Digital Commons Network^™

Genes And Politics, Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz, Amanda Friesen

Political Science Publications

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Affordable Cranial Ultrasonography In East African Neonatal Intensive Care Units, David E. Clay, Annika C. Linke, Daniel J. Cameron, Bobby Stojanoski, Stephen Rulisa, Aggrey Wasunna, Sandrine De Ribaupierre, Rhodri Cusack

Paediatrics Publications

Neuroimaging is a valuable diagnostic tool for the early detection of neonatal brain injury, but equipment and radiologic staff are expensive and unavailable to most hospitals in developing countries. We evaluated an affordable, portable ultrasound machine as a quantitative and qualitative diagnostic tool and to establish whether a novice sonographer could effectively operate the equipment and obtain clinically important information. Cranial ultrasonography was performed on term healthy, pre-term and term asphyxiated neonates in Rwandan and Kenyan hospitals. To evaluate the detection of ventriculomegaly and compression injuries, we measured the size of the lateral ventricles and corpus callosum. The images were …

Interchangeable Roles For E2f Transcriptional Repression By The Retinoblastoma Protein And P27Kip1-Cyclindependent Kinase Regulation In Cell Cycle Control And Tumor Suppression, Michael J. Thwaites, Matthew J. Cecchini, Daniel T. Passos, Ian Welch, Frederick A. Dick

Paediatrics Publications

The mammalian G1-S phase transition is controlled by the opposing forces of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK) and the retinoblastoma protein (pRB). Here, we present evidence for systems-level control of cell cycle arrest by pRB-E2F and p27-CDK regulation. By introducing a point mutant allele of pRB that is defective for E2F repression (Rb1G) into a p27KIP1 null background (Cdkn1b-/-), both E2F transcriptional repression and CDK regulation are compromised. These double-mutant Rb1G/G; Cdkn1b-/- mice are viable and phenocopy Rb1+/- mice in developing pituitary adenocarcinomas, even though neither single mutant strain is cancer prone. Combined loss of pRB-E2F transcriptional regulation and p27KIP1 leads to …

Arginine Methylation By Prmt1 Regulates Muscle Stem Cell Fate, Roméo Sébastien Blanc, Gillian Vogel, Xing Li, Zhenbao Yu, Shawn Li, Stéphane Richard

Paediatrics Publications

Quiescent muscle stem cells (MSCs) become activated in response to skeletal muscle injury to initiate regeneration. Activated MSCs proliferate and differentiate to repair damaged fibers or self-renew to maintain the pool and ensure future regeneration. The balance between self-renewal, proliferation, and differentiation is a tightly regulated process controlled by a genetic cascade involving determinant transcription factors such as Pax7, Myf5, MyoD, and MyoG. Recently, there have been several reports about the role of arginine methylation as a requirement for epigenetically mediated control of muscle regeneration. Here we report that the protein arginine methyltransferase 1 (PRMT1) is expressed in MSCs and …

Frizzled Gene Expression And Negative Regulation Of Canonical Wnt-Β-Catenin Signaling In Mouse F9 Teratocarcinoma Cells, Gregory Golenia, Mohamed I. Gatie, Gregory M. Kelly

Paediatrics Publications

Mouse F9 cells differentiate into primitive endoderm (PrE) following the activation of the canonical WNT-β-catenin pathway. The upregulation of Wnt6 and activation of β-catenin-TCF-LEF-dependent transcription is known to accompany differentiation, but the Frizzled (FZD) receptor responsible for transducing the WNT6 signal is not known. Eight of the 10 Fzd genes were found to be expressed in F9 cells, with Fzd7 being the most highly expressed, and chosen for further analysis. To alter steady-state Fzd7 levels and test the effect this has on differentiation, siRNA and overexpression approaches were used to knock-down and ectopically express the Fzd7 message, respectively. siRNA knock-down …

Natural Killer-Cell Deficiency Alters Placental Development In Rats, Stephen J. Renaud, Regan L. Scott, Damayanti Chakraborty, Mohammad A.K. Rumi, Michael J. Soares

Paediatrics Publications

Natural killer (NK) cells are the most prevalent leukocyte population in the uterus during early pregnancy. Natural killer cells contribute to uterine vascular (spiral artery) remodeling in preparation for the increased demand on these vessels later in pregnancy. A second wave of spiral artery modification is directed by invasive trophoblast cells. The significance of the initial wave of NK-cell-mediated vascular remodeling in species exhibiting deep trophoblast invasion such as humans and rats is not known. The purpose of this study was to generate a genetic model of NK-cell deficiency in rats, and determine the consequences of NK-cell deficiency on spiral …

Extending The Frbr Model: A Proposal For A Group 4, Alex Mayhew

FIMS Working Papers

The three Entity-Relationship Groups (E-R Groups) have formed the conceptual framework of cataloguing in FRBR since being established by IFLA in the late 1990s. These three groups define the entities and relationships of interest to FRBR cataloguers. Group 1 describes the Work, Expression, Manifestation, and Item, the parts that make up the whole of a catalogue record. Group 2 describes the responsibility relationships, ensuring proper attribution and ownership to people and corporations. Group 3 describes the subject relationships which include the entities of groups 1 and 2, as well as Concept, Object, Event, and Place, and function like subject headings. …

Within-Wing Isotopic (Δ2h, Δ13c, Δ15n) Variation Of Monarch Butterflies: Implications For Studies Of Migratory Origins And Diet, Keith A. Hobson, Tessa Plint, Eligio García Serrano, Xiomara Mora Alvarez, Isabel Ramirez, Fred J. Longstaffe

Earth Sciences Publications

Increasingly, stable isotope measurements are being used to assign individuals to broad geographic origins based on established relationships between animal tissues and tissue-specific isoscapes. In particular, the eastern North American population of the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) has been the subject of several studies using established δ²H and δ¹³C wing-tissue isoscapes to infer natal origins of migrating and overwintering individuals. However, there has been no study investigating potential variance that can derive from sub-sampling different regions of the wings, especially those regions differing in pigmentation (orange versus black). Within-wing isotopic (δ²H, …

Stable Isotope Investigation Of The Migratory Behavior Of Silverhaired Bats (Lasionycteris Noctivagans) In Eastern North America, Erin E. Fraser, Darin Brooks, Fred J. Longstaffe

Earth Sciences Publications

We investigated the migratory movements of silver-haired bats (Lasionycteris noctivagans) across the eastern extent of the species’ range. We conducted stable hydrogen isotope analysis of fur samples (δ²H_fur) from museum specimens collected across latitudes and at all times of the year. We first used these data to estimate the timing of fur replacement and to develop a model associating δ²H_fur with that of local precipitation (δ²H_precip) at the location where fur replacement occurred. We then used this model to 1) identify individuals that had migrated …

Does Cold Activate The Drosophila Melanogaster Immune System?, Golnaz Salehipour-Shirazi, Laura V Ferguson, Brent J Sinclair

Biology Publications

Cold exposure appears to activate aspects of the insect immune system; however, the functional significance of the relationship between cold and immunity is unclear. Insect success at low temperatures is shaped in part by interactions with biotic stressors, such as pathogens, thus it is important to understand how and why immunity might be activated by cold. Here we explore which components of the immune system are activated, and whether those components differ among different kinds of cold exposure. We exposed Drosophila melanogaster to both acute (2h, -2°C) and sustained (10h, -0.5°C) cold, and measured potential (antimicrobial peptide expression, phenoloxidase activity, …

Cold Tolerance Of Third-Instar Drosophila Suzukii Larvae., Ruth Jakobs, Banafsheh Ahmadi, Sarah Houben, Tara D Gariepy, Brent J Sinclair

Biology Publications

Drosophila suzukii is an emerging global pest of soft fruit; although it likely overwinters as an adult, larval cold tolerance is important both for determining performance during spring and autumn, and for the development of temperature-based control methods aimed at larvae. We examined the low temperature biology of third instar feeding and wandering larvae in and out of food. We induced phenotypic plasticity of thermal biology by rearing under short days and fluctuating temperatures (5.5-19°C). Rearing under fluctuating temperatures led to much slower development (42.1days egg-adult) compared to control conditions (constant 21.5°C; 15.7days), and yielded larger adults of both sexes. …

Immune Profiles Vary Seasonally, But Are Not Significantly Related To Migration Distance Or Natal Dispersal, In A Migratory Songbird, Tosha R. Kelly, Heather L. Macgillivray, Keith A. Hobson, Scott A. Macdougall-Shackleton, Elizabeth A. Macdougall-Shackleton

Biology Publications

A central tenet of ecoimmunology is that an organism’s environment shapes its optimal investment in immunity. For example, the benefits of acquired (relatively pathogen-specific) versus innate (non-specific) immune defences are thought to vary with the risk of encountering familiar versus unfamiliar pathogens. Because pathogen communities vary geographically, individuals that travel farther during seasonal migration or natal dispersal are predicted to have higher exposure to novel pathogens, and lower exposure to familiar pathogens, potentially favoring investment in innate immunity. During the breeding season, migratory animals’ exposure to familiar pathogens should increase, potentially favoring investment in acquired immunity. We hypothesized that song …

Desynchronization Of Autonomic Response And Central Autonomic Network Connectivity In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Janine Thome, Maria Densmore, Paul A Frewen, Margaret C Mckinnon, Jean Théberge, Andrew A Nicholson, Julian Koenig, Julian F Thayer, Ruth A Lanius

Department of Medicine Publications

OBJECTIVES: Although dysfunctional emotion regulatory capacities are increasingly recognized as contributing to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), little work has sought to identify biological markers of this vulnerability. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a promising biomarker that, together with neuroimaging, may assist in gaining a deeper understanding of emotion dysregulation in PTSD. The objective of the present study was, therefore, to characterize autonomic response patterns, and their related neuronal patterns in individuals with PTSD at rest.

METHODS: PTSD patients (N = 57) and healthy controls (N = 41) underwent resting-state fMRI. Connectivity patterns of key regions within the central autonomic network …

“This Most Human Predicament”: Cavell On Language, Intention, And Desire In Shakespeare, Richard Thomas Eldridge

Philosophy Faculty Works

In the second paragraph of “The Avoidance of Love,” the earliest of his essays on Shakespeare, Cavell asks, “What has discouraged attention from investigations of character?” in Shakespeare criticism of the mid-twentieth century. “What […] has [instead] specifically motivated an absorbing attention to words?”, as in the criticism of William Empson and G. Wilson Knight. The answer that Cavell offers is that it is “the merest assumption,” foisted off on us “by some philosophy or other, that [literary] characters are not people, [and] that what can be known about people cannot be known about characters” (DK, 40). Cavell then goes …

Fsu Law Focus - 09/22/2017, Fsu College Of Law Office Of Communications

FSU Law Focus Newsletter

From the Dean: Fall 2017 Environmental Forum; 50-Year Anniversary: Featuring 2013; Faculty Profile: Professor Marcella David; Student Profile: 2017 Grad Donna Taylor

Fsu Law Focus - 02/10/2017, Fsu College Of Law Office Of Communications

FSU Law Focus Newsletter

From the Dean: FSU Law social media; 50-Year Anniversary: Featuring 1982; Alum Profile: Luis Then ('16) & Sarah Bailey ('16); Student Profile: 3L Galen Flynn

The Economic Impact Of Murray State University On Kentucky, West Kentucky And Calloway County, Gilbert L. Mathis Ph.D.

Reports

List of Contents

Acknowledgements

Overview

List of Tables

Chapters

Introduction

Cost of Murray State University

Direct Benefits of Murray State University

Economic Impact of Murray State University

Impact of Murray State University on the State and

Regional Economic and Social Infrastructure

Appendix A: Faculty and Staff Survey

Appendix B: Student Survey

Appendix C: Resource Persons

Bibliography

Impact Of Ground Water Depletion On The Mesquite Community At Edwards Air Force Base, Western Mojave Desert, California, Jonathan E. Campbell, M. Rasoul Sharifi, Philip W. Rundel

Aliso: A Journal of Systematic and Floristic Botany

Edwards Air Force Base (EAFB) provides a habitat refugium for mesquite woodlands in the western Mojave Desert of the Antelope Valley. Although many mesquite communities in the arid southwest are considered invasive as they reduce the extent of grazing lands, the community at EAFB is composed primarily of large, widely spaced trees that provide food and shelter for local wildlife species and recreational opportunities for base personnel. Unfortunately, the range of these mesquite trees appears to be contracting as mature and old individuals dominate the community. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that the fall in the local groundwater table is responsible …

Kinetic Monte Carlo Methods For Computing First Capture Time Distributions In Models Of Diffusive Absorption, Daniel Schmidt

HMC Senior Theses

In this paper, we consider the capture dynamics of a particle undergoing a random walk above a sheet of absorbing traps. In particular, we seek to characterize the distribution in time from when the particle is released to when it is absorbed. This problem is motivated by the study of lymphocytes in the human blood stream; for a particle near the surface of a lymphocyte, how long will it take for the particle to be captured? We model this problem as a diffusive process with a mixture of reflecting and absorbing boundary conditions. The model is analyzed from two approaches. …

Toric Ideals, Polytopes, And Convex Neural Codes, Caitlin Lienkaemper

HMC Senior Theses

How does the brain encode the spatial structure of the external world?

A partial answer comes through place cells, hippocampal neurons which

become associated to approximately convex regions of the world known

as their place fields. When an organism is in the place field of some place

cell, that cell will fire at an increased rate. A neural code describes the set

of firing patterns observed in a set of neurons in terms of which subsets

fire together and which do not. If the neurons the code describes are place

cells, then the neural code gives some information about the …

Factors Affecting Student Success In Oregon Associate Degree Nursing Programs, Tracy Fawns

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Background: Multiple factors contribute to student retention and attrition rates in undergraduate nursing programs. Attrition rates are rising, which affects society as the population is aging and there is a need for more nurses. Identifying attrition risk as a method to increase student success is imperative in order to produce more nurses. The purpose of this project was to analyze and evaluate predictive factors and academic issues that affect student success at Oregon Consortium of Nursing Education (OCNE) schools in order decrease attrition rates in the science courses and increase associate degree of nursing (ADN) program completion.

Methods: This records-based …

Measurement Issues, Randy Magen

Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Examining groups from a systems perspective may be natural for contemporary social workers. The systems perspective, or group-as a-whole orientation, provides a solid conceptual foundation for understanding groups (Agazarian, 1992). However, to engage in evidence-based group work practice or to conduct research on groups, abstract group concepts must be conceptualized and operationalized (Engel & Schutt, 2009). In qualitative approaches the conceptualization occurs after data have been collected to extract meaning from the observations. In quantitative approaches, operationalization is the process of assigning values to observable indicators of constructs prior to collecting data (Bonito, Ruppel, & Keyton, 2012). Whether inductive or …

Quantifying Variation In Gait Features From Wearable Inertial Sensors Using Mixed Effects Models, Kellen Garrison Cresswell, Yongyun Shin, Shanshan Chen

Biostatistics Publications

The emerging technology of wearable inertial sensors has shown its advantages in collecting continuous longitudinal gait data outside laboratories. This freedom also presents challenges in collecting high-fidelity gait data. In the free-living environment, without constant supervision from researchers, sensor-based gait features are susceptible to variation from confounding factors such as gait speed and mounting uncertainty, which are challenging to control or estimate. This paper is one of the first attempts in the field to tackle such challenges using statistical modeling. By accepting the uncertainties and variation associated with wearable sensor-based gait data, we shift our efforts from detecting and correcting …

Comorbidity, Pain, Utilization, And Psychosocial Outcomes In Older Versus Younger Sickle Cell Adults: The Pisces Project, Donna K. Mcclish, Wally R. Smith, James L. Levenson, Imoigele P. Aisiku, John D. Roberts, Susan D. Roseff, Viktor E. Bovbjerg

Biostatistics Publications

Background. Patients with SCD now usually live well into adulthood. Whereas transitions into adulthood are now often studied, little is published about aging beyond the transition period. We therefore studied age-associated SCD differences in utilization, pain, and psychosocial variables. Methods. Subjects were 232 adults in the Pain in Sickle Cell Epidemiology Study (PiSCES). Data included demographics, comorbidity, and psychosocial measures. SCD-related pain and health care utilization were recorded in diaries. We compared 3 age groups: 16–25 (transition), 26–36 (younger adults), and 37–64 (older adults) years. Results. Compared to the 2 adult groups, the transition group reported fewer …

Educating Mothers Of Obese Hispanic Preschoolers To Create Lifelong Healthy Habits, Lynette Marshall

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Problem and Background: Childhood obesity has doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 3 decades, increasing from 5% to 17% in one generation. The highest rates of childhood obesity are among Mexican Americans. Obesity can increase health morbidities, and as obese children continue to grow, these health concerns progress to adulthood. In spite of enhanced education and communication between mothers of obese children and their primary care providers, minimal improvement has taken place in terms of outcomes and lifestyle changes.

Methods: Fourteen obese Hispanic 2- to 5-year-olds and their mothers participated in the study. The children’s BMIs …

Sleep Among Young Adults Living In Rural Poverty, Susan Barber Skinner

2017 Program & Posters

Sleep problems are implicated in individual health and public safety issues. This phenomenological study used semi-structured interviews (n = 12) of young adults living in rural poverty. Thematic analysis was used to identify themes including a struggle to balance sleep with preferred activities and a belief that the body controls sleep behavior.

An Artificial Neural Network For Real-Time Hardwood Lumber Grading, Edward Thomas

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Computerized grading of hardwood lumber according to NHLA rules would permit fast assessment of sawn lumber and the evaluation of potential edging and trimming operations to improve lumber value. More importantly, to enable optimization of the hardwood lumber sawing process, a fast means of evaluating the potential value of boards before they are sawn is necessary. As log and lumber scanning systems become prevalent and common, these needs become more pressing. From an automation perspective, the NHLA lumber grades are difficult to implement efficiently in a computer program. Exhaustive approaches that examine every potential cutting size and combination to determine …

Quantifying Fish Habitat Associated With Stream Simulation Design Culverts In Northern Wisconsin, A. Timm, D. Higgins, J. Stanovick, R. Kolka, S. Eggert

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

This study investigated the effects of culvert replacement design on fish habitat and fish weight by comparing substrate diversity and weight at three stream simulation (SS)-design and three bankfull and backwater (BB)-design sites on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest, Wisconsin. Stream channel cross-sections, Wolman substrate particle counts, and single-pass backpack electro-fishing survey data were used to quantify fish habitat and fish weight in 50-m upstream and downstream sample reaches at each site. We applied generalized linear mixed models to test the hypothesis that substrate size and fish weight did not differ according to stream-crossing design type (SS or BB) and location …

Study Of The Influence Of The Agarose Hydrogel Layer Thickness On Sensitivity Of The Coated Silica Microsphere, Arun Mallik, Gerald Farrell, Qiang Wu, Yuliya Semenova

Articles

In this paper, we investigate both theoretically and experimentally the influence of the agarose hydrogel layer thickness on the sensitivity of a proposed relative humidity (RH) sensor based on a silica microsphere resonator coated with agarose hydrogel. The operating principle of the sensor relies on excitation of whispering gallery modes (WGMs) in the coated silica microsphere using the evanescent field of a tapered fiber. A change in the ambient relative humidity is detected by measuring the wavelength shift of the WGMs in the transmission spectrum of the tapered fiber. Using perturbation theory, we analyze the influence of the agarose coating …

The Cyprinodon Variegatus Genome Reveals Gene Expression Changes Underlying Differences In Skull Morphology Among Closely Related Species, Ezra S. Lencer, Wesley C. Warren, Richard Harrison, Amy R. Mccune

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.