Digital Commons Network^™

Methane Fluxes From The Peninsular Dam Impoundment In Ypsilanti, Mi, Jacob Fagerstrom

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Dams and reservoirs are a significant source of Methane (CH_⁴), a potent greenhouse gas, due to sediment and organic matter trapping, decomposition, and subsequent anoxia. Most measurements to assess methane production from dams are on large tropical impoundments and reservoirs, with few studies on methane emissions from small, midlatitude impoundments. These small impoundments make up most dams around the world and are underrepresented in the literature. Here, we evaluated methane from low-head dams on a midlatitude river in southeast Michigan. We measured emissions from impoundment and free-flowing sections using static floating chambers and dissolved methane along a longitudinal …

X-Ray Crystallography Of Protein Uhrf2 With H3k9me3, Isaak Miller

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Epigenetics is the study of regulating gene expression without changing the DNA sequence. Ubiquitin-like containing Plant Homeodomain and Ring-Finger 2 (UHRF2) is an epigenetic protein that is both overexpressed and underexpressed in various types of cancers. Recent studies have shown the Tandem Tudor Domain (TTD) and Planthomeo Domain (PHD) of UHRF2 interact with histone 3 trimethylated at lysine 9 (H3K9me3). However, the structural basis for UHRF2 TTD-PHD binding H3K9me3 has not been determined. This project consists of purification of the UHRF2 TTD-PHD protein construct expressed in E. coli, crystallization of the protein, X-ray diffraction of the crystal, and molecular replacement …

Being-In-Love: Kierkegaard And Existential Love, John Milkovich

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

In this essay, I argue for an adaptation of Plato and Kierkegaard’s conceptions of love based on a style of analysis I call “existential analysis.” The existential analysis requires our conceptions of things to exclude any reference to view-from-nowhere concepts. Plato and Kierkegaard both make use of view-from-nowhere concepts in their theories of love. I argue that specific features of each of these theories–namely the pursuit for infinite beauty, the Absolute Paradox, and the other-self–can be removed from their respective view-from-nowhere concepts and reinterpreted to serve as a possible foundation for a future conception of love generally understood. Although Plato …

Introducing An H113a Mutation Into Atg10 Y73q To Reduce Autophagic Activity And Understand The Effect Of Atg On Autophagosome Size And Number, Konrad L. Lautenschlager

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Autophagy is an essential recycling process that occurs within eukaryotic cells, however, the individual functions of the current thirty-two known autophagic proteins are not yet entirely understood. At this time, it is known that the autophagic protein Atg7 works upstream of both Atg3 and Atg10. Atg3 is affected by Atg7 and allows for the attachment of Atg8 and the lipid PE which is part of the autophagosome membrane. The Atg10 pathway is also affected by Atg7 but attaches Atg12 to Atg5 which upregulates the function of Atg3 and ultimately Atg8 lipidation. These protein interactions are necessary for forming autophagosomes, large …

Bioarchaeology Of The Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Through Bioarchaeology Of Care Model, Cassandra Anderson

Senior Honors Theses and Projects

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) is caused by compression of the nerves of the brachial plexus leading to paresthesia, muscle and bone atrophy, and pain in the affected arm. TOS can be identified on the skeleton through multiple skeletal indicators such as cervical ribs or bone atrophy. The lack of identification of TOS in bioarchaeological remains limits the amount of knowledge that can be gained from archeological populations in relation to social care and respect for physically disabled individuals. This study explores bioarchaeological evidence of TOS, including evidence of prehistoric medical procedures and community support to the disabled. Novel differential diagnoses …

Machine Learning-Based Exploration Of Blood-Based Biomarkers For Alzheimer’S Disease Diagnosis, Chima Stanley Eke

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease with typical clinical symptoms in the form of progressive cognitive impairment and memory loss. To facilitate early diagnosis of AD and a greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying its clinical expression, the use of biomarkers is necessary. Furthermore, it is believed that biomarkers provide a more objective and accessible means of diagnosis. Currently, established biomarkers include neuroimaging markers, such as those based on positron emission tomography (PET), and biochemical markers such as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) markers. However, neuroimaging is expensive and may not be widely available and CSF testing is invasive. Blood-based biomarkers …

Patterns Of Relative Bacterial Richness And Community Composition In Seawater And Marine Sediment Are Robust For Both Operational Taxonomic Units And Amplicon Sequence Variants, Zak Kerrigan, Steven D'Hondt

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

To understand the relative influences of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) on patterns of marine microbial diversity and community composition, we examined bacterial diversity and community composition of seawater from 12 sites in the North Atlantic Ocean and Canadian Arctic and sediment from two sites in the North Atlantic. For the seawater analyses, we included samples from three to six zones in the water column of each site. For the sediment analyses, we included over 20 sediment horizons at each of two sites. For all samples, we amplified the V4–V5 hypervariable region of the 16S ribosomal …

What Can Hydrography Between The New England Slope, Bermuda And Africa Tell Us About The Strength Of The Amoc Over The Last 90 Years?, T. Rossby, Jaime B. Palter, Kathleen A. Donohue

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The Gulf Stream is the only pathway in the subtropical North Atlantic by which warm water flows poleward. This transport of warm water and return of cold water at depth is called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The dynamic method is applied to hydrocasts collected since the 1930s to estimate upper-ocean transport (0–1,000 m) between the U.S. Continental Slope and Bermuda and separately to Africa with focus on the longest directly observable timescale. Calculating transport between the Slope and Bermuda eliminates the Gulf Stream's northern and southern recirculation gyres, while calculations between the Slope and Africa remove all other …

Birds Of A Feather Eat Plastic Together: High Levels Of Plastic Ingestion In Great Shearwater Adults And Juveniles Across Their Annual Migratory Cycle, Anna R. Robuck, Christine A. Hudak, Lindssy Agvent, Gwenyth Emery, Peter G. Ryan, Vonca Perold, Kevin D. Powers, Johanna Pendersen, Michael A. Thompson, Justin J. Suca, Michael J. Moore, Craig A. Harms, Leandro Bugoni, Gina Shield, Trevor Glass, David N. Wiley, Rainer Lohmann

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Limited work to date has examined plastic ingestion in highly migratory seabirds like Great Shearwaters (Ardenna gravis) across their entire migratory range. We examined 217 Great Shearwaters obtained from 2008–2019 at multiple locations spanning their yearly migration cycle across the Northwest and South Atlantic to assess accumulation of ingested plastic as well as trends over time and between locations. A total of 2328 plastic fragments were documented in the ventriculus portion of the gastrointestinal tract, with an average of 9 plastic fragments per bird. The mass, count, and frequency of plastic occurrence (FO) varied by location, with higher …

Seasonal Variation And Deposition Of Atmospheric Organophosphate Esters In The Coastal Region Of Shanghai, China, Yuxin Ma, Yuchen Luo, Jincai Zhu, Jinghua Zhang, Guoping Gao, Wenying Mi, Zhiyong Xie, Rainer Lohmann

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The coastal megacity Shanghai is located in the center of the Yangtze River Delta, a dominant flame retardants (FRs) production region in China, especially for organophosphate esters (OPEs). This prompted us to investigate occurrence and seasonal changes of atmospheric OPEs in Shanghai, as well as to evaluate their sources, environmental behavior and fate as a case study for global coastal regions. Atmospheric gas and particle phase OPEs were weekly collected at two coastal sites - the emerging town Lingang New Area (LGNA), and the chemical-industry zone Jinshan Area (JSA) from July 2016–June 2017. Total atmospheric concentrations of the observed OPEs …

Organophosphate Ester Pollution In The Oceans, Zhiyong Xie, Pu Wang, Xin Wang, Javier Castro-Jiménez, Roland Kallenborn, Chunyang Liao, Wenying Mi, Rainer Lohmann, Maria Villa-Costa, Jordi Dachs

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

The large-scale use of organophosphate esters (OPEs) as flame retardants and plasticizers has led to their prevalence in the environment, with still unknown broader impacts. This Review describes the transport and occurrence of OPEs in marine systems and summarizes emerging evidence of their biogeochemical and ecosystem impacts. Long-range environmental transport via the atmosphere and ocean currents distributes OPEs from industrialized regions to the open ocean. OPEs are most prevalent in coastal regions, but notable concentrations are also found in the Arctic and regions far from shore. Air–water interactions are important for the transport of OPEs to remote oceans and polar …

A Decade Of Time Series Sampling Reveals Thermal Variation And Shifts In Pseudo-Nitzschia Species Composition That Contribute To Harmful Algal Blooms In An Eastern Us Estuary, Katherine M. Roche, Alexa R. Sterling, Tatiana A. Rynearson, Matthew Bertin, Bethany D. Jenkins

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

In 2016-17, shellfish harvesting closed for the first time in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, USA, from domoic acid (DA), a neurotoxin produced by diatoms of the Pseudo-nitzschiagenus. Pseudo-nitzschia have occurred frequently for over 60 years in Narragansett Bay’s Long-Term Plankton Time Series (NBPTS), therefore it is surprising that the first closure only recently occurred. Pseudo-nitzschia species are known to vary in their toxin production, thus species identification is critical for understanding the underlying ecological causes of these harmful algal blooms (HABs). DNA in plankton biomass can be preserved for many years, so molecular barcoding of archived samples is useful …

An Ambitious Vision For The Future Of Scientific Ocean Drilling, Paula Bontempi

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Trawl Impacts On The Relative Status Of Biotic Communities Of Seabed Sedimentary Habitats In 24 Regions Worldwide, C. Roland Pitcher, Jan G. Hiddink, Simon Jennings, Jeremy Collie, Ana M. Parma, Ricardo Amoroso, Tessa Mazor, Marija Sciberras, Robert A. Mcconnaughey, Adriaan D. Rijnsdorp, Michel J. Kaiser, Petri Suuronen, Ray Hilborn

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Bottom trawling is widespread globally and impacts seabed habitats. However, risks from trawling remain unquantified at large scales in most regions. We address these issues by synthesizing evidence on the impacts of different trawl-gear types, seabed recovery rates, and spatial distributions of trawling intensity in a quantitative indicator of biotic status (relative amount of pretrawling biota) for sedimentary habitats, where most bottom-trawling occurs, in 24 regions worldwide. Regional average status relative to an untrawled state (=1) was high (>0.9) in 15 regions, but <0.7 in three (European) regions and only 0.25 in the Adriatic Sea. Across all regions, 66% of seabed area was not trawled (status = 1), 1.5% was depleted (status = 0), and 93% had status > 0.8. These assessments are first order, based on parameters estimated with uncertainty from meta-analyses; we recommend …

Student Works In The Institutional Repository: An Analysis Of Interest And Impact, Julia K. Nims

Faculty Scholarship 2022

Eastern Michigan University has highlighted student work in its institutional repository since 2009. Starting with graduate theses and dissertations, the repository’s student presence has grown with the addition of other works, such as honors theses, student journals, and capstone projects. Including student work in our repository fulfills many goals. It allows EMU to showcase and preserve the excellent scholarship produced by our students, and then make these works available to users around the world. These collections serve as recruitment tools to demonstrate what prospective students may achieve through the opportunities EMU offers. The repository provides our students with a space …

Thereby Hangs A Tail: Creation And Procreation In Medieval Werewolf Romances, Vicki Blud

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

How do you make a werewolf? Moreover, who makes a werewolf, and why? In medieval romance, the latter questions are often the more pressing, since the transformation of man into wolf is connected less with lunar phases than with human interference—especially the intervention of an unfaithful wife. Following in the pawprints of Marie de France’s lai of Bisclavret, these romances are noted for their “courtly” wolves and antifeminist slant, but they also offer unusual perspectives on procreation. While in Aristotelian thought the generative principle was broadly associated with the male partner, the male werewolf of medieval romance is most often …

Simulated Impact Of Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement On Atmospheric Co2 Removal In The Bering Sea, Hongjie Wang, Darren J. Pilcher, Kelly A. Kearney, Jessica N. Cross, O. Melissa Shugart, Matthew D. Eisaman, Brendan R. Carter

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) has the potential to mitigate ocean acidification (OA) and induce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) removal (CDR). We evaluate the CDR and OA mitigation impacts of a sustained point-source OAE of 1.67 × 10¹⁰ mol total alkalinity (TA) yr⁻¹ (equivalent to 667,950 metric tons NaOH yr⁻¹) in Unimak Pass, Alaska. We find the alkalinity elevation initially mitigates OA by decreasing pCO₂ and increasing aragonite saturation state and pH. Then, enhanced air-to-sea CO₂ exchange follows with an approximate e-folding time scale of 5 weeks. Meaningful modeled OA mitigation …

How Is Pelagic Sargassum-Associated Biodiversity Assessed? Insights From The Literature, Kristie S.T. Alleyne

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Over the past decade unprecedented blooming of pelagic Sargassum has occurred across the Equatorial Atlantic from West Africa to the Caribbean. Although pelagic Sargassum mats are considered beneficial in the open ocean, providing valuable habitat for a diverse array of endemic and associated species, they also inundate coastal areas and cause a plethora of management challenges for fisheries, tourism, nearshore coastal ecosystems, public health and the socioeconomic welfare of coastal communities. In—water harvesting has been suggested as a desirable management solution to prevent shoreline inundation, but destruction of the associated biodiversity is a concern with this approach and has not …

Another Tool In Your Toolkit: Teaching With Primary Sources, Heidi Gauder, Kayla Harris

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2022

No abstract provided.

From Credit Course To Tag Partnership: Delivering Customized Information Literacy Instruction, Julie Feighery, Vincci Kwong

LOEX Conference Proceedings 2022

No abstract provided.

Don’T Let Death Be Your Deadline Get A Will Before It’S Too Late: Expand Holographic-Wills Law To Incentivize Will-Making, Angela M. Vallario

All Faculty Scholarship

Procrastination is the number one reason for Americans’ lack of will-making. Many fail to get this important task completed before death despite acknowledging its importance. No one thing will remedy the lack of will-making in America. This Article suggests one way to address the problem is to more aggressively educate people on why a will is necessary, especially when blended families and children are part of the intestate’s family. The education efforts should target young adults in their senior year of high school and be further employed at universities, coupled with broader efforts to reach adults. Law students, in line …

The Road To A Federal Family Court, Jane M. Spinak

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

The federalization of child protection policy and the family court began with the so-called discovery of child abuse by Dr. C. Henry Kempe in 1962. Dr. Kempe and his colleagues labeled the emerging documentation of physical abuse of children under three as “battered child syndrome” and provided an explanation for injuries that had previously been inadequately or inconsistently explained. The country was shocked by Kempe’s findings, spurring the federal Children’s Bureau to propose model child-abuse-reporting laws.¹ By 1966, only four years after Kempe’s hospital study, all fifty states had adopted legislation to regulate child abuse; by 1968 all states …

Timely Permanency For Children In Foster Care: Revisiting Core Assumptions About Children’S Options And Outcomes, Sarah A. Font, Lindsey Palmer

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA, 1997) represented an emerging consensus that foster care should not be a long-term solution for children. Foster care is intended to provide a temporary living arrangement until permanency can be achieved, but, at the time ASFA was passed, some children were spending large proportions of their childhoods in temporary homes. In many cases, these children had a permanency plan of reunification that had little chance of being realized. Thus, the overarching goals of ASFA were to reduce the amount of time children spent “in limbo” and to promote permanency, while maintaining explicit preferences …

Twenty-Five Years Of The Adoption And Safe Families Act, Eve M. Brank

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

The year 2022 marks the 25th anniversary of President Clinton signing into law the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). Enacted in November of 1997, ASFA was a bipartisan federal law intended to address concerns with the foster care and adoption systems. With fiscal incentives attached, states quickly adopted complementary ASFA legislation.

At its core, ASFA changed the primary objective from family reunification to the child’s health and safety. In doing so, ASFA sought to decrease the amount of time a child spent without a permanent home by limiting how long a child could spend in foster care. Referred to …

The Deportation Of America’S Adoptees, Deleith Duke Gossett

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

The goal of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA)¹ was to promote permanency for children as early as possible. When President Clinton signed the bipartisan bill into law twenty-five years ago, Senator Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) noted that it “will promote permanency” and “result in more children leaving hopeless situations and finding the best gift we can give a child—a permanent loving home.” While ASFA was primarily directed at children in the foster care system, advocates of international adoption have promoted the same goal of giving children a permanent, “forever home.” And for years, the United States has …

Court Review: Journal Of The American Judges Association, Vol. 58, No. 1, Eve M. Brank, David Dreyer, David Prince

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

The Road to a Federal Family Court; Jane M. Spinak

The Role of Information Sharing to Improve Case Management in Child Welfare; Sarah J. Beal, Paul DeMott, Rich Bowlen, and Mary V. Greiner

Timely Permanency for Children in Foster Care: Revisiting Core Assumptions about Children’s Options and Outcomes; Sarah A. Font and Lindsey Palmer

The Deportation of America’s Adoptees; DeLeith Duke Gossett

Editor’s Note; Eve Brank

President’s Column; Yvette Mansfield Alexander

Crossword; Vic Fleming

Thoughts from Canada: The Impact of Anti-Black Racism on the Sentencing of “Black Offenders” in Canada: What Is the Correct Approach?; Wayne K. Gorman

The Resource …

Thank You For Not Publishing (Unexamined Patent Applications), Lidiya Mishchenko

Faculty Scholarship

Since 2000, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (“PTO”) has published nearly all patent applications as they are submitted by applicants. Scholars and practitioners have praised this practice for providing timely notice of the potential legal rights the application may eventually cover. But maximizing timeliness and transparency in this way can also create significant costs, which may chill innovation and deter the development and funding of new research areas. This Article explores these often-unrecognized costs of publishing unexamined patent applications and proposes solutions that balance the benefits of early notice with the costs of patent system uncertainty.

Published patent applications …

Undergraduate Symposium, 2022, College Of Arts & Sciences

Undergraduate Symposium Programs

No abstract provided.

Experiences Of Cultural Disconnectedness Among Bosnian American Diaspora: A Phenomenological Perspective, Azra Osmancevic

Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT Diaspora, including immigrants and refugees, undergo various experiences in their new host countries related to cultural identity formation. One of the factors related to cultural identity development within the United States is feeling caught in between two identities, resulting in never truly feeling “here or there” (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001). Experiences of cultural disconnectedness have been highlighted among the Bosnian American diaspora in numerous studies over the last two decades. Previous studies briefly described the challenges associated with diaspora balancing their native Bosnian cultures and host American cultures. The current study focused on the gap in the literature by …

Photophysical, Electrochemical, And Catalytic Studies Of Anthraquinone And Pyridoxyl-Based Sensors And Development Of Ruthenium Photosensitizers, Anwar Hussain

Dissertations and Theses

In the past, we have demonstrated the photophysical properties of several anthraquinone derivatives that act as a luminescent host for various environmental and biological cations. Here we extend our expertise in photochemistry to the class of chemicals containing the pyridoxal moiety. Several ligands were synthesized using eco-friendly, simple, one-step reactions via Schiff base and condensation reactions. The optical properties of these ligands were examined with a series of cations. We demonstrated the ability to detect the biologically important zinc ion in living cells such as RAW 264.7 and HEK 293 via fluorescence signaling. In addition, we extend our explorations to …