Digital Commons Network^™

Seabird Threats On Land And At Sea: Measuring Nearshore Response To Invasive Predator Eradications And Storm Petrel Diet Response To Fishing Expansion, Lyndsay L. Rankin

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Seabirds are crucial components of many marine and island ecosystems, and yet they are the world’s most threatened group of birds. They spend most of their lives at sea, where they face numerous threats including climate change, pollution, and fisheries. When they return to land to breed, they are threatened by human disturbance and invasive species. This research examines seabird response to threats on land and at sea using stable isotope analysis. Seabirds provide multiple ecosystem services, such as depositing rich marine-derived nutrients into the islands where they nest. Invasive predators disrupt this bottom-up control by decimating seabird populations. Successful …

A Child Shall Lead Them: Exploring Discourses Of Efficacy And Climate Change As They Appear In Children's Animated Film, Jason Derry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent climate change discourse has tended to presume scientific knowledge and rational argumentation as the principle factor in convincing peoples and publics toward climate action. However, scholarship across numerous fields reveals myriad other contributing factors in how people think about and respond to this environmental crisis, which leans predominately toward silence and apathy. Alongside this, children are often centered as inheriting a calamity, yet find themselves largely disempowered. From out of this rhetorical milieu I interject by way of a multidisciplinary grounding to examine the predominate framings of efficacy in the context of children, climate change, and environmental discourse. To …

Biomass-Derived Activated Carbons For Electrical Double Layer Supercapacitors: Performance And Stress Effect, Wenxin Cao

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

The vigorous development of human civilization has significantly increased the energy consumption in recent years. There is a great need to use renewable energy sources to substitute the depleting traditional fossil fuels, such as crude oil, natural gas and coal. The development of low-cost and high-performance energy storage devices (ESDs) and systems have drawn great attention due to their feasibility as backup power supply and their applications in portable electronics and electric vehicles. Supercapacitors are among the most important ESDs because of their long charging-discharging cycle life, high power capability and a large operating temperature range. In this thesis, high-performance …

Towards The Rational Design And Application Of Polymers For Gene Therapy: Internalization And Intracellular Fate, Landon Alexander Mott

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Gene therapy is an approach for the treatment of acquired cancers, infectious disease, degenerative disease, and inherited genetic indications. Developments in the fields of immunotherapies and CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing are revitalizing the efforts to move gene therapy to the forefront of modern medicine. However, slow progress and poor clinical outcomes have plagued the field due to regulatory and safety concerns associated with the flagship delivery vector, the recombinant virus. Immunogenicity and poor transduction in certain cell types severely limits the utility of viruses as a delivery agent of nucleic acids. As a result, significant efforts are being made to develop …

Development Of Novel Temperature Responsive Polymeric Sorbents And Their Applications In Water Remediation, Shuo Tang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Water remediation utilizing sorption has found strong interest due to its inexpensiveness, universal nature and ease of operation. In particular, thermo-responsive sorbents consisting of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) offer significant potential as “smart” and advanced materials to remove multiple aqueous pollutants. NIPAAm exhibits excellent thermo-responsiveness, which senses the external temperature variation and changes its swelling and sorption behaviors in a sharp and rapid manner. At the beginning of this work, an extensive review of literature has been compiled to provide a summary of NIPAAm-based thermo-responsive sorbents in water/wastewater remediation applications.

Initially, we developed a novel approach to synthesize and characterize NIPAAm copolymeric …

Cell Surface Coatings For Mammalian Cell-Based Therapeutic Delivery, Pei-Jung Wu

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

The cell plasma membrane is an interactive interface playing an important role in regulating cell-to-cell, cell-to-tissue contact, and cell-to-environment responses. This environment-responsive phospholipid layer consisting of multiple dynamically balanced macromolecules, such as membrane proteins, carbohydrate and lipids, is regarded as a promising platform for various surface engineering strategies. Through different chemical modification routes, we are able to incorporate various artificial materials into the cell surface for biomedical applications in small molecule and cellular therapeutics.

In this dissertation, we establish two different cell coating techniques for applications of cell-mediated drug delivery and the localization of cell-based therapies to specific tissues. The …

Impact Of Conformational Change, Solvation Environment, And Post-Translational Modification On Desulfurization Enzyme 2'-Hydroxybiphenyl-2-Sulfinate Desulfinase (Dszb) Stability And Activity, Landon C. Mills

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Naturally occurring enzymatic pathways enable highly specific, rapid thiophenic sulfur cleavage occurring at ambient temperature and pressure, which may be harnessed for the desulfurization of petroleum-based fuel. One pathway found in bacteria is a four-step catabolic pathway (the 4S pathway) converting dibenzothiophene (DBT), a common crude oil contaminant, into 2-hydroxybiphenyl (HBP) without disrupting the carbon-carbon bonds. 2’-Hydroxybiphenyl-2-sulfinate desulfinase (DszB), the rate-limiting enzyme in the enzyme cascade, is capable of selectively cleaving carbon-sulfur bonds. Accordingly, understanding the molecular mechanisms of DszB activity may enable development of the cascade as industrial biotechnology. Based on crystallographic evidence, we hypothesized that DszB …

Nanoharvesting And Delivery Of Bioactive Materials Using Engineered Silica Nanoparticles, Md Arif Khan

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNPs) possess large surface areas and ample pore space that can be readily modified with specific functional groups for targeted binding of bioactive materials to be transported through cellular barriers. Engineered silica nanoparticles (ESNP) have been used extensively to deliver bio-active materials to target intracellular sites, including as non-viral vectors for nucleic acid (DNA/RNA) delivery such as for siRNA induced interference. The reverse process guided by the same principles is called “nanoharvesting”, where valuable biomolecules are carried out and separated from living and functioning organisms using nano-carriers. This dissertation focuses on ESNP design principles for both applications. …

Illuminating Dna Packaging In Sperm Chromatin: How Polycation Lengths, Underprotamination And Disulfide Linkages Alters Dna Condensation And Stability, Daniel Kirchhoff

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

During spermiogenesis, somatic chromatin is remodeled and a vast majority (> 90%) of DNA histones are replaced by short arginine-rich peptides called protamines. This compaction is immense, with protamine-DNA self-assembly in sperm chromatin resulting in a final volume roughly 1/6th of a somatic nucleus. This near crystalline organization of the DNA in sperm is thought crucial both for the transport of the paternal genes as well as for the protection of genetic information as sperm chromatin is transcriptionally inactive and all DNA repair mechanisms are shut down.

Chapter 1 will include an overview of the topics discussed in this document, …

Detection Of Beta-Lactamase Variants In Municipal Wastewater And Fresh Water, Sunil Pandey

Masters Theses

The occurrence and spread of antibiotic-resistant genes (ARGs) are pressing public health problems worldwide. A key factor contributing to the spread of ARGs is lateral gene transfer. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are measured hot spots of microbial diversity and resistance because they receive polluted wastewater from diverse sources and contain a variety of different environments with dense bacterial loads. Due to the overuse of antibiotics the genetic capacities of microbes have profited. This helps every source of resistance gene and every means of horizontal gene transmission to develop the multiple mechanism of resistance to each antibiotic used clinically, agriculturally, or …

Exploring High School Students' Attitudes Towards Reading, Heather G. Crivilare

Masters Theses

This study explored high school students’ attitudes towards reading as both a recreational activity and academic endeavor; while there are numerous studies regarding the reading habits of younger children, there is a deficit of research into the reading habits of students beyond the middle school years. This study surveyed and interviewed freshmen-through-senior students in a medium-sized, rural Illinois high school about their habits as readers in order to explore the relationship between different environmental factors and reading, as well as between reading habits and college readiness. This study found a gender gap in reading enjoyment favoring female students; a decline …

College Students Experiences Participating In International Alternative Break Trips, Dayton L. Ehrlich

Masters Theses

This study sought to explore undergraduate students’ experiences participating in international alternative break trips. A qualitative approach was used to understand the motivating factors as well as the impact the trip had on them. Participants included three female undergraduate students who had participated in an international alternative break trip in Mexico were interviewed one-on-one. The results demonstrated there were multiple different motivating factors and impacts the students experienced. The motivating factors consisted of student involvement, they were all personally invited on the trip, practicing a new language, opportunity to leave the country, and service was not a motivator. The impacts …

Dear Tommy, David Aldridge

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

A veteran helps the son of an old friend process the loss of his friend and fellow soldier in combat through a series of emails.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience …

Vipers, Dilettantes, And Tigers, David Aldridge

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

In the jungles of Vietnam lurk more than just human enemies that can kill you.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Study Of Genetic Regulators That Control Development And Secondary Metabolism In The Genus Aspergillus, Timothy Satterlee

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In this study, I investigated the role of two different regulatory genes in two different species of pathogenic fungi from the genus Aspergillus. The first study involves a transcriptome analysis of the epigenetic regulator rmtA in the plant pathogen Aspergillus flavus. A. flavus colonizes numerous oil seed crops such as corn, peanuts, treenuts and cotton worldwide, contaminating them with aflatoxins and other harmful potent toxins. Previously our lab characterized the gene rmtA, which encodes an arginine methyltransferase in A. flavus, and demonstrated its role as regulator of the expression of the aflatoxin gene cluster and concomitant synthesis of toxin. Furthermore, …

Applications Of Bayesian Functional Data Analysis, Hao Shen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Functional Data Analysis (FDA) is a set of statistical methods that can deal with the data which represent curves or functions. In this dissertation, we consider two extensions of FDA to two types of data, circadian data and multidimensional data. The first part of the dissertation is concerned with the analysis of circadian data. We estimate circadian functions by using Bayesian smoothing splines under the generalized linear model, and extract two measures from each estimated function, magnitude and roughness. Based on extracted measures, we cluster individual functions into normal group and abnormal group by utilizing a density based clustering method. …

In And Out Of School Literacies: Adolescents Negotiating And Navigating Identities Through Social Media, Brooke Elizabeth Simon

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Through the theoretical lens of connected learning and a pedagogy of multiliteracies, this

embedded case study provides an intimate portrait of two adolescents (ages 14-15), Rehema and

Luis. The focus of the study is their uses of social media both in and out of the classroom, their

purposes, practices, and perspectives surrounding this use, and the tensions that exist between

building and maintaining their identities within social networking sites (SNS) and the crossover

of their teachers and school utilizing these same SNS for learning purposes. The findings reveal

that for these particular focal participants, the use of SNS, both in …

Functions Of Dfrp And Other Drg Pathway Genes In The Moss Physcomitrella Patens, Robert James Srygler

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

GTP binding proteins (G proteins) are molecular switches that regulate many aspects of physiology in all cells. DRG1 and DRG2 (Developmentally Regulated GTP-binding proteins) have been found in all eukaryotes examined. Amino acid identity across eukaryotes is about 65% within an orthologous group and 55% between paralogs of a single species. Although DRGs are likely involved in some aspect of translation regulation, details of their precise cellular functions are not known.

In addition to DRGs there are other genes/proteins that comprise the “DRG pathway.” DFRPs (DRG Family Regulatory Proteins) have been shown to physically and genetically interact with DRGs. Previous …

A Lingua Franca Afloat And Ashore: Contact English In American Sea Fiction, 1824 To 1914, Fredrik Reidar Stark

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines how American sea writers between 1824 and 1914 promoted new perceptions of English as a various and expanding intercultural and international language. It argues that presentations of language contact form a critically underemphasized component of American nautical literature. It surveys how such presentations take shape in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pilot (1824) and The Crater (1847), Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1838), and Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years before the Mast (1840). It asserts that Herman Melville’s innovative presentations of contact between pidgins and native varieties of English in Typee (1846) and Omoo …

The Design, Synthesis, And Evaluation Of Inhibitors Of The Ispf Enzyme In The Mep Pathway, Christopher G. Stewart

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Isoprenoids are a class of over 50,000 compounds that serve as key precursors for many compounds in plants and animals. These compounds play critical roles in many biological functions such as cellular growth, respiration, and go on to form critical compounds such as steroids and vitamins. Despite their overall necessity to life their biosynthesis only follows two synthetic pathways. These pathways are the Mevalonic Acid (MVA) Pathway and the 2-C-Methyl-D-Erythritol-4-Phosphate (MEP) Pathway also known as the non-mevalonate pathway. The MVA pathway is found primarily in humans and some higher plants while the MEP pathway is found in bacteria and some …

Is A Picture Worth A Thousand Numbers? An Exploration Of Understanding And Recall Of Data Presentations, Holly L. Roof

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reports results of a study with a quasi-randomized experimental component and a protocol analysis, or think aloud, component. The experimental component was designed to determine if people with no statistical training and people with some statistical training differed in their understanding and recollection of statistical information with varying degrees of complexity. Information was presented using data visualization techniques based on cognitive theory and compared to presentations using APA-style numerical tables of statistical output. The focus was on using empirically-supported graphical displays in PowerPoint presentations such as one might see at a research conference. Classroom groups of beginning and …

Investigation Of Thiol-Containing Biomarkers And Their Role In The Exposome, Tracy Gastineau-Stevens

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Exposomics is an emerging area of study that looks at how the environment around a person or persons affects their overall health. Biomarkers have emerged as useful tools to better understand how the exposome affects a person. In this work, we investigate two potential endogenous biomarkers, homocysteine and glutathione that have been previously implicated in a number of diseases that have been linked to environmental causes. We also investigated an environmental exposure, the fungicide Ziram, which epidemiologically has been linked to diseases. In our investigation, we utilized capillary electrophoresis and capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry to develop a method for homocysteine and …

A Case Of Multisystem Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis Presenting As Central Diabetes Insipidus, P. Daniel Nicholas Iii, Ian Garrahy

Reading Hospital Internal Medicine Residency

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a rare malignancy most commonly characterized by histiocytic infiltration of bone. LCH lesions in the skull place the adjacent central nervous system (CNS) at risk for involvement, which can manifest as central diabetes insipidus (CDI) when there is infiltration of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis. We present a case of a 39-yearold female who presented with polyuria and polydipsia for 1 year and left-sided hearing loss, gait instability, and nystagmus for 5 days. She was found on laboratory evaluation to have CDI and underwent left cortical mastoidectomy for a destructive peripherally enhancing mastoid lesion seen on MRI …

The Experiential-Learning Track: Career Exploration, Student Interest, & Applied Classroom-Learning In Small Rural Junior-Senior High Schools, Michael Turnlund

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Budgetary constraints can limit academic programs and elective offerings in small rural high schools. It is difficult to staff schools with teachers who hold the required credentials to offer elective courses that match student interests and future career or post-secondary education goals. This article details a strategy used by one small school in Idaho to address the problem. The Experiential-Learning Track Program allows for “hands-on” opportunities tied to learning objectives, and targets career and post-secondary education goals of individual students. Outcomes of the project included an increase in student population numbers and more connections with the local community.

Psyc 462/862: Motivation And Emotion, Carolyn R. Brown-Kramer

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

In this course portfolio, I examine the course goals, learning objectives, teaching methods and materials, assessments, and outcomes for an upper-level psychology elective course, PSYC 462/862, Motivation and Emotion. The course introduces students to the major theories of motivation and emotion, develops their ability to critically examine empirical psychological research, encourages the application of theoretical and empirical work to real-world contexts, and strengthens students’ communication skills. For each of the four course goals, I describe how and why I conduct the course as I do, as well as how my pedagogical choices influence student learning and engagement. Data analyses and …

Course Portfolio For Assessing Student Learning Surrounding Biological Examples In Bsen244: Thermodynamics Of Biological Systems, Forrest M. Kievit

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Thermodynamics is a course required in many engineering disciplines as it covers concepts utilized in many upper level engineering courses. In the Biological Systems Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, this course, in a way, acts as a gateway to the major since this will be one of the first classes where the students must apply and hone their problem-solving skills. This course was developed to allow students in the department to have access to a thermodynamics course that relates to their major area of interest – biological systems. However, many concepts in thermodynamics do not have …

Fdst 396 – Preventive Controls For Animal Food, Andreia Bianchini

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio is a benchmark for the course Preventive Controls for Animal Food, which was offered for the first time in Spring 2019. The objectives of this course were (1) to provide students with the ability to distinguish between Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs), other prerequisite programs, preventive controls, and where they fit into the regulatory framework of the Food Safety Modernization Act – Preventive Controls for Animal Food; (2) to help students understand the hazard analysis process and resources to help conduct such analysis; and (3) to teach students the needed concepts to build a food safety plan. This …

Agro 204: Resource Efficient Crop Management, Andrea Basche

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Resource Efficient Crop Management (Agro 204) is a high enrollment course taken by a diverse range of student majors across the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources (CASNR) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learning outcomes focus on teaching crop management principles and processes, systems-thinking, data analysis, synthesizing current information, and evidence-based decision-making. This benchmark portfolio critically assesses student learning toward these outcomes, with an emphasis on a particular assignment that required students to work with the farming simulation platform, APSIM. The Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) is a freely available computer program that is an internationally recognized simulator of …

Size - Resolved Composition And Morphology Of Particulate Matter During The Southwest Monsoon In Metro Manila, Philippines, Melliza Templonuevo Cruz, Paola Angela Bañaga, Grace Betito, Rachel A. Braun, Connor Stahl, Mojtaba Azadi Aghdam, Maria Obiminda L. Cambaliza, Hossein Dadashazar, Miguel Ricardo Hilario, Genevieve Rose Lorenzo, Lin Ma, Alexander B. Macdonald, Preciosa Corazon Pabroa, John Robin Yee, James Bernard Simpas, Armin Sorooshian

Physics Faculty Publications

This paper presents novel results from size-resolved particulate matter (PM) mass, composition, and morphology measurements conducted during the 2018 southwest monsoon (SWM) season in Metro Manila, Philippines. Micro-orifice uniform deposit impactors (MOUDIs) were used to collect PM sample sets composed of size-resolved measurements at the following aerodynamic cut-point diameters (Dp): 18, 10, 5.6, 3.2, 1.8, 1.0, 0.56, 0.32, 0.18, 0.10, and 0.056 µm. Each sample set was analyzed for composition of the water-soluble fraction. Analysis for mass was carried out on two sample sets, whereas black carbon (BC) and morphology analysis were analyzed on a single sample set. The bulk …

California Indian Tribes And The Marine Life Protection Act: The Seeds Of A Partnership To Preserve Natural Resources, Curtis G. Berkey, Scott W. Williams

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.