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Timing Of Family Dissociation Does Not Affect Long-Term Survival Estimates Of Sandhill Crane Chicks, Matthew A. Hayes, Jeb A. Barzen

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

Sandhill crane (Grus canadensis) chicks depend on their parents beyond fledging, but timing of chick separation from their parents has rarely been quantified and reported. We color-banded and radio-tagged sandhill crane chicks on known natal territories in south-central Wisconsin and monitored family groups to determine age of chick independence. Using a Cormack-Jolly-Seber open population model in program MARK, we estimated survival for chicks that dissociated from their parents prior to fall migration, over winter (including migration), and following spring migration. Of 96 chicks with a known timing of dissociation from their parents, 11 (12%) became independent from their …

Distribution, Densities, And Ecology Of Siberian Cranes In The Khroma River Region Of Northern Yakutia In Northeastern Russia, Inga P. Bysykatova, Gary L. Krapu, Nicolai I. Germogenov, Deborah A. Buhl

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

The Siberian crane (Grus leucogeranus) is the third rarest crane species in the world with a breeding range now centered on 3 core areas and a buffer zone in the arctic of northern Yakutia in northeastern Russia. During 16 July-2 August 2009, we undertook ground surveys within the Khroma River core breeding area, surrounding buffer zone, and lands lying to the west of the known breeding range to estimate densities and determine habitat use and social status of Siberian cranes. A total of 142 Siberian cranes were sighted (including 55 pairs) at 54 locations with 32 cranes (including 13 pairs) …

Proceedings Of The 13th North American Crane Workshop Abstracts

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

AGE-SPECIFIC SURVIVAL OF GREATER SANDHILL CRANE COLTS IN NEVADA Chad August, Jim Sedinger, and Chris Nicolai 111

WHOOPING CRANE DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT USE: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE? Jane Austin, Matthew Hayes, and Jeb Barzen 111

BEHAVIORAL MOVEMENTS OF ARANSAS-WOOD BUFFALO WHOOPING CRANES: ANOMALIES OR INDICATIONS OF WAYS TO FURTHER ENHANCE SPECIES RECOVERY. David Baasch, Mark Bidwell, Wade Harrell, Kris Metzger, Aaron Pearse, and Mary Harner 112

ON NEST SUCCESS IN A REINTRODUCED POPULATION OF WHOOPING CRANES .Jeb Barzen, Sarah Converse, Peter Adler, Elmer Gray, Anne Lacy, Eva Szyszkoski, and Andrew Gossens 113

DETERMINING DIET COMPOSITION AND INGESTION RATE OF CRANES …

Proceedings Of The Thirteenth North American Crane Workshop, 14–17 April 2014, Lafayette, Louisiana, Usa, David A. Aborn, Richard P. Urbanek

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

RESEARCH PAPERS

HABITAT SELECTION BY BREEDING SANDHILL CRANES IN CENTRAL WISCONSIN. Tamara P. Miller and Jeb A. Barzen 1

HIGH NEST DENSITY OF SANDHILL CRANES IN CENTRAL WISCONSIN.Jeb A. Barzen, Liying Su, Anne E. Lacy, Andrew P. Gossens, and Dorn M. Moore 13

DIFFERENTIAL DETECTION OF TERRITORIAL AND NON-TERRITORIAL GREATER SANDHILL CRANES IN SUMMER. Lindsey F. McKinney, Jeb A. Barzen, Jason D. Riddle, Shelli A. Dubay, and Tim F. Ginnett 25

TIMING OF FAMILY DISSOCIATION DOES NOT AFFECT LONG-TERM SURVIVAL ESTIMATES OF SANDHILL CRANE CHICKS Matthew A. Hayes and Jeb A. Barzen 33

A REVIEW OF FALL SANDHILL CRANE MIGRATION …

Nesting Activity Budgets And Antipredator Behaviors Of Mississippi Sandhill Cranes, Jerome J. Howard, Rose Butler Wall, Lauren Billodeaux Mowbray, Scott G. Hereford

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

We studied activity budgets and antipredator behaviors of Mississippi sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis pulla) to determine if parental behavior influenced nest outcomes. We used infrared motion-activated cameras to capture behavioral sequences from 21 nests over a 2-year period. Overall activity budgets were similar among crane pairs regardless of nest outcome. Specific activity patterns did predict nest outcomes; pairs at unsuccessful nests spent more time away from the nest and more time manipulating nest contents than successful pairs, while pairs at nests that were lost to predation cooperated poorly and started the nest a month later on average than …

California’S Groundwater Crisis: A Case For The Regulation Of Groundwater Substitution Transfers, Chelsea Scharf

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Development Of A Testicular Cancer Vaccine, Roberto Aguilar Iii

ETD Archive

Testicular cancer mainly affects men between the ages of 20 and 35 but is the most common male neoplasm between the ages of 15 and 34. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) states that localized testicular cancer has a recurrence rate of 15-20% and tumors that are Sertoli or Leydig cell derived fail to respond to chemotherapy or radiation treatments. The recurrence rate may increase to 32% if at diagnosis the tumor is greater than 4 cm in size with invasion of the rete testes. To improve therapy for testicular cancer, we examined the usefulness of a testicular cancer vaccine. We …

Student Perceptions Of Faculty's Social Presence In Online Health Science Courses, Samantha J. Mencini

ETD Archive

With continued surges in enrollment in the various online health science programs, especially nursing programs, there is a great need for additional research to be conducted regarding how students perceive their professors social presence in an online learning environment through the use of Computer-Mediated Communications - CMCs. The objectives of this descriptive phenomenological qualitative study were to: 1) illustrate how students perceive their professors’ social presence as used in various types of CMCs; 2) identify emotions which the students have experienced in response to their professor’s CMCs; 3) unveil common themes regarding student perception of their professors’ social presence; and …

Leveling The Playing Field: Ensuring African-American Students Access To Advanced Placement Courses, Alisa L. Lawson-Mckinnie

ETD Archive

The under-representation of African-American high school students in advanced placement classes must be understood in terms of broader school contexts and practices. This qualitative study investigated how teachers and guidance counselors contribute to the academic success of African-American students of high potential at a large suburban high school in the city of Cleveland. The purpose was to improve the participation and performance of these students in AP courses. Data indicates that (a) school employees (teachers and guidance counselors) can positively affect achievement, (b) their definitions of success shape these students’ opportunities for achievement, and (c) developing the capacities of high-potential …

Executive Mba Programs: Impact On Female Executive Career Development, Monica A. Butko

ETD Archive

Corporate America faces an erosion of senior leadership talent due to the exodus of many baby boomers who had occupied these positions.Many of them have either retired or will do so in the next decade. The erosion of this talent will become a major problem that can be avoided by grooming women to assume many of these positions.

Over the past 60 years women have made significant strides in middle management as cited by their progression in the workforce since World War II. Education has been viewed as a key to career development by women. While women have made significant …

The Discourse Of Female Mental Illness In Kate Chopin's The Awakening, Elise M. Collman

ETD Archive

This study addresses the consequences that befell Edna Pontellier for seeking an identity apart and outside of the roles of wife and mother. In particular, it focuses on the correlation made by the male characters in the novel between rejecting motherhood and marriage and perceived mental illness. Edna’s onset of contradictory behavior causes Leonce and Dr. Mandelet to hypothesize the cause of her new behavior. In an attempt to understand and cure Edna, they take a diagnostic approach towards her awakening. Their misunderstanding of her awakening reveals the misinformed societal dogma that linked women’s desire for autonomy to mental instability. …

Modified Electrodes With Grafted Dna And Oligonucleotides For Detection And Quantification Of Peroxynitrate, Heba Azmy Salim

ETD Archive

Peroxynitrite (ONOO-) is a strong oxidizing and nitrating agent, and its formation has been correlated with many pathological conditions. It is generated in-vivo through the diffusion-controlled reaction between nitric oxide and superoxide. Peroxynitrite has been linked to nitration of protein and DNA as well as to DNA strand breaks. Accumulation of mutations and/or other kinds of DNA damage represent a carcinogenic risk. The accurate measurement of peroxynitrite concentration has been a challenge since this analyte is very unstable and reacts with many cellular targets. Development of analytical techniques capable of rapid and sensitive detection of this fast-reacting and damaging agent …

The Voice And Cystic Fibrosis: A Descriptive Case Study, Veronica Smitley

ETD Archive

Cystic fibrosis is a common autosomal recessive disease with severe effects on the respiratory, digestive, and endocrine systems. Symptoms include chronic cough and wheezing, frequent upper respiratory tract infections, and reflux disease. While most treatments for cystic fibrosis aim to mitigate the respiratory and gastrointestinal dysfunction, the potential adverse effects on an individual’s voice has not been researched in a systematic manner. We hypothesized that individuals with cystic fibrosis may show physical signs of vocal fold damage, as well as common dysphonic symptoms. Given the impact voice disorders have an overall quality of life, identification and management of cystic fibrosis-related …

Borderline Personality Disorder: How Various Stressors Impact Rumination Tendencies, Corey J. Maddox

ETD Archive

The high prevalence of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) combined with a need to improve treatment efficacy produced a demand for the identification of how various risk factors are more likely to exacerbate BPD symptoms. While emotion dysregulation and interpersonal difficulties are known maladies of BPD, the goal of the present research was to examine their influence on rumination processes, thereby allowing therapeutic providers to facilitate treatment by honing in on specific stressors that are more likely to exacerbate symptoms due to initiating a ruminative response. A sample of 127 participants, 21 of whom endorsed clinical levels of BPD symptoms, were …

The Mediating Effects Of Self-Handicapping On Eating Disorder Symptomatology, Brooke Kelly Strumbel

ETD Archive

With the high prevalence of eating disorders (ED) and the functional impairment that they cause, there is a pressing need to more fully identify their risk factors and mechanisms. While perfectionism and negative affect are known risk factors for ED, the mechanisms by which they develop are not well understood. The present study examined the roles of self-handicapping, thought suppression, and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, as potential mechanisms through which perfectionism and negative affect confer risk for ED. A sample of 161 female undergraduates completed measures of perfectionism, negative affect, thought suppression, self-handicapping, eating disorder tendencies, and an Implicit Association …

Decitabine-Loaded Nanogel Treatment To Reverse Cancer Drug Resistance, Samantha A. Cramer

ETD Archive

Cancers in which epigenetic changes, such as hypermethylation of DNA, lead to drug resistance cause the cancer to become unresponsive to existing chemotherapeutic treatments. The epigenetic drug – 5-aza-2’-deoxycytidine (decitabine, DAC) – is a potent hypomethylating agent, but its effect is transient due to its instability. Previous studies have shown that loading DAC into nanogel significantly enhances its antiproliferative effect (compared to DAC in solution) in drug-resistant breast cancer cells (MCF-7/ADR). Further, the previous studies demonstrated changes in the membrane lipid profile of resistant cells following treatment with DAC either as solution or in nanogels. The objective of the present …

Aging And Emotion Recognition: An Examination Of Stimulus And Attentional Mechanisms, Stephanie Nicole Sedall

ETD Archive

Emotion recognition is essential for interpersonal communication. However, previous research has suggested that older adults are not as accurate as younger adults in recognizing certain emotions, particularly negative facial expressions of anger, fear, and sadness. Including additional contextual information (e.g., manipulation of certain facial features) might help us better understand these age differences. The present study investigated how potential age differences in emotion recognition are influenced by stimulus factors (target eye gaze direction) as well as facial viewing patterns, cognitive functioning, and physiological processes. A sample of younger and older adults viewed static facial expressions depicting anger, fear, sadness, happiness, …

Variability And Location Of Movement Endpoint Distributions: The Influence Of Instructions For Movement Speed And Accuracy, Abhishek Dey

ETD Archive

An influential theory of motor control predicts that targeted hand movements should be aimed at the target center and that the variability of movement endpoint distributions should fill the target region (Meyer et al., 1988). Because increases in the amount of movement endpoint variability correlates with increases in movement speed (Schmidt et al., 1979), centering the distribution on the target center and expanding variability to the limits of the target boundaries should allow for maximization of movement speed, without the production of movement errors (i.e., target misses). Slifkin and Eder (2016) recently found that those predictions only held over a …

An Interpersonal Model Of Depression: A Psychophysiological Perspective, Kelsey J. Pritchard

ETD Archive

This study examined whether parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity predicts depression risk through excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) which subsequently erodes social support and generates stress. Recent theories suggest that the PNS evolved to regulate social interaction and that the PNS is associated with depression and interpersonal deficits. Therefore, PNS deficits may be associated to ERS, given its interpersonal function. Participants (N= 65) completed measures of ERS, interpersonal stressors, social support quality, depression symptoms, and a protocol that measured indices of the PNS (i.e., respiratory sinus arrhythmia; RSA) at rest and during a paced breathing task. Multiple mediator models …

Profiling Cell Surface Sialylation And Desialylation Dynamics Of Immune Cells, Dan Wang

ETD Archive

Sialic acids (SAs) are a diverse family of naturally occurring 2-keto-3-deoxy-nononic acids that are involved in a wide range of biological processes, including early fetal development, cellular recognition, and utilization by microbes. While it is clear that cell surface SAs are highly involved in the immune system, the sialylation status of individual immune cells and functions are still unknown. In this study, I combined the newly developed LC-MS/MS methods with flow cytometry and confocal microscopy to systematically study the sialylation and desialylation dynamics of macrophages at different conditions.

First, I developed an accurate LC-MS/MS method to quantify free SA in …

Negotiating Identity And Constructing Masculinities: A Narrative Case Study Of Men In Early Childhood Education, Matthew C. Luginbill

ETD Archive

Men teachers are not present in early childhood classrooms for many reasons, despite recruitment efforts. Many men who do choose to follow this feminized career path find themselves positioned as tokens and often quickly leave for administration. Informed by a three-dimensional narrative inquiry approach this research utilized identity and masculinities paradigms to investigate the experiences of veteran men teaching young children. A series of four interviews was used to explore and describe the individual professional life history of participants. The narratives of Frank, Jerry, and George provide a deeper understanding of how men negotiate identity and construct masculinities over time …

State Estimation Of Glucose And Insulin Dynamics, Morgan Nicholas Miller

ETD Archive

Process simulation and state estimation have very important applications in chemical engineering as well as the biomedical field. Diabetes is a rapidly growing disease in the United States with 29 million people already diagnosed. The estimation of glucose and insulin concentration in patients is necessary in order to effectively treat diabetes. The Bergman Minimal Model is a popular process model that is used to simulate glucose and insulin dynamics. A simulation of this model was created based on estimated parameters for the model from historical data. This thesis investigated the estimation of glucose concentration, insulin concentration, and effect of active …

Calorie Restriction Effect On Circadian Clock Gene Expression, Sonal Arvind Patel

ETD Archive

Calorie Restriction (CR) is a powerful paradigm known to delay aging and thus increase longevity in several organisms, from yeast to non-human primates. Many molecular pathways have been proposed to mediate the beneficial effects of CR, however, the mechanism is still unknown. Circadian clock which is an internal time keeping system is regulated by feeding. Thus our aim was to study the effect of CR on the circadian clock. Here we show that CR significantly affects the expression of circadian clock genes in mice at the mRNA and protein levels, suggesting that CR reprograms the clocks at the transcriptional and …

The Role Of Rnase L In Type I Diabetes And Development Of Quantitative Lc-Ms/Ms Methods For The Pharmacological Studies Of Anti-Cancer Drug Candidates, Chun Zeng

ETD Archive

PROJECT I: The cause of type I diabetes continues to be a focus of investigation. In this study, we found that 2-5A dependent RNase L (RNase L), an IFN-a-inducible enzyme that functions in IFN action against viruses and cell proliferation, played an important role in dsRNA-induced onset of type I diabetes. By using RNase L deficient RIP-B7.1 mice which are more vulnerable to environmental harmful factors such as viral infection, we demonstrated that deficiency of RNase L in mice resulted in a significant delay of diabetes onset induced by polyinosinic:polycytidylic acid (poly I:C), a type of dsRNA, and streptozotocin (STZ). …

Suppression Of Pulmonary Innate Immunity By Pneumoviruses, Jayeeta Dhar

ETD Archive

Pneumonia Virus of Mice (PVM) and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) are negative sense, single-stranded, enveloped RNA viruses from Pneumovirus genus, Paramyxoviridae family. RSV is the leading cause of respiratory diseases in infants. PVM causes similar respiratory illness in mice. PVM is used as an animal model to study RSV pathogenesis because of its similarity with RSV infection. Viral infection induces type I interferon (IFN) response as an antiviral strategy. PVM and RSV both have two non-structural (NS) proteins that are known to be IFN antagonists. While RSV can target different signaling components of IFN pathway, the mechanism of IFN suppression …

Effects Of Hypoxic Conditions On Skeletal Myoblasts, Shuai Zhao

ETD Archive

Hypoxic injury in skeletal muscle occurs in response to musculoskeletal traumas, diseases and following reconstructive and transplantation surgeries. However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for hypoxic injury in skeletal myoblasts have yet to be fully investigated. Understanding of these molecular mechanisms would identify potential therapeutic targets. Herein, we have determined that treatment with cobalt chloride (CoCl2, a hypoxia mimicking agent) first leads to an inhibition of proliferation followed by a decrease in the number of viable myoblasts over time. FACS analysis revealed a marked increase in G2/M arrest after 24 hours of treatment. We next assessed PARP cleavage, a well-known hallmark …

Persistence Redefined: Why Men Stay, Karie A. Coffman

ETD Archive

The research addressed factors affecting degree completion for adult male students. This qualitative case study explored factors that contributed to the persistence of undergraduate adult male students and their perception of their role within the campus community. The research considered: 1) how adult male undergraduate students described their ability to persist until degree completion; 2) what factors contributed to persistence; 3) what types of social interactions enabled participants to persist; and 4) how adult male undergraduate students described their relationship to the campus community. Data were collected through interviews with nine nontraditional male graduates who earned a baccalaureate degree within …

Design And Production Of A Hydrogel Forming Polypeptide: Engaging High School Students In Protein Design, James K. Deyling

ETD Archive

Bioinks are a class of hydrogel that have the potential to be the ink used in the creation of printed organs, connective tissue, and other important structures within the body. One class of material that may be a suitable bioink hydrogel is elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs), which are synthetic biopolymers inspired by the naturally existing connective tissue elastin. ELPs consist of a repeat pentapeptide sequence (GXGVP)n, where X is any of the 20 naturally existing amino acids other than proline. These biomolecules are capable of exhibiting environmental responsiveness when exposed to certain stimulus such as salt concentration, temperature, and pH, depending …

Fish & Wildlife News: Winter 2016

Fish and Wildlife News

Fish & Wildlife News looks at Strategic Habitat Conservation.

Transforming The Fisheries, Patrick Bresnihan

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

There is now widespread agreement that fish stocks are severely depleted and fishing activity must be limited. At the same time, the promise of the green economy appears to offer profitable new opportunities for a sustainable seafood industry. What do these seemingly contradictory ideas of natural limits and green growth mean in practice? What do they tell us more generally about current transformations to the way nature is valued and managed? And who suffers and who benefits from these new ecological arrangements? Far from abstract policy considerations, Patrick Bresnihan shows how new approaches to environmental management are transforming the fisheries …