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Body Size Distributions Of Riverine Freshwater Plankton Communities, Staci Ann Reynolds

Dissertations and Theses

The individual size distribution (ISD) is an individual based model that estimates the relative abundance of individual body sizes in a community. ISD’s slope or lambda (λ) gives insight into the communities’ food web and energy transfer. Climate change is expected to shift mean body sizes and λ as it increases individuals’ energy demands. Alterations in food webs and spatial distribution throughout the middle Missouri River basin may also have an impact on these communities λ. In a mesocosm experiment and field study, planktonic communities were sampled and had body sizes measured. Generalized linear mixed models were fit to calculate …

Exploiting Artificial Intelligence And Optimization For Smart Agriculture, Jackson K. Butcher

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Dynamic integration of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a vital component for unlocking the potential of smart agriculture. Currently, limitations such as limited computational resources, poor network connectivity, and rigid treatment strategies stifle optimal agricultural outcomes. This creates a challenge of leveraging the capabilities of modern artificial intelligence to combat the natural and artificial constraints of the smart agriculture environment. The primary contribution of this thesis is the development of frameworks to alleviate the overhead data and computational demand for AI within smart agriculture settings. The first framework, iCrop+, utilizes TinyML and LoRa to guarantee high-precision …

Snake Venoms As Models For Understanding The Origins And Evolution Of Gene Regulatory Networks, Siddharth S. Gopalan

Biology Dissertations - Archive

Understanding the relationship between genotype and phenotype is a fundamental goal of biology. However, the vastly complex nature of eukaryotic gene regulation can make deriving precise relationships between genotype and phenotype challenging. The gene regulatory architecture of snake venom systems provide an opportunity to study this problem in a phenotypic system with immense variation in phenotypes and the underlying genetics. Using a set of integrated functional genomic approaches with snake venoms as a central model, in this dissertation, I provide several examples of the regulatory mechanisms by which diversity in phenotypes arises. Specifically, I identify how gene expression heterogeneity between …

Genetic Analysis Of Methionine Restriction-Associated Mitochondrial Unfolded Protein Response Signaling., Josh D. Dodge

Biology Dissertations - Archive

The lifespan of an organism is dictated by various genetic and environmental factors. One such determinant is the health of mitochondria which are organelles that mediate various critical cell functions including a significant role in generating the vast supply of cellular energy. Indeed, the gradual decline of mitochondrial function is believed to be a hallmark and possible cause of aging. Paradoxically, mild mitochondrial dysfunction early in life extends lifespan in various model organisms. Cells use diverse approaches to promote mitochondrial homeostasis, including the transcriptional reprogramming of cells by mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) to mitigate mitochondrial stress. Consistently, UPRmt activation …

Understanding Middle School Teachers’ Content Knowledge And Pedagogical Content Knowledge For Effective Teaching Of The Nature Of Science, Austin C. Wilson

Curriculum and Instruction (Ed.D.) Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine middle school science teachers’ knowledge of the nature of science (NOS) and their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching NOS. Developing students’ scientific literacy requires teachers who not only understand NOS but also know how to effectively integrate it into classroom instruction. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study investigated in-service middle school science teachers’ NOS content knowledge (NOS-CK), their NOS-PCK, the relationship between these two constructs, and the extent to which demographic variables predicted teacher knowledge. NOS-CK and NOS-PCK data were collected from 61 teachers in a large suburban district through the Views …

Innovative Approaches To Combat Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Integrating Metabolic Modulation, Advanced Therapies, And Lifestyle Interventions, Ngozi Damilola Chidumebi Akingbesote

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive and often lethal subtype of breast cancer, continues to challenge researchers and clinicians due to its poor prognosis and limited therapeutic options. This thesis explores novel therapeutic strategies that integrate metabolic modulation, advanced radionuclide therapies, and lifestyle interventions to combat TNBC effectively. The first component investigates metabolic scaling and its implications for cancer metabolism. Gene and protein expression analyses across species reveal that metabolic processes, including oxidative metabolism and detoxification, scale inversely with body mass. This foundational insight underscores the importance of systemic metabolic regulation in understanding cancer progression. In the realm of cancer …

The Duality Of Lawyers As Escrow Agents, Douglas R. Richmond

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

An escrow agent is someone who holds money or property in trust for others under agreed terms until a transaction is completed, or a dispute is resolved. Although institutional depositaries are widely available, clients frequently ask their lawyers to serve as escrow agents in connection with transactions in which the lawyer represents the client. In fact, lawyers are generally permitted to serve as escrow agents with respect to clients' transactions so long as all parties involved knowingly consent to the arrangement. This is true both under agency law and as a matter of lawyers' professional responsibility.

Unlike a lawyer who …

Dignitatis Humanae, Francis J. Beckwith

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Sixty years ago the Second Vatican Council issued the document Dignitatis Humanae, a declaration on religious freedom. At the time it was considered to be the Catholic Church's most significant concession to the modern world, though the Council argued that the declaration was, given the political and religious realities at the time, a legitimate doctrinal development rooted in the Church's most ancient teachings. Its defense of religious liberty relied on widely held and uncontroversial beliefs about human nature, the common good, and the meaning of religion. But since the beginning of the 21st century those beliefs have been challenged …

Applicability Of Multilateral Environmental Agreements During International Armed Conflicts, Beatrice L. Hamilton

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Armed conflicts increasingly contribute to environmental damage and climate change, yet, as proven by recent and ongoing conflicts, the legal framework for the protection of the environment under the law of armed conflict (LOAC) fails to effectively mitigate these damages. With rising temperatures, already diminishing resources, the counter-acting of mitigation and adaptation efforts due to warfare and geo-political tensions on the rise, there is a strong case for considering the potential for enhancing the protection of the environment during armed conflicts.

This Article examines the terms of applicability of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) during international armed conflicts. The article draws …

The Devil Sounds Out: Affect And Intentionality In Conservative Evangelical Anti-Rock Discourse, 1965-1990, Philip Bixby

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Scholars have often described the evangelical reception of rock music as a discourse that changes in a positive direction, from the full-sail rejection of rock in the 1960s to the cautious acceptance of the genre as legitimate worship music throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. This dissertation surveys anti-rock texts written by conservative evangelicals from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s, observing an alternative trajectory of the discourse. The dissertation shows that an uncompromising trend of anti-rock criticism persists well into the 1980s, especially promoted by preachers and writers (for example, Jeff Godwin and Jimmy Swaggart) who sought to deny …

Resolving The Three-Dimensional Interactome Of Human Accelerated Regions During Human And Chimpanzee Neurodevelopment, Atreyo Pal

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Human Accelerated Regions (HARs) are regulatory elements highly conserved across species but exhibit a significant excess of human-specific sequence changes. They include transcriptional enhancers with human-specific activity and have been implicated in the evolution of the human brain. However, our understanding of how HARs contributed to uniquely human features of the brain is hindered by a lack of insight into the genes and pathways that HARs regulate. It is unclear whether HARs acted by altering the expression of gene targets conserved between HARs and their chimpanzee orthologs or by gaining new gene targets in human, a mechanism termed enhancer hijacking. …

Mechanisms Of Heart And Major Vessel Development: Nup107 And Cacna1g As Novel Regulators, Valentyna Kostiuk

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) is the most common congenital malformation and a leading cause of infant mortality. While advances in genomic sequencing technology have enabled a fast and inexpensive candidate gene identification, the molecular mechanisms of CHD remain mostly unknown. Both nup107 and cacna1g are novel CHD genes identified in CHD patients with no plausible mechanisms explaining their roles in cardiac development. Here, we show that nup107 plays a key role in early embryonic patterning and subsequent organ development. The loss of Nup107 has a direct impact on germ layer specification, Left-Right patterning and downstream cardiac looping. Specifically, Nup107 depletion …

Visual Circuits For Distance Estimation In Walking Drosophila, Joseph Shomar

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Animals must infer the three-dimensional structure of their environment from twodimensional retinal images. They use visual cues like motion parallax and binocular disparity to judge distances to objects, and studies across several animal models have foundand characterized neural signals that correlate with visual distance. However, the causal role of these neurons in distance estimation and the range of their possible neural properties remain poorly understood. Here we show that both directional and non-directional feature-selective neurons in the Drosophila visual system are involved in distance estimation during free locomotion. We used a high-throughput behavioral assay to perform a targeted silencing screen …

Analysis Of The Papillomavirus L2 Capsid Protein Structure And Protrusion, Patrick Michael Buckley

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Approximately 5% of human cancer worldwide is caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Although there are highly effective prophylactic vaccines, HPV remains a serious public health challenge due to low vaccine uptake and the inability of the vaccine to treat anyone already infected. Understanding how HPV enters and infects cells is important, as this work may lead to the development of new antivirals or therapeutics and may also reveal new aspects of cell and protein biology. HPVs are non-enveloped viruses, containing an ~8000 base pair double-stranded DNA genome encapsidated by 360 copies of L1 major capsid protein and up to 72 …

Understanding The Mechanisms Regulating Neuronal Metabolic States In Vivo, Milind Singh

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Glycolysis, a glucose-consuming pathway required for cellular energy production, iswell conserved across species and has been extensively characterized biochemically. Less is understood regarding how it is subcellularly organized, or coordinated across tissues in vivo. Previous work from our lab found that during transient hypoxia or neuronal stimulation, the rate-limiting glycolytic enzyme phosphofructokinase-1 (PFK-1.1) dynamically re-localizes from the cytoplasm to condensates near synapses in C. elegans neurons. My research examined mechanisms by which PFK-1.1 localization is regulated in neurons, and resulted in two main findings: 1) PFK-1.1 condensate formation in neurons is regulated by a non-cell-autonomous signal derived from hypodermal (epidermal) …

Computational Study Of Redox-Active Protein Residues And Biological Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer, Qiwen Zhu

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) reactions are essential processes in biological systems, fundamental to various enzymatic functions and redox biology. Key to these reactions are redox-active residues, such as tyrosine and tryptophan, which enhance the efficiency and specificity of electron transfer events. This thesis investigates the thermodynamics, kinetics, and conformational influences of PCET in proteins involving these residues through three projects, each offering significant insights into the mechanisms and broader implications for biological function. The studies have focused on two protein systems: a simple de novo protein system, α3X, and ribonucleotide reductase, an enzyme critical to DNA synthesis. Combining a wide …

Creating Socially Competent Mobile Robots: Rethinking How To Measure Success, Nathan Tsoi

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Motivated by the value alignment problem, which is concerned with ensuring that an autonomous system's behavior matches user values, this dissertation proposes that creating socially competent mobile robots requires rethinking how success is measured in order to align evaluation metrics with human values and to this end, proposes the use of context-aware simulation systems and subjective human feedback. Social robot navigation is concerned with an agent that must traverse the navigable space in an environment that is shared with people. Conducting such motion in dynamic and densely populated environments demands that a robot understands how humans perceive its behavior and …

A Bioluminescent Approach To Coxiella Burnetii Pathogenesis: Development And Utilization Of An In Vivo Imaging Model, Jenna Myr Andrews

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Coxiella burnetii is a Gram-negative, obligate intracellular bacterium that infects livestock and causes Q fever in humans, which can range from acute flu-like symptoms to severe, persistent infections. C. burnetii relies on a Dot/Icm type IVB secretion system to translocate effector proteins, manipulating host cell processes to support intracellular replication. While axenic media have facilitated in vitro pathogenesis research, in vivo studies remain limited due to the classification of the virulent Nine Mile phase I strain as a category B select agent. Although the avirulent phase II strain RSA493 is exempt from this classification, it is rapidly cleared in immunocompetent …

Dysregulation Of Transcription And Mrna Processing In Splicing Factor Mutant States: Mechanistic Insights And Implications, Prajwal Chaitanya Boddu

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Recurrent mutations in RNA splicing factor (SF) genes, such as SF3B1, U2AF1, SRSF2, and ZRSR2, are key drivers of oncogenesis in various cancers, particularly clonal myeloid disorders like Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Over the past decade, significant insights have been gained into their molecular mechanisms and effects on RNA splicing. These mutations are typically heterozygous and non-synonymous (except ZRSR2, which involves single-allele loss-of-function mutations) and are largely mutually exclusive, suggesting shared downstream mechanisms that prevent co-occurrence. Given their pre-eminent roles in splicing, most studies to date have primarily focused on the effects of SF mutations on …

Targeted Deletion Of Cxcl1 In Mscs Regulates Osteogenesis And Suppresses Bone-Metastatic Prostate Cancer, Catherine S. Johnson, Diane L. Costanzo-Garvey, Julio C. Valencia, Sanjana Rajgopal, Theodore Reed, Emma R. Brannon, Jeremy S. Frieling, Deanna Mosley, Todd A. Wyatt, Elijah F. Edmondson, Kabhilan Mohan, Grinu Mathew, Leah M. Cook

Journal Articles: Environmental, Agricultural & Occupational Health

Bone metastasis continues to be the greatest challenge in treating patients with prostate cancer despite ongoing research. In bone, prostate cancer tumors hijack normal bone remodeling processes to drive cancer progression. However, it is unclear how these interactions drive bone-metastatic prostate cancer growth in the bone environment. To understand the mechanisms associated with bone-metastatic prostate cancer regulation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), we previously identified that bone-metastatic prostate cancer induces MSC expression of the pro-inflammatory chemokine CXCL8 and its mouse functional homologue Cxcl1. To date, there has been little to no information about the role of CXCL1/8 in MSC biology …

Makers Of Identity: Those That Hold It, Or Those That Create It?, Valentina K. Quintero

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Throughout the semester, the topic of AI potentially achieving personhood has been a deeply debated topic. Issues rise and fall depending on perspective, and there are still too many unknowns to be completely certain that AI has either managed to become a person or has not. One of the key details of personhood is the modern understanding of the word identity. This paper will go into the origins of the word and how it may have changed, and how it is important in regards to AI and its potential. Wittgenstein’s language games, personal opinion, and cultural influences will be explored …

Lawyers’ And Law Professors’ Experience With Worker Governance, Brett H. Mcdonnell

Articles

Part I surveys some of the leading arguments concerning the benefits and costs of worker governance. It also describes some of the ways in which those benefits and costs can evolve along with the growth, or lack thereof, of companies with worker governance. Part II looks at governance in law firms. It considers how the explanations for the adoption of worker governance fare with respect to law firms, notes the limited, elitist nature of worker governance within law firms, and considers the consequences of that real but elitist worker governance for the understanding of lawyers. Part III considers the same …

Corporate Governance For Platform Workers, Matthew T. Bodie, Grant M. Hayden Professor

Articles

Regardless of their status under employment law, we believe that corporate law holds untapped potential in reshaping the rights and working conditions of platform workers. While the law of corporate governance remains aligned with shareholder interests, the collapse of the law-and-economics underpinnings of shareholder primacy should prompt us to develop new approaches to corporate governance. In this Essay, we briefly set out three alternative models for determining whether stakeholders should participate in corporate governance: a democratic participation model, a theory of the firm model, and an information theory model. All are fully consistent with the precepts of standard economics that …

Presidential Control And Administrative Capacity, Nicholas Bednar

Articles

Presidential control is the power to direct administrative capacity toward the President’s own policy objectives. Accordingly, presidential power vis-à-vis administrative policymaking has two necessary components: control and capacity. First, the President must have the ability to set the agency’s policymaking agenda and direct the day-to-day activities of its leadership and career employees. Second, the agency needs a well-managed team of policymakers with expertise and experience in both the substantive policy area and the policymaking process. Yet scholars have long assumed—without much empirical testing—that the administrative state has sufficient capacity to implement the President’s agenda. Not so.

This Article argues that …

Economic History And The Remaking Of Family Law, June R. Carbone, Naomi Cahn

Articles

In looking at the history of family law, we locate family law – and the status of women and children within it – as a function of political economy. That is, family law is shaped by a societal system that allocates access to, and control of, sources of wealth, decision-making power, and responsibility for dependents. As the nature of family assets has changed from land to male wage labor to two incomes and a complex set of complementary employer and state-provided benefits, so too have family dynamics and, ultimately, family law. They have evolved into the contemporary system, with a …

In Memoriam: Robert D. Cooter, Francesco Parisi

Articles

The International Review of Law & Economics is publishing these notes in memory and celebration of Robert D. Cooter—its Editor from 1988 to 2004—offering brief reflections on him as teacher, scholar, and exemplar. A giant of law and economics, Robert D. Cooter combined breadth with creative insight: he helped build a systematic economic understanding of torts, contracts, and property, a novel approach to public law and Constitutional design, and opened new frontiers on the interaction between law and social norms and on the expressive power of law. His humanity and scholarly ethos—curiosity, humor, and intellectual honesty—left a lasting mark on …

Collegiate Nil Collectives: Context, Structure, And Future, Matthew T. Bodie, Esdras D. Camacho

Articles

Since its inception, the NCAA has championed the principle of amateurism in college sports-the idea that collegiate athletes may not receive monetary compensation for their athletic performance. In its 2021 decision in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston, however, the Supreme Court found the NCAA had violated antitrust law with its restrictions on certain benefits provided to athletes. With the possibility of much greater liability to follow, the NCAA soon thereafter enacted a radical departure from past practice, enabling athletes to profit from their names, images, and likenesses ("NIL") while maintaining their amateur status. There were important limitations on this …

Free Speech And Incorporation: A Reassessment, Ilan Wurman

Articles

Many of the Supreme Court’s most controversial free speech decisions involve state laws. In Gitlow v. New York, the Court assumed that the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech applied directly against the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, a doctrine today referred to as incorporation. Yet there is reason to doubt incorporation is correct as a matter of the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. Indeed, much of the historical evidence involves debates over the freedom of speech, but none of the historical actors seemed to think the First Amendment applied against the states. This short essay evaluates the …

Terror At Home: A 10 Minute Play Exploring History In An Intersectional Method, Starsong Brittain

IdeaFest 2025

This original 10 minute play was inspired by historical research on the early decades of the Soviet Union. Specifically, the "Great Terror" of the 1930s. The play tells experiences of real people but is portrayed as a nature documentary.

The Cycle Of Giving:, Sarai Brown

BYU Asian Studies Student Journal

On one hot summer day in the middle of a 3-month stint studying Mandarin Chinese at National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) in Taichung, Taiwan, my friends and I were desperate to sate our appetites after class, even in the atrociously hot and humid conditions. Most of our little group was drawn to a 牛肉麵 niúròu miàn (beef noodle) shop, but the thought of hot soup on a day like this drove me and a couple of others to continue our search. We stumbled upon another outdoor restaurant—though “restaurant” is perhaps a loose term for the holey-tent-covered food stand with mismatched …