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Humanity's Fate: An Analysis Of Speculative Human Evolution In Literary Fiction, Celeste T. Johnson

Senior Theses

Speculative human evolution is a literature subgenre of science fiction that explores the potential future of humanity and descendant species. Little academic research has been done to evaluate the scientific accuracy of works of this genre or assess the relationship between the themes presented in the works and our current world. Future human species and their evolutionary journeys were assessed for scientific possibility through comparison with current research in fields such as anthropology, evolutionary biology, and sociology. It was found that the species depicted in works of speculative human evolution were largely based in scientific accuracy and could possibly exist …

Temperature Effects On Yield Of Ideal Wheat Cultivars, Jeffrey Jiang

Senior Theses

North American wheat growing areas show variation in many different factors, one of the most varied and important being temperature. Temperature is well established to correlate with yield. Given data from the Uniform Soft Red Winter Wheat Nursery and independently gathered data from government-owned weather stations, I explored possible correlations between temperature and wheat yield that can be extrapolated to areas that are not covered by the Uniform Soft Red Winter Wheat Nursery database. My analysis did not reveal strong correlations between temperature and growth, and in some cases, the sample size was too small. From this study, it was …

Pmca For Ultrasensitive Detection Of Prions And To Study Disease Biology, Fei Wang, Sandra Pritzkow, Claudio Soto

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The emergence of a novel class of infectious agent composed exclusively of a misfolded protein (termed prions) has been a challenge in modern biomedicine. Despite similarities on the behavior of prions with respect to conventional pathogens, the many uncertainties regarding the biology and virulence of prions make them a worrisome paradigm. Since prions do not contain nucleic acids and rely on a very different way of replication and spreading, it was necessary to invent a novel technology to study them. In this article, we provide an overview of such a technology, termed protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA), and summarize its …

The Free Press Vol. 54, March 03-27-2023, Kelly Ledsworth

Free Press, The

USM Department of Theatre runs Into the Woods--What's Going On In Pop Culture?--Perspectives From Biology--Student Senate Meetings--The Oakhurst Campus Food Pantry--Historic wins for an underrepresented story

The Concentration Of Heavy Metals In Lincoln Nebraska's Tap Water, Evan Neuhaus

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Heavy metals are commonplace in nature, and are typically found in scarce quantities in all drinking sources. However, in high enough concentrations, they can have a myriad of negative health effects. This study seeks to find the concentrations of such metals in the Lincoln water supply utilizing the resources of the Water Center at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. To test for discrete concentrations of trace elements, a method of using Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) was implemented. ICP-MS uses plasma to ionize and atomize a sample which is then filtered into a series of cones into a …

It's Harder Than It Looks: How Students Identify Original Research Articles In An Undergraduate Biology Course, Alyssa Russo, Amy Jankowski

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Biology students must develop a foundational understanding about the role information plays in the scientific research process. Key to this is understanding that original research articles are the primary method of communicating findings from original scientific research. We analyzed data from an information literacy tutorial and worksheet integrated in a core undergraduate biology course to investigate how students identify original research articles. Our results suggest that students conceptually comprehend original research, but they need practice at identifying original research articles in real time and benefit from librarian feedback when they are actively searching for and selecting articles.

Can Tilt Be Used To Teach Study Tactics? A Case Study In A Biology Classroom, Anne Jacobs

Perspectives In Learning

Recently, there has been a movement encouraging instructors in higher education to use the Transparency in Teaching and Learning (TILT) framework when designing assignments. This framework helps instructors clarify their expectations and evaluation criteria. Making assignments more transparent may result in greater student success. However, it is less clear how this framework can be applied to classes that use exams as a main method of assessing student learning. One option might be to use a TILTed assignment to introduce students to learning tools to improve their studying. I did this by giving students in an introductory biology class an assignment …

Lidar And Deep Learning Reveal Forest Structural Controls On Snowpack, Ahmad Hojatimalekshah, Joel Gongora, Josh Enterkine, Nancy F. Glenn, T. Trevor Caughlin, Hans-Peter Marshall, Christopher A. Hiemstra

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Forest structure has a strong relationship with abiotic components of the environment. For example, canopy morphology controls snow depth through interception and modifies incoming thermal radiation. In turn, snow water availability affects forest growth, carbon sequestration, and nutrient cycling. We investigated how structural diversity and topography affect snow depth patterns across scales. The study site, Grand Mesa, Colorado, is representative of many areas worldwide where declining snowpack and its consequences for forest ecosystems are increasingly an environmental concern. On the basis of a convolution neural network model (R² of 0.64; root mean squared error of 0.13 m), we …

Multi-Ancestry Transcriptome-Wide Association Analyses Yield Insights Into Tobacco Use Biology And Drug Repurposing, Fang Chen, Lisa De Las Fuentes, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Most transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs) so far focus on European ancestry and lack diversity. To overcome this limitation, we aggregated genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics, whole-genome sequences and expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) data from diverse ancestries. We developed a new approach, TESLA (multi-ancestry integrative study using an optimal linear combination of association statistics), to integrate an eQTL dataset with a multi-ancestry GWAS. By exploiting shared phenotypic effects between ancestries and accommodating potential effect heterogeneities, TESLA improves power over other TWAS methods. When applied to tobacco use phenotypes, TESLA identified 273 new genes, up to 55% more compared with …

Lps As A Virulence Factor Of Burkholderia Cepacia During Plant And Human Infection, Jack Klahr

Student Presentations

Burkholderia cepacia is a gram-negative bacterium that is the causative agent of sour skin rot in onion crops, and is an opportunistic pathogen in patients with cystic fibrosis. There are limited treatments available for this bacterium due to its innate resistance to antibiotics, and its virulence mechanisms are not well understood. This work aims to identify and describe virulence factors necessary for B. cepacia pathogenesis. Transposon mutagenesis in B. cepacia ATCC 25416, followed by a virulence screen in an onion infection model identified mutants that generated smaller wounds at 24 hours post-infection. We chose to follow up on mutant 169 …

Microplastics In Wetlands Of West Central Ohio : Concentration And Distribution, Mitchell Link

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Wetlands provide many valuable ecosystem services; however, an emerging global contaminant—microplastic (< 5 mm)—may be degrading this important resource. Few studies have extensively surveyed microplastic distribution in wetlands over a broad spatial area. Therefore, the goal of this study is to identify where microplastics are accumulating in wetlands, and whether there is any correlation between microplastic concentration and wetland quality. Soil samples were collected from 30 wetlands in west–central Ohio. Samples were physically separated, density separated, and digested. Average microplastic concentrations were 637 ± 494 items per kg soil per wetland. Higher quality wetlands are accumulating larger concentrations of microplastics. This relationship seems to be driven by greater accumulation of microplastics in forested wetlands than in wetlands surrounded by agriculture. There is no clear distribution pattern of microplastics within wetlands. These results provide insight into the role that wetlands have in association with microplastic accumulation.

Friend Or Foe? The Role Of Transforming Growth Factor-Β (Tgfβ) Signaling In Calcineurin Inhibitor-Induced Renal Damage, Adaku Uwe

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

With its incorporation into clinical practice in the early 1980s, the class of pharmacological agents known as calcineurin inhibitors (CNIs) quickly became the cornerstone of immunosuppressive therapy post-organ transplantation. However, its use is limited by irreversible kidney damage in the form of renal fibrosis. The molecular mechanism by which CNIs induce renal fibrosis remains to be better understood, and to date, there are no specific therapeutic strategies to mitigate this damage. This dilemma presents a critical need to explain mechanisms by which CNIs cause renal damage. Kidneys of patients on chronic CNI therapy show increased expression of the proinflammatory cytokine …

Tracking The Progression Of Defects At The Neuromuscular Junction In Huntington's Disease, Katherine A. Trittschuh

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a genetic disorder associated with progressive cognitive and motor decline. Recent studies in HD models suggest primary peripheral pathologies arise independent of changes in the central nervous system. Our lab found defects in skeletal muscle occurring early in the progression of disease in transgenic R6/2 HD mice, resulting in membrane hyperexcitability. Additionally, there is evidence of decreased quantal content in late-stage R6/2 mice. Here, we investigate pre-synaptic and post-synaptic function at single neuromuscular junctions (NMJ) to make direct comparisons of disease progression in the muscle membrane and motor nerve terminal. We hypothesize that muscle membrane defects …

Relationship Between Tree Canopy Cover, Impervious Surfaces, & Bird Biodiversity In Urban Parks In Nashville, Tennessee​, Colin Swanson, Darlene Panvini, Lydia Mitchell

Science University Research Symposium (SURS)

Bird diversity is an indicator of the overall biodiversity in urban green spaces. Identifying factors associated with urban green spaces that strongly influence bird biodiversity can inform the development and management of urban green spaces. Parks with larger areas of impervious surfaces were predicted to have lower bird diversity than those with more tree canopy coverage. This study used iTree Canopy to determine the percentage of tree canopy and impermeable surfaces for four different areas of urban parks in Nashville, Tennessee. Two parks were closer to the urban core and two were farther away. Tree canopy and impermeable surface cover …

Exploring How Advanced-Level Biology Teachers Integrate Ict In Teaching And Learning,A Case Of One Public Secondary School In Songwe Region, Tanzania, Rose John Shiyo

Master of Education

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has pedagogical advantages that can help teachers design, teach, and assess biology lessons. The aim of this study was to explore how teachers integrate ICT during the teaching of Biology at A-level classes in Songwe region, Southern Tanzania. The research site of this study is one public advanced-level secondary school in the Mbozi district. The purposive sampling technique was used to get the sample comprising two, A-level biology teachers, one ICT technician, one laboratory technician, and six students from A-level classes who were persuing a science subject combination known as CBG (Chemistry Biology Geography). This …

Environmental Toxicants And Human B Cells: Insights From Crispr Editing And Genomic Sequencing, Clayton Allex-Buckner

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The human immunoglobulin heavy chain gene locus (IGH) has two 3 prime regulatory regions (3’IGHRR), each containing three enhancers (hs3, hs1.2, hs4). In animal models, the 3’IghRR regulates IgH expression and class switch recombination (CSR) to different Ig isotypes. The 3’IGHRR hs1.2 enhancer in humans is polymorphic in that an invariant sequence (IS) can be repeated one to four times in tandem. The hs1.2 polymorphism is of interest due to its association with several human autoimmune disorders and its potential sensitivity to exogenous substances such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD or dioxin). In mouse models, TCDD inhibits the hs1.2 enhancer and 3’IghRR …

Biomechanics Of Mantis Prey Capture, Danielle S. Taylor

Honors Theses

Mantis species have a variety of different morphologies, so do the extreme forms of mantis limbs trade prey catching capability for camouflage? We hypothesize that some extreme forms of mantis limbs that are associated with cryptic species may be associated with a tradeoff of the capability of those limbs. Previous research has developed 2D morphologies of several hundred species of mantises. We are creating a 3D morphology by using micro dissection, micro CT imaging to construct our 3D biomechanical model. We found the attachment points of the ligaments and muscles from a Tenodera forearm and have constructed a 2D biomechanical …

An Examination Of The Utilization Of Bloom's Taxonomy In School-Based Biology Assessment Tasks In Selected Secondary Schools Meru District, Tanzania, Agatha Wilson Yintore

Master of Education

The world’s current most significant demand is for training many scientists and different science professionals. As a result, the preparation has always started at deficient learning levels, such as primary and secondary schools. In Tanzania, other science subjects are taught in secondary schools; among them, biology is included, and it is the only mandatory science subject in secondary school. Different approaches to teaching have been employed to ensure that the learners grasp the knowledge and skills of the subject. However, the examination results over the years have not been of high and promising performance, and different reasons are suspected to …

The Speciation Of Partisan Ideology In The United States: How Preventing Ideological Gene Flow Contributes To Political Factions, Katherine Raths

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

High School Teachers’ Experiences And Perceptions Facilitating Student Discourse And Collaborative Structures For English Language Learners In Biology, Chrissy Ann Brouwer

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The problem that was addressed in this study was that the academic needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) were not being met in biology classes in high schools in the local district because teachers were not consistently facilitating instruction using the required strategies of student discourse and collaborative structures. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore teachers’ successes, challenges, and need for supports when using the required strategies with their ELLs. Knowles’ theory of andragogy and Shulman’s theory of pedagogical content knowledge guided this study examining how the adults’ learning of the required strategies impacted their ability to …

The Role Of Insulin-Like Growth Factor I In The Development Of The Cerebellum In Euthyroid And Hypothyroid Mice, Prathibha Mangedarage

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Thyroid hormone deficiency during development is known to cause anatomical defects in the cerebellum that lead to neurological deficits. It has been observed that insufficient thyroid hormone levels also decrease the levels of brain derived Insulin-like growth factor 1 (Igf-1). Given that the deficits caused by low Igf-1 levels are similar to those caused by low thyroid hormone, we designed this study to investigate if the deficits caused in the development of the cerebellum by low thyroid hormone levels may be due to the lack of sufficient Igf-1. We also sought to determine if ectopic over expression of Igf-1 in …

Seasonal Resource Allocation And Accumulated Degree Day Estimation For Cuban Bulrush (Oxycarum Cubense) In The Southeastern U.S., Allison Squires

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Cuban bulrush (Oxycaryum cubense (Poepp. & Kunth) Lye) is a non-native aquatic plant from South America and the West Indies, first introduced into the United States in 1878. This study focused on the resource allocation and accumulated degree day modeling of the monocephalous and polycephalous Cuban bulrush populations in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida. Environmental factors such as photoperiod and temperature were analyzed on its effect on plant growth. From October 2021- September 2022 Cuban bulrush biomass was harvested monthly from two 0.04 Ha (0.1 ac) plots in each state. Height was measured during each monthly event. Environmental monitoring of photoperiod …

Investigation Of Glycoside Hydrolases And Calcium In Cytophaga Hutchinsonii Cellulose Utilization, Choua Kou Vang

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Cytophaga hutchinsonii is a soil bacterium that can utilize cellulose as a carbon source. The cellulose utilization system of C. hutchinsonii has been predicted to be novel and its endoglucanases could potentially be used in the production of cellulosic based biofuels. These enzymes could be used to process cellulose to glucose or other soluble sugars, which can be further converted to ethanol by yeast fermentation. Current biofuels utilize starches, primarily from corn, which has direct competition with farming space for food crops. This study focuses on observing the growth of C. hutchinsonii knockout mutant strains on cellulose substrate to better …

Ros And Sfk Signaling Is Required For Development Of Hematopoietic Stem Cells In Zebrafish, Bradley Williams, Erich Damm

Undergraduate Research Posters

ROS and SFK signaling is required for development of hematopoietic stem cells in zebrafish

Bradley Williams and Erich Damm

Background

Hematopoiesis is the process in which the myriad of mature blood cell types, including erythrocytes and leukocytes, develop from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) throughout the life of an organism. In vertebrates, HSCs originate from endothelial cells lining the floor of the dorsal aorta. This process is referred to as the endothelial to hematopoietic transition and is likely controlled in part by molecular signals from neighboring cells. Investigation into the molecular signaling mechanisms controlling the development of HSCs is critical to …

Prevalence Of Nicotine Delivery Systems By Biological Sex In The Spit For Science Study, Ayrton Quiroz, Amy Adkins, S4s Working Group, Elizabeth Prom-Wormley, Elizabeth K. Do, Megan Cooke, James Clifford, Hermine H. Maes

Undergraduate Research Posters

Nicotine intake usage trends have changed over recent decades given the wide variety of nicotine delivery systems including cigarettes, vaping, hookah, and snubs/chewables. These trends also vary by demographic factors, such as race/ethnicity, sex, and socioeconomic status (SES). For example, studies in rat populations, as well as humans, have found that females tend to be more dependent on nicotine products and have a more difficult time quitting than male rats and humans (Pogun et al., 2017). Also, race/ethnicity may impact the frequency of nicotine usage in different populations; in that non-white Hispanics were more susceptible to smoking through adolescence with …

Wetland Walk Vr: Field Ecology In Northeast Florida, Kailan Sindelar

UNF Faculty Research and Scholarship

Join Field Ecologists of the University of North Florida as they begin to monitor the water in swamps and marshes. In this virtual reality experience you will walk through places that are normally too dangerous or harmful to visit, learning about life in these places, how we study it, and how you may connect to it.

The Impact Of Study Strategies On Academic Performance For Medical Students At Wright State University, Markia Black

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Studying plays an important role in the academic success of medical students. It is likely that ineffective study skills result in poor performances on required standardized exams. There is a concern for the lack of empirical data related to what study strategies are the most productive for medical students to practice. My goal is to 1) identify what study strategies students use in their pre-clinical years of medical school, 2) determine if these strategies impact students’ performance on Comprehensive Basic Science Exams and Step 1 exam, and 3) identify study methods that best support student achievement in the pre-clinical phase …

Investigating The Mechanism Of Tdp-43 Toxicity In Yeast: A Model For Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Cassidy Nicole Alspaugh

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes the degeneration of motor neurons which leads to loss of motor function and eventual death. Over 20 genes have been implicated in ALS’s pathogenesis, one being TARDBP, which codes for TDP-43. TDP-43 mislocalizes from the nucleus, accumulates, and then aggregates in the cytoplasm and is linked to cellular toxicity. We have modeled this aggregation and toxicity of TDP-43 in budding yeast. From genetic screens of human genes and their ability to modulate TDP-43 toxicity, we found 50 human genes that were able to reduce TDP-43 toxicity. 12 of these …

Utilizing Markov Chains To Estimate Allele Progression Through Generations, Ronit Gandhi

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

All populations display patterns in allele frequencies over time. Some alleles cease to exist, while some grow to become the norm. These frequencies can shift or stay constant based on the conditions the population lives in. If in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the allele frequencies stay constant. Most populations, however, have bias from environmental factors, sexual preferences, other organisms, etc. We propose a stochastic Markov chain model to study allele progression across generations. In such a model, the allele frequencies in the next generation depend only on the frequencies in the current one.

We use this model to track a recessive allele …

How Akron Affects The Water Quality Of The Cuyahoga River, Allyson Darst

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this study was to analyze whether the city of Akron had negative effects on the Cuyahoga river, and determine if the Cuyahoga River was naturally able to remediate these effects downstream. The pollutants measured in this study include hardness, bromine, residual chlorine, iron, copper, lead, nitrate, nitrite, ammonium chloride, total chlorine, fluoride, carbonate, pH, total alkalinity and cyanuric acid. This study was done using water testing strips (JNW Direct) to test the water at four different locations along the Cuyahoga River downstream (North) of Akron. This study found that the city of Akron does have a negative …