Digital Commons Network^™

Characterization Of Mroq-Dependent Regulation Of Staphylococcus Aureus Quorum Sensing, Madison Ruth Stock

Dissertations

Gram-positive bacteria produce small autoinducing peptides (AIPs), which act to regulate expression of genes that promote adaptive traits including virulence. The Gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus generates a cyclic AIP that controls expression of virulence factors via the accessory gene regulatory (Agr) system. S. aureus strains belong to one of four Agr groups (I, II, III, and IV), and each group harbors allelic variants of AgrD, the precursor of AIP. In a prior screen for S. aureus virulence factors, the Alonzo lab identified MroQ, a putative peptidase. A ΔmroQ mutant closely resembled a Δagr mutant and had significant defects in AIP …

Multistage Sustainability Education For University Engineering Students: A Case Study From Mechanical Engineering In Technological University Dublin, Kevin Delaney

Articles

Sustainability will be a key challenge that future engineering graduates must consider when solving problems. This paper sets out the approach taken in the mechanical engineering discipline of Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) to help students acquire and develop the requisite skills to integrate aspects of sustainability when tackling engineering problems. The approach, which has already been implemented across a number of different design and innovation modules, consists of two distinct phases. In the first, students are educated about sustainability and related issues. In the second phase, students are educated for sustainability and are taught to identify, define and solve …

Children With Williams Syndrome: Experiences Of Mainstream Primary Schools, Katherine Gulliver

Plymouth Institute of Education Theses

Four children with Williams Syndrome shared their daily experiences of attending a mainstream primary school in the South West of England, UK. Using an adaptation of the Mosaic approach (Clark, 2011), children shared their perceptions and experiences of belonging to a class, developing responsibility and learning to follow the rules. Children guided the researcher during a visit lasting one week in each school. Methods included videos, a child-led tour, photographs and interviews with staff. Informed consent was obtained by gatekeepers including children’s parents, head teacher and school staff. Children were continually monitored for assent using a reflective, ethically conscious total …

Soil And Wastewater Properties That Influence The Uptake Of Anti(Retro)Viral Pharmaceuticals In Plants, Preston Chebai Akenga

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

This study evaluated the fate of anti(retro)viral (ARVDs) pharmaceutical compounds in the wastewater-soil-plant-human continuum. Wastewater frequently contains pharmaceutical micropollutants. A cause to worry is the potential uptake and bioaccumulation of these biologically active contaminants via the plant's roots into the edible tissues, posing a health threat to non-target consumers. Presently, the influence of the wastewater and soil parameters (pH, soil organic matter, dissolved organic carbon) on the uptake patterns of the (ARVDs) pharmaceutical compounds is unclear. Hydroponic and pot-soil experiments were utilized to assess the ARVD accumulation in lettuce (Lactuca sativa). Spiked freshwater (stored rainwater) and synthetic wastewater (adopted as …

The Impact Of Changing Shipping Emissions On The Atmospheric Deposition Of Trace Elements And Sulfur To The Western English Channel And Coastal Zone, Laurence Christian Windell

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

Maritime shipping is a significant source of anthropogenic emissions, with annual growth of shipping continually on the rise. In the marine environment, shipping emissions often dominate the atmospheric deposition of sulfur and contribute significantly to global sulfur emissions. As a result, the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) introduced a regulation on 01/01/2020 restricting global marine fuel sulfur content from 3.5% to 0.5% w/w. The present study investigated the changes in airmass marine aerosol chemical character arriving at the Penlee Point Atmospheric Observatory (PPAO; 50∘19′ N, 4∘11′ W) to gain insight into the efficacy of the IMO-2020 regulation. The observatory in Southwest …

Using Mhealth To Support Weight Management Among Women With History Of Gestational Diabetes: A Mixed Methods Study, Katie Edwards

School of Nursing and Midwifery Theses

Using mHealth to support weight management among women with history of gestational diabetes: a mixed methods study Katie Jane Edwards Background: Women who experience gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are at significant risk of developing type 2 diabetes and recurrent GDM in subsequent pregnancies, particularly if they are overweight (body mass index (BMI)>25) or obese (BMI >30). Prevention of chronic disease in this population is of major public health concern, but formalised support in the UK is disjointed and limited. Women face considerable barriers to maintain motivation when undertaking and sustaining weight management, despite desires to improve their health. Motivation …

Going Back-To-The-Land In The Anthropocene: A More-Than-Human Journey Into Anarchist Geography, Carlotta Molfese

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

This thesis is a theoretical and empirical journey into the more-than-human worlds of countercultural back-to-the-land farmers: radical environmentalists who migrate to rural places and take up farming as a way of living. It investigates their everyday life and relations to the land as a key dimension of their political radicalism and it interrogates the transformative potential of a back-to-the-land way of living. It does so by examining their lived experience of (post)migration and by paying attention to their affective experiences, encounters and everyday doings with the land and the non-human beings, objects and forces that are enrolled and shape their …

Accounting For Disability In International Humanitarian Law, Janet E. Lord

All Faculty Scholarship

The adoption of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

represents an important and (potentially) progressive development in the protection

framework under international humanitarian law (IHL). Article 11 of the CRPD

specifically obliges States to protect persons with disabilities from harm in

situations of risk, including armed conflict, consistent with IHL and human rights

law. The CRPD framework signals the need to address the traditional framing of

disability under IHL and to draw from human rights concepts in the CRPD in

order to inform the protection accorded to persons with disabilities in armed conflict.

This article is …

Characterisation Of Caspase-6-Dependent Regulatory Mechanisms Of Sqstm1/P62 Droplet-Based Autophagy, Evelina Valionyte

Peninsula Medical School Theses

p62, otherwise known as SQSTM1, is the most characterised selective autophagy receptor essential for autophagic cargo recognition, capture and degradation. p62 and its cargo form liquid-liquid phase-separated droplets which operate as assembly platforms for the formation of autophagosomes. It is poorly understood how physiological and pathological conditions modulate p62 droplet-based autophagy. In this study, the effects of cellular toxicity upon the regulation of p62 droplet-based autophagy were investigated. This study discovered that the inflammatory toxicity promotes caspase-6 to cleave p62 at a novel site D256. As the C-terminal cleavage product was undetected via western blotting rendering it unstable, the attention …

Consolidating Port Decarbonisation Implementation : Concept, Pathways, Barriers, Solutions, And Opportunities, A.S. Alamoush, D. Dalaklis, F. Ballini, A.I. Ölcer

Articles

No abstract provided.

Examining An Information System (Is) Solution To Increase Uk University Students’ Engagement During Lecturing Activities, A. Dalaklis, A. Dalaklis, D. Dalaklis

Articles

No abstract provided.

Data Supporting The Manuscript "Genetic Analysis Of Harvest Samples Reveals Population Structure In A Highly Mobile Generalist Carnivore", Stuart C. Fetherston, Robert Lonsinger, Lora B. Perkins, Chadwick P. Lehman, Jennifer R. Adams, Lisette P. Waits

NRM Departmental Data Sets

We sampled 1,225 bobcats harvested in South Dakota, USA, (2014–2019) and used 17 microsatellite loci to assess genetic diversity and infer population genetic structure. We assigned individuals to genetic clusters (K) using spatial and nonspatial Bayesian clustering algorithms, and quantified differentiation among clusters. We found support for population genetic structure at K = 2 and K = 4, with weak to moderate differentiation among clusters.

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Octopus Optics: A Cross-Disciplinary Investigation Of Human Visual Bias In Narrative With Corresponding Writing Experiments Using Animal Focalisation, Stephanie Jane Cussans Moran

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

What is it like to be a human? If an octopus wrote an anthropology based on human depictions of octopuses then how might that reconfigure this existential question? This thesis addresses the posthuman problem of visual bias in animal storytelling practices by experimentally adopting the perspective of another highly visual animal - the octopus - through fiction. It seeks to question, find the edges, and feel the limitations of human representations of other animals and asks what doing so might say about our own naturalcultural perceptions and interpretations. In attending particularly to opticality in Anglophone storytelling, the thesis investigates ways …

Building Immersive Environments Towards Non-Human Models Of Organizing Against Global Crisis, Luis Andre Varela Reis

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The wolfanddotcom series of artworks seeks to establish new knowledge embedded in its practice within a nascent field combining the areas of aesthetic computation, interactive electronic arts, videogames, mythology, biology, human/non-human computer interfaces. Wolfanddotcom's research leads investigations on bio-electronic and imaginary arts alloyed with a mythological and non-human turn, mainly through the creation of dynamic art-sci constructs, in the form of mythological videogames and bio-electronic aggregates, by establishing multiple lines of flight onto a creative framework, seeking novel, procedural, immersive, cathartic and bio-electronic methods. With a final purpose of exploring new electronic-based arts’ aesthetic regions, unexampled connections between generative (Eno) …

The Postnatural Animal In Contemporary Art, Paul Finnegan

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The thesis uses art practice as a research method to propose novel characterisations of animal life. These characterisations aim to challenge an organicist image of non-human animals. The thesis considers animal bodies and behaviours as subject to aesthetic judgments that are underpinned by deeper ontological and epistemological commitments as to relations between nature and society, in which to be categorised as the former entails a series of privations in relation to the latter – the absence of freedom, subjectivity and creativity. Scholarly research on the history of the perception and conception of animal life within modernity, and subsequent challenges made …

Humanity Undone, A Practice Led Enquiry Into Self-Injury, Karen Abadie

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This thesis enquires into my lived experience of self-injury (cutting my own skin), asking to what extent can moving image, sound and performance in the context of art installation reveal an understanding of the processes of self-injury. I employ an embodied onto-epistemological methodology that blends artistic enquiry with active engagement with phenomenological and new materialist feminist theory. This investigation reveals a dynamic yet subtle relationship between the body-as-object and the body-as- subject, as initially described by Husserl as Leib and Körper (1990). I use 16mm film and performance in a haptic immersive installation environment to articulate these dynamic subtleties. Merleau-Ponty …

Walking Away From Vr As ‘Empathy-Machine’: Peripatetic Animations With 360-Photogrammetry, Katerina Athanasopoulou

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

My research partakes in an expanded documentary practice that weaves together walking, immersive technologies, and moving image. Two lines of enquiry motivate the research journey: the first responds to the trope of VR as 'empathy-machine' (Milk, 2015), often accompanied by the expression 'walking in someone else's shoes'. Within a research project that begins on foot, the idiom’s significance demands investigation. The second line of enquiry pursues a collaborative artistic practice informed by dialogue and poetry, where the bipedals of walking and the binaries of the digital are entwined by phenomenology, hauntology, performance, and the in-betweens of animation. My practice-as-research methodology …

In Whitman's Wake, Kacie Megan Fodness

Dissertations and Theses

In Whitman’s Wake argues that nineteenth-century American writing includes a living invitation for its future readers. The kind of invitational writing prioritized in this work has not yet been fully accounted for in literary criticism. What’s more, even when we as readers have experienced such an invitation (one we feel is for us) we have not followed the feeling far enough. As a result, scholarship has largely neglected, and perhaps has consciously rejected, the intentional action of a writer that creates an encounter with their future reader. My project contributes to the ongoing critical conversation around the relationship of readers …

Evaluating The Effects Of A Social Skills Training Program For Children With Asd Generalized To A P.E. Setting, Anissa Johns

Dissertations and Theses

ASD is a developmental disability, or group of conditions which begin during the developmental period and impact day-to-day functioning, which can cause significant social, communication, and behavioral challenges (CDC, 2019). According to the CDC (2014) Autism Spectrum Disorder occur in every 1 in 36 children. ASD is characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts (American Psychiatric Association, 2020). The diagnosis also requires the presence of restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. Among the number of social skills training modalities used to promote positive social skill development for children with ASD, the Superheroes …

Carbohydrates And Endurance Exercise: A Narrative Review Of A Food First Approach, Alireza Naderi, Nathan Gobbi, Ajmol Ali, Erfan Berjisian, Amin Hamidvand, Scott C. Forbes, Majid S. Koozehchian, Raci Karayigit, Bryan Saunders

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Carbohydrate (CHO) supplements such as bars, gels, drinks and powders have become ubiquitous as effective evidence-based CHO sources that improve endurance exercise performance. However, athletes are increasingly turning to more cost-effective ‘food-first’ approaches for CHO ingestion to improve exercise performance. Mixed CHO foods including cooked lentils, oats, honey, raisins, rice, and potatoes are all effective pre-exercise CHO food sources. Caution is advised when selecting some of these foods as a primary CHO source, as some athletes may be prone to gastrointestinal discomfort—especially regarding those foods where the quantities required for recommended CHO intake may be voluminous (e.g., potatoes). Palatability may …

Targeting The Subacute Progression Of Hippocampal Cellular Senescence Following Repetitive Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Jacob Edward Exline

Master's Theses

Repetitive mild traumatic brain injury (rmTBI) increases an individual’s risk for developing persistent deficits in recognition memory with symptoms experienced by up to 30% of rmTBI patients. Cellular senescence has been suggested as an underlying mechanism of persistent rmTBI symptoms; however, the subacute progression of cellular senescence following rmTBI has not been evaluated. Furthermore, the use of subacute testosterone administration to treat persistent recognition memory deficits and the cellular and molecular underpinnings has yet to be well characterized. Our lab utilizes a 5-hit closed-head rmTBI rat model to induce deficits in recognition memory and determine the effects of subacute testosterone …

Investigating Putative Toxin-Immunity Pairs From A New Class Of Rhs Proteins In Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Syed Faieq Imam

Master's Theses

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a gram-negative, opportunistic pathogen that is ubiquitous in nature, especially in human/animal impacted environments. One of the reasons for this is the arsenal of protein systems and toxins that P. aeruginosa utilizes to mold its environment to suit its needs. Recently, we discovered a novel locus in the P. aeruginosa genome, which resembles other loci that are known to mediate interbacterial competition. Our bioinformatic analysis found this locus to be enriched in a rearrangement hotspot (rhs) motif which led us to ad-interim term the three ORFs of the loci as rhsB, rhsC, and rhsI. Furthermore, we have …

Abortion, Medieval Christianity, And The Christian Far-Right: The Harms Of Rhetoric And Misconstruing The Past, Madison Givens

Master's Theses

This research explores the intersection of abortion, Medieval Christianity, and the Christian far-right, with a focus on the harms of rhetoric and the misconstruing of history. The study argues that a selective reading of history is being used by the Christian far-right to justify violence against reproductive rights activists, including police brutality and mass shootings, as well as to promote forced sterilization and other forms of reproductive control. This thesis examines the harms of rhetoric and misconstruing the past in the abortion and medieval Christianity debate. By analyzing the role of language, symbols, and history in shaping the abortion debate …

Effect Of Selenof Loss In Combination With A Western Diet On Tumorigenesis, Brenna Joy Flowers

Master's Theses

SELENOF is an understudied selenium-containing protein that has previously been postulated to behave as a tumor suppressor in the breast. Examination of patient databases showed that SELENOF levels were lowest in tumors from patients with aggressive late-stage breast cancers. Whether loss of SELENOF drives breast tumorigenesis remains to be determined. To address this question, we used juvenile female wild type or systemic Selenof knockout mice and exposed them to 7,12-Dimethylbenz[a]anthracene (DMBA), a carcinogen that replicates the multistep process of breast tumorigenesis. Previous reports have shown that loss of Selenof led to glucose and metabolic dysregulation in mice suggesting a link …

Engagement With Ethnic Practices: How Ethnic Communities Contribute To Second-Generation Asian American Assimilation, Bảo-Trân T. Nguyễn

Master's Theses

Previous research on spatial assimilation has described ethnic enclaves as places withmany recently arrived immigrants and fewer socioeconomic resources. As immigrants become more assimilated, they move to more affluent neighborhoods in proximity to Anglos. However, recent studies on resurgent ethnicity challenge the idea of the spatial assimilation by suggesting that Asian immigrants and subsequent generations continue to live near co-ethnics, despite gaining socioeconomic status. The transition from traditional ethnic enclaves to resurgent ethnic communities or ‘ethnoburbs’ indicate shifting understandings of what ethnic communities mean to Asian Americans. Although, Asian Americans are, on average, attaining higher socioeconomic status, the emergent importance …

Changing Vaccine Hesitant Attitudes Of Parents Using Moral Persuasion, Max Vitro

Master's Theses

In the fight against Covid-19, overt, science-based messaging is not enough to persuade everyone to get vaccinated no matter how encouraging the data. Recent studies on attitudes toward vaccines and other health-promoting measures have provided clues as to why so many are still opposed, suggesting many who were resistant had reasons that were rooted along moral grounds. This process of moralization occurs when a belief becomes a moral matter of ‘right and wrong’ rather than a means to an end. Because moral beliefs are more entrenched, they’ve proven much more difficult to change. There is one approach that could increase …

Characterization Of The Full-Length Bag3 Protein And Stress Induced Formation Of Bag3-Z, Ahmed Gamal Abdalla Zied

Master's Theses

Bcl2-associated athanogene-3 (BAG3) is a pro-autophagy co-chaperone that we havepreviously shown localizes to the cardiac sarcomere and is critical for proteostasis and maintenance of normal sarcomeric function. Indeed, BAG3 loss in heart failure (HF) results in accumulation of ubiquitinated sarcomeric proteins, and depressed maximum force generating capacity (Fmax). However, how BAG3 is regulated in the cell is not well understood, with uncertainty about its structure and proteoforms. During our analysis of human heart tissue, BAG3 appears as a “doublet”, with one band at 74 kDa (BAG3-Z) and a second at a higher 85 kDa (BAG3-FL). Previous studies hypothesized the full-length …

Variation In Carapace Damage Within And Among Loggerhead Musk Turtle (Sternotherus Minor) Populations In Florida Spring-Fed Ecosystems, Joseph J. Pignatelli Iii, Katrina Campbell, Brian P. Butterfield, Gerald R. Johnston, Joseph C. Mitchell, Grover J. Brown, J. Brian Hauge, Andrew D. Walde, Eric C. Munscher

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Damage to a turtle’s shell can provide evidence of past events such as vehicle collisions, disease, predator encounters, or even a behavioural interaction between members of the same species. Documenting shell damage as part of long-term mark and recapture studies enables researchers to determine population trends, intraspecific interactions and identify potential issues within turtle populations. This paper analyses shell damage in populations of the Loggerhead Musk Turtle (Sternotherus minor) (Agassiz, 1857). We examined carapace shell damage frequency and severity in 2701 individual S. minor (1468 males and 1233 females) captured in spring-fed habitats in one state preserve and five state …

Dna Barcoding Indicates Multiple Invasions Of The Freshwater Snail Melanoides Tuberculata Sensu Lato In Florida, Lori Tolley-Jordan, Michael A. Chadwick, Jimmy K. Triplett

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Melanoides tuberculata sensu lato (Thiaridae) are polymorphic female-clonal snails of Asian and African origins that have invaded freshwaters worldwide, including those in Florida. Although the snails have been documented in Florida for at least 70 years, no studies have investigated whether the observed distribution is due to a single introduction or multiple independent invasions. Here, cytochrome oxidase I was used to measure genetic diversity within and among sites in Florida and compare genetic diversity between Florida and other regions of the world. We also examined the relationship between shell morphology and haplotype diversity to determine if shell morphs can serve …

Characterizing The Dynamic Localization Of Cmi In Early Drosophila Development, Asra Habibullah

Master's Theses

The COMPASS-like family of lysine methyltransferases, MLR/MLX complexes, are epigenetic regulators that are essential for normal development through the methylation of the fourth lysine residue on histone 3 (H3K4), a universal epigenetic mark associated with active transcription. This family of complexes is highly conserved from yeast to mammals and the genes encoding the human MLR complexes have been associated with various developmental diseases and cancers (Dingwall and Fagan, 2019). In D. melanogaster, the enzymatic methyltransferase core of this complex is composed of two proteins: Cara Mitad (Cmi, also known as Lpt) and Trithorax-related (Trr). Although these proteins have been shown …