Digital Commons Network^™

Creating Character, Alexa Tenney

Honors Projects

This project explores the relationship between merchandise development and narrative development, with a specific focus on the creative development between dolls and animation. Through exploration of these creative mediums, I began to question: How does the creative process combining animation and merchandise develop, and what is the impact on the final product? This concept is broken down even further to focus specifically on characters, and how creative characters are developed for dolls. This project provides an overview of the history of animation and merchandising beginning with Felix the Cat in the 1920s. Felix represents an instance of an animated character …

Combined Inhibition Of Bcl-2 And Mcl-1 Overcomes Bax Deficiency-Mediated Resistance Of Tp53-Mutant Acute Myeloid Leukemia To Individual Bh3 Mimetics, Bing Z Carter, Po Yee Mak, Wenjing Tao, Edward Ayoub, Lauren B Ostermann, Xuelin Huang, Sanam Loghavi, Steffen Boettcher, Yuki Nishida, Vivian Ruvolo, Paul E Hughes, Phuong K Morrow, Torsten Haferlach, Steven Kornblau, Muharrem Muftuoglu, Michael Andreeff

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

TP53-mutant acute myeloid leukemia (AML) respond poorly to currently available treatments, including venetoclax-based drug combinations and pose a major therapeutic challenge. Analyses of RNA sequencing and reverse phase protein array datasets revealed significantly lower BAX RNA and protein levels in TP53-mutant compared to TP53-wild-type (WT) AML, a finding confirmed in isogenic CRISPR-generated TP53-knockout and -mutant AML. The response to either BCL-2 (venetoclax) or MCL-1 (AMG176) inhibition was BAX-dependent and much reduced in TP53-mutant compared to TP53-WT cells, while the combination of two BH3 mimetics effectively activated BAX, circumventing survival mechanisms in cells treated with either BH3 mimetic, and synergistically induced …

The Colours Of Rethoryk: The Medieval World’S Influence On Red And White Color Symbolism In Geoffrey Chaucer’S The Canterbury Tales, Frederick W. Smallshaw

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Chaucer’s use of visual imagery and symbolism in The Canterbury Tales. From a literary approach, scholars point to Chaucer’s diverse and extensive descriptions of visuals in poetry as a primary rhetorical avenue, where he applies commentary to instances where a physical image (known in this case as a symbol) is most appropriate to elicit a desired emotion or convey a certain idea concerning moralit

Advances In Mass Spectrometry On Membrane Proteins, Hsin-Chieh Yang, Weikai Li, Jie Sun, Michael L Gross

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Understanding the higher-order structure of membrane proteins (MPs), which are vital for numerous biological processes, is crucial for comprehending their function. Although several biophysical approaches have been used to study the structure of MPs, limitations exist owing to the proteins' dynamic nature and heterogeneity. Mass spectrometry (MS) is emerging as a powerful tool for investigating membrane protein structure and dynamics. Studying MPs using MS, however, must meet several challenges including the lack of stability and solubility of MPs, the complexity of the protein-membrane system, and the difficulty of digestion and detection. To meet these challenges, recent advances in MS have …

A Small Secreted Protein Nicol Regulates Lumicrine-Mediated Sperm Maturation And Male Fertility, Daiji Kiyozumi, Kentaro Shimada, Michael Chalick, Chihiro Emori, Mayo Kodani, Seiya Oura, Taichi Noda, Tsutomu Endo, Martin M Matzuk, Daniel H Wreschner, Masahito Ikawa

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The mammalian spermatozoa produced in the testis require functional maturation in the epididymis for their full competence. Epididymal sperm maturation is regulated by lumicrine signalling pathways in which testis-derived secreted signals relocate to the epididymis lumen and promote functional differentiation. However, the detailed mechanisms of lumicrine regulation are unclear. Herein, we demonstrate that a small secreted protein, NELL2-interacting cofactor for lumicrine signalling (NICOL), plays a crucial role in lumicrine signalling in mice. NICOL is expressed in male reproductive organs, including the testis, and forms a complex with the testis-secreted protein NELL2, which is transported transluminally from the testis to the …

Why The Elevation Of Disabled Advocate Moxa Kiran Thakker Is Important, Sanjay Jain, Rahul Bajaj

Popular Media

Appointments such as that of disabled advocate Moxa Kiran Thakker as a judge in the Gujarat High Court repudiate the theory that persons with disability are not competent enough to discharge responsibilities.

What Works For Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Men? A Systematic Review Of The Literature, Jack R. Menges, Marie L. Caltabiano, Alan Clough

Journal of the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men experience significantly higher rates of suicide, trauma, alcohol related deaths and unemployment than other Australian men. Despite significant levels of government intervention, rates of family violence, unemployment and incarceration continue to increase in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. As a subset of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, there has been a lesser focus on how to meaningfully improve the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men. This systematic review seeks to understand what interventions, programs and activities are successful in improving the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men …

Uc-377 Litter Scramble: Encouraging Conservation Through Play, Andrew C Hinson, Tony Ogden, Don Luong, Harrison G Brown

C-Day Computing Showcase

Litter Scramble is a quick-play video gaming experience that delivers a nostalgic low-res combination of 2d assets in a 3d environment to produce an informative and entertaining session that will leave the player better informed on the impact that pollution and littering have on the natural world around us. Featuring a cast of simply animated 2d animals appropriate for a Georgia state park, the player will control a ranger through two different levels, each reflecting a different park environment, in a race against time and the animals to capture as much litter as possible. The development team was eager to …

Uc-373 Terrasim, Anna Alquisiras, Jadante Hendrick, Selene Espinosa, Jake Dunkley

C-Day Computing Showcase

This is an AI project utilizing FNN and OpenGL to simulate a more complex and practical version of John Conway's Game of Life, incorporating real world data for increased accuracy and relevance

Gr-358 Impact Of Avatar's Behavioral Change With Quantity On Human Perception In Immersive Experiences, Nicholas L Wile

C-Day Computing Showcase

As virtual reality technology evolves, researchers have found that the characteristics of virtual avatars including appearance, representation, and proximity, can significantly influence the immersive experience of the user. This project investigates the impact of the number of avatars and their behavioral influence on the user in a simulated learning environment. We developed a virtual reality classroom system with Unity designed to elicit, track, and record the user’s behavioral changes including eye gaze, head, and hand movement using HTC VIVE Pro Eye and physiological signals including Heart Rate (HR) and Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), while the user delivers presentations to classrooms …

Gr-391 Insight Into Current Covid-19 Variants And Data Science Applications, Ravi Potlapalli, Thanusha Sai Ande

C-Day Computing Showcase

COVID-19 has undergone several mutations resulting in the emergence of new variants such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron. Data science plays a vital role in understanding the spread of COVID-19 and its variants. The emergence of new COVID-19 variants has raised concerns about the effectiveness of existing vaccines and treatments. This poster provides insights into the current COVID-19 variants and the data science applications used to monitor and understand their spread. We will showcase the use of SQL to manage and analyze genomic data of SARS-CoV-2 variants, Power BI for visualization and tracking of COVID-19 cases and deaths, …

Child Content Creators And Just Compensation: A Policy Expansion On 'Coogan Law' For Child Social Media Stars, Deanna Cooper

Lincoln Memorial University Law Review Archive

The realm of child entertainers utilizing social media platforms for influencer marketing and monetizing their original content is ever-changing, and officials who could manufacture legislation changes to protect those financial futures have long been locked in a stalemate. Child actors and child entertainers in traditional workplace settings have financial protections under ‘Coogan Law,’ a state law enacted to safeguard a portion of the minor’s earnings in a trust account until they reach the age of majority and to protect their assets from exploitation and financial abuse by their managers and/or family members. Those same underaged content creators earn thousands of …

Conference Program - Cell Culture Engineering Xviii, Laura A. Palomares, Chetan Goudar, Tongtong Wang

Cell Culture Engineering XVIII

No abstract provided.

No-Show Rates In Community Mental Health Clinics, Teresa Jordan

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Now Show Rates in Community Mental Health Clinics

No-show rates in community mental health clinics are typically higher than in other areas of healthcare. No show rates have a negative impact upon patients, clinics, and communities.

Mental illness has reached an all-time high in the U.S. In his first State of the Union address, President Joe Biden stated that our country faces an “unprecedented mental health crisis among people of all ages.” Evidence well supports his statement. To extinguish this crisis, all barriers to mental health care must be evaluated and attacked from all possible angles. Increasing access to mental …

The State Of Accessibility In Blackboard: Survey And User Reviews Case Study, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Wajdi Aljedaani, Stephanie Ludi, Mohammed Alkahtani, Marcelo M. Eler, Marouane Kessentini, Ali Ouni

Articles

Context: Nowadays, mobile applications (or apps) have become vital in our daily life, particularly within education. Many institutions increasingly rely on mobile apps to provide access to all their students. However, many education mobile apps remain inaccessible to users with disabilities who need to utilize accessibility features like talkback or screen reader features. Accessibility features have to be considered in mobile apps to foster equity and inclusion in the educational environment allowing to use of such apps without limitations. Gaps in the accessibility to educational systems persist.

Objective: In this paper, we focus on the accessibility of the Blackboard mobile …

Dataset Of Rna-Seq Transcriptome Of The Fetal Liver At Day 83 Of Gestation Associated With Periconceptual Maternal Nutrition In Beef Heifers, Wellison J.S. Diniz, Alison K. Ward, Kacie L. Mccathy, Cierrah J. Kassetas, Friederike Baumgaertner, Lawrence P. Reynolds, Pawel P. Borowicz, Kevin K. Sedivec, James D. Kirsch, Sheri T. Dorsam, Tammi L. Neville, J. Chris Forcherio, Ronald Scott, Joel S. Caton, Carl R. Dahlen

Department of Animal Science: Faculty Publications

Herein, we present a dataset based on the RNA-Seq analysis of liver tissue from bovine female fetuses at day 83 of gestation. The findings were reported in the main article, “Periconceptual maternal nutrition affects fetal liver programming of energy- and lipid-related genes”[1] . These data were generated to investigate the effects of periconceptual maternal vitamin and mineral supplementation and rates of body weight gain on the transcript abundance of genes associated with fetal hepatic metabolism and function. To this end, crossbred Angus beef heifers ( n = 35) were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatments in a 2 × …

Metropolitan Chorale Presents Prairie Poetry, Featuring The World Premiere Of "A Green Voice", April 23, 2023 [Program], University Of Northern Iowa. School Of Music.

Music Recital Programs

Program of a music recitals given by faculty, students, or guest artists from the School of Music at the University of Northern Iowa.

Student Recital: Adam Robles, Tuba, Adam Robles, Bianca Hall, Stephen Coxe

Student Recitals

No abstract provided.

Japan: Where Did All The People Go? An Empirical Study On Economic And Social Impacts On Low Fertility In Japan, Sasha Heasley

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This project analyzed potential impacts on the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Japan (2010 and 2015), which is dealing with both a declining population and an ageing population in parallel. Results indicate that income per person has the largest impact on TFR, and it is highly considered when making fertility decisions. Results also show that government policies are largely ineffective in impacting TFR. Results were obtained through two panel regressions and two Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions, in which TFR was the dependent variable.

Plant Sentience: A Hypothesis Based On Shaky Premises, Carel Ten Cate

Animal Sentience

Plants may produce fascinating behavioural phenomena for which the label ‘cognitive process’ may be applicable, at least by some definitions. Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (2023) base their hypothesis that plants might be sentient on the premise of demonstrated presence of cognitive complexity. However, the way phenomena are ascribed, and how the term ‘cognitive’ is used by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo, deviates from the common practice in studies of animal cognition, implying greater complexity than seems justified. It thus provides a questionable basis for attributing sentience to plants.

Plant Sentience: "Feeling" Or Biological Automatism?, Andrea Mastinu

Animal Sentience

Sentience refers to the ability of an organism to have subjective experiences such as sensations, emotions and awareness. Whereas some animals, including humans, are widely recognized as sentient, the question of whether plants are sentient is still debated among scientists, philosophers, and ethicists. Over the past 20 years, many scientists such as Trewavas, Baluška, Mancuso, Gagliano, and Calvo have reported interesting discussions about memory, behavior, communication, and intelligence in plants. However, the reported conclusions have not convinced the entire scientific community. In this commentary, I would like to focus on two critical aspects related to sentience: cognition and emotion

Developing A Silvopastoral System For Use In Pará, Brazil, Laurel Kerkman

USF St. Petersburg campus Honors Program Theses (Undergraduate)

Land use changes brought on by agriculture are responsible for both a significant portion of climate change and emissions from livestock. Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are released from land degradation and deforestation as diverse ecosystems are turned into pastures. Brazil, which ranks among the top four in the world for food production, is a hotspot for agriculture-related deforestation. Currently, Brazil is the largest exporter of beef in the world, which has put a strain on the environment as natural resources are destroyed in order to make room for industry. This thesis looks at and suggests silvopastoral farming systems …

An Introductory Investigation Of Dust Devils On Mars: Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling, Alexios Nicolas Philippou, Kakkattukuzhy M. Issac

NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium

This report investigates the flow characteristics of tornado like vortices which can be used to describe an array of axisymmetric rotating vertical columns of fluid such as dust devils, steam devils and tornadoes. These vortices have been recreated within vortex chambers in research facilities, but in focus of this report the investigation is conducted through numerical simulations using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software package provided by ANSYS. By varying the main governing nondimensional parameter of swirl ratio through the computational domain’s boundary conditions, different flow characteristics appear which confirm theories presented in previous papers. This enables the research conducted …

Bias Against Asians, Black People, Hispanics/Latines, Jews, And Muslims On Twitter In 2020 And 2021, Gunther Jikeli

International Conference on Hate Studies

Hate speech on social media has been identified as a social problem. However, it is difficult to quantify how widespread hate speech is. We looked at conversations on Twitter about Asians, Black people, Jews, Hispanic/Latino people, and Muslims by manually annotating representative samples of tweets from 2020 and 2021 with the keywords “Asians, Blacks, Jews, Latinos, and Muslims.”

We found between 5 and 17 percent tweets were biased, depending on the keyword and year. This results in an estimated 8.3 million biased tweets during that period. However, there were even more tweets calling out bias against these minority groups, between …

Astrobiology Research & Outreach At Truman State University, Nothan Shaw, Autumn Winslett, Daphne Zakarian

NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium

We present light curves for three potential exoplanet candidates: TIC 950525831.01 and TIC 346015394.01. These targets were chosen from the TESS Follow-Up Observing Program (TFOP) database¹. The primary goal of the TESS Follow-up Observing Program (TFOP) Working Group (WG) is to provide follow-up observations that will facilitate achievement of the Level One Science Requirement to measure masses for 50 transiting planets smaller than 4 Earth radii². Students remotely used the 1-m NPOI Lowell telescope on Anderson Mesa near Flagstaff, Arizona to target these objects. In total, students observed eight “TFOP” potential exoplanet targets. Students are working …

Quantifying And Reducing Light Pollution, Trace Ackley, Margaret Ferney, Addie Vandewalle

NASA-Missouri Space Grant Consortium

Faculty and undergraduate students at Truman State University participated in activities related to quantifying light pollution and creating awareness about the dangers associated with bad outdoor lighting. The research activities students were involved in include continuing our work on using “all-sky-cameras” and the TESS all-sky photometer to quantify the sky brightness at various locations in-and-around Kirksville; and starting a new interdisciplinary project involving counting bird-strikes near glass windows around the Truman campus. With regards to outreach & activism, students have continued to reach out to school administrators, the Truman State Physical Plant, and the local Kirksville city management to continue …

Functional Domains Of The Hsv-1 Ul37 Protein In Virus Infectivity And Retrograde Transport In Neurons, Carolyn Clark

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Herpes simplex virus type 1 is large alphaherpesvirus with 20 envelope proteins and 23 tegument proteins. Virus entry is via fusion of the viral envelope with cellular membranes mediated by a complex of viral glycoproteins. Glycoprotein B (gB) is the only fusogenic glycoprotein, while other viral glycoproteins and membrane proteins including gD, gH, gL, gK and UL20 membrane protein modulate gB’s fusogenicity. Previously, Our laboratory developed the HSV-1 (VC2) vaccines strain with partial deletions in the amino termini of gK (ΔgK(31–68)) and the UL20 membrane protein (ΔUL20(4–22)). VC2 enters epithelial cells only via endocytosis followed by release of the capsid …

2023 Soars Conference Program, Unf Office Of Undergraduate Research

Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

Program for the 2023 Showcase of Osprey Advancements in Research and Scholarship (SOARS)

Evaluating Pubmed-Indexed Publications Of Applicants Successfully Matching Into The Top 50 Urology Residency Programs In The 2021-2023 Cycles, Sahaam Mirza, Tatum Williamson, Moben Mirza, Robert Arnce

Faculty and Staff Publications

Background and objective

Urology residency match occurs through the American Urological Association (AUA), and hence information about the success of applicants in finding a match is not readily available. The average number of publications a successful urology applicant has when applying for residency is unknown. In light of this, we conducted this study to examine the number of PubMed-indexed research projects involving US senior medical students who successfully matched into the top 50 urology residency programs in the 2021, 2022, and 2023 match cycles. We also assessed these applicants based on their medical schools and gender.

Methods

Doximity Residency Navigator …

Internship At "The Japan America Society Of Chicago", Shirin Smatova

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

This portfolio tells the story of the semester I interned at “The Japan America Society of Chicago” As an intern there,I was fortunate to have this unique experience and learned a lot while working with this organization. I am thrilled to be able to share my experience through the support of the Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching & Scholarships. In this presentation I will be talking about my learning experience with JASC and CELTS, as well as my professional development, and the engaged learning class that accompanied my internship.