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Redox And Non-Redox Reactions Catalyzed By Biomimetic Flavin-Based Organocatalysts And The Discovery Of Selective Oxidation Methods For The Preparation Of N-Heterocycles, Pawan Thapa

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

In nature, flavoproteins (FMN and FAD) are known to catalyze several chemical transformations which play a vital role in the growth, development, and survival of organisms. They are involved in one-electron and two-electron transfer reactions, photo-induced electron transfer reactions, dehydrogenase reactions, oxidative atom transfer reactions and also rare non-redox reactions. Their enhanced stability and ability to turn over in presence of dioxygen has inspired synthetic chemists, including our group, to perform biomimetic transformations within a range of function of natural flavoproteins. In chapter 1, both intramolecular and intermolecular dehydrogenative coupling between the alpha carbon of tertiary amines and various nitrogen, …

Toward The Synthesis And Improved Biopotential Of An N-Methylated Analog Of A Proline-Rich Cyclic Tetrapeptide From Marine Bacteria, Rajiv Dahiya, Suresh Kumar, Suhkbir Lal Khokra, Sheeba Varghese Gupta, Vijaykumar B. Sutariya, Deepak Bhatia, Ajay Sharma, Shamjeet Singh, Sandeep Maharaj

Pharmacy Faculty Publications

An N-methylated analog of a marine bacteria-derived natural proline-rich tetracyclopeptide was synthesized by coupling the deprotected dipeptide fragments Boc-l-prolyl-l-N-methylleucine-OH and l-prolyl-l-N-methylphenylalanine-OMe. A coupling reaction was accomplished utilizing N,N′-Dicyclohexylcarbodidimde (DCC) and 1-Ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC·HCl) as coupling agents and Triethylamine (TEA) or N-methylmorpholine (NMM) as the base in the presence of the racemization suppressing agent. This was followed by the cyclization of the linear tetrapeptide fragment under alkaline conditions. The structure of the synthesized cyclooligopeptide was confirmed using quantitative elemental analysis, FTIR (Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy), ¹H NMR (Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy), ¹³C NMR, and mass spectrometry. From the bioactivity results, …

The Effect Of Diet On Improved Endurance In Male C57bl/6 Mice, Jin Yu, Hong Zhu, Saeid Taheri, Stephen Perry, Mark S. Kindy

Pharmacy Faculty Publications

The consumption of fruits and vegetables appears to help with maintaining an adequate level of exercise and improves endurance. However, the mechanisms that are involved in this process are not well understood. In the current study, the impact of diets enriched in fruits and vegetables (GrandFusion^®) on exercise endurance was examined in a mouse model. GrandFusion (GF) diets increased mitochondrial DNA and enzyme activity, while they also stimulated mitochondrial mRNA synthesis in vivo. GF diets increased both the mRNA expression of factors involved in mitochondrial biogenesis, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1 alpha (PGC-1α), mitochondrial transcription factor A …

Swosu Standing Committees 2018-2019, Southwestern Oklahoma State University

University Standing Committees

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Flower Thrips (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) On Nutritional Quality Of Banana (Zingiberales: Musaceae) Buds, Deyi Yu, Peng Huang, Yong Chen, Yongwen Lin, Komivi Senyo Akutse, Yanyang Lan, Hui Wei

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The abundance of banana flower thrips (Thrips hawaiiensis Morgan) in a banana (Musa acuminata Colla "Williams" cultivar) plantation was investigated using yellow sticky traps (29.70 cm × 21.00 cm) in 2015. Banana flower thrips occurred throughout the year with monthly variation, and the maximum occurrence was observed in October and November during the bud burst (73.80 ± 6.32 adults/trap) and young fruit (70.06 ± 5.69 adults/trap) periods. The damage rates were as follows: interior flowers >3rd-layer flowers > 2nd-layer flowers > 1st-layer flowers > young fruits. This result indicates that thrips migrated to lower bracts, young fruits, and other flower buds as bracts …

Quantitative Histological Analysis Of Fixation Points On Explanted Hernia Mesh, Brittney Cotton

All Theses

Polymeric surgical mesh is an implantable biomaterial used to treat muscular defects associated with abdominal hernias. Surgical meshes generally exhibit anisotropic material properties, but their in situ mechanical behavior is poorly understood when exposed to mechanical loading of the abdominal wall. Moreover, the mechanical influence of different types of peripheral fixation (e.g. sutures, tacks) used to attach the mesh is not well-characterized. Injury models of biomaterials implanted in load-bearing tissues (e.g. tendon, muscle) demonstrate that mechanical tension can signal optimal repair of fascial tissues or cause fibrous encapsulation. Therefore, it may be possible to link features of connective tissue deposition …

Stretching Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells On Micropatterned Surfaces, Suzanne Nicole Bradley

All Theses

Vascular smooth muscle cells regulate blood flow by contracting and relaxing blood vessels. Vascular smooth muscle cells display one of two distinct phenotypes: contractile or synthetic. The contractile phenotype enables cells to contract, and the majority of cells in healthy blood vessels exhibit this phenotype. Transition to the synthetic phenotype is associated with abnormal mechanical forces and the development of vascular diseases, including hypertension and atherosclerosis. Cell-extracellular matrix interactions and mechanical stimulation are factors that affect phenotypic modulation. Micropatterning techniques create a microenvironment used to control cell morphology, adhesion, migration, proliferation, and differentiation. Vascular smooth muscle cells are circumferentially arranged …

Examination Of Technetium Transport Through Soils Under Contrasting Redox Conditions, Rebecca Solt Dozier

All Theses

Understanding the behaviors of technetium (Tc) during sorption to and desorption from soils amended with titanomagnetite nanoparticles and in redox transition zones is critical for understanding risks from technetium-99 (99Tc) releases into the environment. In this work, experiments were performed under variable redox conditions to evaluate the sorption and desorption behavior of 99Tc in the presence of soil from the Savannah River Site (SRS) and varying concentrations (0.01, 0.1, 1, 10 wt%) of titanomagnetite (Fe3-xTixO4) nanoparticles. Kinetic batch experiments were conducted to investigate how reducing and variable redox conditions and titanomagnetite nanoparticles affect the reduction (sorption) and re-oxidation (desorption) kinetics. …

The Oral Microbiome Of Site-Specific Dental Plaque In Health And Disease, Abdullah Abood

All Theses

According to the National Institutes of Health, dental caries is the leading chronic disease of children in the United States. Dental caries is biofilm-mediated, multifactorial and dynamic. Research using culturing techniques and high throughput 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing unraveled the taxonomic complexity of mixed microbial communities (microbiome) in dental biofilms (plaque) and their abundance differences. However, 16S rRNA sequencing fails to resolve taxonomic assignment beyond genus level for certain taxa, which is problematic in identifying potential antagonistic species within the same genus. The presented work addressed current shortcomings in dental microbiome research. First, dental plaque samples used in this study …

Biodegradation Of Chlorobenzenes And Nitrotoluenes At An Industrial Site In South America, Maria Cristina Silva Lemes

All Theses

Indiscriminate activities have led to environmental problems worldwide, impacting especially international developing regions. As remediation technologies have advanced, numerous sites have been successfully addressed. Many of the sites that still need attention are those at which complex mixtures of contaminants are present, making the development of clean-up strategies more challenging.

The Camaçari industrial site that is the subject of this thesis is located in one of the largest industrial facilities in Brazil. The area is characterized by comingled environmental impacts caused by petrochemical industries. The client owns two properties at the industrial pole: Area N and Area P. Both properties …

Black Scoter (Melanitta Americana) Winter Habitat Use And Movement Patterns Along The Atlantic Coast Of The United States, Hannah Plumpton

All Theses

While the Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada is a major wintering area for sea ducks, habitat use and movement patterns of sea ducks, such as the black scoter (Melanitta americana), are vastly unknown and understudied. The lack of information in conjunction with a rise in human activity in and near the Atlantic Ocean has led to an increased effort for the conservation and management of sea ducks, while minimizing human conflicts. The objectives of my study were to 1) identify variables that had the most influence on black scoter distribution in the Atlantic Ocean along …

Nickel Tolerance In Cool-Season Grasses, Caleb Randall Patrick

All Theses

Nickel (Ni) toxicity is becoming more prevalent in plants and soils due to increased applications of sewage sludge and waste water. New literature highlighting the Ni-tolerance of cool-season turfgrass species is needed. Herbicide resistant annual bluegrass (Poa annua L.) biotypes are also becoming more prevalent, stemming from application of single mode of action herbicides. Research was conducted to examine Ni tolerance of three cool-season turfgrasses and explore the possibility of Ni use as a suppressant of annual bluegrass. Seaside II creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.), PennLinks II creeping bentgrass (Agrostis stolonifera L.), and a weedy …

Optimizing Cathode Catalyst Loading In Microbial Peroxide-Producing Cells For Greywater Disinfection, Emily Lauren Murawski

All Theses

Water and wastewater treatment utilities require large amounts of energy inputs, and new technologies are being sought to reduce the energy costs associated with traditional treatment strategies. For wastewater treatment systems that separate blackwater and greywater, microbial fuel cells may represent a novel treatment technology in which electroactive bacteria are fed energy-rich blackwater to produce electrical power or other valuable coproducts. Microbial peroxide-producing cells are a variation on microbial fuel cells that produce hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), which is a powerful disinfectant that can be combined with advanced oxidation processes to effectively remove chemical oxygen demand as …

The Influence Of In-Situ Activated Carbon On Biodegradation Of Chlorinated Solvents, Kameryn Mcgee

All Theses

Chlorinated solvents have been a contaminant of interest in the remediation field for many years because they have been manufactured in large amounts and released into the environment due to improper storage and disposal. Since they are produced in such large quantities and there has been so many cases of uncontrolled releases, corrective actions are necessary and many remediation strategies have been explored. In-situ bioremediation of chlorinated solvents (TCE) is an intricate respiratory process which combines the addition of electron donors, chemical reactions, and the presence of microorganisms which directly access contaminants. Microbes metabolize the electron donor and utilize the …

Empirical Bayesian Approach To Testing Multiple Hypotheses With Separate Priors For Left And Right Alternatives, Naveen K. Bansal, Mehdi Maadooliat, Steven J. Schrodi

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

We consider a multiple hypotheses problem with directional alternatives in a decision theoretic framework. We obtain an empirical Bayes rule subject to a constraint on mixed directional false discovery rate (mdFDR≤α) under the semiparametric setting where the distribution of the test statistic is parametric, but the prior distribution is nonparametric. We proposed separate priors for the left tail and right tail alternatives as it may be required for many applications. The proposed Bayes rule is compared through simulation against rules proposed by Benjamini and Yekutieli and Efron. We illustrate the proposed methodology for two sets of …

Issn Exercise & Sports Nutrition Review Update: Research & Recommendations, Chad M. Kerksick, Colin D. Wilborn, Michael D. Roberts, Abbie Smith-Ryan, Susan M. Kleiner, Ralf Jäger, Rick Collins, Matthew Cooke, Jaci N. Davis, Elfego Galvan, Mike Greenwood, Lonnie M. Lowery, Robert Wildman, Jose Antonio, Richard B. Kreider

Faculty Scholarship

Background

Sports nutrition is a constantly evolving field with hundreds of research papers published annually. In the year 2017 alone, 2082 articles were published under the key words ‘sport nutrition’. Consequently, staying current with the relevant literature is often difficult.

Methods

This paper is an ongoing update of the sports nutrition review article originally published as the lead paper to launch the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition in 2004 and updated in 2010. It presents a well-referenced overview of the current state of the science related to optimization of training and performance enhancement through exercise training and …

Nanometer Ultrastructural Brain Damage Following Low Intensity Primary Blast Wave Exposure, Hailong Song, Landry M. Konan, Jiankun Cui, Catherine E. Johnson, Graham K. Hubler, Ralph G. Depalma, Zezong Gu

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Blast-induced mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is of particular concern among military personnel due to exposure to blast energy during military training and combat. The impact of primary low-intensity blast mediated pathophysiology upon later neurobehavioral disorders has been controversial. Developing a military preclinical blast model to simulate the pathophysiology of human blast injury is an important first step. This article provides an overview of primary blast effects and perspectives of our recent studies demonstrating ultrastructural changes in the brain and behavioral disorders resulting from open-field blast exposures up to 46.6 kPa using a murine model. The model is scalable and …

Evaluation Of Hand-Dug Wells In Rural Haiti, Haley E. Schram, Peter J. Wampler

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

Water resources, especially safe, potable water, are limited for many Haitians. In areas where shallow groundwater is available, many household water needs such as laundry, bathing, and cooking are supplied by hand–dug wells. In order to better understand the water quality and prevalence of these household wells, 35 hand–dug wells were surveyed and sampled near the Hôpital Albert Schweitzer in Deschapelles, Haiti. Water samples were collected and tested for fecal coliform and Escherichia coli using the IDEXX Colilert–18 method. Of the samples collected, 89 percent were determined unsafe to use as a drinking water source based on the World Health …

Reorienting The Rules Of Evidence, Gillian R. Chadwick

Cardozo Law Review

Latent heterosexism is deeply engrained in the common sensibility of the American legal system. In sexual assault cases, that latent heterosexism reveals itself in disparate admissibility rulings and practices regarding evidence that purports to demonstrate a defendant's sexual orientation. When defendant and victim are of the same gender, evidence that a defendant is straight is used to prove innocence, while evidence that a defendant is gay or bisexual is used to prove guilt. This evidence is used to advance narratives invoking anti-gay and anti-bisexual stereotypes of deviance and criminality. Similar arguments are not made in cases involving opposite-gender defendant and …

Editorial For The Special Issue On Micro/Nano-Chip Electrokinetics, Volume Ii, Xiangchun Xuan, Shizhi Qian

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

There has been a rapidly increasing interest in the use of micro/nanofluidics to develop various point-of-care technologies for global health [1,2]. Electrokinetics is often the method of choice in these micro/nano-chips for an accurate transport and manipulation of fluids and samples [3,4]. This special issue in Micromachines is the continuation of our successful first volume on Micro/Nano-Chip Electrokinetics [5]. It consists of 22 contributions, which cover multiple aspects of electrokinetics related phenomena for various chemical and biological applications. We divide these papers into three primary categories and summarize them briefly below.

Cover Crops Have Negligible Impact On Soil Water In Nebraska Maize–Soybean Rotation, J. Burdette Barker, Derek M. Heeren, Katja Koehler-Cole, Charles Shapiro, Humberto Blanco-Canqui, Roger W. Elmore, Christopher A. Proctor, Suat Irmak, Charles A. Francis, Tim M. Shaver, Ali T. Mohammed

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

One perceived cost of integrating winter cover cropping in maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation systems is the potential negative impact on soil water storage available for primary crop production. The objective of this 3-year study was to evaluate the effects of winter cover crops on soil water storage and cover crop biomass production following no-till maize and soybean rotations. Locations were near Brule (west-central), Clay Center (south-central), Concord (northeast), and Mead (east-central), Nebraska, United States. Treatments included crop residue only (no cover crop) and a multi-species cover crop mix, both broadcast-seeded before …

Toxic Effects Of Lead Disposal In Water: An Analysis Of Tri Facility Releases, Patrick Koval

Economics Department Working Papers

Using county-level TRI data from 2003 to 2016, I find evidence that lead emissions in water adversely affect birth weights within the emitting county, especially with respect to the percentage of births considered low birth weight within that county (less than 2,500 grams). I find that a one percent increase in lead emissions per square mile increases the proportion of low birth weights by 0.27 percentage points. For a county with an average number of births in a particular year, this one percent increase in lead per square mile translates to an additional $475,000 in hospitalization costs from complications with …

Convergent Evolution In The Euarchontoglires, Philip J.R. Morris, Samuel N.F. Cobb, Philip G. Cox

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Convergence—the independent evolution of similar phenotypes in distantly related clades—is a widespread and much-studied phenomenon. An often-cited, but hitherto untested, case of morphological convergence is that between the aye-aye and squirrels. The aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a highly unusual lemuriform primate that has evolved a dentition similar to that of rodents: it possesses large, ever-growing incisors which it uses to strip the bark from trees in order to feed on wood-boring beetle larvae. Indeed, such is the similarity that some of the earliest classifications of the aye-aye placed it in the squirrel genus Sciurus. Here, we aimed …

The Geotraces Intermediate Data Product 2017, Conwaygeotraces, Tim M. Conway

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The GEOTRACES Intermediate Data Product 2017 (IDP2017) is the second publicly available data product of the international GEOTRACES programme, and contains data measured and quality controlled before the end of 2016. The IDP2017 includes data from the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, Southern and Indian oceans, with about twice the data volume of the previous IDP2014. For the first time, the IDP2017 contains data for a large suite of biogeochemical parameters as well as aerosol and rain data characterising atmospheric trace element and isotope (TEI) sources. The TEI data in the IDP2017 are quality controlled by careful assessment of intercalibration results …

The Effect Of Maoa And Stress Sensitivity On Crime And Delinquency: A Replication Study, Christa C. Christ, Joseph A. Schwartz, Scott F. Stoltenberg, Jonathan R. Brauer, Jukka Savolainen

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Across several meta-analyses, MAOA-uVNTR genotype has been associated with an increased risk for antisocial behavior among males who experienced early life adversity. Subsequently, early life stress and genetic susceptibility may have long-term effects on stress sensitivity later in life. In support of this assumption, a recent study found evidence, in two independent samples, for a three-way interaction effect (cG × E × E) such that proximate stress was found to moderate the interactive effect of MAOA-uVNTR and distal stress on crime and delinquency among males. In light of recent developments in cG × E research, we attempted to …

Dissecting The Mechanism Of Action Of A Novel Antifungal Peptide, Cody Bullock

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is an urgent need for novel treatments for Candida infections. The utility of antimicrobial peptides for antifungal therapy has garnered interest in recent years. One promising family of peptides is the Histatins, a family of naturally-occurring peptides secreted into the oral cavity that display antimicrobial activity. Histatin 5 is a twenty-four amino acid peptide with strong antifungal activity. Studies from our laboratory have identified a small histatin-derived peptide, KM29, that yields fungicidal activity 10-fold greater than Histatin 5 against multiple Candida species. Our laboratory has focused on understanding the mechanism of action of KM29 to further develop it as …

Anti-Inflammatory Effect Of Berry Essences, Inah Gu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Inflammation is one of defense reactions of our body tissues against harmful stimuli such as infection and tissue injury. However, it has been reported that chronic inflammation can lead to chronic inflammatory diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. This transition from acute to chronic inflammation state is usually induced by pro-inflammatory mediators and cytokines including nitric oxide (NO), prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), interleukin-1β (IL-1β), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), which accelerate the development of other chronic diseases. Accordingly, targeting these pro-inflammatory factors is one of the important roles for anti-inflammatory agents. For last two decades, researches about anti-inflammatory …

Effect Of Allelic Variation In Rht Loci On Plant Height And Grain Yield Of Soft Red Winter Wheat (Triticum Aestivum L.), Habib Hayat

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Plant height in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is controlled in large part by two major Rht genes, Rht-B1 and Rht-D1, which pleiotropically impact lodging and grain yield. Prior to the Green Revolution, wheat varieties contained only ‘wild-type’ Rht alleles (Rht-B1a and Rht-D1a) and were tall and prone to lodging. Introgression of a semi-dominant mutation at either of these two loci (Rht-B1b or Rht-D1b) results in a semi-dwarf phenotype and reduced plant height. When combined (Rht-B1b and Rht-D1b) an extremely short double-dwarf phenotype is observed. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of allelic variation in Rht-B1 and …

The Impact Of A Learning Community On The Perceived Wellness Of First Year Doctor Of Physical Therapy Students, Angela Mae Holland

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Healthcare education guides students in obtaining skills to promote health in others. In working towards this goal, graduate students in healthcare programs potentially suffer from increased stress while undergoing the rigor of a medically based academic program. The purpose of this study was to determine if the addition of a learning community program had an effect on the perceived wellness of first year doctor of physical therapy students. A repeated measures quasi-experimental design was used to answer the three research questions, which guided the investigation. Three groups of participants completed the study, one serving as the experimental group with the …

Genomic Approaches To Identify Important Traits In Avian Species, Bhuwan Khatri

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focusses on identifying different molecular markers that have impact on overall poultry production. Chapter one reviews microRNA (miRNA), copy number variation (CNV) and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) as markers suggested in different avian species by various studies. It reviews modern genomic approaches that are employed for next generation sequencing data analysis and verification.

Chapter two seeks to identify and validate the muscle specific miRNAs in the breast muscle of modern broilers and its foundational chicken line. Small RNA sequencing was performed to identify differentially expressed mature miRNAs in the breast muscles of these two chicken lines. Results showed …