Size and color are important visual quantity attributes of the fruit of strawberry (Fmgaria x ananassa Duch.). Strawberry cultivars produce fruit of a characteristic size and color, the later being the result of accumulation of particular anthocyanins. This research sought to determine the basis for genotypic differences in fruit size...
Designing spectral efficient, high-speed wireless links that offer high quality-
of-service and range capability has been a critical research and engineering challenge. In this thesis, we mainly address the complexity and performance issues of
channel estimation and data detection in multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO)
orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over...
This study examined the role of acid- sensing ion channels (ASICs) in interneuron synaptic modulation. ASICS are ultra fine discriminators of acidic conditions in the neuronal microenvironment. Each ASIC subunit isoform has innate, subtly different electrophysiological properties and tissue distributions. Structurally, ASICs may form homo- or heteromeric channels, yielding combinatorial...
The Baculoviridae comprise a diverse group of occluded DNA viruses that contain large double-stranded DNA genomes of 80 - 180 kb and may encode up to 180 gene products. To understand how baculoviruses replicate and process their genomes and the gene products that are involved in these events, a series...
Tetracycline (Tet)-resistant strains of Chlamydia suis were isolated from swine
farms in the Midwest. The isolation of the resistant strains was significant
because Tet is an antibiotic used to treat infections by veterinarians and
doctors. One of the tetracycline (Tet)-resistant strains, R19, was able to
survive in Tet up to...
Graphium sp., a eukaryotic alkanotroph, is able to oxidize small-molecular weight gaseous n-alkanes, diethyl ether and the branched ether, methyl tert butyl ether
(MTBE). However, information regarding the biochemistry of fungal-mediated alkane and ether metabolism is limited, and questions regarding the identity of alkane oxidation catalysts and the genetic underpinnings...
In order to produce infectious virus progeny, vaccinia virus (VV)
undergoes morphogenic proteolysis to regulate the structural rearrangements of
virus particles. Several of the major structural precursor proteins of VV are
cleaved at a conserved Ala-Gly-X (where X is any amino acid) motif by the VV
I7L core protein proteinase...
More than 65,000 organic chemicals are currently in commercial production with
approximately 1000 added each year. Many chemicals are released into the environment as organic mixtures derived from complex hazardous or solid wastes. Of these, more than 1000 chemicals are of environmental concern because of their production quantities, toxicity, persistence,...
Overtly non-toxic doses of organochlorine (OC) insecticides perturb lipid homeostasis
in mice and rats. To increase understanding of how chlordecone (CD), an OC
insecticide, modulates cholesterol (CH) homeostasis, we determined the effect of CD
pretreatment on the tissue and hepatic subcellular distribution of exogenous [¹⁴C]CH. Corn oil alone or CD...
Most vertebrates exhibit seasonality in many life history traits. Such seasonal rhythms are temporally organized via the transduction of environmental cues (e.g., photoperiod, temperature) into appropriate endocrine signals. However, among ectothermic vertebrates that undergo continuous winter dormancy, temperature is the only environmental cue available for synchronizing seasonal rhythms. Most intriguing...