Digital Commons Network^™

A Resource For Understanding And Evaluating Outcomes Of Undergraduate Field Experiences, Erin E. Shortlidge, Alison Jolley, Stephanie Shaulskiy, Emily Geraghty Ward, Christopher N. Lorentz, Kari O'Connell

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Undergraduate field experiences (UFEs) are a prominent element of science education across many disciplines; however, empirical data regarding the outcomes are often limited. UFEs are unique in that they typically take place in a field setting, are often interdisciplinary, and include diverse students. UFEs range from courses, to field trips, to residential research experiences, and thereby have the potential to yield a plethora of outcomes for undergraduate participants. The UFE community has expressed interest in better understanding how to assess the outcomes of UFEs. In response, we developed a guide for practitioners to use when assessing their UFE that promotes …

“Who We Are On Paper”: Celebrating Writing Identity And Diversity With High School Seniors In A Dialogic Ela Classroom, Karen Larson Buechner

Theses & Dissertations

Grounded in theory that views language and writing as inextricable from the social event within which it occurs, the purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore how the dialogue produced within the context of a detracked English Language Arts (ELA) classroom contributed to students’ perceptions of their writing identity. The class consisted of a racially, socioeconomically, and academically diverse group of 12th-grade students enrolled in a suburban, public high school. Findings illustrated that writing identity was enacted through multiple iterations of literacy processes embedded in a curriculum that was culturally responsive and implemented through dialogic methods. The analysis of …

Signal Processing Capacity Of The Cellular Sensory Machinery Regulates The Accuracy Of Chemotaxis Under Complex Cues, Hye-Ran Moon, Soutick Saha, Andrew Mugler, Bumsoo Han

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

Chemotaxis is ubiquitous in many biological processes, but it still remains elusive how cells sense and decipher multiple chemical cues. In this study, we postulate a hypothesis that the chemotactic performance of cells under complex cues is regulated by the signal processing capacity of the cellular sensory machinery. The underlying rationale is that cells in vivo should be able to sense and process multiple chemical cues, whose magnitude and compositions are entangled, to determine their migration direction. We experimentally show that the combination of transforming growth factor-β and epidermal growth factor suppresses the chemotactic performance of cancer cells using independent …

Insects And Their Laboulbeniales (Ascomycota, Fungi) Of Lake Eustis And Emeralda Marsh Conservation Area: A Case Study On Urbanization And Diversity, Patricia J. Kaishian

Purdue University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund

A rapid biodiversity assessment of insects and associated Laboulbeniales fungi was conducted over the course of five nights in August, 2018, at two central Florida lakes: Lake Eustis and the nearby protected and restored National Natural Landmark, Emeralda Marsh Conservation Area (EMCA), which encompasses a portion of Lake Griffin. Lake Eustis was surveyed for Laboulbeniales in 1897 by mycologist Dr. Roland Thaxter but has not since been investigated. Because Lake Eustis has been urbanized, with the lake perimeter almost entirely altered by human development, the site offers a look into Laboulbeniales diversity across a 121-year timeline, before and after human …

Stabilin Receptors Clear Lps And Control Systemic Inflammation, Fatima Cabral, Mustafa Al-Rahem, John Skaggs, Thushara A. Thomas, Naresh Kumar, Qian Wu, Paolo Fadda, Lianbo Yu, John M. Robinson, Jonghan Kim, Ekta Pandey, Xinghui Sun, Wael N. Jarjour, Murugesan V.S. Rajaram, Edward N. Harris, Latha P. Ganesan

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) cause lethal endotoxemia if not rapidly cleared from blood circulation. Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSEC) systemically clear LPS by unknown mechanisms. We discovered that LPS clearance through LSEC involves endocytosis and lysosomal inactivation via Stabilin-1 and 2 (Stab1 and Stab2) but does not involve TLR4. Cytokine production was inversely related to clearance/endocytosis of LPS by LSEC. When exposed to LPS, Stabilin double knockout mice (Stab DK) and Stab1 KO, but not Stab2 KO, showed significantly enhanced systemic inflammatory cytokine production and early death compared with WT mice. Stab1 KO is not significantly different from Stab DK in circulatory …

Enhancing Student Learning Of Global Warming Through Reflective Writing, Liang Zeng, Guang Zeng

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

The National Academy of Science has published studies showing strong scientific evidence that global warming is caused by human consumption of fossil fuels, yet recent surveys have shown young adults in the U.S. are disengaged or disagree with this fact. Accordingly, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published learning objectives to educate the world population on global warming and renewable energy by 2030. In this paper, we introduce a reflective writing activity physics educators can employ to foster a deeper understanding of global warming in introductory college physics and physical science courses, without overloading their teaching time.

Bioengineered Models To Study Microenvironmental Regulation Of Glioblastoma Metabolism, Joseph Chen, Hyunchul Lee, Philipp Schmitt, Caleb J. Choy, Donald M. Miller, Brian J. Williams, Elaine L. Bearer, Hermann B. Frieboes

Pathology Research and Scholarship

Despite extensive research and aggressive therapies, glioblastoma (GBM) remains a central nervous system malignancy with poor prognosis. The varied histopathology of GBM suggests a landscape of differing microenvironments and clonal expansions, which may influence metabolism, driving tumor progression. Indeed, GBM metabolic plasticity in response to differing nutrient supply within these microenvironments has emerged as a key driver of aggressiveness. Additionally, emergent biophysical and biochemical interactions in the tumor microenvironment (TME) are offering new perspectives on GBM metabolism. Perivascular and hypoxic niches exert crucial roles in tumor maintenance and progression, facilitating metabolic relationships between stromal and tumor cells. Alterations in extracellular …

The Language Of Creativity: Validating Linguistic Analysis To Assess Creative Scientists And Artists, Sana Tariq Ahmed, Gregory J. Feist

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to be among the first attempts to validate linguistic analysis as a method of creativity assessment and second, to differentiate between individuals in varying scientific and artistic creativity levels using personality language patterns. Creativity is most commonly assessed through methods such as questionnaires and specific tasks, the validity of which can be weakened by scorer or experimenter error, subjective and response biases, and self-knowledge constraints. Linguistic analysis may provide researchers with an automatic, objective method of assessing creativity, and free from human error and bias. The current study used 419 creativity text …

Remote Sensing And Gis Integration For Amazon Rainforest Wildfires Applications, Cong Ma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Known as the “Lung of the world”, the Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% of the oxygen of the world, which was originally a carbon pool for mitigating climate change, but in recent years it has become a significant carbon emitter due to wildfires. In 2019, a large-scale fire occurred in the Amazon rainforest, causing serious damage to the ecosystem and to humans as well. Therefore, managing wildfires effectively has become an urgent task for fire authorities. This thesis tried to incorporate spatial analysis and spatial statistics approaches to study wildfire from two aspects, namely the temporal and spatial distribution …

Uncertainty Quantification In Deep And Statistical Learning With Applications In Bio-Medical Image Analysis, K. Ruwani M. Fernando

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deep Learning (DL) has achieved the state-of-the-art performance across a broad spectrum oftasks. From a statistical standpoint, deep neural networks can be construed as universal function approximators. Although statistical modeling and deep learning methods are well-established as independent areas of research, hybridization of the two paradigms via probabilistic deep networks is an emerging trend. Through development of novel analytical methods under the statistical and deep-learning framework, we address some of the major challenges encountered in the design of intelligent systems which include class imbalance learning, probability calibration, uncertainty quantification and high dimensionality. When modeling rare events, existing methodologies require re-sampling …

Endophytic Colonisation Of Solanum Lycopersicum And Phaseolus Vulgaris By Fungal Endophytes Promotes Seedlings Growth And Hampers The Reproductive Traits, Development, And Survival Of The Greenhouse Whitefly, Trialeurodes Vaporariorum, Vongai M. Paradza, Fathiya M. Khamis, Abdullahi A. Yusuf, Sevgan Subramanian, Sunday Ekesi, Komivi S. Akutse

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

In the scope of mitigating the negative impacts of pesticide use and managing greenhouse whiteflies, Trialeurodes vaporariorum sustainably, 16 endophytic fungal isolates from five different genera (Beauveria, Trichoderma, Hypocrea, Bionectria, and Fusarium) were screened for their ability to colonise two preferred host plant species, namely, tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) and French bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.), through seed inoculation. Seven and nine isolates were endophytic to P. vulgaris and S. lycopersicum, respectively, where significant differences in the endophytic colonisation rates were observed among the fungal isolates in P. vulgaris and its plant parts, with a significant interaction between the isolates and …

Development Of A Near-Infrared Fluorescent Daratumumab-Based Drug Conjugate For Targeted Imaging And Therapy In Preclinical Multiple Myeloma, Nicholas Cho

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Multiple myeloma (MM) is a debilitating hematologic malignancy of terminally differentiated plasma cells in the bone marrow (BM). Daratumumab (DARA) is an FDA-approved high-affinity monoclonal antibody targeting CD38 that has shown promising therapeutic efficacy in relapsed and refractory MM. Despite the well-established clinical efficacy of DARA, not all heavily pretreated patients respond to DARA monotherapy, and the majority of patients who initially respond eventually progress. This may be due to upregulation of pathways that inhibit DARA-mediated tumor killing. Antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) combine the highly targeted tumor antigen recognition of antibodies with cell killing properties of chemotherapy for effective internalization …

Metabolic Adaptation To The Chronic Loss Of Ca 2+ Signaling Induced By Ko Of Ip 3 Receptors Or The Mitochondrial Ca 2+ Uniporter, Michael P. Young, Zachary T Schug, David M. Booth, David I Yule, Katsuhiko Mikoshiba, György Hajnóczky, Suresh K Joseph

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Calcium signaling is essential for regulating many biological processes. Endoplasmic reticulum inositol trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs) and the mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter (MCU) are key proteins that regulate intracellular Ca2+ concentration. Mitochondrial Ca2+ accumulation activates Ca2+-sensitive dehydrogenases of the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle that maintain the biosynthetic and bioenergetic needs of both normal and cancer cells. However, the interplay between calcium signaling and metabolism is not well understood. In this study, we used human cancer cell lines (HEK293 and HeLa) with stable KOs of all three IP3R isoforms (triple KO [TKO]) or MCU to examine metabolic and bioenergetic responses to the chronic …

Web Excerpt Analysis: In The Context Of Gujarat State, Dr. Rakesh D. Parmar, Mahesh M. Nandaniya

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The current analysis looks at the accessibility of web excerpts at academic writing presentation of Library and Information Science and Communication and Media Studies with regards to Gujarat and India. The current writing presentations were examined dependent on their publication from Gujarat. The excerpt styles were checked for their confirmation and accessibility. Further, the lexical highlights of URL like document expansion, way profundity, character length and the high level space were resolved. The discoveries of the analysis will be useful to creators, distributes and writing presentation staff to guarantee that web excerpts will be available at future.

A Community-Based Management Of Covid-19 In A Mobile Container Unit, Elena Petrova, Timothy Farinholt, Tejas P Joshi, Hannah Moreno, Mayar Al Mohajer, Shital M Patel, Joseph Petrosino, Sharmila Anandasabapathy

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Vaccine uptake is a multifactor measure of successful immunization outcomes that includes access to healthcare and vaccine hesitancy for both healthcare workers and communities. The present coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the need for novel strategies to expand vaccine coverage in underserved regions. Mobile clinics hold the promise of ameliorating such inequities, although there is a paucity of studies that validate environmental infection in such facilities. Here, we describe community-based management of COVID-19 through a Smart Pod mobile clinic deployed in an underserved community area in the United States (Aldine, Harris County, TX, USA). In particular, we validate infection …

Phylogenetic Grouping By Pcr Analyses Of Sinorhizobium Meliloti Strains Isolated From Eutrophic Soil, W. S. Oliveira, P. P. A. Oliveira, C. M. Bellato, F. R. S. Duarte, S. M. Tsai

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

This study evaluated the ability of Sinorhizobium meliloti strains (SEMIA-116, SEMIA- 134 and SEMIA-135) to persist in eutrophic soils after three complete growing cycles of alfalfa. PCR fingerprinting using primers for the nifH, Eric, Rep, RP genes and P25 RAPD-PCR performed the phylogenetic grouping of the three commercial strains and 39 field isolates. These analyzes were sufficiently sensitive to discriminate and group the strains and isolate. Our preliminary studies were based upon Eric primers and RP01 RAPD-PCR.

Achievements And Perspectives In The Breeding Of Temperate Grasses And Legumes, Kenneth H. Quesenberry, M. D. Casler

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

This paper will focus on a historical perspective on cool season forage production, plant breeding methods for cool season forages, major cool season forage selection criteria, some examples of significant achievements, and a future perspective. Topics similar to ours have been discussed at recent previous meeting of this Congress (Humphreys, 1997; Van Wijk et al., 1993); however, we will strive to avoid “plowing the same ground twice”. In an attempt to prevent duplication of content with other sections of this Congress, only limited attention will be given to genetic resource acquisition and conservation. Additionally, alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), one …

Achievements And Perspectives In The Breeding Of Tropical Grasses And Legumes, John W. Miles

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Pasture and forage plant breeding is complicated by the perennial nature of the plants, the diversity of environments in which improved cultivars will be used, and the complex criteria of merit involved, criteria that necessarily include some measure of impact on the efficiency of animal production. While pasture plant breeding in the temperate zone is a demonstrably productive activity, the record of success for the tropical species -- "success" measured by release and adoption of bred cultivars -- is less convincing, in spite of four decades of activity in numerous public sector breeding programs and a large published literature. The …

Tropical Forage Genetic Resources -- Will Any Be Left For Future Generations?, B. L. Maass, B. C. Pengelly

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

After very active years of pasture and forage research at major institutes, interest in tropical forage genetic resources has drastically declined. Apparently, the early phases of collecting and evaluation were much more valued than conserving and keeping the germplasm available for future generations. Accumulated data are not easily accessible and, therefore, the knowledge of tropical forage genetic resources is progressively being lost. This worldwide decrease in activity and loss of knowledge is due to declining resources. It is suggested that a global database on tropical forage genetic resources should be established and also that finances be made available to at …

Competition Of 35 Cultivars Of Alfalfa At Sertãozinho-Sp, Ana C. Ruggieri, A. Schmidek, A. R. P. Almeida, L. A. Figueiredo, Alda L. G. Monteiro, M. F. L. Muñoz

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Thirty-five cultivars of alfalfa were evaluated at EE de Zootecnia in Sertãozinho,SP, Brazil. During four years, the plants were harvested to determine dry matter yield on total and individual cuts. A completely randomized block design with three replications was used, and data were analyzed by groups of origin and dormancy degree. There were significant differences (P< 0.05) among the cultivars regarding their dormancy degree, however no differences (P> 0.05) were observed regarding their origin. Cultivars with 8 and 9 dormancy degree showed better performance during the four year trial when compared to 7 degree, although some of the 9 degree cultivars resulted in low yield. The origin of cultivars did not influence …

Adaptability And Stability Of Alfalfa Cultivars, Ana C. Ruggieri, Alda L. G. Monteiro, R. Gualberto

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Yield adaptability and stability of thirty five alfalfa genotypes (Medicago sativa L.) were evaluated at Sertãozinho, SP, Brazil, considering different environments (seasons of year) from 1996 to 1999. A randomized complete block design with three replications was used. Scott-Knott’s test was performed to compare genotypes averages. Adaptability and stability were determined by Eberhart and Russell's procedures. Two diverse groups of genotypes with mean dry matter yield were identified: Araucana, F686, MH4 e BR2 were more responsive under favorable environments, but SW 8210, Alto, Monarca SP, Victoria SP, Florida 77, P5888, MH15, BR1, BR3, SW 9210A presented broad adaptability and …

Translational Nano-Medicine: Targeted Therapeutic Delivery For Pain, Cancer And Inflammatory Diseases, Mansoor Amiji

Amgen Seminar Series in Chemical Engineering

Tremendous advances in molecular and personalized medicine also present challenges for translation of innovative experimental approaches into clinically relevant strategies. To overcome some of these challenges, nanotechnology offers interesting solutions for disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. For many systemic diseases, overcoming biological barriers and target specific delivery are the key challenges. Additionally, newer generations of molecular therapies, such as gene therapy, oligonucleotides, and RNA interference (RNAi) require robust and highly specific intracellular delivery strategies for effective and clinically meaningful therapeutic outcomes. In this presentation, I will cover several of our approaches for development of multifunctional engineered nano-systems for targeted therapies …

A Comparative Study On The Rhetorical Moves Of Abstracts In Published Research Articles And Egyptian Master's Theses In Applied Linguistics, Ahmed Awwaad Ibrahim Awwaad

Archived Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Media, Colby College

Colby Magazine

No abstract provided.

Shorter Takes (Short Form), Colby College

Colby Magazine

No abstract provided.

One Step At A Time: Robotics Lab Team Combines Talents In Quest For The Perfect Synthetic Tendon, Laura Meader

Colby Magazine

When Caitrin Eaton arrived at Colby a year ago, she named her new robotics lab C3PO. The name grabs students’ attention, but they’re drawn to the lab for another reason: Eaton’s cutting-edge research unites engineering and animal physiology to help robots walk more smoothly than Hollywood’s stiff-legged C-3PO robot.

Full Issue, Colby College

Colby Magazine

Colby Magazine vol. 106, no.3 (Fall 2018): full issue

Earthworm And Soil Data For Ottawa National Forest, Blair Orr

Michigan Tech Research Data

Two types of analysis were run.

I. Probability of finding L. terrestris in habitat types of the Ottawa National Forests.

Abstract: Parts of the Ottawa National Forest (ONF) provide suitable habitat for invasive earthworms. Extensive earthworm invasion is a relatively recent event on the ONF and this study captures the current state of the earthworm invasion through a four-stage invasive species distribution model (iSDM). The random distribution of earthworms indicates early colonization by earthworms which is moderated by habitat (forest type, soil group, and drainage class). CART modeling was used to determine probability of earthworm invasion. The CART model had …

Conquer And Prevail Issue 89 November 18 2021, Wofford College. Office Of Marketing And Communications

Conquer and Prevail Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Medical School Watercooler Newsletter - November 18, 2021, Lindsey Lyle

Watercooler Newsletter

This is the November 18, 2021 edition of the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine's newsletter - Watercooler.

Contents include:

• Medical student chosen for national AAMC advisory task force
• Foot and ankle surgeon joins Department of Orthopaedic Surgery
• Video online: 'Skull Base Neurosurgery and Brain Tumors'
• Nicotine weakens immune system, USA researchers find