Above Adversity

First Plac

Master of Science

thesisResearch suggests that knowledge of a partner's attitudes is functional (e.g., Sanbonmatsu, Uchino, & Birmingham, 2011). This study examined the role of specific knowledge of a close friend's attitudes and more general knowledge of an unknown college student's attitudes in interpersonal decision making. We measured student attitudes toward 97 attitude objects as well as the attitudes of participants' close friends. Participants were then asked to make decisions in five hypothetical scenarios that centered on their friend or an unknown student. Results did not support the hypothesis that greater knowledge of others' attitudes would be associated with better interpersonal decisions. Additionally, narcissism and individualism were expected to be associated with less knowledge of others' attitudes, while self-monitoring and collectivism were predicted to be positively correlated with attitude familiarity. Results indicated there were no associations between these personality variables and knowledge of others' attitudes. An examination of gender differences indicated that females were more likely to show the predicted trends: greater knowledge of others' attitudes was associated with better quality decisions and the individual difference variables were more in keeping with predictions

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationCouples were recruited to report their attitudes, traits, health, relationship quality, and their perception of their partners' attitudes and traits. Using multilevel models (MLMs), we examined actor and partner effects for three types of partner knowledge: support preferences familiarity, attitude familiarity, and trait familiarity. We found that partners' social support preferences familiarity was related to greater perceived support, while actors' support preferences familiarity was associated with greater negative affect. Actors' attitude familiarity was related to higher perceived support, greater relationship satisfaction, and positive affect. Actors' trait familiarity was linked to greater perceived support, relationship satisfaction, higher positive affect, lower negative affect, and lower depression. We also examined whether differences in familiarity between partners was associated with poorer outcomes regarding our dependent variables. We found that differences between partners in support preferences familiarity was not related to relationship quality or health, while larger differences in attitude familiarity were only associated with greater negative affect, and larger differences in trait familiarity were associated only with lower relationship satisfaction. Finally, we studied the relationships between the personality variables of agreeableness, narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism and partner knowledge. It was found that partners' agreeability was related to greater trait familiarity and partners' narcissism was associated with greater support preferences familiarity. The other personality variables were unrelated to partner knowledge. Additionally, when we examined the associations between our partner knowledge variables and dependent variables while controlling for these personality traits, the results were not significantly affected

Signals Delivered By Interleukin-7 Regulate The Activities Of Bim And Jund In T Lymphocytes

Interleukin-7 (IL-7) is an essential cytokine for lymphocyte growth that has the potential for promoting proliferation and survival. While the survival and proliferative functions of IL-7 are well established, the identities of IL-7 signaling components in pathways other than JAK/STAT, that accomplish these tasks remain poorly defined. To this end, we used IL-7 dependent T-cells to examine those components necessary for cell growth and survival. Our studies revealed two novel signal transducers of the IL-7 growth signal: BimL and JunD. IL-7 promoted the activity of JNK (Jun N-terminal Kinase), and that JNK, in turn, drove the expression of JunD, a component of the Activating Protein 1 (AP-1) transcription factors. Inhibition of JNK/JunD blocked glucose uptake and HXKII gene expression, indicating that this pathway was responsible for promoting HXKII expression. After a bioinformatics survey to reveal possible JunD-regulated genes activated early in the IL-7 signaling cascade, our search revealed that JunD could control the expression of proteins involved in signal transduction, cell survival and metabolism, including Pim-1. Pim-1, an IL-7 induced protein, was inhibited upon JNK or JunD inhibition. Our hypothesis that JunD positively regulated proliferation was confirmed when the proliferation of primary CD8+ T-cells cultured with IL-7 was impaired upon treatment with JunD siRNA. These results show that the IL-7 signal is more complex than the JAK/STAT pathway, activating JNK and JunD to induce rapid growth through the expression of metabolic factors like HXKII and Pim-1. When metabolic activities are inhibited, cells undergo autophagy, or cell scavenging, to provide essential nutrients. Pro-apoptotic Bim was evaluated for its involvement in autophagy. Bim is a BH3-only member of the Bcl-2 family that contributes to T-cell death. Partial rescue of iv T-cells occurs when Bim and the interleukin-7 receptor are deleted, implicating Bim in IL-7- deprived T-cell apoptosis. Alternative splicing results in three different isoforms: BimEL, BimL, and BimS. To study the effect of Bim deficiency and define the function of the major isoforms, Bim-containing and Bim-deficient T-cells, dependent on IL-7 for growth, were used. Loss of Bim in IL-7-deprived T-cells delayed apoptosis, but blocked the degradative phase of autophagy. The conversion of LC3-I to LC3-II was observed in Bim-deficient T-cells, but p62, which is degraded in autolysosomes, accumulated. To explain this, BimL, was found to support acidification of lysosomes associated with autophagic vesicles. Key findings showed that inhibition of lysosomal acidification accelerated death upon IL-7 withdrawal only in Bimcontaining T-cells, indicating that in these cells autophagy was protective. IL-7 dependent Tcells lacking Bim were insensitive to inhibition of autophagy or lysosomal acidification. BimL co-immunoprecipitated with dynein and Lamp1-containing vesicles, indicating BimL could be an adaptor for dynein to facilitate loading of lysosomes. In Bim deficient T-cells, lysosometracking probes revealed vesicles of less acidic pH. Over-expression of BimL restored acidic vesicles in Bim deficient T-cells, while other isoforms, BimEL and BimS, associated with intrinsic cell death. These results reveal a novel role for BimL in lysosomal positioning that may be required for the formation of functional autolysosomes during autophag

Uncovering the secrets they keep – the role of parasites in food web ecology

Interactions involving parasites often account for large proportions of links within aquatic food webs, yet few studies integrate parasites into their food web analyses. This analysis compares three sets of highly resolved food webs that differ in taxa composition, space, and time for a subarctic lake system. Key topological food web metrics, including connectance, linkage density, and mean generality and vulnerability, were calculated to explore the impact parasites have on food web structure and functioning. Incorporating parasites into this lacustrine food web was shown to increase connectance, linkage density, and mean vulnerability, a result of unique properties of parasites and the links they participate in. Parasites in the total food web were involved in a large proportion of concomitant predation interactions with their free-living counterparts and numerous trematodes also participated in intra-guild predation, leading to the observed changes in key metrics. Additionally, the division of the total food web into its benthic and pelagic compartments further illustrated that parasites have different impacts in these two highly contrasting habitats, as very different values were reported for most key metrics measured. However, connectance was nearly identical in the two compartments. The higher-than-expected connectance in the benthic compartment was due to the life history strategies of the benthic compartment’s parasite taxa. Finally, this analysis explored the impact of a series of fish introductions and the consequences of their ten hitchhiking parasites on the key topological metrics measured. These additional nodes increased linkage density and mean vulnerability but had very little effect on the other measured metrics. This analysis highlights the importance of incorporating parasites, especially trophically-transmitted parasites, into food webs as they significantly alter key topological metrics and are therefore essential for understanding a system’s structure and functioning

Shannon Taylor in a Senior Voice Recital

This is the program for the senior voice recital of Shannon Taylor, held on November 1, 1996, in the McBeth Recital Hall, Mabee Fine Arts Center. Becky Moore accompanied on piano

Types of Subjective Well-Being and Their Associations with Relationship Outcomes

The authors examined the associations between three facets of subjective well-being (SWB; positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction) and relationship outcomes, employing multilevel models to analyze data from 90 couples. It was found that as participants’ self-reported positive affect increased, they also reported higher perceived support from their partners, greater relationship satisfaction, perceived partners as being more helpful and less upsetting in support situations, and rated their partners as more important. As self-reported negative affect increased, participants reported lower perceived support from partners, lower relationship satisfaction, and perceived partners as less helpful and more upsetting. As self-reported life satisfaction increased, participants reported higher perceived support from partners, greater relationship satisfaction, and rated partners as more helpful and less upsetting. It was also found that participants’ greater self-reported SWB was positively associated with their partners’ reported relationship outcomes, even after controlling for the partners’ own SWB. Thus, not only do those with higher SWB perceive their relationship as being of better quality, their partners also rate the relationship more positively. This finding suggests that people high in SWB do not just perceive their relationship as better, but create a better relationship for their partner as well. This finding also indicates that it is not just happy people perceiving everything, including their relationships, as superior, but that they have better relationships from the partner’s viewpoint