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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 deprivation of necessary oxygen in aquatic environments, called hypoxia, may affect aquatic environments by influencing predator-prey interactions. Seasonal hypoxia in the form of low dissolved oxygen (DO) layers affect fish and zooplankton vertical migrations. Lower Hood Canal, located in Washington State, is vulnerable to hypoxia because of low water circulation and large anthropogenic inputs of phosphorous and nitrogen in runoff water. Low water circulation and high nutrient input, causes an increased abundance of marine organisms that use the oxygen, which depletes DO and can lead to fish deaths. The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of hypoxia on Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) zooplankton consumption. Time of year and geographic region within Hood Canal were used as variables to compare consumption at varying DO levels. Herring were sampled in July, September, and December. In December, samples were also collected in two regions that had different DO levels. Higher consumption rates were observed in July and September. Warmer months correspond with pre-hypoxic July and September’s hypoxic peak, while December is considered post-hypoxic. Selectivity of prey, such as larval crab, polycheates, and copepods, reflected seasonal abundance and availability of prey within the environment. Differences in prey consumption may also be attributed to variations of DO content in different regions of Lower Hood Canal. The study demonstrates the link between herring consumption of zooplankton and seasonal conditions.

In vertebrate innate immunity, the inflammasome detects pathogenic invaders and initiates the host’s inflammatory response to fight infection. The inflammasome forms when intracellular pathogen detectors called Nod-like receptors (NLRs) sense the presence of pathogens and oligomerize. The oligomer recruits and activates cleaving enzymes called inflammatory caspases, which in turn activate immune system signaling molecules called cytokines. These cytokines are secreted from the infected cell, initiating local inflammation. Our group is using zebrafish to study the evolutionary conservation of the inflammasome, as zebrafish have an expanded NLR gene family in comparison to mammals. Based upon the properties of conserved protein domains within zebrafish NLRs, we hypothesized that there are NLRs that either activate or inhibit inflammation, thus expressing a dual regulatory role in innate immunity. To test this hypothesis, we developed a yeast-2-hybrid assay to find protein interactions between “bait” plasmid constructs made from a known NLR-interacting protein and a “prey” library derived from zebrafish intestinal cDNA. Our screen yielded several potential interacting proteins using the yeast-2-hybrid approach, and these proteins are currently being tested through additional biochemical assays to rule out false interactions. Teleost fish and mammals last shared a common ancestor over 350 million years ago; therefore, using this comparative approach will help us to understand the evolution of inflammation in vertebrates.

Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign in 2008 invites study by students of Communication. Seeking to reconcile the public’s conflicting conceptions of the country’s problems while simultaneously striving to break historical precedent by becoming the first biracial and black candidate of a major party and then the first president, Obama's campaign relied heavily on narrative discourse. This narrative painted a compelling and convincing picture of the past, present, and future that the audience of the American people found persuasive and in many cases inspiring. To explain the rhetorical dynamics that contributed to and perhaps even accounted for Obama’s unexpected electoral victories, I will apply narrative analysis to a representative sample of his most prominent public speeches as well as key campaign documents such as his “Blueprint for America.” The goal of my project is to reveal the appeal of Obama’s campaign message and to shed light on how this message was able to transform the perceptions of the American people by animating audiences, inspiring volunteer workers and an unprecedented number of individual campaign contributors, and encouraging a grassroots enthusiastic support which helped to secure the presidency for Obama.

The expansion and retreat of the Antarctic ice sheet has a major impact on global sea level. It is difficult to model the extent of the ice sheet earlier than the most recent glaciation, but cosmic ray-produced isotopes in bedrock can be used to place limits on the extent of the ice sheet during past glaciations. Cosmic rays interact with the minerals in bedrock to produce unstable radioactive isotopes. We will measure the relative concentrations of two radioisotopes, aluminum-26 and beryllium-10, both of which are produced in quartz when exposed to cosmic rays. These isotopes increase in concentration when rock surfaces are exposed during interglacial periods, and decay at different rates when bedrock surfaces are shielded by ice during times of glacial cover. The ratio of these two isotopes is therefore sensitive to the length of exposure and burial of the bedrock. One possible complication is subglacial erosion, which can remove pre-exposed surfaces. However, by measuring concentrations of chlorine-36, which has a different production profile, we should be able to separate the effect of subglacial erosion from the glacial history of the surface. For this project, seven bedrock samples were collected on an elevation transect of Mt. Rigby in the Transantarctic Mountains. We separated minerals from whole rock samples and extracted the isotopes by ion-exchange chemistry. Isotope concentrations will be determined by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry.

Wireless sensing technology is currently among the most rapidly developing areas of research in electrical engineering. One advantage to wireless sensing is the ability to deploy noninvasive electronics in various environments for applications ranging anywhere from macro-scale sensing, such as glacial monitoring, to micro-scale sensing, such as biomedical implants. While the sizes of integrated circuits continue to shrink due to advanced fabrication processes, device power supply dimensions have emerged as a dominating constraint, limiting technological progress. One system subject to such a constraint is Encounternet, a network of wireless transceivers capable of continuously monitoring social interactions among song sparrows that is currently in development at the University of Washington’s Wireless Sensing Laboratory. In order to capture sufficient data from which meaningful observations can be extracted, wireless device run-time duration must be maximized, which typically implies that larger batteries with higher energy densities must be used. Unfortunately a sparrow can bear only up to 1.2g of weight, thus a trade-off between run-time duration and device weight must be addressed. In an effort to satisfy both specifications, three basic wireless sensor power supply architectures have been explored through simulation and experimentation: primary cell, rechargeable cell, and cell-free. It was found that for the initial deployment of Encounternet, use of a primary cell was the only feasible way to stay beneath the firm weight threshold. However, other wireless sensing devices, including future iterations of Encounternet, may be able to employ a rechargeable or cell-free power supply dependent upon their respective dimensional constraints.

Classical "Be" stars are massive, rapidly rotating stars having gaseous circumstellar decretion disks which are known to sometimes dissipate and regenerate. Since the mechanism for forming these disks is not known, observing these stars when they transition between a "Be" phase and a normal B star phase can help constrain what causes the disks to form. We have analyzed 15 years of spectroscopic and spectropolarimetric data from the Ritter and Pine Bluff Observatories of two "Be" stars, 60 Cygni (Cyg) and Pi Aquarii (Aqr), during which such a transition phase from Be to B star occurred. The time-scale of 60 Cyg's disk loss was 1000 days, during which the disk emission declined monotonically, while Pi Aqr's disk loss episode lasted 2440 days and was interrupted by two major injection events of new disk material. We used the wavelength dependence of polarization during each stars disk-less phase to determine the interstellar polarization. Analysis of the intrinsic polarization and H-alpha equivalent width measurements show that both disks faded in an inside-out manner, with timescales much longer than the orbital periods of their binary companions. We also detect small deviations away from the overall disk position angle in our polarization data; we speculate that this might be indicative of either a warp in the inner disk region or the injection of new disk material at an inclined orbit to the plane of the pre-existing disk. We also present our initial efforts to model time dependent behavior of our spectropolarimetric data using 3D Monte Carlo Radiative transfer codes.

Low mass stars such as M dwarfs are prime targets for exoplanet transit searches as their low luminosities and small stellar radii could enable detection of super-Earths residing in their habitable zones. While promising targets for transit searches, M dwarfs are also inherently variable and can exhibit up to 6.0 magnitude flux enhancements in the optical U-band. This is significantly higher than the predicted transit depths of super-Earths (0.005 magnitude flux decrease). The behavior of flares at infrared (IR) wavelengths, particularly those likely to be used to study and characterize M dwarf exoplanets using facilities such as the James Web Space Telescope, remains largely unknown. To address these uncertainties, we have executed a coordinated, contemporaneous monitoring program of the optical and IR flux of M dwarfs known to regularly flare. A suite of telescopes located at the Kitt Peak National Observatory and the Apache Point Observatory were used for the observations. We present the initial results of this program and discuss how flare events could influence future exoplanet detection and characterization studies in the IR.

This project is a product of collaboration between the Digital Arts and Electrical Engineering departments. The goal was to devise a system of interaction between bodily movement and 3D, real-time audio performance for Nicolas Varchausky’s sound installation “Speaker Performing Kiosk.” The final product is a small, battery-powered, light-weight device that is worn by a user and can transfer sensor information (both analog and digital, including serial communication with sensors that use I2C) to the SuperCollider audio programming language run on a remote computer.The device allows Varchausky to wirelessly use an accelerometer to measure bodily movement within his installation.  The research yields an easy-to-use device that can interface with SuperCollider, has a software implementation that is easily expandable for future sensors and devices, and a hardware implementation that can be easily interfaced with many other common digital software packages used within the digital arts (i.e. MaxMSP, Processing, PureData, etc.). The final product allows digital artists and musicians to use hardware and sensory devices creatively while removing the worry of designing a wireless hardware/software framework between the sensor and the computer. This allows artists to instead focus their energy on how to use the output of the sensor quickly and easily for the given project.

Each year approximately 5000 children fall from windows in the US, often sustaining serious injury. Little remains known about modifiable environmental risk factors for preventing these falls. Researchers at the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center conducted a pilot study to examine methods for studying factors associated with window design with interest in the presence of a window screen as risk factors. Windows through which children had fallen were matched to control windows in the same home and in the home of an age/gender matched child. Cases were identified when children were treated for window falls in the emergency department; controls were selected from among children treated for injury other than window falls. We measured the presence of a screen as well as the static resistance of these screens. Measurements included the minimum applied force at which the screen failed and the proportion that failed below calculated clinically-relevant thresholds. We obtained data on 18 case windows, 18 in-home control windows and 14 matched out-of-home controls, from April 1 to October 31, 2009. Of the 18 cases, 12 cases had screens that could be tested with 11 in-home control screens. Of the 14 controls, there were 12 screens eligible for testing. Approximately 50% of case screens and in-home matched control screens failed at 22 Newtons or less compared to 16.7% of the community control screens that failed at this level. At 44 N, no significant difference in failure proportion was observed. A case control study of window design and screen factors is possible. Screen presence does not appear to be a risk factor for pediatric window falls, however, screens in case households appear more likely than screens in community control homes to fail at levels of applied pressure comparable to the weight of a child leaning against the mesh.

Serotonin receptor type 1B (5-HT1B) plays an important role in addictive behavior. Specifically, it has been shown to regulate the rewarding properties of drugs of abuse such as cocaine and alcohol. These receptors, present in the brain’s reward pathway, are expressed on the terminals of nucleus accumbens shell (NAcSh) GABAergic neurons that project to dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). These receptors modulate dopamine tone in the NAcSh via disinhibition of dopamine release from VTA neurons. To date, there is no regionally selective method for targeting this population of neurons. We explore a novel method for region-specific knockdown of 5-HT1B receptors using short hairpin RNA (shRNA) interference to degrade 5-HT1B mRNA. ShRNA constructs were designed, cloned, and tested for mRNA knockdown efficacy using HeLa cells engineered to express 5-HT1B. The most promising construct, as indicated by quantitative PCR (qPCR) data, was packaged with herpes simplex virus and injected locally to the targeted area of interest. Here we present data for the validation of the construct using various techniques, including qPCR, immunohistochemistry, and behavioral models.

The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) lies in the midbrain and provides serotonergic innervation to multiple areas in the forebrain. One of these areas is the caudate-putamen complex or dorsal striatum (DS) which current research suggests is further divided into distinct subregions. The DS has been implicated in the obsessions that characterize obsessive-compulsive disorder and other addictive behaviors. Since some of these disorders respond to medicines that target the serotonin system, we investigated the serotonergic innervation of the rat DS by stereotaxically injecting retrogradely transported red (excitation at 605 Hz) and green (excitation at 515Hz) fluospheres. We used 35 Sprague Dawley rats ranging in weight from 300-360g. The red and green fluospheres were injected at three different coordinates: anterior dorsal medial, posterior dorsal medial and dorsal lateral striatum. After a five day waiting period, to allow the tracers to reach the DRN, rats were transcardially profused and 40µm coronal sections prepared on a vibratome were mounted on slides to be viewed under a fluorescent microscope. Preliminary data show fluosphere injections in the forebrain successfully transport retrogradely to discrete regions within the DRN and we are performing stereological analysis to quantify these results. Additionally, we will be using immunohistochemistry to verify the identity of these neurons as serotonergic. As an anatomical control, fluorescent signal was detected in the substantia nigra (SN) and signal was strongest in the rostral sections of the DRN corresponding to previous literature. The visualization of discrete subregions of DRN projecting to discrete subregions of the DS provide a rationale for further analysis of this circuitry.

I reconsider the apparent ease with which the Sandwich Islands Mission, sponsored by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), incorporated itself within the Hawaiian social order during the first half of the 19th century. On its face the Mission’s influence is perplexing; its contingent was numerically insignificant; it lacked the direct sponsorship of an imperial occupational force; and it sought a radical transformation of Hawaiian belief and behavior. The ABCFM spoke of their ‘instrumentality’ as a vehicle for the salvation of Heathen Hawaiian. Their standpoint contrasts markedly to the position of the Hawaiian monarchy, which, I argue, saw the Sandwich Islands Mission as serving important symbolic, political, and disciplinary purposes. After Cook’s arrival, alliances and relationships entered between Kamehameha, his governors, British imperial representatives, and capitalist merchants effectively severed the complex reciprocal bonds long established between the chiefs and priests, the commoners and the land. Successive waves of epidemic and disease halved the pre-contact population within a period of mere decades. A half-century after Cook, with the Hawaiian sociopolitical frame in transformation and illness constituting an ominous threat, the missionaries’ arrival was ultimately useful (though certainly problematic) for the Hawaiian monarchy. I claim that Hawaii’s entrance into the world system - politically, economically and epidemiologically - altered a pre-contact sociopolitical balance that would have otherwise significantly diminished the influence of the ABCFM in the early years of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Member states of the European Union must transpose European Commission directives into national law within a specified period of time. However, the EU is plagued with frequent episodes of member state non-compliance. Current scholarship suggests several factors that influence the timeliness of directive implementation – including state capacity to undertake directive characteristics, EU – member state conflict, directive specificity and flexibility, geographic polarization, and others – though little research to date has investigated how national electoral politics impacts transposition rates and timeliness. In this study, I investigate whether parliamentary election cycles help to explain variations in compliance with EC directives across nations. My analysis is based on sixteen years of compliance information across four policy sectors and fifteen EU member states. I expect to find that the presence or absence of parliamentary elections is a significant predictor of compliance. In addition, I control for other established variables in order to assess the relative importance of politics versus other considerations.