Digital Commons Network^™

Vulnerability To G - Quadruplexes In Brca2 - Null Medulloblastoma: A Protective Role For The Pif1 Helicase, Danielle L. Keahi

Student Theses and Dissertations

The reasons why cancer arises in children are not fully understood. Children with biallelic mutations in the essential DNA repair factor BRCA2 are highly predisposed to develop the most common pediatric brain cancer medulloblastoma (MB) before three years of age. Medulloblastoma is often the first malignancy in these children who have a high likelihood of developing several other cancers in their lifetime. MBs have a complex mutational landscape characterized by chromothripsis in p53-deficient tumors and a high level of somatic mutation in many other cases.We utilized a mouse model of spontaneous medulloblastoma development driven by BRCA2 loss in the central …

Elucidating The Role Of Phospholipid Scramblase 1 In Antiviral Innate Immunity, Gabrielle Paniccia

Student Theses and Dissertations

Hosts possess an array of defenses against pathogens, some of which form a baseline protective barrier against infection. This baseline resistance, or intrinsic immunity, is the first layer of cellular defense that a virus must evade or antagonize in order to infect a cell. Intrinsic immunity also forms an important barrier against zoonosis—the transmission of a virus to new species outside its normal host range. Understanding these intrinsic restriction factors and their mechanisms of action can help us understand how pathogens evolve to circumvent or oppose these factors, and identify those pathogens that might be poised to infect new species.In …

Influence Of Mouse Motor Cortex On Vocal Musculature, César D. M. Vargas

Student Theses and Dissertations

Learned vocal communication and spoken language are complex behaviors we have long sought to understand. Studying the neurobiology of speech and language will be advanced by investigating its component traits in model organisms. Most vertebrates share common brainstem circuits for vocalization, and they produce innate vocal repertoires over which the animals have little to no control. Vocal learners can imitate heard sounds, and thus have a high degree of control over their vocalizations. Vocal learning species have a direct projection from the pallial forebrain to the brainstem vocal motor neurons, which facilitate their vocal dexterity. Songbirds have been the standard …

Neural Population Dynamics Underlying Encoding Of Time In The Cortico-Striatal Circuit, Francisca Martínez Traub

Student Theses and Dissertations

Interval timing, the ability to accurately measure elapsed time between events, is critical for generating appropriate behavioral responses. Research conducted over the past decades has implicated the cortico-striatal-thalamic loop in time encoding,suggesting that the cortex utilizes high-dimensional dynamics to represent time. The dorsal lateral region of the striatum (d1St) is a key structure involved in interval timing,where neurons exhibit dynamic firing rate patterns that encode elapsed time, enabling animals to make perceptual judgments about time intervals. However, it is unlikely that this striatal activity is self-generated, pointing towards cortical afferent inputs as the driving force behind it. This thesis aims …

Developing Easysci, A High-Throughput And Low-Cost Single-Cell Genomic Technique, To Study Aging And Alzheimer's Disease In Human And Mouse Brain, Andras Sziraki

Student Theses and Dissertations

Previous single-cell methods are limited by their relatively low throughput and high costs. This prevents most laboratories from performing large-scale cell profiling, complicating the understanding of rare cell type contributions to aging and disease. Moreover, these methods often focus on the 3' end of genes. Without capturing the complete gene body coverage, these technologies have limited detection of specific isoforms. To address these limitations, we extensively optimized a combinatorial indexing-based framework to develop EasySci. We used EasySci to study cell population dynamics associated with aging and Alzheimer's disease in the mammalian brain. This dataset recovered approximately 1.5 million single-cell transcriptomes …

Cells That Kill: The Chemosensory Cell Types Of Aedes Aegypti Mosquitoes, Olivia Victoria Goldman

Student Theses and Dissertations

The ability to detect and respond to environmental cues is the fundamental start of any brain function, computation, or behavior. For my doctoral work, I studied chemosensation in the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can detect cues including human odor, carbon dioxide, and insect repellents. Mosquitoes are human's deadliest predator, causing 700,000 deaths every year through the transmission of malaria parasites and arboviruses including dengue. My research has focused on the molecular underpinnings of mosquito chemosensory cell types. In olfaction, research following the cloning of the first odorant receptors in1991 has shown that each mouse olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) expresses a …

Cellular And Circuit Consequences Of A Genetic Locus For Attention, Zachary Gershon

Student Theses and Dissertations

Animals are constantly bombarded by any number of sensory inputs but have a limited capacity with which to process them. A mechanism for filtering, prioritizing, and directing mental assets is required to prevent sensory overload, enable meaningful comprehension, and allow for further action. Attention is the process of directing cognitive resources toward specific stimuli, which can be dispensed in a top-down manner to carry out higher-order cognitive functions. However, despite extensive and careful study at the molecular, cellular, and, circuit scales, unifying principles have been challenging to elicit. In this thesis, I aimed to provide a new perspective by taking …

Proteomic Analysis Of Wnt Signaling And Metabolism Of Fibrolamellar Hepatocellular Carcinoma, James Knox

Student Theses and Dissertations

Fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma (FLC) is a rare form of liver cancer that primarily affects young adults and adolescents.Although characterized as a subvariant of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we have shown it is distinct based on its pathogenesis, patient population and drug response. Our lab has identified a fusion gene DNAJB1::PRKACA that is found in almost all FLC tumor samples sequenced to date. The fusion gene when expressed in mouse liver is sufficient to generate FLC, and elimination of the fusion transcript kills human tumors. The fusion results from a ~400kb deletion on chromosome 19, beginning after the first exon ofDNAJB1, which …

Anterior Cingulate Function Across Multiple-Time Scales Shapes Learning And Memory, Josue Manuel Regalado

Student Theses and Dissertations

We are constantly learning from our everyday experiences about the people we are with, the things we do,where we are, and how we feel. If deemed significant enough,we may choose to remember what we learn for the rest of our lives.For my doctoral work, I studied how a part of the neocortex, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC),has critical functions across multiple time-scales,from minutes to days-long learning,to weeks-long memory consolidation.The prefrontal cortex, and particularly the ACC portion, is known to be important for goal-directed learning, especially as the relationship between our actions (including effort) and their outcomes (including value) has to …

Recall Germinal Center And Antibody Responses, Ariën Schiepers

Student Theses and Dissertations

Repeated exposure to viruses or their antigens elicits anamnestic antibody responses that produce antibodies that are of greater magnitude and affinity compared to those induced after primary exposure to antigen.The anamnestic nature of the response is a result of the recall of memory B cells (MBCs) that have undergone clonal expansion and affinity maturation in germinal centers(GCs) during the primary response. Upon antigen re-encounter ("boosting"), MBCs, aided by enhanced help from memory T cells, efficiently differentiate into antibody-secreting plasma cells. At the same time, boosting induces recall GCs that could in principle either further affinity mature primary-derived MBCs or engage …

Strain Variation As A Window Into The Neural Logic Of Drosophila Mate Choice, Anna Ryba

Student Theses and Dissertations

Drosophila males perform robust, stereo typed courtship routines which have been studied for over a century to understand the genetic and neural underpinnings of flexible, hard-wired behavior. Courtship–particularly on the crowded wild food patches where flies congregate to mate–is a dynamic interaction between a male and surrounding potential partners that requires he integrate multiple sensory cues to direct his efforts efficiently and appropriately. While the behavior follows a similar basic pattern across Drosophila, it can contain elements that are higly species-specific. Here, we described marked variation in one aspect of male courtship preference among inbred lines of the widely studied …

Transcriptomic Signatures Of Projection Class Neurons For Vocal Control, Stephanie Joy Marcus

Student Theses and Dissertations

Vocal learning is the ability to modify acoustic structure and syntax of vocalizations. This rare trait is thought to have independently evolved three times in birds and five times in mammals. Vocal learning species exhibit an underlying convergence in brain circuitry, including a direct, forebrain-to-brainstem projection critical for the motor production of learned vocalizations. The remarkable convergence in fore brain vocal circuitry is associated with convergent molecular specializations. In characterizing specializations for vocal motor control across species, we can expand our knowledge of vocal learning and the evolution of this trait. In the first section of this thesis, I generated …

Neural Mechanisms Of Homeostatic Need And Reward, Bowen Tan

Student Theses and Dissertations

Feeding, drinking, sleep, mating, fighting, and parenting are instinct behaviors essential for animal survival. Brain has evolved sophisticated cell types and circuits that encode or fulfill the need states for food, water, sleep, sex, aggression and parenting. These need-sensing neurons monitor both environmental cues and interoceptive conditions to elicit appropriate and specific behavioral programs towards restoration of these needs. The homeostatic control of these need states further enables animals to maintain their survival strength and adapt to the environment. In contrast,dysregulation of these need-sensing neurons causes diseases such as obesity and sleep disorders,both of which are key risk factors for …

Use Of Genetically Encoded Tools To Interrogate Mechanisms Of Glutathione Homeostasis From Mitochondria To Mice, Rebecca Timson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Glutathione is an evolutionarily ancient molecule that underlies many critical biological processes across all categories of life. It acts as a cofactor in some metabolic reactions, modifies proteins to modulate their activity, and participates in detoxification of xenobiotic compounds. Despite these wide-ranging functions, glutathione is best known as an antioxidant. Some consider it akin to the fountain of youth because it decreases throughout the course of aging while oxidative damage accumulates.In addition to aging, glutathione dysregulation occurs in a plethora of diseases, including neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease, liver disease, and metabolic disease, among others. However, the specific …

Towards A Better Understanding Of Facial Movements: Computational Models For Perception, Characterization, And Neural Production, Yanis Tazi

Student Theses and Dissertations

Facial movements are the primary medium for non-verbal communication and involve a complex orchestration of muscles controlled by the brain. The ability to interpret and produce these movements enables the expression of a wide range of emotions and social cues, all essential for social interactions. Despite their significance, the neural mechanisms governing facial movements remain poorly understood, hindered by the complexity of muscle coordination and the limitations of traditional, subjective, and labor-intensive analysis methods. To objectively understand facial motor control, this research adopts a three-pronged approach: 1) Developing and interpreting computational models within a novel multi-task training framework to simultaneously …

Recombination And Excision: Dna Repair Proteins In Prokaryotic Host-Virus Conflicts, Amer Azim Hossain

Student Theses and Dissertations

Bacteriophages, or simply phages, are viruses that infect bacteria. They are the most abundant biological entity on our planet and outnumber bacteria 10:1 in the ocean. In response to this threat, bacteria have evolved a diverse battery of immune systems that prevent infection, which in turn has resulted in the development of numerous counter-defense mechanisms by phages. This evolutionary arms race drives molecular innovations and presents exciting avenues for the discovery of new molecular biology and new biotechnology tools, such as restriction enzymes and CRISPR-Cas9. My thesis investigates how mechanisms of DNA repair, specifically recombination and base excision, have been …

Quantifying The Impact Of A Constructed Wetland On Downstream Nitrate Concentrations And Loads In The U.S. Midwest, Elliot Anderson, Keith E. Schilling, Craig L. Just, Bong Chul Seo

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Constructed wetlands are standard conservation practices used to reduce nitrate loads in agricultural watersheds. Many studies have examined the efficiency of denitrification in wetlands under various scenarios, but quantifying the watershed-scale impact of wetlands on downstream nitrate levels is rarely done using field observations. In this study, we estimated nitrate removal in a constructed wetland in the headwaters of Mud Creek, a HUC12 watershed in eastern Iowa, from May–September 2022 and May–September 2023 (a ten-month period). We also measured nitrate loads at four successive downstream sites, three along Mud Creek and one below its confluence with the larger Cedar River. …

Human Inborn Errors Of Immunity: Tuberculosis, Autoimmunity, And Beyond, Masato Ogishi

Student Theses and Dissertations

Tuberculosis (TB), a multi-organ infectious disease caused by virulent mycobacteria, most predominantly M. tuberculosis, remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases in human history. Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, first implemented medically in 1921, has remained the only available vaccine for TB, although its protective effect is moderate. TB occurs in 5-10% of individuals exposed to those pathogens, while 90-95% remain asymptomatic (i.e.,latent infection or spontaneous clearance). This surprisingly large inter-individual variability has long attracted the attention of human geneticists. Classical twin-based genetic studies have demonstrated the presence of a substantial genetic risk of developing TB disease between monozygotic twins. Later, …

Integrating Higher Order Fear-Based Psychopathology And Rdoc’S Acute Threat Subconstruct, Travis Cole

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Fear-based psychopathology consistently pushes the categorical boundaries established by current diagnostic systems such as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition text revision. While classified by their differing phenotypic symptoms, physiological processes such as fear potentiated startle (FPS) and fear load are common, well-established underlying mechanisms of fear-based psychopathology and represent a prominent target for intervention. The shared mechanisms and symptom overlap among fear-based disorders lend evidence to the examination of symptoms based on a dimensional classification system. One such system, the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) is a quantitative, bottom-up approach to mental illness classification that …

Osgoode Syllabus Of Courses And Seminars: 2024 - 2025, Office Of Student Services

Syllabi

No abstract provided.

The Song Of Life: Listening To Self, Others, Nature, And God (The Divine), E. James Baesler

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

“Listening to the SONG of Life” is a pedagogical framework that conceptualizes listening as a multi-sensory experience in four contexts: Self, Others, Nature, and God/Goddess (the Divine). L-SONG (Listening-SONG) is an instrument developed to measure student learning in four contexts during a listening course.

English Department Newsletter 2024, English Department, University Of Southern Maine

Department of English Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Impacts Of Microplastics On The Soil Biochemical Environment And Cherry Tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum) Productivity, Kenny Famakinwa

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Microplastics are a global contaminant with serious consequences for ecosystems and human health, yet their effects on terrestrial soil and plants are poorly understood. We conducted the systematic research to reveal the impact of polyethylene microplastics (PE MPs), polypropylene (PP) MPs and Mixture of PE + PP, size (0.1 – 1 vs 2 – 3.5 mm), concentration (1% vs 5%) on soil biochemical and physiochemical of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L) health. The results showed that the addition of MPs resulted in elevated soil pH, particularly at 5% concentration and size 2 – 3.5mm. There was a remarkable 30.6 – 47% …

Probable Extirpation Of The Jackrabbit (Lepus Californicus) From Arkansas, D.B. Sasse

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

The black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californicus) was first documented in Arkansas during the modern era in Franklin County in 1927. Over the next few decades records were reported from multiple counties in northwest Arkansas and the species was locally common in Benton, Crawford, and Washington counties in the 1950s. The last Arkansas record documented in the scientific literature was from 1968 and since then there have only been three credible reports, with the last being from the late 1980s. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission solicited reports of jackrabbits from the public and failed to find evidence of them from a …

History And Distribution Of The Wood Stork (Mycteria Americana) In Arkansas, R. Tumlison, L. Serviss

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Wood Storks (Mycteria americana) were thought to be common visitors to Arkansas in the early 1900s, but observations declined mid-century. Surveys of citizen science data and other online sources indicate that numbers of unique observations and total counts of birds have increased since 2000. Storks do not breed here, but have been reported in 34 of 75 counties, and appear mostly in August and September. Birds apparently originate from Mexico. Number of observations have increased since 2016, but many of those observations include only a few birds rather than larger flocks.

An Annotated Checklist Of The Camel Crickets (Insecta: Orthoptera: Rhaphidophoridae) Of Arkansas, H.W. Robison, C.T. Mcallister

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

A total of 14 native species of camel crickets and one introduced taxon representing three genera (Ceuthophilus, Phrixocnemis, and Diestrammena) of the orthopteran family Rhaphidophoridae, are herein reported from Arkansas. The most diverse genus was Ceuthophilus, with 13 native species, while Phrixocnemis had one native species, and Diestrammena, formerly Tachycines, was represented by one introduced species. This updated checklist is intended to be of use to entomologists, naturalists, professional biologists, and resource managers in evaluating the biodiversity of Arkansas. State distributional maps are provided for each species listed by county, and habitats are discussed in which each species was taken …

Fish Leeches Of Arkansas, D.J. Richardson, W.E. Moser, C.T. Mcallister, S.P. Lawson, H.W. Robison

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Recent collection within Arkansas greatly enlarges the knowledge concerning hosts and distributions of fish leeches within the state. The natural history of the 6 species of fish leeches known from Arkansas (Placobdella montifera, Placobdella pediculata, Cystobranchus klemmi, Cystobranchus verrilli, Myzobdella lugubris, and Myzobdella reducta) is reviewed and updated and molecular data are provided.

Get Started With Data Visualization, Bryant University Research And Instruction

Library Staff Publications, Presentations & Journal Articles

Intro to Excel

Intro to PowerBi

Getting Started

Data Slicers

Intro to Tableau

Measure vs. Dimensions

Visualizations and Dashboards

Intro to Canva

Hen-Durance Training—Effects Of An Exercise Regimen On Laying Hen Muscle Architecture And Fracture Prevalence, Grace A.T. Hong, Bret W. Tobalske, Nienke Van Staaveren, Emily M. Leishman, Tina M. Widowski, Donald R. Powers, Alexandra Harlander

Faculty Publications - Department of Biological & Molecular Science

Domestic chickens kept for egg laying navigate inclines such as ramps in some commercial housing systems to aid in transitions between housing tiers. Laying hens use their wings and hindlimbs in a locomotion called wing-assisted incline running (WAIR) to ascend steep inclines. There is a potential relationship between the strength of the main flight muscles and the health of the keel bone from which they originate. We sought to test the effects of a controlled, WAIR-based exercise regimen during rearing on keel bone health and muscle properties of white- and brown-feathered laying hens. The WAIR exercise regimen, which consisted of …

Exploring The Effects Of Art Therapy Interventions On Self-Evaluations Of Food Addiction: A Randomized Control Study, Dawn Fiacco

Art Therapy | Doctoral Dissertations

Processed sugar is highly addictive and associated with chronic diseases such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Often, people know that eating processed sugar has negative health consequences but continue to do so, possibly for emotional reasons. The gap between knowledge and behavior makes treating eating issues difficult. Art therapy is a nonverbal modality and could possibly circumvent usual rationalizations, making it an effective way to bridge the cognitive and emotional aspects of problematic eating. This randomized control, mixed methods study was conducted to examine whether a 7-week art directive program could help people with self-identified problematic …