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Phytochemicals and Human Health
No full textThis review explores the intricate relationship between phytochemical intake and human health. It first highlights the contrast between the phytochemical-poor Standard American Diet (SAD) and ancestral diets rich in diverse plant and animal foods. The classification, sources, and health benefits of various phytochemicals, including polyphenols, flavonoids, alkaloids, and terpenes are described and discussed. The bioavailability of these compounds and their interactions with the gut microbiome are elucidated, emphasizing on their potential in modulating multiple pathways associated with aging and chronic diseases. The 12 hallmarks of aging and how phytochemicals may influence these hallmarks are reviewed. While exploring the potential benefits of a phytochemical-rich diet in promoting longevity and preventing age-related diseases, the review also acknowledges limitations in current research and potential negative effects of certain compounds. Further investigation is needed regarding the complex interactions between phytochemical intake, aging, and chronic diseases. In conclusion, existing research suggests that a diet rich in diverse, minimally processed plant foods and pasture-raised animal products may offer significant health benefits through their phytochemical content
Investigating the Role of RPS3 in the Homologous Recombination Dna Repair Pathway
No full textRibosomal proteins have been demonstrated to perform extra-ribosomal functions beyond protein synthesis, including roles in cell signaling, transcription regulation, apoptosis, and DNA repair. Ribosomal protein S3 (RPS3), in particular, has been implicated in DNA repair and apoptosis pathways, suggesting a critical role in maintaining genomic stability. However, the specific mechanisms involving RPS3 are still unknown, particularly in the context of double-stranded break (DSB) repair. DSBs are among the most severe types of DNA damage, often resulting in chromosomal instability or cell death if not properly repaired. Nonhomologous End Joining (NHEJ) and Homologous Recombination (HR) are the two primary DNA repair pathways of DSB repair. RPS3 has been shown to interact with RNF138, an E3 ligase involved in the RAD51 HR pathway. Based on these findings, I hypothesize that RPS3 facilitates homologous recombination mediated DNA repair during cellular stress by interacting with components of HR. To investigate this hypothesis, AlphaFold, an AI-based predictive modeling software, was utilized to predict possible direct interactions and structures of HR components with RPS3. Computational data suggests that RPS3 forms a ternary protein complex with RNF138 and RAD51D, two proteins directly involved in HR. To experimentally test for direct interactions, a Yeast-2-Hybrid assay was performed. However, Under the most stringent selection conditions, no direct interaction was detected between RPS3 and the tested HR proteins. Based on this data, I speculate that RPS3 may need additional cofactors to assist it in binding to HR proteins and assist in DSB repair. Future investigations should test RPS3 expression levels, folding configuration, and other binding factors. These findings will contribute to a more thorough understanding of RPS3’s role in Homologous Recombination and possible cellular stress response sensed during protein translation, potentially guiding the development of targeted therapies related to DSB repair deficient cancers
Translating Theory Into Practice: Mediating Academic Advising Reform at Scale Through Improvement Science
No full textImproving student outcomes at community colleges is a difficult, multifaceted problem. While no single approach can be a panacea for such a challenging problem of practice, Guided Pathways (GP) research suggests a scalable reform model that may ultimately help to improve the underlying systems and structures colleges have designed to support their students, and in turn, may help colleges to achieve the goal of improved student outcomes more consistently. Because of the breadth of the GP model’s recommendations for reform, however, implementation is complex. To be effective, each of the reforms must be localized, adopted, and brought to scale within a variety of college contexts. The current body of GP research suggests no mechanism by which these complexities might be navigated at the campus level. Improvement science, a systematic approach to process improvement widely utilized in manufacturing and healthcare settings, and increasingly important in an educational context, provides a potential framework to address the complicated operational questions raised during GP implementation. Using an improvement science approach, this study details the work at one medium sized community college to rapidly test and scale the changes necessary to effectively implement educational planning—a key academic advising reform, and one of the foundational recommendations within the Pathways model—for all students. Using improvement science methods to explore and understand the root causes for variation within the college’s existing advising system, a theory of change was developed, and three iterative PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) cycles were completed, resulting in the redesign of the academic advising process during new student onboarding, and in a significant increase in planning activity as compared to the baseline. Based on the success of this project, the study identifies several additional, related processes that could result in further improvement, and concludes that adopting improvement science methods more widely may be a beneficial addition to the college’s overall efforts to achieve the meaningful, sustained improvement of outcomes for its students
The Impact of Geographic and Community Diversity on the Transitionary Experiences of International College Athletes
No full textInternational college athletes migrating to the United States for athletic competition encounter unique challenges such as language barriers, cultural adjustment, and familial detachment. These obstacles can hinder international college athletes’ transition compared to those of domestic athletes. While supportive programming and personnel have been illustrated to ease the transition and foster acculturation among international college athletes, the impact of the geographic location of an institution may impact the acculturation process for international college athletes. Given the importance of acculturation to athletic and academic success, this study examined how cultural diversity within communities hosting NCAA member institutions affects international college athletes’ transition experiences. Findings from semi-structured interviews with 11 (n = 11) international college athletes currently competing in NCAA athletics indicate that on-campus and community geographic diversity influences international college athletes’ transition and overall experience. Accordingly, the findings of this study suggest that international college athletes face inherent challenges transitioning to the United States given the geographic location and homogenous communities of many colleges and universities in the United States
Satellite Radar Imagery Analysis for Ground Hazard Risk Monitoring in Railway Tracks and Slopes
No full textRailway transportation is essential to national economies globally, and disruptions from geohazards can result in significant operational delays and considerable economic consequences. Satellite radar technologies, including Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), offer an effective means to monitor geohazard risks across extensive railway networks. This thesis employs Multi-Temporal InSAR (MTInSAR) techniques, including Persistent Scatterer InSAR (PSInSAR) and Small Baseline Subset (SBAS), to identify high-risk areas along railway rights of way (ROW) prior to geohazard occurrences. However, the efficiency of these MT-InSAR and, consequently, the caliber of the data generated may be restricted by elements like topographical profile, vegetation, and surface soil properties. This thesis presents first a detailed site categorization approach to define areas according to site-specific characteristics, improving radar processing precision.
Next, this thesis adapted two Multi-Temporal InSAR techniques, i.e., PSInSAR and SBAS, to improve the detection of scatterers in the broader region of interest by introducing the new concept of a “Rolling SAR Image Stack.” Furthermore, three post-processing techniques were developed, i.e., “Thresholding,” “Accumulation,” and “Clustering Timeline,” that successfully detected the critical locations where geohazard failures may initiate. The thesis also demonstrates that these techniques, when used with Coherence Change Detection (CCD), a SAR method that is demonstrated to identify regions with high soil saturation, can improve hazard detection. The proposed approach demonstrates that modern SAR-based analysis provides useful tools for railway operators to detect critical locations prone to geohazards, which enhances safety and reduces interruptions by prompting immediate actions. This research underlines the relevance of combining data from soil and environmental sources with satellite observations to conduct complete hazard monitoring. Additionally, it underscores the necessity of future satellite technology developments to improve coverage and dependability
Relative Hazard Losses Along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts
No full textCoastal areas face a variety of natural hazards, many of which are increasing in frequency or severity due to climate change. Continued coastal development emphasizes the need for a better understanding of the impact of these hazards on coastal communities. This study aims to improve this understanding by investigating temporal, spatial, and causal patterns in county-level relative losses (RL) from hazards along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from 2001 to 2021. Three research questions are addressed: 1) Are relative losses increasing over time in coastal counties? 2) Where are the highest relative losses among coastal counties? and 3) Which hazards produce the largest losses among coastal counties?
Regression analysis, trend statistics, and ARIMA model forecasting reveal no significant trends in RL along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts or for any of their five coastal subregions over the two-decade study period. Regional ranking and hot spot analyses identify the most significant aggregate RL in the Western Gulf Region, reinforcing the area’s challenges in absorbing hazard losses. Flooding and Hurricane/Tropical Storm are two of the three largest loss-producing hazard types for the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and all five coastal subregions, and there are much fewer losses attributed to Coastal hazards than expected
Sensing Others
No full textIn this project, I notice how we listen and respond to animals, both through marine bioacoustics studies and rhetorical theory, and consider how we might develop new ways of noticing and interacting with animals. I hold together rhetorical theory, marine bioacoustics studies, and my observations nest sitting sea turtles to see what kind of multispecies ethic emerges from messy encounters with nonhuman others – specifically, with sea turtles nesting on the beaches of the Outer Banks in the Summer of 2020. By confronting the unavoidable moments of indecision, and even possible violence, inherent to encounters with nonhumans others, even and especially when approached through the lens of “sensing,” I reach towards a way of thinking about and interacting with nonhumans that is guided by a fundamental curiosity about who and what counts in our “survey of all available means of persuasion” and that doesn’t assume we can get along, or at least redefines what “getting along” means.
My aim in this project is to reach for an ethical practice of navigating this nonhuman world as best as we can, using all of our available senses and means of persuasion to move in more or less harmful ways – with a relentless curiosity about our nonhuman entanglements and the wherewithal to confront the lived experience of those entanglements, however fraught, uncomfortable, or disharmonious
Characterizing Dissolved Organic Matter Composition in a Southeastern United States Watershed
No full textDissolved organic matter (DOM) has important roles in many biogeochemical cycles. DOM is primarily composed of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nitrogen, and phosphorus, and the processing of DOM is important for nutrient regulation and carbon cycling. In the coastal plains of the southeastern United States, there are many rivers and streams known as “blackwaters” with exceptionally high concentrations of chromophoric dissolved organic matter (CDOM) leached from terrestrial soils, coinciding with a region experiencing some of the nation’s highest rates of development. As changes in land use and climate continue to occur, DOM composition from natural to anthropogenically impacted systems can shift from more refractory to more bioavailable forms. This results in increased microbial remineralization, with consequences such as dissolved oxygen (DO) deficits, eutrophication, harmful algal blooms, and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. The goal of this work was to establish baseline DOM concentrations and composition to decipher impacts on water quality due to naturally occurring versus anthropogenic activities by examining DOM composition in pristine, rural, and developed aquatic systems. Furthermore, assessing seasonal impacts and DOM degradation patterns is significant for predicting how blackwaters may respond to increased temperatures, more frequent and intense rainfall, and other future changes in climate and land use.
This thesis examines variability in DOM concentration and composition using a range of tools, including bulk carbon and nutrient concentrations, elemental ratios, absorbance spectroscopy, excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy paired with parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis, and Fourier-transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FT-ICR MS). The first chapter of this work establishes significant variability in DOM concentrations and composition across forested to developed blackwater systems in coastal South Carolina, U.S. The second chapter further assesses seasonal and interannual impacts on DOM composition, and the third chapter examines DOM degradation patterns with landcover. These results suggest that larger-scale changes in urbanization and environmental conditions drive DOM composition and sources to coastal waters, with implications for water quality and climate
Rapid Charging Lithium-Ion Batteries: Structure, Morphology, and Methodology
No full textThe initial commercialization and subsequent development of the lithium-ion battery (LIB) in 1991 has revolutionized the way that humans power devices, cars, and homes and led to the advent of many technologies that seemed impossible just half a century ago. As LIBs are integrated into more of daily life through handheld devices, wearable medical devices, transportation, and grid-level energy storage, the demand for fast charging and high energy density increases rapidly. To design a battery with these favorable qualities, an understanding of the effect of electrode crystal structure and electrode morphology on the ionic/electronic transport and failure modes must be developed. However, cause and effect relationships between material structure and material performance are traditionally hard to derive due to the convolution of many concurrent, rapid processes during battery charging in addition to the wide variety of materials and lack of direct comparisons between similar materials and methods in literature.
These challenges may be resolved with the comparison of lithiation behavior in isomorphic structures, which allows for an extraction of the effect of specific material dimensions such as crystallographic channel size and metal polyhedra size on transport properties. Similarly, different lithiation conditions with the same material allow for isolation of favorable charging conditions that improve capacity retention over unprecedented cycling lifetime. Additionally, the development of nanostructured oxides with tunable defect states allows identification of specific crystalline defects in electrodes which may be beneficial for LIB application. These insights allow for selection of ideal crystal features (structures and defects) and charging conditions for new, high-performance batteries
Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos: Hip-Hop and the Carceral State in the East San Francisco Bay Area
No full text“Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos: Hip-Hop and the Carceral State in the East San Francisco Bay Area” explores the histories of urban redevelopment and deindustrialization, racialized poverty, police and the carceral system, and hip-hop culture in Oakland and other parts of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area. It explores East Bay politics and urban development in the 1900s, which resulted in the flight of industries and wealthy white residents to the suburbs and the erosion of public services. Black community organizations and funk music alike articulated the damages done by these processes in the 1960s. Subsequently, politicians and the judicial system in the East Bay, California, and the United States worked to reverse many progressive prison and police reforms won in the Civil Rights era. Fears about crime, drugs, and violence by white Americans and bourgeois African Americans fueled the drive to a more punitive order. Police departments won nearly unchallenged authority. Legislators redefined crime and enhanced prison sentences, causing carceral populations to explode. Media, politicians, and police treated the new hip-hop culture, from rap music to graffiti and car shows, as nuisances, if not outright dangers to society, symbolic of a collapse of middle-class, white American moral order. At the same time, hip-hop culture in the 1980s became one of the primary mediums through which urban African Americans, especially in the Bay Area, expressed their frustrations with racialized poverty and policing. These trends came to a head in the early 1990s, when Bay Area rappers found their own music and lyrics treated as evidence of criminality and guilt in courts