Digital Commons Network^™

An Assessment Of Reef Restoration Potential In Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron, Nicholas Ivars Kalejs

Open Access Theses

Historically, Saginaw Bay, Lake Huron had a complex of rocky reefs that functioned as preferred spawning habitat for various fish species, including Walleye (Sander vitreus) and Lake Whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis). This reef system likely acted as a source of protection from egg predation, as well as of increased spawning diversity. Shifts in land use from forest to primarily agriculture and industry resulted in elevated runoff and sedimentation, leading to the loss of nearly all reef structure in Saginaw Bay. Coupled with overfishing and additional habitat degradation, these shifts precipitated dramatic declines of many fish species in the bay, including Walleye. …

Restoration Of Hardwoods Through Conversion Of Non-Native Conifer Plantations, Jenny Lesko

Open Access Theses

Forest tree species such as American chestnut (Castanea dentata (Marsh.) Borkh) and oaks (Quercus spp.) have been heavily impacted by forest changes in the eastern US during the past century. American chestnut, a once-important eastern US forest tree, was decimated by chestnut blight fungus. Blight-resistant chestnut hybrids have been developed, however, and so restoration is now conceivable. Regeneration of oak is poor in eastern forests due to disturbance regime changes including lack of fire, deer overabundance, and competition with faster-growing species. Concurrently, large areas of mature introduced pine (Pinus spp.) plantations exist in the Midwest Central Hardwood Forest following their …

Assessing The First And Last Mile Problem In Intercity Passenger Rail: Effects On Mode Choice And Trip Frequency, Lisa Lorena Losada Rojas

Open Access Theses

Passenger rail service is an integral part of intercity transportation networks, especially in areas where residents do not have access to cars or other intercity travel options. Some municipalities in the U.S. have experienced a decline in passenger rail service in recent years, which has prompted schedule reductions and entire abandonment of service in some cases. To improve the current intercity passenger rail service predicament, two alternatives can be considered: (1) improve the rail service itself (frequency, infrastructure, etc.) and (2) improve accessibility to the rail stations, which might be cheaper and more cost-effective overall. Improvements in accessibility can impact …

A Method For Assessing And Predicting Water Quality Status For Improved Decision- Making And Management, Valeria Mijares

Open Access Theses

With the increasing population and demand for water, it is crucial to be able to assess its quality on a real-time basis and for predictive purposes. Water-quality Indices (WQIs) provide a means by which the water quality can be compared across space and time based on a composite indicator. Index and subindex values can be used to flag contaminants of concern, guide prioritization of management efforts, and for predictive purposes. In this study, subindex formulations for key water quality parameters were developed and enhanced to incorporate water quality targets and criteria. The enhanced subindex formulations were built into the Unweighted …

Influence Maximization Using Observational Data, Mohith Murlidhar

Open Access Theses

Influence maximization is the problem of finding a subset of nodes (seed nodes) in a network, such that by incentivizing these set of nodes, one maximizes the expected spread of influence in the network. This is an NP hard problem for which in the past, greedy algorithms and heuristics have been proposed for solving the problem. Most of these algorithms on this topic have focused on using information about the underlying graph and the edge probabilities, while running expensive controlled experiment simulations to find a solution to the influence maximization problem. These algorithms also accounted only for direct (or indirect) …

Responses Of Soil Greenhouse Gas Fluxes To Simulated Nitrogen Deposition And Rainfall Variability In A Tallgrass Prairie, Megan Scott

Open Access Theses

Climate change has altered precipitation regimes in many regions of the world. In the Midwestern United States, the intensity of precipitation events had increased, and the periods of drought between them have lengthened. Since the Industrial Revolution, nitrogen (N) deposition has increased and may further increase in response to growth in fossil fuel consumption and fertilizer use. Continuing changes in precipitation variability and N inputs will impact carbon (C) and N-cycling processes and atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases (GHG). Controlled by a variety of processes, soil GHG (CO2, N2O, and CH4) fluxes play a large role in determining atmospheric GHG …

Quantifying The Regional Extent And Magnitude Of Interbasin Groundwater Flow And Its Role In Climatic Perturbations In Northern New Mexico, Usa, Noah Stewart-Maddox

Open Access Theses

Interbasin groundwater flow (IGF) occurs when water that is recharged in one watershed or basin discharges into an adjacent watershed or basin. This contributes additional water and solute mass to the receiving watershed complicating water and solute mass-balance estimates. Additionally, IGF can alter the response time of a watershed in two primary ways, where response time is defined as the amount of time it takes for a watershed to respond to some perturbation that causes a change in recharge. First, changes that occur outside the watershed in the contributing watershed can impact process behavior in the receiving watershed. Secondly, the …

Tmc Biodesign: The Design And Implementation Of A Product Development Framework For Successful Innovation In The Healthcare Industry., Jessica Traver

Open Access Theses

It is not uncommon to see both academic and industry institutions speed through, or even outright skip, the different stages of innovation. Industry often considers early stages of innovation, such as needs identification, to be too risky, or a waste of time and resources. They tend to focus more on improving validated solutions and creating incremental changes, resulting in products that lack innovation. Academia often considers aspects of the innovation process to be too commercial to consider during their research initiatives, which often results in the development of great technologies that cannot be implemented due to their lack of commercial …

Swi/Snf Chromatin Remodeling Complexes In Porcine Embryos, Yu-Chun Tseng

Open Access Theses

Gene expression is under precise regulation during early mammalian embryonic development. Epigenetic modifications are a major aspect of studying gene expression. SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complexes are large multiprotein complexes, which can reposition nucleosomes and alter transcription factor accessibility to DNA. Subunits of SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complexes play essential roles in development by guiding the complexes to specific loci. The aims of this study were to 1) determine the function of ARID1A, a SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex subunit during cleavage development in the porcine embryo and 2) determine the intracellular localization of four SWI/SNF subunits, ARID1A, ARID2, BRD7, and SNF5, in …

Metabolic Engineering For Aromatic Amino Acids In Cyanobacteria, Jeremiah Vue

Open Access Theses

Phenylalanine and tryptophan are valuable chemicals in the beverage, pharmaceutical and animal feed industries. Currently, engineered heterotrophic microorganisms produce phenylalanine and tryptophan from carbon sources, such as sugars. As an alternative production strategy, we are investigating photosynthetic cyanobacteria to produce aromatic amino acids from CO2. We are combining directed and evolutionary approaches. Initially, we performed chemical mutagenesis on the cyanobacteria strains Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002 and Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 and selected colonies for resistance to tryptophan (Trp) or phenylalanine (Phe) analogs. The resistant colonies were subsequently screened for overproduction of the aromatic amino acids. The mutants resistant to phenylalanine …

Polyamines Regulate Chilling Response In Ripening Tomato Fruits By De Novo Transcription, Wan Mohn Reza Ikwan Bin Wan Hussin

Open Access Theses

Plants response to various abiotic stress, including chilling injury, by differentially regulating genes responsible for protection against these stresses. Polyamines (PAs); putrescine (Put), spermidine (Spd), and spermine (Spm), are ubiquitous metabolite in all organisms and have been implicated in abiotic stresses in plants. Dr. Handa laboratory has previously developed high Spd/Spm tomato fruits genotypes by expressing yeast S-adenosylmethionine decarboxylase (SAMDC). In present investigation, the role of Spd/Spm in chilling injury was evaluated by using two independent transgenic lines with high Spd/Spm (556 and 579) and isogenic parental Ohio 8245 (WT) genotypes. Fruits at onset of ripening (Breaker, BR) and fully …

Generational Shadow, Conflict, And Succession Planning In Farming Businesses, Youzhi Wang

Open Access Theses

The goal of this thesis is to examine the relationship among succession progress, generational conflict, and generational shadow and concentrate on the effects of the latter two on succession planning progress in small and medium sized family farms. Generational shadow refers to “the prior generation’s excessive and inappropriate involvement in a farm” (Davis & Harveston, 1999) – essentially, it reflects the incumbent’s unwillingness to transfer the business. Because of the suspected simultaneity, I employ a multivariate probit model and test for endogeneity. I found that the level of generational shadow is exogenous to the level of conflict and the succession …

Direct Extraction Spray Analysis Of Lipid Biomarkers In Injury Rat Spinal Cord, Pengqing Yu

Open Access Theses

Lipids are crucial components of our bodies, not only as the building component of the cell membrane, but also as signaling molecules and an energy storing unit. The study of lipids may bring great improvement for life science. Moreover, lipids may also be a key factor in many diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and neural diseases.1 Qualitative and quantitative lipid analysis of infected tissue is very important when uncovering the cause and mechanism of disease, and can therefore bring great success for the development of diagnosis and treatment of disease.

In this research, we used a photochemical reaction to help …

Efficacy Of Halauxifen-Methyl For Management Of Glyphosate-Resistant Weeds And Soybean Crop Safety, Marcelo Zimmer

Open Access Theses

Halauxifen-methyl is a new synthetic auxin herbicide for broadleaf weed control prior to planting of corn, cotton, and soybean. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of herbicide programs containing halauxifen-methyl for control of glyphosate-resistant (GR) horseweed and other problematic weed species in comparison to existing herbicides programs utilized in no-till GR soybean systems. Halauxifen-methyl-, dicamba-, and saflufenacil-based herbicide programs controlled GR horseweed, while glufosinate and 2,4-D herbicide programs resulted in lower GR horseweed control. The addition of ALS and PPO inhibitor herbicides with soil residual activity increased GR horseweed control of herbicide programs with halauxifen-methyl and glufosinate.

Halauxifen-methyl applied …

Novel Polymer/Bioactive Glass Composites For Bone Regenerative Engineering, Jessica Zuponcic

Open Access Theses

Bone-grafting procedures are necessary when injury to the bone, due to trauma or disease, surpasses the bone’s ability to auto-repair. These injuries are known as critical-sized defects. Using graft material from the patient’s own body, autografting, risks donor site morbidity and is size-limited [1, 2]. Using graft material from a donor or cadaver, allografting, carries some risk of disease transmission and availability is insufficient to meet demand [1]. These challenges have necessitated the development and use of bone graft substitutes which, ideally, can match the structural and mechanical properties of native bone and promote osteogenic differentiation of host cells – …

Turning A Multivalent Lens Toward Depictions Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) In Film, Ashley Ann Albrecht

Open Access Dissertations

With innovations in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) advancing at an exponential rate, it is ever the more pertinent to interrogate the ramifications and potentialities of these developments. Luciano Floridi, known as “the Google philosopher,” considers this phenomenon an integral part of the digital information age or the “Fourth Revolution.” We are now forced to confront the following problems: What is the relationship between humans and AI? What does it mean to be “human”? What futures are possible given our current coevolution with AI? Such questions motivate close philosophical consideration. Here, the theoretical polarization of the doomsday neo-Luddite versus …

Elucidating The Biosynthetic Routes And Biological Mechanisms Involved In The Release Of Phenylpropanoid/Benzenoid Volatiles From Plant Cells, Funmilayo Adebesin

Open Access Dissertations

Sessile organisms, such as plants, have developed intricate means of responding and interacting with their environment in order to grow, reproduce, and survive environmental stresses such as attacks by other organisms and competition for resources with neighboring organisms. Plant volatile organic compounds (VOCs) play vital roles in resolving these evolutionary constraints associated with the sedentary nature of plants by attracting pollinators and seed dispersers necessary for reproduction. VOCs also mediate plant-plant interactions and provide defense against biotic stresses (pathogens, predators, and herbivores) and abiotic stresses (oxidative stress, high temperature stress, drought). Beyond the importance of VOCs to plants, humans have …

Chemical Reactions In The Gas Phase, Solution Phase And At Interfaces To Facilitate Mass Spectrometric Analysis And Rapid Synthesis, Stephen T. Ayrton

Open Access Dissertations

Chemical derivatization is the act of taking an analyte and transforming it into something with more desirable properties, typically for analytical purposes. In the cases presented here, the desirable properties are those which increase the ionization efficiency of the species of interest or those which facilitate the discrimination of isomers. Nanoparticles are often utilized in biological assays, but unless they are made of metal such that they can be ionized directly by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) ionization, they are undetectable by mass spectrometry. Surface functionalization of silica nanoparticles (SiNPs) facilitates the reversible binding of highly ionizable molecules which can serve …

Wheat-Hessian Fly Interactions: Fitness Costs And Phenotypic Characterizations, Verónica A. Campos Medina

Open Access Dissertations

The Hessian fly-wheat relationship and its genetic tractability offer us a good system to address different questions that can help to improve not only the strategies used to control this pest, but also our understanding of the insect-plant relationship. Thus, taking advantage of these features in this study I examined the fitness cost of the loss of function of a virulence gene and I made a phenotypic characterization of this insect-host relationship. First, this thesis has an introductory part, chapter one, presenting background information about the Hessian fly-wheat interaction. Chapter two explores an allele competition approach to detect fitness costs …

Effects Of Calcium Hydroxide Treated Corn Stover Inclusion As A Partial Forage Replacement In Diets For Lactating Dairy Cows, Brittany Casperson

Open Access Dissertations

There is a large quantity of harvestable corn stover available in the United States. Due to the high maturity at harvest and subsequent low digestibility, the use of corn stover as a livestock feedstuff is limited. Several treatment and processing strategies have been explored in order to increase yield of fermentable sugars and lessen the limitation of corn stover as a feedstuff. Alkaline pretreatment has been applied to enhance the digestibility of low quality feeds, improve the feeding value, and permit use in livestock rations. The central hypothesis of this dissertation is that calcium hydroxide treatment would improve the feeding …

Design And Synthesis Of Molybdenum-Dioxo Complexes And The Development Of Novel Methodologies, Kelsey Cantwell

Open Access Dissertations

Molybdenum-centered enzymes occur naturally throughout a variety of organisms. These enzymes have shown interesting reactivities, including oxygen atom transfer reactions. As such, there has been a great deal of interest in creating synthetic analogs of these complexes to further probe the reactive properties of molybdenum catalysts. This work focuses on designing and synthesizing molybdenum complexes for oxygen atom transfer reactions. The first chapter will discuss the design, synthesis, and characterization of three molybdenum dioxo complexes used in sulfoxidation reactions. It will also discuss the development of this reaction methodology, as well as cover substrate scope and application to total synthesis …

Border Relations: A Bioarchaeological Lnvestigation Of The Xiongnu Polity, Jeremy J. Beach

Open Access Dissertations

The Xiongnu were the first mobile pastoralist steppe polity to rise up from the Mongolian Steppe. Previous scholarship attributed the emergence of the Xiongnu to their peripheral location and interactions with sedentary China. It was argued that a polity the size of the Xiongnu could not be sustained on a pastoral economy, therefore they turned their attention to interactions with China to fuel their economic and political growth outside of the steppe. This line of thought has come to be known as Dependency Theory and food was at the center of this dependency argument. The expansion of a pastoral economy …

Developing And Measuring Effectiveness Of A New Evidence-Based Grain Storage And Handling Safety Curriculum Targeting Young And Beginning Workers, Yuan-Hsin Cheng

Open Access Dissertations

Research was conducted on the development, testing, and implementation of an original, evidence-based curriculum (Against the Grain) designed to reduce the frequency and severity of the most frequent types of injuries and fatalities involving young and beginning workers, ages 14-20, at grain storage and handling operations. This population has historically accounted for approximately 24% of documented entrapments, engulfments, asphyxiations, entanglements, falls, and electrocutions associated with grain handling and storage. This includes incidents during both workrelated and non-work or recreational activities. Curriculum contents were based upon data summarized from Purdue’s Agricultural Confined Spaces Incident Database (PACSID), review of relevant injury prevention …

Learning Electron Transport Chain Process In Photosynthesis Using Video And Serious Game, Cecilia Espinoza Morales

Open Access Dissertations

This research investigates students' learning about the electron transport chain (ETC) process in photosynthesis by watching a video followed by playing a serious board game-Electron Chute- that models the ETC process. To accomplish this goal, several learning outcomes regarding the misconceptions students' hold about photosynthesis and the ETC process in photosynthesis were defined. Middle school students need opportunities to develop cohesive models that explain the mechanistic processes of biological systems to support their learning. A six-week curriculum on photosynthesis included a one day learning activity using an ETC video and the Electron Chute game to model the ETC process. The …

Effects Of Acute Aerobic Exercise On Whole Genome Nucleosome Maps, Transcriptomics And Acylcamitine Metabolomics In Skeletal Muscle Of Lean Vs Overweight/Obese Men, Prasad P. Devarshi

Open Access Dissertations

Skeletal muscle mitochondrial dysfunction, evidenced by incomplete beta oxidation and accumulation of fatty acid intermediates in the form of long and medium chain acylcarnitines, may contribute to ectopic lipid deposition and insulin resistance during high fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity. Anterograde and retrograde communication play a role in nucleo-mitochondrial crosstalk that determines skeletal muscle mitochondrial adaptations, specifically alterations in mitochondrial number and function in relation to obesity and insulin resistance. High fat diet (HFD) feeding affects the expression of nuclear-encoded mitochondrial genes (NEMGs) nuclear receptor factor 1 (NRF-1), 2 (NRF-2) and peroxisome proliferator receptor gamma coactivator 1 alpha (PGC-1α) thereby, playing …

A Supervised Learning Approach For Dynamic Sampling (Slads), Gunawath Mudiyanselage Dilshan Prasanjana Godaliyadda

Open Access Dissertations

Sparse sampling schemes can broadly be classified in to two main categories: static sampling where the sampling pattern is predetermined, and dynamic sampling where each new measurement location is selected based on information obtained from previous measurements. Dynamic sampling methods are particularly appropriate for point-wise imaging methods in which pixels are measured sequentially in arbitrary order. Examples of point-wise imaging schemes include certain implementations of atomic force microscopy (AFM), electron back scatter diffraction (EBSD), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). In these point-wise imaging applications, dynamic sparse sampling methods have the potential to dramatically reduce the number of measurements required to …

Thermal Perches As Cooling Devices For Reducing Heat Stress In Caged Laying Hens, Jiaying Hu

Open Access Dissertations

Heat stress (HS) is one of the most detrimental environmental stressors that affect poultry. Many egg companies are located in tropical and subtropical areas where HS is a year round problem. Global climate change is causing more hot days and frequent unexpected heat waves. Animal health and welfare status are greatly compromised under high ambient temperatures. In laying hens, HS negatively affects livability, egg production, shell quality, and the internal quality of eggs. Induced molting, used to rejuvenate flocks, is a common managerial practice that extends the productive life of egg laying flocks. Molting brings the flock into a second …

Design And Statistical Analysis Of Mass Spectrometry Imaging Experiments, April Janae Harry

Open Access Dissertations

The goal of mass spectrometry-based imaging (MSI) is to characterize the chemical composition of biological samples such as tissues in spatial resolution, and changes in the composition between conditions such as the status of a disease. A single mass spectrometry image is a collection of mass spectra at gridded locations on a tissue. When acquired over multiple biological individuals, tissues, and conditions, the resulting datasets are tremendously complex in both scale and in the stochastic structure of the quantified spectral features. Accurate characterization of the biological and technical variation in these experiments is therefore key for deriving sensitive and reproducible …

Development Of Biosensor Materials For Sensitive Detection Of Viral Rna And Foodborne Pathogen, Seon-Ah Jin

Open Access Dissertations

Pathogen detection for clinical diagnosis, vector surveillance and control is one of the important issues for public health and safety. Biosensing is considered as one of the promising techniques for pathogen detection due to its potential for rapid, simple, and relatively inexpensive detection. However, many biosensors still have limitations for commercialization. Development of materials and new detection methods are the ways to overcome these limitations [1, 2]. This study aims to develop rapid and sensitive material platforms for detection of the dengue viral RNA (Chapter 2 and 3) and the foodborne pathogen Escherichia coli O157:H7 (Chapter 4). Two different materials …

Investigating The Role Of Induced Acinar Specific Transcription Factors In Pancreatic Tumor Cells And Their Target Gene Effects On Tumorgenic Development, Brad L. Jakubison

Open Access Dissertations

Pancreatic acinar cells synthesize and secrete prodigestive enzymes into the primary pancreatic duct where they traverse to the duodenum to continue the process to digestion. Due to the stress of constantly synthesizing large quantities of digestive enzymes, acinar cells must be well-equipped to address high protein production demands. The transcription factors (TFs), MIST1, PTF1a and E47, are required to maintain the pancreatic secretory homeostasis. All three are basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) TFs which are required for the function of the pancreas. Specifically, MIST1 promotes cell polarity, cell communication, and regulated exocytosis. PTF1a dimerizes with E47, and this protein complex is required …