Digital Commons Network^™

Mitophagy-Mediated Regulation Of Ros Homeostasis During Hsc Activation Contributes To Cell Fate, Amber Lynne Smith

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The ability of hematopoietic stem cells to self-renew and differentiate is required for the maintenance of all blood lineages under basal physiologic conditions and in response to inflammatory stress. The degradative capacity of the autophagy-lysosomal system is a determinant of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) activation status with low autophagy predicting activation of HSCs, and autophagy deficiency causing the spontaneous loss of quiescence and HSC exhaustion. Although an increase in mitochondrial activity has been suggested as the cause of HSC depletion in autophagy-defective models, the contribution of mitophagy to HSC function remains to be elucidated. Here, we capitalized on the observation …

Cellular Dynamics And Disease Outcome Of Type 3 Streptococcus Pneumoniae Clinical Isolates Differ Between Strains, Taylor Rae Plunkett White

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Streptococcus pneumoniae is a bacterial pathogen that continues to be a major cause of disease around the world. It is not only the number one cause of bacterial pneumonia but also the cause of about 15% of the deaths of children under 5 around the world. There is a lot of research done on this organism, but with around 100 known serotypes and each one producing a unique capsule, there is still much more to be studied. The Etiology of Pneumonia in the Community (EPIC) study conducted by the CDC observed the burden of hospitalizations caused by pneumonia while determining …

A Rodent Animal Model For Forelimb To Lower Jaw Reorganization In Primary Somatosensory Cortex (Si) Barrel Field, Violeta Pellicer Morata

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The goal of this study is to examine mechanisms underlying cortical reorganization in rat primary somatosensory (SI) cortex that follows forelimb deafferentation. The majority of human patients suffering from limb loss or brachial plexus avulsion injury, as well as patients that receive brachial plexus anesthesia, report phantom limb sensations/pain which are often associated with cortical reorganization. Patients with upper-limb deafferentation report sensations of the missing hand during tactile stimulation of the face, and this phenomenon has been termed hand-to-face remapping. We sought to develop a rodent model of deafferentation; our model system is the rat SI cortex barrel field present …

Targeting Protein Degradation To Uncover Novel Oncoprotein Drivers Of Acute Leukemia, Fatemeh Keramatnia

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer and the second most common acute leukemia in adults, arises from clonal expansion of undifferentiated lymphoid precursor cells in bone marrow. Despite the extensive knowledge on its cytogenetic and molecular biology, ALL treatment remains highly challenging especially after relapse. Conventional chemotherapy has shown significant improvement in overall survival rates of pediatric patients up to 90%, however, treatment failure due to ALL relapse occurs in 15-20% of the cases. On the other hand, adults and elderly patients with ALL are considered difficult to treat populations with the 5-year overall survival of 30–40%. …

Immunomodulatory Roles Of The Lysosomal Sialidase Neuraminidase 1, Leigh Ellen Fremuth

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Background Sialic acids are key sugar moieties located at the non-reducing terminals of glycan chains on glycoproteins and glycolipids. By virtue of their location, they influence the functions and biochemical properties of the macromolecules they are bound to. Removal of sialic acids in mammalian cells is carried out by four sialidases, which are differentially expressed and localized in distinct subcellular compartments. Neuraminidase 1 (NEU1), the most abundant and ubiquitous of the four sialidases, functions primarily in the acidic environment of the lysosomes, but can hydrolyze substrates at the plasma membrane, at least in certain cell types. The enzyme initiates the …

Developing Targeted Therapies For T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Jianzhong Hu

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Introduction Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common cancer in children, and risk-adapted chemotherapies have dramatically improved the outcomes of this disease. Compared to B-cell ALL, T-cell ALL (T-ALL) is more aggressive and has worse outcomes from chemotherapy. There is a great unmet need to develop biomarkers and novel targeted therapies for this type of cancer. Working together with internal and external collaborators, we performed a large-scale pharmacotyping assay in over 300 primary ALL samples. By combining pharmacotypying and genomic profiling of these samples, we identified a substantial T-ALL population that showed strong response to dasatinib, a known ABL1 …

Substituent Effect Analysis Of The Synthesis Of 1-Azabicyclo[2.2.1]Heptan-2-One Using Diels-Alder Reactions, Vida Robertson

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

On The Thermodynamics Of Self-Organization In Dissipative Systems: Reflections On The Unification Of Physics And Biology, Bong Jae Chung, Benjamin De Bari, James Dixon, Dilip Kondepudi, Joseph Pateras, Ashwin Vaidya

Department of Mathematics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

In this paper, we discuss some well-known experimental observations on self-organization in dissipative systems. The examples range from pure fluid flow, pattern selection in fluid–solid systems to chemical-reaction-induced flocking and aggregation in fluid systems. In each case, self-organization can be seen to be a function of a persistent internal gradient. One goal of this article is to hint at a common theory to explain such phenomena, which often takes the form of the extremum of some thermodynamic quantity, for instance the rate of entropy production. Such variational theories are not new; they have been in existence for decades and gained …

Sexual Violence As A Tool Of Indigenous Genocide, Katherine E. Elser

Student Publications

Throughout American history, sexual violence against Native Americans has been an all-too common phenomenon. This ranges from outright rape to less obvious examples, including the desecration of native bodies and the separation of native children from their parents, such as at the boarding schools. Analyzing "Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide" by Andrea Smith, along with a variety of other sources, this article argues that sexual violence against native peoples reinforces the colonial idea that they are subhuman and "rapable." Additionally, I also argue that this violence is used to subjugate not just native women, but all women, particularly …

Building For The Future: Functional, Energy-Efficient, And Beautiful Buildings By Snøhetta, Amanda J. Oross

Student Publications

The construction industry accounts for nearly 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which ultimately leads to climate change. Because of a lack of global consensus and accountability on a large scale about how to combat climate change, certain countries and cities are leading the charge on mitigation, since they tend to be more progressive and homogenous. Norway is one of those countries, and happens to be the headquarters for Snøhetta, a design company, that is designing buildings that are not only energy-efficient but also functional for the space in which it resides. Snøhetta very much values the interconnection between the …

Lost Art And Lost Lives: Nazi Art Looting And Art Restitution, Sophia Gravenstein

Student Publications

During the Nazi Regime, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seized an estimated one fifth of all art in Europe and more than 5 million cultural objects before 1945. The Nazis established control over the regime and furthered their racist ambitions through stealing art of any cultural or monetary value to them. They stole “degenerate” art in an attempt to annihilate “racially inferior” races, and “racially pure” art for the glorification of the “Aryan” race. Since the end of WWII, the return of Nazi-looted art to its original owners or their heirs has been an important avenue for remembrance of and …

Evaluating Human Pressure On Protected Areas In East Africa, Bailey M. Ytterdahl

Student Publications

Protected areas (PAs) are crucial to achieving effective conservation goals and mitigate the loss of biodiversity. I investigated the following research questions: How does human pressure threaten PAs in East Africa? Is human pressure associated with the factors of country, ecosystem characteristics, size, or governance type of a PA? For this study, I used a combination of a GIS analysis and case studies to evaluate human pressure on PAs in Tanzania and Kenya. For the GIS analysis, I used 589 terrestrial PAs from the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). Within each PA, I summarized the landform, landcover, moisture level, …

Indigenous Pennsylvania: Past, Present, And Future, Sarah E. Gilsoul

Student Publications

Gettysburg College recently adopted an official Land Acknowledgment Statement. However, there is little publicly accessible media that helps students, or the greater Gettysburg community, understand Indigenous presence in our region. This project, Indigenous Pennsylvania: Past, Present, and Future seeks to address the primary question, “How can we represent Indigenous presence within our region to be informative and inclusive of Indigenous worldviews and perspectives?” The study tackles two sub-questions: a) what are the best digital tools to generate a virtual and informative interactive map that can represent Indigenous senses of space, time, and land relations? and b) what aspects of Indigenous …

The Bedouin In Arabia: A Nomadic Success, Cole D. Quinn

Student Publications

This paper analyzes the lifestyle of Bedouin tribes in Arabia prior to the rise of Islam. It looks closely at how Bedouin tribes were able to coexist alongside pre-Islamic settlements and secure a dominant position in Arabia. Specifically, this paper covers the Bedouin's practice of pastoralism, tribalism, and militarism, and explains how Bedouin tribes were able to secure and maintain a dominant position in Arabia despite the pressure of neighboring settlements.

Estimating Fish Diet In Lake Turkana, Kenya, Julia G. Sharapi

Student Publications

Lake Turkana, located in northern Kenya on the Ethiopian border, is the world’s largest permanent desert lake. Over 90% of its flow originates from the Omo River in Ethiopia, which causes the lake to have seasonal rises and falls in water level. The Omo River has been subject to the construction of five dams (the Gilgel Gibe dams) and several irrigation projects. These developments will impact the amount of water entering the lake, with implications for lake chemistry and productivity, littoral habitat availability, and the breeding biology of the lake’s fishes. Though ongoing upstream changes are likely to have serious …

Logging Impacts On Aquatic Ecosystem Quality In Michaux State Forest, Pennsylvania, Sara Baran, Timothy J. Bell, Erick R. Seager

Student Publications

Logging can affect freshwater streams around logging sites, even years after the logging has occurred. In this study, we looked into how sustainable logging in Michaux State Forest (in Adams County, Pennsylvania) has affected two streams within the state park: Mountain Creek and Birch Run. Six sites were selected along each stream, with three upstream and three downstream from the logging area. We hypothesized that the water quality would be lower at the stream sites downstream from the logged areas as compared to the upstream sites. At each site, water samples were collected, including pH, water temperature, and turbidity, as …

Extreme Exposure To Cold: A Method To Enhance Physical Wellness And Recovery, Mallory E. Duggan

Student Publications

This paper reviews the current literature on Cryotherapy and its ability to enhance physical wellness and recovery. The paper details the proposed mechanisms of Cryotherapy as well as its various clinical applications regarding the treatment of numerous diseases and physical exercise recovery. The paper also details the possible limitations/detrimental effects of Cryotherapy usage.

Sea Level Rise And Public Perceptions Of Climate Change At Otter Point Creek Estuarine Reserve, Md, Haley A. Bechtel, Meghan L. Junis, Keylen Lucero Garcia

Student Publications

Freshwater tidal marshes are essential stopover points for migratory birds traveling up and down the east coast of North America. Given the importance of these habitats, we examined the effects of sea level rise on vegetation health and vegetation migration at Otter Point Creek Estuarine Reserve. We aimed to test three predictions: 1) vegetation health will decline over time during vegetation growth periods, 2) vegetation migration of less water-tolerant species will occur with movement into higher elevation plots, 3) people will be aware that there are impacts of climate change on species around them and themselves. We used a combination …

The Religious Lexicon Embedded In Public American Curricula, Daniel R. Jones

Student Publications

What is the relationship between one's own religious beliefs and their everyday colloquial diction choices? Moreover, why is the subfield that encompasses the intersection of sociolinguistics, education, and religious studies one that has gained little scholarly interest in recent years, where one could argue the importance of religious belief, and other socio-political beliefs in education have come center stage in the heart of American political debate? This article will tackle this broad range of topics through a case study focusing on my primary research question: How does a teacher’s own religious identity affect the religious language utilized in their classroom …

Leveraging Land Easements For Grassland Bird Habitat Conservation, Amy N. Marigliano, Hayden E. Dubniczki, Sarah W. Westrick

Student Publications

In addressing the decline of North American grassland bird populations, it is important to consider the various interdisciplinary approaches that can be employed in their conservation. OECMs, or “other effective area-based conservation measures” encompass a wide array of strategies which can be leveraged to conserve natural landscapes and species. Land easements implemented by the Land Conservancy of Adams County (LCAC) are an example of one such strategy. The LCAC seeks primarily to preserve the rural character of Adams County but has more recently turned their focus toward environmental conservation. In partnering with the Land Conservancy, this case study aimed to …

The North ‘Helicoptering’ Into The South: A Meta-Analysis Of Parachute Science In Ecological Field Studies, Alexandros Economou-Garcia

Student Publications

Science is increasingly collaborative, but scientists from the Global North (GN) often fail to collaborate with local scientists or to build local scientific capacity when conducting research in the Global South (GS). This practice is known as “parachute science” or “helicopter science”. In addition to ethical concerns, this practice is problematic in the field of ecology because it may reduce the likelihood that the research will inform local resource management and science policy. I hypothesized that, because research has become increasingly collaborative, there would be a decline in parachute science over time. In addition, I hypothesized that papers that included …

Occurrence And Ecosystem Effects Of Hiking Off-Trail In Michaux State Forest, Diana Biesecker, Quinn Doherty, Kevin S. Ganjon

Student Publications

American public lands provide significant outdoor recreational opportunities that enhance an individual's physical and mental well-being. Hiking is an example of a highly accessible and affordable recreational activity that is popular and easy for people to engage in no matter how experienced they are. While hiking has improved the well-being of many individuals, its impacts on local ecosystems are often disregarded. For our research, we focused on the impacts that hikers deviating off-trail may have on a local ecosystem in Michaux State Forest in Southern Pennsylvania. Through partnering with the foresters at Michaux State Forest and using AllTrails data, we …

Freedom Within Convention: A Cooperative Analysis Of The Zhuangzi And A Thousand Plateaus, Giacomo Coppola

Student Publications

The Zhuangzi, a foundational text in Classical Chinese philosophy, presents a notion of ideal humanity that involves a seemingly paradoxical relationship between a liberated existence and the barriers that restrict it. To achieve ideal humanity, one must confront the boundaries and attachments that have coalesced into a web of socio-physical conventions and developed dominion over human thought and action. This paper aims at shedding some light on this tension by offering a comparative analysis of the Zhuangzi and A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in terms of their conceptions of ideal humanity. While an abundance of time …

Recently Integrated Alu Elements In Capuchin Monkeys: A Resource For Cebus/Sapajus Genomics, J. M. Storer, J. A. Walker, C. E. Rockwell, G. Mores, T. O. Beckstrom, J. D. Orkin, A. D. Melin, Kimberley A. Phillips, C. Roos, M. A. Batzer

Psychology Faculty Research

Capuchins are platyrrhines (monkeys found in the Americas) within the Cebidae fam-ily. For most of their taxonomic history, the two main morphological types of capuchins, gracile (untufted) and robust (tufted), were assigned to a single genus, Cebus. Further, all tufted capuchins were assigned to a single species, Cebus apella, despite broad geographic ranges spanning Central and northern South America. In 2012, tufted capuchins were assigned to their genus, Sapajus, with eight currently recognized species and five Cebus species, although these numbers are still under debate. Alu retrotransposons are a class of mobile element insertion (MEI) widely used …

Characterization Of Hemocytes In Amblyomma Americanum And Investigation Of Traf6’S Role In Proliferation Of Hemocytes In Response To Infection, Jacquelyn T. May

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Amblyomma americanum is a medically important vector in the southeast United States. Cellular and molecular aspects of the immune system of this species were examined. To investigate cellular processes, hemocytes produced in response to gram-negative infection were characterized according to their ultrastructure. Four hemocyte types were identified: prohemocytes, plasmatocytes, type-I granulocytes, and type-II granulocytes. To elucidate molecular processes, we investigated AamTRAF as an immune-related gene by silencing the gene using RNAi then quantifying the hemocytes after inoculation with gram-negative and positive bacteria. It was found that silencing AamTRAF caused a decrease in hemocyte proliferation in response to gram-positive but not …

Inheritance And Appropriation: Confronting Privilege In Magical Young Adult Fiction, Natalie Jipson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the way that magical ability and the lack thereof has been racialized through the deployment of blood-based models of inheritance in young adult fantasy literature. Because of the connection between blood and biology, texts that only allow magical transmission from parent to child place significant limits on who can access witchery, creating systems of privilege that enforce racial and classed hierarchies. I will use magical novels written by Laurie Forest, Graci Kim, Nnedi Okorafor, Amy Rose Capetta, and Daniel José Older to illustrate the hierarchies created by blood-based models, as well as to demonstrate the possibilities that …

Promoting Cognitive Complexity Among Violent Extremist Youth In Northern Pakistan, Feriha Peracha, Sara Savage, Raafia Khan, Asma Ayub, Andleeb Zahra

Journal of Strategic Security

This article reports on the results of an intervention to promote cognitive complexity (measured by integrative complexity, IC) and perspective taking for youth detained for violent extremism at the Sabaoon Center for Deradicalization and Rehabilitation in northern Pakistan. Participants are sixty-four males (mean age 19.77, SD = 3.26) comprising three cohorts: CVE Detained, CVE Reintegrated, and PVE At-risk.

The Sabaoon IC intervention consists of eight sessions with action learning contextualized according to an assessment of the push, pull and personal factors that shape the life experience of the youth. Pre and post testing results show significant gain in IC in …

The Impact Of Plant Cell Wall Lignin On Energy Utilization In Lactating Jersey Cows, Jason D. Stypinski

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Fiber from forages comprises a significant proportion of dairy cattle rations and by extension, it contributes largely to the energy concentration of the diet. While the proportion of fiber in the diet is important, the composition of fiber is probably more important as the different constituents of this fraction vary in their contributions to the nutritive value of the feed. Lignin has been described as an important factor limiting the digestion of NDF, reducing intake, and compromising milk production. Although lignin’s effects on these responses have been well characterized, the literature lacks data on the use of indirect calorimetry to …

Annotating Gene Expression And Regulatory Elements In Tissues From Healthy Thoroughbred Horses And Identifying Candidate Mutations Associated With Perosomus Elumbis In An Angus Calf, Alexa Mckenna Barber

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Genome annotation has a direct impact on the success of genomic studies. Transcriptome analyses and chromatin immunoprecipitation and sequencing (ChIP-seq) have been used to functionally annotate genomes. These methods can identify protein-coding genes, non-coding transcripts, and cis-regulatory elements across the genome. The primary objective of the first study was to functionally annotate the equine genome through the assessment of nine tissues: adipose, brain, heart, lamina, liver, lung, skeletal, muscle, testis, and ovary. In the first project, 150 bp, paired-end RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) libraries were generated in stallion tissues and compared to previously generated mare RNA-seq libraries to quantify variation in …

Accelerating Peripheral Nerve Regeneration Using Electrical Stimulation Of Selected Power Spectral Densities, Wei-Ming Yu, Madelyn Mccullen, Vincent Chiun-Fan Chen

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Peripheral nerve injuries are common consequences of extremity trauma or chronic compression with a prevalence of 43.8 per 1 million people (on average) reported in the United States annually, accompanied by a yearly increase in cost of care. Patients suffering from these injuries require surgical procedures and rehabilitative strategies to reinforce their extensive recovery. Several studies have found that the application of electrical stimulation can accelerate peripheral nerve regeneration, thus shortening the time of peripheral nerve growth and reducing the cost of care (Willand et al., 2016). The electrical stimulation paradigms that effectively enhanced functional recovery in most studies employed …