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Sorption Of Organic Cations To Aluminosilicate Clay Minerals And Soils, William C. Jolin

Doctoral Dissertations

With the increasing number of emerging contaminants that are cationic at environmentally relevant pH, there is a need for robust predictive models for organic cation sorption coefficients (K_d). Column chromatography was validated as a method to obtain organic cation sorption isotherms for environmental solids; thereby enabling a less labor intensive means to generate the extensive datasets of linear K_d values. Current predictive models fail to account for the differences in the abundance and affinity of inorganic exchange ions naturally present on environmental solids. To better understand how organic cation sorption is influenced by inorganic exchange ions, …

Poverty And Internalizing Symptoms: The Indirect Effect Of Middle Childhood Poverty On Internalizing Symptoms Via An Emotional Response Inhibition Pathway, Christian G. Capistrano, Hannah Bianco, Pilyoung Kim

Psychology: Faculty Scholarship

Childhood poverty is a pervasive problem that can alter mental health outcomes. Children from impoverished circumstances are more likely than their middle-income counterparts to develop internalizing problems such as depression and anxiety. To date, however, the emotional-cognitive control processes that link childhood poverty and internalizing symptoms remain largely unexplored. Using the Emotion Go/NoGo paradigm, we examined the association between poverty and emotional response inhibition in middle childhood. We further examined the role of emotional response inhibition in the link between middle childhood poverty and internalizing symptoms. Lower income was associated with emotional response inhibition difficulties (indexed by greater false alarm …

Joint Stewardship Of The Barents Sea: Russian And Norwegian Policy Expectations For Preventing Offshore Oil Spills, Troy J. Bouffard

Arctic and Northern Studies

As Arctic environmental conditions fluctuate, ongoing economic-related agreements established for the Barents Region continue to support and attract Norwegian and Russian oil-producing expeditions within the shared maritime zone. Increased industrial activity throughout the Circumpolar North heightens the need to understand the factors that influence policies responsible for protecting the environment – in particular, preventive measures. Agency theory provides the framework for an analysis of various dynamics that influence the Norwegian and Russian governments (principals) as they develop and enforce rules that regulate petroleum industries (agents). The research question asks about differences between the prevention policies of the two nations even …

The Role Of Phenology In Invasive Plant Species Success In Temperate Forest Understories, Lindsay M. Dreiss

Doctoral Dissertations

Mechanisms underlying the ability of invasive exotic plant species (IES) to establish outside of their native ranges and outcompete native species (NS) are not yet fully understood, especially in low-resource environments. In deciduous forest understories, where light availability is low, but seasonally variable, one potential contributor to success of IES is extended leaf phenology, which may result from earlier leaf flush or later leaf abscission compared to that of NS. If either is the case, IES would tend to exploit a broader temporal niche for assimilating resources, which is particularly beneficial if it results in photosynthetic activity when the canopy …

Strategic Community Healthcare Management, Stephanie Penrod

Master's Projects and Capstones

Federally Qualified Health Centers(FQHC) and Community Health Centers are growing with the Affordable Care Act. This paper introduces literature that supports the need for Community Health Centers and management of low income patients with chronic illnesses. This paper also reviews the fieldwork experience at a FQHC. It reviews the goals, project, methods and findings of the fieldwork. This paper also elaborates on the scope of the project and a quality improvement report for the FQHC in observation. It discusses the future potential implementation of the recommendations and the benefits for both employees and patients. This paper concludes with follow up …

Healthy Stores For Healthy Communities, Camila Suarez

Master's Projects and Capstones

Overall smoking rates in California, and nationwide, have steadily declined since the first surgeon’s general report, in the 1960s, stated that tobacco may lead to cancer. In the past five years, the emergence of Electronic smoking devices or Electronic Nicotine Delivery System (ENDS), little cigarillos, vapes, and hookah have increased smoking rates among teenagers and young adults throughout California. The rise of smokeless tobacco products can be attributed to a variety of reasons from marketing, product availability, flavor availability, and public misconceptions. In 2016, the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health launched the Healthy Stores for a Healthy Community …

Exploring The Relationship Between And Among Registered Nurses' Spiritual Well-Being, Spiritual Care Perspectives, And Their Provision Of Spiritual Care In Acute Care Settings, Barbara J. Kitchener

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Abstract

Despite acknowledgment that spiritual care is an essential aspect of holistic nursing care, nurses often feel ill-prepared for, uncomfortable with, and uncertain about providing spiritual care. Studies have indicated that nurses who have a strong sense of their own spiritual well-being and/or a positive perspective [attitude, value, belief] about spiritual care are more inclined to provide spiritual care to their patients. However there is a scarcity of such studies among acute care nurses. This descriptive correlational study aimed to explore relationships between and among acute care nurses’ spiritual well-being (SWB), spiritual care perspectives (SCP), and their provision of spiritual …

Integrated Live Imaging And Molecular Profiling Of Embryoid Bodies Reveals A Synchronized Progression Of Early Differentiation., Jonathan Boxman, Naor Sagy, Sirisha Achanta, Rajanikanth Vadigepalli, Iftach Nachman

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Embryonic stem cells can spontaneously differentiate into cell types of all germ layers within embryoid bodies (EBs) in a highly variable manner. Whether there exists an intrinsic differentiation program common to all EBs is unknown. Here, we present a novel combination of high-throughput live two-photon imaging and gene expression profiling to study early differentiation dynamics spontaneously occurring within developing EBs. Onset timing of Brachyury-GFP was highly variable across EBs, while the spatial patterns as well as the dynamics of mesendodermal progression following onset were remarkably similar. We therefore defined a 'developmental clock' using the Brachyury-GFP signal onset timing. Mapping snapshot …

Climate-Induced Changes In Ecological Dynamics Of The Alaskan Boreal Forest: A Study Of Fire-Permafrost Interactions, Dana Rachel Brown

Biological Sciences

A warming climate is expected to cause widespread thawing of discontinuous permafrost, and the co-occurrence of wildfire may function to exacerbate this process. Here, I examined the vulnerability of permafrost to degradation from fire disturbance as it varies across different landscapes of the Interior Alaskan boreal forest using a combination of observational, modeling, and remote sensing approaches. Across all landscapes, the severity of burning strongly influenced both post-fire vegetation and permafrost degradation. The thickness of the remaining surface organic layer was a key control on permafrost degradation because its low thermal conductivity limits ground heat flux. Thus, variation in burn …

Exploring The Potential For Technology-Based Nutrition Education For Low-Income Families In Alaska, Julianne M. Power

Biological Sciences

This thesis addresses the need to identify more accessible and cost-effective ways for federal food assistance programs to deliver nutrition education to Alaska Native people living in rural and remote communities in Alaska. The ultimate aim is to explore whether technology-based nutrition education is a feasible and acceptable alternative to traditional face-to-face nutrition counseling. I begin this thesis by examining the preliminary efficacy and acceptability of an 11 week text message-based intervention to promote fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake among parents with young children (n=74) using a pre-post study design. Although there were no changes in pre-post measures, most participants …

Kaposi’S Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Replication And Transcription Activator Regulates Extracellular Matrix Signal Pathway, Daniel Pfalmer

Biological Sciences

Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) is a malignancy caused by infection with Kaposi’s Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus [KSHV; also known as Human Herpesvirus 8 (HHV8)] in which tumor cells show a characteristic ‘spindle-like’ morphology. The transcription factor RTA (Replication and Transcription Activator) is the viral protein responsible for reactivating KSHV from its latent state. Production of RTA in latently infected cells causes a number of viral proteins to be produced and leads to a cascade of gene expression changes in both viral and host genes. Previous work in our lab showed that RTA was capable of reprogramming cells in vitro to display a spindle-like …

Moose (Alces Alces) Browse Availability And Use In Response To Post-Fire Succession On Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, Erin L. Julianus

Biological Sciences

I examined post-fire moose habitat dynamics on Kanuti National Wildlife Refuge in interior Alaska with the objective of increasing understanding of local moose habitat characteristics. I estimated browse density, biomass, and summer browse use in a 2005 burn, 1990 burn, 1972 burn, and an unburned area. I revisited each site the following spring to estimate browse availability and removal during winter. In addition to evaluating browse production and use, I estimated proportional habitat use of varying-aged burns by 51 VHF-collared moose. I found that summer browse production and winter browse availability were highest in the 1990 and 2005 burns. I …

Traditional Food Security And Diet Quality In Alaska Native Women, Amanda Walch

Biological Sciences

This dissertation addresses the need for a better understanding of traditional foods, food security, and diet quality and how they collectively influence health of low income Alaska Native women receiving the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). The ultimate aims are to understand the beliefs and behaviors regarding traditional foods in low income Alaska Native women in Anchorage receiving WIC assistance and examine whether these foods moderate the relationship between food security and diet quality. Food security is a growing public health concern in Alaska, especially among Alaska Native people living in urban areas. I begin …

Relationships Between Succession And Community Structure And Function Of Alnus-Associated Ectomycorrhizal Fungi In Alaskan Boreal Forests, Michaela M. Swanson

Biological Sciences

Rates of production and carbon cycling in northern ecosystems depend heavily on nitrogen (N) availability across the landscape. Since much of the available N enters these systems through biological N-fixation, Alnus, with its capacity to fix large amounts of N, plays a critical role in ecosystem response to environmental change. However, because of its high phosphorus (P) demands, the abundance, distribution, and N-fixing capacity of Alnus is tightly controlled by the availability of P and its ability to assimilate P by associating with ectomycorrhizal fungal (EMF) symbionts. We assessed the potential of A. tenuifolia-associated EMF to access organic P forms …

Who Solves Your Most Urgent Medical Questions?, Darren Stoub

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"If such specialized training is necessary to become a physician, why do we think that a 10-minute web search will provide an answer to our medical problems?"

Posting about reliable sources of medical information from In All Things - an online hub committed to the claim that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ has implications for the entire world.

http://inallthings.org/who-solves-your-most-urgent-medical-questions/

Improving Workplace Wellness At Kaiser Permanente, Megan Conolly

Master's Projects and Capstones

A sedentary lifestyle is linked to many serious health problems including cardiovascular disease, obesity, and early death. Since the majority of jobs are done at a desk, those in the workforce have become particularly vulnerable to becoming sedentary. Workplace wellness programs are beginning to become a more common practice, and Kaiser Permanente is leading the way. However, they are discovering that simply providing resources is not enough. To enhance their workplace wellness, the Wellness Leaders program was implemented in order to get all departments involved in wellness activities and practices. While the program continues to grow, a shift in the …

Trophic Ecology Of Nearshore Fishes In Glacially-Influenced Estuaries Of Southeast Alaska, Emily Jean Whitney

Fisheries

Estuaries in Southeast Alaska (SEAK) are linked to terrestrial ecosystems by the flow of freshwater from plentiful precipitation and glacial runoff. This thesis examined the trophic ecology of nearshore fishes in SEAK estuaries to advance our understanding of how deglaciation and resulting shifts in the timing and magnitude of freshwater runoff will affect estuarine food webs. The goals of this work were to characterize seasonal variation in the feeding ecology of an abundant estuarine predator across three glacially-influenced sites and to examine the relative contribution of organic matter (OM) from terrestrial-riverine sources to the diets of estuarine consumers. In chapter …

Spatial Variability In Size At Maturity And Reproductive Timing Of Golden King Crab (Lithodes Aequispinus) In Southeast Alaska, Andrew P. Olson

Fisheries

Many crab fisheries around the world are managed by size, sex and season regulations, where male crabs are given at least one opportunity to reproduce before being harvested. Therefore, to set minimum legal size and fishing season for harvest, information on size at maturity and reproductive timing is needed. Lithodes aequispinus has supported a commercial fishery in Southeast Alaska since 1972, with an average annual harvest of 207 t. The current legal size and season for harvest are based L. aequispinus growth and maturity information from other parts of the range and limited information on reproduction. Additionally, evidence suggests that …

Analysis Of Protein-Coding Genetic Variation In 60,706 Humans, Monkol Lek, Konrad J. Karczewski, Eric V. Minikel, Kaitlin E. Samocha, Eric Banks, Timothy Fennell, Anne H. O'Donnell-Luria, James S. Ware, Andrew J. Hill, John Blangero

Human Genetics Publications

Large-scale reference data sets of human genetic variation are critical for the medical and functional interpretation of DNA sequence changes. Here we describe the aggregation and analysis of high-quality exome (protein-coding region) DNA sequence data for 60,706 individuals of diverse ancestries generated as part of the Exome Aggregation Consortium (ExAC). This catalogue of human genetic diversity contains an average of one variant every eight bases of the exome, and provides direct evidence for the presence of widespread mutational recurrence. We have used this catalogue to calculate objective metrics of pathogenicity for sequence variants, and to identify genes subject to strong …

Fire Severity Effects On Nutrient Dynamics And Microbial Activities In A Siberian Larch Forest, Sarah Ludwig

Biological Sciences

High-latitude ecosystems store large amounts of carbon in soil organic matter and are among the most vulnerable to climate change. In particular, fire severity and frequency are increasing in boreal ecosystems, and these events are likely to have direct and indirect effects on climate feedbacks via increased emission of carbon (C) from soil and changes in vegetation composition, respectively. In this study we created experimental burns of three severities in the northeastern Siberian arctic, near Cherskiy, RU, and quantified dissolved C, nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P), and microbial respiration and extracellular enzyme activities at 1-day, 8-days, and 1-year post-fire. Our …

Socio-Ecological Drivers Of Resource Selection And Habitat Use By Moose In Interior Alaska, Casey L. Brown

Biological Sciences

Sustainably managing wildlife with diverse utilization values is one of the greatest challenges facing contemporary wildlife management. These challenges can be amplified under changing environmental and socio-economic conditions. In Alaska, boreal forest systems are experiencing rapid change as a result of climate warming. Alaska’s boreal region has warmed twice as rapidly as the global average, affecting a host of processes including an increase in wildfire frequency, extent, and severity. Wildfire is the most common ecological disturbance in the Alaskan boreal forest and an important driver of landscape heterogeneity, burning on average 1 to 2 million acres per year. Fire severity …

Feel Or Perspective?, Mark Rowlands

Animal Sentience

The title of Klein & Barron’s well-argued and thought-provoking target article is, “Insects have the capacity for subjective experience.” However, they also frame their claim using the term “consciousness,” which they seem to take as equivalent to “subjective experience.” This assumed equivalence, I shall argue, is problematic in a way that might vitiate their central argument.

Nobel Prizes Would Have Flunked Benzene: Judicial Review Of Administrative Evidence Overlooks Science's Linguistic Tradition, Jimmy J. Zhuang

Seton Hall Circuit Review

No abstract provided.

Modeling And Analysis Of Germ Layer Formations Using Finite Dynamical Systems, Alexander Garza, Megan Eberle, Eric A. Eager

Spora: A Journal of Biomathematics

The development of an embryo from a fertilised egg to a multicellular organism proceeds through numerous steps, with the formation of the three germ layers (endoderm, mesoderm, ectoderm) being one of the first. In this paper we study the mesendoderm (the tissue that collectively gives rise to both mesoderm and endoderm) gene regulatory network for two species, \textit{Xenopus laevis} and the axolotl (\textit{Ambystoma mexicanum}) using Boolean networks. We find that previously-established bistability found in these networks can be reproduced using this Boolean framework, provided that some assumptions used in previously-published differential equations models are relaxed. We conclude by discussing our …

How To Become A Post-Dog. Animals In Transhumanism, Michael Hauskeller

Between the Species

This paper analyses and deconstructs the transhumanist commitment to animal rights and the well-being of all sentient beings. Some transhumanists have argued that such a commitment entails a moral imperative to help non-human animals overcome their biological limitations by enhancing their cognitive abilities and generally “uplifting” them to a more human-like existence. I argue that the transhumanist approach to animal welfare ultimately aims at the destruction of the animal as an animal. By seeking to make animals more like us the freedom to live their life as the kind of creature they are is being denied to them. It is …

Association Of Body Weight With Athletic Success And The Occurrence Of Female Athlete Triad In Cross Country Athletes, Lindsey Hinken

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Young adult females who participate in endurance sports are at risk of developing Female Athlete Triad (FAT). The high prevalence of FAT among collegiate athletes and its potentially lifelong consequences substantiate the importance of relevant research. The objective of the present study is to identify the risk of FAT among the Western Kentucky University women’s cross country team, based on the presence or absence of the three FAT components, and to investigate the perceptions of those determined to be ‘at-risk.’ It was hypothesized that a preponderance of the WKU women’s cross country team would be considered ‘at risk’ for developing …

Western's New Deal: The Shaping Of College Heights During The Great Depression, Sean Jacobson

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This thesis addresses the Great Depression's impact on public higher education by analyzing developments at Western Kentucky State Teachers College. It also seeks to understand factors leading to the enshrinement of Henry Hardin Cherry as a larger-than-life figure upon his death in 1937. An investigative study into primary materials found that the New Deal projects on campus provided a boost for Cherry's leadership and charisma in his community. The concurrence of his death with the construction of a classroom building funded by the Public Works Administration determined his memorialization for posterity. The building, Cherry Hall, emerged as an institutional symbol …

Using Ecological Production Functions To Link Ecological Processes To Ecosystem Services, Randall Jf Bruins, Timothy J. Canfield, Clifford Duke, Larry Kapustka, Amanda M. Nahlik, Ralf B. Schäfer

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

Ecological production functions (EPFs) link ecosystems, stressors, and management actions to ecosystem services (ES) production. Although EPFs are acknowledged as being essential to improve environmental management, their use in ecological risk assessment has received relatively little attention. Ecological production functions may be defined as usable expressions (i.e., models) of the processes by which ecosystems produce ES, often including external influences on those processes. We identify key attributes of EPFs and discuss both actual and idealized examples of their use to inform decision making. Whenever possible, EPFs should estimate final, rather than intermediate, ES. Although various types of EPFs have been …

High Activity Mutants Of Butyrylcholinesterase For Cocaine Hydrolysis, Chang-Guo Zhan, Fang Zheng, Wenchao Yang

Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Patents

Butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) polypeptide variants of the presently-disclosed subject matter have enhanced catalytic efficiency for (-)-cocaine, as compared to wild-type BChE. Pharmaceutical compositions of the presently-disclosed subject matter include a BChE polypeptide variant having an enhanced catalytic efficiency for (-)-cocaine. A method of the presently-disclosed subject matter for treating a cocaine-induced condition includes administering to an individual an effective amount of a BChE polypeptide variant, as disclosed herein, to lower blood cocaine concentration.

Food Studies Collaborates With Cfi For Seed Saving Workshop, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.