In a unique partnership with the Indian NGO, the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group (CHIRAG), based in Orakhan, Nainital District, Uttarkhand, twenty students studied development and gender, and worked on an internship. As students who participated in the Environment and Development in the Indian Himalayan study abroad program, we found our internships, consequent research and findings important to share with a greater audience. Our specific research areas covered two topics: agriculture and health. The internship involving agriculture examined the-three year-old National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS). CHIRAG wanted to evaluate NAIS in order to prioritize the production risks of potatoes and apples as perceived by farmers due to their long-term goal of potentially providing an alternative scheme. The goal of the project was to collect data in order for CHIRAG to have a foundation to build upon. There is interest, in providing a robust and well-rounded project that protects farmers, but still profitable for insurance companies. The internship involving health looked at dais (midwives) and frequency of safe deliveries that occurred within the past year. The interview resulted in 32 questions in order to evaluate the safety of deliveries in the hills. The key questions under investigation were: according to you, how can you have a safe delivery? Why did you choose the location you did? By whom was your delivery performed? How long was your delivery? During the delivery, was a vaginal examination given? Much like the agriculture project, the goal of the study was to provide data for CHIRAG that it could utilize to determine what areas/villages need to be focused on in an effort to reduce maternal and infant mortality and morbidity by providing trained dais.

Transformation is the uptake of foreign DNA into a cell leading to a heritable change in the cell’s genome. The foreign DNA (transgene) is usually introduced into the nuclear genome. An alternative is to introduce the transgene into the plastid genome, which has some advantages. For example, the transgene may be silenced in the nuclear genome. Another advantage is that maternal inheritance in plastids affords natural biological containment against dispersal of the transgene to non-target plants by pollen. Currently, plastid transformation has a very low efficiency. Our objective is to increase this efficiency in tobacco. Our lab has discovered that chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) is found mostly in linear and branched molecules, with only a minor fraction in circular molecules. We will compare the transformation efficiency achieved using either a circular or linear plasmid. Also, because we have found that the amount of DNA per chloroplast decreases as leaves mature, we will assess transformation efficiency as leaves mature. We predict that transformation will be more successful with younger tissue where cpDNA replication is highest. The transgene will be delivered to tobacco plastids using particle bombardment and transformants selected using antibiotic selection and GFP expression. PCR will then be used to characterize the cpDNA of the transformants.

The urban environment is a complex and dynamic mosaic of natural greenspace, residential, public, and commercial land-use patches. The connectivity of these different patches influences the quality of life experienced within the city. It is becoming increasingly difficult for humans to escape the built environment and experience natural settings without traveling large distances from home. This project looks to assess the varying levels of accessibility to urban greenspace across the Seattle Metro Area in order to find patterns and structures that may affect the levels at which people experience natural settings close to home. With the aid of GIS-based technologies I will look at the distribution of Seattle’s public greenspaces in relation to identifiable neighborhood districts. Assuming people are more likely to experience nature when opportunities are presented close to their home, I will perform a cost-distance analysis where: (1) barriers to walkability such as major roads, industrial sites, and bodies of water increase the cost of accessing greenspace; and (2) pathways such as crosswalks and sidewalks decrease the cost of accessing greenspace. I will also classify the various greenspace patches by the range of recreational opportunities they provide based on factors such as size, and the composition of natural and man-made resources. This analysis should help in highlighting which neighborhood districts within Seattle have the highest and lowest access to public greenspace. Further analysis on this subject may help urban planners find both physical and social patterns that contribute or take away from greenspace accessibility. In this way, both citizens and policy makers alike can better understand the links between humans and the natural environment, and ways in which we can “get-away” from the human-dominated landscape without ever leaving our own neighborhood.

Galaxies with a growing black hole are known as “active galaxies” and, if they are extremely bright, “quasars.” Our research group studies broad absorption line quasars (BAL QSOs) because these objects, in particular, probe the high velocity gas very close to the central black hole. Our project aims to determine the appropriate timescales for probing variability in BAL QSO spectra. The variability timescales can constrain the size of the emitting and absorbing gas cloud near the supermassive black hole. We have observations of seventeen BAL QSOs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory's 1.5m telescope's FAST Spectrograph. These objects are first identified as BAL QSOs in SDSS and we subsequently observe them with FAST across 3 consecutive nights, and then on day 9, 27, and 81. Additional observations are acquired for 1 and 2 year cadences. We also obtain a set of control non-BAL quasar spectra, in which we expect to see little or no variability. We assess the magnitude of the variability in the observed spectra of our BAL QSOs and determine which constraints our investigations can put on the outflows impacting the BAL region.

Mutualisms play important roles in the diversity and function of global ecosystems, but the evolutionary processes that lead to the establishment of such interactions are not well understood. We are studying the evolution of a mutualism involving the exchange of metabolic byproducts between the sulfate-reducing bacteria Desulfovibrio vulgaris and the methane-producing archaea Methanococcus maripaludis. For several hundred generations we propagated cocultures of D. vulgaris and M. maripaludis. The evolved populations grow up to 80% faster and yield up to 30% more biomass than their ancestors. When the evolved and ancestral D. vulgaris populations are grown together in coculture with M. maripaludis, we expect the evolved to exhibit higher fitness than the ancestor due to its faster growth rate. However, our results demonstrate that the two populations show no fitness difference at equal starting ratios, while the evolved population exhibits significantly higher fitness than the ancestor when the evolved is initially rare. We seek to identify the traits that determine fitness and whether the two populations are modifying each other’s fitness in competition. We first tested the hypothesis that either the evolved or ancestral D. vulgaris population secretes a chemical that alters the growth of its competitor. We inoculated the supernatant of both stationary cocultures with a fresh coculture of the other population and measured the optical density over time. The results revealed no significant change in growth rate or yield, suggesting one population is not modifying the fitness of the other via chemical secretion. In further experiments we will test whether the evolved D. vulgaris increases the fitness of the ancestor or the ancestral D. vulgaris decreases the fitness of the evolved. We will test these hypotheses by comparing the relative abundance of the evolved and ancestral populations over time when grown separately and together in batch coculture.

In a search engine environment, stemmers are used to help reduce words with variant forms (suffixes) into a common stem. For instance, if a user searches the term “cars” the engine puts the word through a stemmer that removes the suffix and produces the term that is searched - “car”. This way the searcher doesn’t have to use both “car” and “cars” as keywords in their search. Stemming methods include the popular Porter stemmer and machine learning approaches that use n-grams and Hidden Markov Models. Thus far, nobody has evaluated the effectiveness and reliability of such stemmers for the Greek language. In this project, a gold standard for the Greek language is presented that will allow the comparative evaluation of the different stemmers. A corpus of over 250,000 Greek words was processed, stemmed and tagged according to Greek linguistic rules. With this gold standard, we can compare and then choose the best-suited stemmer that will allow documents and web pages in Greek to be indexed efficiently and correctly, thereby improving the ability of Greek search engines.

Iceland is often portrayed in the media as a leader in climate change mitigation and sustainability. My research reflects field observations and data collected in Iceland in the summer of 2009 to explore climate change from a local perspective. Through the method of critical discourse analysis I will uncover how social actors in Iceland have approached, presented, and discussed the issue of climate through ideas, research, policy, and practices. By closely examining Iceland's Fourth National Communication on Climate Change I will show how Iceland's role has been shaped by its major political parties, members of specific government agencies, and international industries. My preliminary research seems to suggest that economic and political influence have led to a dichotomous approach to mitigation techniques. The tendency to separate urban and rural interests, international from local industry, and to champion policies for sustainability that depend upon the further exploitation of natural resources may create barriers to reaching mitigation goals. Understanding how these barriers are limiting could improve future efforts in the fight against climate change, both in and outside of Iceland.

Mixed teams of humans and autonomous robots (such as aerial, ground, and underwater vehicles) are becoming more and more prevalent, thanks to the increasing development and deployment of control and robotic technology. The better we can understand how humans reason and make decisions, the better control algorithms we can write. Improved control algorithms allow us to have finer control, make systems operate more efficiently, control more objects at a time, and make systems that can work concurrently with humans. As part of our research, we analyzed human decision making data from sequential two-choice tasks, in which a human has to make a repeated choice between A and B upon receiving a reward at every step. The experiment was conducted in the Neuroscience of Cognitive Control Laboratory at Princeton University. Our work was to analyze the experimental data using MATLAB. We wrote programs looking for patterns and generated graphs that displayed the choices made by the different participants. Based on our results, we wrote a simple algorithm that tried to predict the guesses the humans would make and then wrote more programs to analyze the accuracy of our algorithm. After studying patterns of outliers whose choices were not well represented by the algorithm, we adapted the algorithm so that it represented more closely the decisions made by a broader range of participants. The research lab we work in uses underwater autonomous vehicles that move in a more natural, fishlike manner to test the control algorithms that we design. In the future, we hope to expand our algorithm from a two-choice question test to a multiple-choice test and eventually to a non-predefined answer or real life scenario so that the algorithm we find can change the basis of control algorithms as we know them today.

Galaxies are massive structures made up of stars and gas. What happens when these beautiful giants collide? Learning about this would give clues as to the evolution of our own galaxy, which may have undergone many such collisions in its history. My undergraduate research project involves analyzing what happens during galactic collision. Movies of this are made by computers with and without a black hole in the center. The results from the no black hole case were suprising, and so I have been looking at what is actually going on during the collision. I also compare and contrast the different scenarios. I have been using a program which allows me to look at separate times during the collision visually. Using these snapshots of time, I have taken data on several different aspects of what is happening in the galaxy at that particular time. Mostly, I have been focusing on gas and stars. My intention is to help find out what goes on during a galactic collision. During the non-black hole case, the galactic disk abruptly disappears. What causes this? Is it a gradual change or more violent? Why does this not happen when there is a black hole in the center; or rather, how does the black hole affect the galaxy to prevent this from happening. Answers to these questions would lead to a greater understanding of how our galaxy, and others, function.

Skin blisters and irritation at the interface between a prosthetic device and a patient’s residual limb are common problems for amputees. At present, few quantitative methods exist for the measurement and adjustment of the forces exerted at this interface. A need exists for sensing technology which can be used to measure these forces and facilitate precise adjustments of prosthetic geometry to increase wearer comfort. Our research objective was to produce a flexible, stretchable, capacitance-based shear and normal force sensing array, which could be integrated with moisture and temperature sensors into a “sensitive skin.” This sensing array could then be attached inside the prosthetic socket and used to monitor and reduce factors which result in sores and discomfort. Individual pixels of the array were composed of top and bottom plates, each containing several precisely aligned electrodes, separated by flexible silicone rubber. Finite element modeling was used extensively to optimize both the mechanical and electrical properties of the sensor cells to achieve the necessary sensitivity, dynamic range, and signal-to-noise ratio. Multiple cells were then connected using commercially available stretchable conductors to create a flexible, stretchable sensor array. Purpose built electronics were used to monitor the capacitance of each electrode pair in real time and transmit it to a PC. The capacitance data was then analyzed to produce a continuous plot of the shear and normal force distribution over the array. Subsequent work will likely focus on integration of force, temperature, and humidity sensors into a single unit, as well as further miniaturization of sensor pixels in order to improve the spatial resolution of the array. In addition to biomedical uses, the sensor arrays have applications in many other fields such as robotics, where the sensors could be used to give autonomous robots a human-like sense of touch.

Planned obsolescence is when a designer or manufacturer creates an expiration date for the product, a product that can no longer be used after a certain period of time or use. This process shortens the replacement cycle, therefore creating more sales for the producer, and more waste for landfills and energy used in production. This process is supported by business models that produce growth of GDP, and by consumer demand in want of cheap convenience. When a consumer sees two price tags, they see two prices. They do not see how long each items lasts. Although longevity information exists, the information does not have a medium in which it is readily available online or at point of purchase. Using the laws of consumer demand, I propose that by adding longevity of products to consumer decision making with an in-store and online tagging system that combines user input and expert contribution, will allow consumers to create demand for better quality products, forcing the replacement cycle to be extended. This will save people money by purchasing less, while reducing energy use and waste by making produces increase the quality of products. The Price Per Use system will give consumers information on longevity in the consumer decision-making process on kitchen and bathroom appliances. It will create a price per use for products based on their average market price, divided by the amount of uses before failure reported by expert sources as well as user feedback. The Price Per Use system will be represented in an online user-friendly website, as well as the physical in-store Price Per Use tags, based upon my research in historical movements, marketing, current cross-platform rating systems, case studies, and visual communication. The design process is iterative and will develop overtime from observing flaws that may arise during user interaction.

Quasars are fascinating objects whose abundant optical emission comes from an accretion disk around a black hole. Due to their large distances and bright centers, quasars appear as point sources from our telescopes on Earth and in orbit. Currently spectroscopic observations are the best way to classify quasars from stars, but for upcoming large-area imaging sky surveys, where spectra are not available, we want to implement another selection technique. New techniques will use time-domain information to separate quasars from stars, which show different variability characteristics. However, it is not yet clear how exactly variability will be used in a quantitative fashion to achieve this goal. We analyzed data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which provides both spectroscopy and time-domain information for a large number of objects, with the aim of quantifying the criteria for selecting quasars. Using a sample of over 10,000 variable objects, including 1,419 spectroscopically confirmed quasars, we modeled their light curves using quasar light curve models. By comparing the quality of light curve best fits, we are able to distinguish quasars from stars with a less than 20% contamination using variability information alone. Since a large fraction of the contaminants are expected to be unconfirmed quasars, we provide a list of targets for spectroscopic follow up.

Sensory neurons are indispensable for normal behavior; they carry information regarding touch, temperature, pain and propioception from the outside world to the brain and the rest of the body. Sensory neurons in the peripheral nervous system are clustered in segmentally arrayed structures called dorsal root ganglia (DRG). We have characterized a mutant, sensory deprived (sdp), that fails to grow any DRG. We have identified four mutant alleles of sdp; all four of these mutants carry coding changes in the gene encoding RECK (reversion-inducing-cysteine-rich protein with Kazal motifs). RECK is involved in the regulation and expression of MMPs. A loss of function of RECK could lead to a defect in neural crest migration or an increase in Notch signaling which keeps precursor cells in an undifferentiated state rather than differentiating into neurons of the DRG. We are currently investigating RECK's function in the development of the peripheral nervous system through gel assays of MMP activity and rescuing the sdp phenotype through MMP inhibitors.

Processing “waste” biomass from the pulp, paper, and forestry industries and converting the biomass into ethanol has become a remarkable development in the expanding field of alternative transportable fuels. The focus of my research has been in the pretreatment of the biomass, specifically separating hemicellulose from lignin in spent wheat straw black liquor. Both compounds are extremely valuable once separated, and from literature review, separation should be reasonably simple due to the molecular weight of lignin being significantly smaller than that of hemicellulose. The method chosen for separation is dead end filtration through several different pore-sized ceramic membranes. Using synthetic solutions to mimic the black liquor, we have used UV spectroscopy to denote how much lignin remains in the permeate sample. Solids content was also measured to find the remaining hemicellulose in solution. If separation is possible, a revised method may be applied to an operating wheat straw pulping mill, currently burning these valuable compounds produced every day as a by-product of the pulped wheat straw fibers.

Typhoons, strong tropical cyclones in the western Pacific Ocean, are storms with low-pressure centers that form over warm waters. These cyclones can reduce the sea surface temperature with strong winds that mix warmer water in the upper ocean with cooler water below. In order to improve our comprehension of the oceanic impacts of typhoons, we collect data about recent typhoons and examine the change in sea surface temperature, focusing on cold wakes (decreases in sea surface temperature along typhoon paths). This data is a critical resource for those involved in the ITOP (Impact of Typhoon on the Western Pacific Ocean) project, a multi-university, international program studying the oceanic influence and the evolution of typhoons. Three oceanic surface-buoy moorings that transmit real-time meteorology data to our Applied Physics Laboratory ITOP website were deployed in the western Pacific in March 2009. Daily, we monitor the positions of the moorings and the oceanic and atmospheric data on the website. We use MATLAB and data collected from meteorology agencies to create plots of historical typhoon paths and the resultant sea surface temperature, the change in sea surface temperature, and the yearly typhoon trajectory summaries with the corresponding wind speed. With these plots, we study the duration of the cold wake and the sea surface temperature anomaly along typhoon paths. We frequently update the ITOP website with new plots and features, expanding the resource of typhoon information for the ITOP intensive observation experiment in 2010. Ultimately, we will analyze the cold wakes of typhoons, which will allow us to understand the mechanisms for oceanic temperature change around a typhoon and will be useful to ITOP project researchers preparing for the field experiment.

Hemichordates share three of the four characteristics that traditionally define chordates; pharyngeal gill slits, a dorsal central nerve cord and a post anal tail, as well as other molecular and morphological similarities such as a Hox-specified A-P axis and musculature along the central nervous system (CNS). The one chordate character that hemichordates lack is a notochord. Ptychoderid hemichordates have an amazing capacity to regenerate their entire anterior end, including the CNS and heart and kidney complex, yet little is known about their development. We compared the development of the central nervous system in ptychoderid hemichordates during metamorphosis and regeneration with chordates. We are interested in whether the central nervous system is homologous in chordates and hemichordates and have described development in Ptychodera flava in order to contrast hemichordate CNS with chordate CNS development. Surprisingly, development of the CNS appears to be similar, except that the folding of ectodermal tissue to form the neural tube (neurulation) is dependent on the dorsal vessel in hemichordates, suggesting that there may be some unique signaling properties in the dorsal vessel. After neurulation, the proboscis skeleton develops from the endoderm, serving a similar structural role as the notochord in chordates. These results suggest that the Central Nervous System of chordates was present in the deuterostome ancestor, and that the CNS preceded notochord evolution. We also suggest that notochord may have evolved from endoderm, rather than mesoderm, as has traditionally been believed.

Motivations behind drinking have important implications for determining alcohol expectancies, as well as predicting possible alcohol related problem behavior. Problematic alcohol use can stem from numerous reasons, including social anxiety (Ham, 2007). Steward et al. (2006) found positive correlations between social anxiety, and coping and conformity motives. Previous research has begun to look at differences in drinking motives based on race/ethnicity, but the relationship is not completely understood. In the Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised (DMQ-R), Cooper (1994) proposes four drinking motives: social, enhancement, coping and conformity. The purpose of this study is to investigate differences in drinking motives in women with respect to ethnicity using the DMQ-R. My hypothesis is that women of color will have higher rates of coping motives than Caucasian women. Data was collected from 441 female social drinkers, 21-30 years old. 27% identified themselves as women of color. For the purpose of this study, women of various non-white race/ethnicities were combined into one group (women of color). The results indicate that women of color have significantly higher rates of coping motives compared to Caucasian women than in the other categories of motives. Findings of this study differ from previous studies, which found college students of color report higher rates of conformity motive but no difference in other motives (Martens, et al 2008). It’s important to note that participants of this study came from the general community, not specifically college students. Both conformity and coping are negative reinforcing motives that represent two separate motives, indicating different issues in the respective populations. Higher levels of social anxiety may play a role in minority women having higher rates of coping than Caucasian women. The mixed findings indicate the need for further research to determine why varying populations of different ethnicities are motivated to use alcohol, in order to prevent problematic use.

The autonomous student-run publication called Ruckus returns to inspire and invigorate the UW campus. First printed from 1997-2005, Ruckus provided an important alternative voice for campus news and events. Campus has since changed, and the Ruckus writing and print collective has been renewed to meet these changes. The new Ruckus provides an in-print nexus for many voices by working to understand and create an influential model of collaborative campus communication. Ruckus encourages and empowers participants to share information, thus establishing itself as a community media learning-space. This project compiles conceptual foundations, useful skills, and necessary resources that make successful student-run publications. Through principles of creative, cooperative, non-hierarchical collective building, Ruckus practices the strong and resilient voice we envision in our media. Ruckus practices a transformative publisher, writer, contributor, and readership relationship, wherein all parties contribute to the large conversation with which we engage. Ruckus's collective organizes the voice and vision of the publication, designing, printing, and distributing each publication as well. The contributors and readership provide news, stories, and feedback which effect the overall purpose and format of the printed issues. Ruckus experiments actively to engage participant goals and implement lessons gleaned from self-memory and archived history. Weaving together news, story, image, and theory, Ruckus uses print as a critical medium to connect the campus's evolving body with larger meaning. Ruckus engages the social, cultural, political, ecological, and psychological dimensions for an integrative and radical platform of health. What matters is that people are talking in new ways - bringing new ideas to each other and doing new things.

We present reform, a system that envisions roles for both programmers and end users in enhancing existing websites to support new goals. First, programmers author a traditional mashup or browser extension -- such as an alternate visualization or an extra set of tools for a website. However, where previous approaches would have necessitated the development of a web scraper (a program to extract data from the web page), reform uses a scraping-by-example interface that allows users to develop (or "train") a scraper interactively. Reform makes enhancements easier to program while also carrying the benefit that end users can apply the enhancements to any number of new websites. My work on reform involved developing a software interface to one of our components, so that it could be integrated with the whole -- making reform easier to install. We present reform's architecture, user interface, and interactive by-example extraction algorithm for novices. This is a step toward write-once, apply-anywhere user interface enhancements.

Stenosis, the depreciation of the vascular lumen, leads to restricted blood flow through a vessel. While vascular surgery aims to restore flow through these vessels, it often leads to a re-narrowing of the lumen, known as restenosis. To investigate, scientists studied human patients and animal models after analogous procedures. They observed that the cells which constitute the middle layer of a vessel, the medial smooth muscle cells (SMCs), exhibit a characteristic known as phenotypic modulation, where SMCs demonstrate altered gene expression and dramatic changes in behavior post-injury. This includes decreased expression of smooth muscle alpha-actin (SMA), a protein that contributes to the structural integrity of SMCs, as well as increased growth and migration. These events are in direct opposition to how normal SMCs behave. Studies were conducted using mouse models and mice that were genetically engineered to lack the Sphingosine-1-Phosphate Receptor 2 (S1PR2) formed an occlusive lesion. During SMC phenotypic modulation, decreased SMA expression and increased migration are observed, but the causality has not been demonstrated. Does the S1PR class of receptors and their activator, sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), play a role in mediating SMC phenotypic modulation and SMA expression? To investigate this question, I am testing SMA expression as a potential inhibitor of SMC migration by experimentally characterizing the biochemical pathways of the S1PR2 and S1PR3 receptors using Western Blotting, Boyden microchemotaxis chamber analysis, and Immunocytochemistry. Preliminary results show that decreased SMA expression leads to greater migration of SMCs, suggesting that S1P stimulation of S1PR2 is a positive regulator of SMA expression and thus negative regulator of migration. Fully mapping these pathways will be a marked step toward understanding the conditions of stenosis and restenosis, which will ultimately lead to better clinical treatments for patients.

In the history of music, few instruments have had as dramatic an impact on popular music and culture as the electric guitar. Now a staple of musicians performing and recording worldwide, the electric guitar has proved its worth as an instrument flexible enough to span dozens of genres and influential enough to inspire waves of young musicians to follow in the footsteps of their axe-slinging heroes. This cult following of musicians pursuing the sounds and instrumentation of the legends, however, has built a backward-looking industry of guitar technology desperately seeking the past while fiercely resisting change. As a result, many of the most famous guitars have remained largely unchanged from their introduction to the market to the present, with some modern models actually identical to their ancestors down to the most exacting specifications. Unfortunately, these older styles are often uncomfortable or physically taxing to play, especially while sitting down. Due to design flaws and poorly configured control rigs, control knobs and switches are difficult to reach or too easy to accidentally adjust while playing, and instrument shapes do not conform comfortably to the human body. In this research, we will seriously consider the ergonomics of current instruments in respect to non-musical physical relationships, which are here defined specifically as the player’s interaction with the guitar controls and the body itself. While the intention of the research is not to completely reject the rich history of electric guitars and move toward a more ergonomic solution, the research is meant to develop ideas to improve player comfort and control accessibility without sacrificing aesthetics or tone.

Security is ubiquitous in events and functions. Live music, is no exception. With a significant proportion of live music happening in venues prohibited to the underage crowd (most places that serve alcohol, such as bars and clubs) there becomes a clear difference between “all-ages” events, attended by a predominately youth crowd, and non-“all-ages” events. Despite the differences in the characteristics of these two crowds, the approach to security does not consider these differences. Through an exploration of past incidents, existing security policy and crowd control related publications, and interviews with security personnel and audience members, this research identifies several key aspects in which the “all-ages” crowd is distinct. Implications of this difference will be reflected in recommendations that can be used to inform future security policy for “all-ages” events.

Ninety percent of patients that die of prostate cancer (PCa) have bone metastasis. Characteristically, PCa bone metastases exhibit a bone forming (osteoblastic) response. We are attempting to identify the factor(s) responsible for the osteoblastic response in PCa bone metastasis. To determine bone response in PCa bone metastasis, we obtained bone cores from our Rapid Autopsy Program involving patients who died of PCa. The bone cores were embedded in methylmethacrylate, sectioned and then stained with Goldner’s trichrome for histomorphometic analysis using Bioquant V6.0 software. Next, to identify PCa xenografts that produce osteoblastic factors, conditioned media (CM) were isolated from twenty-four different PCa xenografts maintained in cell culture and added to MC3T3-E1 (mouse osteoblast-like) cells. Deposition of calcium phosphate (mineralization) was assessed by alizarin red. To estimate the size of the osteoblastic factor(s), CM was fractionated on an S200 analytical column and tested for its ability to promote mineralization of MC3T3-E1 cells. Additionally, to identify molecular pathways downstream of the osteoblastic factor, we treated osteoblast-like cells with osteoblastic CM and isolated mRNA for Agilent gene expression array analysis. Bone histomorphometric analysis shows PCa bone metastases are predominantly osteoblastic. CM from four LuCaP xenograft lines promoted mineralization of MC3T3-E1 cells. A factor ~90 KDa in size was present in the LuCaP 23.1 CM that promoted MC3T3-E1 mineralization. In addition, we have treated osteoblast-like cells with LuCaP 23.1 CM to identify molecular pathways regulated by the osteoblastic factor(s) using gene expression arrays. Statistical analyses of these studies are underway. Our results confirm that the majority of PCa bone metastases are osteoblastic. We identified a factor ~90 kDa in size secreted by PCa xenograft cells that produces an osteoblastic response. Further elucidation of this factor will significantly impact our understanding of PCa bone metastasis.

As the conditions supporting phytoplankton growth achieve optimum levels, biomass in the water column can dramatically increase into blooms. For some species, these blooms can be damaging to other organisms and are referred to as harmful algal blooms (HABs). Increasing incidences and varieties of HABs throughout the world over the last several decades have affected fishery resources and caused increased economic damage. Quartermaster Harbor (QMH), Puget Sound has been found to have particularly large concentrations of Alexandrium catenella cysts in surface sediments which when they germinate into motile dinoflagellates, can produce the neurotoxin, saxitoxin, responsible for paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP). PSP is not dangerous to the shellfish which normally consume phytoplankton, but the toxin can be dangerous, even fatal to mammals consuming affected shellfish. The purpose of our work is to use knowledge of the cyclical nature of algal blooms especially A. catenella to better understand, predict and eventually manage shellfish production in Puget Sound. In this ongoing study, seven stations in QMH were sampled approximately monthly from October of 2006 on, gathering evidence on the environmental factors affecting phytoplankton growth, quantities and diversity. Surface, thermocline (when present) and bottom level water samples were drawn and analyzed for chlorophyll-a, dissolved oxygen, nutrients and phytoplankton counts. The results of 2009 phytoplankton observations in relation to other water parameters are presented here and compared with patterns observed in 2007 and 2008.

There is a critical need to conserve the Earth’s resources through various sustainable practices. One way engineers and other built environment professionals plan to do this is to implement Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). This Green Building rating system and certification program was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) which has also designed a rating system for “green homes” or “LEED homes.” Through my research, as an engineering student, I investigate new methods of designing and constructing homes in order to reduce their energy consumption toward a net energy footprint of zero. More specifically, I focus on harvesting daylight in order to reduce the use of artificial lighting. As opposed to a commercial building, the people occupying a green home will fully understand the impact of their building on the environment. While researching alternative energy for homes, I also learn about new ways home owners can increase their LEED score and have a more environmentally-friendly home. My research compiles information from published studies and interviews with built environment professionals and provides an analysis of the best practices. Engineers have an important responsibility to design green buildings that will have a long-term lower maintenance cost and preserve the Earth’s resources, and this project furthers that goal in the residential area.

Medical amnesty programs are school policies that encourage students to seek help from medical services during alcohol-related emergencies (AREs), such as instances of alcohol poisoning and accidental injuries, by eliminating school sanctions for the students who may have been engaged in an illegal activity (e.g., underage drinking). Oster-Aaland and Eighmy (2007) outlined five assumptions concerning the efficacy of medical amnesty policies at encouraging students to seek medical services during AREs. Each of the five assumptions must be evaluated before colleges can confidently enact medical amnesty programs, without worrying that the programs will enable student drinkers, rather then protect them from harm. One assumption that has needed greater attention is that students are sober enough themselves to call for help if necessary. This study, in an effort to understand the validity of this assumption of medical amnesty, examined one event in which students were concerned about a peer’s level of intoxication. To understand how the student’s own level of intoxication influenced their decision to help their peer, we gathered data concerning Blood Alcohol Level (BAL) for the student and peer, the peer’s  alcohol poisoning symptoms, and the student’s helping behavior to determine how one’s own BAL during the event influenced the form of assistance they chose. 

Low cost point-of-care diagnostic solutions are essential to improving health care in the developing world where resources are limited. With the advent of paper technology, diagnostic devices are becoming less expensive and essentially disposable. Such paper devices utilize the natural wicking action of paper membranes to drive flow and control the chemistry of the device, as opposed to pumps and controllers that make some current microfluidic systems too expensive. One type of test that is commonly used in the diagnosis of disease is a nucleic acid amplification test, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR offers an effective diagnosis of disease via the replication of specific segments of pathogenic DNA as a means of detection. This research project investigates the integration of PCR and paper technology for use in point-of-care diagnostic devices. In the current model system, the PCR reaction is performed in a paper membrane sealed in a photo-laminate pouch and then later coupled to a lateral flow device for detection. The reaction incorporates bioconjugated molecules into the reaction products that allow for visual detection by antibody capture during the lateral flow, with an end result similar to a pregnancy test. Thus far, results using purified genomic DNA have been promising but inconsistent. In short, a large amount of intrinsic variability exists in the current system. My work at this point in time focuses on resolving inconsistencies in lateral flow membrane capture spots along with fine tuning the reaction membrane and reaction mixture to increase amplification yield. Future work will include the investigation of alternative reaction types, including isothermal methods, to simplify the heating device for the amplification and make such devices more commercially viable.

The progression from casual drug use to addiction is hypothesized to result from the pharmacological effect of drugs on reward-related circuitry, which may distort reward-related learning processes. This hypothesized aberrant learning may also enhance habit formation, contributing to addiction. Adolescence is a critical period of neural development during which drug use may be even more likely to corrupt reward-related circuitry and learning. This study investigated the effect of adolescent alcohol exposure on reward-related learning and habit formation in rats. We investigated the formation of habits by reducing the value of a sugar reward. Responding despite a devalued outcome indicates that a response has become habitual because it appears to be outcome insensitive, whereas lowered responding for a devalued outcome is indicative of goal-directed behavior. Contrary to our hypothesis, both alcohol and control groups responded in a goal directed manner after devaluation. Furthermore, both control and alcohol-exposed devalued groups showed attenuated responding compared to non-devalued groups during a reacquisition task, suggesting it was not a failure to devalue the reward. This experiment demonstrated no effect on the enhancement of habit formation following alcohol exposure during adolescence. However, there still remains the possibility that such an effect may occur under differing conditions.

For a robot's grasp on an object to be stable, the graspers must contact the object simultaneously and be positioned properly in relation to surface normals. I am working on developing a sensor to detect distance and surface normals based on the principle of photometric stereo. This technique uses several images taken under different lighting conditions to determine these properties. I am currently using a webcam and a series of LEDs as a test sensor and using openCV, python, and octave for image acquisition and processing. Previous photometric stereo techniques required a studio where light sources were far away from the object being measured. The goal of my project is to successfully develop a sensor that uses a close up light source that could eventually be integrated into a robot's hand. Since this sensor would only work on surfaces where apparent brightness is constant for all viewing angles, it could eventually be used in conjunction with several other types of sensors to create a robust normal and distance sensor that could work on any object.

The increased consciousness within the construction industry to incorporate "green" building materials into structures has resulted in the increased use of supplementary cementitious materials as a replacement for portland cement in concrete. While reducing the carbon footprint of portland cement concrete, these supplementary materials have the undesirable side effect of delaying concrete strength gain resulting in higher construction costs. Using recycled concrete fines as a supplementary cementitious material has the potential to offset the undesirable effect of delayed strength gain because of its effect on portland cement concrete. When using recycled concrete fines, the hydration rate of the concrete increases significantly offsetting the adverse effects of the supplementary cementitious materials. In order for widespread adoption of recycled concrete fines within the concrete industry to occur, there must first be a way to categorize different types of existing recycled fines as well as how to optimize their use in concrete. The research looks to identify which types of fines work best as a supplementary cementitious material as well as a way to evaluate each recycled concrete fine’s effectiveness. Secondly, these studies work to develop a procedure to optimize the amount of recycled concrete fines to use in a concrete mixture, and how to simplify this procedure to make it readily adoptable by ready-mix concrete plants. Upon the successful completion of these objectives, it is expected that a material that is now a waste product will become a widely used recycled material. Furthermore, it will make portland cement concrete with supplementary cementitious materials a more attractive product for use by the construction industry because of the reduced negative side effects.

The average American Citizen views congressional earmarks, or “pork” as a large wasteful portion of the federal budget. Politicians view congressional earmarks as a “political commodity” that can be used to garner electoral support back in their home district. Is pork allocated differently than other federal funds? What are the different considerations that drive the decisions to allocate pork? I hypothesize that earmarks are allocated no differently than federal program dollars generally. To test this hypothesis, I compare the amount of earmark spending and general program spending states received across a range of program areas between 1995-1998. Is the distribution of earmarks to each state significantly different than their share of general federal funds they receive? If so, what accounts for these differences? My general findings indicate that states receive pork at different rates than other federal funds. More specifically, the more delegates that a state has with oversight over a specific category of pork the more of that category a state will receive.

Restenosis, the re-occlusion of an artery, is a condition affecting approximately 25% of post-operative stent and angioplasty patients. In this condition, the arterial lumen becomes narrowed due to formation of a new inner arterial layer (neo-intimal layer) which is mainly composed of smooth muscle cells (SMC). These cells are thought to proliferate and migrate from the vessel wall in to the intima and thus, narrow the lumen. Recent research from the Daum lab has shown that sphingosine 1- phosphate receptor 2 (S1P2R) – null mice form large intimal lesions in response to carotid injury and thus, S1P2R might inhibit lesion formation. S1P2R is a G-protein coupled receptor which complexes with its ligand, sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P). Using a combination of pharmacologic inhibitors and genetically altered mice, we have shown that S1P/S1P2R induces expression of smooth muscle α-actin (SMA), an SMC-specific structural protein. In order to test whether SMA might regulate SMC behavior, we used siRNA to block expression of SMA in SMCs. Using a metabolic labeling assay to measure cell growth, we have shown that reduced expression of SMA increases proliferation. It is currently unclear as to how SMA causes increased growth. We are currently testing if SMA might contribute to the regulation of cell cycle proteins.

The link between drinking motives, or reasons for drinking, and drinking behavior has been well established by previous research. Different motives for drinking have been shown to be related to patterns of use and levels of susceptibility to alcohol-related problems. Prevention research also has shown that interventions tailored to students' specific personality types are likely to be most effective. Research has also shown a positive relationship between sensation seeking (SS) and alcohol use among adolescents and young adults. This study examines whether SS moderates the relationship between motivations to drink and actual reported drinking during the past 3 months. Participants in this study included 295 University of Washington undergraduate students (58.3% female) who were about to turn 21. As part of a larger study, students completed various measures including a widely used 40-item sensation-seeking questionnaire, a motives for drinking questionnaire to assess their reasons for drinking (i.e., social, enhancement, coping, and conformity motives), a self-report of their typical drinking behavior during an average week in the past three months, and an estimation of their peak alcohol consumption on a single occasion in the past month. I expect that students who measure higher in SS and who drink for enhancement and social reasons will have consumed more alcohol than students lower in SS or who don’t drink for those reasons. An understanding of the unique set of factors that influence drinking behavior can help clinicians to tailor interventions to suit individual needs.

Climate change is projected to increase the height of the tropopause, the boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere. Climate change is also projected to cause changes in atmospheric circulation, especially in the locations of the jet streams, narrow cores of high velocity air located near the tropopause which strongly influence weather systems. Previous studies of the atmosphere have used reanalysis datasets which blend general circulation model output with observational data. Using wind and temperature data from the newly released high-resolution MERRA dataset, both eddy kinetic energy and lapse rate are calculated throughout the atmosphere and are used to determine the height of the tropopause. Results from these two methods are compared. Additionally, wind data from the MERRA dataset is compared to the lower-resolution ERA-Interim dataset for the 1989-2007 period, showing some disagreement in the tropics and Antarctica and strong agreement in the subtropics and mid-latitudes. The full 1979-2007 MERRA dataset is then used to determine the latitudinal location of the center of the zonal jets, as well as their maximum velocities and extents. Early analysis shows that the tropopause has increased in height and that the zonal jets have exhibited a poleward drift.

Multimodal information has been known to increase the attention and memory of human infants and adults. This study is looking at the effects of a supplemental visual cue on a listeners’ sensitivity to a tone in a background noise. Subjects’ detection of tones in two conditions was assessed; when a picture, or visual cue, was presented at the time when a tone might occur, and when no picture was provided. If the addition of a visual cue helps infants to attend to the tone during a listening task, pairing a visual cue with auditory stimulus in hearing threshold testing could result in data more representative of infants’ true auditory abilities.

For the male golden and white collared manikins, a species of tropical bird in Central America, the primary means of attracting females is by performing a "dance" over an arena which they have built on the rainforest floor. There is evidence that the arena helps to highlight a male's plumage as he performs his dance. Thus it is likely there is strong environmental and sexual selection to optimize arena structure to benefit the displaying male. Given that the golden and white collared manakins have different plumage colors, we hypothesized that arena structure would differ between these two species and that manakins living in a hybrid zone would build hybridized arena’s. In the first component of our research, we observed that the arena areas of the two species are different. We measured the overall area of the arenas and found that golden collared manakin arenas were smaller than white collared manakin arenas. Selection hypotheses presume that arena-building is a genetically determined behavior rather than learned. We continued our research and tested this by looking at arenas across a large geographic range in either species, and across a hybrid zone between the two species. If arena building is genetically determined we hypothesized that there would be high stereotypy in arena structure across the hybrid zone and that the arenas built by hybrids would be an intermediate between the white collared and golden collared manakin. Conversely, cultural hypotheses predict that there should be little stereotypy, and a high degree of local variation in arena structure across each species, therefore hybrids should copy the behavior of one species or the other. We found that arena structure varies little across geographic distance within parental species, and that hybrids occasionally produce arenas intermediate in structure. These results suggest that arena building is in fact genetically controlled.

Intense focused ultrasound (iFU) has the ability to activate sensory neurons both non-invasively and at depth. Such a system is potentially useful in the clinical diagnosis of painful tissue due to painful tissue’s differential response to ultrasound relative to normal tissue. Therefore, possible implementation methods for iFU need to be examined. One such readily available option is the use of imaging ultrasound devices, which after modification have the potential to create iFU pulses. However, these devices are limited to a maximum pulse length of 10 milliseconds. Currently our lab uses iFU pulses with 10 times this duration in our studies and as such we must determine if these shorter pulses contain the same ability for painful tissue differentiation. My specific aim in this project is to mimic this shorter protocol with our current device and to determine if, and at what lowest intensity these more brief pulses can induce a differentiable sensation in painful tissue relative to normal tissue. I will examine this through the use of a standard inflamed paw animal model in rats. Using paw withdrawal response as the assay, I can determine the effectiveness of iFU stimulation under this shorter protocol and will be able to optimize this protocol for least power use by observing rats different behavioral response to iFU application both to the normal and inflamed paw. The long term goal of this project will therefore be to determine whether imaging ultrasound devices represent a viable avenue for the clinical implementation of iFU.

A remotely acquired biopsy sample (piece of skin, blubber) can provide valuable information such as: prey preferences, sex determination, and contaminant loads of individuals. To understand how current biopsy methods can impact free-ranging cetaceans, a review of previous studies was conducted. Over 150 papers published between 1975 and 2009 were consulted and from those, 16 studies provided useful information about the success of different biopsy delivery devices (fraction of samples acquired) and 19 studies provided data on the behavioral responses during sampling for both mysticetes (baleen whales) and odontocetes (toothed dolphins and whales). Biopsy delivery methods were placed in general categories as follows: bow, gun or pole and with or without the use of a retrieval line. Behavioral responses were categorized as none, low, moderate or strong. Behavioral response rates following biopsy sampling for both mysticete and odontocete species were predominantly low to moderate, with strong responses observed the least. Behavioral response by delivery method varied by subgroup. Specifically, odontocetes generally displayed low behavioral responses that did not differ by delivery method. There may be a difference in response levels between the two delivery methods (bow, gun) used for mysticetes. However, due to a small sample size for delivery by gun (n=1 study), statistical analysis was not possible. The use of a retrieval line had a considerable effect on response rates in mysticetes. Overall success rates were near 80% with no significant differences by delivery method for both subgroups. Although the success rate when a bow was used tended to be greater for mysticetes compared to odontocetes, this was not statistically significant (p=0.10). Evaluation of available biopsy data can provide insight for streamlining methods and reducing impacts. Documentation of delivery method, behavioral response, and success rate are necessary to provide guidance for future research using biopsy techniques.

The Protein Interaction Search Engine (PRISE) is a biomedical text mining system built to help researchers find interactions between proteins described in the abstracts of biomedical articles from the PubMed database. The current implementation of PRISE consists of a Protein Recognizer (PR) module that identifies proteins in a given abstract, and a Protein Interaction Detection (PID) module that finds the actual interactions and their location in the abstract. PRISE consists of a frontend web interface that allows users to query the system with a protein and returns a list of interactions and related PubMed article links in both a textual and graphical format. The current implementation of the PR+PID pipeline is computationally expensive because it relies on extensive natural language processing (NLP) such as the construction of dependency trees. Many of the PubMed abstracts that enter the pipeline, however, do not contain interactions. Pushing these abstracts through the PR+PID pipeline is a waste of computational resources. We therefore developed a filter that, based on a lightweight NLP scan of an abstract, makes an initial educated guess as to whether the abstract contains a protein interaction. To this end, we use a multinomial Naïve Bayes model to identify terms that indicate the presence of an interaction, and score each abstract based on the occurrence of those terms. The filter then blocks those abstracts from entering the PR+PID pipeline for which it is highly confident that they do not discuss a protein interaction, thereby reducing the work load on the system.

 The Lancian land mammal ‘age’ (69-67 million years ago) is an important interval for understanding the context of the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction and the subsequent early Paleocene evolutionary radiation of mammals. Most Lancian fossil localities in North America occur in deposits that represent coastal lowlands adjacent to the large Western Interior Seaway. Here, I present preliminary results of a systematic paleontological study of 200 mammalian fossils from a Lancian-age locality in the Lance Formation of southwestern Wyoming. This locality, from the eastern flank of the Rock Springs Uplift near Black Butte Station, is distinct from other Lancian localities because it occurs farther west and may represent an upland mountainous region. Preliminary study has focused on the multituberculates from this assemblage. Multituberculates were small rodent-like mammals that spanned over 100 million years in the fossil record, which is longer than any other mammal group. They appeared in the Middle Jurassic and diversified into over 200 species before their extinction in the Late Eocene. Preliminary results indicate that this new fauna is notably different from faunas of similar age, and it includes at least one new species of the large-bodied multituberculate genus Meniscoessus.

The cerebellum (Cb) of the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) plays an important role in auditory pathways. Prior research has suggested that the Cb integrates processed auditory information for the purpose of guiding motor behavior. The inferior colliculus (IC) is the midbrain auditory processing center that sends projections to the Cb via the pontine gray (PG). There has been very little research directly examining the connections between the auditory portions of the PG and the Cb. The purpose of this project is twofold: to demonstrate the existence of auditory PG projections to the Cb and to analyze the specific terminal locations of these. An injection of the anterograde tracer Fluoro-Ruby was placed in the left PG and subsequent coronal brain sections were analyzed for fluorescent transport between nuclei. Three-dimensional models of the nuclei were then traced, labeled, reconstructed and analyzed. Fiber tracts were found in the contralateral Cb. Preliminary results validates the existence of auditory pathways from the PG to the Cb. Results of this research study add to the limited anatomical research characterizing auditory connections to the cerebellum of mammals. Elucidating these pathways may have practical applications in human auditory sciences.

Regulatory genes coordinate the proliferation of plant cells such as pavement cells and stomata. Interlocking epidermal cells called pavement cells protect the plant body from external dehydrating forces. On the other hand, stomata, pores found on the epidermis, manage air and water flow in and out of the plants. Stomata develop from meristemoid mother cells (MMC), a subset of protodermal cells that undergo asymmetric division to initiate cell differentiation from meristemoids (stomata precursor cells with stem cell like states) to stomata. To understand the intercellular communication and gene interactions that oversee stomatal development, we use Arabidopsis thaliana, a small rapidly developing flowering plant related to canola cabbage as a model organism. Specifically we seek to elucidate genes that are expressed in meristemoids. We used a microarray, profiling gene expressions in Arabidopsis, to locate possible meristemoid-specific genes. We then use three approaches to discover the effect the genes have on meristemoids. Knockout, the first approach, eliminates the target genes through mutations generated by transfer DNA (T-DNA) transformations. Overexpression, a reverse of the knockout approach, highly expresses the candidate genes. Lastly, Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) fusion attaches a fluorescent protein to the candidate protein, allowing us to detect where the promoter and gene are active. We hope to discover the specific functions of the candidate meristemoid-expressed genes. Consequently, these approaches will help us see whether and/or how gene interactions occurring during stomatal development may resemble other cell proliferation since meristemoids maintain their stem cell like states. This in turn can have implications for stem cell research that will hopefully lead us to better understand the differentiation and division process that meristemoids and stem cells undergo in attaining their cell identities.

Our study, using the semantic activation model of long term memory organization, examined false recognition of non-presented words due to varying amounts of semantically related words. Three groups studied a list of 20 words that varied between conditions in the amount of semantically related words. Participants were then given a recognition word list containing related non-presented words, presented words, and random words, and told to circle all words they saw in the list. An average of 0.64 non-presented words were circled in the 15% condition, 0.80 in the 50% condition, and 1.70 in the 75% condition. Results were significantly different between the 15% and 75% conditions, suggesting a relationship between the amount of semantically related words in a list and the presence of false recognition. These results imply that the nature of our brain's organization lends itself to a higher amount of falsely recognized words under conditions with large amounts of semantically related words

Propagation of cellular signals through protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation are key regulatory mechanisms in mammalian cells. Perturbation of these signaling pathways can lead to numerous disease states, including cancer. These molecules and their interaction partners are integral parts of every physiological system. Our interest in the regulation of cellular signaling through the action of a family of proteins known as A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs) is important. AKAPs are signal-organizing molecules that bind to cyclic-AMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) to further propagate activation or inhibition signals in the cell. In addition to PKA, AKAPs scaffold other important signaling molecules including kinases (protein kinases C and D), phosphatases (PP1 and PP2B) and phosphodiesterases (PDEs). Of particular interest are the interactions of the AKAP Gravin with polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1), a regulator of mitosis in eukaryotic cells. This interaction is of particular interest because elevated expression of Plk1 is correlated with certain cancers and Gravin has been demonstrated to function as a tumor-suppressor gene. To evaluate the effect these proteins have on neoplasia (uncontrollable cell growth and division) in living cells, maxiprep DNA that encodes for the proteins Gravin, Plk1 and combinations of both are transfected into NIH 3T3 cells and allowed to proliferate in selective media. Over time, “normal” NIH 3T3 cells form a monolayer and then arrest due to contact inhibition. However, if the cells have been transformed (changed cell morphology and growth patterning associated with neoplasia) they will form a foci of cells on the tissue culture plate. The plates are stained and then analyzed using ImageJ software to count the number of foci per plate. Ultimately, this study will help elucidate the effects of Gravin and Plk1 in cell cycle progression and transformation and provide clues to the role of Gravin in a genetic knock-out mouse.

Marking cells with fluorescent proteins (FPs) is a useful technique to monitor cellular process in biological systems using fluorescence microscopy. A fluorescence imaging cryomicrotome can be used to detect fluorescence at high resolution throughout a whole animal. An imaging cryomicrotome is an instrument that makes very thin slices, sequentially through a frozen sample, taking a filtered image of a specific wavelength. These images are then complied to produce a full scan of the organism. However, the fluorescence emitted from FPs may be dim compared to the autofluorescence from the gastrointestinal system from ingredients in fish food including chlorophyll and amino acids. We have been using an imaging cryomicrotome in order to observe three-dimensional localization of FPs within tissues. Trout were injected with plasmid DNA encoding FP or with bacteria expressing FP. Image data was processed using LabVIEW and IDL programs to reduce noise from autofluorescence. We have analyzed several rainbow trout with the cryomicrotome and observed fluorescence that could possibly be associated with our FP vectors. We are working to amplify signal and to remove noise from the fluorescence images of rainbow trout. In additional to localizing FP within tissues, quantification of fluorescence signals is also a goal. By improving the quality of rainbow trout samples and developing post-imaging methods we can measure emission intensity though surface level tissues and through the entire organism.

Electromagnetic and radio frequency interference (EMI/RFI) is a problem that plagues a wide variety of electronic devices. These two types of interference occur in many places such as spurious emissions from electronics and naturally occurring sources such as the sun or northern lights. In high sensitivity measurements, as well as in applications in close proximity to large fields (such as in MRI machines), induction and piezoelectric hydrophone performance is highly degraded by interference. Our hydrophone design eliminates this problem by not relying on any wiring or conductive materials in the sensor housing itself. By isolating the photoelectric conversion and amplification process away from high interference locations, a changing intensity of light can carry the needed information through an adverse environment without distortion. The changing intensity light can be carried large distances through an appropriate waveguide without significant attenuation so that it can be processed away from areas of high EMI/RFI.

A turbidostat is a continuously-stirred culture vessel in which the cell density is kept constant. We have constructed six turbidostats, so that six cultures can be evolved simultaneously to examine the diversity of evolutionary trajectories. We are using the turbidostats to study microbial consortia consisting of multiple yeast strains. Specifically, the microbial consortium consists of two cooperative yeast strains and one “cheater” strain. For the two cooperator strains, one releases lysine and requires adenine, the other releases adenine and requires lysine. The cheater strain does not release any metabolites and consumes lysine for growth. The population ratio within a co-culture changes over time because cheaters do not overproduce any metabolite and therefore have a fitness advantage over the respective cooperator. We expect that cheaters will gradually increase in abundance and eventually crash the system. Concurrently, the growth rate of the co-culture should slow down, manifested as a reduction of the rate at which the medium reservoir is depleted. This variable growth rate is why we chose turbidostats as opposed to other instruments used for long-term evolution studies, such as chemostats. We examine whether it is possible for some co-cultures to reduce or eliminate cheater presence. Populations where cooperators outnumber cheaters despite cheater advantage may be evidence for cheater tolerance. This may provide some insights into how natural cooperative systems may have evolved to survive cheaters.

Healthcare-associated infections are a major concern in hospitals because infections can lead to additional treatment and loss of life. Monitoring the incidence of infection is an established part of infection control in hospitals. However, because incidence of infection is considered low-count data, traditional analysis methods are often inadequate. In order to address this issue, various techniques in statistical quality control have been suggested. A type of statistical quality control chart, the g chart, is often used in infection control to monitor the number of days between infections. Users find the g chart counter-intuitive because the direction of data trends corresponding to improved infection rates is opposite that of most other control charts used in infection control. Due to the statistical properties of the distribution modeling incidence of infection, traditional methods for interpreting control charts are more difficult to apply correctly to the g chart. The purpose of this research is to analyze the current use of g charts for hospital-acquired infections, investigate how control charts may be applied to infection control surveillance data from Children’s Hospital, and provides additional design recommendations for a g chart more suitable for monitoring hospital-associated infections. A literature review of common g chart applications has been completed. Various concepts in statistical quality control will be applied to Children’s Hospital infection data as potential design modifications. Modified control charts providing more precise and intuitive interpretation of infection data will undergo further analysis to demonstrate statistical accuracy. Control chart designs selected based on statistical accuracy and ease of implementation will be presented with recommendations for application at Children’s Hospital. More intuitive interpretation of the g chart will provide a valuable tool to complement current infection monitoring procedures. By lowering infection rates implementation of the g chart at Children’s Hospital can prevent further illness and loss of life.

States have considerable influence over how federal welfare programs are implemented. We would like to think that state policy decisions in this area are primarily motivated by the need of various recipient groups. In this study, I examine the influence of political, economic and social factors on welfare policy decisions at the state level. My goal is to understand state differences in Maintenance of Effort (MOE) funding under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF). Research in this area is important for understanding social welfare spending because although there is a minimum required amount of money states must contribute to their MOE funds on top of federally provided funds, states still have discretion as to how much money they contribute after this minimum. Since states are able to influence the amount of money they contribute to their MOE funds, MOE is a good variable to measure state social welfare spending preferences. My analysis is based on twelve years of data across 50 states. It includes political data such as political party controlling the state government, economic data such as MOE spending per capita and GDP per capita, and social data such as public opinion about welfare. Despite the frequent emphasis given to the role of politics in social welfare spending, I expect to find that economic need will be the most important explanation for state differences in MOE funding under the TANF program that so many low-income Americans depend on daily.

The emerging area of Body Area Networks (BAN) promises to transform healthcare by increasing the observability of the human body, which will reduce healthcare costs while simultaneously providing better care. Ubiquitous BAN’s is a technology being developed that consists of a set of mobile and compact intercommunicating sensors, either wearable or implanted into the human body, which continually monitor heart rate, glucose, blood pressure and brain signals. Thanks to technological advances in integrated circuit and wireless technology, miniaturized wireless body-area sensors and networks is now possible. However, a few challenges on the radio link must be addressed before the technology is able to fully evolve. The first of these challenges include the size and power of the radio. Secondly, privacy and security of sensitive personal health data is a tremendous concern. The goal of this project is to develop a frequency-hopping transceiver architecture that addresses the size, power and security challenges presented by the BAN application. This project has two important steps. First, a communications theoretic study allose us to determine the optimal code division and frequency hopping characteristics needed to meet the specifications in BANs while enhancing the security of the system. Second, the findings from the study will lead to the optimal transceiver design for this application. The design is then implemented and tested.The outcome of this research will be a more secure and power efficient transceiver, making it possible to construct ubiquitous BAN.

The Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway plays an important role in regulating many developmental events and has been reported to influence stem cell populations. By determining how Wnt/β-catenin signaling affects gene expression in stem cells, we can better understand the role Wnt signaling plays in differentiation in vitro, in particular during neural differentiation. Human embryonic stem cells were genetically altered to create a Wnt “reporter” cell line. This line expresses a fluorescent protein, Venus, when the Wnt/β-catenin pathway is active. These cells are then pushed to differentiate into neural progenitor cells and expanded as neurospheres, during which time a subpopulation of cell endogenously activate the Wnt reporter. The presence of Venus-positive cells significantly correlates with neurosphere formation ability. By examining expression levels of specific genes in neural progenitor cells which express or do not express Venus, we can elucidate the role of Wnt/β-catenin in neural differentiation. Genes examined include neural stem cell indicators, genes which are developmentally regulated in different neural lineages, and regional markers of the brain. Results obtained from this work may be significant for future research focused on developing stem cell therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.

Recent advancements in laser cooling techniques have helped provide access to the extremely low temperatures, necessary to create Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC’s). Laser cooling relies upon the interactions of light with atoms which results in a slowing force. For light to interact with atoms it must be controllable and near a resonance frequency of that atom. Thus cooling techniques are sensitive to fluctuations in the laser’s frequency. To reduce such fluctuations, stabilizing the cooling laser to a particular frequency is required. This project involves the development of a saturated absorption laser spectroscopy (SALS) apparatus for stabilizing lasers to optical transitions in the ytterbium atom. A vacuum chamber has been constructed to house the sample and includes glass viewports to let in the laser light for spectroscopy. To perform SALS the sample must be heated to a few hundred degrees Celsius in order to create sufficient vapor density for a usable optical signal. SALS is a two beam method, which exploits the saturation of atomic transitions caused by the absorption of light. The beams are counter-propagating and result in a Doppler free signal, which yields a stable reference source. Considerable attention has to be paid to the vacuum chamber design to simultaneously achieve proper spectroscopic signals and avoid unwanted interactions of the hot vapor with the glass viewports. I will report on the design and construction of the vacuum chamber and the performance of our ytterbium laser spectroscopy setup.

Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) is the tolerance towards subsequent ischemic events that occurs after initially being presented with a brief period of induced ischemia (stroke). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) preconditioning is a phenomenon closely related to IPC in that brief exposure to LPS also induces tolerance to subsequent ischemic events and also, like IPC, activates large numbers of microglia. LPS, a component of the bacterial cell membrane, is an activating ligand for toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4), which belongs to a family of receptors involved in the activation of the innate immune response. Furthermore, it has been found that microglia express relatively high levels of TLR4. Because of these implications, the Weinstein lab has been working to show that TLR4 deficient mice have reduced tolerance to ischemic events following IPC through analysis of infarct volume and neurobehavioral scoring, and have also been investigating the role that microglia play in the IPC mechanism. To date, IPC has not been demonstrated in a white matter preparation. White matter, which plays a large role in the morbidity of human stroke, makes up a larger proportion of the human brain than in the common rodent model, making rodents a less than ideal subject. The optic nerve of mice, on the other hand, is purely white matter, making it experimentally useful in suggesting a correlation between IPC in mice and in humans. Therefore the goal of this project is to investigate whether the same protective IPC effects are present in the optic nerve model and absent in TLR4 deficient mice. Our preliminary data may suggest that this is true and the next step would be to generate and analyze immunohistochemical data in order to investigate the role that TLR4 and microglia play in IPC in white matter as well as to provide insight into the mechanism involved.

One of the most important recent findings in neuroscience has been the discovery of neurogenesis in the adult mammalian brain. However, neurogenesis declines with age and this loss is correlated with cognitive decline. Recently, it has been shown that both exercise and a high-fat diet increase neurogenesis in adult mice. I hypothesize that a mechanism for these increases in neurogenesis is an increase in fatty acid metabolism in neural stem cells (NSC). For instance, fatty acids are a primary fuel source for neonatal brains, when neurogenesis occurs at its greatest rate. Additionally, neurogenic regions in the brain are closely associated with vasculature and thus have unique access to blood-borne factors. Therefore, it is plausible that NSC proliferation could be limited by fatty acid availability in the environment. We have found that application of a fatty acid transport inhibitor decreases proliferation of cultured NSC without negative effects on cell viability, supporting this hypothesis. My current work further examines the role of fatty acids in neurogenesis, for example, by determining if the application of these fuels is sufficient to increase NSC proliferation. Also, we are examining how blocking fatty acid transport affects neurogenesis in live, exercising mice. This study not only provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of adult neurogenesis but also improves our understanding of cellular metabolism and the regulation of regeneration in the adult mammalian brain.

We have previously shown that animals subjected to an inflammatory insult with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) following middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) tend to develop an inflammatory autoimmune response (TH1⁺) to the brain antigen myelin basic protein (MBP). This response is associated with worse neurological outcome. However, the induction of a T regulatory (TREG⁺) response to MBP (using the paradigm of mucosal tolerance) prior to MCAO is linked to improved outcome. To assess the immunologic basis for this result, immunocytochemistry (ICC) was performed on a subset of the brains from the study. We found that animals “tolerized” to MBP tend to have an increase in FoxP3⁺ cells at both 1 and 3 months following stroke. In non-tolerized animals, however, an increased number of CD4⁺ cells was observed, especially 3 months following stroke. Interestingly, there were more FoxP3⁺ cells and fewer CD4⁺ and CD45⁺ cells in the infarcted hemisphere of medial sections. Currently we are exploring the cellular basis of “anamnestic recall,” a well-described phenomenon that may occur following stroke. It describes patients who have had a good recovery from their stroke but experience reemergence of their symptoms associated with infection. Male Lewis rats will be subjected to MCAO with or without LPS to induce a TH1⁺ response to MBP. At one month, animals will undergo behavioral testing followed by re-exposure to either LPS to simulate infection or saline. Following additional behavioral testing at 72 hours animals will be sacrificed for histology. The CNS cellular inflammatory response will be characterized by ICC. The number of CD4⁺ T cells, CD8⁺ T cells and CD45⁺ B cells in both the ischemic and non-ischemic hemispheres will be determined. Additionally, the expression of fractalkine, a chemokine with potent chemoattractant properties for T cells, and FoxP3, a gene product associated with TREG⁺ cells, will be assessed.

Gliomas are highly invasive brain tumors that account for nearly half of all primary brain tumors. Since current medical imaging techniques only detect a portion of the cancerous cell comprising these lesions, a reaction-diffusion model was developed to explore the extent of the tumor invasion below the threshold of detection of imaging and to predict glioma growth that can be tailored to an individual patient's tumor. This computational model is based on two key elements: net rates of cell proliferation and cell diffusion. In previous model implementations, cell diffusion was assumed to be constant and isotropic. However, it is commonly accepted that glioma cells migrate preferentially along the direction of white matter tracts, which are organized in myelinated axonal fibres that cause diffusion to be fastest parallel to, and slowest perpendicular to, the fibre tract. To model anisotropic glioma cell migration in a 3D virtual brain, we use diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a type of magnetic resonance image (MRI) that provides a tensor at each spatial location in the brain quantifying the magnitude and direction of the white matter tracts. Patient-specific tissue classification maps determine grey and white matter composition at each spatial location in the brain and are used in conjunction with a DTI atlas to model the tumor growth and invasion through the brain on a patient-specific level. I will compare model-predicted virtual gliomas using isotropic and anisotropic diffusion and quantify the overall differences in growth patterns between the two approaches as well as compare the virtual tumors with patient data to determine which technique more accurately predicts the growth of gliomas in vivo.

Recently, the abscence of bipartisanship on key legislative issues such as health care makes the studying of what makes bipartisanship likely a more pressing issue. Research to date on the causes of bipartisanship is limited in that it focuses primarily on the characteristics of the issues that win bipartisan support. By measuring bipartisanship as whether a legislator cosponsors a bill sponsored by a member of the opposite party we can address what shapes individual decisions to engage in bipartisanship and what makes some legislators more likely to engage in bipartisanship than others. This allows for better predictions about the possibility of bipartisan behavior in the future. Some examples of our attempts to analyze individual behavior will involve looking at the role seniority, ideology, and the role of political leadership in influencing senators to engage in bipartisanship.

Kaposi’ Sarcoma (KS) was the first AIDS defining illness and is the most common tumor among AIDS patients world-wide. Currently, KS, is the most common tumor in parts of Africa. KS is a highly vascularized tumor and the main cell type found within the tumor is the spindle cell, a cell of endothelial cell origin. The etiologic agent of KS is Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), a gamma-herpesvirus. KSHV is present in all spindle cells of KS tumor. My research focuses on how KSHV causes KS. An important aspect of KSHV pathogenesis is the ability of the virus to drive the differentiation of blood endothelial cells to lymphatic endothelial cells. My goal is to discover which KSHV genes are sufficient to cause this transformation from one cell type to another. Each KSHV gene was isolated, cloned into expression plasmids in bacteria, amplified, and will be transfected individually into human blood vessel cells. The infected cells will then be screened by changes in their surface receptors for indications of differentiation into lymphatic cells. This research marks the first steps in the understanding of how KSHV causes the further differentiation of endothelial cells and may shed light on how this virus can cause cancer.

While weblogs act in many ways as liberatory spaces for self-regulating and self-organizing social formations, power structures are reproduced in their levels of accessibility: the Internet’s universal democratic features derive from and coincide with imperial prescriptions of ‘universal’ ‘democratic’ norms. In this ‘ethblographic’ study, I evaluate the conditions of possibility that blogs enable as virtual tools for identity construction and creative self-expression within hegemonic fields of domination. This paper argues that blog projects are not totalizing: the constructions that emerge are often fragmented, contradictory and incoherent, reflecting their subjection to imperial demands and controls. Concurrently, blog users are redefining the Internet’s alternative and subversive potentials in their appropriation and co-creation of cyber spaces. The blog entries of Salam Pax reveal many of the tensions and inconsistencies of imperial subjectivity as it is constructed, reconstructed, constituted and reconstituted through the Internet. The ways in which he engages with these dominating forces speak to the power of virtual domains to act as sites for cultural reclamation and negotiation of ulterior identities in excess of imperial norms. In exploring these tensions through my own navigation through the blogosphere, I gain insight into the online processes and practices that facilitate and disavow access and influence. Further, I posit that online identities resonate beyond the scope of the form itself, creating significant implications for offline understandings and mediations of self and subjectivity.

A NOAA/ECOHAB study in 2005 and 2006 found Quartermaster Harbor (QMH) surface sediments to have the highest concentration of Alexandrium catenella cysts in Puget Sound. Cysts of A. catenella have been found to germinate in QMH when temperatures reach about 14oC. Once in the water column, filter feeding shellfish concentrate the toxin in their body mass, which if ingested by mammals can cause Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) and be fatal. Historical shellfish toxin data from the Washington State Department of Health shellfish monitoring program indicate that shellfish in QMH frequently exceeds the safe limit of 80 µg toxin/100 g of tissue, resulting in shellfish harvesting closures in the bay. Since 2006, UWT researchers have been investigating various environmental conditions in QMH in an effort to understand why the concentration of Alexandrium catenella is so high in this bay. The work done by the student presenter includes collecting water samples, running dissolved oxygen titrations and analyzing and graphically presenting the data. The work presented here specifically examines the 2009 seasonal patterns in nutrient and chlorophyll-a concentrations along a seven station transect, sampled monthly in QMH. The timing of A. catenella blooms from phytoplankton observations in 2009 are compared with these data to investigate the marine environmental conditions associated with these blooms. These data are also compared with 2007 and 2008 patterns in nutrients, chlorophyll-a, and the occurrence of A. catenella. These trends can help determine ideal conditions in the water column that support toxic algal blooms, specifically a bloom of Alexandrium catenella. Results from this research can help better predict toxic algal blooms and identify when shellfish harvesting should be closed to prevent PSP.

With today’s focus towards “going green,” companies across the globe are looking to refine their methods in order to promote this economically and environmentally beneficial change. Stress has been placed on the petrochemical industry to find new methods to utilize natural resources in more efficient and environmentally friendly ways. Epoxides, a common industrial feedstock, are compounds that have received recent attention for production improvements. Existing industrial processes for epoxide production has major drawbacks, ranging from expensive oxidants, excessive waste, and undesired co-product formation. Currently, the “greenest" oxidant used is hydrogen peroxide, however it must be used in super-stoichiometric amounts, which increases expenses. The application of molecular oxygen, a potentially cheaper, greener, and readily abundant oxidant, for epoxide production is desired. The goal of our project is to utilize homogeneous catalysts with molecular oxygen to examine epoxidation reactions that cannot be catalyzed by known heterogeneous systems. Through this study, novel late-transition metal palladium complexes have been synthesized and characterized by various spectroscopies, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, and elemental analyses. By studying the reactivity of the new palladium complexes, we hope to gain insight that could facilitate improvements leading to the successful assembly of a working catalytic olefin epoxidation process that utilizes O2 as the oxidant, aiding the petrochemical industry in efforts to “go green.”

Recognizing that there is a critical need to investigate engineering education from the student's perspective, the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education, funded by the National Science Foundation, conducted the Academic Pathways Study. This longitudinal study surveyed, interviewed, and administered engineering design tasks to a total of 160 students from four institutions as they progressed through four years of their undergraduate engineering education. Between July 2009 and February 2010, the Center for Engineering Learning and Teaching undergraduate researchers examined each of the interview transcripts. This poster presents selected themes emerging from a preliminary inductive analysis of the interviews. One of the common themes exhibited throughout the study was the difference between engineers and non-engineers. Students at all four institutions made important distinctions between themselves and students in other majors. These distinctions were evident in many aspects of the students' lives, from their academic experience to their social lives. One institution even developed specific vocabulary, labeling humanities and engineering-related majors as "fuzzies" and "techies," respectively. Another theme common to many of the interviews was the challenges that students experienced as engineering majors. These challenges ranged from the rigid structure of the undergraduate engineering curriculum to the competitive nature of applying to the different engineering major departments during the students' sophomore year. One sophomore stated, "I’m in to the whole very structured prerequisite schedule. You can’t miss a class... [and] most the classes are only offered one semester per year. So if you can’t get in 'em [sic] one semester, you’re pretty much a year behind." This study sheds light on the student's perspective throughout their undergraduate engineering education. With a better understanding of the engineering undergraduate experience, we hope to help improve engineering education.

The study of neighboring planets can lend additional insight into our solar system’s history and properties, a general goal of the Cassini Mission as it focuses on the Saturnian system. Our efforts in processing this data concentrate on Phoebe, a Saturnian moon of particular interest due to its distinctive features. Phoebe is a very dark object, and travels in a retrograde (opposite) orbit, characteristics contrary to the other moons around Saturn. These irregularities suggest Phoebe is a captured object, trapped by Saturn’s gravitational pull, possibly originating from the Kuiper Belt of the outer solar system. As the Kuiper Belt contains remnants from the Solar System’s formation, studying Phoebe provides the opportunity to gain knowledge about a possibly primordial object. Data for Phoebe comes from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) aboard the Cassini Orbiter. This instrument records spectroscopic information in data “cubes,” with two dimensions of the data corresponding to the layout of Phoebe, and the third dimension corresponding to its reflectance at different wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. Processing this data includes calibration, interpolation, and averaging to smooth the noise in the spectrum, and water ice modeling, assuming a liner relationship between the spectrum of completely dark areas (organics and other materials) and bright areas (water ice). The goal of this process is to produce a map of water ice grain size and location on Phoebe, as this can provide knowledge about its history and physical composition. The amount of water ice on Phoebe’s surface is expected to be small due to information from previous models at lower resolutions, while our higher resolution models are expected to provide more detailed information. Eventually, we hope to also map the CO2 on Phoebe to gain more information about this unique object possibly original to the formation of the solar system.

In 2008, 13 percent (or 39 million people) in the United States were living below the poverty threshold. Living below the poverty threshold means that for a family of four, the household income is less than $22,050 per year, and for one person, the threshold is below $10,830. The number of individuals under the poverty threshold is increasing due to the current economic decline; the poverty rate in 2008 marked an 11-year high, just a year after the economic crisis started in 2007. This research project seeks to create a series of information designs/data graphics that illustrate and amplify critical issues in US poverty. The graphics visualize key differences of low-income individuals, especially their spending on food and nutrition in relation to income. Because poverty involves a multi-layered and complex set of issues, information graphics can be of great use in clarifying and presenting concepts in digest form. In researching and creating this visual narrative, two questions central to information design were explored: what makes for the most effective information graphics? What is the role of novelty and formal invention in visual communication? Clean and simple graphical language is used to create a more cohesive visualization between poverty and nutrition, and from there, a viewer can see how these issues relate to one another. By discussing how poverty is affecting people in the United States, a viewer can get a better understanding of how these factors can inhibit someone’s lifestyle.

Gastrulation is a crucial step in embryogenesis, creating differentiation between ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm and forming necessary organs. On the molecular level, transmembrane and juxtamembrane proteins located at the adherens junction, such as cadherins and p120 catenin respectively, work together to either promote cell adhesion or motility. We hypothesized that in zebrafish embryos when p120 catenin is at the plasma membrane, it binds and stabilizes the cadherins, causing cell clustering and increased adhesion, and when p120 catenin is in the cytoplasm, it activates Rac1 and inhibits RhoA (two RhoGTPases), which causes cell motility. We also hypothesize that phosphorylation of p120 catenin is able to mediate these behaviors. By morpholino induced knockdown, we found that p120 catenin depletion caused defects consistent with the loss of cellular migration. In addition, increasing levels of constitutively active Rac1 mRNA in embryos create abnormal embryos, but constitutively active Rac1 mRNA in moderation has the ability to rescue p120 catenin-depleted embryos. The roles of dominant-negative RhoA mRNA and p120 catenin mutated at specific phosphorylation sites are being studied. These results demonstrate that p120 catenin is crucial for normal cell motility in developing zebrafish embryos and suggest that a balance of p120 catenin regulation of Rac1 is also necessary for normal embryogenesis. These studies on the regulation of cell motility can help to elucidate larger signaling pathways, leading to additional effects on cell survival, growth, and invasiveness, all of which may be caused by the upstream p120 catenin.

In light of recession it is invaluable to look at the construction of and theories behind risk-management models. It is widely acknowledged that the standard measures of risk, mean variance and Value at Risk (VaR), are ill-suited for times of recession. In fact, nearly a decade of financial literature has instead suggested alternate models based on Expected Shortfall (ES). It is rather frightening then that so much money is staked on VaR, when there is a much safer option--ES. It is not a lack of interest in ES that accounts for the apparent void in the literature, but the difficulty involved in obtaining accurate ES estimates. Simulation based ES estimation requires generating millions of bootstrap samples, which are again bootstrapped hundreds of thousands of times. Despite being a very simple risk measure, calculating ES quickly balloons into a task that is impractical or infeasible on a single processor. However, with the development of distributed processing ES has the potential to be a practical risk management tool.  My economics undergraduate thesis involves developing such a distributed ES calculation method and testing ES as a risk measure with the S&P 500 index of funds. I take advantage of the parallel-computing Map/Reduce framework called Hadoop, run on the Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) service. By distributing the computation over a network of computers I am able I am able to greatly reduce the overall calculation time. With an efficient method to calculate ES, I am able to determine the marginal effects of the portfolio constituents, and attempt to rebalance the portfolio for minimum risk. In doing this I demonstrate a practical application of ES for risk budgeting, and a framework that can be used for real-time estimation.

Highly efficient nonlinear optic (NLO) chromophores are being developed as promising candidates for electro-optic (E-O) devices and nanotechnology. The E-O response of chromophore efficiency improves with the increase of the second-order polarizability (β). The overall effects of substitutions on the polyene conjugation bridge of a phenylpolyene based donor—π-conjugation bridge—acceptor chromophores were studied by density functional theory (DFT) calculations with two state model approximation and finite field method. Several common electron donating groups (OCH₃, phenoxide, N(CH₃)₂, NH₂) and electron withdrawing groups (SCH₃, O=CCH₃, CN, F) were used as substituents. Preliminary work suggests that β is greatest when the substituent, if a donor, is placed near the terminal donor and, if an acceptor, is placed near the terminal acceptor with positions characterized by Dewar’s rule. Further work will extend current single substitution scheme to double substitution and generalize the trend in the quest to maximize β strength.

Birth defects and cancers can occur if the genetic material in cells, the DNA, is not segregated properly during cell division. Replicated DNA is packaged into joined chromosome pairs, called ‘sisters’, which make attachments to the tips of microtubule filaments through specialized structures, called kinetochores. Sister kinetochore pairs then make oscillatory movements driven by the stochastic lengthening and shortening of the microtubules to which they are attached. To explain how the movements of sisters are coordinated, a ‘push-pull’ model has been proposed where the dynamics of kinetochore-attached filaments are regulated by forces transmitted through the packaged DNA that links the sisters together. Here we show that the simplest version of this model, in which the linkage is assumed to be purely elastic, fails in computer simulations to reproduce the near-perfect coordination of sisters seen in cells. Furthermore, by tracking sister kinetochores in high-resolution movies of live cells, we find that the probability for a kinetochore to reverse direction correlates not only with the distance separating it from its sister, but also with the direction that its sister is moving. The latter implies that microtubules attached to one kinetochore somehow ‘sense’ whether those attached to the sister kinetochore are growing or shrinking. This effect, and the highly coordinated movement of sisters observed in cells, can be reproduced in computer simulations assuming the sisters are connected with a material in which its effective stiffness can change with the rate of sister separation. We therefore propose that sister kinetochore movements during cell division are coordinated by inter-kinetochore forces transmitted through viscoelastic material between sisters.

Humans use tactile and kinesthetic cues to easily identify the location of an object feature without vision. This preliminary work quantitatively examined the behaviors of 15 individuals locating a target on an object with a single digit (index or thumb). Search methods could be categorized into one of three search strategies, termed “scanning,” “landmark,” and “direct.” The scanning strategy consisted of back and forth scanning and then confirmation of the target, and was always utilized in trials in which the target location was unknown. The landmark strategy consisted of contour following, ballistic movement from an edge toward the target, and error correction and confirmation of the target. The direct strategy consisted of ballistic movement from the start position directly to the target, and error correction and confirmation of the target. Follow-up relocalization trials were executed with the landmark strategy 42% and the direct strategy 58% of the time. The landmark strategy was utilized significantly more often by the index finger than by the thumb. Future work to understand how strategy selection depends on the strength of an individual’s internal model of the 3D object and the uncertainty of finger location with respect to the object will inform the development of a computational model of human object exploration.

Cluster analysis is a very important exploratory statistical tool used in many fields, including biology, medicine, market research, social networks etc. Cluster analysis is the assignment of observations, information, or records into similar groups or sets. Using Cluster Analysis, we can identify location and distance of cluster points/groups from one another in multiple dimensions. The main point of such analysis is to group individual clusters in such a way so that we can see their locations and distances from one another, and to determine effects on regression results within sets of complex data with multiple outliers. This project focused on the nearest neighborhood method of cluster analysis. The advantage of the method largely lies on the simplicity of logic underlying the technique. This simplicity enables the method to gain greater adoptability with fewer assumptions, and hence, can be deployed in many different data "environments" without advance knowledge of the data set. Our group intends to use methods of cluster analysis and graphical presentation to find a shortcut to identify outliers. Using three variables and graphing software we can plot points and visualize the image of the data, but when we deal with four or more independent variables this task is impossible. In this case clustering may be the only way to analyze the data. While this method of outlier detection has some obvious advantages, the method has never been analyzed in relation to regression analysis and simultaneous location of more than one influential point in the data set. The goal of this project is to examine the method within both real world and made up data, to verify the method and find the limits of the technique.

During embryonic development it is crucial that the great vessels (i.e. the aorta and pulmonary artery) form correctly. Early in development the precursors to the adult great vessels consist of five paired pharyngeal arch arteries in the neck area. After several days of re-patterning, the mature pulmonary artery, the aorta and their major branches are formed. The vessels all develop smooth muscle cell (SMC)-containing walls during this period. Several congenital heart diseases result from abnormal development of the great vessels. These diseases can be either debilitating or fatal. Learning the genetic causes of these diseases can help create diagnostic tools and treatments for patients. It is known that TGF-β (transforming growth factor beta) signaling plays an important role during early vascular development; however its precise roles in vascular patterning and SMC differentiation remain unclear. In this study we interrupted TGF-β signaling in SMC in mouse embryos by introducing a deletion in the gene that encodes the type II TGF-β receptor. Embryos with disrupted TGF-β signaling (knock-out embryos) died before birth. Several vascular defects were observed in the knock-out embryos including a dilated descending aorta, persistent right dorsal aorta, persistent right sixth arch artery and abnormal outflow tract septation. We found no effect on SMC differentiation. We conclude that TGF-β signaling plays a critical role in the re-modeling of the pharyngeal arch arteries, but not in SMC differentiation. We are currently investigating molecular mechanisms for the patterning defects by trying to identify the possible downstream targets of TGF-β. Candidate genes include those involved in extracellular matrix synthesis, including fibronectin, tropoelastin and versican.

Motor impairments can make computer interaction a slow, challenging, and tiring process. My goal is to make computers more accessible for users with motor impairments through the design and engineering of a technique for selecting buttons and other targets in software applications. The Crossing Cursor uses localized crossing goals to reduce physical strain on the user and minimize precise movements. Developed by combining an area cursor with localized crossing goals, the Crossing Cursor assigns targets under the area cursor an equal-width arc so that all arcs together form a circle. A target is selected by crossing or passing over the arc that has been assigned to it. In order to minimize cognitive challenges while improving accuracy and speed, major design obstacles had to be overcome. These obstacles include the development of a logical mapping of target-to-arc location and creating appropriate visual cues for proxy targets at the point of crossing. I report on approaches used to overcome these obstacles, centered in fundamental interaction and design principles, as well as the overall evolution of the technique. Early results show that with a motor impairment, the technique may be competitive in terms of a combined speed and accuracy metric as measured against other “enhanced” area cursor techniques as well as traditional point and click. More importantly, for users with motor impairments, physical strain plays a significant role in a technique’s benefit; early results show a potential for reduced physical strain. Finally, we consider other domains where the Crossing Cursor may prove useful, including use of a laser pointer, eye tracking, or other non-standard input devices.

Accurate temperature and pressure measurement techniques are important for aerodynamic research. Techniques exist and are in common use to measure pressure and temperature at specific points or on solid surfaces of test models in wind tunnel testing. At present, measurement methods for measuring two-dimensional temperature and pressure fields within flow fields do not exist. A quantitative flow visualization technique being developed by Professor Dabiri’s group is being developed to measure velocity, pressure, and temperature simultaneously throughout a two-dimensional fluid flow field using pressure and temperature sensitive luminescent microspheres. The initial phase of research is focused on the development and calibration of distinct dye combinations which give precise temperature and pressure measurements. These dyes will then be applied to the microspheres, dubbed PTBeads. Five possible dye combinations were studied. From these studies, ideal dye combinations have been selected that have three distinct and separate response wavelengths representing temperature, pressure, and a reference intensity. Each of the dye combinations were tested and responded predictably to excitation from a 365 nm light source. These PTBeads are able to follow the flow field of an atmospheric medium and remain suspended over extended periods of time without disrupting the flow due to their small size. The PTBeads are synthesized containing the pre-determined mix of the dyes. Once inserted into the flow, a three-camera imaging system will simultaneously measure the intensity of the emissions from each dye, converting the results to quantitative pressure and temperature values. Future goals of this research include using these PTBeads towards developing a reliable thermometry, barometry, and velocimetry measurement system that can be used toward studying and better understanding turbulent flow so that better turbulence models can be developed and used in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations.

Losing the ability to touch-type is a serious and permanent disability for those who have lost a finger or an arm to an accident. It is also a temporary concern for those forced to wear a cast or splint, or for those with a medical condition such as Carpel Tunnel Syndrome. Although one-hand keyboard layouts exist, the typist requires significant practice with the layout to attain a speed anywhere close to his or her original two-hand speed. Most people are not willing to spend the time needed to master a new one-hand layout, especially when facing a temporary condition such as a finger sprain. To address these issues I have developed MirrorBoard, a software utility that enables one-hand typing by capitalizing on a computer user’s existing two-hand typing skills. MirrorBoard enables injured touch-typists to regain a percentage of their two-hand typing speed without significant time spent learning a new keyboard layout. Using MirrorBoard, all characters under the typing-hand are arranged normally. The characters from the other, unused side of the keyboard are also assigned to the typing-hand’s keys. Each key then represents two possible characters. Whereas previous work has required a modifier-key to differentiate between possible characters that share the same physical key, MirrorBoard uses a predictive text algorithm to accurately identify the words being typed. Preliminary results suggest the inclusion of this predictive text results in significantly higher typing speeds than other one-hand approaches and, most importantly, less time spent learning and practicing the new keyboard layout. Pilot results from University of Washington undergraduates have guided the software’s development, and I will soon begin a more substantial study on a representative sample that includes one-handed computer users. MirrorBoard is available as a free download and can be used on any standard computer keyboard.

The U.S. continues to accept more documented immigrants to increase innovation and productivity among the workforce. As a result, the labor market is either negatively or positively influenced by high-skilled immigrants. Analyzing the trend of high-skilled immigrants is important because it gives an idea of which type of preparation immigrants have tends to positively influence the economy. Since most of high-skilled work force is generated by higher education levels, this research focuses on high-skilled immigrants who have at least graduated college. This research applies the analyzing method Hunt (2009) used, which examines immigrants according to their first entry visa status which can be different from what they are currently holding. Hunt found out which of the high skilled immigrants in the U.S. are the most innovative and entrepreneurial regarding wage, business start-up, publication and patenting using the National Survey of College Graduates (NSCG) 2003, and concluded that those who were post-doctoral fellows and medical residents succeed the most among high skilled immigrants. This prior study also found that immigrants are better in opening a new business than their U.S. born counterparts. My research extends the results from Hunt with more recent data, the National Survey of Recent College Graduates (NSRCG) 2006. Although the NSRCG 2006 is not as rich as the NSCG 2003, adding more time cross-sections may alleviate the possible bias from single cross-section analysis. Also, cross-sections from two different time points allow one to observe the economic assimilation trends of highly educated immigrants in the United States.

Both negative emotions and the tendency to act rashly in the face of negative or positive moods (e. g. urgency) have been separately linked to the risk for experiencing alcohol related problems. This suggests that individuals who act rashly in face of mood elevations are more likely to have alcohol problems when experiencing negative emotions. However, no studies have considered whether the effects of the two constructs on alcohol problems are synergistic or merely additive risk factors. We tested these hypotheses in a large sample (n = 426) of college drinkers between age 18 and 24. We tested the interaction between negative emotions and urgency with multiple regression analysis. Controlling for the effects of age, gender, and past year alcohol use, we found that higher positive and negative urgency predicted greater intensity of past-year alcohol related problems. Moreover, higher levels of anger, depression, and anxiety were associated with more alcohol problems. Additionally, depression moderated the effects of positive urgency on alcohol problems—such that higher levels of depression strengthened the effects of positive urgency on alcohol problems. The main effects of negative urgency and negative emotions may indicate a negative reinforcement pathway, where individuals engage in alcohol use as an ineffective means of coping—which in turn leads to increases in alcohol related problems. On the other hand, regarding the interaction between positive urgency and depression, the use of alcohol to induce positive affect in depressed individuals may reflect a positive reinforcement pathway. In both pathways, an overreliance on alcohol to alter affect leads to a problematic pattern of consumption and increased intensity of related problems. Overall, these findings clarify emotional and motivational factors that contribute to problematic alcohol use among college students. Additionally, findings will give practitioners a more comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to alcohol use problems.

Topographic arrangements of nerve fibers play an important role in the development and proper function of sensory systems. In the chicken auditory system, the two structures nucleus magnocellularis (NM) and laminaris (NL) are arranged topographically with respect to sound frequency. This is called a tonotopic organization. Previously, we provided evidence supporting the notion that the fibers crossing the midline and connecting these two structures are also arranged tonotopically along the rostrocaudal axis. This finding begs the question of what causes this fiber arrangement through development. In this light, we are examining a group of proteins known as the Eph receptors and ephrin ligands. Topographic expression of these molecules is known to mediate topographic fiber connections in other sensory systems. In addition, they are expressed along the midline of the chicken auditory brainstem, with their misexpression causing aberrant wiring. We therefore hypothesize that a tonotopic gradient of Eph/ephrin expression in the chick auditory brainstem midline is responsible for the tonotopic axon sorting during development. In order to assess this, we take horizontal brainstem sections from developing chicken embryos at the stage when axons cross the midline and examine the expression of EphB2 receptors and ephrin-B1 ligands using immunohistochemistry combined with confocal microscopy. Preparing horizontal plane sections incorporates the entire tonotopic extent of the midline and allows for labeling intensities to be compared along the rostrocaudal axis. We find what appears to be a gradient of EphB2 expression along the midline’s tonotopic extent, i.e. in the rostrocaudal dimension. Our results suggest that EphB2 may play a role in the tonotopic guidance and sorting of axons crossing the midline of the chicken auditory brainstem. We are currently examining other molecules for a possible gradient along the rostrocaudal axis.

Ninety percent of patients that die of prostate cancer (PCa) have bone metastasis. Androgen ablation is the first line therapy for patients with advanced stage disease and the loss of androgens can lead to osteoporosis (bone loss). Bisphosphonates are used to block osteoclast activity and therefore bone loss in patients with PCa. We examined osteoclast activity and bone loss in fifty bisphosphonate and non-bisphosphonate treated patients with PCa bone metastasis.To determine bone loss in PCa bone metastasis, we obtained bone cores from rapid autopsies of fifty patients that died of PCa. The bone cores were embedded in methylmethacrylate, sectioned and then stained with Goldners trichrome for histomorphometric analysis. CD68 immuno-positivity and number of nuclei were used to determine the number of osteoclasts, and tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAcP) activity was measured to determine the number of active osteoclasts in the bone cores.  More bone was present in bisphosphonate treated vs. untreated patients (24.5% vs. 15.4%; p<0.005). Interestingly, osteoclast activity was not significantly decreased in bisphosphonate treated vs. untreated patients (8.2 vs. 5.8; p=0.184). Additionally, 335 of 558 tumored bone cores had an osteolytic component. In non-tumored bone cores bisphosphonate treatment decreased the number of active osteoclasts, but not significantly (4.91 vs. 8.93; p=0.173). We are currently assessing the effect of bisphosphonate treatment on the number of active osteoclasts / total osteoclasts in tumored and non-tumored bone cores from these patients.  Our results demonstrate that while there is an increase in bone formation there is no decrease in osteoclast activity in bisphosphonate treated vs. untreated PCa bone metastasis. Additionally, bisphosphonate treatment can decrease the number of active osteoclasts in non-tumored bones of patients with PCa.

Research has shown that some survivors of pediatric cancer suffer from psychosocial maladjustment following the completion of treatment. In addition, high levels of parental stress have consistently been associated with poor child outcomes. The purpose of this study is to identify whether the relationship between parenting stress and child psychosocial adjustment is mediated by parenting behaviors for children who have survived Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia. 26 ALL survivors and their mothers were compared with 25 healthy controls and their mothers. Mothers and their children participated in 10-minute interactions, and both mothers and children completed self-report surveys to measure parenting stress and several aspects of child adjustment. Depending on whether a significant correlation is found between parenting stress and child adjustment, one of two meditational analyses will be conducted. Significant findings will have important implications for the development of parenting intervention programs.

Vogue magazine has been criticized for stereotypical representation of minorities in the past. Portrayals of minorities – specifically of Asian American women – are frequently subject to societal stereotypes regarding race. These narrow representations are not without consequence. In fact, studies show they harm the mental health of vulnerable populations as well as maintain traditional power structures regarding race. To further explore misrepresentation, I analyzed minority female representation in all Vogue 2009 fashion spreads as well as conducted a focus group in an effort to determine how the results of the textual analysis affect Asian American females. The textual analysis involved thematic coding of fashion spreads involving women of color as well a numerical analysis in order to compare the frequency of white representation with minority representation. Findings from the textual analysis support that Asian American female representation – like most other minority representation – is limited in comparison to Caucasian female representation. The analysis also establishes that Asian American females, when depicted, are pigeonholed as hypersexual, exotic, or foreign. In the second part of the study, womens’ responses to fashion photographs, in the context of focus groups, are used to examine the extent of the images’ influences on female college students who are Asian American. Participants’ responses in the focus group were also categorized according to themes of body image, pressure to conform, and managing stereotypes. Issues discussed among participants imply that representations of minorities contribute to disproportionate power relations within society. This typecasting, along with a lack of proportional representation, normalizes Western beauty standards, while devaluing all others. Moreover, trends involving unequal representation in fashion journalism reinforce existing power structures within society. These results indicate that not only must Vogue’s target audience exhibit greater media literacy, but a change in fashion journalism must be instigated to ensure the cohesiveness of American society.

While ice on Mars has been the focus of much academic interest, little is known about its formation and behaviors. By analyzing layers in the ice, scientists can compare it to ice here on Earth. The objective of this project is to ascertain whether or not Martian ice has flowed in a manner like that of glaciers on Earth. By interpolating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) data tracks obtained from the Planetary Data System (PDS) to form a three-dimensional model of the layers, this possibility can be examined. In order to confirm the flow or lack of flow in the ice, data tracks are needed that follow the paths that the ice took if it did indeed flow at one time, and these paths are often at large angles to the paths documented by the available data tracks. Such data can be inferred from a three-dimensional model of the layers. The area of focus is Gemina Lingula, a lobe of ice attached to the northern polar ice cap of Mars at roughly 0° east, also known as the Titania Lobe. The surface topography of Gemina Lingula fits current ice flow models surprisingly well, but that alone is not enough to confirm ice flow. The englacial stratigraphy of Gemina Lingula is now being compared to radar data from terrestrial glaciers in order to determine the possible differences and similarities between the characteristics of terrestrial and Martian ice.

Von Willebrand Factor (VWF) is a multimeric plasma protein which is cleaved by its metalloprotease ADAMTS13 upon force mediated unfolding of the A2 domain within Von Willebrand Factor.To study the mechanism of ADAMTS13 cleavage of VWF, large sample sizes of single cleavage/unfolding events must be obtained under force. Therefore, it is of interest in the Thomas lab to develop a multiplexed method to study the force mediated cleavage of VWF fragments by ADAMTS13 in the presence of force. A simple force application scheme similar to that used in standard magnetic tweezers using permanent magnets is presented. Briefly, recombinant Von Willebrand Factor Fragments will be tethered to a HPC4 surface and to streptavidin coated superparamagnetic beads via PC and biotin tags respectively. Magnetic force will be applied axially using permanent square magnets to apply normal to the flow chamber surface.  Permanent magnets will then be used to apply constant force to von Willebrand Factor Fragments and the cleavage kinetics will be measured in the presence of ADAMTS13. The force application scheme is calibrated by using z-tracking to quantify the velocities of non-tethered beads in which the drag force, and thus the resulting magnetic force can be computed. This method allows for application of 1-13 pN of force and will allow for mechanistic studies of force mediated unfolding of the A2 domain of VWF. Studies of force mediated cleavage of Von Willebrand Factor will lead to a mechanistic understanding of various bleeding disorders such as Von Willebrand Disease (VWD) and thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP).

Since the discovery of water ice in the Martian North Polar Layered Deposit (NPLD), investigations have been undertaken to better understand the history of Mars’ ice caps. One of the current investigations involves the use of ice-penetrating radar that can identify layers within the ice. With the data from NASA’s Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), layers in the ice of the NPLD can be identified and followed to other locations in the NPLD. The principle section of the NPLD being considered for past ice flow is the Gemina Lingula (also known as the Titania Lobe), which bears a significant resemblance to glaciers on Earth. By following the layers in the ice of the Titania Lobe along lines of apparent past ice flows discovered from past research, evidence can be gained to explore the hypothesis that Mars at some time in the past had glaciers that moved like those on Earth. The tracing process involves gathering data from the Planetary Data System (PDS) and using the computer software MATLAB to follow the ice layers from one point on the lobe to another. The evidence from the ice traces can provide information about how the NPLD developed in Mars’ past climate. With further study into the past and current glacial dynamics on Mars, much can be learned about how glaciers and ice deposits act on terrestrial planets like Earth and Mars, and even planets similar to Earth outside the Solar System.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder characterized by delays in social interaction and language, as well as repetitive and restricted behavior. Imitation deficits, marked by the inability to imitate an action or gesture preformed by another person, have frequently been observed in individuals diagnosed with ASD. Previous research has shown that children with ASD perform significantly poorer than typically developing children on imitation tasks. However, some of these studies have not controlled for age between groups, and failed to use well-defined criteria for control groups (Williams, Whiten, & Singh 2004). The goal of the current study is to remedy these methodological issues and to add to the growing body of research on imitation deficits in children diagnosed with ASD. We employed an imitation battery of non-meaningful simple hand, complex hand, and face gestures in assessing children diagnosed with ASD (N = 17) with an average age of 6.8 years (SD = 1.05) and a control group of typically developing children (N = 23) with an average age of 6.2 years (SD = 1.20). Imitation scores were coded offline by a coder blind to subject diagnosis. Children with ASD scored significantly poorer than typically developing children on the imitation tasks, t(38) = 4.32, p < .001. Specifically, children with ASD scored significantly lower on simple hand tasks, t(38) = 3.80, p = .001, complex hand tasks, t(38) = 3.87, p < .001, and face gesture tasks, t(38) = 2.93, p = .006. This finding is consistent with previous research, providing further evidence of an imitation deficit in children with ASD.

Sustainable replacements for petroleum products remain an elusive goal for researchers. One promising route towards renewable production of fuels and chemicals utilizes 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) as a precursor for these products because HMF can be synthesized from fructose and, more recently, glucose, which are renewable resources. Catalysts are used to facilitate reactions such that they may be carried out under milder conditions (lower temperatures and pressures) than is otherwise possible. Homogeneous catalysts are in solution with their substrate, while heterogeneous catalysts are not soluble in the reaction solution.  An avenue being explored by members of the Goldberg group involves the hydrogenation of HMF by rhodium catalysts. My work has focused on the synthesis of (acac)Rh(PPh3)2 [acac=acetylacetone, PPh3=triphenylphosphine], a homogeneous catalyst, and examining the reactivity of this complex with H2O, H2, and other molecules in order to better understand the manner in which the catalyst functions during hydrogenation reactions. Another focus of this project is to use a heterogeneous rhodium catalyst for the hydrogenation of HMF. We have supported (acac)Rh(P(Ph)2(EtSi(OEt)3))2 on silica by tethering the complex through the siloxy linkage on the phosphine ligand. We have recently began to explore new homogeneous iridium complexes containing the 2-(dicyclohexyl)phosphinobiphenyl ligand for use in hydrogenation reactions. Synthesis and characterization of these complexes will be included.

The majority of adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) patients are not cured by standard chemotherapy because resistant leukemia cells survive. One contributing factor to chemotherapy resistance is adhesion of leukemia blasts (immature cells) within the bone marrow microenvironment. The main focus of the Becker Lab is the mechanism by which leukemia cells and Leukemic Stem Cells (LSCs) adhere. My project focuses on the role of genes involved in the metabolism of the most active chemotherapy drug in AML, Cytarabine (AraC), in leukemic resistance. AraC enters cells through a transporter, human Equilibrative Nucleoside Transporter 1 (hENT1). After entering cells, enzymes metabolize AraC into its active form, Ara-CTP. However, other enzymes that inactivate AraC also exist; one of them is deoxycytidylate deaminase (dCMPD). I compared the expression of hENT1 and dCMPD genes from different patient leukemia cells in order to determine their contribution to AraC resistance. The first comparison was between newly diagnosed and relapsed patient cells. The second comparison was between the entire leukemia blast population and the LSCs. Particularly, I compared CD34+ blasts to CD34+CD38-CD123+ LSCs, and the patient original blasts versus the blasts of the secondary transplants in a xenograft model. The model consists of a primary immunodeficient (NOD/SCID) mouse that is engrafted with patient AML blasts. Cells from this mouse are then transplanted into a secondary NOD/SCID mouse. The last part of this project was examining the effect of cell adhesion on hENT1 and dCMPD gene expression. I compared CD34+ (leukemic) and CD 34-14+ (control non-leukemic) patient cells by incubating them separately on recombinant fibronectin peptide (Retronectin^TM) or control Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA). Cells attach to Retronectin^TM and exhibit chemotherapy resistance, whereas on BSA they are not attached and sensitive to chemotherapy. The results of this research will enable optimization of new drug combinations for treatment of AML.

The addition of transgenes to crop plants can introduce valuable agronomic traits such as pesticide resistance and increased yields. When performing transformations with plant DNA, transgenes have typically been introduced into the nuclear genome. An alternative is to introduce transgenes into the plastid (chloroplast) genome. This alternative provides a natural biological containment against dispersal by pollen to non-target plants due to the maternal inheritance of plastids. There is also a potential for higher expression of the transgene in the plastid. With current methods the efficiency of plastid transformation has been low, approximately 5 transformants per particle bombardment with tobacco plants and about 70 with cultured liverwort cells. Our goal is to improve the efficiency using cultured liverwort cells as our model system. Two possible ways of increasing plastid transformation efficiency are to vary the age of leaf tissue or cultured cells and to modify the form (or structure) of the plasmid DNA used to introduce the transgene. For the former, transformation may improve with younger tissue, where plastid DNA (cpDNA) replication is highest. For the latter, linearized plasmids may increase efficiency compared to the standard circular form of the plasmid. We have used particle bombardment to deliver either circular or linearized plasmid DNA to plastids in liverwort cells. In addition, the plastid transformation process was performed on cells that had grown for one to seven days after subculture. Our initial experiments do, in fact, show improved results using the linear form of the plasmid. To verify insertion of the transgene, we isolate total DNA from positive (green) colonies and use PCR to amplify the wild type or transgenic DNA. We will then apply any insights for increasing transformation efficiency that we gain using cultured liverwort cells to whole plant systems, such as tobacco, and ultimately to economically important crops, such as maize.

A variant of the human red cone photopigment, termed LVAVA, is associated with an extreme form of nearsightedness and with cone-rod dystrophy. Genetically engineered mice in which the endogenous mouse green cone photopigment gene was replaced by either the human LVAVA variant, or a control normal human red pigment gene (termed LIAIS) were created in order to test the hypothesis that the LVAVA variant causes abnormalities in cone photoreceptor structure and function. Histological analysis was performed on 3 month old mice with the LVAVA variant and the LIAS variant. Cone function in both lines of mice was evaluated using the electroretinogram (ERG). Mice express two different photopigments in most of their cones, a UV-sensitive pigment and, in the engineered mice, the LIAIS or LVAVA variant. In contrast, humans express only one per cone. To avoid potential problems of interpretation stemming from coexpression, the LVAVA and LIAIS lines of mice were bred to a UV-pigment knockout line to generate mice that have only the human red cone LVAVA variant or only the LIAIS variant. The polymerase chain reaction was used to genotype mice to identify mice that lack the UV photopigment gene and the endogenous mouse green cone photopigment gene, and that have the human LVAVA red pigment gene variant. Preliminary results suggest that at 3 months of age, there is no detectable difference in the morphology of the cone photoreceptors in the LIAIS control versus LVAVA mice; however, the electroretinogram shows diminished function for the LVAVA cones compared to the LIAIS cones. Mice with genotypes indicating that they have a UV-pigment knockout and the LVAVA red pigment variant have been identified. In future experiments, histological analysis and ERGs will be performed on these mice and compared to results of the LIAIS variant in mice that lack the UV pigment gene.

As engineering with advanced composite materials has become more commonplace and cost effective in today’s aerospace and automotive industries, the damage resistance of such materials has become of greater concern. Such damage consists of lightning strikes, compression, tension, shear and flexure forces on the composite. A typical aircraft made of aluminum, a highly conductive single-layered material, behaves differently in extreme conditions (lightning, impact forces) than the newly developing structures made of carbon composites, multilayered materials with low conductivity. The research is aimed at investigating the damage resistance of carbon composites to lightning strikes and flexure forces. To test the lightning strike behavior of the composite, the material is placed between the two electrodes of a 40kV capacitor and a simulated lightning arc is passed through the specimens as oscilloscopes record the current at different locations on the panel. The samples are then photographed, C-scanned for internal damages, and microscopically examined. Following the lightning strike test, the panel is subjected to a residual strength compression test. The lightning-struck panel is placed in a fixture which is then put into the Instron tension/compression fatigue test frame. Force is exerted on the top edge of the panel until the material fails. The force at which the carbon composite fractures is recorded and the specimen is photographed and analyzed. To test the flexure force behavior of the composite, a panel is placed in a fixture so that one end of the panel is in a fixed position while the opposite end of the panel is pulled upward by the Instron tension/compression fatigue test frame. The force at which the panel fails is recorded and the panel is photographed and analyzed for damage. Through the above tests, a stronger understanding of the damage resistance characteristics of carbon composites will be obtained.

Almost three million Americans currently have been diagnosed with epilepsy, making it one of the most prevalent neurological conditions in the US today. Despite recent advances in pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment, 25-35% of patients diagnosed with epilepsy do not achieve satisfactory control of their seizures with antiepileptic drug (AED) therapy. We are interested in p-p38 MAPK, the activated form of a protein kinase, p38 MAPK, that upregulates hyperpolarization activated cyclic nucleotide gated ion channels (HCN). Previous work in the Poolos lab showed that seizures resulted in the downregulation of HCN channel activity and subsequent neuronal hyperexcitability. The initial neuronal hyperexcitability then led to the development and maintenance of an epileptic state. We hypothesized that seizures would also result in the downregulation of p-p38 MAPK activity and that pharmacological activation of p-p38 MAPK would reverse seizure-related downregulation. We found that epileptic animals had reduced levels of p-p38 activity (60 + 12 % of control, n = 7, p < 0.05) and that levels of total p38 MAPK were slightly increased compared to control resulting in a decreased ratio of p-p38 MAPK to control (48 + 10 % of control, n = 7, p < 0.01). After confirming downregulation of p-p38 MAPK, we then quantified the effect of a p-p38 MAPK activator, anisomycin, on epileptic rodent levels of p-p38 MAPK activity. We found that p-p38 MAPK levels from anisomycin-treated samples from naïve and epileptic animals were similar (ratio of epileptic to naïve, 104 + 21 %, n = 6, p > 0.05), indicating the preservation of anisomycin activation of p-p38 MAPK. Overall, our results suggest that reduced p-p38 MAPK levels may contribute to the downregulation of HCN channel activity in epileptic animals.

Botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT/A), a potent paralyzer of cholinergic junctions, is extensively used in the human masticatory muscle for cosmetic reduction of large masseter muscles, relaxing the muscles and reducing pain in temporomandibular joint and muscle disorders, and decreasing loading on the mandible. However, the functional recovery of the injected muscle over time is not well documented. This study is to investigate the time-course effect of unilateral masseter injection of BoNT/A on bilateral masseter activities. Adult New Zealand rabbits were injected either with BoNT/A (n=8) or saline (n=8) in one masseter. Non-invasive surface electromyography (EMG) of bilateral masseter muscles was recorded during natural mastication 1 week before and every week after the injection for 12 weeks, along with synchronized video images of jaw movement for identifying the chewing side. The results indicate that: 1) there was no body weight difference over time between BoNT/A and saline animals; 2) BoNT/A animals did not prefer to chew on the non-injection side; 3) the EMG activity of the BoNT/A-injected masseter decreased significantly from control levels at weeks 1, 2 and 3 after the injection regardless of the side of chewing, started to recover after week 3, and reached a level close to that of saline animals at week 5; 4) there was no significant difference of EMG activity of non-injected masseters between BoNT/A and saline animals. In conclusion, a single BoNT/A injection to one masseter significantly reduces the muscle activity for 3 weeks after the injection but neither the activity of contralateral masseter nor overall masticatory function is significantly affected. Supported by DE018142 from NIDCR.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States today and research on atherosclerosis pathogenesis and resolution has important clinical implications. Apolipoprotein E (APOE), which is synthesized by hepatocytes, adipocytes and macrophages, mediates lipoprotein metabolism and affects cellular cholesterol homeostasis. Lack of this protein in mice is associated with severe hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis. Furthermore, macrophage-specific expression of APOE is antiatherogenic. We are studying a novel regulatory pathway involved in its secretion by macrophages, and we have found that macrophages that lack matrix metalloproteinase-28 (MMP-28) have defective secretion of APOE. The goal of this project is to better understand how MMP-28 is regulating macrophage-derived APOE secretion by determining the cellular localization of APOE in wild type and Mmp28-/- macrophages. By using western blotting and immunofluorescent staining of lipid-loaded wild-type and Mmp28-/- macrophages, we found that APOE accumulates in an intracellular compartment in Mmp28-/- macrophages. However, using a lysosomal marker, APOE does not co-localize with the lysosomal compartment. We also demonstrated a small membrane-bound pool of APOE that did not account for the increased cellular levels of APOE in the Mmp28-/- macrophages. These studies shed light onto a novel regulatory mechanism of APOE secretion from macrophages, which will enhance our understanding of the cardiovascular disease and potentially provide new therapeutic targets.

Wood smoke emissions from residential fireplaces have been shown to be a major source of particulate matter (PM) with aerodynamic diameters less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5). Other toxic and mutagenic substances are also present in wood smoke, including aldehydes, free radicals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Therefore, long term exposure to wood smoke may pose a health concern, especially for asthma-susceptible populations such as children and the elderly. In this study, PM2.5 concentrations were measured in four urban monitoring sites in Seattle and Tacoma, WA. Concentrations of levoglucosan, a useful molecular marker for wood smoke, were measured on 300 Teflon PM2.5 filters collected at the four monitoring sites from 2008 to 2009. Levoglucosan was extracted from the filters by sonication with ethyl acetate, derivatized with a silylating agent, and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with selective ion monitoring. A deuterium-labeled internal standard, d-7 levoglucosan, was used for percent recovery measurement. The contribution of wood smoke to ambient levels of PM2.5 will be estimated, and spatial and seasonal variation in wood smoke concentrations will be examined. Results from this study will help the local air pollution agency develop a strategy to reduce ambient PM2.5 concentrations in Seattle and Tacoma, WA.

The task of recalling past events is difficult and often more complex for medical patients with chronic illness who have to track a great deal of health information. Not only do patients need to monitor medications and schedule medical appointments, they may also have additional documents, such as lab reports, to associate with those events. In collaboration with Professor Wanda Pratt and her research team, my goal was to develop an online tool to assist breast cancer patients with recalling information associated with past events and managing the various facets of their lives. Dr. Pratt’s research has shown that one effective method of temporal data visualization is a timeline, which provides a clear, fluid, and flexible medium for patients to track their activities at a glance. With that as a foundation, I conducted an initial online survey among my peers to gain insights on what comprises a useful timeline. My analysis of the survey results, along with data that Dr. Pratt’s team previously gathered, yielded a few key features, such as filtering and categorizing, from which I developed three preliminary timeline designs. After a heuristic evaluation from my peers on those designs, I identified one design to guide my development of a working prototype and functional online timeline, which I created by extending the existing Simile timeline widget. My customizations emphasize the important features identified by breast cancer and other medical patients, such as filtering to show only the desired information. Additionally, the 2-dimensional view showing time and categories of temporal events displays the information more distinctly. I plan to conduct further user studies on patients who suffer from chronic illness to elicit their input on my current timeline and incorporate their ideas into it. I hope to see this research flourish to benefit medical patients on a larger scale.

Arabidopsis thaliana, a species widely used in plant research, has had its entire genome sequenced while information on specific gene function is still limited. This research aims to investigate gene function from observable phenotypes using t-DNA insertions generated using Agrobacterium Tumefaciens. A. tumfaciens is a gram negative bacterium that infects dicots and inserts portions of its transfer DNA, known as t-DNA, into the plant genome causing mutations at random. Taking known t-DNA sequences and transforming them into A. thaliana results in observable phenotypic differences. These plants were used to study gene function by characterizing the phenotypes of knock out mutants. We germinated seeds from the Feldman gene line and isolated the plants showing phenotypic differences. Plasmid rescue was performed using bacterial plasmids built in to the t-DNA segment in order to identify the genes responsible for the mutant phenotypes. The online BLAST tool will be used to search the A. thaliana genomic database to identity our genes.  Bioinformatic tools will be used to predict possible protein structure and function, and to identify potential homologues in other taxa. This project aims to further our current understanding of A. thaliana gene function by observing the direct correlation between phenotype and disrupted gene sequences. This correlation will improve our understanding of other plants, and the effect that these genes may have on crop production, growth and drought tolerance.

It was believed that people have trouble understanding the probabilistic information under risk (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). However, recent studies show that people make better decisions under risk when given probabilistic information as compared to when they do not have it (Nadav-Greenburg & Joslyn, 2009). Better decision here refers to a rational decision deducted from the normative rule. According to Bernoulli (1954, econometrics,22,23-36), the normative rule "weights possible outcomes by their respective probabilities and sums across all possible outcomes for each alternative to get the expected value of that alternative." Another recent study tests whether giving people the normative rule would help them make better decisions. The result suggests that people do not follow the normative rule, and they end up making more irrational decisions, which does not optimize their economic return (LeClerc, 2009). This study investigates why people do not follow the normative rule. A potential cause is that only giving subjects the result of normative rule, they do not understand the rule, and they do not trust it. In order to achieve more compliance of the normative rule, the current study adds additional explanations to the normative rule: one explanation is the advantage of the normative rule over the long run and the other explanation is the calculation behind the normative rule. The hypothesis is that the explanations will encourage people to follow the normative rule to a better degree than without them.

The cerebellum is responsible for making all movements smooth, accurate, and consistent. We study the voluntary eye movements, called saccades, as informative example movements. Saccades are useful because we can measure them precisely and monkeys make 1000-4000 in a single session. Previous studies identified mirrored left and right cerebellar nuclei, the caudal fastigial nuclei (CFN), whose neuronal activity strongly influences saccades. To characterize the role of CFN activity, we compared saccades before and after temporarily disabling the CFN by injecting muscimol, a γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) agonist. GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain. In five monkeys, we made ten unilateral and three bilateral injections. To characterize the consequences of CFN inactivation, we analyzed the acceleration and deceleration of horizontal saccades. Our results indicate that inactivating the CFN on one side reduced saccadic deceleration to that side, but did not change acceleration of those saccades. For example, the left CFN decelerated leftward saccades. Furthermore, saccades away from the side of injection displayed deficits in both the acceleration and deceleration. Bilateral CFN inactivation caused deficits in both acceleration and deceleration of both right- and leftward saccades. In summary, the cerebellum strongly influences saccade deceleration while influencing saccadic acceleration less. Based on these results, we are now investigating the pathway through which CFN activity influences eye muscles.

Microfludics is a field that studies and exploits the behavior of fluids in small channels. The advent of microfluidics miniaturized the size of the experimental device, brought about novel ways of handling fluids in a laboratory setting, and reduced consumption of reagents and cost per analysis. Here, we have developed a microfluidic equalizer to serve as both a scientific tool and an artistic demonstration to people who are not familiar with microfluidics. The equalizer device was designed in AutoCAD and consists of seven valved dye channels and eight water channels, connecting to a large fluid chamber with three directional outputs. Each of the seven microvalves is assigned to a different range of frequencies. The different frequencies come from a music source which was fed into a computer's sound card. The script that analyzes the audio input and actuates the microvalves was written in LabView. Each microvalve opens a correspondent dye channel when the music amplitude exceeds a threshold in the assigned range. Flanking each dye channel are two constant background flows of colorless water, which keep the dyes focused in separate streams. The dynamic response of the microvalves provide a basic idea of how the microfluidic equalizer works and presents a pleasant artistic audio-visual effect. I will continue to characterize the performance of the microvalves and the accuracy of the LabView script in response to pure tones of specific frequency.

The purpose of this research is to examine variability in Asian Americans' attitudes toward African Americans’ experiences of discrimination. We aim to investigate whether Asian Americans who recognize their own experiences of discrimination and identify themselves as racial minorities will express more empathetic feelings. This study extends on the Common Ingroup Identity Model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2002), which focuses on increasing the salience of existing superordinate memberships by examining how perceptions of one’s own ingroup discrimination (e.g., Asian Americans) extend onto a larger ingroup (e.g., racial minorities). Participants included 82 self-identified Asian/Asian Americans (Mean age = 26.0, 63.4% US-born, 86.6% US-citizens) who completed a survey study on group attitudes, were recruited from college list-serves, online social networks, and postings across the U.S. Using regression analysis, consistent with our hypotheses, greater pan-racial minority identification and recognizing their own experiences of discrimination predicted greater empathetic attitudes toward African Americans, controlling for racial identification and years living in the US. The study hopes to contribute to a more complex understanding of interracial relationships and facilitate the development of empathetic understanding as a strategy to resist discrimination among racial minorities.

In Anatomy and Physiology courses taught at Seattle Central Community College (SCCC), students spend 3 hours/week in lecture and 4 hours/week in lab. Labs are used to teach both anatomy and physiology and currently, only simulated labs are used to study muscle physiology. Our aim is to develop an active learning lab that helps students stay engaged, develop a deeper understanding of muscle physiology concepts (e.g., force generation) and develop data analysis skills (e.g. interpret a length-tension curve). Our initial analysis reveals that some SCCC students finish their study of muscle physiology with misconceptions about how muscles work and also have difficulty interpreting information displayed graphically. Our aim is to develop a lab that incorporates active learning pedagogy (a “doable a challenge”, discovery, practice, and exercises to confront misconceptions) and thus promotes deeper understanding of concepts. This will be the first lab run with ANP students at SCCC using new Powerlab equipment. In the lab, students will record an electromyogram and force produced by active muscles. All students will be given a written pre-test on key muscle physiology concepts before the muscle physiology unit and after receiving traditional lectures alone or with lectures plus the new lab. Half the class will run the lab and the other half will serve as the control group. Our hypothesis is that our laboratory exercise will promote a deeper understanding of muscle physiology and help students interpret graphically displayed information with greater comprehension. The results from this project will provide instructors with a new “tested” lab and data that the lab promotes student learning.

In adults, the classical electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha rhythm is a distinct 8-12 Hz frequency band that predominates over occipital scalp during eyes-closed relaxation. Although its precise developmental trajectory is not well understood, the EEG alpha rhythm undergoes significant temporal and spatial development during early childhood. Infancy marks a particularly critical period for aberrant brain maturation in children with autism, a developmental disorder associated with rapid brain overgrowth that begins between 6-12 months of age. To simulate eyes-closed relaxation in adults, room lights were turned on and off at one minute intervals while EEG was recorded from infants at 6 and at 12 months of age. We characterize the spatial and temporal development of the infant EEG alpha rhythm and contrast it with that of infants at risk for autism. Because it has been established that autism reflects dysfunctional global brain activity, we hypothesize that an abnormal trajectory of brain development (as indexed by alpha band activity) will be visible in infants who go on to develop autism.

This independent research project will perform a statistical analysis on a dynamical system pertaining to the involvement of students in a community college’s science and math program as the program progresses over approximately five years. The process states come in the form of events that reflect the students’ quarterly decisions either advancing in his/her respective applicable major coursework, repeating a course necessary to their field of study, or changing their status to non-student. The stochastic system is assumed to show trends and fluctuations which can be associated with the numerous student attributes. These attributes shift as the study progresses the five years, and patterns can be found by doing a probability study at each scholastic quarter to identify the overall trend of student participation. In this Markov chain analysis a Monte Carlo method is used. This MCMC method evaluates a function, E[f(X_t) ]≈1/n*∑^n_t=1f(X_t) by taking random samples where {X_t,t=1,…,n}. The law of large numbers says that by increasing the value of n, a necessary accuracy can be achieved to model the function successfully. Then using this information it is possible to develop a Markov Chain that models the dynamical systems distribution accurately enough to make valid predictions into the data set. The goal of the research project is to produce a significant finding into the change of the dynamic system over the five years of study, and publish and report those findings as part of a greater work involving the efforts of other students here at SCCC.

The Wnt signaling pathway consists of a family of secreted proteins involved in receptor-mediated pathways that regulate cell proliferation, cell fate, and cell behavior during embryogenesis and in adult cells. Disturbances in signaling are associated with various human cancers and diseases. Understanding the pathway involves the ability to discern the level of pathway activation within cellular systems. Wnt signaling through the versatile beta-catenin protein involves the regulation of gene expression at the level of transcription. One of the best-described target genes regulated by Wnt signaling are genes such as Axin2, Lef1, and Dkk1, which are often used as surrogate measures of Wnt signaling activity in cells. The intent of my research is to determine expression levels of Wnt target genes in order to estimate the degree of Wnt activation within various cellular contexts. By determining the level of transcription of these target genes we can better understand how the degree of Wnt pathway activation may influence disease progression. So far, I have gathered over 35 cancer, stem, and somatic cell lines and have collected RNA and cDNA from each for the purpose of determining relative Axin2 transcript levels by quantitative PCR. In the near future, I plan on expanding this collection to include at least a hundred cell lines as well as determine transcription levels of other genes regulated by Wnt signaling. Therefore the final product of my research will be a collection of RNA, cDNA, and a library of information regarding levels of expression of Axin2 and other Wnt related genes for each cell line. The purpose of this database will not only serve to better understand the Wnt signaling pathway but will also provide a resource for others to draw from as they pursue their own research regarding Wnt signaling in these cell lines.

A set of aquaplanet general circulation model (GCM) simulations examine the role of moist convection in setting the static stability of the extratropical atmosphere. Static stability is the stability of the atmosphere to displacements in the vertical direction and has important implications for the formation of clouds and precipitation, the development of storms and also air quality. A range of sea surface temperature profiles consider warmer and colder climates, as well as climates with colder high latitudes. The aquaplanet GCM simulations used involve a water-covered earth and are thus simpler to analyze than full GCM simulations, as the complications associated with continents are not present and zonal means fully characterize the climate. The simulations show that moist convection, vertical motions involving saturated air, plays an important role in setting the static stability into the mid- to upper-troposphere throughout the extratropics. On average, the entire atmosphere is relatively near neutrally stable to moist convection, although the mean state is slightly stable to moist convection outside the deep tropics. Diagnostics such as lapse rate (the temperature drop per unit increase in altitude) compared to the moist adiabatic lapse rate (the lapse rate for saturated air) and saturated moist static energy compared to surface moist static energy (moist static energy is a thermodynamic quantity conserved following moist adiabatic ascent) provide useful measures of static stability. These diagnostics show that convection occurs frequently over the midlatitude atmosphere, not just in the tropics. The probability density functions of these quantities are all skewed toward positive values, indicating that moist convection sets a lower bound for static stability that would not be reached otherwise. Further, for levels above the 500-mb pressure level the probability density functions are maximized at the convectively neutral value, meaning that convective instability dominates the profiles. 

Climate change will play a significant role in the future management of water supplies within the Pacific Northwest as many communities rely on seasonal snowmelt to maintain adequate water reservoir levels during the late-summer and early-fall. One method to counteract this climate change effect is to increase snow water storage and control snowmelt timing within a watershed through proactive forest management. Forest management techniques, such as forest harvesting, have the potential to impact the below-canopy snowmelt timing through changing tree canopy interception rates and altering the snowpacks exposure to shortwave radiation and wind. Tree canopy interception reduces the accumulation of snow in the below-canopy snowpack while the snowmelt process is expedited by exposure to both shortwave radiation and wind. Based on methods used by Friesen et al. 2008 to measure tree canopy rainfall interception, it is the primary objective of this project to develop a measurement technique to record canopy snow weight at any given time. Developing a technique to measure tree canopy snow interception and ablation will give researchers the ability to correlate these events to ongoing research at UW with respect to below-canopy light, vegetation, and meteorological sampling and snow surveys. As snow accumulates in the canopy, compression will result on a measurable scale at all points along the tree trunk. This project will produce a system capable of measuring these deflections and through material parameters of the tree the snow load in the canopy will be determined. This system will be composed of linear potentiometers which will be purchased and mounted directly to the tree trunk and will continuously record deflection data.

College student alcohol use is risky and wide spread. College students sometimes try to minimize the negative effects of drinking by using protective behavioral strategies (PBS), which include things such as drinking water between drinks, using a designated driver, and mixing their own drinks (vs. having someone else make their drink). Many college student interventions try to increase the frequency with which students engage in PBS. Thus, the examination of factors related to the engagement of PBS use is warranted. Research has documented that perceived peer pressure is positively related to college students’ drinking and thus might influence whether or not a student uses PBS. This study examines whether peer pressure may hinder students’ use of PBS to effectively limit alcohol use. College students at a 4-year university, (n= 1124) filled out a questionnaire soon after turning 21 detailing their typical past three month alcohol use, perceived peer pressure (i.e., friends reactions and encouragement to drinking), and frequency of using PBS. It is hypothesized that an individual’s use of PBS will negatively correlate with the amount of drinks they consume. It is also hypothesized that peer pressure will moderate the relationship between PBS and alcohol use, that is students with high peer pressure will drink more even if PBS is used, but students with no peer pressure and high PBS will drink less. The implications of these findings will provide insight for improving methods of limiting college students drinking under peer pressure.

Recent advances in single-molecule spectroscopy have enabled the study of chemistry associated with an individual molecule. For example, the electromagnetic emission from a single electronically-excited molecule can be analyzed to determine the photophysics of the emitter, knowledge which is crucial to the development of photochemically-robust molecules for a wide variety of photonics applications. Recent studies by researchers at the UW have taken the novel approach of studying single molecules isolated in a host crystal; specifically, the emission from 2’,7’-dichlorofluorescein (DCF) isolated in a potassium acid phthalate (KAP) crystal. Surprisingly, the photophysics of DCF in KAP have proven to be remarkably complex, with the transfer of a hydrogen ion (H⁺) between DCF and KAP a likely contributor to this complexity. Verifying this model requires knowledge of the electronic and optical properties of DCF, both isolated as well as in KAP. Computational chemistry provides an avenue for the direct calculation of such properties. In this project, we employed the computational chemistry package Gaussian to determine various electronic properties of DCF in vacuum and in KAP, including electronic transition strength, ionization energy, electron affinity, and the energy required for electronic excitation. Initial work has focused on electrostatic calculations of these properties for different configurations of DCF and DCF/KAP. In later stages, we will perform molecular mechanics and molecular dynamics studies of DCF and DCF/KAP to explore how these properties change with time. The results of this work are expected to provide greater insight into the rich and complex photophysics of DCF in KAP.

Pain can be challenging to localize and properly diagnose. Many current pain diagnostic techniques are invasive and most are designed to diagnose only specific problems. A new type of test is needed - one that is non-invasive, versatile, and highly specific in its diagnosis. Our goal is to test and develop a new clinical device which uses intense focused ultrasound (iFU) to non-invasively localize pain. iFU is different from diagnostic imaging ultrasound in that it is far more powerful and directs all of its energy to a small focal point (about the size of a grain of rice), which creates mechanical and thermal stimulation in tissue at that spot alone. In past studies we have shown that iFU can be used to differentiate between an injured paw (via inflammation or neuropathic injury) and a normal paw in the same rat. In order to show that iFU can be specific in its stimulation of painful tissue, we artificially created a peripheral neuroma in the lower leg of a rat and used our device to stimulate the neuroma. While the rat was under light anesthesia, we used iFU to stimulate the neuroma, evoking a physiological response. We then stimulated a control section of tissue, adjacent to the neuroma, and have generated no response from this site at the same iFU intensity. By these results, we can differentiate between the source of deep pain, here the neuroma, and an uninjured control site. In this way we correlate the source of deep pain to a particular depth and area, demonstrating that iFU can be used to non-invasively stimulate and thereby localize and diagnose deep pain. In the future, iFU will be coupled with imaging ultrasound and used in similar fashion on humans with undiagnosed pain problems to better localize and diagnose their pain.

The cadherin stabilizing protein p120 catenin is known to be involved in cell adhesion and motility. Recent studies have shown that specific phosphorylation sites may be significant for the function of the protein. The objective of this study is to determine the significance of potentially important phosphorylation sites on p120 catenin: tyrosine 228, serine 268, and serine 288. Wild type as well as mutant versions of p120 catenin were created using the Gateway cloning method, and were subcloned into the vector pCS2+, an mRNA compatible vector. Wild type as well as mutated mRNA is created using the mMESSAGE mMACHINE method. After splice morpholino (MO) knockdown of endogenous p120 catenin in zebrafish, the effects of injected p120 catenin mRNA with specific mutated phosphorylation sites will be studied in vivo. Through previous experiments, we have shown that wild type mRNA successfully rescues MO injected embryos. We hypothesize that the knockdown phenotype will be rescued by the mutant mRNA if the phosphorylation site mutated is not required for p120 catenin function. If the mutated phosphorylation site is required, then we expect no rescue of MO knockdown embryos with mutant mRNA.

Trace-level contaminants originating from pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP) represent a new class of contaminants which are suspected to cause adverse impacts to aquatic life. These compounds often enter aquatic systems through sewers systems and wastewater treatment plants. The identification of organisms capable of degrading PPCP will contribute greatly to the design and implementation of new processes for the removal of PPCP during wastewater treatment. Naproxen is one of many PPCP that are studied. Activated sludge from West Point Wastewater Treatment Plant was enriched for microorganisms capable of degrading Naproxen. These enrichments were transferred and isolated while Naproxen degradation was monitored. Enrichments showing active degradation will be plated on solid defined media, and colonies capable of degrading Naproxen will be selected. These colonies will be identified using DNA sequencing. On-going work will include monitoring growth of biomass while monitoring degradation and various starting concentrations of Naproxen for degradation.

Oil derived from oleaginous algae is currently viewed as one of the most economically viable biofuels capable of replacing petroleum. Production of oil fuelstock from algae is likely to be advanced by elucidating key cytological processes involved in the accumulation of neutral lipids within algal cells. It has previously been reported that the lipophilic fluorescent green dye, BODIPY 505/515, serves as an excellent vital stain for oil-containing organelles of live algal cells. We report that BODIPY 505/515 can be used in combination with Deconvolution Fluorescence Microscopy (DFM) to study oil biogenesis in live Ophiocytium maius cells with nanoscale resolution. We have used this imaging approach to examine how newly synthesized neutral lipids are transported and stored within algal cells. We use the term "lipid nanosomes" to describe small migratory neutral lipid particles. Larger “oil bodies” are often highly motile and contain numerous lipid nanosomes. DFM imaging reveals that these nanosomes appear to be suspended in a dispersed liquid phase rich in neutral lipids. Time-lapse imaging of oil body behavior and growth using BODIPY 505/515 and target specific stains could potentially be used to help elucidate genetic pathways involved in intracellular oil accumulation.

Many sounds that are biologically relevant to the big brown bat (Eptescius fuscus) contain frequency modulated (FM) components. These include both echolocation sounds and communication sounds. Previous studies have described a specific cell type in the inferior colliculus (IC) that responds exclusively to sinusoidally frequency modulated (SFM) sounds. These SFM-selective neurons are thought to be important in processing echolocation calls during the approach and pre-capture phase of hunting. Many neurons in the IC exhibit stimulus specific adaptation (SSA) in which the cell shows a stronger response to novel stimuli than repetitive stimuli. SSA may play a role in directing the animal’s attention to novel sounds. The aim of this study was to determine whether SFM-selective cells in the IC exhibit SSA. We performed in vivo extracellular recordings from SFM-selective and SFM-non-selective cells in the IC of lightly tranquilized bats using a stimulus paradigm designed to induce SSA. Preliminary data indicate that SFM-selective cells in the IC do not show SSA in response to an unchanging carrier frequency. However, there is evidence that they do show SSA in response to an unchanging modulation frequency.

One of the major challenges in cancer therapy is ensuring delivery of chemotherapeutic agents to all cancerous cells. Suboptimal tissue penetration has been shown to be a factor limiting the effectiveness of several chemotherapeutic drugs including the anthracycline antibiotic doxorubicin. In this work, micellar formulations of doxorubicin were prepared, characterized and evaluated in 3-D, multicellular spheroid cultures. The multicellular spheroid cultures serve as an in vitro mimic of solid tumors. Poly(ethylene oxide) – poly(β-hydroxyalkanoic acid) – poly(ethylene oxide) triblock copolymers were synthesized as previously described and used to form micelles encapsulating doxorubicin. Doxorubicin-loaded micelles have also been shown to have a narrow size distribution with diameters of approximately 30-40 nm, and encapsulation of doxorubicin results in controlled drug release. We have demonstrated that unloaded polymeric micelles exhibit minimal cytotoxicity and that the cell-killing ability of doxorubicin is retained in micellar formulations. Furthermore, micelle-encapsulated doxorubicin has been found to inhibit the growth of multicellular spheroids and penetrate to the core of the spheroids more efficiently than free doxorubicin.

Much of the multi-billion year history of the Earth’s magnetic field is understood from looking at patterns of magnetization in microscopic particles of the iron oxide magnetite in the calcium-aluminum silicate plagioclase. As rocks cool from high initial temperatures, trace amounts of iron are ejected from the plagioclase structure, forming magnetite. As the magnetite cools, it acquires a magnetization in Earth’s magnetic field. Geoscientists commonly assume that magnetite forms before reaching its Curie temperature (~570 ºC), which is the temperature at which it becomes permanently magnetized. This study tested this assumption by examining the relative crystallographic orientations of magnetite inclusions and their host plagioclase crystals. In other mineral systems, this relationship varies with temperature. We examined a total of 28 plagioclase crystals from two sites in the Stillwater Complex in Montana using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and scanning electron microscopy. In these, we found six magnetite inclusions with mostly acicular to tabular crystal habits. We determined the magnetite’s temperature of formation by comparing our measurements to minimum-strain orientations of magnetite in plagioclase calculated at a range of temperatures. Our findings will have the potential to negate an assumption many other studies make regarding geomagnetism and the history of Earth's magnetic field.

Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare and deadly form of skin cancer. Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV) was recently associated with 80% of MCC tumors. Additionally, up to 90% of MCC patients have antibodies to MCPyV in their blood. Antibodies are proteins made by the immune system to specifically recognize and help clear pathogens, such as MCPyV. Currently, there is only one established antibody used to detect MCPyV, and this antibody has limited sensitivity. The objective of this study is to isolate a novel anti-MCPyV antibody from serum of MCC patients. This antibody could potentially be more sensitive and will then be used in Western Blots and immunohistochemistry to determine MCPyV protein expression in various samples. In the laboratory, recombinant, bacterially expressed GST-tagged MCPyV proteins were attached to glutathione-sepharose beads. Next, sera from MCC patients known to have very high levels of antibodies to MCPyV were run over the beads allowing anti-MCPyV antibodies to bind to the proteins. Preadsorbtion with GST-bound beads was used to minimize issues of non-specific antibody binding. MCPyV-reactive antibodies were eluted from the beads by decreasing the pH. A Coomassie stain was used to visualize antibody elution. Promising preliminary results indicate that we were able to isolate antibodies recognizing the N-terminal domain shared between the MCPyV small and large T antigen oncoproteins. Future work will optimize elution conditions and characterize MCPyV-reactive antibodies. In particular, we will employ human cell lines expressing MCPyV, SV40 polyomavirus, or no polyomavirus in order to test whether the MCPyV-reactive antibodies cross-react with other polyomaviruses or with human proteins. These novel antibodies may represent useful research tools that can be used to further understand MCPyV and its role in MCC.

In the study of geophysical flows, it is essential to understand the manner in which water transports nutrients, contaminants, and other particles that affect the health of aquatic systems. The chemical and biological processes related to these substances are dependent on the residence time of the particular constituent and often proceed exponentially, making them sensitive to small variations in the age of a fluid parcel in the system. In practice, residence time is difficult to measure and is often estimated by a quantity known as hydraulic residence time, which represents a case of ideal behavior. However, in environmental flows, vortices and short circuits often cause large deviations from the ideal case, causing this to be an inaccurate representation of actual residence time. In the present study we examine how the spatial distribution of age changes with time in the specific case of a coastal river plume by performing a series of experiments on a 2m diameter rotating table. In this configuration, an anticyclonic eddy sets up near the river mouth and is seen to accumulate a fraction of the river discharge. In the first stages of the bulge development, fluid is retained in the core of the bulge, resulting in an age distribution that exhibits a maximum in the core of the bulge and decreases radially. After approximately 10 rotation periods, the bulge becomes unstable, and smaller eddies initiate mixing between the core and the outer portions of the bulge, transporting older fluid from the center of the bulge into the coastal current. When the rotation rate is low, retention in the bulge increases and the maximum and average ages are also higher. Preliminary results also suggest that greater retention rates lead to a more homogenized distribution of age in the bulge.

In 1991, the presence of 8 small boreal forest mammal species (Sorex monticolus, S. vagrans, S. townsendii, Neurotrichus gibbsii, Tamias townsendii, Tamiascirus douglasii, Peromyscus maniculatis, Clethrionomys gaperii) was predicted in five Seattle City Parks (Discovery, Carkeek, Frink, Seward, and The Arboretum) using satellite imagery along with occasional trapping and sighting data. However, many of these predictions remain unconfirmed, and increasing urbanization within Seattle has further eroded the quality of natural habitat and reduced population sizes of native Mammal species. We hypothesize that many of these species are no longer able to maintain viable populations due to changes in land use and increased visitation rates. Using park use data as a metric for this rise in urbanization, we will compare current diversity with historic estimates. We also hypothesize that park size will correlate directly with species diversity, and that similarly sized areas surrounded by core habitat will have greater diversity than their city park counterparts. Live trapping in these parks using Sherman folding traps throughout the months of March and April 2010 will confirm presence of these native species, allow us to estimate population densities, and allow estimates of diversity.

Methods of droplet transport have future applications in areas ranging from micro-cooling systems to biological assays. Previous studies have shown that drops of liquid can be made to move across several types of surface gradients, including chemical and roughness gradients. Surface gradients have the disadvantage of being inherently finite in length and thus, limit the distance a drop can travel. This limitation can be overcome by employing the use of textured, super hydrophobic surfaces. It has been shown that when given a vertical excitation (vibrated on top a speaker), droplets can move across the textured surfaces. These surfaces, or ratchets, are of specified geometry and roughness. Varying ratchet geometry has the effect of predictably controlling droplet motion and to some extent, its speed. The main purpose of this research is to characterize the vertical excitation parameters (frequency and acceleration) in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency and to analyze the dynamic properties of a droplet in motion. Furthermore, the effect of varying input parameters, such as droplet volume and type of liquid was also explored. It has been shown that effective excitation parameters are dependent upon ratchet geometry and droplet volume. In general, ratchets with lower roughness values (phi) have lower ranges of frequency that can induce movement. Additionally, larger drops tend to have larger ranges of effective frequency. Liquids with high surface energy, meaning strong adhesion and weak cohesion, tend to spread out and cannot move at all; thus, water, which has low surface energy, is an ideal liquid for this type of system.

Naturally our visual perception is filtered by the properties of our eyes and the location of our bodies--secured firmly to the ground, perceiving only visible light, and seeing about a 95° field of view. While we are accustomed to dramatic perceptual extensions, our access to this imagery tends to be either guided by very specific needs or obstructed by inaccessibility. Consider x-rays and satellite images as examples. We have a very specific interest in x-rays of broken bones, but bear little motivation to x-ray other subjects (perhaps a cabbage or piano). Conversely, we may possess a moderate interest in elevating our perspective above ground level, but the logistical complications of doing so are likely to limit our success. The perspectives project is designed to address four such disruptions in our visual perception: space, time, filters, and scale. For each variable, the project explores relevant background research, then uses these as a springboard to inform an array of photographically-based visual explorations that disrupt our natural ways of seeing. Subjects in process so far include transitioning materials (specifically steel and wax as they heat, change shape, or melt), extreme up close photography (not yet truly microscopic, yet much closer than what we are used to), and elevated photography (using masts and balloons to examine how viewpoints shift between 20-80 feet above ground). Rather than trying to fill specific perceptual and knowledge voids, the overall goal of the project is designed to challenge our common silent assumption that "If I don't see something, it's not there." My hope is that by introducing dramatically unfamiliar ways of seeing, we might collectively be jolted into engaging our environments with a fresh sense of wonder and curiosity.

Biochemical networks can be described in terms of their elementary chemical reactions. Modeling of the specific reaction mechanisms within a given network allows us to predict and analyze how the network will respond to changing conditions. This knowledge can lead to finer manipulation of biochemical networks. From a biochemical industry perspective, this could translate to increased production rates of products such as biofuels, while from a research perspective this could expose primary targets for inhibition or promotion of malignant or benevolent networks, respectively. Biochemical networks are configured with feedback controls which allow them to respond to external fluctuations (such as increased output demand). These controls function by suppressing or enhancing enzyme activities, thereby regulating a specific reaction rate. Neighboring reactions adjust to compensate for the altered flux, until the network reaches a new steady state. In networks of any significant complexity, it is difficult to pinpoint the influence of any one feedback control on the network as a whole. The aim of this project is to analyze the network flux influence of specific feedback controls, and determine which control has the greatest flux influence in various biochemical networks. Our methods involve the use of the roadRunner biochemical network simulation library (sysBio, Seattle, WA). We will be using the library to analyze a large sample (20,000+) of instances of specific biochemical networks. Each instance will feature randomized chemical rate constants for each reaction in the network, with a fixed overall network equilibrium constant. We will simulate each network and record the flux control coefficients (sensitivities) of each reaction in the network. We will then compile our results and analyze the distribution of flux control coefficients vs. reaction. This will allow us to pinpoint which reaction(s) in a network exhibit the greatest influence on overall network flux.

A urethral stricture is a narrowing of the urethra caused by injury or disease. In the UK and US, urethral strictures occur in 1 in 10000 men over 25 and 1 in 1000 men over 65. Current treatments include instrumental dilation of the urethra. Only 50% of short bulbar strictures are cured by the very first dilatation or direct vision internal urethrotomy (DVIU). Augmented anastomotic urethroplasty is an alternate treatment, resulting in an overall success rate of 90%. However, this procedure requires a specialized surgeon and may not be cost effective. The purpose of this study is to develop a mouse model of urethral strictures with the long term goal of improving intervening treatments and their outcomes. Crush and iatrogenic injuries models were studied in mice by using a hemostat and a wire suture loop, respectively. To determine injury formation, 5 µm tissues sections were processed using a microtome and Masson’s Trichrome staining was used. The hemostat and wire suture loop showed evidence of injuries. Stained sections showed decreased epithelium throughout the urethra in mice 2 hours and 3 days after the injury in comparison to non-injured mice. Despite these injuries, no strictures were seen in mice 1 month after injury. At this point, these data suggest that both methods for inducing injuries in mice are effective. Further studies will examine whether stricture formation occurs at later time points.

Regeneration of hair cells in the chicken cochlea is a highly dynamic process. Following ototoxic drug damage, supporting cells (SCs) and hair cells (HCs) of the auditory epithelium undergo a variety of morphological and positional changes. During the regeneration process, previously quiescent SC nuclei migrate from a region near the basal lamina toward the lumen, where they undergo mitosis. After mitotic division of SCs, new SCs or HCs are regenerated throughout the entire radial extent of the basilar papilla (BP) of the auditory epithelium, neural to abneural. We hypothesize that HC regeneration occurs via migration of post-mitotic cells to populate specific regions of the epithelium. Further, we hypothesize that SCs dividing in the abneural region are stem cells that divide slowly and then migrate to the neural region to divide rapidly. In order to address these two hypotheses, we fluorescently labeled SCs in post-drug damaged BPs through local electroporation in the neural or abneural half of the BP. Migration of SCs (or newly formed HCs) were tracked, measured, and imaged over the course of three days. These intermittent daily images allowed us to analyze the distance and direction of large movements in the BP. We observed that groups of labeled cells moved in the radial plane, indicating that cell migration was occurring. By combining imaging techniques with labeling for markers of cell proliferation and markers of differentiated HCs or SCs, we distinguished between pre- and post-mitotic migrating cells. Knowledge of HC and SC migration in the auditory epithelium during critical phases of regeneration promises to enhance the quality of future comparative studies aimed at inducing hair cell regeneration in humans.

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common non-skin cancer diagnosed in men in the United States. Progression of PCa often leads to metastasis throughout the body with most lesions occurring within the bone. PCa bone metastases are predominately characterized as osteoblastic (bone forming) however the response is often mixed including an osteolytic (bone degrading) component. Herein, we have attempted to characterize the progression of this disease in patients that have died of PCa. Bone and visceral (soft tissue) metastases were obtained from our rapid autopsy program and primary prostates were obtained at surgery at the UW. The sites of metastases and bone response were examined histologically in formalin fixed paraffin embedded sections. We also made tissue microarrays and employed immunohistochemistry to assess proliferation (Ki67), microvessel density (CD34), hypoxia (HIF-1α) and the effect of the microenvironment on protein expression (bone sialoprotein) in bone metastases (n=101), visceral metastases (n=99), and primary prostate (n=63). The predominant sites of metastases were bone, lymph nodes, liver and the adrenal glands respectively. We observed osteoblastic (n=223), mixed (n=305) and osteolytic (n=77) lesions in the PCa bone metastases. Proliferation rates of visceral metastasis (26.1%), were significantly increased vs. bone metastasis (14.2%), or primary tumor (7.1%); (p<0.0001). In previous studies we determined that there was a difference in microvessel density between PCa visceral vs. bone metastases, we are currently assessing hypoxia in these tissues. Additionally, we have determined that bone sialoprotein is highly expressed in PCa bone metastases with limited expression in visceral metastases (p<0.0001). Our results demonstrate significant differences in proliferation, bone response, angiogenesis, and protein expression in PCa visceral and bone metastasis. These studies provide us a better understanding of the biology of PCa metastases. This will provide us new research directions and new molecular targets leading towards improved therapies for patients suffering from this disease.

Energy homeostasis is essential towards maintaining the levels of metabolism, energy storage, and feeding in mammals. Two types of neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus play an important role: AgRP and POMC neurons. POMC neurons are activated under fed conditions and lead to decreased feeding, increased metabolism, and decreased energy storage. AgRP neurons lead to the reverse effects under fasting conditions. We have established a technique called RiboTag that allows us to capture mRNA associated to ribosomes. The RiboTag mouse carries a ribosomal protein gene with a floxed C-terminal exon followed by an identical exon tagged with hemagglutinin (HA). When RiboTag is crossed to a mouse expressing Cre recombinase in a specific cell type, expression of the epitope-tagged ribosomal protein is activated in the target cell type, thus allowing the recovery of ribosome-associated transcripts from specific cell types by immunoprecipitation using anti-HA antibodies. This project seeks to verify the usefulness of RiboTag in assessing which transcripts are being actively translated in these two neuronal populations. The specificity of the AgRP-Cre and POMC-Cre mice was established by crossing these two Cre driver mice with TdTomator reporter mice. When these mice are crossed with mice that express Cre recombinase, Cre-expressing cells emit red fluorescence. To evaluate the specificity of our Cre driver mice, immunohistochemistry assays using alpha-MSH and ACTH (for POMC) and NPY (for AgRP) antibodies were performed in hypothalamic sections of POMC-Cre:TdTomato and AgRP-Cre:TdTomato mice. Immunoprecipitation assays using an anti-HA antibody were performed in homogenized hypothalami of the POMC-Cre:RiboTag and AgRP-Cre:RiboTag mice, and specific recovery of either POMC or AgRP-specific transcripts was assessed by qRT-PCR. According to our results, The POMC-Cre mice appear to be more specific than the AgRP-Cre mice making it a more useful tool for the RiboTag approach than the AgRP- CRe mice.

What neural mechanisms control visual attention? In particular, how is it that we are able to distinguish between numerous, moving objects within our visual field? We applied principles of contrast detection to a filtering paradigm based on motion discrimination. Observers viewed a single field of two superimposed sets of dots with net motion in several possible directions. The task was to discriminate between cued, relevant directions of motion while ignoring irrelevant directions of motion. For example, one might discriminate between leftward and rightward motion while ignoring diagonally moving dots. Not all the dots within the sets are moving in the same direction. By manipulating the percentage of dots moving together in both relevant and irrelevant directions, one can test for selection by blocking versus selection by attenuation. With blocking, processing of even a strong stimulus is completely prevented; with attenuation, processing of an irrelevant stimulus is decreased (but not zero). The results were consistent with blocking and not attenuation. They rule out models of attenuation such as a motion analog to the contrast gain model of contrast detection. Possible models of blocking include attention switching, response gain, or a selection process in decision rather than perception.

From birth through age five, children experience a wide range of development and growth, which they will build off of for the rest of their lives. It is during this time that the detection of childhood delays is most essential. The goal of this project is to research whether microblogging technologies, specifically Twitter, will enable parents to learn more about childhood development, and therefore be more sensitive to the early warning signs of developmental delays. We hope to find that using Twitter as an educational tool will increase awareness in parents with respect to the development of their children, and that the service will encourage more periodic tracking of milestones to share in the pediatric setting. These behaviors may in turn promote earlier detection of developmental delays. We will conduct a deployment study of the microblogging system and measure parent knowledge of children’s development before and after its use and study its effectiveness and usability. The information found from this research can be used to implicate a permanent microblogging subscription service with the goals of earlier detection of developmental delays and improved pediatric health.

Trapped ion quantum computing is one of most scalable designs for the manipulation of ions to create a computer that uses quantum effects for computation. Sequences of laser pulses are used to both control and measure the states of the ions. Under this model, a prerequisite for executing meaningful computations is the ability to easily create and execute pulse sequences as well as the processing of feedback from the ions via photon counters and external inputs. To make this a reality, we are working in tandem with physicists to actively develop a pulse programmer used by groups around the globe. The pulse programmer currently has three circuit boards including a precise 800 MHz clock generator and divider that drives a networked system with a custom designed processor in a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) running at 100 MHz. This processor generates the desired pulse sequences with a 10ns timing resolution and outputs on 64 different channels. Pulse programs can be written in a high-level, abstracted form and generated by a conventional computer using a custom Python compiler which then transfers them over a standard Ethernet LAN to be executed on the programmer. Using an open-source philosophy, we have added support for new features into both the hardware and the software that allow programs to take action based on external counters and inputs. In addition to extending the feature set of the programmer, we have also made it easier to use by implementing auto-configuring capabilities for the clock source and for network access. A web interface is currently in development to provide graphical access to the programmer for remote execution, and the programmer itself is being redesigned to have one board instead of three. We will continue to add new features such as frequency scanning and runtime parameters while maintaining usability.

Global change, including anthropogenic nitrogen deposition, global warming, and continued urbanization, has begun. These changes will affect plants, including Pacific Northwest conifers, so understanding how local conifer trees, like Thuja plicata, respond to global change will aid conservation. Previously, I observed low abundances of Thuja plicata seedlings in forest fragments in and around Seattle. I also measured higher nitrogen and increased temperatures, which influences soil moisture, in these forest fragments. Other researchers have shown that herbivory by gastropods, such as slugs, can limit conifer seedling survival. Therefore, I will experimentally manipulate nitrogen, soil moisture and gastropod herbivory and identify effects on Thuja plicata seedlings. First, high nitrogen or low soil moisture may negatively affect seedlings. Second, gastropod herbivores may prefer Thuja plicata seedlings over other species. Third, gastropod herbivory may increase with nitrogen levels, as higher nitrogen content may attract them. Finally, low seedling survival may result from a combination of herbivory and low soil moisture. To test these hypotheses, I will grow Thuja plicata seedlings in high or low nitrogen and high or low moisture and assess the effect. I will then place seedlings of Thuja plicata and other species together in one terrarium set, and in another terrarium set I will place Thuja plicata seedlings from different nitrogen and moisture treatments together. Each set of terrariums will be exposed to herbivory by common local gastropods. I will measure gastropod herbivory by species or treatment to assess if gastropods preferentially feed on any group in each test set. In nitrogen and moisture treatments, seedling mortality will be measured after one week to determine if moisture or nitrogen and herbivory interact to increase seedling death. Results may help explain the low Thuja plicata seedling abundances observed in forest fragments, and help predict species response to further global change.

Previous studies have classified a certain subset of auditory cells as “filter neurons” in the inferior colliculus (IC) of the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus. These neurons respond exclusively to auditory stimuli between 22-30 kHz with any given neuron only responding to a narrow range of 1-2 kHz. The narrow frequency tuning is maintained at all levels above threshold. Since the main vocalization frequencies during the searching phase of echolocation are also within the 20-30 kHz range, it is proposed that filter neurons enable detection of slight changes in the frequency of echoes due to reflection from objects in the environment. Many neurons in the IC exhibit stimulus specific adaptation (SSA), in which the neuron stops responding to a repeated sound but resumes responding whenever some stimulus parameter is changed. Because it is not known whether filter neurons show SSA, we recorded extracellularly from single filter neurons in the IC of lightly tranquilized bats while tones were presented to the contralateral ear via a paradigm designed to measure SSA. Filter neurons do not appear to show SSA to a repeated tone, nor do their responses increase in response to a tones of a different frequency. This finding is consistent with the proposed function of these cells as detectors of a specific frequency in the bat's echo and with the idea that their narrow frequency tuning is stable in the face of stimulus changes.

Environmental education varies dramatically from nation to nation due to a variety of factors. This talk will present the findings of a comparative evaluation of the environmental education systems in three case study locations: Stockholm, Sweden; Brussels, Belgium; and Seattle, Washington. While all age groups were considered, this research focuses on students 8-12 years old as this is an age where advanced reading and comprehension skills are commonly emphasized in school programs. The methodology featured a visit to each study location during the summer months of 2009 and in-depth interviews with the community leaders in charge of the sustainable education curriculum of each city. Both formal, in-class and informal, out-of-class instruction was considered. In addition, curricula pertaining to environmental issues were examined, as were reports about the efficacy of governmental education in each locale. My results explain how each level of government, independent organizations and green spaces influence the way environmental issues are taught in school. Additionally, the amount and types of literature on environmental topic made available to young students is discussed in depth. The research is informing my efforts to write a young adult fiction novel that contains themes related to environmental education and climate change.

The transplantation of human embryonic stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hESC-CMs) is being explored as a novel therapy to replace lost muscle due to myocardial infarction. For eventual safe clinical use, the preparations of hESC-CMs must be sufficiently pure and of the correct cardiac subtype (i.e. ventricular cardiomyocytes), to minimize the risk of teratomas and arrhythmias. In this study, we are exploring two complementary approaches to obtain such pure populations: improved methods of guided differentiation (specifically, elimination of insulin signaling) and genetic selection (using a novel muscle-specific promoter). Colleagues at the University of Washington have previously reported a cardiac induction protocol capable of generating large quantities of hESC-CMs of 30-80% cardiac purity. Others have reported that activation of insulin signaling has a detrimental effect on the purity of hESC-CMs generated using an alternative induction protocol. To test the hypothesis that the elimination of insulin signaling would improve cardiogenesis in our own system, we used flow cytometry with an anti-cardiac troponin T antibody to compare the percentage of cardiomyocytes in preparations differentiated in insulin-containing and insulin–free media. In preliminary studies, we found that the omission of insulin increases the purity of cardiomyocytes by nearly 3-fold. In ongoing studies, we have also tested whether the cardiac purity of hESC-CMs can be further enriched by genetic selection with a muscle-specific promoter. For this, hESCs were transduced with a lentiviral vector in which a regulatory element from the muscle creatine kinase (CK7) gene drives expression of the fluorescent protein, mCherry, and puromcyin resistance. Our preliminary results suggest that the omission of insulin during the cardiac induction of hESCs increases the purity of the resultant cardiomyocytes. Work is in progress to see if such hESC-CMs can be further purified by genetic selection with a novel CK7-based transgene.

Going to the doctor’s office or medical clinic can be a tense and uncomfortable situation for many patients. As information technologies in the consultation room are becoming more pervasive and a central part of the interaction between provider and patient, those technologies can disrupt or aid the flow of information and empathic communication between medical provider and patient. The purpose of this study is a qualitative investigation into how the design and organization of space and technology in the examination room affects patient/provider interaction and communication. We have looked at which current practices and strategies work best for healthcare providers when juggling using a computer to view or input data while in the examination room with a patient, and which practices impede communication with a patient. We asked patients how they feel when attempting to communicate with and learn from their medical providers while using computers or electronic devices in the examination room. And we studied the issues and constraints at play when healthcare architects and facilities managers are designing spaces and implementing technologies in examination rooms. Based on analysis of the interview results, we created recommendations for designing spaces that support empathic communication between healthcare provider and patient while sharing digital information. We will apply these recommendations to prototypes of new healthcare spaces and the artifacts within those spaces.

The Physics Education Group (PEG) in the Physics Department at the University of Washington is involved in research, curriculum development, and instruction aimed at improving student learning in physics. Part of the work involves helping prepare K-12 teachers of physics and physical science. To this end, the group is developing an inquiry-based curriculum, Physics by Inquiry (PbI), designed to strengthen subject matter background in physics and physical science. I worked at the 2009 NSF Summer Institute for Inservice Teachers, an intensive 5-week program that used the PbI curriculum. I investigated participant conceptual understanding of mathematical limits primarily in the context of kinematics, as well as in the context of electric circuits. The project began by conducting a detailed examination of pretests and post-tests from previous summers. These indicated that many K-12 teachers are unable to use limiting procedures when presented with information in non-graphical form. By developing additional pretests and post-tests that were administered to the 2009 participants, we gained insight into participant understanding before, during, and after instruction. The in-depth analysis of participant responses throughout the summer helped us assess the effectiveness of the PbI curriculum in kinematics in general, with a particular focus on the teaching of limit concepts in the context of velocity and acceleration. This detailed analysis of the prevalence of various types of errors has provided a deeper understanding of the difficulties that teachers face when learning the material, is guiding the further development of curriculum, and is contributing to the existing research base on the learning and teaching of physics.

Phytoremediation is the process of removing toxins from the environment using plants. It is a cost effective and more environmentally friendly alternative to conventional remediation techniques. Endophytes are microbes that live within a host plant without causing disease and are thought to improve plant stress tolerance and breakdown of pollutants. Previous studies have shown that endophytes have increased remediation of toxic metals from polluted soils. Trichloroethylene (TCE) is found in sixty percent of superfund sites in the United States. It is a carcinogenic chemical solvent commonly used in degreasers. TCE is persistent in the environment, remaining in water supplies and air vapors for prolonged periods of time. Ipomoea batatas, commonly known as sweet potato, has been shown in previous studies to remove TCE from hydroponics and in turn produce trichloroethanol (TCEOH), a metabolite. To see if the plant or its associated endophytes are responsible for removing and degrading TCE, we are producing both surface sterile and internally sterile plants. Additionally to enhance the phytoremediation of this pollutant we will inoculate the plant with a known TCE degrader and look for increased uptake and production of metabolite. Ipomoea batatas has great potential as a phytoremediation plant, and hopefully beyond as a source of income in biofuel production.

We report on a novel digital microfluidic device capable of achieving droplet transport using vertical vibration and curved hydrophilic rungs patterned onto a hydrophobic surface. The original Surface Ratchets were implemented using microscopically rough features on polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) or silicon with a hydrophobic coating. Flat Surface Ratchets take advantage of periodic asymmetric wetting barriers by patterning the wettability of a substrate with self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). We report two novel device fabrications, a hydrophilic trimethylsilanol SAM patterned onto either a hydrophobic perfluorooctyltrichlorosilane (FOTS) or dodecanethiol SAM. Transport of a 10 μl droplet is demonstrated by applying vertical sinusoidal vibrations with an electromagnetic speaker with amplitudes low as 37 μm at 82 Hz. The ease of Flat Surface Ratchet fabrication, a simple wettability pattern, makes the technology implementable on a massive range of substrates opening up numerous potential applications. For example, the trimethylsilanol-FOTS Flat Surface Ratchet is an optically flat device, yielding a fully transparent device if fabricated onto glass. Such a device could be easily integrated onto a car’s windshield, and droplet transport could potentially be driven by the natural vibrations of a car.

Mapping as a qualitative participatory method can provide a good base knowledge when doing anthropological fieldwork. Part of our research from a larger study of the Pike Place Senior Center focused on using mapping. This type of mapping requires an anthropologist to become involved with the area and to discover the significance of features previously unknown to them. By creating such maps as a researcher, you gain a new sense of cultural context and in turn gain a deeper rapport, richer data, and a new angle of privileged perspective. Our research on the Senior Center was intended to discover the Senior Center’s place in the Market. We decided to combine interviewing and photography with our map to answer this question. For the interviews, we talked to vendors at the Market and asked them what they knew about the Senior Center and their view of Market life. Photographs were taken throughout the Market. We put this information together in an interactive map in which marked areas could be chosen in order to view more information and pictures. We discovered that the community that makes up the Market is larger than it first appears. However, the Senior Center does not seem to be integrated at all into the publicly viewed or larger community of the Pike Place Market. Interviewing showed the Center’s social isolation while photographs showed the Center’s physical isolation. Putting them together on a map allowed us to combine all our information to gain insights not obvious when viewed separately. The map helped us see that it is important for the Senior Center and its members to find a way to be more visible and to interact with the other members of the Market. Qualitative participatory maps can provide anthropologists with similar insights that may be missed otherwise.

The indigenous Mapuche of Chile have been found to have the worst health indices of any group in the nation contributing to an increased awareness of the necessity to improve both available care and methods of reaching out to the Mapuche community. While biomedicine is the national medical system of Chile, the Mapuche have long had their own medical system that many adhere to whether living in urban or rural settings. Thus it is clear that any attempt to improve the health status of the Mapuche must be a pluralistic one, health care incorporating beliefs of the Mapuche with quality medical care. For this reason, it is necessary to have a clear definition of Mapuche ethnomedicine in considering any planned attempt to improve the health status of the group through improved access to care and patient provider dynamics. This study utilizes models of medical systems from medical anthropology in order to describe the medical system of the Mapuche. It explores descriptions of Mapuche disease causation theory, categorization of disease, the responsibilities of healers, and therapy methods within Mapuche society finding that the Mapuche utilize a dualistic healing system with components of biomedicine and Mapuche medicine. Further, it was found that governmental attempts to provide the Mapuche with increased access to medical care have not been successful as a result of a lack of understanding between Mapuche patients and Chilean health officials and physicians. Research was done primarily through participant observation in Chile, conducting interviews with Mapuche medicinal healers, young adults, elders, and Chilean health officials. The aim of this project has been to develop a defined understanding of Mapuche medical system that can be utilized to both improve current programs as well as better plan future pluralistic programs in Chile that are vital to improving the health of the Mapuche.

The fine structure constant is a fundamental scientific quantity because it characterizes the strength of the fundamental interaction between light and matter. Cold ytterbium (Yb) atoms are promising candidates for accurate measurements of this constant using atom interferometry techniques. It is possible to cool Yb atoms to temperatures of few micro-Kelvin using coherent laser radiation. This is achieved by using laser cooling, where atomic motion is cooled by counter-propagating resonant laser light at 556nm (green), a wavelength not easily reachable by common laser sources. Therefore, a laser source should be developed to perform laser cooling of Yb on this transition. Light at 556nm can be produced by second harmonic generation (SHG) or “frequency doubling” of light at 1112nm (the fundamental). In SHG, a medium doubles the frequency of incident light through a non-linear process. In this project, we use a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal heated to 100 degree C to achieve the phase-matching for frequency doubling of an 1112nm fiber laser source. Since the efficiency of the non-linear process is strongly dependent on the intensity of the fundamental, we will increase the available 1112nm intensity using a resonant build-up cavity around the LBO crystal. So far, we have constructed a temperature stabilized crystal oven, and set up the build-up cavity without the LBO crystal. We will install the crystal-oven assembly into the cavity shortly to test the performance of the complete SHG system for production of 556nm light. We expect to produce sufficient power at this wavelength for laser cooling of ytterbium. This system will form a part of the atom interferometry apparatus to measure the fine structure constant, of fundamental importance in condensed matter physics, atomic physics, and quantum-electrodynamics.

Within the trigeminal and dorsal root ganglion (DRG), specialized neurons sense different types of innocuous and noxious somatic stimuli via nerve endings that project to the skin, muscles and organs of the body. Electrophysiological and molecular characterizations have shown that distinct subclasses of DRG neurons convey different perceptual modalities. Along with their large clutch sizes and rapid reproductive cycles, the zebrafish (Danio rerio) model system presents a unique opportunity to screen for novel genes involved in the development of these somatosensory neuronal subtypes or in the direct detection of these stimuli. To this end, I have developed a novel genetic screen, using families of chemically (ENU) mutagenized zebrafish, which measures a zebrafish’s response to touch, temperature and noxious chemical stimuli. Wild type fish normally display almost no movement at 72 hours post fertilization. However, when touched with a probe, exposed to noxious hot or cold temperature, or when immersed in a solution containing the noxious chemical mustard oil, the fish show a robust increase in activity. We are interested in mutants, which would have a wild type response to at least one of the presented stimuli while showing impairment in others. This would indicate that development is grossly normal in these fish and that only somatosensation is affected. The advantages of my screen are that it is simple to score, is robust, and can be automated. Once a mutant has been found, we will isolate the genomic lesions of the parents by simple sequence length polymorphism based mapping. We are also employing a candidate based approach to determine if the zebrafish homologues of TRPV1 and TRPV4, two genes shown to be required for normal heat sensation in other animal models, are also required for somatosensation in zebrafish by using expression analysis and gene knockdown technologies.

The ability to accurately measure the neutralization phenotype of Human Immunodeficiency Virus type 1 (HIV-1) in vitro is of critical importance in the ongoing efforts to develop an efficacious vaccine to the virus. Therefore, the goal of this study is to better elucidate the effect that differences in virus construction technique and assay design have on the observed phenotype of HIV in the neutralization assay. For this purpose, we created a panel of paired subgenomic envelope clones and matched chimeric proviruses encoding these envelope genes. To determine if the producer cell type (293T versus peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC)) and the nature of the particle (pseudovirus versus chimera) had an effect on neutralization-sensitivity, 13 virus pairs were compared. The neutralization sensitivity of the pseudovirus generated in 293T cells and chimeric virus generated in 293T cells were similar when tested with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs); in approximately 90% of cases, the 50% inhibitory concentration (IC50) was within 2-fold. Unlike with the monoclonals, when HIV-positive plasma was used there was a less than 2-fold difference in IC50 between different particle construction in only 7 out of 13 pairs. However, chimeric virus passaged though PBMC only reached 50% neutralization in 2 of 36 cases. Additionally, when producer cell type was compared with the HIV-positive plasma, the PBMC-derived viruses were more resistant to neutralization for 10 of 11 virus pairs. These results demonstrate that PBMC-derived virus, which presumably most closely approximates virus in the individual, is more resistant than particles obtained by transfection, which is a common laboratory method for the study of HIV. Preliminary results on the effect of target cells (TZM-bl versus PBMC) on measurements of neutralization sensitivity suggest that viruses are more sensitive to neutralization when PBMCs are used as the target of infection.

Cancer is a deadly disease caused by cellular mutations that accumulate over time. Pediatric tumors amass these mutations in an accelerated time frame compared to adult-onset tumors. During DNA replication, mutations are usually prevented by the low error rate of DNA polymerases delta and epsilon (Pols δ and ε). Studies of mice harboring an error-prone Polδ show that replication errors accelerate tumor development in many tissues. I am studying the role of DNA replication errors in pediatric tumorigenesis. Specifically, I am studying pediatric tumors for mutations in the gene that encodes DNA Polδ, Pold1. Mutations in Pold1 may lead to error-prone DNA replication and accelerate tumor development into childhood. Pold1 is found on human chromosome 19 and has 27 exons (sequences of DNA that code information for protein synthesis). Pold1 codes for a protein that is 1107 amino acids long. There are eight conserved domains in which amino acid changes would have a high likelihood of producing an error-prone Polδ: 3 conserved exonuclease domains and 5 conserved polymerase domains, all of which are contained in exons 7-20 of Pold1. I am sequencing genomic DNA from archived tissues of 4 different pediatric tumors: Wilms tumor, lymphoblastic lymphoma, medulloblastoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma. I am designing PCR reactions to amplify the 14 exons of Pold1 that code for the polymerase and exonuclease domains of Polδ. These PCR products will then be sequenced and analyzed for mutation within the conserved regions of Pold1. I am also sequencing Pold1 in a control group of 50 tonsils to determine the baseline incidence of mutation and polymorphism within Pold1. If we can identify mutations in Pold1 in pediatric tumors we may identify a group of patients that are at high risk for cancer in childhood.

In recent years immigration in the United States has increased at an accelerated rate, especially from Mexico. Mexican immigrants are moving past the traditional Southwestern States where they have established communities. In the case of Washington State, Snohomish County has had a notable rise in the immigrant population of Mexican origin. The increase in the County’s population has become very visible within the last 20 years. Factors such as NAFTA have played an important role and influenced the growth of the Latino community in Snohomish County, especially for immigrants coming from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Communities of Indigenous Mexican immigrants have established themselves in cities like Everett and throughout Snohomish County. As residents in their receiving communities, they participate in local economy as workers, taxpayers and consumers. There, transnational communities have emerged creating transnational towns with economic participation in both countries. Indigenous immigrants are also supporting their home local economies by injecting them with remittances. The Latino community in Snohomish County has become more active and organized in recent years, producing historic events such as an immigrant march in 2010, and community festivals. This paper focuses on the changes that Snohomish County has experienced with the growth of the Latino community in the last few years including responses from various entities such as school districts and clinics. I also will discuss the political climate in the county, citizenship in local context, and new challenges that affect the community. For data collection, I used information sources such as the United States Census Bureau and newspapers with articles pertinent to the Latino Community in Snohomish County, as well as my observations at a local Latino community center.

Vagal tone as an index of autonomic system functioning has been shown to provide insight into studies of emotion regulation and subsequent behavior patterns in children experiencing physiologically arousing stimuli. Domestic violence is a widespread problem in children’s families and provides an environmental stressor, resulting in different negative outcomes. While the majority of exposed children do not develop psychopathology, some may instead experience Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) as a result of individual difference factors. This study investigates the importance of baseline vagal tone as it relates to domestic violence exposure in children over time. I hypothesize that children with high baseline vagal tone will show greater growth in positive peer relations, emotion regulation and emotion awareness than their exposed peers with lower baseline vagal tone.

Platelet derived growth factors (PDGF) are proteins that play critical roles in the pathogenesis of a number of diseases, including liver, renal and pulmanary fibrosis, cardiovascular disease and carcinogenesis. There are 4 isoforms of PDGFs, PDGF-AA, PDGF-BB, and two more recently characterized novel isoforms, PDGF-C and PDGF-D. PDGF-C, like PDGF-D, has a CUB domain in addition to the growth factor domain (GFD). The function of the CUB domain in disease pathogenesis is unknown. In order to understand the biology of both active PDGF-CC (dimerized GFD) and CUB, we proposed to purify each domain and characterized some of its biological features. Human PDGF-CC and CUB domains are purified from cell culture media from 293 HEK cells that over express this ligand. Purification steps include among others, cation exchange and heparin-sepharose affinity chromatography. PDGF-C domains are detected by antibodies that recognize the GFD and CUB domains using immunoblotting and ELISA techniques. Long term goals may include examining the proliferation and migration properties of the purified PDGF-CC (GFD) and CUB proteins using fibroblast cell lines and using these proteins to generate monoclonal or polyclonal antibodies to be used for detection of PDGF-C in tissue specimens from a variety of human diseases.

The satisfiability problem, known as SAT, involves finding a solution of literals that make all clauses true. This problem uses the binary system, where there can only be two answers to a question. In a “true clause” at least one of the literals listed must match a corresponding literal in the solution. The SAT problem has many applications including design debugging, artificial intelligence (AI) planning, software testing and circuit work. Many algorithms have been developed to attempt to solve the SAT problem. These algorithms are all approximations since they do not check every possible solution. There is also the brute force method that checks every possible combination of literals that satisfy all the clauses. The problem with the brute force method is for larger problems it can take a very long time to execute the program. Our focus is on developing an algorithm known as the Discrete Hit and Run method (DHR). Our goal is for the DHR method to find approximate solutions to the SAT problem faster and more accurately than previous methods. DHR works computes a bi-walk from the current solution through the available space and then picking a new solution from this bi-walk. This new solution is then tested to see if it is an improvement over the current solution. If so the program will move to this point and repeat the bi-walk pattern. If not, the system will generate a new bi-walk from the previous solution. My role has been to find modifications to the DHR algorithm so that it can perform more efficiently and find as many solutions as possible in the shortest amount of time. To do this I coded the basic DHR algorithm using C++ programming. The performance of the basic algorithm and any modified versions can then be compared using benchmark problems.

Streptavidin-biotin is an essential protein-vitamin bonding in nature and is widely used commercially because of its extremely tight binding. A significant question in protein-ligand interactions and in structure-based drug design is how much of the protein beyond the immediate environment of the binding pocket is critical to binding and how do water interactions affect this binding. We analyze this protein-ligand bond through the study of its molecular physics, crystallography and computational studies of the mutations in its second binding shell. This project focuses on learning how water interacts with proteins. The goal is to test if mutating certain amino acids in Streptavidin will produce a protein that blocks a hypothetical water channel located in the Streptavidin-biotin complex. Protein is then purified through basic protein expression techniques. Those water passages that can be blocked within the complex help us begin to understand how water reacts with proteins. Mutations in the DNA could produce certain effects: 1) Water molecules will be prevented from competing with biotin for hydrogen bonding to Streptavidin. 2) Biotin will be prohibited form entering and binding to Streptavidin. This protein interaction with water is vital in understanding how water directly reacts with proteins. This comprehension will further the uses of proteins in medicine, commercial products, and more. Once we can begin to understand relatively unknown basic molecular interactions, we can start to apply this knowledge all over the research field.

Conclusive evidence exists showing adolescents with type 1 diabetes struggle with their overall diabetes control. Increased diabetes-management responsibility along with the developmental challenges of young adulthood contribute to this problem. Effort is needed to better understand the psychosocial predictors of glycemic control in this age group. Resilience is a construct referring to an individual’s capacity to maintain psychological and physical well-being in the face of adversity. Previous research in adults with diabetes has showed resilience is an important predictor of glycemic control, but not much is known about resilience in adolescents. Further, resilience in diabetes has been measured by a “Resilience Factor” of personal factors including optimism, self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-mastery. Recently, the Connor-Davidson Resilience scale has emerged as a promising global resilience scale. However, no research has been done using the CD-RISC in a diabetes population. Thus, the purpose of this pilot study was two-fold: 1) to explore the relationship between the Resilience Factor and the CD-RISC, and 2) to explore how resilience associates with glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), self-care, and quality of life. Fifty adolescents (13-18 yrs) with Type 1 diabetes were seen at Seattle Children’s Hospital for a research visit. Participants completed the CD-RISC, optimism, self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-mastery, along with diabetes self-care and quality of life measures. HbA1c was assessed by medical record review. Correlation coefficients will primarily be used to analyze the study aims. Study enrollment is complete and data analysis is ongoing. Understanding the association between CD-RISC and the resilience factor will inform the utility of the CD-RISC in this population. Further, if we find a significant association between resilience and diabetes outcomes , this work can inform future intervention work needed for adolescents struggling with their diabetes management.

T lymphocytes are a type of white blood cell that play an important role in cellular immune responses. Research studies have focused on developing genetically modified T lymphocytes for cell-based therapies because of their ability to migrate throughout the body. However, efficient non-viral gene transfer of lymphocytes has been shown to be difficult both in vitro and in vivo. There are several rate-limiting steps that are responsible for the low efficiency of gene delivery to T cells. Here, we focus on a particularly important step for efficient gene delivery: the attachment and internalization of the gene delivery vector through the cell membrane. Specifically, we are interested in improving the uptake of gene delivery vectors through receptor-mediated targeting to T cells. CD3 and CD7 are receptors abundant on the surface of T cells and have been used to deliver small molecules such as toxins to T cells. However, their ability to improve the uptake of particulate carriers needs to be further investigated. Fluorescent polystyrene nanoparticles were coated with varying densities of anti-CD3 and anti-CD7 antibodies. These modified beads were presented to T lymphocytes and we monitored the uptake of these modified beads to assess the effect of receptor-mediated targeting on delivery of nanoparticles. Our study provides critical information for designing a non-viral gene delivery system for efficiently transfecting T lymphocytes.

The Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML) is a standard for representing models of biochemical reaction networks; it encourages model reuse and enables models to be analyzed by almost two hundred existing software tools that recognize it. In support of this standard, a number of software libraries have been contributed by Frank Bergman at the University of Washington, to enable model networks to be drawn in bitmap, vector graphics, and Portable Document Format (PDF). These libraries make it easier to display what is happening inside any particular model, automatically parsing model data and drawing molecules, cell compartments, and structures together with their relevant reactions from the model’s SBML file. The work described here extends these capabilities to the LaTeX document preparation system. All graphical information encoded in the model is transformed into vector graphics script that can be embedded in LaTeX documents. Once the document is compiled these scripts are translated into images. This is useful for both researchers and authors using LaTeX, enabling them to conveniently generate scalable vector graphics in their publications to diagram the biochemical models they have used or seek to explain. The extension is also available as a software library and can be embedded into other programs to enable them to export their models in LaTeX form.

The research involves experimenting with double transgenic APPswe/PS1E9 mice models of Alzheimer's disease that received bone marrow transplants from wt or EP2-/- mice that also express GFP. The bone marrow transplant was shown in previous research to decrease beta-amyloid plaques by 50%. Since this summer, retinas from the mice for bone marrow transplant derived (green) and Iba-1 immunopositive (red) cell engraftment, which labels microglial cells, have been cut, stained, and evaluated. The rest of the globes have been cut at 25 micron-thick slices and stained with abeta antibody. The intensity of beta amyloid retina expression will be measured to evaluate the effects of BMT from wt or EP2-/- donors on retina beta amyloid. Microglia engraftment in the optic nerve will then be quantitated as it relates to optic nerve pathology, which will be assessed using morphometric and/or immunofluorescent means. The main objective of this part of the experiment is to evaluate beta-amyloid deposition and microglia engraftment in the optic nerve. The results of these studies will provide valuable insight into the role of microglia and innate immune function on retina pathology in a mouse model of AD. It may provide a springboard to develop a cell based therapeutic strategy for treatment of retinal disease, and could lay groundwork for the study of white matter injury in brain, which is the second leading pathologic process associated with dementia behind AD.

Heavy metal pollutants are among the most prevalent and problematic waste treatments and are notable for their tendency to bioaccumulate in tissues in the human body and have long-term neurotoxic effects. The standard techniques for trace heavy metal analysis require expensive equipment and involves complicated and time-consuming strong acid sample treatments. Our work demonstrates a new and novel protocol for direct, rapid, sensitive, inexpensive and reliable detection of metal oxide particulates. In particular, we report the first task-specific ionic liquid- protonated betaine bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide [Hbet][Tf2N]- based metal oxide electrochemical sensor that demonstrates high sensitivity and selectivity, minimal space and power requirements, and low-cost instrumentation for on-site measurements. The thin layer of [Hbet][Tf2N] on the surface of the electrode not only works as an electrolyte, but also concurrently acts as a solvent to selectively solubilize certain metal oxides. With this approach, the metal oxides such as PbO, CdO, and CuO can be dissolved and directly measured electrochemically without a strong acid treatment step.

A great deal of research and attention surrounding HIV have been directed at populations such as gay men and IV drug users and, though highly beneficial and necessary, this has drawn attention away from populations who continue to be increasingly at risk. One group of interest, whose incidence of HIV continues to grow each year, is women. Impoverished/homeless women are at exceptional risk for contracting and spreading HIV because they are much more likely to face challenges that lead to risky behavior such as: perceived susceptibility to HIV/AIDS; victimization by violence; patterns of substance use; and the use of avoidant coping strategies. In addition to the hardships life has presented them, this population faces a myriad of difficulties and obstacles everyday when faced with a life being labeled HIV positive. This annotated review of the literature identifies areas of focus that need to be addressed when working with women who are challenged with the struggles that arise from situations such as this. The study reveals three areas of particular importance when assessing the special needs of homeless women with HIV: attitudes towards and within the affected community; treatment/intervention options that effectively reach the target population and present viable solutions to their predicament; and prevention/outreach programs that provide these women with resources to cope with their disease and social situation as well as curtail further spread of HIV.

Every year, more men than women pursue a major in computer science (National Science Foundation, 2009).The present research examines whether current stereotypes of computer science affect women’s interest in computer science. Women in an introductory psychology course interacted with a confederate, a research assistant pretending to be another participant, who was presented as either fitting current computer science stereotypes (stereotypical) or not fitting these stereotypes (non-stereotypical). Participants who interacted with a stereotypical confederate had greater difficulty identifying with their partner and showed less interest in pursuing computer science as a major than participants who interacted with confederates who did not fit current stereotypes of computer science. The gender of the confederate did not have an effect on women’s identification with their partner or their interest in computer science. These results indicate that one factor that may affect women’s participation in computer science is the stereotype associated with the major. The findings of this research lead us closer to identifying contributory factors of the existing disproportion, as well as exploring ways to alter its occurrence.

Nicotine is the primary addictive component of tobacco, which results in the death of nearly 5.5 million people annually. Despite continued research efforts into the addictive qualities of nicotine, the neuropharmalogical mechanisms underlying nicotine addiction and relapse are not well understood. 21% of adults in the United States continue to smoke; the majority of whom are aware of the deleterious health effects of nicotine abuse. Yet, only 4.7% of smokers who attempt to quit each year are successful. While various subtypes of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors have been implicated in nicotine addiction and relapse, the role of stress systems in maintaining nicotine addiction has not been studied. The endogenous ligand dynorphin is a major stress hormone and has been shown to have a role in maintaining cocaine and alcohol addiction. I am interested in understanding the role of dynorphin in nicotine addiction. The dynorphin/kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) system has been shown to cause potentation of cocaine relapse in mice through condition place preference (CPP) testing. Here, I investigated the effects of KOR activation on the valence of nicotine reward in mice through CPP testing. I found that nicotine administration in mice results in a significant place preference when compared to vehicle controls. I also sought to determine if swim stress and the KOR specific agonist U50,488 potentiate this preference. Through behavioral and pharmacological assays, I investigated if KOR activation is necessary for CPP nicotine potentiation.

As enormous amounts of data are collected by the large multispectral survey programs such as Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and soon the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), we are faced with the challenge of finding a way to meaningfully interact with this data to maximize scientific return. Our goal is to create a flexible environment that organizes disparate data sources, such as streamed images and database services, to be analyzed visually through the coordination of simple tools that work on common data. We envision a framework that allows users to personalize their access to data and to easily create custom tools to interact with and import data from new sources. The web browser is a natural place to create such an environment, and by leveraging the OpenSocial API we extend our model to allow collaboration between astronomers remotely. In addition to enhancing access to data among astronomers, the web application will be available to the public, encouraging exploration of the sky.

With an exponentially increasing global population, the necessity of finding renewable and sustainable energy sources is becoming unavoidable. Plasma fusion provides a highly promising, virtually inexhaustible and environmentally benign energy source by using particles heated to over 100 million degrees Celsius to run a power plant. Fusion is still in development, however, due to a number of technical difficulties, chief among which is confinement and sustainment of the superheated particles, also known as plasma. In the analysis of confined plasma, magnetic inductive probes are essential for their ability to reveal information about plasma shape, position and current density without physically interacting with the plasma. Magnetic inductive probes are vital to spheromaks – devices used to contain plasma - for real-time control of the plasma along with reconstruction of its equilibrium. The magnetic diagnostic system in our experiment includes 50 probes embedded in the surface of a copper flux conserver surrounding the plasma. These probes are arranged in 25 probe-pairs that measure both toroidal and poloidal magnetic fields. Due to attenuation effects on the magnetic field by the copper, the probes on the flux conserver must be calibrated in situ. This is accomplished by performing two simulations in which a toroidal and a poloidal field are independently generated. By testing at several different frequencies, the attenuation effect on the magnetic probes can be characterized and the probes can be accurately calibrated. Proper calibration is a necessary step towards precise plasma measurements and, ultimately, towards an understanding of how confined plasmas can be sustained.

The specialization of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques within the gaming industry is becoming a fast growing field of study for students in academia and industry developers alike. Many of the AI techniques used in video games are unique to a gaming problem domain as game developers often face the challenge of implementing their game AI with limited resources (game frames, memory, and processor cycles), more so than traditional AI projects and studies. A complete AI system must utilize some kind of learning mechanism that takes place within a restricted information domain in order to provide a sense of realistic intelligence to the players. Using available libraries that provide hooks into the game StarCraft has enabled us to develop a custom AI for the game. We are using C++ to develop a form of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) and Reinforcement Learning (RL) artificial intelligence. Case-based reasoning is the process of solving new problems based on solutions of similar past problems, an underused human utility in many AI systems. Reinforcement Learning influences an AI agent's decision making process in order to maximize a long-term reward. The RL and CBR run in real time with the game making the AI able to adapt to a variety of situations.  We will be presenting test results and gathered data on the AI by running it against the Starcraft's original AI as well as expert human players with the goal of determining whether an AI using CBR and RL is feasible for production quality game AI development. Real time learning with Case-Based Reasoning and Reinforcement Learning will give a new outlook on games artificial intelligence as challenging and adaptive opponents.

It has been demonstrated that silicon nanophotonic waveguides can be used to construct all of the components of a photonic data transmission system on a single chip. Complex electro-photonic integrated circuits can be constructed from the integration of nanophotonic waveguides and CMOS electronics. It has also been shown that the high field confinement of silicon nanoscale guides enables a variety of new applications, including chip-scale nonlinear optics, as well as biosensors and light-force activated devices. Currently, the majority of experiments with silicon waveguides have been at wavelengths in the near-infrared, between 1.1-2 µm. Our research demonstrates that by using a material system which lacks a high index substrate, single-mode silicon nano-waveguides can be used at mid-infrared wavelengths, in particular at 4.5 µm, or 2222.2 cm^-1. This idea has appeared in theoretical literature, but experimental realization has been elusive. This result represents the first practical integrated waveguide system for the mid-infrared in silicon, and enables a range of new applications.

Most speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and researchers include some type of standardized test when diagnosing children with specific language impairment (SLI), a language disorder with no accompanying cognitive impairments. However, numerous standardized tests are available and no one test is considered the definitive measure for diagnosis. Currently in the field of speech language pathology there is a need for evidence based practice which includes choosing test measures based on empirical data. Evidence based diagnostic practices emphasize considering the psychometric properties of a test when selecting assessment measures. These properties include test validity, reliability, and accuracy. This study investigated which standardized test properties relate to the frequency of test use when assessing a child with suspected SLI. Data were collected from two sources: an online survey of 681 SLPs and 65 technical manuals for standardized tests. The survey focused on assessment practices used by SLPs to diagnose children with suspected SLI. Data regarding test characteristics were compiled from the test manuals. Correlations were computed between the frequency of test use and the standardized test properties. Tests that were used most frequently tended to have larger group differences between typically developing children and children with SLI, suggesting that these tests are also highly accurate; however, the sensitivity and specificity results, which indicate accuracy in differentiating impaired or unimpaired children individually rather than as a group, did not support this notion. Other evidence-based factors such as reliability and validity are largely unrelated to frequency of test use. Implications for these results include the need for test publishers to create tests that better meet evidence based guidelines, for clinicians to be more discriminating in their choice of assessment measures and the need to select standardized tests based on objective, evidence-based criteria.

 Metatherian mammals, the group that gave rise to marsupials, first appear in the fossil record in the Early Cretaceous (~125 million years ago) of Asia. By the latest Cretaceous, metatherians were a dominant component of North American mammalian faunas. Their intervening evolutionary history remains poorly understood. Here, I describe a mammalian upper molar tooth that was recently discovered in exposures of the Wayan Formation of southeastern Idaho. Ash samples from the Wayan Formation have yielded a radiometric age of ~100 Ma (‘middle’ Cretaceous, Albian-Cenomanian). The specimen represents a new taxon that has primitive tribosphenic molar traits suggesting metatherian affinities. To test this phylogenetic hypothesis, I performed a parsimony-based cladistic analysis using a data matrix that includes 17 early mammalian taxa and 40 dental morphological characters. Results suggest that the new taxon is among the oldest and most primitive metatherians known from North America. As such, this study improves our understanding of the phylogenetic relationships of early metatherians and their initial morphological evolution in North America.

Previous research has indicated that, for individuals with social anxiety, drinking can become a way to cope with debilitating depression and fear in social situations. The study by Ham LS, Bonin M, & Hope DA (2007) asserted that coping with anxiety and depression can be a motive for increased alcohol consumption in socially anxious people. Their study looked at college student drinking over one week. The researchers isolated the Coping-Anxiety and Coping-Depression constructs of the Drinking Motives Questionnaire- Revised (DMQ; Cooper, M.L., 1994, DMQ-R; Grant et al., 2007) as being especially correlated with drinking behavior, and concluded that drinking to cope may be an important link between social anxiety and drinking. This investigation hopes to provide further insight into the link between social anxiety and drinking by exploring how these coping mechanism may differ by gender. Weinstock (1999) found that women tend to suffer from higher social anxiety than men. In light of this finding, I hypothesize women will report greater social anxiety and will endorse drinking for coping with anxiety and depression more frequently compared to men. It is also hypothesized that social anxiety will be positively related to the frequency of using these two coping motives. Further analysis examining these relationships with alcohol will be explored. The current study investigated drinking behavior over three months. The sample included 1124 college-aged participants enrolled at a four-year Pacific Northwest university. Subjects completed a baseline survey focused on typical drinking behavior and were asked to complete DMQ-R and Social Anxiety measures. Results are currently being analyzed. Discussion will focus on the influence of gender and social anxiety on drinking motivation. An understanding of the specific drinking motives experienced by socially anxious students of both genders, could aid in the development of targeted interventions tailored toward individuals’ level of social anxiety.

Phosphorus is often regarded as the main culprit in cases of eutrophication in lakes subjected to point source pollution from sewage. The phosphorus species in water after applying alum are still under research. The Spokane City/County Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) will be treating its effluent to remove nutrients (specifically phosphorus) to extremely low levels using an alum flocculation process. Preliminary data indicate this effluent has extremely low total phosphorus (TP) and accounts for a small amount of bio-available phosphorus. However, it has a high proportion of "non-reactive phosphorus" (NRP), which is not bio-available and can’t be used for algae growth. It’s quite likely that this NRP is aluminum bound phosphorus, i.e. AlPO4. Previous research on phosphorus speciation in sediment after alum treatment has been done using sequential extraction schemes to selectively remove phosphorus from different compounds in the sediment. The objective of this project will be to develop a standard method for quantifying aluminum bound phosphorus by applying the sequential extraction method to WWTP effluent samples collected from the Spokane Facility to prove the assumption that the NRP is mainly aluminum bound phosphorus. This project also aims to understand more about the phosphorus speciation in wastewater for the sake of further study in this area. Preliminary results of those analyses will also be presented.

One of the most prominent Presidential roles is to act as chief diplomat for the United States, while Congress is more directly concerned with constituents’ domestic needs. This fundamental difference in policy roles might suggest that we would expect to see a difference in presidential influence across different policy areas. Such a difference in presidential influence has implications for voters, and for the field of political science, as it would contribute to our understanding of government and presidential power. It is important to understand the relationship between the president’s agenda and the legislative agenda, because it represents the driving force of policymaking in the United States. I compare the President’s influence over the congressional foreign policy agenda to his influence over the congressional domestic policy agenda. Scholars have studied the influence of the President on the Congress from many angles, but a direct empirical comparison between two central policy arenas has not been investigated. I hypothesize that the President will have more influence over the congressional foreign policy agenda. My analysis examines 46 years of data coded by policy area from the Policy Agendas Project. Correlation and regression analysis is used to compare the issues emphasized in Presidential State of the Union Address with those emphasized in Congressional bills and hearings. The ultimate goal is to end the speculation about presidential influence in the field and better understand the role of the President in legislative agenda setting.

The transmission and distribution of malaria is a function of both micro and macro level factors. Malaria transmission begins at the micro level with a tiny bite from an infected Anopheles mosquito. There are approximately 460 recognized species of Anopheles and malaria transmission relates closely to the different patterns of feeding and resting of each type. At the macro level, global climatic factors, such as temperature, altitude, and precipitation, also have an impact on parasite and mosquito survival, and therefore contribute directly to the rate of malaria transmission. By recognizing the distinct preferences in species behavior, as well as accounting for changes in global climate, malaria control measures can be more effectively designed to prevent and reduce transmission. This research project seeks to visually communicate the complex relationships between mosquitoes, climate, and malaria through a series of data graphics. A number of visual forms were explored in order to determine which information graphics were most effective in revealing and conveying relationships and patterns in complex data sets. The key challenge was to synthesize scientific data with visual design with the goal of creating a pictorial and textual narrative that sparks curiosity and encourages public understanding and awareness of this infectious disease.

The first-person shooter genre represents some of the most popular contemporary video games, often drawing criticism for their violent content. And while violent content exists, it is not the only feature that has large social implications. Games such as Half-Life, Far Cry, Prey, and Mirror's Edge allow players to immerse themselves in complex game worlds where they are given agency to undertake large scale social action. First-person shooters stand apart from many other types of media in that they require active immersion into another character, or subjectivity, whereas most others demand a more passive level of engagement. This project analyzes the work performed by first-person shooters, not from a standpoint of content but of gameplay mechanics and immersion. The way that first-person shooters represent action, agency and presence facilitates a uniquely persuasive sense of virtual embodiment. This virtual embodiment, and the ways that players understand and position their own identity, are situated in a larger history of identity formation and appropriation in America. American identity has been historically bound up in the construction and appropriation of new ethnic identities, such as Philip Deloria's notion of “playing Indian” to facilitate early Americans' relationship to a new continent, and Toni Morrison's “Africanist presence,” or, "surrogate bodies", which were used to play out ideas of deviance in early American literature. These ethnic identities served as vehicles through which new potentials were created for a burgeoning American national identity. The subjectivities that one inhabits in first-person shooters, too, provide players with a similar space for negotiation of new identities and the new vocabularies of action that accompany them. Taken in this historical context, first-person shooters take on a new relevance to our understanding of the continuing negotiation of what it means to be American.

Using PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) and soft lithography processes to form micropost arrays yields a highly effective method for measuring the contractile forces of cells. Despite the success of soft lithography to replicate the microscale post structures, there is an apparent flaw in the fabrication process. Nanoscale surface cracks are visible on the PDMS after the micropost arrays are removed from the replicating negative mold, which is made of silanized PDMS. These cracks undermine the cell force measurements of micropost arrays by creating irregular post alignments and bending tendencies. My research has focused on identifying the cause of these surface cracks and on testing alternative mold materials to replace silanized PDMS as the negative mold material. It was found that surface cracks could be eliminated by removing the strains induced by thermal expansion. However, this approach is cumbersome because a constant 65ºC needs to be maintained during the casting and handling process. Currently, I am screening new polymer materials, e.g. fluoroelastomers and fluorinated silicones, to identify if they are compatible with the soft lithography process.

Asian Americans frequently experience a denial of their American identity (Cheryan and Monin 2005). If given the opportunity, Asian Americans will work to disprove this false perception by reasserting their American identity. Could Asian Americans assert their American identity through the foods they choose to eat? Our hypothesis is that Asian Americans who have their American identities threatened will choose more foods from an American menu and spend more time looking at that menu those who have not been threatened. We also hypothesize that foods chosen by the threatened participants will be less healthy than those who are not threatened, because American food is in general less healthy than Asian food. Forty-nine Asian American University of Washington undergraduates participated in our two-part study. Participants in the study were told the study examined the effects of appetite on cognition and were required to choose a food to eat at the second session of the study. Participants either received a threat to their American identity (“Actually, you have to be American to participate in our study”) or did not, and then were asked to choose a food from a website where they could pick from either an American or an Asian menu. Results showed that Asian Americans who had their American identity threatened, were more likely to choose an American food over an Asian food, to have chosen a less healthy food, and to have spent more time looking at the American food page than those in the control condition. This provides evidence that food choice is a means through which Asian Americans assert their American identity to others. These results demonstrate the real world effect of identity threat on healthy behaviors and may offer one explanation for the health discrepancy between first and second generation Asian Americans.

Can linear functions lead to unstable long term solutions? For two linear functions which depend on each other for solutions, it would seem that all solutions will be fairly stable long term. And for a while they may be, but it is possible that even two linear functions can produce unstable solutions over a long period of time if the two functions depend on each other. To try to test this idea, we used an iteration process with two linear functions; we took an initial value and put it in the first function and then took the output of that function and made it the input of the second function, this process was continued to see if the inputs and outputs approach a fixed value or set of values. In some cases, the inputs and outputs converged to a certain value. However, when parameters such as slope and intercepts were changed, issues of divergences emerged, but no clear pattern has been found just yet. If there is no settling point or points as any parameter is varied, there may be no way to predict the points of convergence over a long period of time. For functions that are in a time frame where there are clear settling points, it may be easy to predict long term behavior, but if not, a prediction for what the functions will do over a long period of time is nearly impossible to make. Results of this analysis may be applied to the fields of statistics and econometrics. Consequences of these findings will be discussed in relation to the use of multiple imputation of missing data values in those fields.

The present study examines whether women’s lack of interest in computer science is driven by the masculine stereotypes (i.e. geek/nerd stereotypes) of the field manifested through its group members. In addition, we examine whether the effect of stereotypes is moderated by the type of field that the class is in. The two independent variables are: (1) stereotypicality—manipulated by the proportion of stereotypical and non-stereotypical students in the class, and (2) field—manipulated by labeling either as a computer science or an English class. Participants will be randomly assigned to look at a class photo that is labeled either computer science or English, with a majority of students dressed either stereotypically or non-stereotypically. We hypothesize that women will have the least interest in the CS class with a majority of stereotypical students. Moreover, women’s lack of interest in the class with a majority of stereotypical students will be greater in the computer science condition than the English condition. Implications of this study can enhance our understanding in making practical changes for attracting more women’s participation in computer science despite the present female underrepresentation.

Songbirds, like humans, learn their vocalizations early in life by listening to other individuals and copying their songs. The Anterior Forebrain Pathway (AFP), a brain circuit within the song system of oscine songbirds is required for learning during development, but not for adult song production. Area X, a key nucleus within the AFP, which shares homology with the mammalian striatum, also contains pallidal neurons that provide inhibitory (GABAergic) input to the thalamic nucleus DLM (medial nucleus of the dorsolateral thalamus). Although various cell types have been identified in Area X, many of the basic cellular characteristics are still unknown. Of particular interest is which neuron subtypes within Area X receive inhibitory input via GABAergic synapses, a feature common to basal ganglia structures. To further elucidate the cellular characteristics of Area X neurons, I am using immunocytochemistry in conjunction with tract tracing and double labeling experiments to determine which neurons within Area X are positive for the potassium chloride cotransporter 2 (KCC2) membrane protein, which is essential for mediating the inhibitory post-synaptic response of GABA. Utilizing immunofluorescent colocalization experiments with striatal markers (i.e. Parvalbumin, DARP32, ChAT) and KCC2, I will be able to characterize striatal neuron types. Pallidal projection neurons will be characterized using retrograde tracer injections into DLM. Preliminary results of KCC2 positive neurons in Area X indicate that there are at least two distinct subpopulations of neurons which express KCC2. One subpopulation appears to be a large multipolar neuron, whereas the other appears to be composed of smaller neurons with varying cellular morphologies. One hypothesis is that the smaller neurons represent striatal interneurons, whereas the large subpopulation may be pallidal projection neurons. The results of these studies will lead to a greater understanding of the functional role of Area X during song learning, as well as important internal connections.

Nanotechnology is a branch of science and engineering that deals with matter and phenomena at the molecular scale — a tiny world that we cannot see with the naked eye. The scientific theories behind this field can be difficult for the general public to understand — that is, non-scientists are often unable to decipher what is really happening (or what could happen) at the nano level. Unfortunately, this means that the field of nanotechnology is often misunderstood and negatively perceived by the general public, especially in the areas of health and safety. This research project is a multidisciplinary collaboration between design and science (in this case, nanotechnology), and an exploration of how information design can help communicate a complex, specialized topic to a broad audience. The process of creating the main series of information graphics involved in-depth research and analysis of information from a wide variety of sources (including the internet, books, journals, general interest and specialized magazines, etc.) as well as a presentation and discussion in a series of critiques by faculty mentors and peers. Successful communication of this topic is highly dependent on the sequence and organization in which data graphics are presented. At the culmination of the collaboration, the resulting set of edited information graphics and text were composed into a 2-panel series of posters. These posters are designed to communicate the scientific theories behind nanotechnology, and to demonstrate how the field has grown in the U.S. and abroad. As a result of providing this knowledge, the collaborators hope to engage and inform the public more accurately about nanotechnology and its potential affects.

Erythropoietin (Epo) is a hormone that controls red blood cell production by stimulating the proliferation and survival of committed erythroid progenitor cells. Based on this function, Epo is used in patients with the anemia associated with chronic renal failure and chemotherapy. In addition, Epo may also stimulate blood vessel growth and inhibit cell death in several non-erythroid tissues including the brain, heart, retina, uterus, and kidney, and may modulate tumor progression. A recent study defined a linkage between a heritable single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the Epo gene regulatory region (rs1617640), elevated Epo levels, and the microvascular complications of diabetes. According to a clinic investigation at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) and Mayo Clinic, this SNP is also linked to significantly poorer survival rates in patients with lung cancer. This research presentation will outline our efforts to dissect the tissue specificity and molecular mechanisms of how the Epo rs1617640 SNP effects the expression of the Epo gene. The first step of our project is to examine if the rs1617640 SNP can increase the endogenous Epo production by applying a transient transfection promoter reporter gene assay. We constructed 3 plasmids with luciferase reporter gene that is driven by 3 different Epo promoters: Epo promoter with A at the SNP site, Epo promoter with C at the SNP site and Epo promoter without the SNP region. We will transfect the plasmids into HEK-293 cells and detect the expression level of the luciferase repoerter gene by Dual-Luciferase assay.

Invasive plants are an ever increasing problem through out the world. Some of these plants have proven to be strong competitors in their new habitats, often pushing out the native plants that have been living in that same habitat for much longer. The theory of plasticity suggests that plants that are good invaders because they are inherently good at responding to new environments. Plasticity can be expressed in a variety of ways, from changes in the morphology of the plant to changes in its physiological processes. If invasive plants are inherently better at adapting to changing environments, global climate change will give them an advantage over non-invasive plants which could be demonstrated by a greater than historical rate of plant invasions around the world. Plants have been shown to respond to increasing atmospheric CO₂ by differing amounts of stomata, the pores that allow for CO₂ uptake, on the leaf surface. Several studies have demonstrated this using herbarium samples and fossils. In this study, we theorized that invasive plants, if more plastic than non-invasive plants, would show a greater rate of change in their stomatal numbers than non-invasives over the last century (as atmospheric CO₂ concentrations have increased by ~25%.) Leaf surface impressions were taken of three congeneric species pairs, one invasive and one non invasive, from herbarium samples from the past 120 years. Their stomatal numbers were compared over this time span and so far the data shows that the invasive plant Rumex acetosella is showing a faster response to increasing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations than non-invasive plant Rumex venosus. We are currently studying more species pairs and integrating climate data into the analysis to develop a more accurate picture of how this trend could be exhibited over multiple plant families.

The historical narrative of the anti-apartheid movement highlights the importance of continued activism during incarceration, most notably championing Nelson Mandela and his colleagues on Robben Island. Lesser known, but no less important, are the contributions of women political prisoners. An analysis of women’s first-person accounts of incarceration reveals the breadth of their anti-apartheid activism, as well as the depth of their ongoing involvement during incarceration. Though women’s reports feature a number of common experiences, the varying medium through which they speak shapes their narratives in important ways. Through a close reading of the autobiographies of Ellen Kuzwayo and Caesarina Kona Makhoere, and the testimonies of Theresa Ramashamola and Zahrah Narkedien before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), I attempt to identify the ways in which the medium of expression shapes the message. Sustained analysis of primary sources is supplemented with critical theory on the genre of autobiography and literary criticism of Kuzwayo’s and Makhoere’s books. In addition, I engage myriad commentaries on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, particularly regarding gendered experiences of testifying before that government sanctioned body. My study reveals that autobiographies emphasize the solidarity of inmates, and the power to collectively mobilize protests against poor sanitation, inedible food and unbearable work conditions. Frequently the authors narrate the experiences of other inmates. TRC testimonies, on the other hand, focus on individual experiences of torture and degradation, frequently affirming the detrimental long term effects of solitary confinement. The emphasis of community in autobiographical accounts, when compared to the disastrous results of solitary confinement featured in testimony before the TRC, reifies the power of the collective, both as a means of directing resistance and as a source of comfort to detainees.

Exposure to child maltreatment often leads to negative outcomes across the life-course, however research has demonstrated that some individuals who experience maltreatment develop without adjustment difficulties in psycho-social functioning. These individuals are commonly referred to as resilient. The current study seeks to understand the role of relationships in fostering resilience for adults who experienced maltreatment in childhood. The sample for the current study was drawn from a 30 year prospective longitudinal study of family violence. Participants were initially sampled from multiple community settings and two child welfare agencies. During the adult wave of data collection research interviewers were asked to identify individuals who, in their opinion, were “resilient” in adulthood. From this pool of interviewer-identified resilient cases, we selected a random sample of adults (N=10) who, as children, had documented cases of child maltreatment (child welfare groups). In adulthood participants were asked open-ended questions about the presence and role of significant relationships in their lives. Using a grounded theory approach to data analysis, these open-ended responses were coded for emerging themes to understand how relationships facilitate the emergence of resilience for adults who experienced maltreatment as children. Emerging themes are suggesting that significant relationships had components of practicality (providing basic needs of food and shelter), emotional connection (love and unconditional care), and role-modeling (modeling how to live life). For the participants sampled in this analysis, significantly influential relationships were located within the family system where child maltreatment occurred. The current analysis highlights the multiple ways that significant relationships supported resilience for our maltreated sample. Because the study participants identified members of their family system as significant in facilitating resilience, future analyses could benefit from understanding how significant relationships form, maintain, and become sources of support within an abusive family system.

The purpose of this study was to collect adult norms on how adults process syntactic aspects of language. Specifically, we used event-related-potentials (ERPs) to investigate the feasibility of using ERPs to study children’s syntactic processing in natural speech. We focused on the verb “be” both as a copula (e.g., He is happy, They are sad) and as an auxiliary (e.g., He is running, They are walking). To assess how the brain encodes syntactic information, we used ERPs to measure electrical activity in the brain related to linguistic processing. Previous research has shown that one ERP component, the P600 response, is a language relevant ERP elicited by grammatical errors. The P600 is a positive peak beginning around 500ms after hearing a syntactic error. We used the P600 component to measure processing of “be” verbs. Adults with typical language participated in this study. While wearing scalp electrodes, participants passively attended to a cartoon video. The audio for the cartoon contained stimuli that included both correct and incorrect statements. Stimuli included singular and plural "be" forms as well as auxiliary and copula forms. Incorrect statements involved omissions of the appropriate "be" verb (e.g., He running, They sad). The P600 was measured as the mean amplitude between 600-1000ms. We expect to see significant P600s following errors for auxiliary and copula "be." Also, because both the copula and auxiliary "be" have similar grammatical properties, similar P600 values for both types of stimuli are predicted. Our long-term goal is to determine whether measuring the P600 using videos with natural speech is an effective way to measure syntactic processing. Stimuli presented via cartoon videos would be an ideal method for measuring neural processing in toddlers, ages 2-4 who are developing correct use of copula and auxiliary “be" but who cannot complete traditional P600 experimental tasks.

Liquid water cannot currently exist on the surface of Mars because of its low surface temperature and atmospheric pressure, but subsurface liquid water could exist near a location of subsurface volcanic or hydrothermal activity, creating an environment that might potentially house Martian life. Finding subsurface heat sources using solely surface temperature data is ineffective, though, because the diverse physical properties of the Martian surface make even nighttime temperatures highly variable. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which measures the surface radiance at 9 different wavelengths in the infrared spectrum at a spatial sampling of 100 meters per pixel, can be used to better detect subsurface volcanic or hydrothermal heat sources. Because variation in temperature has different effects on the radiance values at different wavelengths, surfaces with a small contribution (<~1% surface area) of temperature irregularities can be more accurately detected by comparing the radiance values of each pixel at band 9 (12.57 microns) and band 4 (8.56 microns) with the values expected of an isothermal surface. Pixels of interest correspond to locations on the Martian surface that can be mapped using the Java Mission-planning and Analysis for Remote Sensing (JMARS) program in order to determine its local geological context, and are then further examined using high resolution visible images. Thus far, research of this sort has not detected any geothermal or hydrothermal activity, but this type of analysis can continue to be improved and used in order to search for locations of thermal anomalies as small as 10 meters across. This process can also be used to provide insight into more general Martian surface properties and geologic processes.

One method of treating Factor VIII (FVIII) deficient hemophilia A is using non-viral FVIII plasmid injection to produce therapeutic levels of FVIII expression. However, roughly 30% of hemophilia A patients develop robust humoral immune response against FVIII, resulting in a loss of FVIII activity. CD4+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) may help in modulating immune response. A heterozygous knocked-in Foxp3/Tg mice produces CD4+ T cells that over-express the transcription factor, Foxp3 and exert regulatory function. In order to investigate the effectiveness of Tregs in suppressing the FVIII-specific immune response, we developed a strain of double transgenic mouse, hemophilia A (HemA)Foxp3/Tg by crossbreeding of HemA mice with the heterozygous Foxp3 mice. We used two methods to screen for the Foxp3 gene in the transgenic mice: PCR and flow cytometry. We found that flow cytometry produced more definite results, and is thus our primary method used to screen for the gene. This strain of mice is maintained by breeding heterozygous HemAFoxp3/Tg mice with HemA mice. Only half of the offspring are heterozygous Foxp3 positive. These HemAFoxp3/Tg mice are then injected with FVIII plasmid to produce antigen-specific Tregs, which is subsequently adoptively transferred into HemA mice. The recipient mice are then challenged with FVIII plasmid. We see a decreased antibody production, a low but consistent level of FVIII production, and a consistent level of engraftment of Tregs in the mice. These combined results indicate that antigen-specific Treg cells can provide long-lasting protection against antigen-specific immune responses in vivo.

Fluorinated telomer or fluorotelomer compounds are synthetic chemicals widely used in the carpet and paper industries. The compounds have been identified as precursors to perfluorinated carboxylic acids, which are highly persistent, moderately bioaccumulative and potentially carcinogenic. The objective of this study was to observe the hydrolytic stability of 1H,1H-Perfluoro-N-Decyl acrylate (C13H5F19O2) under different temperatures and pH conditions. The samples were prepared in 50mL serum vials with a starting concentration of 100ppb of 1H, 1H-Perfluoro-N-Decyl acrylate in buffer solution. The buffer solution was made with .1N NaOH and .1M of H3BO3 in .1M of KCl solution. Data from initial experiments performed under pH 9 at temperatures: 35°C, 45°C and 55°C will be presented. Loss of the compound of interest was measured using gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS) after extraction using ethyl acetate. Observed hydrolytic rates were as follows: at 35°C, 0.1177 ppb/day, at 45°C, 0.5645 ppb/day and at 55°C, 1.008 ppb/day. These results suggest the compound is hydrolytically unstable under basic conditions and the degradation rate increased with an increase in temperature. Understanding the hydrolytic stability of 1H,1H-Perfluoro-N-Decyl acrylate is important as it may enter aquatic systems through various routes including urban run off, drainage, waste disposal and industrial effluent and may lead to the production of perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCAs) in the environment. Future work will focus on testing the hydrolytic stability of related compounds under other pH conditions and temperatures.

The issue of global climate change and the adverse effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide on the environment have made the reduction of CO₂ emissions a global priority. One method of reducing CO₂ emitted into the environment is through the conversion and utilization of CO₂ as a chemical feedstock. Among its attractions is that CO₂ is cheap, nontoxic and can be recycled to produce valuable new products. The increasing importance of CO₂ utilization processes encourages the pursuit of a better understanding of the conversion of CO₂ to valuable products. The industrial conversion of CO₂ typically occurs over a heterogeneous catalyst, which typically consists of small transition metal particles supported on a high surface area metal oxide. Our project is focused on studying the water-gas shift (WGS) reaction on platinum, an extensively studied catalyst with a highly active surface. The water-gas shift plays an important role in several industrial processes. We are specifically interested in whether the reaction proceeds on platinum via the surface oxidation-reduction reaction mechanism or the associative mechanism. The rate of the reverse water-gas shift (RWGS) reaction will be measured to provide information about the WGS mechanism. The experimental apparatus for this study is a packed bed reactor designed for use in steady-state isotopic-transient kinetic analysis (SSITKA) which has switching capabilities that will be used to measure the Pt surface areas of the catalyst. Our goals are to (1) quantitatively measure the RWGS rate under conditions of low CO and H coverage and (2) compare it to the rate of CO₂ dissociation, the rate-limiting step according to the oxidation-reduction mechanism and to the theoretical rate calculated using a micro-kinetic model based on the associative mechanism.

In the United States, nearly 800,000 people suffer from stroke every year. Approximately 25 percent of these patients demonstrate learned nonuse: a tendency to use affected limbs below the level of the individual’s true capability. Some patients may develop perceptions of their maximal capability that are lower than their actual physical capability. To address the patients' perceived limitations, we are exploring the use of visual feedback distortion, which is where the visual feedback a patient receives about his movement is distorted from reality through a virtual environment. Previous research has shown that individuals rely more on visual feedback than on kinesthetic feedback. Therefore, as patients follow the virtual visual cue, they may unknowingly exceed their self-imposed maximal capability by up to 20 percent. For patients to trust the visual representation, they must not notice the distortion. Therefore, we are researching the minimal force and position distortion that can be reliably perceived by these patients. This value is called the Just Noticeable Difference (JND). The Neurobotics lab at UW is interested in investigating the role of robotic equipment to improve motor control of the hand. We are currently focusing on the movement of the index finger about the metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint and a pinching motion between the index finger and thumb. Using MATLAB, we have created visual representations of the force and position of a haptic robot that is attached to a patient’s finger. Preliminary results suggest that visual feedback distortion improves range of motion in patients with learned nonuse. To replicate these results in a larger sample, we plan to implement this setup in a hospital. Furthermore, by comparing the movement of these patients with that of healthy people, we aim to identify useful parameters to distort in order to reestablish normal movement.

Solar photovoltaics have great potential to wean us from our dependence on fossil fuels, but there are challenges that must be overcome before they can be deployed on the large scale. Costs associated with the production, installation, and maintenance of photovoltaic modules over the course of their lifetime make them more expensive than both fossil fuels and other renewable energy technologies. Because the silicon base of today’s solar photovoltaics make up a large portion of their cost, one approach to overcome the financial barrier facing them is finding new types of photovoltaics. Solution-processable materials that are compatable with inexpensive roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques – such as printing and spray coating – are one possible avenue toward lowering the cost of photovoltaics. Solution processable materials include both semiconducting polymers and colloidal inorganic nanocrystals, also called quantum dots (QDs). Traditionally, research on QDs has mainly focused on materials such as CdSe and PbSe. However, due to restrictions on material abundance and ease of extraction, many of these classically studied materials have limited potential to provide energy on the large scale. In contrast, nanocrystals made of Fe2S, Cu2S, and NiS have now been identified as promising candidate materials for the next generation of photovoltaics incorporating colloidal nanocrystals as they combine low material costs with solution-processability. In this work we develop syntheses of these candidate materials and use spectroscopy to screen them for their viability in blends film with various semiconducting polymers. By using the combination of synthetic and spectroscopic techniques available to us, we explore a new generation of inexpensive and efficient solution-processed photovoltaics.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia in elderly adults. Despite a variety of hypotheses about physiological causes of the disease, increasing evidence suggests that deficits in synaptic transmission (biochemical signaling between individual neurons) and plasticity (long-term changes in synaptic transmission) may be involved. Synaptic scaling is a form of homeostatic plasticity in which individual neurons alter their synaptic strength in a global manner in response to changes in network activity, and depends on intracellular calcium levels. Presenilin 1 (PS1) is a transmembrane protein expressed in neurons whose normal function has yet to be elucidated, but is thought to be involved in the regulation of intracellular calcium levels. Mutations in presenilins are the most common cause of inherited or Familial AD (FAD). Here we report deficits in the ability of cultured hippocampal neurons lacking PS1 (PS1 KO) to exhibit synaptic scaling. Chronic inhibition of network activity with 24-48 hour pre-treatment with the action potential-blocker tetrodotoxin increased the amplitude of miniature excitatory post-synaptic currents (mEPSCs) in wild-type (WT) neurons, indicating an increase in synaptic strength. PS1 KO neurons did not exhibit an increase in mEPSC amplitude after the same treatment. In contrast, chronic enhancement of network activity with 24-48 hour pre-treatment with the GABA-receptor antagonist bicuculline decreased mEPSC amplitude in WT neurons, indicating a decrease in synaptic strength. PS1 KO neurons exhibited a decrease in mEPSC amplitude comparable to WT after the same treatment, indicating that they could still scale down. We are currently investigating whether virally-mediated expression of PS1 in PS1 KO neurons will rescue their ability to scale up. Investigating relationships between synaptic scaling and FAD-linked mutations in PS1 can inform our understanding of homeostatic plasticity, the function of PS1 in healthy cells, and biological factors important to the pathogenesis of AD.