Digital Commons Network^™

Carbon Stocks Variability In Agro Ecosystems Along An Altitudinal Gradient: A Case Study Of Taita Hills, Kenya, Crispus Mugambi Njeru

All PhD Dissertations

This study quantifies the effect of land cover change and seasonality on soil organic carbon and carbon dioxide emissivity. It takes to account the coupled inter-relationships with other ecological factors such as temperature and moisture. Next, the study assesses how topographic and ecological factors drive spatial soil nutrient stock variations and quantifies the observations required to discriminate stock detection in the mountain ecosystem. Thereafter, the study derives and evaluates modeling frameworks that integrate remote sensing, geography information systems and field measured ecological data to maximally explain soil nutrient stocks variation from terrain and seasonal dimensions. In order to address the …

Intentional Process For Intentional Space: Higher Education Classroom Spaces For Learning, Taimi Olsen, Stanley Guffey

Publications

This chapter addresses the confluence of theory and practice in developing and using “flexible” classrooms for student learning. A large classroom building renovation will be described, in terms of how collaboration and co-creation of value led to early success of the renovated space. Co-creation of value for staff and faculty can help overcome initial resistance to change, bridge understanding, and drive a successful change from lecture-based teaching to growing use of active learning pedagogies. At the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, co-creation was central to planning, conducting, and sustaining a renovation of space into flexible, technology-enhanced classrooms and changing classroom pedagogy.

Climp: Clustering Motifs Via Maximal Cliques With Parallel Computing Design., Shaoqiang Zhang, Yong Chen

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

A set of conserved binding sites recognized by a transcription factor is called a motif, which can be found by many applications of comparative genomics for identifying over-represented segments. Moreover, when numerous putative motifs are predicted from a collection of genome-wide data, their similarity data can be represented as a large graph, where these motifs are connected to one another. However, an efficient clustering algorithm is desired for clustering the motifs that belong to the same groups and separating the motifs that belong to different groups, or even deleting an amount of spurious ones. In this work, a new motif …

"The Crescent" Student Newspaper, April 14, 2016, George Fox University Archives

"The Crescent" Student Newspaper

Student newspaper of George Fox University.

Technologies For Detecting Botulinum Neurotoxins In Biological And Environmental Matrices, Luisa W. Cheng, Kirkwood M. Land, Christina C. Tam, D. L. Brandon, L. H. Stanker

College of the Pacific Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Biomonitoring of food and environmental matrices is critical for the rapid and sensitive diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases caused by toxins. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has noted that toxins from bacteria, fungi, algae, and plants present an ongoing public health threat, especially since some of these toxins could compromise security of the food supply. Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs), produced by Clostridium spp., are among those bacterial toxins that pose life-threatening danger to humans. BoNTs inhibit the release of acetylcholine at peripheral cholinergic nerve terminals and cause flaccid paralysis. BoNTs are grouped in seven serotypes and …

Drilling For Common Ground: How Public Opinion Tracks Experts In The Debate Over Federal Regulation Of Shale Oil & Gas Extraction, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

Publications and Research

Public interest in environmental and health impacts from shale oil and gas extraction (what the public calls “fracking”) is growing. Industry claims the public outcry against the new technology is not grounded in science. In February 2013, Resources for the Future (“RFF”) published a list of high priority “risk pathways” that experts from NGOs, academia, government, and industry all agreed were real concerns about fracking. This article used the risk matrix to evaluate whether public comments in dockets of federal agencies that proposed regulation concerning hydraulic fracturing tracked expert concern. The article found that the public tracked many of the …

The Heterocyst Regulatory Protein Hetp And Its Homologs Modulate Heterocyst Commitment In Anabaena Sp. Strain Pcc 7120, Patrick Videau, Orion S. Rivers, Kathryn Hurd, Blake Ushijima, Reid T. Oshiro, Rachel J. Ende, Samantha M. O'Hanlon, Loralyn M. Cozy

Research & Publications

The commitment of differentiating cells to a specialized fate is fundamental to the correct assembly of tissues within a multicellular organism. Because commitment is often irreversible, entry into and progression through this phase of development must be tightly regulated. Under nitrogen-limiting conditions, the multicellular cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120 terminally commits ∼10% of its cells to become specialized nitrogen-fixing heterocysts. Although commitment is known to occur 9–14 h after the induction of differentiation, the factors that regulate the initiation and duration of this phase have yet to be elucidated. Here, we report the identification of four genes that share …

The Biology Of Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, Kay Etheridge

Biology Faculty Publications

Book Description: This facsimile of one of the most beautiful books of natural history ever created contains sixty magnificent illustrations showing exotic insects, with the original descriptions. The reissue is the same size as the original and is enriched with an illustrated introduction about the life, work and significance of Maria Sibylla Merian, and a new scientific description of all the insects, animals and plants.

The life and work of this German woman who moved to the Netherlands has been the subject of international research by botanists, entomologists and historians concerned with the history of science, art, religion and economics. …

Improving Middle Grades Stem Teacher Content Knowledge And Pedagogical Practices Through A School-University Partnership, Cherie Mccollough, Tonya Jeffery, Kim Moore, Joe Champion

Mathematics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper outlines a University-School District partnership with the intent to increase the number of middle grades mathematics and science teachers. This externally funded initiative includes onsite, authentically situated professional development for pre- and in-service teachers at three different urban, low-socioeconomic schools with a majority Hispanic population of students. Program objectives include increasing mathematics and science content knowledge, increasing self-efficacy in teaching math and science, building and incorporating a success-driven school culture and infrastructure to increase student performance in a well-articulated, scalable and transformable model. Program components include site based common planning times, STEM Thursdays where science and mathematics lessons …

Connections, 01/2016, College Of Health And Human Services

College of Health and Human Services Newsletter

• New WMU center promoting diversity in primary health care workforce
• WMU student one of six in state awarded prestigious foundation scholarship
• BLVS chair selected for Fulbright Specialist Roster
• Nature Photography as Mindful Meditation art exhibit now on display
• CHHS faculty and staff recognized at State of the College

Wmu 2016 Multicultural Meet And Greet, College Of Education And Human Development

College of Education and Human Development News

• Welcome Messages
• Purpose Statement
• Agenda and Floor Map
• Faculty Panelists
• Participating Student Organizations
• Campus Partners
• Community Partners

Ms-Reduce: An Ultrafast Technique For Reduction Of Big Mass Spectrometry Data For High-Throughput Processing, Muaaz Gul Awan, Fahad Saeed

Parallel Computing and Data Science Lab Technical Reports

Modern proteomics studies utilize high-throughput mass spectrometers which can produce data at an astonishing rate. These big Mass Spectrometry (MS) datasets can easily reach peta-scale level creating storage and analytic problems for large-scale systems biology studies. Each spectrum consists of thousands of peaks which have to be processed to deduce the peptide. However, only a small percentage of peaks in a spectrum are useful for peptide deduction as most of the peaks are either noise or not useful for a given spectrum. This redundant processing of non-useful peaks is a bottleneck for streaming high-throughput processing of big MS data. One …

Discovery: Research Annual Report 2016, Office Of Vice President For Research

Research Annual Reports

• Kalamazoo autism center serving the treatment needs for those with autism
• WMU’s geological resources leveraged as an environmental protection and economic development tool
• WMU uses grants to study improvement to aviation safety from invention to commercialization
• Faculty scholar award
• Undergraduate research excellence award recipients
• Graduate student research and travel grants
• Support for faculty scholars award
• External funding
• Research and creative activities poster day
• Graduate student participant winners
• Technology development fund awards
• Faculty research and creative activities award
• WMU centers and institutes

Impedance-Based Water-Quality Monitoring Using The Parallel-Plate Method, Ali Nazari, Arvin Farid, Ken Cornell

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The application of electromagnetic (EM) waves to measure the electrical properties (dielectric constant and loss tangent) of materials is a well-known approach. The electrical properties can be used to indirectly measure several physical properties of solutions in water such as the concentration and chemical composition of contaminants in water, as a representative of the liquid phase in soil. A capacitive method of measuring dielectric properties of solutions is proposed to detect and determine low-concentration chemical and biological contaminations in water. The primary objective of this project is to design a low-cost sensor that would require small volumes of samples to …

Academic Data Series, 2015-16 Edition, Office Of The Controller, Wright State University

Academic Data Series

A compilation of statistics extracted from the University's Banner System and Ohio Department of Higher Education resources for 2015-2016.

I Am Whoever You Say I Am: How The Custodial Decisions Of Parents Can Affect And Limit A Transgender Child's Freedom And State Of Mind, Kasia Szczerbinski

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Protein-Protein Interactions Of Human Mitochondrial Amidoxime-Reducing Component In Mammalian Cells, John Thomas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Newly discovered pterin-molybdoenzymes mammalian proteins, mARC1, and mARC2, are though to activate pro-drug, metabolize mutated base pairs, and producing nitric oxide from nitrite. However, the physiological function of the mARC proteins remain unclear. It is hypothesized that identifying partner proteins through protein-protein interactions can provide evidence to their physiological function. This study aimed to further investigate the potential function of mARC proteins through the identification of protein-protein interaction in human cell lysate, utilizing co-immunoprecipitation, crosslinking reagent, and pull-down assays. Several proteins (e.g. mitogen-activated protein kinase 5, phosphatidylinositol 4-phospahte 3-kinase C2 domain-containing subunit beta, ADP/ATP translocase 1, and myotubularin) were identified …

Characterization Of Sterility And Germline Defects Caused By Smed-Boule Rna-Interference, Jessica Kathryne Steiner

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Evolutionarily conserved molecular processes involved in construction of the germline and embryonic development are essential for the procreation of many species. Infertility affects 15% of couples in the world and can be caused by dysfunctions during egg and sperm development, anatomic defects, as well as faulty embryonic development. Although there are some infertility disorders that are genetically defined, such as Turner and Klinefelter syndromes, many clinical infertility cases are diagnosed as idiopathic due to the lack of understanding of basic fertility mechanisms. Schmidtea mediterranea is a freshwater planarian species that has the ability to regenerate complete organisms, including germ cells …

The Impact Of Career And Technical Education On Career Readiness, Shaunna D. Finley

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the effects career and technical Education has on career readiness. Six hundred career and technical Education students in the state of Indiana participated in this study. There were four research questions developed to determine the significance of six variables: race, lunch status, special Education status, type of high school diploma, enrollment in Project Lead the Way, and career and technical Education concentrator. Statistical analysis of the data included finding the mean and standard deviation along with basic descriptive data. Durbin-Watson test, multiple regression test, Wald criterion, Nagelkerke R 2 , and …

Valuing Adjuncts As Liaisons For University Excellence (Value) Program, Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute, Virginia Commonwealth University, Erin Brown, Alaina Campbell, Christal Holmes, Deborah Mcguire, Miki Skinner, Paula Spencer

L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs Publications

Adjuncts are increasingly becoming more important in higher education and make up nearly onethird of VCU’s teaching faculty. While VCU has made strides in increasing the number of tenuretrack and term professors, the size and needs of certain departments will always make adjunct instructors necessary. A number of schools on both the Monroe Park and MCV campuses utilize professionals from the Richmond community to enhance experiential learning, thereby making a university investment in adjunct faculty a means by which to elevate VCU’s strategic mission. Adjuncts often provide a community perspective that comes from the professional work they do outside of …

Efficient Seed-Specifically Regulated Autoexcision Of Marker Gene (Nptii) With Inducible Expression Of Interest Gene In Transgenic Nicotiana Tabacum, Shiva Hamzeh, Mostafa Motallebi, Mohammad Reza Zamani

Turkish Journal of Biology

In this study, we developed the seed-specifically regulated autoexcision system based on Cre/loxP site-specific recombination for coelimination of nptII and cre genes from transgenic plants. To accomplish this, a seed-specific gene promoter, BcNA1, from Brassica napus was used to drive conditional expression of recombinase. NptII and recombinase cassettes were placed between two directly repeated loxP sites. The loxP-flanked DNA was located between the SP-DDEE synthetic pathogen inducible promoter and pr??omoterless β-glucuronidase (Gus) gene, as a model gene of interest. Upon seed-specific expression of cre recombinase, the excision event would eliminate loxP-flanked DNA and bring the gus reporter gene under the …

Mucus Of Achatina Fulica Stimulates Mineralization And Inflammatoryresponse In Dental Pulp Cells, Fahsai Kantawong, Pichaporn Thaweenan, Sutinee Mungkala, Sawinee Tamang, Ruthairat Manaphan, Phenphichar Wanachantararak, Teerasak E-Kobon, Pramote Chumnanpuen

Turkish Journal of Biology

Dental pulp tissue contains stem cells that can be isolated and used for regenerative medicine in tooth restoration or autologous transplantation. The aim of this study was to observe the mineralization and gene expression in dental pulp cells (DPCs) following treatment with snail mucus. Snail mucus was collected from adult Achatina fulica and processed as a dry powder by the freeze-drying technique. The mucus powder was dissolved in a culture medium at a concentration of 15 μg/mL. DPCs were prepared by the outgrowth technique and cultured in a 6-well plate at a density of 5 × 104 cells per well. …

Enhancement Of Chondrogenic Differentiation Potential Of Equine Adiposetissue-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells Using Tgf-Ss3 And Bmp-6, Milad Shademan, Abbas Parham, Hesam Dehghani

Turkish Journal of Biology

This study was designed to evaluate the in vitro chondrogenic differentiation potential of equine adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells (AT-MSCs) in response to different culture conditions. Fat tissue cells after collection were cultured in optimized conditions until passage 3 (P3). P3 cells were cultured as micropellets under different chondrogenic conditions for 21 days in 5 groups: basic medium as a control, basic chondrogenic medium (BCM), BCM supplemented with transforming growth factor beta 3 (TGF-β3; 10 ng/mL), BCM supplemented with bone morphogenetic protein 6 (BMP-6; 10 ng/mL), and BCM supplemented with both TGF-β3 and BMP-6. The growth rate of pellets was …

Construction Of An Oxygen Detection-Based Optic Laccase Biosensor For Polyphenolic Compound Detection, Kadi̇r Bi̇li̇r, Marie-Theres Weil, Julia Lochead, Fatma Neşe Kök, Tobias Werner

Turkish Journal of Biology

A fiber optic biosensor was constructed from Pleurotus ostreatus laccase for the detection of polyphenolic compounds. Laccase was immobilized on the surface of the commercially available fiber optic oxygen sensor spots by using 3-aminopropylsilanetriol, glutaraldehyde, and amino-modified carboxycellulose. A diffusion layer containing tetramethyl orthosilicate (TMOS), trimethoxymethylsilane (Tri-MOS), and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was added to the immobilized laccase layer. The consumption of oxygen as a result of laccase activity was monitored using a fiber optical measuring setup with catechol as a model substrate. The optimal enzyme amount was determined as 1.5 mg per 50 µL of enzyme layer mixture, and with …

Higher Expression Level Of Bat3 Is Associated With Silencing Of Themidn Gene In Primary Mouse Cardiomyocytes, Bi̇lge Şadan Selçuk, Ayşe Evri̇m Bayrak, Ni̇han Ünaltuna

Turkish Journal of Biology

Midnolin (Midn) is a developmentally regulated nucleolar protein that was originally identified in the mesencephalon of developing mouse embryos. Additionally, Midn expression was detected in various adult tissues and was associated with glucokinase activity in pancreatic beta cells and with the regulation of folliculogenesis in ovaries. In this study, our aim was to analyze the expression and function of the Midn gene in cardiomyocyte cells. We constructed a primary neonatal mouse cardiomyocyte cell culture and analyzed the expression of possible Midn-associated genes after short interfering RNA (siRNA)-mediated gene silencing for Midn. After 24 h of silencing, we observed that the …

The History And Influence Of Maria Sibylla Merian's Bird-Eating Tarantula: Circulating Images And The Production Of Natural Knowledge, Kay Etheridge

Biology Faculty Publications

Chapter Summary: A 2009 exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum on the confluence of science and the visual arts included a plate from a nineteenth-century encyclopedia owned by Charles Darwin showing a tarantula poised over a dead bird (figure 3.1).1 The genesis of this startling scene was a work by Maria Sibylla Merian (German, 1647–1717), and the history of this image says much about how knowledge of the New World was obtained, and how it was transmitted to the studies and private libraries of Europe, and from there into popular works like Darwin’s encyclopedia. It is unlikely that Merian ever imagined …

The Jackrabbit Dairy Review, Vikram V. Mistry

The Jackrabbit Dairy & Food Review

No abstract provided.

It's A Mutual Decision, Madeline Crow

Maroon Edition: MSU’s First Year Reading Experience

First place winner of the MSU Maroon & White QEP/Maroon Edition Essay Competition (Freshmen) for 2016/2017.

Review Of Harvell, Drew. A Sea Of Glass : Searching For The Blaschkas’ Fragile Legacy In An Ocean At Risk, Judith B. Barnett

Technical Services Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Communal And Economic Implications Of Blood In Dante, Anne C. Leone

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This article investigates two of the varied and diverse implications of blood in Dante’s works (Fiore, Rime, Vita nova, Convivio, Commedia, Monarchia, Epistole, and Egloghe) where the term and its derivations appear: the ‘communal’ and the ‘economic’. By ‘communal’, I mean that Dante emphasizes the generative, formative, nourishing and charitable implications of blood: as the parts of a body are joined together through the blood they share, members of various communities — the city, the Church, the Roman Empire, the family, humankind — are joined together through blood. By ‘economic’, I understand …