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Full-Text Articles in Environmental Health

Organizational Effects Of Defeminizing Toxicants: Lessons Learned From An Environmental Sentinel Organism, The Fathead Minnow., Jonathan Ali Dec 2017

Organizational Effects Of Defeminizing Toxicants: Lessons Learned From An Environmental Sentinel Organism, The Fathead Minnow., Jonathan Ali

Theses & Dissertations

Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are chemicals that interfere with hormone function and are increasingly detected in aquatic environments, where they elicit adverse effects from exposed organisms. The toxicological effects of EDCs can be described as either activational (reversible) or organizational (irreversible), where the latter are associated with adverse outcomes in reproductive performance of adult fish. However, few studies have investigated the organizational impacts of anti-estrogenic or “defeminizing” EDCs, e.g. agrichemicals or pharmacological agents, in an environmentally-relevant or “sentinel” species. The objective of this study was to investigate the impacts of early-life EDC-initiated changes in estrogenic gene expression on organizational effects …


An Ethnobotanical Examination Of Traditional Medicine In Ngezi Forest Reserve, Tyler Tsang Oct 2017

An Ethnobotanical Examination Of Traditional Medicine In Ngezi Forest Reserve, Tyler Tsang

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Traditional medicine is an important aspect of the both the culture and health of communities worldwide. Ngezi Forest Reserve is a protected area on Pemba Island which is part of the Zanzibar Archipelago. This forest contains a wealth of botanical diversity which includes many species of medicinal plants. Traditional healers (waganga) use these medicinal plants to heal members of the community. Interviews and forest walks with these healers were supplemented by consultations with a botanist to determine medicinal value of the forest and the surrounding areas. In compiling information from 15 healers in the area, 98 species of medicinal plants …


Characterizing The Impacts Of Contaminants On Fish Embryogenesis And Revealing An Alternate Molecular Mechanism Of Ahr Mediated Cardiac Defects, Corinna Singleman Jun 2017

Characterizing The Impacts Of Contaminants On Fish Embryogenesis And Revealing An Alternate Molecular Mechanism Of Ahr Mediated Cardiac Defects, Corinna Singleman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There is a long history of damage to natural ecosystems from environmental pollution. Many environmental contaminants are man-made and have been released with abandon over the last 100 years including dioxins, 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). These chemicals act on similar cellular processes and cause skin lesions, cancer, learning disabilities and reproductive problems in many vertebrates. There are many studies exploring various aspects of TCDD and PCB exposure on model and wild organisms. Few studies however, have compared effects of PCB mixtures on ecosystems to effects of individual PCBs in the lab. The first aim of this thesis is …


A Comparison Of Imputation Algorithms For Modeling Water Quality, Carter Alexander Allen May 2017

A Comparison Of Imputation Algorithms For Modeling Water Quality, Carter Alexander Allen

Senior Theses

This project addresses the need for predictive modeling tools to forecast expected concentrations of fecal bacteria in recreational waters in the Charleston, SC area. Data was provided by Charleston Waterkeeper, a water quality monitoring organization that has been measuring Enterococcus faecalis concentrations at 15 recreational sites since 2013. The data contain a non-negligible number of censored and missing observations, so three distinct imputation methods were developed and compared in terms of their effect on final predictive model characteristics. The best performing method relied on drawing samples from a truncated normal distribution to replace censored values, and using a partial model …


Fish Community Assessment Of The Bonyic And Teribe Rivers Within The Naso-Teribe Territory Bocas Del Toro, Panama: Possible Implications Of Bonyic Dam., Shaylyn Austin Apr 2017

Fish Community Assessment Of The Bonyic And Teribe Rivers Within The Naso-Teribe Territory Bocas Del Toro, Panama: Possible Implications Of Bonyic Dam., Shaylyn Austin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the Changuinola/Teribe watershed of Bocas Del Toro, Panama, changes to the fluvial system due to the recently constructed Bonyic Dam have implications connected to the biodiversity of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and the livelihoods of thousands of people of the Naso-Teribe indigenous group. This study investigated the composition of fish communities in 6 study sites in 3 different areas in relation to the Bonyic Dam. A total of 318 individual fish were captured, representing 5 families and 10 species, using the cast net sampling method. The biodiversity was analyzed using Simpson’s Diversity Index, Evenness Index, species richness, and species …


Kepone In The James River Estuary: Past, Current And Future Trends, Michael A. Unger, George G. Vadas Apr 2017

Kepone In The James River Estuary: Past, Current And Future Trends, Michael A. Unger, George G. Vadas

Reports

In late 1975, a manufacturing facility in Hopewell, VA had not only exposed workers to the chlorinated pesticide, Kepone, but had also severely contaminated the James River estuary. To assess the potential risk to the public, Virginia initiated a finfish-monitoring program in late 1975. Over the next 40 years over 13,000 samples were collected from the James River and Chesapeake Bay and analyzed for Kepone. Kepone production was eventually banned worldwide. The average Kepone concentrations found in most species began falling when the production of Kepone ended, but the averages remained over the action limit of 0.3 mgkg-1 until …