, Zach N. Adelman, Klaus Reinhardt, Amanda Dolan, Monica Poelchau, Emily C. Jennings, Elise M. Szuter, Richard W. Hagan, Hemant Gujar, Jayendra Nath Shukla, Fang Zhu, M. Mohan, David R. Nelson, Andrew J. Rosendale, Christian Derst, Valentina Resnik, Sebastian Wernig, Pamela Menegazzi, Christian Wegener, Nicolai Peschel, Jacob M. Hendershot, Wolfgang Blenau, Reinhard Predel, Paul R. Johnston, Panagiotis Ioannidis, Robert M. Waterhouse, Ralf Nauen, Corinna Schorn, Mark-Christoph Ott, Frank Maiwald, Subba R. Palli

Entomology Faculty Publications

The bed bug, Cimex lectularius, has re-established itself as a ubiquitous human ectoparasite throughout much of the world during the past two decades. This global resurgence is likely linked to increased international travel and commerce in addition to widespread insecticide resistance. Analyses of the C. lectularius sequenced genome (650 Mb) and 14,220 predicted protein-coding genes provide a comprehensive representation of genes that are linked to traumatic insemination, a reduced chemosensory repertoire of genes related to obligate hematophagy, host-symbiont interactions, and several mechanisms of insecticide resistance. In addition, we document the presence of multiple putative lateral gene transfer events. Genome …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Lanthanide Fluorides For Forensic Neutron Detection, Antonio Rivera

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

Lanthanide fluorides have many uses, and there is a need for high quality nanocrystals to fill this need. Here, the synthesis and characterization of high quality lanthanide fluorides is presented. In particular, this dissertation focuses on dysprosium fluoride doped with ytterbium, to eventually be used as a forensic and clandestine neutron detector material. There is a need for neutron detectors that have no sensitivity to any other type of radiation and can be used as a forensic tool to go back and look at an event. There is the further requirement that such detectors be hard to detect by those …

Modeling Steric Effects In Antibody Aggregation Using Rule-Based Methods, Brittany Hoard

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

The allergic response is produced by the release of immune mediators by mast cells and basophils. This process, in turn, is initiated by the aggregation of antigens and IgE-FcεRI antibody-receptor complexes. Computational modeling of antibody- antigen aggregate formation as well as the size and structure of these aggregates is an important tool for greater understanding of the allergic response. In addition, the incorporation of molecular geometry into aggregation models can more accurately capture details of the aggregation process, and may lead to insights into how geom- etry affects aggregate formation. However, it is challenging to simulate aggregation due to the …