Life Sciences Commons^™

Forages And Technology Management In Growing And Finishing Beef Cattle Systems, Kelton Adair

Theses and Dissertations in Animal Science

A systems study evaluated the effects of an implant [25.7 mg estradiol (Compudose; Elanco Animal Health)] at two rates of gain (LOW: 0.45 kg/d and HIGH: 0.9 kg/d) applied during the winter backgrounding phase in drylot and winter grazing systems and its effects on subsequent phases of production. HIGH supplementation with an implant during the winter backgrounding phase in the drylot system yielded the greatest ending body weight (EBW) during the summer backgrounding phase (P = 0.04). LOW supplementation, without an implant, improved summer backgrounding average daily gain (ADG; P = 0.05) while achieving similar carcass adjusted final body …

Software Jimenae Allows Efficient Dynamic Simulations Of Boolean Networks, Centrality And System State Analysis, Martin Kaltdorf, Tim Breitenbach, Stefan Karl, Maximilian Fuchs, David Komla Kessie, Eric Psota, Martina Prelog, Edita Sarukhanyan, Regina Ebert, Franz Jakob, Gudrun Dandekar, Muhammad Naseem, Chunguang Liang, Thomas Dandekar

All Works

The signal modelling framework JimenaE simulates dynamically Boolean networks. In contrast to SQUAD, there is systematic and not just heuristic calculation of all system states. These specific features are not present in CellNetAnalyzer and BoolNet. JimenaE is an expert extension of Jimena, with new optimized code, network conversion into different formats, rapid convergence both for system state calculation as well as for all three network centralities. It allows higher accuracy in determining network states and allows to dissect networks and identification of network control type and amount for each protein with high accuracy. Biological examples demonstrate this: (i) High plasticity …

Mesenchymal Stem Cells In The Treatment Of Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Erica Lang, Julie A. Semon

Biological Sciences Faculty Research & Creative Works

Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) is a Disease Caused by Mutations in Different Genes Resulting in Mild, Severe, or Lethal Forms. with No Cure, Researchers Have Investigated the Use of Cell Therapy to Correct the Underlying Molecular Defects of OI. Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) Are of Particular Interest Because of their Differentiation Capacity, Immunomodulatory Effects, and their Ability to Migrate to Sites of Damage. MSCs Can Be Isolated from Different Sources, Expanded in Culture, and Have Been Shown to Be Safe in Numerous Clinical Applications. This Review Summarizes the Preclinical and Clinical Studies of MSCs in the Treatment of OI. Altogether, the …

Bsc 345 Southern Miss Gulf Scholars Program Module, Southern Miss Gulf Scholars Program

Southern Miss Gulf Scholars

BSC 345 Southern Miss Gulf Scholars Program Curriculum

Throughout this course students will learn about important marine resources that drive the local seafood economy. On a field trip to the Maritime and Seafood Museum, students will learn about this historical seafood industry and industry practices. Student will also tour the USM Thad Cochran Marine Aquaculture Center to learn about modern aquaculture technologies and take an excursion at sea to observe the off-bottom aquaculture site next to Deer Island.

Association Of Gut Microbiota Composition With Alzheimer’S-Like Disease In A Rat Model, Hana Heiba

Theses and Dissertations

With many countries turning ‘grey’ and facing an issue with aging populations, the risk of developing one form of neurodegenerative disease is increasing. Dementia, being the most common syndrome resulting from neurodegeneration, severely affects memory and cognitive functions. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disorder, with an estimated 615,000 new cases will be added to the existing 5.7 million by 2030 (Alkasir et al., 2017).

In the current study, we establish a sporadic AD-like rat model by injecting STZ intracerebrally. Stool samples were collected at two time points; after three weeks for the acute stage, and 3 months …

Examining The Use Of Expressive Arts Therapies In Neurorehabilitation Treatment Planning, Rebecca J. Horner

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

Those undergoing neurorehabilitation after stroke and traumatic brain injury report a diminished sense of overall wellness. This paper examines the conceivable benefits of introducing expressive arts therapies, which is the therapeutic use and combination of the visual arts, movement, drama, music, writing and other intermodal creative processes, into physical therapy and neurorehabilitation treatment planning. Expressive arts therapies have the capacity to engage with an individual’s physical, emotional, social and spiritual states concurrently. They simultaneously offer the ability to promote an increased sense of well-being, address mind-body disconnects, and process trauma non-verbally.

The sections of this narrative literature review focus on …

Professional Experience At Farmington High School, Jacob Vorhies

Master of Science in Kinesiology

For my Capstone project I chose to do a professional industry experience was at Farmington High School with Scott Meier, Head of Strength and Conditioning. The goals for this experience were to improve my skills in proper form identification, providing instructions, and program development. I spent two and a half months with Mr. Meier assisting him in his weight training classes and working directly with the students. For the research project component, I conducted a literature review and presented a PowerPoint presentation to five high school weightlifting classes on the importance of sleep and its effects on athletic performance. This …

The Study Of A Generalized Fitness Education Program's Effect On Personality Traits, Garrett Schliep

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

This longitudinal study was to measure the influence of a generalized fitness education program on the percentile of individuals’ personality traits in college aged individuals. The personality traits are those determined in the Five Factor Model of Personality. The Five Factor Model of Personality is a beneficial tool used in exercise psychology that refers to a broad domain of personality traits often referred to as the “Big Five”. The findings reject the hypothesis that a fitness education program would shift an individual’s personality a statistically significant amount.

Pharmacokinetics Of Cbd Supplementation In Horses: Single Dose Vs. Long-Term Feeding, Madilyn Adamchik

Honors College Theses

Research about supplemental feeding of cannabidiol (CBD) to horses is still in its early stages, but many horse owners are feeding CBD supplements for supposed benefits, including behavior and pain management. Cannabinoids work through the endocannabinoid system to modulate nervous and hormonal actions in the body, working to maintain a healthy homeostatic balance. Safety and efficacy have been tested for dosages of up to 500 mg of CBD per day for horses, but further research about the pharmacokinetics based on dosage amount and form of CBD are still needed. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of …

Mitochondrial Roles In Developmentally Programmed Heart Disease, Eli John Louwagie

Dissertations and Theses

Offspring of diabetic and obese mothers (ODOM) have greater risks of heart disease at birth and later in life. However, prevention is hindered because underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Mounting studies in the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease field suggest that mitochondria play key roles in developmentally programmed heart disease similar to the roles they play in cardiomyopathy in adults with diabetes and obesity. However, whether mitochondria are responsible for the short[1]and long-term cardiac disease seen in ODOM remains unknown. Here, we sought to delineate the roles of mitochondria in the hearts of ODOM, determine whether mitochondria are playing …

Patterns And Sources Of Variation In Heterospecific Pollen Deposition In Flowers Of The Native Blue Cardinal Flower (Lobelia Siphilitica), Allie Drinnon

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Plants species interactions via pollinators are a model system to understand the mechanisms that generate plant diversity in nature. However, most studies have focused on plant-plant interactions via pollinator attraction while ignoring the role of plant-plant interactions via pollen transfer. Heterospecific pollen transfer (henceforth HP) can be common and have negative fitness effects. Negative HP fitness effects may prompt the evolution of adaptive strategies to minimize them. However, the extent of spatial variation in HP load size within and among populations, a tenet for natural selection, remains unexplored. Such knowledge would hence constitute a first step in advancing our understanding …

Rational Design, Synthesis And Biology Of Immunostimulatory Peptides, Nelson Casanova

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

This dissertation reports the design, synthesis, characterization, and biological studies of three uniquely structured peptides, derived from ubiquitinated multiple myeloma proteins and ubiquitinated B7H6 ligand. The peptides were made into linear or branched shapes, with the branched peptides containing both major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class two and NKp30 binding motifs properties in one peptide. This results in an immunocytotoxic response (via cytokines and chemokines) of both natural killer cells and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs). These shapes were determined for data comparison but also to increase cytokine proliferation, the shapes help with healthy cell aviation. Thus, the linear monomer (contains a …

Deephtlv: A Deep Learning Framework For Detecting Human T-Lymphotrophic Virus 1 Integration Sites, Johnathan Jia, Johnathan Jia

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

In the 1980s, researchers found the first human oncogenic retrovirus called human T-lymphotrophic virus type 1 (HTLV-1). Since then, HTLV-1 has been identified as the causative agent behind several diseases such as adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) and a HTLV-1 associated myelopathy or tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). As part of its normal replication cycle, the genome is converted into DNA and integrated into the genome. With several hundreds to thousands of unique viral integration sites (VISs) distributed with indeterminate preference throughout the genome, detection of HTLV-1 VISs is a challenging task. Experimental studies typically use molecular biology …

Reconstructing Mutational Lineages In Breast Cancer By Multi-Patient-Targeted Single Cell Dna Sequencing, Jake Leighton

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer with high rates of metastasis and recurrence, where TNBC patients have a poor 5-year survival and ~50% are non-responsive to chemotherapy. Aneuploidy is a cancer hallmark that is pervasive in over 90% of breast cancer patients and is indicative of complex genomic rearrangements that are acquired during tumor initiation. Although copy number aberrations have been extensively studied in relation to aneuploidy and TNBC initiation, little is currently known regarding the timing and impact of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) contributing to these early transformative genomic events. Paramount to novel …

Higher Well-Being Individuals Are More Receptive To Cultivated Meat: An Investigation Of Their Reasoning For Consuming Cultivated Meat, Angela K. Y. Leung, Mark Chong, Tricia Marjorie Fernandez, Shu Tian Ng

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is evident that over-consumption of meat can contribute to the emission of hazardous greenhouse gases. One viable way to address such climate impact is to make people become more aware of more sustainable diet options, such as cultivated meat. However, it is challenging to instigate change in people's meat-eating habit, and empirical works have been examining the psychological factors that are related to consumers' willingness to consume cultivated meat. Research has suggested that psychological well-being can play a role in the meaning-making of food consumption, with higher well-being individuals showing more recognition of other sociocultural benefits of consuming food …

Local And Regional Landscape Characteristics Driving Habitat Selection By Greater Sage-Grouse Along A Fragmented Range Margin, Aidan T. Beers

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In response to ongoing landscape change, wildlife species are likely to respond in varied ways. By studying habitat specialists, we are able to better understand the most likely ways in which the denizens of threatened ecosystems will react to those changes. Among the most threatened ecosystem types in North America are sagebrush ecosystems of the Intermountain West, where one of its most well-known residents, greater sage grouse (hereafter, “sage-grouse), have lost more than 50% of their habitat due to fire, invasive species, climate change, encroachment by coniferous forests and avian predators using it, and human-caused landscape conversion. Sage-grouse rely on …

Assessing Stream Ecosystem Structure And Function In An Urban Canal And Logan River In Logan, Utah, Ellie Smith-Eskridge

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Humans have constructed canals to support agriculture, to mitigate flooding, and to discharge stormwater, especially in the Intermountain West. These canals are common in Cache Valley, where they receive flows from the Logan River during summer months. However, the ecological structure (e.g., water quality, freshwater invertebrates) and function (e.g., leaf decomposition) of these canals remains largely unknown. Studying ecosystem structure and function of these urban waterways is important because it can inform us of the health of these waterways.

My research had three objectives. First, I compared water chemistry, invertebrate assemblages, and leaf decomposition in an urban canal and the …

An Evaluation Of U.S. Horseback Riding Instruction Certifications: Availability, Acquisition, Barriers, And Industry Need, Makenna L. Osborne

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to analyze the U.S. equine industry’s availability of riding instruction certification options, describe the relationship between professional certification and the self-efficacy of horseback riding instructors in the U.S., and explore the expectations that consumers have of instructors and instructor selection criteria. Two surveys were developed and sent out to instructors and consumers aligned with the research objectives designed to collect information on instructors’ self- perception of self-efficacy after certifying their perceived barriers to receiving certification, and consumers’ selection criteria for instructors. The average certified instructor was extremely satisfied with their decision to pursue …

Establishment Of A Transgenic Human Angiotensin Converting Enzyme-2 Hamster Infection Model For The Evaluation Of Therapeutics Against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, Scott A. Gibson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The virus SARS-CoV-2 emerged in late 2019 and has gone on to spread throughout the global population. The virus is still the cause of a healthcare crisis two years after being identified. Viral infection in humans leads to the development of the disease COVID-19. A complex disease that can result in a wide variety of outcomes for infected individuals. In the majority of individuals, COVID-19 will manifest as either an asymptomatic disease state or a mild to moderate disease state that is resolved in approximately one week. In some infected patients COVID-19 will manifest with the rapid onset of severe …

Fractally Sampling Diversity-Environment Relationships To Understand Plant Assemblage Health Across Spatial Scales, Elizabeth G. Simpson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Humans influence the health of ecosystems and rely on healthy ecosystems to support their livelihoods and well-being. By looking at how the parts of ecosystems interact we can understand and improve ecosystem health. Ecosystem interactions change across spatial scales or different size patches of area. For example, individual organisms interact with each other at small spatial scales, while at large spatial scales, communities of organisms interact with weather conditions. However, many research studies do not look at how ecosystem interactions change across spatial scales. To address this gap in ecological research, I use a fractal sampling design which samples at …