Digital Commons Network^™

The Bioeconomics Of Shade-Grown Coffee Production Under Climate And Price Risks In Puerto Rico, Yixuan Gao

Master's Theses and Capstones

Coffee production is severely affected by global climate change. One of the important impacts comes from the increasing infestation and distribution of coffee berry borer (CBB), the most damaging coffee pest worldwide. Shade-grown coffee (SGC) systems can alleviate the impacts and increase the resilience of coffee farms by providing non-market and market ecosystem services.

From an ecological perspective, SGC systems can provide many non-market ecosystem services such as pest risk mitigation, soil water retention, soil fertility, and pollination, which are all critical factors affecting coffee yields. From a financial perspective, SGC systems can benefit farmers by increasing the prices through …

Population Genetics And Male Social Behavior In The Australian Small Carpenter Bee, Ceratina Australensis, Robert L. Oppenheimer

Master's Theses and Capstones

Small carpenter bees (Xylocopinae: Ceratinini) in the genus Ceratina are a cosmopolitan group of stem nesting bees. All Ceratina show a degree of mutual tolerance for nestmates as they nest together in pre-dispersal assemblages and display extended maternal care. Many Ceratina also nest facultatively with multiple females per nest. Males usually disperse before the beginning of the reproductive season. Ceratina have emerged as model organisms to study the evolution of social behavior within the Hymenoptera (ants, bees and wasps). As hymenopteran sex is determined by the haplodiploid sex determination system wherein males are haploid and females are diploid, the result …

Redefining The Roles Of The Rural Levites In Deuteronomy, James Douglas Wilson

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Plasma Soluble Human Elastin Fragments As An Intra-Aneurysmal Localized Biomarker For Ruptured Intracranial Aneurysm, Daichi Nakagawa, Mario Zanaty, Joseph Hudson, Nahom Teferi, Daizo Ishii, Lauren Allan, Pascal Jabbour, Santiago Ortega-Gutierrez, Edgar A. Samaniego, David M. Hasan

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

Background—Fragmentation of the tunica media is a hallmark of intracranial aneurysm formation, often leading to aneurysmal progression and subsequent rupture. The objective of this study is to determine the plasma level of elastin fragments in the lumen of ruptured versus unruptured human intracranial aneurysms. Methods and Results—One hundred consecutive patients with/without ruptured saccular intracranial aneurysms undergoing endovascular coiling or stent-assisted coiling were recruited. Blood samples were collected from the lumen of intracranial aneurysm using a microcatheter. The tip of the microcatheter was placed inside the aneurysm’s sac in close proximity to the inner wall of the dome. Plasma levels of …

Portland State Magazine, Portland State University. Office Of University Communications

Portland State Magazine

PSU’s alumni magazine, published 2-3 times a year. In this issue: The son of undocumented immigrants is the new student body president; Capstone class finds humanity among incarcerated youth; photographer documents the evolving lives of women in Saudi Arabia; cooperative education pairs students with businesses; Franz Rad’s forensic class trains engineering sleuths; Ed Washington reflects on his life of service; and more.

Framing Livability: A Strategic And Creative Communication Approach To Improving Support For Public Transportation In Oregon, Deboarh Morrison, Autumn Shaffer, Rebecca Lewis, Hannah Lewman

TREC Final Reports

Livability of place is a central theme in developing concepts about transit ridership. In order to develop strategy for a compelling public communication campaign to increase transit ridership, this project frames the connections between livability and transit and offers a set of public campaign examples. A national survey taken of riders provides possible message strategies. With this information, a creative strategy team was tasked with developing a strategy for messaging and developed the Green Rider profile. Recommendations for creative direction and further study are offered.

Fall 2018

Conversations

Meditations on an orange; The blue demon and the Laker; The Center for Journalism Integrity and Excellence honors Pauley, Pistone; Alumni and friends shine at awards reception; On the move; The superhero the world needs; Around the college; Taking flight

A Comparison Study Of Colilert And Qpcr Methods At Pere Marquette Beach, Muskegon County, Mi, Safiya Best, Richard Rediske, Molly Lane

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Pere Marquette Beach serves as the primary attraction for tourism and coastal recreation in Muskegon, MI. Because beaches attract many people daily, it is important to monitor beach water quality for pathogens that may cause waterborne disease. Molecular-based methods are emerging as replacements for culture-based techniques for monitoring beaches. Culture-based methods require 18-hour incubation while Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) can yield results in two hours. My research examines the correlation between the culture-based Colilert-18® method and qPCR measurements of E. coli at a Lake Michigan beach in Muskegon County, MI. While Colilert 18 is a defined substrate method and …

Emerging Evidence For Cannabis' Role In Opioid Use Disorder, Beth Wiese, Adrianne R Wilson-Poe

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Challenges In Learning Uml: From The Perspective Of Diagrammatic Representation And Reasoning, Z. Shen, S. Tan, Keng Siau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unified modeling language (UML) is widely taught in the information systems (IS) curriculum. To understand UML in IS education, this paper reports on an empirical study that taps into students’ learning of UML. The study uses a concept-mapping technique to identify the challenges in learning UML notational elements. It reveals that some technical properties of UML diagrammatic representation, coupled with students’ cognitive attributes, hinder both perceptual and conceptual processes involved in searching, recognizing, and inferring visual information, which creates learning barriers. This paper also discusses how to facilitate perceptual and conceptual processes in instruction to overcome learning challenges. The study …

Metaphysics Or Metaphors For The Anthropocene? Scientific Naturalism And The Agency Of Things, Patrick Gamez

Arts, Languages and Philosophy Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, I provide the outlines of an alternative meta philosophical orientation for Continental philosophy, namely, a form of scientific naturalism that has proximate roots in the work of Bachelard and Althusser. I describe this orientation as an "alternative" insofar as it provides a framework for doing justice to some of the motivations behind the recent revival of metaphysics in Continental philosophy, in particular its ecological-ethical motivations. In the second section of the paper, I demonstrate how ecological-ethical issues motivate new metaphysicians like Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, Timothy Morton, Ian Bogost, and Graham Harman to impute to objects real …

Assessing The Effects Of Habitat Restoration On Shrubland Specialists: Case Study On The New England Cottontail And Shrubland Birds, Melissa Lyn Bauer

Master's Theses and Capstones

Loss and fragmentation of shrubland habitat in the northeastern United States due to succession, suppression of natural disturbance regimes, and development (Cronon 1983, Litvaitis 1993) have resulted in declines of populations of shrubland specialist species, including the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis) and shrubland birds (Litvaitis et al. 2006, Schlossberg & King 2007). The New England cottontail’s range has declined by over 86% (Litvaitis et al. 2006, Fenderson et al. 2014, Brubaker et al. 2014) and remaining populations are small and exhibit fine-scale structure, limited dispersal, and loss of metapopulation function (Fenderson 2011, 2014, Cheeseman 2017, Chapter 1). In the …

Gaming, September 1, 2018: Audit And Accounting Guide, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

Industry Guides (AAGs), Risk Alerts, and Checklists

No abstract provided.

Weed Wars: Winning The Fight Against Marijuana Spillover From Neighboring States, Jessica Berch

Nevada Law Journal

Today, a ‘novel social and economic experiment[]’ involving the sale, use, and distribution of marijuana is sweeping the nation. Despite a federal ban on the drug, states have begun to legalize medical and even recreational marijuana use. While these entrepreneurial states push forward with marijuana legalization, other states and the federal government remain opposed to the expansion of marijuana use or its legalization in any form.

Regardless of one’s position on the merits of marijuana legalization, the federalism and conflict-of-laws issues that arise from this multi-state experiment deserve scholarly attention. In particular, non-legalizing states that border more permissive neighbors have …

Of Wild Beasts And Digital Analogues: The Legal Status Of Autonomous Systems, Matthew U. Scherer

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

From Equitable To Equal, And Then More Equal: How Nevada Divorce Law Can Help Domestic Violence Survivors, David Ernesto Chavez

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Well’S Run Dry: Considering Water As A Fundamental Right Using An Interdisciplinary Approach, Matthew J. Mckissick

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Imetelstat, A Telomerase Inhibitor, Is Capable Of Depleting Myelofibrosis Stem And Progenitor Cells, Xiaoli Wang, Cing Siang Hu, Bruce Petersen, Jiajing Qiu, Fei Ye, Fei Huang, Ronald Hoffman

NYMC Faculty Publications

Clinical trials of imetelstat therapy have indicated that this telomerase inhibitor might have disease-modifying effects in a subset of patients with myelofibrosis (MF). The mechanism by which imetelstat induces such clinical responses has not been clearly elucidated. Using in vitro hematopoietic progenitor cell (HPC) assays and in vivo hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) assays, we examined the effects of imetelstat on primary normal and MF HSCs/HPCs. Treatment of CD34(+) cells with imetelstat reduced the numbers of MF but not cord blood HPCs (colony-forming unit-granulocyte/macrophage, burst-forming unit-erythroid, and colony-forming unit-granulocyte/erythroid/macrophage/megakaryocyte) as well as MF but not normal CD34(+)ALDH(+) cells irrespective of the …

Discharge And Role Of Acetylcholine Pontomesencephalic Neurons In Cortical Activity And Sleep-Wake States Examined By Optogenetics And Juxtacellular Recording In Mice, Youssouf Cisse, Hanieh Toossi, Masaru Ishibashi, Lynda Mainville, Christopher S. Leonard, Antoine Adamantidis, Barbara E. Jones

NYMC Faculty Publications

Acetylcholine (ACh) neurons in the pontomesencephalic tegmentum (PMT) are thought to play an important role in promoting cortical activation with waking (W) and paradoxical sleep [PS; or rapid eye movement (REM)], but have yet to be proven to do so by selective stimulation and simultaneous recording of identified ACh neurons. Here, we employed optogenetics combined with juxtacellular recording and labeling of neurons in transgenic (TG) mice expressing ChR2 in choline acetyltransferase (ChAT)-synthesizing neurons. We established in vitro then in vivo in anesthetized (A) and unanesthetized (UA), head-fixed mice that photostimulation elicited a spike with short latency in neurons which could …

Molecular Epidemiology, Ecology, And Evolution Of Group A Streptococci, Debra E. Bessen, Pierre R. Smeesters, Bernard W. Beall

NYMC Faculty Publications

The clinico-epidemiological features of diseases caused by group A streptococci (GAS) is presented through the lens of the ecology, population genetics, and evolution of the organism. The serological targets of three typing schemes (M, T, SOF) are themselves GAS cell surface proteins that have a myriad of virulence functions and a diverse array of structural forms. Horizontal gene transfer expands the GAS antigenic cell surface repertoire by generating numerous combinations of M, T, and SOF antigens. However, horizontal gene transfer of the serotype determinant genes is not unconstrained, and therein lies a genetic organization that may signify adaptations to a …

Crispr-Cas9 Mediated Epitope Tagging Provides Accurate And Versatile Assessment Of Myocardin--Brief Report, Qing Lyu, Vidhi Dhagia, Yu Han, Bing Guo, Mary E. Wines-Samuelson, Christine K. Christie, Qiangzong Yin, Orazio J. Slivano, Paul Herring, Xiaochun Long, Sachin A. Gupte, Joseph M. Miano

NYMC Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVE: Unreliable antibodies often hinder the accurate detection of an endogenous protein, and this is particularly true for the cardiac and smooth muscle cofactor, MYOCD (myocardin). Accordingly, the mouse Myocd locus was targeted with 2 independent epitope tags for the unambiguous expression, localization, and activity of MYOCD protein. APPROACH AND RESULTS: 3cCRISPR (3-component clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat) was used to engineer a carboxyl-terminal 3xFLAG or 3xHA epitope tag in mouse embryos. Western blotting with antibodies to each tag revealed a protein product of approximately 150 kDa, a size considerably larger than that reported in virtually all publications. MYOCD …

Inconceivable: Status, Contract, And The Search For A Legal Basis For Gay Lesbian Parenthood, Libby Adler

Penn State Law Review (2003 - Present)

With the fight for same-sex marriage in the rearview mirror, legal advocates have turned their attention to legally securing parenting rights for gay and lesbian people against this new landscape. Adults in same-sex couples often share parenting responsibilities for children who are biologically related only to one of them. What, short of adoption, should establish the legal tie between a child and a non-biologically related adult? A consensus answer to that question has emerged among scholars and advocates of gay and lesbian family law: intent to parent and socially functioning as a parent. Using as an entry point the recent …

Meridians 17:1, Ginetta Candelario

Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism

Meridians is thrilled to announce that this is our first issue published by Duke University Press. This is also the first issue that I curate fully from submissions accepted during my first year as editor; as such, it expresses my particular vision for Meridians going forward. I am keenly interested in internationalizing our transnational frame, specifically by soliciting from scholars, culture workers, and activists living outside the United States and in languages other than English working on our core themes of feminism, race, and transnationalism....

The Impact Of Marking Rates, Turn-Off And Mortality Rates On The Wa Sheep Flock, Kate Pritchett

Animal production and livestock research reports

The Western Australian sheep flock peaked at 38.4 million head in 1990. Following the collapse of the reserve price scheme for wool and subsequent low prices combined with improved returns for crops, the WA flock entered a period of decline. The WA flock had fallen to approximately 14.2 million at the beginning of 2016/17. The dramatically reduced flock has also undergone a change in structure over this time, with the proportion of wethers in the flock being reduced from 32% of the flock to around 7%, and the proportion of breeding ewes increasing to accommodate the increased importance of lamb …

Influenza Virus Infectivity Is Retained In Aerosols And Droplets Independent Of Relative Humidity, Karen A. Kormuth, Kaisen Lin, Aaron J. Prussin, Eric P. Vejerano, Andrea J. Tiwari, Steve S. Cox, Micheal M. Myerburg, Seema S. Lakdawala, Linsey C. Marr

Faculty Publications

Pandemic and seasonal influenza viruses can be transmitted through aerosols and droplets, in which viruses must remain stable and infectious across a wide range of environmental conditions. Using humidity-controlled chambers, we studied the impact of relative humidity on the stability of 2009 pandemic influenza A(H1N1) virus in suspended aerosols and stationary droplets. Contrary to the prevailing paradigm that humidity modulates the stability of respiratory viruses in aerosols, we found that viruses supplemented with material from the apical surface of differentiated primary human airway epithelial cells remained equally infectious for 1 hour at all relative humidities tested. This sustained infectivity was …

Induction Of Oil Accumulation By Heat Stress Is Metabolically Distinct From N Stress In The Green Microalgae Coccomyxa Subellipsoidea C169, James W. Allen, Rahul Tevatia, Yaşar Demirel, Concetta C. Dirusso, Paul N. Black

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Algae are often promoted as feedstock organisms to produce a sustainable petroleum fossil fuel alternative. However, to induce lipid accumulation most often requires a severe stress that is difficult to induce in large batch cultures. The objective of this study is to analyze and mathematically model heat stress on growth, chlorophyll content, triacylglyceride, and starch synthesis in algae. We initially screened 30 algal species for the most pronounced induction of lipid droplets from heat stress using confocal microscopy and mass spectroscopy techniques. One species, Coccomyxa subellipsoidea C169, was selected and subjected to further biochemical analyses using a jacketed bioreactor amended …

Phage Therapy And Development Of Delivery Systems For Gram-Positive Phage Endolysins, Jude Ajuebor

PhDs

This thesis focussed on Gram positive phages and their endolysins. Here, two similar kay-like staphylococcal phages B1 (vB_SauM_B1) and JA1 (vB_SauM_JA1) were isolated from a commercial therapeutic phage mix. Their host range was established on the Irish National MRSA bank, which included twenty one sequence types in addition relevant control strains. Based on this, distinct phages were identified and subjected to genome sequencing. The sequences were compared with the sequence of phage K (vB_SauM_K), which was also determined in this work. All three phages had a genome size of at least 139 kb, although some key differences were identified between …

The Use Of Mentoring To Effect Cultural Change: Irish Farm Deaths And Injuries, Maurice Murphy, Kieran O'Connell

Dept. of Management & Enterprise Conference Material

Agriculture is the most dangerous occupation in Ireland. For every fatality in the sector, more than 125 farm workers are injured, many of them so seriously that the viability of the farm is undermined. These terrible and largely hidden figures have remained constant for the past decade, despite legal requirements, awareness-raising events and inspections by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA). The agricultural sector accounts for just 6% of the working population of Ireland, yet it consistently has the highest proportion of fatal incidents of any sector. This was again evident in 2017 where 51% (24 of the 47) of …

Does A Step Back Approach To The Implementation Of Project Spraoi Affect The Health And Fundamental Movement Skill Proficiency Of Irish Children?, Conor Hemmersley

Masters

Title: Does a step back approach to the implementation of Project Spraoi affect the health and fundamental movement skill proficiency of Irish children? Background: Project Spraoi is an intervention which attempts to positively influence the overall health of Irish primary school children. Previous iterations of Project Spraoi have been labour intensive with an Energiser working with a maximum of two schools to deliver the intervention. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention on fundamental movement skills (FMS), and markers of health of Irish primary school children using a step back approach. The step back …

Neuroprotective Functions Of Docosahexaenoic Acid And Epidermal Fatty Acid Binding Protein, Manuel Luis Montero

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Lipotoxicity (LTx) is involved in mostly every process of neuronal injury. Using NGFDPC12 cells we show that palmitic acid (PA) induces the expression of stress response genes HIF-1α and BNIP3, increases the accumulation of reactive oxygen species, and decreases cell viability by apoptosis. Inhibition of cathepsins does not rescue neurons from PA-LTx but inhibition of necroptosis and promotion of autophagy do. DHA decreases the expression of HIF-1α and BNIP3 and rescues PA-induced cell death by inhibiting apoptosis and necroptosis. Besides DHA stimulates the mRNA expression, phosphorylation and conjugation of autophagy controlling proteins. Inhibiting autophagy during DHA treatment decreases its capacity …