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Coffit: An Interaction Design Project For Remote Employees To Enjoy Casual Talks And Interact With Each Other In A Virtual Environment, Yifei (Effie) Wang

Theses

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has changed a portion of people’s way of living and forced a radical shift in working habits. Due to restrictions of non-essential travel and the need for social distancing, many companies have adopted a work-from-home policy for their employees; with some even allowing it to be a permanent move. The policy creates a number of benefits such as increased productivity, reduced commuting time costs, attracting the best talent from any location, and more. And yet challenges have appeared. Long-term remote workers frequently experience feelings of loneliness and isolation, as well as a decline in …

Exoskeletal Predator Defenses Of Juvenile California Spiny Lobsters (Panulirus Interruptus) Are Affected By Fluctuating Ocean Acidification-Like Conditions, Kaitlyn B. Lowder, Maya S. Devries, Ruan Hattingh, James M.D. Day, Andreas J. Andersson, Phillip J. Zerofski, Jennifer R.A. Taylor

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Spiny lobsters rely on multiple biomineralized exoskeletal predator defenses that may be sensitive to ocean acidification (OA). Compromised mechanical integrity of these defensive structures may tilt predator-prey outcomes, leading to increased mortality in the lobsters’ environment. Here, we tested the effects of OA-like conditions on the mechanical integrity of selected exoskeletal defenses of juvenile California spiny lobster, Panulirus interruptus. Young spiny lobsters reside in kelp forests with dynamic carbonate chemistry due to local metabolism and photosynthesis as well as seasonal upwelling, yielding daily and seasonal fluctuations in pH. Lobsters were exposed to a series of stable and diurnally fluctuating reduced …

Estimating Age In Mule Deer: Accuracy And Influence On Reproduction, Morgan S. Hinton

Theses and Dissertations

Accurate estimates of parameters and demographic rates of wildlife populations are crucial to management and conservation. One parameter of interest is age because it influences multiple demographic rates and behaviors including reproduction, dispersal, migration, and disease transmission. There are a number of methods used to estimate ages of wildlife. One of the most common methods used for mammals is evaluation of patterns in dental eruption and tooth wear. In the first chapter, we evaluate the accuracy associated with estimates of age from dental eruption and patterns of tooth wear for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). In the second chapter, we use …

Heavy Metal Distribution Across Three Georgia Estuaries Using Coastal Sharks As Sentinel Species, Allyson Stiles

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

Estuaries are transitional environments that play key roles in coastal ecosystem functioning by providing essential habitats to ecologically important plant and animal species. Estuaries are exposed to a number of anthropogenic impacts, including heavy metal contamination from human activities. However, few studies have examined heavy metal distribution within Georgia’s estuaries and how intact salt marsh ecosystems could play a role in filtering and sequestering contaminants, such as Mercury (Hg). This thesis examined blood total mercury (THg) concentrations of four coastal shark species and concentrations of five heavy metals (Hg, As, Cr, Cu, and Pb) within the water and sediments of …

Increasing Diverse Literature In Early Elementary Classrooms Through Professional Learning Communities, Abigail Marie Williamson

Masters Projects

There is a need for teachers to include high quality diverse texts into their classrooms, especially in the classroom library. The purpose of this project is to provide Kindergarten through Second Grade teachers with access to diverse literature that can be utilized in classroom read alouds as well as added to classroom libraries to help young students establish their identity as readers. Participating in a year long Professional Learning Community about diverse texts will help teachers develop the necessary knowledge and skills to begin to build their foundation for utilizing and including diverse texts in their classrooms through discussion and …

2022-08-04 Agenda Book, Morehead State University. Board Of Regents.

Morehead State Board of Regents Agenda Books and Meeting Minutes

Agenda booklet for the Board of Regents meeting of August 4, 2022 which includes the meeting minutes of the meeting held on June 16, 2022.

The Developmental Trajectories Of Children’S Reorientation To Global And Local Properties Of Environmental Geometry, Matthew G. Buckley, Luke J. Holden, Alastair D. Smith, Mark Haselgrove

School of Psychology

The way in which organisms represent the shape of their environments during navigation has been debated in cognitive, comparative, and developmental psychology. While there is evidence that adult humans encode the entire boundary shape of an environment (a global-shape representation), there are also data demonstrating that organisms reorient using only segments of the boundary that signal a goal location (a local-shape representation). Developmental studies offer unique insights into this debate; however, most studies have used designs that cannot dissociate the type of boundary-shape representation that children use to guide reorientation. Thus, we examined the developmental trajectories of children's reorientation according …

Bittersweet Experiences For Brazilian Newcomers: Positive Interactions, Microaggressions, And Isolation In English-Only And Dual Language Bilingual Education Programs, Rose Renee Whitney

Theses and Dissertations

With the rise of the number of immigrant children in schools across the U.S., education research has directed its attention to understanding these newcomers' social experiences at school. Though Brazilian immigrant populations are growing, research on their unique social experiences remains limited. Grounded in critical sociocultural theory, this interpretive phenomenological study shares the social experiences of four Brazilian newcomers in elementary school. Participants were adolescents who had immigrated to the U.S. as children and attended English-only and/or Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) programs. As adolescents, participants were able to look back on their experiences as a newcomer in elementary school …

Glycan Shield Of The Ebolavirus Envelope Glycoprotein Gp, Weiwei Peng, Vamseedhar Rayaprolu, Amar D Parvate, Matti F Pronker, Sean Hui, Diptiben Parekh, Kelly Shaffer, Xiaoying Yu, Erica O Saphire, Joost Snijder

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The envelope glycoprotein GP of the ebolaviruses is essential for host cell entry and the primary target of the host antibody response. GP is heavily glycosylated with up to 17 N-linked sites, numerous O-linked glycans in its disordered mucin-like domain (MLD), and three predicted C-linked mannosylation sites. Glycosylation is important for host cell attachment, GP stability and fusion activity, and shielding from neutralization by serum antibodies. Here, we use glycoproteomics to profile the site-specific glycosylation patterns of ebolavirus GP. We detect up to 16 unique O-linked glycosylation sites in the MLD, and two O-linked sites in the receptor-binding GP1 subunit. …

Anticipating Infection: How Parasitism Risk Changes Animal Physiology, Patricia C. Lopes

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

1. Uninfected animals can attempt to prevent parasitism in many ways. Behavioural avoidance of parasitized conspecifics, for instance, is documented in several species.
2. Interactions with parasitized conspecifics can also, however, lead to physiological changes in uninfected animals, an effect that is much less well studied, and consequently, less well understood. The way in which exposure to parasitism risk changes the physiology of uninfected animals and the impacts of those changes on animal fitness remain a significant gap in knowledge.
3. Determining how the disease environment experienced by animals impacts their physiology, survival and reproduction has major implications for our knowledge of how …

Hepatic Transcript Signatures Predict Atherosclerotic Lesion Burden Prior To A 2-Year High Cholesterol, High Fat Diet Challenge, Sobha Puppala, Kimberly D. Spradling-Reeves, Jeannie Chan, Shifra Birnbaum, Deborah E. Newman, Anthony G. Comuzzie, Michael Mahaney, John L. Vandeberg, Michael Olivier, Laura Cox

School of Medicine Publications

The purpose of this study was to identify molecular mechanisms by which the liver influences total lesion burden in a nonhuman primate model (NHP) of cardiovascular disease with acute and chronic feeding of a high cholesterol, high fat (HCHF) diet. Baboons (47 females, 64 males) were fed a HCHF diet for 2 years (y); liver biopsies were collected at baseline, 7 weeks (w) and 2y, and lesions were quantified in aortic arch, descending aorta, and common iliac at 2y. Unbiased weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) revealed several modules of hepatic genes correlated with lesions at different time points of …

Measuring The Effect Of Itpp On Tumor Hypoxia With Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography, Ashley K. Shin, Caroline E. Robins, Renee L. Chin, Mark D. Pagel

Summer Experience 2022

No abstract provided.

Agent-Based Models For Climate Change Adaptation In Coastal Zones. A Review, Ilenia Di Noia

Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei Working Papers

Worldwide, with different frequencies and magnitudes, coastlines are increasingly being affected by climate change hazards. The high urbanization rate, due to economic opportunities and natural amenities, further exacerbates vulnerabilities in these areas, requiring prompt and effective adaptation to climate induced events –from gradual sea level rise to abrupt storms and floods. The ability of different actors (households, firms, financial entities and Government) to cope with such events can be addressed and studied through the use of agent-based models, which allow for an heterogeneous treatment of agents’ behaviour, from individual risk perceptions’ modelling to decision-making rules on the adaptation option to …

An Exploration Of Rock-Climbing Based Counseling Interventions, Leeann Wilcox

Counselor Education Capstones

Rock-climbing can be successfully combined with counseling interventions and may be healing for a variety of mental health concerns. This review identifies several areas in mental health counseling which can be addressed by adding rock-climbing-based counseling interventions. These include depression, trauma, building self-efficacy, and providing skills practice. These two fields fill important gaps in each other’s shortcomings. Rock climbing offers what counseling lacks in the form of a body focused physical activity aspect of intervention. In a similar way, counseling offers a code of ethics, multicultural focus, and an emphasis on the best interest of clients to an activity which …

A Typology Of Foster Home Quality Elements In Relation To Foster Youth Mental Health, Paul Sorenson

Dissertations and Theses

Foster care has been one of the primary interventions in society's efforts to address child maltreatment. The foster parents and foster homes follow a process of certification intended to ensure that maltreated children be placed in substitute care that supports and encourages positive outcomes. One of the outcomes of principle concern is mental health. Few studies have been conducted that explore the makeup of certified foster homes with respect to the cumulative impact of multiple indicators of quality on mental health outcomes of foster youth.

This study sought to identify a typology of foster homes based on theorized indicators of …

How Federal Pollution Discharge Permits Affect U.S. Water Quality: A Study On Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations, Cloe C. Mueller

Theses and Dissertations

This paper uses difference-in-difference regression models to examine how state-level pollution discharge permits on concentrated animal feeding operations affect U.S. water quality. I ultimately deem the permitting to be ineffective at improving water quality, calling attention to the need to re-evaluate the ``socially optimal level of pollution."

A New Spin On The Bacterial Flagellum: Its Normal Niche And Displacement, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Antoni van Leeuwenhoek observed individual living cells for the first time in history in 1674. Two years later, he noted microbes with long, thin appendages protruding from globular cells that seemed to provide locomotion, like “little feet” as they moved in drops of water. He gave credit to God in his writings over these new moving wonders. These appendages are now known as flagella (fig. 1), meaning “little whips” (from Latin).

More than 300 years later, Dr. Michael J. Behe used the flagellum and its nanomotor to introduce the concept of “irreducible complexity”—the idea that a structure is so complex …

Genetic Freedom Of The Seas In The Age Of Extractivism: Marine Genetic Resources In Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, Irus Braverman

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 4 in Laws of the Sea: Interdisciplinary Currents, Irus Braverman, ed.

Areas beyond national jurisdiction are the largest environment on earth and marine genetic resources are its new, and perhaps final, frontier. It is no wonder, then, that the scope and protection of marine genetic resources in this oceanic space have been hotly contested and that a new doctrine for ocean governance has been coined in this context: mare geneticum. This chapter examines different definitions of marine genetic resources debated in the ongoing treaty negotiations over areas beyond national jurisdiction (the BBNJ), the conflicting interests involved, and …

Zaagtoonaa Nibi (We Love The Water): Anishinaabe Community-Led Research On Water Governance And Protection, Nicole Latulippe, Deborah Mcgregor

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper presents Indigenous community-led, collaborative, and community-engaged water governance research with a First Nations community in the Georgian Bay and Lake Huron region in northeastern Ontario, Canada. The methodology draws on Indigenous approaches to understanding and developing knowledge and is designed to build community capacity in research and in water protection and governance. This approach recognizes existing community strengths, including traditional knowledge, experiences, perspectives, and associated cultural perspectives and values, laws, responsibilities and lived experience in relation to water. Results identify and contextualize community-held responsibilities and legal principles pertaining to water that support culturally relevant water governance and strategic …

The Effects Of Polymorphisms Of Viral Protein R Of Hiv-1 On The Induction Of Apoptosis In Primary Cells And The Characterization Of Twelve Novel Bacillus Anthracis Bacteriophage, Jacob D. Fairholm

Theses and Dissertations

Viral protein r (Vpr) of Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) plays an important role in the ability of the virus to infect cells and cause disease. Two polymorphisms to Vpr have been shown to result in differences in disease progression in infected individuals. R36W tends to result in rapid disease progression while R77Q results in long-term non-progression. In order to better understand how these polymorphisms result in these different disease phenotypes, our lab has recently shown that in cell culture, the R36W polymorphism results in increased viral replication and greater induction of cell death. On the other hand, infection …

Catharanthine Modulates Mesolimbic Dopamine Transmission: A Potential Treatment For Alcohol Use Disorder, Benjamin M. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Catharanthine is derived from the Catharanthus roseus plant and is an analog to ibogaine, a drug that reduces opioid and alcohol withdrawal symptoms and decreases drug self-administration in both animals and humans. Catharanthine has promise to be an alternative pharmacological treatment for addiction without the adverse side effects associated with ibogaine. The objective of this study was to evaluate catharanthine’s effects on dopamine (DA) transmission in the mesolimbic DA system as well as determine its effects on both ethanol withdrawal induced anxiety and drug-seeking behaviors in mice. We hypothesized that catharanthine would inhibit evoked DA release in the nucleus accumbens …

A Comprehensive Phylogeny Of Stick And Leaf Insects (Insecta: Phasmatodea) Reveals Widespread Taxonomic Incongruence, Jackson B. Linde

Theses and Dissertations

Stick and leaf insects (Insecta: Phasmatodea) are a mesodiverse order of insects distributed across the world. These masters of masquerade crypsis are riddled with analogous morphological characters and lack a robust taxonomic framework. It seems that convergent evolution and the re-evolution of complex traits like wings and ocelli is perhaps the rule rather than the exception in stick insects. To investigate the re-acquisition of traits in this unique study system, a robust phylogenetic framework is essential. Our analyses combine traditional Sanger data with a transcriptomic backbone to provide the most corroborated phylogenetic analyses to date. To accomplish this, we employ …

Exploring Biology Beyond The Classroom, Staff Report

University of Mississippi News

Off-campus courses give students hands-on opportunities in biodiversity locations

The Use Of Objective Assessments In The Evaluation Of Technical Skills In Cardiothoracic Surgery: A Systematic Review, Nabil Hussein, Jef Van Den Eynde, Connor Callahan, Alvise Guariento, Can Gollmann-Tepeköylü, Malak Elbatarny, Mahmoud Loubani

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVES: With reductions in training time and intraoperative exposure, there is a need for objective assessments to measure trainee progression. This systematic review focuses on the evaluation of trainee technical skill performance using objective assessments in cardiothoracic surgery and its incorporation into training curricula.

METHODS: Databases (EBSCOHOST, Scopus and Web of Science) and reference lists of relevant articles for studies that incorporated objective assessment of technical skills of trainees/residents in cardiothoracic surgery were included. Data extraction included task performed; assessment setting and tool used; number/level of assessors; study outcome and whether the assessments were incorporated into training curricula. The methodological …

Assessment Of Microplastics In Southeastern Florida Forage Fishes, Maria Kappos

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Microplastics threaten the health of numerous marine organisms at all trophic levels. Currently, the topic is well studied among larger predators such as marine birds, dolphins, pelagic fishes, and even herbivorous organisms such as manatees. However, knowledge of microplastics present in organisms at lower trophic levels is poorly understood. The aim of this study was to assess the presence of microplastics in lower trophic level forage fishes. To gain a clear depiction of microplastics in the forage fishes of South Florida, four locations were sampled. These locations were classified into two categories, urban (Port Everglades and Northern Biscayne Bay) and …

Amphibious Legal Geographies: Toward Land–Sea Regimes, Irus Braverman

Contributions to Books

Published as ine introduction to Laws of the Sea: Interdisciplinary Currents, Irus Braverman, ed.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the juridical thinking that has enshrined the land/sea divide into contemporary governmental infrastructures, disciplinary traditions, and regulatory apparatuses, and charts the disastrous implications that such a legal fixation on the land/sea binary has wrought on human and other-than-human lifeworlds. As the collection proceeds, a second broad theme emerges, building on the first: when one rethinks the abstraction of law as played out on the ground, the …

Genetic Diversity Of Honeybee Colonies Predicts Gut Bacterial Diversity Of Individual Colony Members, Calum Bridson, Latha Vellaniparambil, Rachel E. Antwis, Werner Müller, R. Tucker Gilman, Jennifer K. Rowntree

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

Dual Leucine Zipper Kinase Regulates Dscam Expression Through A Noncanonical Function Of The Cytoplasmic Poly(A)-Binding Protein

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Dual leucine zipper kinase (DLK) plays a pivotal role in the development, degeneration, and regeneration of neurons. DLK can regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally, but the underlying mechanism remains poorly understood. The Drosophila DLK, Wallenda (Wnd), regulates the expression of Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule (Dscam) to control presynaptic arbor growth. This regulation is mediated by the 3′ untranslated region (3′UTR) of Dscam mRNA, which suggests that RNA binding proteins (RBPs) mediate DLK function. We performed a genome-wide cell-based RNAi screen of RBPs and identified the cytoplasmic poly(A)-binding protein, pAbp, as an RBP that mediates Wnd-induced increase in Dscam expression. Genetic …

Frequently Asked Questions About Receiving Tele-Intervention Services, Ronda Rufsvold, Betsy Moog Brooks, Amanda M. Rudge, National Center For Hearing Assessment And Management (Ncham) Tele-Intervention Learning Community

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

The purpose of this article is to provide resources related to parent perceptions and needs in receiving tele-intervention (TI) services.

A Review Of Current Pediatric Tele-Audiology Ehealth Platforms, Alex Meibos

Journal of Early Hearing Detection and Intervention

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify current pediatric tele-audiology hearing technology platforms for young children with hearing loss and their families.

Method: An exploratory, descriptive design was used to evaluate features of available pediatric tele-audiology platforms for parents and audiologists to implement for young children. The study explored internet resources including hearing industry websites, for information related to specific eHealth platform features designed to support pediatric hearing devices currently available to audiologists and families.

Results: Of the websites reviewed, only four major technology companies were found to have pediatric tele-audiology ready platforms designed to support young children …