Life Sciences Commons^™

Policy Tools For Smart Growth In New England, New England Environmental Finance Center

Smart Growth

Across New England communities have been experiencing a rapid outward surge of development away from our community and downtown centers. Effects of sprawl include a loss of wildlife habitat, farm and timber lands; increased costs of community services and higher taxes; auto-dependency, longer commutes, and increased congestion; increases in air and water pollution; a sedentary lifestyle and increased obesity; and losses to one’s sense of place and social ties.

State-level responses to sprawl have surfaced throughout New England in recent years. This report describes 11 examples of these responses, representing all six New England states and a diversity of recent …

C-Jun Nh2-Terminal Kinase Promotes Apoptosis By Down-Regulating The Transcriptional Co-Repressor Ctbp, Su-Yan Wang, Mihail Iordanov, Qinghong Zhang

CUP Faculty Research

Genetic knock out of the transcriptional co-repressor carboxyl-terminal-binding protein (CtBP) in mouse embryonic fibroblasts results in up-regulation of several genes involved in apoptosis. We predicted, therefore, that a propensity toward apoptosis might be regulated through changes in cellular CtBP levels. Previously, we have identified the homeodomain-interacting protein kinase 2 as such a regulator and demonstrated that HIPK2 activation causes Ser-422 phosphorylation and degradation of CtBP. In this study, we found that c-Jun NH₂-terminal kinase 1 activation triggered CtBP phosphorylation on Ser-422 and subsequent degradation, inducing p53-independent apoptosis in human lung cancer cells. JNK1 has previously been linked to …

Smokejumper Obituary: Hermes, Edwin T. (Missoula 1953), National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper Obituaries

No abstract provided.

The Changing Structure Of Arkansas' Economy: A Shift-Share Analysis, Biswaranjan Das, Daniel V. Rainey

AAES Research Reports and Research Bulletins

The state of Arkansas enjoys the advantages of its unique central location in the nation, excellent natural surroundings, low cost of living, and one of the best business climates in the southern United States. It is home to several of the largest corporations in the world. Over the period 1980-2000, there was tremendous growth in the state’s economy. However, the growth was confined to specific regions that led to several socio-economic issues adversely affecting the state. To better understand the components and variations in economic growth, a county-wise shift-share analysis was conducted. Employment, a good indicator of economic growth, was …

Scarab Beetles In Human Culture, Brett C. Ratcliffe

University of Nebraska State Museum: Entomology Papers

The use of scarab beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) by primarily pre- and non-industrial peoples throughout the world is reviewed. These uses consist of (1) religion and folklore, (2) folk medicine, (3) food, and (4) regalia and body ornamentation. The use of scarabs in religion or cosmology, once widespread in ancient Egypt, exists only rarely today in other cultures. Scarabs have a minor role in folk medicine today although they may have been more important in the past. The predominant utilization of these beetles today, and probably in the past as well, is as food with emphasis on the larval stage. Lastly, …

On The Complexity Of Horn Description Logics, Markus Krotzsch, Sebastian Rudolph, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Horn-SHIQ has been identified as a fragment of the description logic SHIQ for which inferencing is in PT_IME with respect to the size of the ABox. This enables reasoning with larger ABoxes in situations where the TBox is static, and represents one approach towards tractable description logic reasoning. In this paper, we show that reasoning in Horn-SHIQ, in spite of its low datacomplexity, is E_xpT_IME-hard with respect to the overall size of the knowledge base. While this result is not unexpected, the proof is not a mere modification of existing reductions since …

Fat Mass Gain Is Lower In Calcium-Supplemented Than In Unsupplemented Preschool Children With Low Dietary Calcium Intakes, Elizabeth D. Dejongh, Teresa L. Binkley, Bonny Specker

Ethel Austin Martin Program Publications

BACKGROUND: Dietary calcium may play a role in the stimulation of lipolysis and the inhibition of lipogenesis, thereby reducing body fat.
OBJECTIVE: The aim was to determine whether an association existed between change in percentage body fat (%BF) or fat mass and calcium intake in children aged 3-5 y.
DESIGN: A secondary analysis of a 1-y randomized calcium and activity trial in 178 children was conducted. Three-day diet records and 48-h accelerometer readings were obtained at 0, 6, and 12 mo. Body composition was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry at 0 and 12 mo.
RESULTS: The decrease in %BF was …

A Framework For Schema-Driven Relationship Discovery From Unstructured Text, Cartic Ramakrishnan, Krzysztof Kochut, Amit P. Sheth

Kno.e.sis Publications

We address the issue of extracting implicit and explicit relationships between entities in biomedical text. We argue that entities seldom occur in text in their simple form and that relationships in text relate the modified, complex forms of entities with each other. We present a rule-based method for (1) extraction of such complex entities and (2) relationships between them and (3) the conversion of such relationships into RDF. Furthermore, we present results that clearly demonstrate the utility of the generated RDF in discovering knowledge from text corpora by means of locating paths composed of the extracted relationships.

Detecting Overweight Children In Primary Care: Do National Data Reflect The Typical Urban Practice?, Elena Sutu, Carlos J. Crespo, Barbara Shine, Anita Doshi, Teresa Quattrin

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article presents a study which aims to obtain data about the feasibility of detecting risk for overweight and overweight in infants and young children seen for well-child visits based on pediatricians' standard practice, to compare these estimates with the national data, and to compare the data gathered during well-child visits with data collected during well-child visits with data obtained in preschool children seen for a sick-child visit. It was stated that earlier children started increasing in adiposity, the greater the risk for being obese as adolescents and adults with 40 percent of infants whose weight was above the 95th …

The Lasthenia Californica Story: It Started With Flavonoids, Bruce A. Bohm, Nishanta Rajakaruna

Biological Sciences

Our laboratory's study of Lasthenia (Asteraceae) began with an examination of flavonoid profiles of all species of the genus. The finding of two distinct flavonoid races within the L. californica complex led us to investigate environmental factors that might have been responsible for selection of these particular forms. Data were gathered on soil chemistry, allozyme variation, breeding biology, the effect of water stress on plant growth, and ion uptake physiology. In conjunction with workers at other institutions, DNA studies were undertaken to determine evolutionary relationships between the two races. These studies led to the recognition that racial differences had arisen …

Guidelines And Standard Operating Procedures For Idde And Pollution Prevention/Good Housekeeping, Kristie Rabasca, Christine Rinehart

PREP Reports & Publications

In April 2003, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) issued a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) General Permit for Stormwater Discharges from Small Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s). A total of 45 New Hampshire communities (six fully regulated and 39 partially regulated) became subject to Stormwater Phase II regulations based on their designation as Urbanized Areas according to the 2000 US Census.

Town Of Newfields Wetland Evaluation Report, West Environmental Inc.

PREP Reports & Publications

West Environmental, Inc. (WEI) has prepared this report to document the evaluation of 45 wetlands within the Town of Newfields, New Hampshire. These wetlands were previously identified in the Newfields Wetland Mapping Report (February 2006), also prepared by WEI. The field work for this evaluation was conducted from May to October 2006 and included the verification of potential prime wetland boundaries.

The purpose of this wetland evaluation was to gain a better understanding of the wetland resources within the Town of Newfields and to identify wetlands that qualify for Prime Wetland Designation. Each wetland was analyzed to determine its relative …

Kentucky Warbler (Vol. 82, No. 4), Kentucky Library Research Collections

The Kentucky Warbler

No abstract provided.

Influence Of Resource Pulses And Perennial Neighbors On The Establishment Of An Invasive Annual Grass In The Mojave Desert, Rebecca E. Drenovsky, J. J. James, M. A. Caird, R. L. Sheley

Biology

Invasion by exotic annual grasses is one of the most significant threats to arid ecosystems in the western USA. Current theories of invasibility predict plant communities become more susceptible to invasion whenever there is an increase in the amount of unused resources. The objective of this field study was to examine how resource pulses and temporal variation in resource demand by the native shrub vegetation influences establishment of the invasive annual grass Schismus arabicus. Water and nitrogen were applied as pulses in early spring, mid-spring, or continuously throughout the growing season to plots containing either Atriplex confertifolia or Atriplex …

The Effects Of Postfire Salvage Logging On Cavity-Nesting Birds, Richard L. Hutto, Susan M. Gallo

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

We investigated the effects of postfire salvage logging on cavity-nesting birds by comparing nest densities and patterns of nest reuse over a three-year period in seven logged and eight unlogged patches of mixed-conifer forest in the Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area, Montana. We found 563 active nests of 18 cavity-nesting birds; all species were found nesting in the uncut burned forest plots, but only eight nested in the salvage-logged plots. All except one species nested at a higher density in the unlogged areas, and half of the species were significantly more abundant in the unlogged plots. Every timber-drilling and timber-gleaning species …

Oligomerization Of Hepatitis C Virus Core Protein Is Crucial For Interaction With The Cytoplasmic Domain Of E1 Envelope Protein, Kousuke Nakai, Toru Okamoto, Tomomi Kimura-Someya, Koji Ishii, Chang Kweng Lim, Hideki Tani, Eiko Matsuo, Takayuki Abe, Yoshio Mori, Tetsuro Suzuki, Tatsuo Miyamura, Jack H. Nunberg, Kohji Moriishi, Yoshiharu Matsuura

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) contains two membrane-associated envelope glycoproteins, E1 and E2, which assemble as a heterodimer in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). In this study, predictive algorithms and genetic analyses of deletion mutants and glycosylation site variants of the E1 glycoprotein were used to suggest that the glycoprotein can adopt two topologies in the ER membrane: the conventional type I membrane topology and a polytopic topology in which the protein spans the ER membrane twice with an intervening cytoplasmic loop (amino acid residues 288 to 360). We also demonstrate that the E1 glycoprotein is able to associate with the HCV …

Changes In Understory Vegetation Of A Ponderosa Pine Forest In Northern Arizona 30 Years After A Wildfire, Amanda L. Bataineh, Brian P. Oswald, Mohammad M. Bataineh, Hans M. Williams, Dean W. Coble

Faculty Publications

Wildland fires can cause shifts in understory species composition and production. Many studies have examined short-term changes in understory vegetation following a wildfire; however, very few long term studies are available. The objective of this study was to examine changes in understory (herb and shrub) species composition and production since the 1972 Rattle Burn wildfire on the Coconino National Forest near Flagstaff, Arizona. Understory species composition and production were originally sampled in 1972, 1974, and 1980 and were re-sampled during July and August of 2002 and 2003 on 30 plots in each of four sites: high severity burn, low severity …

An Approach For Using Soil Surveys To Guide The Placement Of Water Quality Buffers, Mike Dosskey, Matthew J. Helmers, Dean E. Eisenhauer

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

Vegetative buffers may function better for filtering agricultural runoff in some locations than in others because of intrinsic characteristics of the land on which they are placed. The objective of this study was to develop a method based on soil survey attributes that can be used to compare soil map units for how effectively a buffer installed in them could remove pollutants from crop field runoff. Three separate models were developed. The surface runoff models for sediment and for dissolved pollutants were quantitative, based mainly on slope, soil, and rainfall factors of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), and …

Validity, Identification, And Distribution Of The Roundscale Spearfish, Tetrapturus Georgii (Teleostei: Istiophoridae): Morphological And Molecular Evidence, Mahmood S. Shivji, Jennifer E. Magnussen, Lawrence R. Beerkircher, George Hinteregger, Dennis W. Lee, Joseph E. Serafy, Eric D. Prince

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The roundscale spearfish, Tetrapturus georgii Lowe, 1840, is known only from four specimens from the Mediterranean and eastern North Atlantic. Additional specimens have not been identified since 1961, making the validity and distribution of this species unclear. Analysis of 16 billfish specimens from the western North Atlantic on the basis of scale morphology, anus position, and mitochondrial DNA confirms the validity of this species and extends its distribution. Mid-lateral scales are soft, notably rounded anteriorly, and bear 2–3 points distinct from those of the sympatric longbill spearfish (Tetrapturus pfluegeri Robins and de Sylva, 1963) and white marlin (Tetrapturus …

Central Dysregulation Of The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis In Neuron-Specific Proopiomelanocortin-Deficient Mice, James L. Smart, Virgine Tolle, Veronica Otero-Corchon, Malcolm J. Low

Faculty Publications - Department of Biological & Molecular Science

No abstract provided.

Linking Life Zones, Life History Traits, Ecology, And Spatial Cognition In Four Allopatric Southwestern Seed Caching Corvids, Russell P. Balda, Alan Kamil

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

This report will review the similarities and differences of four species of pine seed caching members of the avian family Corvidae that live on the slopes and base of the San Francisco Peaks in north-central Arizona. The four species include the Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), pinyon jay (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), western scrub-jay (Aphelocoma californica), and Mexican jay (A. ultramarina). These corvids demonstrate a specialization gradient for the harvesting, transporting, caching and recovering of buried pine seeds. This gradient is reflected in their dependence on cached pine seeds for winter and early spring survival …

Plant Reproductive Allocation Predicts Herbivore Dynamics Across Spatial And Temporal Scales, Tom E. X. Miller, Andrew J. Tyre, Svata M. Louda

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Life-history theory suggests that iteroparous plants should be flexible in their allocation of resources toward growth and reproduction. Such plasticity could have consequences for herbivores that prefer or specialize on vegetative versus reproductive structures. To test this prediction, we studied the response of the cactus bug (Narnia pallidicornis) to meristem allocation by tree cholla cactus (Opuntia imbricata). We evaluated the explanatory power of demographic models that incorporated variation in cactus relative reproductive effort (RRE; the proportion of meristems allocated toward reproduction). Field data provided strong support for a single model that defined herbivore fecundity as a …

The Role Of Visual Ornamentation In Female Choice Of A Multimodal Male Courtship Display, Eileen Hebets, K. Cuasay, P. K. Rivlin

Eileen Hebets Publications

The courtship behavior of male Schizocosa uetzi wolf spiders incorporates both visual and seismic signals into a multimodal display. These two signals have been shown to interact in such a manner that the seismic signal alters a female’s response to the visual signal, leading to a putative increased importance of visual signaling in the presence of a seismic signal. Experiments leading to this attention-focusing hypothesis relied in part on the video playback technique, eliciting the question of its significance under more biologically relevant conditions. Here, we directly examine female mate choice of males with differing visual signals (foreleg pigmentation) both …

Target Dna Structure Plays A Critical Role In Rag Transposition, Jennifer E. Posey, Malgorzata J. Pytios, Richard R. Sinden, David B. Roth

Biomedical Engineering and Sciences Faculty Publications

Antigen receptor gene rearrangements are initiated by the RAG1/2 protein complex, which recognizes specific DNA sequences termed RSS (recombination signal sequences). The RAG recombinase can also catalyze transposition: integration of a DNA segment bounded by RSS into an unrelated DNA target. For reasons that remain poorly understood, such events occur readily in vitro, but are rarely detected in vivo. Previous work showed that non-B DNA structures, particularly hairpins, stimulate transposition. Here we show that the sequence of the four nucleotides at a hairpin tip modulates transposition efficiency over a surprisingly wide (>100-fold) range. Some hairpin targets stimulate extraordinarily efficient …

Forage News [2006-11], Department Of Plant And Soil Sciences, University Of Kentucky

Forage News

• Kentucky Grazing Conference in Lexington, November 21
• Cash Receipts Highlights – 2005
• Loss of a Legend
• Hay Is in the Barn…
• New Executive Secretary for AFGC
• Alfalfa’s Makeover
• Effect of Sericea Lespedeza Hay on Gastrointestinal Nematode Infection in Goats
• Upcoming Events

Red Tides In The Gulf Of Mexico: Where, When, And Why?, John J. Walsh, J. K. Jolliff, B. P. Darrow, J. M. Lenes, S. P. Milroy, A. Remsen, D. A. Dieterle, Kendall L. Carder, F. R. Chen, Gabriel A. Vargo, Robert H. Weisberg, Kent A. Fanning, Eugene Shinn, K. A. Steidinger, Cynthia A. Heil, C. R. Tomas, J. S. Prospero, T. N. Lee, G. J. Kirkpatrick, T. E. Whitledge, D. A. Stockwell, T. A. Villareal, A. E. Jochens, P. S. Bontempi, Frank E. Muller-Karger

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Independent data from the Gulf of Mexico are used to develop and test the hypothesis that the same sequence of physical and ecological events each year allows the toxic dinoflagellate Karenia brevis to become dominant. A phosphorus‐rich nutrient supply initiates phytoplankton succession, once deposition events of Saharan iron‐rich dust allow Trichodesmium blooms to utilize ubiquitous dissolved nitrogen gas within otherwise nitrogen‐poor sea water. They and the co‐occurring K. brevis are positioned within the bottom Ekman layers, as a consequence of their similar diel vertical migration patterns on the middle shelf. Upon onshore upwelling of these near‐bottom seed populations to CDOM‐rich …

Hexapod Herald - Vol. 18, No. 5, November 2006

Hexapod Herald and Other Entomology Department Newsletters

Contents:
Congratulations
Welcome
Grants
Publications
Meet a Distance Student
Student News
Travel
Condolences

Endangered Species Bulletin, November 2006 - Vol. Xxxi No. 3

Endangered Species Bulletin

In this issue:
4 States Working Together for Wildlife
8 Saving Saipan’s White-eye
12 Planning for Wildlife in the Lone Star State
14 Building on a Conservation Legacy
16 Tree Farmers Help Grow the Oregon Conservation Strategy
20 Ospreys and the Michigan Wildlife Action Plan
22 Nevada’s Blueprint for Wildlife Conservation
24 Monitoring Wildlife Action Plans: Minnesota’s Approach
26 Partners For Fish and Wildlife and State Plans
28 Integrating State Wildlife Action Plans and INRMPs
30 Partners for Pollinators
32 Focus on Refuges

Endangered Species Bulletin, November 2006 - Vol. Xxxi No. 3

Endangered Species Bulletin

In this issue:
4 States Working Together for Wildlife
8 Saving Saipan’s White-eye
12 Planning for Wildlife in the Lone Star State
14 Building on a Conservation Legacy
16 Tree Farmers Help Grow the Oregon Conservation Strategy
20 Ospreys and the Michigan Wildlife Action Plan
22 Nevada’s Blueprint for Wildlife Conservation
24 Monitoring Wildlife Action Plans: Minnesota’s Approach
26 Partners For Fish and Wildlife and State Plans
28 Integrating State Wildlife Action Plans and INRMPs
30 Partners for Pollinators
32 Focus on Refuges

Whole-Genome Expression Profiling Defines The Hrpl Regulon Of Pseudomonas Syringae Pv. Tomato Dc3000, Allows De Novo Reconstruction Of The Hrp Cis Element, And Identifies Novel Coregulated Genes, Adriana O. Ferreira, Christopher R. Myers, Jeffrey S. Gordon, Gregory B. Martin, Monica Vencato, Alan Collmer, Misty D. Wehling, James R. Alfano, Gabriel Moreno-Hagelsieb, Warren F. Lamboy, Geneviene Declerck, David J. Schneider, Samuel W. Cartinhour

Department of Plant Pathology: Faculty Publications

Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 is a model pathogen of tomato and Arabidopsis that uses a hypersensitive response and pathogenicity (Hrp) type III secretion system (T3SS) to deliver virulence effector proteins into host cells. Expression of the Hrp system and many effector genes is activated by the HrpL alternative sigma factor. Here, an open reading frame-specific whole-genome microarray was constructed for DC3000 and used to comprehensively identify genes that are differentially expressed in wild-type and ΔhrpL strains. Among the genes whose differential regulation was statistically significant, 119 were upregulated and 76 were downregulated in the wild-type compared with the ΔhrpL …