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Identifying And Quantifying Invasive Plant Species Within Lewiston And Auburn, Robert Griffin, Jared Pantalony, Quinn Kieselowsky

Community Engaged Research Reports

One of the greatest changes resulting from industrialization includes improved transportation leading to an increasingly interconnected world. From trains, to ships, to aircraft, modern transportation allows one to cross the globe in a single day. However, such changes have not come without consequences, as greenhouse gas emissions contribute to a warmer climate and rising sea levels. Often lost among these headlines is the growing threat of invasive species. Capable of hitching an unwelcome ride on ships, planes, and other transportation means, invasive species can wreak havoc when introduced to a non-native ecosystem (Westphal et al, 2007). Historically, Maine’s low population …

Honors Research Day [Program] April 23, 2022, University Of Northern Iowa

Honors Research Day Programs

No abstract provided.

Development And Preclinical Investigation Of Physically Cross-Linked And Ph-Sensitive Polymeric Gels As Potential Vaginal Contraceptives, Ankit K. Rochani, Vivek Agrahari, Neelima Chandra, Onkar N Singh, Timothy J Mccormick, Gustavo F Doncel, Meredith R Clark, Gagan Kaushal

Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Faculty Papers

This study explored the development of cross-linked gels to potentially provide a physical barrier to vaginal sperm transport for contraception. Two types of gels were formulated, a physically cross-linked iota-carrageenan (Ci) phenylboronic acid functionalized hydroxylpropylmethyacrylate copolymer (PBA)-based (Ci-PBA) gel, designed to block vaginal sperm transport. The second gel was pH-shifting cross-linked Ci-polyvinyl alcohol-boric acid (Ci-PVA-BA) gel, designed to modulate its properties in forming a viscoelastic, weakly cross-linked transient network (due to Ci gelling properties) on vaginal application (at acidic pH of ~3.5-4.5) to a more elastic, densely cross-linked (due to borate-diol cross-linking) gel network at basic pH of 7-8 of …

Combining Plasma Extracellular Vesicle Let-7b-5p, Mir-184 And Circulating Mir-22-3p Levels For Nsclc Diagnosis And Drug Resistance Prediction, G P Vadla, B Daghat, N Patterson, V Ahmad, G Perez, A Garcia, Y Manjunath, J T Kaifi, G Li, C Y Chabu

Open Access Publications

Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) Non-Small Cell Lung (NSCLC) screening is associated with high false-positive rates, leading to unnecessary expensive and invasive follow ups. There is a need for minimally invasive approaches to improve the accuracy of NSCLC diagnosis. In addition, NSCLC patients harboring sensitizing mutations in epidermal growth factor receptor EGFR (T790M, L578R) are treated with Osimertinib, a potent tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). However, nearly all patients develop TKI resistance. The underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. Plasma extracellular vesicle (EV) and circulating microRNA (miRNA) have been proposed as biomarkers for cancer screening and to inform treatment decisions. However, the …

Pickle Associates With Histone Deacetylase 9 To Mediate Vegetative Phase Change In Arabidopsis, Tieqiang Hu, Darren Manuela, Valerie Hinsch, Mingli Xu

Faculty Publications

• The juvenile-to-adult vegetative phase change in flowering plants is mediated by a decrease in miR156 levels. Downregulation of MIR156A/MIR156C, the two major sources of miR156, is accompanied by a decrease in acetylation of histone 3 lysine 27 (H3K27ac) and an increase in trimethylation of H3K27 (H3K27me3) at MIR156A/MIR156C in Arabidopsis.

• Here, we show that histone deacetylase 9 (HDA9) is recruited to MIR156A/MIR156C during the juvenile phase and associates with the CHD3 chromatin remodeler PICKLE (PKL) to erase H3K27ac at MIR156A/MIR156C.

• H2Aub and H3K27me3 become enriched at MIR156A/MIR156C, and the recruitment of Polycomb Repressive Complex …

Does A Hypertrophying Muscle Fibre Reprogramme Its Metabolism Similar To A Cancer Cell?, Henning Wackerhage, Ivan J. Vechetti, Philipp Baumert, Sebastian Gehlert, Lore Becker, Richard T. Jaspers, Martin Hrabě De Angelis

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

In 1924, Otto Warburg asked “How does the metabolism of a growing tissue differ from that of a non-growing tissue?” Currently, we know that proliferating healthy and cancer cells reprogramme their metabolism. This typically includes increased glucose uptake, glycolytic flux and lactate synthesis. A key function of this reprogramming is to channel glycolytic intermediates and other metabolites into anabolic reactions such as nucleotide-RNA/DNA synthesis, amino acid-protein synthesis and the synthesis of, for example, acetyl and methyl groups for epigenetic modification. In this review, we discuss evidence that a hypertrophying muscle similarly takes up more glucose and reprogrammes its metabolism to …

Comparison Of Themes In Medieval And Modern French Literature, Lily Bourret

WLC/CSPH Symposium

No abstract provided.

Do Wildfire-Mitigation Practices Affect The Conservation Of Sensitive Owls?, Josef D. Pifer

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Fire-mitigation practices are commonly used in fire-adapted forests of the western US to reduce fire hazard and restore historical fire regimes. However, these treatments are being implemented without synthetic knowledge on the extent to which they may adversely affect species of conservation concern due to the possible alteration of critical habitat features they rely on. Although some studies have been done, to date there has not been a synthesis of information or recommendations for a strategic agenda of future research. To accomplish this, I conducted a bibliometric review of articles identified in Web of Science that assessed the effect of …

Non-Structural Carbohydrate Depletion May Increase Vulnerability To Embolism In Drought-Stressed Ponderosa Pine Saplings, Jacob D. Kleimann

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Drought-induced mortality is an increasingly important driver of forest loss across the western U.S. as the severity of drought intensifies under global climate change. Under drought, the water column in the xylem, the tree’s water transport system, encounters increasing tension, potentially leading to embolism and interruption of water transport. Repeated embolism can ultimately lead to hydraulic failure and eventual drought-induced mortality. Studies in poplar have shown that depletion of stored non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), which is common under drought, increases their vulnerability to xylem embolism. However, few studies have mechanistically characterized this relationship in conifer species or in naturally occurring field …

Low Amphibian Larvae Recruitment At Restoration Site In Western Montana: Is Fish Predation Responsible?, Mackenzie E. Weiland

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Amphibian populations around the world are declining at an alarming rate and the decline of western Montana amphibians reflects this trend. As part of the restoration monitoring efforts at Milltown State Park, MT, native amphibian occupancy should be measured. I chose Milltown State Park because it is the largest Superfund site in the U.S. and millions of dollars have been spent on restoration efforts since 2008. However, little is known about amphibian occupancy at the site. Currently, egg masses of the native Columbia spotted frog are found in permanent wetland sites at Milltown State Park, yet larvae detection at these …

Gestating At Altitude: How Do Maternal Physiology And Evolutionary Adaptation Influence Fetal Growth?, Kirksey Cunningham, Kate Wilsterman, Zac A. Cheviron

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Lowland mammals, including humans, experience an increased risk for fetal growth restriction (FGR) at high altitudes. FGR is associated with a range of adverse lifetime risks, including lower infant survival. Maternal physiology, such as cardiopulmonary function and nutrient provisioning, has been hypothesized to play an important role in driving altitude-dependent FGR, but strong associations between specific aspects of maternal physiology and FGR at altitude have been difficult to establish. One approach has been to study populations adapted to altitude; highland populations of humans, sheep, and deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) mitigate altitude-induced reductions in fetal growth and may thus offer insight …

Ion Channel Screen Reveals A Role For Serca In Brain Tumor Growth, Hannah Madison Christman

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Ion channels are essential for neural function, playing a variety of necessary cellular roles including excitability, maintaining ion gradients, and volume control. Recently it has emerged that neural precursors, also known as neural stem cell progenitors, may be affected by channelopathies indicating a critical role of ion channels in neural development. Additionally, various cancers are known to increase expression of ion channels to further progression. Using the model system Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) I tested the effect of reduced ion channel expression of several select channel types by utilizing RNAi knockdown technology in a brain tumor model. By reducing ion …

High Condition Male Rhinoceros Beetles Transfer More Nutrients To Females During Mating, Contributing To Female Preference For Body Condition Rather Than Body Or Weapon Size, Morgan H. Radtke

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Males in many insect species transfer nutrients along with sperm in an enclosed package known as a spermatophore. Females utilize these spermatophores to increase their fecundity. However, not all males offer the same size spermatophore. This can drive female preference toward males who are able to provide the largest spermatophores. The largest males typically produce the largest spermatophore sizes, but this is not always the case. Adult insects with rigid exoskeletons may suffer drastic reductions in body condition that are not visible on the outside. In these taxa, females may select males in excellent physiological condition rather than simply choosing …

Wildland Firefighter Off-Season Mental Health, Luke Santore

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Wildland firefighter suicide rates are ten times that of the general population and lower than only a handful of other occupations in the US. Comorbid mental and behavioral health issues are similarly disproportionately common. In this paper I interview fourteen current and former wildland firefighters about their mental health before, during and (when relevant) after their occupational exposure to wildland fire. My intent is to provide a qualitative assessment of commonly reported mental health issues, their causes and possible solutions. Starting with ex-coworkers I utilized snowball sampling to gather interview subjects. I utilized concept-driven coding supported by memo notes. I …

Heart Of Cold: Cold Hardiness Of The Golden Stonefly Nymph, Jack Hanson

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

The golden stonefly (Hesperoperla pacifica) is an ecologically important aquatic insect native to western North America. These large-bodied predators prey on other insects and support healthy trout populations. Despite their importance, little is known about the cold hardiness or freeze tolerance of golden stonefly nymphs. In winter, stonefly nymphs experience temperatures down to 0 °C, and may experience even colder temperatures as they make contact with ice forming within stream substrates. I carried out a set of experiments to determine the cold tolerance limits of H. pacifica nymphs, and whether they are freeze tolerant or freeze avoidant. Freeze avoidant insects …

Hurricanes And The Shaping Of Circum-Caribbean Societies, Stuart B. Schwartz

Florida Historical Quarterly

Every Puerto Rican knows this plena and can sing its chorus, and on that island where, from July to October, everyone frequently checks the weather reports and looks to the sky, the song seems to describe a generic situation, a way of life, and a common reality. Few people today remember that the song was originally composed to commemorate a particular storm-the great hurricane of San Felipe that diagonally traversed Puerto Rico on September 13, 1928. Hurricanes are no novelty to the islanders, but the fury of that one was memorable. No one who lived through it forgot it. Don …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Bense, ed. Presidio Santa Maria de Galve: A Struggle for Survival in Colonial Spanish Pensacola, by Rochelle A. Marrinan; Hoffman, Florida's Frontiers, by Andrew K Frank; Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark, by William R. Swagerty; Sklansky, The Soul's Economy: Market Society and Selfhood in American Thought, 1820-1920, by Mary O Furner; Johnston, Cherokee Women in Crisis: Trail of Tears, Civil War and Allotment, 1839-1907, by Rose Stremlau; Harvey and O'Brien, eds. George Washington's South, by Jennifer Stertzer; Scarbourgh, Masters of the Big House: Elite Slaveholders of the Mid-Nineteenth-century South, by Aaron Sheehan-Davis; …

Book Reviews, Florida Historical Society

Florida Historical Quarterly

Hann, Indians of Central South Florida, 1513-1763, by Alexa Barraclough Crosby; Sinclair, The Land that Never Was: Sir Gregor McGregor and the Most Audacios Fraud in History, by Charles W. Arnade; Barnes, Native American Power in the United States, 1783-1795, by Christina Snyder; Nelson, Interpreters with Lewis and Clark: The Story of Sacagawea and Toussaint Charbonneau, by James J. Holmberg; Cusick, The Other War of 1812: The Patriot War and the American Invasion of Spanish East Florida, by Jeanne T. Heidler; Miller, Coacoochee's Bones: A Seminole Saga, by Andrew K. Frank; Perdue, "Mixed Blood" Indians: Racial Construction in the Early …

Get The Facts - And Then Act": How Marjorie H. Carr And Florida Defenders Of The Enviornment Fought To Save The Ocklawaha River, Frederick R. Davis

Florida Historical Quarterly

Self described as a "Micanopy housewife," Marjorie Harris Carr seemed an unlikely candidate to develop and lead a successful grassroots campaign to save the Ocklawaha River and the wilderness surrounding it against the Army Corps of Engineers' federally mandated Cross-Florida Barge Canal. In spearheading the "Fight to Save the Ocklawaha," Carr revealed an innate sense of how to present environmental science to the public, the media, and legislators in a way that swayed opinion.

Pulmonary Response To Exercise, Woodsmoke Smoke Inhalation, And Acute Sleep Deprivation, Aidan Daniel Anton Mccloy

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

As the prevalence of woodsmoke exposure from wildfires increases in the western US population, so does the need to understand the long-term deleterious effects of smoke exposure. In addition to strenuous physical activity while exposed to woodsmoke, populations such as wildland firefighters may operate under sleep-deprived conditions. To this end, our laboratory studied the combined effects of smoke exposure, exercise, and sleep deprivation by measuring vascular inflammation, differential gene expression, heart rate variability, pulse wave velocity, and pulmonary function both before and after a 45-minute stationary bike workout. The focus of this analysis was to evaluate forced vital capacity (FVC), …

Developing Quality Of Life Indicators For Open Space And Parks Management: A Three-Pronged Approach, Lane J. Arthur

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

The City of Boulder Outdoor Space and Mountain Parks manages open space land for its “recreational value and its contribution to the quality of life of the community”–amongst other values (Boulder, Colorado Charter art. XII, sec. 176). Resulting, OSMP is currently utilizing an outcomes-focused management (OFM) approach to understand how OSMP lands affect quality of life and well-being in the community. However, little guidance has been provided in the literature on how to identify which outcomes are most relevant to park and protected area users (Driver & Bruns, 2008). Since 2008, efforts have been made to understand outcome relevancy and …

The Global Credit Score Panel, Esther Lyon Delsordo, Cory Emlen, Betta Lyon-Delsordo, Trinity Kurr

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Credit scores are used around the world to measure creditworthiness in lending, but they can also act as barriers to entry into financial systems and as barriers to economic mobility. The purpose of our project is to raise awareness of how credit scores function as these barriers, as well as provide valuable information to help people enact solutions to these problems at a variety of levels.

Our team has put together a series of interviews with credit scoring experts from home and abroad to give their perspectives on the ways credit scores are used and how they affect people’s lives. …

An Improved Method To Study Viral Entry Of Human Cytomegalovirus, Lars Ponsness

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) causes significant disease in immunocompromised adults and congenital infections are a leading cause of hearing loss and cognitive delays. Development of a broadly effective vaccine has been limited by the lack of a method to study receptor-engagement and membrane fusion mediated by HCMV glycoproteins. Additionally, these methods have lacked a convenient way to account for the genetic diversity of the HCMV glycoproteins. Transient expression of the viral glycoproteins in human cells can induce cell-cell fusion. The induction of cell-cell fusion can be used as a surrogate measure of virus entry and is known as a cell-cell fusion …

5d Patent Law Session. Ptab, John B. Pegram, Adam Mossoff, Patricia Martone, Brian Scarpelli, George E. Badenoch, Brian P. Murphy

29th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2022)

No abstract provided.

Exchange Protein Directly Activated By Camp (Epac1) Protects Human Endothelial Cells From Tumor Necrosis Factor-⍺ (Tnf-⍺) Induced Cell Death, Anh Luu, Abigail Carpenter, Rosetta Tolley

ONU Student Research Colloquium

Millions of people are affected by diseases involving inflammatory states such as sepsis. Sepsis is associated with elevated tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-⍺) which mediates inflammation. Excessive TNF-⍺ contributes to death of endothelial cells (EC) with subsequent disruption of vascular endothelial function. Exchange Factor Directly Activated by cAMP (EPAC1) is a cyclic-AMP (cAMP) sensor that regulates multiple EC functions. We hypothesized that EPAC1 activation affects the response of EC to TNF-a. Microvascular EC were pretreated for 45 minutes with 100 mM 8-pCPT-2′-O-Me-cAMP (8-CPT, specific EPAC1 activator) or 10 mM forskolin (adenylyl cyclase activator that increases cAMP), then exposed to 5 …

Cinnamon Extract Alters Mcf7 Cell Morphology, Madison M. Anderson

ONU Student Research Colloquium

Cancer prevention is one area of research that has gained interest in recent years. The anti-cancer effects of polyphenols and other nutraceuticals show great promise in prevention as well as therapeutics. In cancers that occur due to epigenetic modifications, molecules that provide these modifications are useful for both the prevention and reversal of disease. Our lab studies the effects of cinnamon extract on cell viability, growth and morphology. Cinnamon extract has high polyphenolic content and is believed to regulate a variety of transcription factors as well as epigenetic modifications. Our observations suggest that a significant change in morphology occurs in …

Investigating The Protein-Protein Interactions Of Riok3 During Viral Infection, Hunter L. Grimes, Luke A. White, Thomas C. Bisom

University of Montana Conference on Undergraduate Research (UMCUR)

In response to viral infection, cells initiate a series of innate immune signaling cascades that result in inflammation. This process is highly regulated to prevent a damaging hyper-inflammatory response while still fighting off the infection. Infection with Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV), an RNA virus endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa, can result in severe disease in humans and livestock. Infection in pregnant livestock can result in abortive pregnancies and high mortality rates. RIOK3 is an understudied protein expressed in most mammalian cells that has an unclear role in the response to viral infection. Recent work in our laboratory has shown that …

5c Patent Law Session. International Patent Developments, Robin Jacob, Peter Charleton, Brian Cordery, John Richards, Heinz Goddar, Melanie Müller, Eva Ehlich, Kevin Mcgough

29th Annual Intellectual Property Law & Policy Conference (2022)

No abstract provided.

Snakebite!: Antivenom And A Global Health Crisis, Jennifer Haltli

Children's Book and Media Review

One million people suffer from snake bites annually. Over 100,000 of them die, mostly in the eastern hemisphere. With 680 species of venomous snakes residing on all habitable continents, the antivenom crisis is global. The major economic barrier to antivenom is that the countries with the most desperate need are the very same countries that cannot afford it. Consequently, bite victims have learned not to rely on expensive antivenoms that would be effectively administered in hospitals, defaulting instead to ineffective folk remedies. Production of antivenom is expensive, but that's not the only problem. The world’s countries have different medical approval …

Full Issue, Various Reviewers

Children's Book and Media Review

No abstract provided.