Digital Commons Network^™

Antimicrobial Activity Of Fractionated Borohydride-Capped And Electrochemical Colloidal Silver, Marjorie M. Markopoulos

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and ionic silver (Ag+) are known to be broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents. Recent studies show these agents may be an alternative to the most widely used drinking water disinfectant, chlorine. Chlorine is a toxic industrial chemical with a lethal concentration of 430 ppm after 30 minutes. Additionally, chlorine can react with naturally occurring materials to produce a number of disinfection byproducts such as chloroform and trihalomethanes. Some of these byproducts pose cancer risks in addition to other negative impacts to human health. These would be eliminated with the use of Ag+ or AgNPs. The main goal of this …

Crassulacean Acid Metabolism As A Continuous Trait: Variability In The Contribution Of Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (Cam) In Populations Of Portulacaria Afra, Lonnie J. Guralnick, Kate Gladsky

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Portulacaria afra L. is a dominant facultative CAM species growing in the Southeastern Cape of South Africa. P. afra is well adapted to regions of the Spekboom thicket in areas of limited and sporadic rainfall. P. afra populations occur in isolated drainages. We hypothesized the utilization of CAM would vary in the different populations in response to rainfall and temperature gradients. Carbon isotope composition can be used to determine the contribution of CAM in leaf tissue. P. afra leaves of populations were analyzed in transects running south to north and east to west in locations from the coast to elevations …

Season, But Not Symbiont State, Drives Microbiome Structure In The Temperate Coral Astrangia Poculata., Koty H. Sharp, Zoe A. Pratte, Allison H. Kerwin

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Understanding the associations among corals, their photosynthetic zooxanthella symbionts (Symbiodinium), and coral-associated prokaryotic microbiomes is critical for predicting the fidelity and strength of coral symbioses in the face of growing environmental threats. Most coral-microbiome associations are beneficial, yet the mechanisms that determine the composition of the coral microbiome remain largely unknown. Here, we characterized microbiome diversity in the temperate, facultatively symbiotic coral Astrangia poculata at four seasonal time points near the northernmost limit of the species range. The facultative nature of this system allowed us to test seasonal influence and symbiotic state (Symbiodinium density in the coral) on microbiome …

The Central Arctic Ocean-Preventing Another Tragedy Of The Commons, Andrew J. Norris, Patrick Mckinley

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Arctic sea ice is melting, slowly but inexorably. As the ice disappears, mankind will be afforded access to regions and activities, including commercial fishing, that have been inaccessible for our entire recorded history. There is currently no regulatory body or mechanism in the high seas Arctic (also referred to as the central Arctic Ocean) to conserve and manage fish stocks, the distribution and concentration of which are poorly understood, and that might be the target of commercial fisheries. This article examines the extent and nature of ice recession in the Arctic, and its likely effect on the accessibility of central …

Bioanalysis For Cocaine, Opiates, Methadone And Amphetamines Exposure Detection During Pregnancy, Marta Concheiro, Elena Lendoiro, Ana De Castro, Eva Gonzalez-Colmenero, Ana Concheiro-Guisan, Patricia Penas-Silva, Manuel Macias-Cortina, Angelines Cruz-Landeira, Manuel Lopez-Rivadulla

Publications and Research

Drug exposure during pregnancy constitutes a major legal issue and public health concern. Drug and metabolite determination in biological matrices from mother and newborn is an objective indication of prenatal drug exposure. However, limited data are available regarding the interpretation of these analytical results in terms of window of detection and degree of exposure. We collected paired maternal hair, meconium, placenta and umbilical cord from 727 mother-newborn dyads. We analyzed these specimens by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry for the determination of cocaine, opioids, methadone and amphetamines, and compared the analytical results from the four different matrices. The cases were …

Silver Diamine Fluoride And Oral Health-Related Quality Of Life, Nazafarin Javdan

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to study the association between Silver Diamine Fluoride (SDF) and Oral Health-Related Quality of Life as assessed by “The Early Childhood Oral Health Impact Scale” questionnaire. Methods: Parents of healthy children (ASA I and II) ages 1-5 with early childhood caries with reversible pulpitis who had application of SDF filled out a questionnaire at baseline and again after one month. The questionnaire was designed to evaluate the child’s behavior, physical abilities, pain, temperament, and how well the child gets along with others. Results: Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to …

Efficient Integration Of Plasmonic And Excitonic Properties Of Metal And Semiconductor Nanostructures Via Sol-Gel Assembly, Dilhara Liyanage

Theses and Dissertations

Research in nanoscience has gained noteworthy interest over the past three decades. As novel chemical and physical properties that are vastly different from extended solids are realized in nanosized materials, nanotechnology has become the center of attention for material in research community. Much to our amazement, investigations in the past two decades revealed that the nanocrystalline semiconductors are “THE PRIME CANDIDATES” to meet the growing energy demand, sensor development, cellular imaging and a number of other optoelectronic applications. Nonetheless, synthesis of nanostructures with control over physical parameters is not sufficient, yet assembling them into functional nanoarchitectures with unique and tunable …

Investigating The Modulation And Mechanisms Of Α7 Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors In Nicotine Dependence, Asti Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

Tobacco dependence dramatically increases health burdens and financial costs. Limitations of current smoking cessation therapies indicate the need for improved molecular targets. Nicotine, the main addictive component of tobacco, exerts its dependency effects via nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). The homomeric α7 nAChR is one of the most abundant receptors found in the brain and has unique features in comparison to other nAChR subtypes such as high calcium permeability, low probability of channel opening, and a rapid desensitization rate. α7 nAChR agonists reduce nicotine's rewarding properties in the conditioned place preference (CPP) test and i.v. self-administration. Recently, the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor …

Amixicile Inhibits Anaerobic Bacteria Within An Oral Microbiome Derived From Patients With Chronic Periodontitis, Kane Ramsey

Theses and Dissertations

Periodontitis is a chronic inflammatory disease caused by pathogenic bacteria residing in a complex biofilm within a susceptible host. Amixicile is a non-toxic, readily bioavailable novel antimicrobial that targets strict anaerobes through inhibition of the activity of Pyruvate Ferredoxin Oxidoreductase (PFOR), a major enzyme mediating oxidative decarboxylation of pyruvate. Our study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of amixicile, when compared to metronidazole, in inhibiting the growth of bacteria present in a microbiome harvested from patients with chronic periodontitis.

Plaque samples were harvested from patients with severe chronic periodontitis and cultured under anaerobic conditions. The microbiomes were grown in the presence …

A Systems View Of Is Governance And It Governance: A Case Study Of The Virginia Department Of Transportation, Bernard Farkas

Theses and Dissertations

A review of the research related to Information Technology (IT) governance reveals that researchers have yet to use systems theory directly as a basis for understanding IT governance; however, analysis of these researchers’ various definitions of IT governance shows a concurrence between these definitions and the characteristics of a system. This case study research adopts a systems imagination to observe IS and IT governance in the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), which has a budget of over $5 billion and over 7,500 employees and has recently conducted a strategic assessment of its IT organization - including IS and IT governance. …

Po2 Dependence Of Oxygen Consumption In Skeletal Muscle Of Hypertensive And Normotensive Rats, Habiba Shah

Theses and Dissertations

Human essential hypertension affects over 75 million people in the United States, and can lead to death due to its several serious health complications such as hypertension-related cardiovascular disease. The purpose of this research was to understand how hypertension could cause physiological changes to the microcirculation, specifically the PO₂ dependence of oxygen consumption (VO₂) in skeletal muscle of normotensive and hypertensive rats. The Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR) strain was used as the diseased model, and Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats were used as controls to conduct this study. The SHR strain develops hypertension between 5-6 weeks after birth with …

Exporting Gender Bias: Anglo-American Echoes In Swedish Advertising Creative Departments, Jean M. Grow

College of Communication Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Potential For Sentience In Fishes, Jay R. Stauffer Jr.

Animal Sentience

Balcombe’s book is filled with information on the biology, behavior, and life history of fishes. I do not agree with all his premises. I am still somewhat perplexed about the discussion of whether fish feel pain; I am not sure whether the distinction between nociception and pain makes any difference. Overall, however, his treatment of the principles of both natural and sexual selection is comprehensive and accurate, and has greatly increased my knowledge and awareness of the biology, ethology, and potential for sentience in fishes. In summary, this work has exposed me to new ideas about how to examine fishes …

Vital Exhaustion, Burnout, And Other Avatars Of Depression, Bianchi Renzo, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In our view, there is a worrying tendency in psychology and medicine to let proliferate “depression-like” constructs—a transgression of the scientific canon of parsimony. The problem is not limited to vital exhaustion (VE). Burnout, a condition akin to VE, has been shown to problematically overlap with depression. Compassion fatigue, a condition that shows particularly blurred definitional contours, is also uncomfortably close to depressive symptomatology. The construct of neurasthenia may be part of this confusing trend as well, although neurasthenia has been elevated to the status of nosological category in the ICD. Construct proliferation jeopardizes knowledge growth by undermining theory building …

Biological Research On Burnout-Depression Overlap: Long-Standing Limitations And On-Going Reflections, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

In this commentary, we discuss seldom-noticed methodological problems affecting biological research on burnout and depression and make recommendations to overcome the limitations of past studies conducted in this area. First, we suggest that identified subtypes of depression (e.g., depression with melancholic features and depression with atypical features) should be taken into account in future biological research on burnout and depression, given that different subtypes of depression have been associated with distinct autonomic and neuroendocrine profiles. Second, we underline that research on burnout-depression overlap is made difficult by the absence of a consensual conceptualization and operationalization of burnout. In order to …

Stress Hardiness And Lawyers, Pamela Bucy Pierson, Ashley Hamilton, Michael Pepper, Megan Root

Articles

This article empirically analyzes original data to look at stress and stress hardiness in the legal profession A number of studies address stress in the legal profession and its impact on the mental health of lawyers Our study is the first to examine stress hardiness in the legal profession Drawing on quantitative data gathered from 20132016 in surveys of 530 law students and lawyers and qualitative data from 106 indepth interviews with lawyers and building on the work of research psychologists Salvatore Maddi and Suzanne Kobasa we look at whether some lawyers more stress hardy than others and if so …

Bs News January/February

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Learning Race And Racism While Learning: Experiences Of International Students Pursuing Higher Education In The Midwestern United States, Donald Mitchell Jr. Et Al.

Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Researchers have documented how race and racism influence the college experiences of U.S. citizens. However, research on the ways that race and racism affect international students warrants similar attention. This qualitative study explored how international students learned about U.S. concepts of race and racism and how such concepts shaped their college experiences. The participating international college students learned about U.S. concepts of race and racism through media, relationships, formal education, and lived experiences. They defined these concepts in varying ways and had varying racial ideologies.

The Frequency Of The Twelve Verb Tenses In History Papers Written By University Native Writers, Bushra Qahtani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to the variety and complexity of verb tenses in English, English as a Second Language (ESL) / English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners often experience difficulty in mastering English verb tense system. This corpus-based study was conducted to ascertain the most frequently used verb tenses by English native speakers (NSs), specifically in their academic writing in a history course. As this study aimed to examine the naturally-occurring language produced by NSs, specifically in their academic writing, an original corpus of 101,713 words was assembled. The corpus consisted of 130 research papers written by 65 students. The corpus was …

The Effect Of Speech Elicitation Method On Second Language Phonemic Accuracy, Nicole Carrasquel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study, a One-Group Posttest-Only Repeated-Measures Design, examined the effect of speech elicitation method on second language (L2) phonemic accuracy of high functional load initial phonemes found in frequently occurring nouns in American English. This effect was further analyzed by including the variable of first language (L1) to determine if L1 moderated any effects found. The data consisted of audio recordings of 61 adult English learners (ELs) enrolled in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses at a large, public, post-secondary institution in the United States. Phonemic accuracy was judged by two independent raters as either approximating a standard American …

Living With Fragile X Syndrome: Occupations As An Outcome Measure In A Clinical Trial, Kaylee E. Gothelf, Ty Duong, Ana Baldinger, Theresa Chase

Student Research Posters

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of semi-structured interviews as an outcome measure in a clinical trial for children with fragile X syndrome (FXS) ages 2-6. This qualitative approach was used to analyze twenty-five interviews of parents with children in a double-blind medication trial - sertraline or placebo. The aim was to assess occupational improvements in their child that may not have been detected with the use quantitative outcome measures alone. Results showed greater improvements in the sertraline group in areas of behavior, social participation, sensory-related behaviors, receptive language, education, family impact and therapeutic strategies. Our …

Readiness For Antimicrobial Resistance (Amr) Surveillance In Pakistan; A Model For Laboratory Strengthening, Dania Khalid Saeed, Rumina Hasan, Mahwish Naim, Afia Zafar, Erum Khan, Kauser Jabeen, Seema Irfan, Imran Ahmed Haq, Mohammad Zeeshan, Zabin Wajidali, Joveria Farooqi, Sadia Shakoor, Abdul Chagla, Jason Roy

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Background: Limited capacity of laboratories for antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) presents a critical diagnostic bottleneck in resource limited countries. This paper aims to identify such gaps and to explore whether laboratory networks could contribute towards improving AST in low resource settings.
Methods: A self-assessment tool to assess antimicrobial susceptibility testing capacity was administered as a pre-workshop activity to participants from 30 microbiology laboratories in 3 cities in Pakistan. Data from public and private laboratories was analyzed and capacity of each scored in percentage terms. Laboratories from Karachi were invited to join a support network. A cohort of five laboratories that …

Computational Ultrasound Elastography: A Feasibility Study, Yu Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Ultrasound Elastography (UE) is an emerging set of imaging modalities used to assess the biomechanical properties of soft tissues. UE has been applied to numerous clinical applications. Particularly, results from clinical trials of UE in breast lesion differentiation and staging liver fibrosis indicated that there was a lack of confidence in UE measurements or image interpretation. Confidence on UE measurements interpretation is critically important for improving the clinical utility of UE. The primary objective of my thesis is to develop a computational simulation platform based on open-source software packages including Field II, VTK, FEBio and Tetgen. The proposed virtual simulation …

Analysis Of Aleks Mathematics Placement Test Data, Teresa Woods

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

In Fall 2014, Michigan Technological University (MTU) began using an online mathematics placement test provided by ALEKS Corporation. This study answers three questions that accompanied this implementation: (1) Do the cut scores being used for Precalculus and Calculus I result in the expected pass rates for those courses?, (2) Does the path by which a student becomes eligible for Calculus I – via a single placement test attempt, via multiple placement test attempts, or by beginning in Precalculus at MTU – influence their likelihood of success in Calculus I?, and (3) Does a mathematical background weak in any particular curriculum …

Blossomsttm Hub – An Online Tool For Designing Sttm Vectors And Visualizing Phenotypic Changes Of Sttm Transgenic Lines, Avinash Subramanian

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Small RNAs including microRNAs (miRNAs) and short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are widely present in plants. They are transcribed from non-coding small RNA genes and then play as regulators to modulate the levels of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) of protein-coding genes via sequence pairings. This is because a paired complementary double sequence helix structure can trigger mRNA degradation or interfere with mRNA translation. Short Tandem Target Mimic (STTM) is a recently developed technology that can be used to produce a complementary sequence to a miRNA and destroy it or reduce the expression level of this miRNA via the formation of paired double-strand …

Analysis Of Data From A Study To Identify Potential Biomarkers To Indicate Renal Injury, Mitchell D. Tahtinen

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Ureteropelvic junction obstruction is a disease in which flow from the kidney to the bladder is obstructed for extended periods of time causing irreversible damage to the kidney. Current tests to detect kidney damage caused by obstruction are not effective until significant damage occurs. The purpose of this report is to identify a panel of biomarkers in urine to detect kidney damage earlier by analyzing data collected from a two-part study. Currently, two established urinary biomarkers to indicate kidney damage are NGAL and KIM-1. Biomarkers of interest in this study are CD13, CD10, and CD26. Results from the linear mixed …

Surface Enabled Lab-On-A-Chip (Loc) Device For Protein Detection And Separation, Zhichao Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Sensitive and selective chemical/biological detection/analysis for proteins is essential for applications such as disease diagnosis, species phenotype identification, product quality control, and sample examination. Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) device provides advantages of fast analysis, reduced amount of sample requirements, and low cost, to magnificently facilitate protein detection research. Isoelectric focusing (IEF) is a strong and reliable electrophoretic technique capable of discerning proteins from complex mixtures based on the isoelectric point (pI) differences. It has experienced plenty of fruitful developments during previous decades which has given it the capability of performing with highly robust and reproducible analysis. This progress has made IEF devices …

Effects Of Group Selection With Yellow Birch (Betula Alleghaniensis) Retention On The Understory And Sapling Layer In Northern Hardwood Forests, Megan A. Petras O'Neil

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Gap partitioning theory predicts that changes in microenvironment conditions found within a forest opening promote diversity in forest ecosystems. Under this theory we would expect to see variations in tree and understory diversity throughout and surrounding a forest opening. In order to test this theory, we examined manmade openings with legacy-tree retention in a northern hardwood forest located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This work is part of an ongoing study that was started in 2003 with the creation of 49 openings centered on a reserve dominant or co-dominant yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis Britt.). The primary objective of …

Feasibility & Discovery Using Fox System To Generate Gain-Of-Function Mutations With Hybrid Poplars, James Rauschendorfer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Full-length complementary DNA OvereXpression (FOX) system is an approach to generating gain-of-function (GF) plants predominantly used for studying Arabidopsis. This approach inserts T-DNAs containing random full-length complementary DNA (fl-cDNA) with upstream promoter and downstream terminator into the host plant genome. Studies using this method report the success generating overexpression populations with high mutation rates. We choose to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of this method using poplars. We suspected using a succulent xylem specific fl-cDNAs library would enrich the transformant poplars with mutants affected in traits specific to woody tissue development. We observed a characteristically high mutation rate …

Databases And Medical Publications, Edgard Nehme

International Arab Journal of Dentistry

“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment,
full effort is full victory.”
Mahatma Gand