Life Sciences Commons^™

Growing Up Healthy: A Study On Young Adults And Their Readiness To Transition To Independent Healthcare, Annabelle Heddell

2022 Awards for Excellence in Student Research and Creative Activity - Documents

Healthcare is a lifelong journey that involves changes, decision making, and awareness of health needs and concerns. As children grow up and age out of the pediatric system, transitioning occurs. Healthcare transitioning (HCT) is a process that assists individuals with the different stages of their health journey. Transition readiness is derived from the concept of health care transitioning, which is generally defined as “the process of shifting from pediatric to adultfocused care” (Kelemen et al., 2014, p. 1062). A more in-depth definition describes health care transitioning as the “process of purposeful, planned movement of adolescents with chronic medical conditions from …

Making Forests, Making Communities: An Ethnography Of Reforestation In Monteverde, Costa Rica, Megan Brown

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Reforestation is not just planting trees in the ground. More than net increase in forest cover, reforestation is a complex political endeavor undertaken by both humans and non-humans and a popular climate change mitigation tactic. However, little research has examined the dynamics between selection of specific reforestation strategies, health, and community resilience, particularly with attention to entanglements between the lives of both human and non-human forest dwellers. This ethnographic work, based on six months of in-person fieldwork and six months of digital ethnography, examines reforestation and forest relations in Costa Rica’s Monte Verde zone, a region which experienced widespread deforestation, …

Leaf Phenology Of Callery Pear: Frost Damage, Margaret E. Maloney, Abby Hay, Eric B. Borth, Ryan W. Mcewan

Five Rivers MetroParks Collaboration Data Archive

This dataset is one of three affiliated with the paper "Leaf phenology and freeze tolerance of the invasive tree Pyrus calleryana Roseaceae) and potential native competitors."

The other two datasets are:

• Leaf Phenology of Callery Pear: Spring
• Leaf Phenology of Callery Pear: Fall

Leaf Phenology Of Callery Pear: Spring, Margaret E. Maloney, Abby Hay, Eric B. Borth, Ryan W. Mcewan

Five Rivers MetroParks Collaboration Data Archive

This dataset is one of three affiliated with the paper "Leaf phenology and freeze tolerance of the invasive tree Pyrus calleryana Roseaceae) and potential native competitors."

The other two datasets are:

• Leaf Phenology of Callery Pear: Fall
• Leaf Phenology of Callery Pear: Frost Damage

Considerations For Establishing Silvopastures On Wooded Sites, Brett Chedzoy, Ashley Conway, John Fike, Kate Macfarland

Agroforestry Notes (USDA-NAC)

Like other conservation and production practices, silvopasture management is not the right fit for every site or every land manager. High quality woodlands with high native species diversity are generally not a good starting point for silvopasture establishment. However, silvopasture provides an opportunity for active forest management on other sites that have been neglected or poorly managed with undesirable species composition, invasive species concerns, and other challenges. In some situations, silvopasture management can be used to aid in ecosystem restoration or fuels mitigation. The land manager and others in the silvopasture team should consider natural resource issues highlighted in this …

Smokejumper Magazine, April 2022, National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper and Static Line Magazines

This issue of the National Smokejumper Association (NSA) Smokejumper Magazine contains the following articles: Message from the President; Standing Tall-Making a Difference: Merv George, Supervisor Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest; Oakus of the Doakus on the Gobi; Odds and Ends; The Homecoming; Recording Smokejumper History; 1944 Rookies-The Civilian Public Service Years; NSA's Most Successful Membership Drive; Sounding Off from the Editor; That First Season-An Almost Love Affair; Siskiyou Rappellers-A Force That Does the Job; Ring of Fire; The Silent Mountain; Gates of the Arctic National Park-Alaska; The Jump List; Travel Air NC8182 Is Flying Again; Pick Your Own Tree; Touching All …

Exploring Amaranth’S Color Palette: Linking Phenotype, Plant Adaptation, And Human Health, Sarah Redman, Chance Riggins Ph.D.

PRECS student projects

Amaranthus is a genus containing species that are highly desirable, yet underutilized crops and species that are highly despised pernicious agricultural weeds.

• Cultivated species are primarily grown as nutritious pseudograins, colorful ornamentals, or leafy greens and are recognized for tolerance to heat, drought, and salinity.
• Weedy amaranths possess similar adaptive traits, in addition to evolved resistance to numerous herbicides, and pose severe challenges to global agriculture.
• Plant pigments (i.e., betalains, carotenoids) are central to understanding this impressive diversity of phenotypes and adaptive traits.

Notch3 Expression In Zebrafish With Inherited Degeneration Vs. Inflicted Damage, Meghan Graeca

Celebration of Scholarship 2022

While mammals possess a limited capacity for retinal regeneration, teleosts such as Danio rerio (zebrafish) can recover from retinal injury or cell death through stimulation of glia to induce reprogramming into neural stem-like cells.

1 In zebrafish, retinal Müller glia engage in regeneration in response to an injury-derived signal. It was previously shown2,3 that the regenerative response to retinal damage in zebrafish is regulated by the Notch signaling pathway. Persistent Notch signaling causes Müller glia to remain in a quiescent state in the undamaged retina, and Notch signaling repression causes Müller glia to reenter the cell cycle3 , reprogramming them …

Smart-A Prototype Design For Sustainable Method Of Agriculture Using Root Transition, Aniruddha Acharya

Faculty Publications - Biological Sciences

The rapid increase in global population along with urbanization will continue to increase the challenge of food security and environmental sustainability. Agriculture is essential for food security, however, is an expensive process both financially and environmentally. Estimation of crop performance before investing in field would substantially benefit agricultural output and environmental sustainability. A simple, easy to use, portable, and inexpensive prototype of a device is described that can be successfully used to estimate plant performance and help tailor fertilizer formulations and microbial consortium for optimal agronomic output. The device can also be used for agriculture by farmers and for plant …

Exploring The Functionality Of Putative Bop3 Post-Translational Modifications, Liliya Tkachuk

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

All eukaryotic cells require that transcribed mRNAs undergo export form the nucleus to the cytoplasm where they can be translated into proteins. This process requires a host of proteins which are conserved between the unicellular budding yeast, S. cerevisiae, and humans. During this process, Mex67 and other associated proteins facilitate the mRNA to travel across the nuclear pore complex (NPC), doorways embedded in the nuclear envelope. Upon the exit of mRNA, Mex67 is released and recycled back into the nucleus to facilitate the export of more mRNA. This occurs through the action of Dbp5, whose activity is regulated through …

Establishing A Framework For Assessing Teaching Effectiveness, Shawn R. Simonson, Brittnee Earl, Megan Frary

Kinesiology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Most institutional practices to evaluate teaching are inadequate, inaccurate, neither improve teaching directly, nor incentivize teaching improvement. This is often because effective teaching is difficult to assess and most tools do not adequately or accurately do so and are often without established standards. Because of this, faculty may be hesitant to change or may not be aware of the need to change their teaching practice or how to effect such change. Here we establish a framework defining effective teaching and develop a tool that considers multiple facets of teaching and will accommodate different approaches, modes, and environments.

Alleviating Human-Elephant Conflict Through Deterrent Fences And Environmental Monitoring In Southern Kenya, Sophia Carmen Corde

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Human-wildlife conflict is present across the world. In areas where human settlements overlap with elephant habitats, human-elephant conflict can result from crop raiding events, compromising farmers’ food and economic security, and putting humans and elephants in danger through farmer retaliation. Elephants raid crops primarily at night, when detection by humans is lowest, and during the dry season, as crops are developing towards harvest and natural forage quality drops. People living in these areas facing HEC have developed mitigation strategies to lessen the impacts and move towards coexistence. As a team member on the Elephants and Sustainable Agriculture in Kenya project, …

Do Changes In The Navy Physical Readiness Test Impact Performance?, Alison Colao

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The fitness level of our service members is of utmost importance due to the nature of their occupation. This study investigated whether changes to the Navy’s Physical Readiness Test (PRT) impact performance on the fitness test. Participants were college-aged males between the ages of 18 and 29 (n=20; 21.05±2.01 years; BMI 24.85± 2.74). Participants performed both the New PRT and Old PRT at two separate randomized visits. Protocols included push-ups, curl-ups (old version) or a forearm plank hold (new version), and a 1.5-mile run. At the end of each exercise, the participant’s heart rate and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) …

The Validity & Reliability Of The Repetitions In Reserve Based Rating Of Perceived Exertion Scale In Single Joint Exercise, Grant Malone

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Introduction: Intentional regulation and individualization of resistance training schemes are imperative when structuring a resistance training program. Optimal adaptation cannot be expected without proper manipulation of training variables such as load and volume. Load is traditionally prescribed by testing a given exercise’s repetition maximum and basing intensity from that load. This method of intensity regulation may be limited, considering it fails to recognize the day-to-day undulation of individual performance which can be impacted by several variables. A flexible method of regulating load and volume would be of use for those undergoing a resistance training program. The repetitions in reserve-based rating …

Epistemic Beliefs: Relationship To Future Expectancies And Quality Of Life In Cancer Patients., Paul K J Han, Elizabeth Scharnetzki, Eric Anderson, John Dipalazzo, Tania D Strout, Caitlin Gutheil, F Lee Lucas, Emily A Edelman, Jens Rueter

Faculty Research 2022

CONTEXT: Expectations about the future (future expectancies) are important determinants of psychological well-being among cancer patients, but the strategies patients use to maintain positive and cope with negative expectancies are incompletely understood.

OBJECTIVES: To obtain preliminary evidence on the potential role of one strategy for managing future expectancies: the adoption of "epistemic beliefs" in fundamental limits to medical knowledge.

METHODS: A sample of 1307 primarily advanced-stage cancer patients participating in a genomic tumor testing study in community oncology practices completed measures of epistemic beliefs, positive future expectancies, and mental and physical health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Descriptive and linear regression …

Extracellular Matrix In Cancer Progression And Therapy, Xiuxiu He, Byoungkoo Lee, Yi Jiang

Faculty Research 2022

The tumor ecosystem with heterogeneous cellular compositions and the tumor microenvironment has increasingly become the focus of cancer research in recent years. The extracellular matrix (ECM), the major component of the tumor microenvironment, and its interactions with the tumor cells and stromal cells have also enjoyed tremendously increased attention. Like the other components of the tumor microenvironment, the ECM in solid tumors differs significantly from that in normal organs and tissues. We review recent studies of the complex roles the tumor ECM plays in cancer progression, from tumor initiation, growth to angiogenesis and invasion. We highlight that the biomolecular, biophysical, …

Auriculocondylar Syndrome 2 Results From The Dominant-Negative Action Of Plcb4 Variants., Stanley M Kanai, Caleb Heffner, Timothy C Cox, Michael L Cunningham, Francisco A Perez, Aaron M Bauer, Philip Reigan, Cristan Carter, Stephen A Murray, David E Clouthier

Faculty Research 2022

Auriculocondylar syndrome 2 (ARCND2) is a rare autosomal dominant craniofacial malformation syndrome linked to multiple genetic variants in the coding sequence of phospholipase C β4 (PLCB4). PLCB4 is a direct signaling effector of the endothelin receptor type A (EDNRA)-Gq/11 pathway, which establishes the identity of neural crest cells (NCCs) that form lower jaw and middle ear structures. However, the functional consequences of PLCB4 variants on EDNRA signaling is not known. Here, we show, using multiple signaling reporter assays, that known PLCB4 variants resulting from missense mutations exert a dominant-negative interference over EDNRA signaling. In addition, using CRISPR/Cas9, we find that …

Generating A Colorimetric Ssa4 Transcript Export Reporter For Multicopy Suppression Screen In S. Cerevisiae, Zaid Hatem

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The export of mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm is a regulatory point that is essential to the pathway of gene expression in eukaryotic cells. The export of mRNA transcripts is mediated through selective doorways called the nuclear pore complexes (NPC). Additionally, there are proteins associated with the nuclear pore complex that assist in facilitating the export. This includes association with the export receptor, Mex67, which binds to the transcript and ferries it through NPCs. During cellular stress, such as heat shock, the export of housekeeping mRNA transcripts is halted, forcing these transcripts to remain inside the nucleus and …

Encouraging Healthier Habits In Children, Krysta Hughes

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

Childhood obesity rates in America are the highest they've ever been. In this research we are focused on encouraging healthier habits in children. The method used was an observational, cross-sectional online survey of 5 children and 4 parents. All of the children and parents wanted to pick healthier behaviors after reading my book. A Qualtrics survey was used to record each surveyor's response. Further research on this topic should include researching how many children have began to implement healthier habits and measure if the rate of obesity in children has been affected through yearly health visits.

Native Seed Scoop, 2022 Post-Planting Edition, University Of Northern Iowa. Tallgrass Prairie Center.

Native Seed Scoop

Contents:

--- Events
--- In case you missed it
--- Collaboration on seed production issues
--- New species at the TPC
--- Conservation Program news
--- AOSCA updates certification booklet
--- Research scoop
--- Outreach, education, and marketing
--- In other news . . .

A Proposed Curriculum To Improve The Scientific Literacy Of Pastoral Leadership In The Church, Kacey Mewborn

Selected Honors Theses

Scientific illiteracy is a widespread reality in the Christian church today. The observatory and evidentiary nature of science seems to strongly contradict the faith-based belief in religion that often lacks physical evidence. This contradiction has incited many different conflicts between the congregation of the church and proponents of scientific advancement. A potential cause of this division is that the current education provided for church leaders is severely lacking in exposure to scientific topics that would allow these leaders to effectively communicate with their congregation when scientific issues are raised. Therefore, this research proposes a supplementary curriculum in the form of …

Impact Of A Family History Of Hypertension And Physical Activity On Left Ventricular Mass, Evan L. Matthews, Kerry N. Callaghan, Peter A. Hosick, Michael S. Brian

Research Data

A positive family history of hypertension (FHH) (+FHH) is associated with elevated left ventricular mass (LVM). Regular physical activity (PA) may eliminate differences in LVM between +FHH and negative family history of hypertension (-FHH) adults. PURPOSE: To determine if a +FHH is associated with a greater LVM compared to a -FHH group within a sample of young, mostly active healthy adults with and without statistically controlling for PA. METHODS: Healthy young (18-32yrs) participants self-reported FHH status and habitual moderate and vigorous PA frequency. Participants then underwent an echocardiogram. RESULTS: Of the 61 participants, 32 (M=11, W=21; non-active=8) reported -FHH and …

Gsl Researcher (Spring 2022)

GSL Researcher

GSL Researcher (Spring 2022)

Greetings

People

Range and pasture update

Ranch update

Technical notes

Highlighted research

Nebraska ranch practicum

Recent publications

Engaging Students Equitably In Biological Systems Modeling, Sowmya Anjur

Faculty Publications & Research

It has been my goal as an educator to engage students in meaningful and innovative assessments that are hands-on, engage their creativity and improve their interdisciplinary understanding. At the same time, the engagement need to be equitable as well, to recognize each student for their individuality and creativity. To this end, I created my Pathophysiology course with the objective of teaching students how to model biological systems. The course is a one semester course that is based on homeostasis maintenance in the body and how homeostatic disruptions result in symptoms of pathologies. Students are required to understand how homeostasis is …

Evolution And Adaptations - Choose An Organism To Explore, Stephanie A. Rose

Open Educational Resources

Homework assignment for Principles of Environmental Science course for teachers.

To help students think about evolution and adaptations, and how organisms evolve to live in particular places and conditions.

Hk 710: Meta-Analysis, Minsoo Kang

GMAS Course Syllabi

No abstract provided.

The Microbial Nitrogen Cycling, Bacterial Community Composition, And Functional Potential In A Natural Grassland Are Stable From Breaking Dormancy To Being Dormant Again, Bikram Kumar Das, Satoshi Ishii, Linto Antony, Alexander Smart, Joy Scaria, Volker Brozel

Native Plant Focused Publications

The quantity of grass-root exudates varies by season, suggesting temporal shifts in soil microbial community composition and activity across a growing season. We hypothesized that bacterial community and nitrogen cycle-associated prokaryotic gene expressions shift across three phases of the growing season. To test this hypothesis, we quantified gene and transcript copy number of nitrogen fixation (nifH), ammonia oxidation (amoA, hao, nxrB), denitrification (narG, napA, nirK, nirS, norB, nosZ), dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonia (nrfA), and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (hzs, hdh) using the pre-optimized Nitrogen Cycle Evaluation (NiCE) chip. Bacterial community composition was characterized using V₃-V₄ of the …

The New (Yorkers) Gardeners Almanac:, Willow Chamblin, Calie Quiones, Jennifer Imhof, Deandrea Rodriguez, Chye Davis, Kathryn Macgowan

Honors Capstone Projects

The New Yorkers Gardeners Alamac is a book filled with knowledge on how to plant a garden, recipes, and stories centering on black and indigenous voices.

Developing An Electroporation Method For Transforming Streptomyces Nymphaeiformis, Heather Knott, Stephen Baron

Honors Projects

Streptomyces species are notoriously difficult to transform. Streptomyces nymphaeiformis is no different, so a method of electroporation was used to attempt to transform the cells. Multiple growth stages were used in order to alter the degree of development of the cell wall. The procedure did not kill the cells, but the cells were not transformed. Due to the lack of transformation with S. nymphaeiformis, transformation was attempted on two other Streptomyces strains, S. lividans and S. coelicolor. Neither was successfully transformed to thiostrepton (tsr) resistance, nor did they grow on a plate lacking thiostrepton. One possibility for the …

Ecological Stressors Impact Soil Biodiversity, Kaleb Frierson, John Carlile

Transformations: Presentation Slides

Soil biodiversity serves ecologically important roles like nutrient cycling and is used as an indicator of community disturbance. North American forests host a multitude of ecological stressors, including invasive plants, earth worms, and deer abundance. While relationships between deer and invasive species, as well as relationships between macroinvertebrates and worms have been heavily investigated, the effects of invasive plant species like Pale Swallowwort on soil biodiversity are unknown. To test our hypothesis that Pale Swallowwort affects soil biodiversity, we collected leaf litter from three state parks throughout Central New York at sites with and without the invasive plant. Samples were …