Showing 2051 - 2100 of 5831 Items
Characterization of O-Linked Glycosylated Neuropeptides in the American Lobster (Homarus americanus): The Use of Peptide Labeling Following Beta Elimination
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Edward Myron Bull
Access: Open access
- Neuropeptides are a class of small peptides that govern various neurological functions, and the American lobster (Homarus americanus) provides a model system for their characterization. Neuropeptides are commonly post-translationally modified (PTM), and one common PTM is glycosylation. Past research in the Stemmler lab has found glycosylated neuropeptides in H. americanus; however, the extent and biological role of this modification has not been well characterized. This study was undertaken to determine the number of glycosylated peptides in the sinus glands of H. americanus and to develop an approach to tag the site of glycosylation using beta-elimination chemistry. LC-MS paired with high pH reverse phase fractionation was used to survey for glycosylated neuropeptides and beta elimination with an amine tag was used as an approach to characterize the site of glycosylation. Our results indicate that high pH fractionation is a useful approach to simplify complex mixtures of neuropeptides and improve glycopeptide detection. Efforts to use beta elimination and tagging to characterize glycosylated neuropeptides have been less successful. Beta elimination of full length peptides resulted in peptide degradation. An approach utilizing chymotrypsin to reduce peptide size coupled with beta elimination and labeling with 2-dimethylaminoethanethiol showed less evidence for degradation, and this approach yielded data isolating two potential serine residues for the site of glycosylation; however, the data was not sufficient to distinguish the two sites. Work to optimize reaction conditions using a glycopeptide standard showed that multiple isomeric products were formed during beta elimination. With the goal of optimizing reaction conditions, future work will further examine reaction kinetics to eventually apply the approach to the entire sinus gland
Clonal diversity in an expanding community of Arctic Salix spp. and a model for recruitment modes of arctic plants
Date: 2010-11-01
Creator: Vladimir Douhovnikoff, Gregory R. Goldsmith, Ken D. Tape, Cherrie Huang, Nadine, Sur, M. Syndonia Bret-Harte
Access: Open access
- Rapid climate change in arctic environments is leading to a widespread expansion in woody deciduous shrub populations. However, little is known about the reproductive, dispersal, and establishment mechanisms associated with shrub expansion. It is assumed that harsh environmental conditions impose limitations on plant sexual reproduction in the Arctic, such that population survival and expansion is predominately a function of clonal recruitment. We present contrary evidence from microsatellite genetic data suggesting the prevalence of recruitment by seed. Further, we present a conceptual model describing modes of recruitment in relation to the abiotic environment. Climate change may be alleviating abiotic stress so that resources are available for more frequent recruitment by seed. Such changes have widespread implications for ecosystem structure and functioning, including species composition, wildlife habitat, biogeochemical cycling, and surface energy balance. © 2010 Regents of the University of Colorado.
Bowdoin College Catalogue (1930-1931)
Date: 1931-01-01
Access: Open access
- Bowdoin College Bulletin no. 193
Classifying Flow-kick Equilibria: Reactivity and Transient Behavior in the Variational Equation
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Alanna Haslam
Access: Open access
- In light of concerns about climate change, there is interest in how sustainable management can maintain the resilience of ecosystems. We use flow-kick dynamical systems to model ecosystems subject to a constant kick occurring every τ time units. We classify the stability of flow-kick equilibria to determine which management strategies result in desirable long-term characteristics. To classify the stability of a flow-kick equilibrium, we classify the linearization of the time-τ map given by the time-τ map of the variational equation about the equilibrium trajectory. Since the variational equation is a non-autonomous linear differential equation, we conjecture that the asymptotic stability classification of each instantaneous local linearization along the equilibrium trajectory indicates the stability of the variational time-τ map. In Chapter 3, we prove this conjecture holds when all of the asymptotic and transient behavior of the instantaneous local linearizations is the same. To explore whether the conjecture holds in general, we ask: To what degree can transient behavior differ from asymptotic behavior? Under what conditions can this transient behavior accumulate asymptotically? In Chapter 4, we develop the radial and tangential velocity framework to characterize transient behavior in autonomous linear systems. In Chapter 5, we use this framework to construct an example of a non-autonomous linear system whose time-τ map has asymptotic behavior that differs from the asymptotic behavior of each instantaneous linear system that composes it. Future work seeks to determine whether this constructed example can arise as a variational equation, and thus provide a counterexample for our conjecture.
Reading & Teaching Chaucer: the "Good Wif"?
Date: 2020-01-01
Creator: Sophie Friedman
Access: Open access
- This two-chapter project applies formalist and feminist thinking to the thirty-line description of the Wife of Bath in Geoffrey Chaucer’s medieval, British work The Canterbury Tales. It is an interdisciplinary project; it studies how to read and teach Chaucer at the secondary level based off of these two approaches. In this formalist chapter, I study narrative voice, rhyme, irony, and ekphrasis, writing about the history and function of each of those tools and their role in the passage. I argue that the formalist close reading approach is an excellent teaching tool that generates thorough, rigorous, and joyful reading. In this feminist chapter, I compile a critical literary history of scholarly feminist and pre-feminist engagement with the passage over time. I read into an underlying genotype text, arguing that the Wife of Bath was a female entrepreneur who used textiles as a means of social, professional, and aesthetic expression and empowerment. Then I advocate for a feminist ethical teaching approach—one where we use the text as a non-ethical space in which to explore ethical questions surrounding gender. Ultimately, I argue that feminist and formalist approaches are interdependent and complementary; for both reading and teaching Chaucer, they stand stronger together.
A Stepping-Stone? An Analysis of How the Minimum Wage Impacts the Wage Growth of Individuals in Monopsonistic Industries
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Levi McAtee
Access: Open access
- Do minimum wage increases serve as stepping-stones to higher-paying jobs for low-pay workers? This paper analyzes the impact of state minimum wage policy on the one-year wage growth rates of individuals across the wage distribution and whether that impact changes for individuals in highly monopsonistic industries. I review the recent literature on the disemployment effect, the impact of the minimum wage on wage growth rates, the nature of monopsonistic industries, and the relationship between the minimum wage and monopsony power. I offer theoretical reasons why the minimum wage may impact the wage growth rates of individuals in monopsonistic industries differently than it impacts those of individuals in competitive industries. I then re-estimate Lopresti’s and Mumford’s (2016) panel fixed effects model to determine how the effect of a minimum wage increase depends nonlinearly on the size of the increase. Using data from 2005-2008, Lopresti and Mumford found that small minimum wage increases have a significant negative impact on wage growth rates, while large minimum wage increases have a significant positive impact. Using data from 2016-2019, I find similar results. As my primary empirical contribution, I test whether individuals in highly monopsonistic industries experience minimum wage changes differently than individuals in more competitive industries. I find monopsony power in the form of high labor immobility primarily impacts the wage growth rates of high-pay workers and does not influence how low-pay workers experience minimum wage changes. Finally, I recommend policymakers impose larger minimum wage increases to avoid impeding the wage-growth of low-pay workers.
The Structure and Unitary Representations of SU(2,1)
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Andrew J Pryhuber
Access: Open access
Guarding Whiteness: Disability, Eugenics, and Rhetorical Agency in Southern Renaissance Fiction
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Philip Carl Bonanno
Access: Open access
- This project explores fiction from white authors in the Southern Renaissance, specifically William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Carson McCullers. By examining their work alongside some of the performers that appeared historically in freak shows of the South, chapter one investigates how physically enfreaked individuals (usually phenotypically white) have access to power and the powers of whiteness. Chapter 2 interrogates how the South pathologizes promiscuity as mental illness with words such as moronic or feeble-mindedness, and the ramifications it has for the stratification on class divides among Southern elites and “White Trash.” The chapter seeks to answer the question of why, for a short period in the 1940s, white women were more likely to be punished with forced sterilization than Black women. Chapter 3 uncovers the rhetorical agency used by Benjy in Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, looking at how he resists the powers of whiteness through crip time and his trauma responses to his family that seeks to reinsert the Antebellum South. Using an intersectional approach of critical whiteness studies, disability studies, crip theory, and queer theory, relies on a variety of scholars including, but not limited to; David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder, Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, Richard Dyer, Matt Wray, Jasbir Puar, Ellen Samuels, and Allison Kafer. The primary works examined include promotional materials of historical freaks, McCullers’ The Ballad of a Sad Café, William Faulkner’s The Hamlet and The Sound and the Fury, and Flannery O’Connor short stories “Good Country People” and “A Temple of the Holy Ghost.”
Parole lievitanti: La panificazione spirituale di S. Caterina di Bologna This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2027-05-19
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Katherine Aiello McKee
Access: Embargoed
The development of begging calls in Yellow Warblers
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Jackson F Bloch
Access: Open access
- Nestling birds use begging calls to solicit resources from adults. Efficient transmission of calls is necessary for motivating parental feeding and outcompeting siblings. However, ambient acoustic masking and costs such as predation may influence the structure of the calls. While many interspecific comparisons of begging behavior have been made, the ontogeny of calls is understudied. In this study, Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) begging calls were recorded and analyzed at different stages of nestling development to document changes in acoustic structure and gain insight into the selective forces that influence call development. Begging calls increased in peak frequency, frequency range, and amplitude during the 5-day recording period. Call duration did not change with age. Call structure did not differ between nestlings living in distinct acoustic environments. As begging calls increase in amplitude with age, perhaps due to increased food needs and competition from nestmates, nestlings may compensate for increased predation risk by increasing the peak frequency of the calls. Higher frequency calls attenuate more quickly than do low frequency calls and fall outside the frequency range of maximum hearing sensitivity for some potential predators. Previous studies on warbler begging have shown that nestlings of ground-nesting warblers, which are subject to higher rates of predation, beg at higher frequencies than do nestlings of tree-nesting warblers. This study supports the hypothesis that changes to begging call structure during development mirror the differences in call structure of species under different predation risks.
Phenotypic divergence between sites in photosynthetic thermal response despite low genetic differentiation in Gulf of Maine Ascophyllum nodosum This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2028-05-18
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Olivia Bronzo-Munich
Access: Embargoed
“Something most girls don’t do” An Ethnographic Study of Women in Extreme Sports
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Jacqueline Boben
Access: Open access
- Extreme sports, like skateboarding, whitewater kayaking, and skiing, have historically been male-dominated. As women’s participation in these sports grows, my research asks: how do women navigate sports spaces and cultures that have for so long been defined by men? To answer this question, I draw on ethnographic research on communities of skateboarders, whitewater kayakers and skiers conducted during the summer of 2021 in Bozeman, Montana. I found that the specific landscapes where these extreme sports take place are often conceptualized by participants as more masculine spaces. Within these spaces and communities, women participants often leverage gender performances associated with masculinity to gain entry into these male-dominated communities. Performing in more masculine ways mitigates feelings of hypervisibility, while also helping to build connections to established members of the community. More than simply fitting in, women find that these gendered performances also help them to build competence in the sport. At the same time, women are transforming skateboarding, whitewater kayaking, and skiing through their participation by creating opportunities for more dynamic and fluid gender performances.
Theories of Thanks: Affect Studies, Reciprocity, and Theoretical Perspectives on Gratitude This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2027-05-19
Date: 2022-01-01
Creator: Clayton James Wackerman
Access: Embargoed
Church Space as Queer Place? LGBTQ+ Placemaking, Assimilation, and Subversion within Progressive Faith-Based Spaces in Maine
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Salina Chin
Access: Open access
- In popular discourse, understandings of queerness and religiosity as antithetical proliferate. However, the political involvement of Portland, Maine’s First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Maine’s queer political movement points to a more complex relationship between the LGBTQ+ community and progressive religious institutions. Through participant observation, archival research, and semi-structured interviews with nine LGBTQ+ community members and informants, I reveal the crucial role of Portland’s First Parish Unitarian-Universalist Church in Maine’s queer political movement from the late 1980s into the present day. On the one hand, progressive faith-based spaces across Maine provide safe spaces for queer political organizing. On the other hand, “ephemeral placemaking” in progressive faith-based spaces represents an assimilationist political strategy that stresses LGBTQ+ respectability. Thus, I argue that queer placemaking in progressive faith-based spaces reflects both subversive and assimilationist politics. LGBTQ+ activists utilize ephemeral placemaking strategies within progressive faith-based spaces to challenge political opposition from the religious Right while also reinforcing what Mikulak (2019) terms “godly homonormativity”: the normalization of LGBTQ+ identity and the upholding of heteronormativity by emphasizing respectability and monogamy. My analysis of queer political organizing within progressive faith-based spaces “queers” religion and LGBTQ+ politics, disrupting dominant narratives of religion as homophobic and LGBTQ+ politics as radical.
The Photocatalytic Degradation of 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) and Related Estrogens Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2028-06-01
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Kevin Jairre Fleshman
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Stretch Feedback in the Lobster Heart: Experimental and Computational Analysis
Date: 2016-05-01
Creator: Katelyn J Suchyta
Access: Open access
Identity Formation in the Lebanese-American Christian Diaspora
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Matthew Cesar Audi
Access: Open access
- Since the late 1800s, people have immigrated to the United states from Lebanon and Syria, and the community’s racial and ethnic position within the United States has been contested ever since. Previous research emphasizes that while people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are legally classified as “white” on the U.S. Census. However, many people from the region do not identify as white, and they often face discrimination or threats of violence. For people of Arab and Christian backgrounds this is further complicated because they are a part of the majority through their religion, but part of a minority through their ethnic background. In addition, media depictions of MENAs tend to be homogenizing and stereotypical. This thesis attempts to fill a gap in literature on Christian Lebanese American identities by conducting ethnographic interviews with Lebanese-Americans from a variety of generations. It pulls from theories of diaspora and race, emphasizing the importance of context and migration trajectories when understanding Lebanese American identities. My findings demonstrate wide-ranging diversity in how Christian Lebanese-Americans understand and articulate identity due to three major factors: divergent migrant pathways in multiple countries, generational difference given changing racial politics in the U.S., and generational difference given the impacts of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East upon young Lebanese-Americans.
A Machine Learning Approach to Sector Based Market Efficiency
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Angus Zuklie
Access: Open access
- In economic circles, there is an idea that the increasing prevalence of algorithmic trading is improving the information efficiency of electronic stock markets. This project sought to test the above theory computationally. If an algorithm can accurately forecast near-term equity prices using historical data, there must be predictive information present in the data. Changes in the predictive accuracy of such algorithms should correlate with increasing or decreasing market efficiency. By using advanced machine learning approaches, including dense neural networks, LSTM, and CNN models, I modified intra day predictive precision to act as a proxy for market efficiency. Allowing for the basic comparisons of the weak form efficiency of four sectors over the same time period: utilities, healthcare, technology and energy. Finally, Within these sectors, I was able to detect inefficiencies in the stock market up to four years closer to modern day than previous studies.
Host and symbiont-specific patterns of gene expression in response to cold stress in the temperate coral Astrangia poculata
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Kellie Navarro
Access: Open access
- The coral Astrangia poculata inhabits hard-bottom environments from the Gulf of Mexico to Massachusetts and withstands large seasonal variation in temperature (–2 to 26 °C). This thermal range and its ability to live in a facultative symbiosis makes this species an ideal model system for investigating stress responses to ocean temperature variation. Although it has been shown that aposymbiotic A. poculata upregulates more genes in response to cold stress than heat stress, the transcriptomic response of the holobiont (coral host and symbiotic algae) to stress is unknown. In this study, we characterize changes in gene expression in both the host and symbionts under cold stress (6ºC) and ambient (12ºC) seawater temperatures. We use RNAseq to visualize how patterns of global gene expression change in response to these temperatures within the transcriptomes of replicate corals (n=10, each temperature) and their symbiont partners. By filtering the holobiont assembly for known coral host and symbiont genes, we contrasted patterns of differential expression (DE) for each partner and the functional processes for each set of DE genes. Differential gene expression analyses revealed that the cnidarian coral host responds strongly to cold stress, while algal symbionts did not have a significant stress response. In the coral host, we found up-regulation of biological processes associated with DNA repair, immunity, and maintaining cellular homeostasis as well as downregulation of mechanisms associated with DNA repair and RNA splicing, indicating inhibition of necessary cellular processes due to environmental stress.
Neurophysiological Effects of Temperature on the Mammalian Spinal Central Pattern Generator (CPG) Network for Locomotion Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
- Restriction End Date: 2026-06-01
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Eliza M. Rhee
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
The combinatorial effects of temperature and salinity on the nervous system of the American lobster, Homarus americanus
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Katrina Carrier
Access: Open access
- The ability of nervous systems to maintain function when exposed to global perturbations in temperature and salinity is a non-trivial task. The nervous system of the American lobster (H. americanus), a marine osmoconformer and poikilotherm, must be robust to these stressors, as they frequently experience fluctuations in both. I characterized the effects of temperature on the output of the pyloric circuit, a central pattern generator in the stomatogastric nervous system (STNS) that controls food filtration and established the maximum temperature that neurons in this circuit can withstand without “crashing” (ceasing to function but recovering when returned to normal conditions). I established a range of saline concentrations that did not cause the system to crash, and then determined whether combinatorial changes in temperature and salinity concentrations alter the maximum temperature the system tolerated. Even as burst frequency increased as temperature increased, phase constancy was observed. Interestingly, the system crashed at higher temperatures upon exposure to lower saline concentrations and lower temperatures in higher saline concentrations. I also established the range of saline concentrations that the lobster’s whole heart and cardiac ganglion (CG), the nervous system that controls the lobster’s heartbeat, can withstand. Then, I examined whether exposure to altered salinity and elevated temperature alters the crash temperature of the whole heart and CG. The CG crashed at higher temperatures than the whole heart in each saline concentration. Like the STNS, the whole heart and CG both crashed at higher temperatures in lower saline concentrations and higher temperatures in lower saline concentrations.
The Body Negotiating Unprecedented Movement
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Mei Bock
Access: Open access
- A collection of poems exploring threads including the Lower East Side, immigration, stray animals, art, and Chinese-American identity.
ELMO, A Possible Pectin Biosynthesis Scaffold Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Nuoya (Laura) Yang
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
An Analysis of Tidal Mixing Front Dynamics and Frontal Biophysical Interaction in the Harpswell Sound Shelf Sea
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Lemona Yingzhuo Niu
Access: Open access
- Tidal Mixing Fronts (TMFs) are prominent hydrographic features of tidally energetic shallow shelf seas, representing the transition from mixed to stratified waters. These frontal boundaries often host enhanced phytoplankton primary productivity, as complete vertical mixing exhumes nutrients from depth to the light-lit surface. Existing observational programs for locating TMFs include infra-red satellite imagery of sea surface temperature (SST) and vertical profiling of temperature and density. However, challenges in observationally distinguishing mixed from mixing using only conservatively mixed hydrographic properties persist. A novel approach based on phytoplankton in-situ oxygen production response to light is proposed in this paper to distinguish stable mixed from actively mixing regimes, and thus to identify remnant versus active TMFs. This project focuses on Harpswell Sound, a shallow (< 40m) coastal reverse estuary, as a case study of TMF dynamics. Our data unambiguously reveal the cross-shelf structure of active, mixed, and stratified regimes. Competition between wind mixing and buoyancy due to solar heating and river plumes were found to be the primary drivers of the active and remnant front locations, while tidal currents were a secondary driver. Such dynamism explains both the temporally variable and spatially patchy phytoplankton blooms observed in the shallow shelf sea environment of Harpswell Sound.
Peripheral modulation of cardiac contractions in the American lobster, Homarus americanus, by the peptide myosuppressin is mediated by effects on the cardiac muscle itself
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Isabel Stella Petropoulos
Access: Open access
- A substantial factor for behavioral flexibility is modulation — largely via neuropeptides — which occurs at multiple sites including neurons, muscles, and the neuromuscular junction (NMJ). Complex modulation distributed across multiple sites provides an interesting question: does modulation at multiple locations lead to greater dynamics than one receptor site alone? The cardiac neuromuscular system of the American lobster (Homarus americanus), driven by a central pattern generator called the cardiac ganglion (CG), is a model system for peptide modulation. The peptide myosuppressin (pQDLDHVFLRFamide) has been shown in the whole heart to decrease contraction frequency, largely due to its effects on the CG, as well as increase contraction amplitude by acting on periphery of the neuromuscular system, either at the cardiac muscle, the NMJ, or both. This set of experiments addresses the location(s) at which myosuppressin exerts its effects at the periphery. To elucidate myosuppressin’s effects on the cardiac muscle, the CG was removed, and muscle contractions were stimulated with L-glutamate while superfusing myosuppressin. Myosuppressin increased glutamate-evoked contraction amplitude in the isolated muscle, suggesting that myosuppressin exerts its peripheral effects directly on the cardiac muscle. To examine effects on the NMJ, excitatory junction potentials were evoked by stimulating of the motor nerve and intracellularly recording a single muscle fiber both in control saline and in the presence of myosuppressin. Myosuppressin did not modulate the amplitude of EJPs suggesting myosuppressin acts at the muscle and not at the NMJ, to cause an increase in contraction amplitude.
Beyond Religion: Reframing Liberal Democracy’s Treatment of Exemptions Within the Public-Private Separation This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2027-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Julianna Brown
Access: Embargoed
Modeling UV Light Through N95 Filters
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Lorenzo Hess
Access: Open access
- Reuse of N95 FFRs helps mitigate the effects of shortages. UV-C exposure is an ideal method for the decontamination necessary for FFR reuse. Recent research quantifies the transmittance of UV-C through the 3M1870+ and 3M9210+ FFRs [1]. Other research measures the reduction in viral load in relation to UV-C exposure time [11]. We design and program a ray tracing simulator in MATLAB to characterize the distribution of scattered photons in N95 FFRs. We implement an object-oriented FFR with configurable physical characteristics. We use the simulator to record the number of photons available for decontamination in each sub-layer of the filtering layers of the 3M1870+ and 3M9210+ for a given number of photons incident to the layers. We make assumptions about the photon absorption and viral deactivation in each sub-layer to derive a relation between the number of incident photons and the number of viruses remaining. The transmittance computed by our simulator matches the experimentally measured transmittance. The diameter of the simulated scattered beam also matches the experimentally measured scattered beam diameters. Our data, combined with our assumptions about absorption and deactivation, however, fail to account for the dropoff in viral load observed at about 25 seconds of exposure time in the 3M1870+.
Exploring sex-specific and developmental outcomes of early life adversity on DNA methylation in parvalbumin-containing interneurons Access to this record is restricted to members of the Bowdoin community. Log in here to view.
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Emma Straw Noel
Access: Access restricted to the Bowdoin Community
Power Play: The President's Role in Shaping Renewable Energy Regulation and Policy
Date: 2023-01-01
Creator: Luke Bartol
Access: Open access
- With the impacts of climate change becoming more and more apparent every day, finding means of effective action to mitigate its effects become increasingly critical. While localized work can play an important role, federal action is necessary to have the most widespread and effective impact, especially on interconnected issues such as clean energy. Congressional action is the avenue of change at this level, however in an increasingly partisan and divided environment, progress on this front is far short of what is needed. Looking to the president is logical here, both as a single actor more insulated from partisan fights, but also as head of the branch in charge of implementing the nation’s laws. This paper looks to explore what means of influence the president has on the action taken by federal agencies and how such methods can be made more effective. Through a principal-agent framework, the role of regulatory and appointment powers are examined with a variety of historical and contemporary case studies. While only a subset of the powers afforded to a president, the areas explored offer wide latitude for action, in areas that are particularly important for energy development. The paper concludes with some reflections for the future, suggesting how these considerations can be practically applied.
"You get a lot besides just affordable housing; you get a support network”: Community Engagement in Sustainable Affordable Housing Development This record is embargoed.
- Embargo End Date: 2029-05-16
Date: 2024-01-01
Creator: Katie Draeger
Access: Embargoed
Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) in the Lobster, Homarus Americanus: Isolation and Activity
Date: 2021-01-01
Creator: Ruby Chimereucheya Ahaiwe
Access: Open access
- The American lobster Homarus americanus uses its innate immune system for protection against foreign bodies and diseases. Hemocytes in the innate immune system are responsible for the rapid and effective cellular response against pathogens and infections observed in lobsters. These hemocytes, particularly semi-granulocytes and granulocytes, store antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) which specifically target and destroy microbes. Hemocyte samples from the American lobster Homarus americanus hemolymph or circulatory fluid, mixed and fractionated into separated semi-granular and granular cell samples, were analyzed for possible AMP presence. A defensin AMP, Hoa-D1, (SYVRSCSSNGGDCVYRCYGNIINGACSGSRVCCRSGGGYamide; with C representing a cysteine participating in a disulfide bond) was successfully isolated and identified by mass using reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Preliminary results also show the defensin AMP to be concentrated in the semi-granulocytes and granulocytes.Hoa-D1 was isolated via HPLC fractionation. Isolated Hoa-D1 and semi-granular and granular hemocyte extracts were tested for bioactivity against the gram-negative bacteria, Escherichia coli, using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion assay. The assay did not show any activity, an outcome attributed to concentrations of the AMP that were too low to have any antimicrobial effect on E. coli. Subsequent work on this study should involve increasing the concentration of Hoa-D1 in test samples. Studying function of AMPs in the American lobster can provide more information on the depth of their cellular immune responses in other crustaceans, and possibly contribute to the development of novel antibiotics for treating diseases in humans.
Assigning Legal Punishment: Individual Differences in Justice Sensitivity and Selective Attention
Date: 2015-05-01
Creator: Emily C. Weinberger
Access: Open access
- Selective attention and justice sensitivity (JS), a personality trait reflecting individual differences in perceptions of injustice, have been shown to affect how people assign punishments. In the present study peoples’ decision-making processes were investigated to better understand the inconsistencies in legal punishment decisions, particularly when using retributive versus restorative justice. Subjects participated in three phases of the experiment. First, subjects completed a justice sensitivity scale and then rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a criminal scenario. Second, participants’ selective attention was indicated by their recall of pertinent features from three ambiguous criminal scenarios. Finally, participants were primed with either restorative justice or neutral control words, and rated the appropriateness of punishment options to handle a new criminal scenario. Results revealed no significant associations between JS and ratings of punishment options, although patterns suggested negative relationships between observer JS and retributive justice ratings, and victim JS and restorative justice ratings. Results did show a significant effect of JS in predicting the facts remembered, such that as observer JS increased, more restorative justice facts were recalled, and as victim JS increased, fewer restorative justice facts were recalled. No significant effect of the restorative justice prime was observed. These results may contribute to better understanding of criminal justice policy in the United States.