Chlamydia trachomatis is an obligate intracellular pathogen that utilizes a type III secretion system to enter mammalian cells and establish an intracellular niche. TARP, the translocated actin recruitment protein, is a chlamydial invasion protein...
Ischemic heart disease is the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in Western societies. Thus, understanding the molecular mechanisms to reduce myocardial ischemia and limit infarction size are of great importance. Ample evidence has shown that...
Bcl-2 proteins are major regulators of cellular responses to various apoptotic stimuli. Among them, overexpression of the anti-apoptotic BcI-2 protein BcI-xL modulates organelle-specific apoptotic pathways. To understand the mechanisms by which...
Congenital stationary night blindness 1 (CSNBl) is a genetic disorder characterized in humans by night blindness, low visual acuity and myopia. CSNB 1 is caused by defects in genes that are involved in signaling between photoreceptors and...
In blood coagulation, the serine protease thrombin is a multifaceted enzyme that interacts with multiple proteins. Thrombin utilizes two anion binding exosites (ABE-I and II) to supplement binding to fibrinogen and to the platelet receptor GpIbα,...
Many species of fungi undergo a dimorphic transition to switch from a unicellular yeast-like growth form to a filamentous growth form. Ustilago maydis undergoes such a transition, in response to successful mating events and subsequent host cues, to...
The distance education literature is lacking studies investigating the construct of social presence, the value placed on it by online learners, and whether its existence in text-based environments is necessary for learning, satisfaction, and...
Drug resistance in microorganisms; Salmonella typhimurium
Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is an enteric pathogen capable of infecting
a wide range of hosts. The manner in which this pathogen is able to interact with its
host is difficult to define, as is the case with most microbes. Through the...
Farmers' markets--Kentucky--Louisville; African Americans--Nutrition; African American consumers--Kentucky--Louisville; Health promotion--Kentucky--Louisville--Citizen participation; Food--Social aspects
The purpose of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the interactions and the
social environment of the local farmers' markets, Fresh Stops, and Healthy in a Hurry
Corner Stores in West Louisville and East Downtown. This study will...
College students--Attitudes; College dropouts; Dropout behavior, Prediction of; Academic achievement; Prediction of scholastic success
This study explored the relationship between engagement in educationally purposeful activities during the first year of college and academic achievement, persistence, and graduation. The study focused on the impacts of engagement on student...
Chronic periodontitis is strongly associated with composition of the oral biofilm
occupying the gingival crevicular aspect of the tooth and its associated root. Some gram-negative,
"red complex" bacteria instigate periodontal bone loss in...
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic autoimmune disorder that is subdivided into Crohn's disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC), and indeterminate colitis (IC). Epidemiological studies have proven that genetic variation increases...
This study defines a new approach for building a Web Services based infrastructure for distributed data mining applications. The proposed architecture provides a roadmap for "autonomic" functionality of the infrastructure hiding the...
Here, I address the function of the carboxy-terminal hydrophobic helix of the pro-apoptotic protein Bax. There has been considerable controversy as to whether this sequence is required for the targeting and insertion of Bax into the mitochondrial...
Dimorphism is a highly conserved process in fungi in which a transition between a unicellular, yeast-like growth form and either a unicellular or multicellular, filamentous growth form occurs in response to several different environmental cues. The...
This dissertation is composed of three essays in which I examine the influence of formal institutions on entrepreneurs and new firms. In the first essay, "The Influence of Institutions on the Likelihood of Self-Employment: A Multilevel...
The vast knowledge of nucleic acids is evolving and it is now known that DNA can adopt highly complex, heterogeneous structures. Among the most intriguing are the G-quadruplex structures, which are thought to play a pivotal role in cancer...
Monophosphoryl Lipid A (MPLA), a derivative of LPS endotoxin, is a TLR4 agonist that displays as little as 0.1-1% as much toxicity as its parent molecule while retaining immunostimulatory properties. We discovered that MPLA activates a TRIF-biased...
This dissertation is an investigation of the influence of individual characteristics and school climate on the participation in deviant behaviors. The literature review provides a review of adolescent development and theories that guide the...
Nonprofit organizations--Employees; Human services personnel
The goal of this study was to investigate the relationships among demographics variables (age, sex, and ethnicity), organizational culture, interpersonal self-efficacy, and perceived job performance of nonprofit human service workers. The 13...
