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Factors Affecting Establishment And Growth Of Cover Crops In A Corn-Soybean Rotation, Mattie Bree Schmitt

Plant Sciences

In the Midwest, it can be beneficial to interseed cover crops into corn (Zea mays L.) since there is a limited time for them to establish and grow after corn harvest. Research conducted in four environments in North Dakota quantified the impacts of planting method and time of planting when grown with or without corn competition on the establishment, and development of three cover crop species. Limited light intensity (less than 20%) under the corn canopy drastically reduced cover crop development. Soil water can also constrain cover crop establishment. Model simulations suggest soil water is more limiting for cover crop …

Debranning Affects Durum Wheat Milling Properties And Semolina Quality, Delgersaikhan Shinezorigt

Plant Sciences

Wheat can undergo debranning before milling. Debranning involves the removal of the outer bran layer from wheat kernels by friction and abrasion forces. This research was conducted to determine the effect of durum cultivar and debranning time on milling extraction and semolina and pasta quality. Four cultivars of durum wheat were debranned for 0, 1, 3 and 5 minutes and milled on a Bühler 202 MLU laboratory mill. Cultivars differed in the amount of bran removed at a given debranning time. Debranning for 3 min removed 8% of outer layer which resulted in 69% increase in mill throughput and 35% …

Comparative Study On Hulled Wheats Kernel, Flour, Dough Quality And Dietary Fiber Variation, Jayani Chathurika Sandarani Maddakandage Dona

Plant Sciences

This study was conducted to evaluate the kernel, flour and dough qualities and dietary fiber content of hulled wheats. Experimental design was separate randomized complete block designs for hulled wheat species with four field replicates. According to the results, significant differences (p<0.05) were observed in kernel quality, flour, and dough quality compared to common bread wheat. Einkorn and spelt reported significantly lower insoluble dietary fiber and total dietary fiber content, in contrast emmer had contents with both higher and lower genotypes. Interestingly, few genotypes of hulled wheat had a higher content of low molecular weight soluble dietary fibers (LMW-SDF) such as fructo and galacto oligosaccharides. Overall, hulled wheats differed from modern bread wheat in their kernel, flour, baking and nutritional quality. Moreover, due to higher LMW-SDF content, hulled wheats would be a potential candidate for breeding and producing health beneficial novel food products.

Black Bean Milling And Flour Functionality, Hettige Supun Sandaru Fernando

Plant Sciences

Dry bean utilization by the food industry can be increased by developing value-added processing applications. The goals of this research were to evaluate (1) the effect of milling method on the physical, chemical and functional properties of whole black bean flour and its fractions and (2) the effect of removing soluble phenolic compounds on the functional and rheological properties of black bean protein isolates. Black bean was milled with five laboratory mills [cyclone mill, hammer mill, stone mill (fine, medium, coarse), disc mill (fine, coarse), and centrifugal mill (10,000 or 12,000 rpm and 250, 500, 1000 μm aperture screen)] and …

Functional Bioactive Compounds From Sweet Potatoes For Human Health Benefits, Pradeepika Chintha

Plant Sciences

Global food and nutritional insecurities, public health challenges of diet-linked non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs), and rapid climate change-linked agricultural production challenges are interconnected and require urgent attention. Therefore, to address these complex and interconnected challenges, it is essential to advance robust and resilient strategies based on sustainable agricultural production practices, wider integration of nutritionally-balanced plant-based foods in the diet, improvement of human health-targeted nutritional qualities, post-harvest preservation qualities and food processing optimization. Therefore, food plants that are climate resilient and rich source of human health protective nutritional bioactives, such as sweet potato are ideal dietary targets for advancing global food …

Prospective Molecular Profiling Of Circulating Tumor Cells From Patients With Melanoma Receiving Combinatorial Immunotherapy., Selena Y Lin, Shu-Ching Chang, Stella Lam, Romela Irene Ramos, Kevin Tran, Shuichi Ohe, Matthew P Salomon, Ali Asgar S Bhagat, Chwee Teck Lim, Trevan D Fischer, Leland J Foshag, Christine L Boley, Steven J O'Day, Dave Hoon

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

BACKGROUND: Blood molecular profiling of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) can enable monitoring of patients with metastatic melanoma during checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy (CII) and in combination with targeted therapies. We developed a microfluidics-based CTC platform to explore CTC profiling utility in CII-treated patients with melanoma using a melanoma messenger RNA (mRNA)/DNA biomarker panel.

METHODS: Blood samples (n = 213) were collected prospectively from 75 American Joint Committee on Cancer-staged III/IV melanoma patients during CII treatment and those enriched for CTCs. CTC profiling was performed using 5 known melanoma mRNA biomarkers and BRAF V600E DNA mutation. CTC biomarker status associations with clinical …

Cerebellar-Cortical Function And Connectivity During Sensorimotor Behavior In Aging Fmr1 Gene Premutation Carriers., Walker S Mckinney, James Bartolotti, Pravin Khemani, Jun Yi Wang, Randi J Hagerman, Matthew W Mosconi

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

INTRODUCTION: Premutation carriers of the FMR1 gene are at risk of developing fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS), a neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor, cognitive, and psychiatric decline as well as cerebellar and cerebral white matter pathology. Several studies have documented preclinical sensorimotor issues in aging premutation carriers, but the extent to which sensorimotor brain systems are affected and may represent early indicators of atypical neurodegeneration has not been determined.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eighteen healthy controls and 16 FMR1 premutation carriers (including five with possible, probable, or definite FXTAS) group-matched on age, sex, and handedness completed a visually guided precision gripping …

Relative Maturity And Row Spacing Effect On Establishment Of Interseeded Cover Crops Into Soybean, Kory Lee Johnson

Plant Sciences

Low adoption to cover crops in the northern Plains is due to limited soil water for stand establishment, short growing season, and few adapted winter-hardy species. Studies were conducted to evaluate the impact of interseeded winter camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz] and winter rye (Secale cereale L.) using different soybean relative maturities, planting date, and row spacing on cover crop biomass, canopy coverage, plant density, soybean yield, and wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) yield the following year. Early-maturing soybean cultivars, produced increased cover crop biomass and canopy coverage, with winter rye outperforming winter camelina. Row spacing showed no effect on cover …

Cri Iatlas: An Interactive Portal For Immuno-Oncology Research., James A Eddy, Vésteinn Thorsson, Andrew E Lamb, David L Gibbs, Carolina Heimann, Jia Xin Yu, Verena Chung, Yooree Chae, Kristen Dang, Benjamin G Vincent, Ilya Shmulevich, Justin Guinney

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) iAtlas is an interactive web platform for data exploration and discovery in the context of tumors and their interactions with the immune microenvironment. iAtlas allows researchers to study immune response characterizations and patterns for individual tumor types, tumor subtypes, and immune subtypes. iAtlas supports computation and visualization of correlations and statistics among features related to the tumor microenvironment, cell composition, immune expression signatures, tumor mutation burden, cancer driver mutations, adaptive cell clonality, patient survival, expression of key immunomodulators, and tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) spatial maps. iAtlas was launched to accompany the release of the TCGA …

Persistent Reduction In The Age Adjusted Mortality Rate From Aortic Valve Surgery In The United State With Elimination Of Gender Gap In Recent Years., Mohammad Reza Movahed, Sara Etemad, Mehrnoosh Hashemzadeh, Mehrtash Hashemzadeh

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

BACKGROUND: Advancement in the surgical techniques should translate into better outcome. The goal of this study was to evaluate mortality trends from aortic valve surgery in the United State using large inpatient database.

METHOD: The Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database was used to calculate the age-adjusted mortality rate from aortic valve surgery from 1988 to 2011 in the United State using ICD-9 coding for aortic valve surgery.

RESULTS: We found that age adjusted mortality rate from aortic valve surgery gradually decreased from 1988 until end of study in 2011 to the lowest level with elimination of gender gap that was …

Modifications Of Recombinant Spider Silk Protein For Various Biomedical Applications, Pranothi Mulinti

Pharmacy

Silk is a natural protein produced by members of the class Arachnida (over 30,000 species of spiders) and by several worms. Silk-based materials have been investigated for medical and biotechnological applications for many years. Although silkworm silk has been studied extensively because of ready availability of the protein, lately the advancements in recombinant technology has made production of spider silk proteins increasingly available. Due to the characteristics like biocompatibility, biodegradability and mechanical strength, silk is highly desirable as a biomaterial for medical purpose. Along with this, techniques for functionalization, has further aided in the development of silk into highly sophisticated …

A Nano-Sized Approach To Exploiting The Pancreatic Tumor Microenvironment, Matthew Ian Confeld

Pharmacy

Making up just over 3% of all new cancer cases in the United States, pancreatic cancer is not inherently a common malignant disease. Yet, it continuously is shown to be one of the most lethal and common causes of cancer death. Early detection is critical among all cancer types. However, oncologists and researchers have struggled to find effective strategies or tests to detect cancer of the pancreas early on in development. Thus, the cancer is often found late stage and requires significant chemotherapy intervention. These multi-drug treatment cocktails have shown benefit, but only in added months and not years to …

Fitness And Management Of Site-Specific Fungicide Resistant Cercospora Beticola Isolates From Sugar Beet, Yangxi Liu

Plant Pathology

Cercospora leaf spot (CLS), caused by the fungal pathogen Cercospora beticola, is one of the most destructive foliar diseases on sugar beet. It severely affects productivity and profitability of the sugar beet industry. CLS is managed by using resistant cultivars, rotating with non-host crops, and applying effective fungicides in a timely manner. In North Dakota and Minnesota, site-specific fungicides, such as quinone outside inhibitors (QoIs) and demethylation inhibitors (DMIs), had been widely and extensively applied to control C. beticola which has developed resistances to these fungicides. The mycelial growth, spore production, spore germination, and aggressiveness of QoI and/or DMI resistant …

Plant-Parasitic Nematodes On Corn (Zea Mays L.) And Soybean (Glycine Max L.) In North Dakota, Intiaz Amin Chowdhury

Plant Pathology

Four studies were conducted to investigate plant-parasitic nematodes (PPN) of corn and soybean in ND. The first study investigated the incidence and abundance of vermiform PPN in ND corn fields in 2015 and 2016. Samples were collected from 300 corn fields across 20 counties. Seventy-two percent of the fields were positive for PPN. The major genera of PPN identified were Helicotylenchus, Tylenchorhynchus, Paratylenchus, Pratylenchus, Heterodera, Xiphinema, Hoplolaimus, and Paratrichodorus. The second study characterized SCN (SCN; Heterodera glycines) virulence phenotypes in ND. A total of 419 soybean fields across 22 counties were sampled during 2015, 2016, and 2017. Among these samples, …

Structure Modification To Enhance Pulse Protein Functions And Flavor Profile Opportunities In Saccharide Mediated Glycation Via Maillard-Driven Chemistry, Fengchao Zha

Plant Sciences

Owing to the combined characteristics of low allergens and lipids, as well as high versatility and abundance, eco-friendly pulse-based protein has served as a critical contender to supplement animal protein. The inferior solubility and off-flavor, however, place a practical restriction on its application. Glycation via Maillard-driven reaction is a potential green chemistry to modulate protein structure and functions. The various types of protein, saccharides with different molecular mass and structural characteristics, and two reaction systems (dry and wet heating) were applied to synthesize protein-saccharides conjugates. The aims were to investigate (i) the effect of glycation on functionalities and flavor of …

Improvement Of Organoleptic Attributes Of Yellow Pea Flour Through An Emerging Green Technology: Supercritical Carbon Dioxide + Ethanol Extraction, Serap Vatansever

Plant Sciences

An increasing demand for following healthier eating pattern has created a rapidly growing food market, including more nutrient dense and healthier plant-based foods. Nutrient-dense yellow pea flour is ideal for addressing these new-generation foods. However, its utilization in foods is limited due to its unpleasant flavor. Therefore, an eco-friendly deflavoring method has recently been found effective to improve sensory quality of pulse ingredients. Supercritical carbon dioxide + ethanol (SC-CO2+EtOH) extraction was applied as deflavoring method. The goals of this research were to evaluate (1) the applicability of this extraction at optimized conditions to reduce off-flavor compounds of pea flour, and …

Altering Grapevine Crop-Load And Canopy Architecture Through Cultural And Genetic Methods, Andrej William Svyantek

Plant Sciences

North Dakota's extremely short growing season leads to premature harvest of unripe, high acid grapes with atypical fruit chemistry. To combat the short growing season, grape growers utilize labor intensive grapevine canopy management practices to expose grape clusters to sunshine for enhanced ripening potential. This research examined leaf removal and shoot-thinning, two widely utilized canopy management practices, for their effect on fruit chemistry of two regionally important, cold-hardy grapevines, ‘Frontenac’ and ‘Marquette’. These management techniques were effective at altering fruit chemistry as measured by sugar; however, they are costly to employ commercially due to yield reduction and labor requirements. Furthermore, …

Characterization Of Genetic Resistance To Sclerotinia Sclerotiorum And Epidemiology Of The Disease In Brassica Napus L., Fereshteh Shahoveisi

Plant Sciences

This dissertation contains three research chapters conducted on Sclerotinia stem rot (SSR) of canola (Brassica napus L.). This disease is caused by the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and is considered endemic in canola-producing areas of North Dakota. The first research chapter presents results of a study that evaluated the role of eight phenotyping scoring systems and nine variant calling and filtering methods in detection of QTL associated with response to SSR. The study, conducted on two doubled-haploid mapping populations, showed that using multiple phenotypic data sets derived from lesion length and plant mortality and imputing missing genotypic data increased the number …

Transfer Of Fhb Resistance Genes Into Hard Red Winter Wheat, Venkata Rao Ganaparthi

Plant Sciences

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a serious foliar disease of hard red winter wheat (HRWW) in North Dakota. Disease resistance was identified as major component in disease management. First objective of this study is to transfer resistance QTL, Qfhb.rwg.5A.2 into HRWW germplasm. Second part of this study aims is to confirm FHB resistance of two-triticale-Th. distichum addition lines (W1450 and W1451) and attempt to bring acrocentric addition chromosome in W1450 into common wheat, and characterization of W1423X-3 progeny in search of true breed resistance genotype. Qfhb.rwg-5A.2 is transferred into three different populations, and haplotype consisting of three SNP close to …

Comparison Of Two Single Curtain And Two Double Curtain Trellis Systems With Marquette And Petite Pearl Wine Grapes, Ikbal Tatar

Plant Sciences

A field study was conducted to evaluate the influence of a trellis system, Genova double curtain (GDC), Scott Henry (SH), mid-wire that was vertical shoot positioned (VSP), and high wire cordon (HW), on fruit ripening and indirectly its influence on cold hardiness for cold-hardy, red wine grape cultivars, Marquette and Petite Pearl. In 2017, ‘Petite Pearl’ reached higher yields than ‘Marquette’, while VSP and SH trellis systems resulted in higher yields. However, in 2018, ‘Marquette’ had a greater yield than ‘Petite Pearl’. In 2019, 77.34% of ‘Marquette’ and 52.34% of ‘Petite Pearl’ had severe winter injury regardless of the trellis …

The Effect Of Salinity On Soil Microbial Community Structure, Mackenzie Lynn Ries

Soil Science

Soil salinity is a widespread problem that affects crop productivity. We expect that saline soils also have altered microbial community structure, soil food webs and related soil properties. To test this, we sampled field soils across four farms in eastern North Dakota that host salinity gradients. We evaluated microbial biomass carbon, phospholipid fatty acid analysis and nematode counts in moderately saline and low saline soils. Additionally, we measured soil properties that represent potential food sources and habitat characteristics that influence microbial communities. We found higher microbial group abundance in moderately saline soils than in the lower saline soils. In contrast, …

Can Soil Microbial Activity Be Improved With The Use Of Amendments?, Matthew Wayne Kruger

Soil Science

Low microbial activity and associated nutrient cycling are concerns in agricultural problem soils. The objectives of this study were to investigate microbial response on problem soils to amendments, drying-wetting cycles, and the interaction of amendments and drying-wetting cycles. In this laboratory study, soil carbon dioxide (CO2) flux was measured from thermal desorption treated soils and saline soils in response to Proganics, spent lime, and composted beef manure applications. Microbial activity was measured through CO2 flux and its rate of change, permanganate oxidizable C, and residual inorganic nitrogen. Proganics had the greatest ability to elevate and sustain microbial activity on problem …

Seeding Time And Interseeded Cover Crop Species Influence Sugarbeet Yield And Quality, Sailesh Sigdel

Soil Science

Field experiments were conducted to evaluate cover crop interseeding time and species effect on sugarbeet production during 2018 and 2019 growing seasons. Cover crops were first interseeded in June and second interseeding was done in late June or early July. Four cover crops species, Austrian pea (Pisum sativum L.), winter rye (Secale cereale L.), winter camelina [Camelina sativa (L.) Crantz], and brown mustard (Brassica juncea L.), were examined. First interseeding resulted in significantly higher cover crop biomass than second interseeding. In 2018, the highest recoverable sugar yield was observed with pea (13.9 Mg ha-1) and camelina (6.6 Mg ha-1) first-interseeded, …

Progressive Shifts In The Gut Microbiome Reflect Prediabetes And Diabetes Development In A Treatment-Naive Mexican Cohort., Christian Diener, María De Lourdes Reyes-Escogido, Lilia M Jimenez-Ceja, Mariana Matus, Claudia M Gomez-Navarro, Nathaniel D Chu, Vivian Zhong, M Elizabeth Tejero, Eric Alm, Osbaldo Resendis-Antonio, Rodolfo Guardado-Mendoza

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a global epidemic that affects more than 8% of the world's population and is a leading cause of death in Mexico. Diet and lifestyle are known to contribute to the onset of T2D. However, the role of the gut microbiome in T2D progression remains uncertain. Associations between microbiome composition and diabetes are confounded by medication use, diet, and obesity. Here we present data on a treatment-naive cohort of 405 Mexican individuals across varying stages of T2D severity. Associations between gut bacteria and more than 200 clinical variables revealed a defined set of bacterial genera that …

Proposed Methods For The Nondecreasing Order-Restricted Alternative In A Mixed Design, Badr Suliman Alnssyan

Statistics

Nonparametric statistics are commonly used in the field of statistics due to their robustness when the underlying assumptions are violated for the usual parametric statistics. In this dissertation, we proposed eight nonparametric methods to test for nondecreasing ordered alternative for a mixed design consisting of a combination of completely randomized design (CRD) and randomized complete block design (RCBD). There were four nonparametric tests, based on the Jonckheere-Terpstra test and modifications of it, employed to propose these nonparametric methods. A Monte Carlo simulation study was conducted using SAS program to investigate the performance of the proposed tests under a variety of …

The Effects Of Traditional Gender Norms On The Fate Of Girls' Education In Tajikistan, Parvina Yakubova

Sociology and Anthropology

Tajikistan is the only post-Soviet republic that went through a civil war after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which negatively impacted all aspects of the country as well as education, particularly girls’ education. The limitations on Tajik girls’ education are due to economics and gender norms that are critical factors. This paper highlights the girls’ education condition in the period from 1995 to 2019, which is the post-war period, in the capital city, Dushanbe, and rural areas of the country. The review answered why girls most likely choose family life (marriage and children) rather than pursuing higher education in …

Sex Moderates The Relationship That Number Of Professional Fights Has With Cognition And Brain Volumes., Lauren L Bennett, Steve J Stephen, Charles Bernick, Guogen Shan, Sarah J Banks

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Objective: Incidence of concussions and report of symptoms are greater among women across sports. While structural brain changes and cognitive declines are associated with repetitive head impact (RHI), the role of sex is not well-understood. This study aimed to determine if there is a moderating effect of sex on the relationship the number of professional fights has with cognitive functioning and regional brain volumes in a cohort of boxers, mixed martial artists, and martial artists. Methods: A total of 55 women were matched with 55 men based on age, years of education, ethnicity, and fighting style. Cognition was assessed via …

Intense Emotion Reactions Predict Enhanced Well-Being And Adaptive Choices, Robert John Klein

Psychology

Existing evidence has linked individual differences in emotion reaction intensity to both enhanced and decreased psychological well-being. We propose that this contradiction is related to methodological shortcomings in some existing research. We present a novel emotion reactivity task capable of addressing these methodological shortcomings by continuously measuring the subjective intensity of individual emotion episodes with high temporal resolution. Four studies were conducted (total n = 499). In Studies 1, 2, and 4, participants continuously reported their emotions while viewing objectively pleasant or unpleasant images. Thousands of reaction intensities were coded using algorithms developed for this purpose. We expected that people …

Psychological Stress, Stress Reactivity And Blood Glucose Metabolization During Pregnancy, Anna Marie Strahm

Psychology

Gestational diabetes mellitus impacts between 3-10% of pregnancies, and increases the risk of pregnancy complications and lifelong health effects for mother and child (Bellamy, Casas, Hingorani, & Williams, 2009; Ross, 2006; Ryser Rüetschi et al., 2016). About half of cases occur without an evident risk factor (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), 1994; Dode & Santos, 2009). The present study was designed to examine possible psychophysiological connections linking psychological stress and stress reactivity, the magnitude of an individual’s response to stress, to blood sugar metabolization during mid-pregnancy between 24-28 weeks gestation. Participants were recruited from Sanford Health in Fargo, …

Triggering Receptor Expressed On Myeloid Cell 2 R47h Exacerbates Immune Response In Alzheimer's Disease Brain., Olena Korvatska, Kostantin Kiianitsa, Alexander Ratushny, Mark Matsushita, Neal Beeman, Wei-Ming Chien, Jun-Ichi Satoh, Michael O Dorschner, C Dirk Keene, Theo K Bammler, Thomas D Bird, Wendy H Raskind

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

The R47H variant in the microglial triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cell 2 (TREM2) receptor is a strong risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). To characterize processes affected by R47H, we performed an integrative network analysis of genes expressed in brains of AD patients with R47H, sporadic AD without the variant, and patients with polycystic lipomembranous osteodysplasia with sclerosing leukoencephalopathy (PLOSL), systemic disease with early-onset dementia caused by loss-of-function mutations in TREM2 or its adaptor TYRO protein tyrosine kinase-binding protein (TYROBP). Although sporadic AD had few perturbed microglial and immune genes, TREM2 R47H AD demonstrated upregulation of interferon type I …