Collected here are faculty and staff works, both creative and academic.
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Prion protein gene sequence and chronic wasting disease susceptibility in white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Adam L. Brandt, Amy C. Kelly, Michelle L. Green, Paul Shelton, Jan Novakofski, and Nohra E. Mateus-Pinilla
The sequence of the prion protein gene (PRNP) affects susceptibility to spongiform encephalopathies, or prion diseases in many species. In white-tailed deer, both coding and non-coding single nucleotide polymorphisms have been identified in this gene that correlate to chronic wasting disease (CWD) susceptibility. Previous studies examined individual nucleotide or amino acid mutations; here we examine all nucleotide polymorphisms and their combined effects on CWD. A 626 bp region of PRNP was examined from 703 free-ranging white-tailed deer. Deer were sampled between 2002 and 2010 by hunter harvest or government culling in Illinois and Wisconsin. Fourteen variable nucleotide positions were identified (4 new and 10 previously reported). We identified 68 diplotypes comprised of 24 predicted haplotypes, with the most common diplotype occurring in 123 individuals. Diplotypes that were found exclusively among positive or negative animals were rare, each occurring in less than 1% of the deer studied. Only one haplotype (C, odds ratio 0.240) and 2 diplotypes (AC and BC, odds ratios of 0.161 and 0.108 respectively) has significant associations with CWD resistance. Each contains mutations (one synonymous nucleotide 555C/T and one nonsynonymous nucleotide 286G/A) at positions reported to be significantly associated with reduced CWD susceptibility. Results suggest that deer populations with higher frequencies of haplotype C or diplotypes AC and BC might have a reduced risk for CWD infection – while populations with lower frequencies may have higher risk for infection. Understanding the genetic basis of CWD has improved our ability to assess herd susceptibility and direct management efforts within CWD infected areas.
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Joseph Mitchell and the City: A Conversation with Thomas Kunkel and Gay Talese
Thomas Kunkel
On Oct. 07, 2015, former President Thomas Kunkel, author of Man in Profile: Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker (Random House, 2015) and President of St. Norbert College, joined Gay Talese, journalist at Columbia University for an event called “Joseph Mitchell and the City: A Conversation with Thomas Kunkel and Gay Talese.” The two, joined by Steve Coll, staff writer at The New Yorker and Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, discussed Joseph Mitchell and his status as an “icon of New York history”.
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Returning to your alma mater...and I'm not talking about homecoming!
Cristi Burrill
Thought piece on returning to work for your alma mater. Published to the NASPA Women in Student Affairs Knowledge Community blog.
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Memories of Franziska
Mary Alyce Lach SSND
This story is a glimpse into the life of Franziska Huber Gerhardinger, the mother of Blessed Mother Theresa, the Foundress of the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
Franziska was a joy-filled woman with a generous heart. In love and faith, she contributed everything she had to the young community of the School SIsters of Notre Dame.
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The Land Scouts: Guide Book
Katie D. Ries
The Land Scouts promote modern land stewardship and are open to all. The Guide Book gives an overview of the scouts as well as information on getting started earning badges and hosting a troop.
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Interlibrary Loan Article Use and User GPA: Findings and Implications for Library Services
Mitchell Scott
A recent institutional study at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay investigated the academic achievement of interlibrary loan (ILL) users as compared to non-ILL users. While this study provided important local insight into ILL use and the demographics of ILL users (class rank, major), it uncovered a rather minor overall GPA difference,.20 GPA points, between ILL users and non-ILL users. However, within these data was an interesting subset that once thoroughly investigated, provided rich details about ILL article use, the users who rely on ILL for articles, and the GPA differences between users across the spectrum of ILL article use. The resulting analysis compares users who use ILL for a large number of articles, those who use ILL for a medium number of articles, those who use ILL for a small number of articles, and those who do not use ILL. Takeaways from the data presented should provide libraries and practitioners with a greater understanding of ILL article use, its role in user information-seeking behaviors, its correlational effect on student academic achievement, and for whom—ILL article users—libraries are incurring the high cost of articles through ILL.
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Shedding Gender Stigmas: Work-life Balance Equity in the 21st Century
Erica M. Southworth
The gender stigma of work-life balance (WLB) policies as concessions for mothers and female caregivers originated with the push by the Women’s Movement for gender workplace equity in the late 20th century. Unfortunately, this perception continues in the 21st century and retains the additional stigma of employee participation in these policies–—regardless of gender–—as a detrimental career move. Thus, home and work responsibilities for professionals of all genders who desire more occupational flexibility remain unreconciled. Despite this dominant national and international outlook, this article encourages new century organizations and profes- sionals to reject the traditional perception of occupational inequity through gender- colored glasses and instead contemplate the benefits of WLB policies void of gender stigmas. Specifically, organizations could re-create workplace culture with stigma- free WLB policies through administrative leaders’ embracement of and participation in such policies, which may pave the way for establishing occupational equity. Through workplace culture re-creation, organizations may then offer employees–—regardless of gender, marital status, or company position–—flexible work options to assist them in leading happy, healthy, and more productive lives.
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The Kindness of Flowers
Kenneth Zahorski
In this volume, readers will find a broad spectrum of poetry, ranging from intimate recollections of growing up on a small Wisconsin dairy farm to firsthand observations about family, love, travel, nature, seasons, and life's passages. But whatever the subject, and whether waxing serious or whimsical, the author's aim is always for clarity, accessibility, authenticity, and fresh perspective on the familiar and ordinary. In addition, he hopes to engage our feelings, to make his readers active participants in the poetic journey upon which they are about to embark.
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The Elephants of Gash-Barka, Eritrea: Nuclear and Mitochondrial Genetic Patterns
Adam L. Brandt, Yohannes Hagos, Yohannes Yacob, Victor David, Nicholas J. Georgiadis, Jeheskel Shoshani, and Alfred L. Roca
Eritrea has one of the northernmost populations of African elephants. Only about 100 elephants persist in the Gash-Barka administrative zone. Elephants in Eritrea have become completely isolated, with no gene flow from other elephant populations. The conservation of Eritrean elephants would benefit from an understanding of their genetic affinities to elephants elsewhere on the continent and the degree to which genetic variation persists in the population. Using dung samples from Eritrean elephants, we examined 18 species-diagnostic single nucleotide polymorphisms in 3 nuclear genes, sequences of mitochondrial HVR1 and ND5, and genotyped 11 microsatellite loci. The sampled Eritrean elephants carried nuclear and mitochondrial DNA markers establishing them as savanna elephants, with closer genetic affinity to Eastern than to North Central savanna elephant populations, and contrary to speculation by some scholars that forest elephants were found in Eritrea. Mitochondrial DNA diversity was relatively low, with 2 haplotypes unique to Eritrea predominating. Microsatellite genotypes could only be determined for a small number of elephants but suggested that the population suffers from low genetic diversity. Conservation efforts should aim to protect Eritrean elephants and their habitat in the short run, with restoration of habitat connectivity and genetic diversity as long-term goals.
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Howard Pyle in Wisconsin
Shan Bryan-Hanson, Heather Campbell Coyle, Sally Cubitt, and St. Norbert College
Excerpts from Howard Pyle in Wisconsin. The book itself is available for purchase from the St. Norbert College Art Galleries or the Green Bay and De Pere Antiquarian Society.
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Forest elephant mitochondrial genomes reveal that elephantid diversification in Africa tracked climate transitions
Adam L. Brandt, Yasuko Ishida, Nicholas Georgiadis, and Alfred L. Roca
Among elephants, the phylogeographic patterns of mitochondrial (mt) and nuclear markers are often incongruent. One hypothesis attributes this to sex differences in dispersal and in the variance of reproductive success. We tested this hypothesis by examining the coalescent dates of genetic markers within elephantid lineages, predicting that lower dispersal and lower variance in reproductive success among females would have increased mtDNA relative to nuclear coalescent dates. We sequenced the mitochondrial genomes of two forest elephants, aligning them to mitogenomes of African savanna and Asian elephants, and of woolly mammoths, including the most divergent mitogenomes within each lineage. Using fossil calibrations, the divergence between African elephant F and S clade mitochondrial genomes (originating in forest and savanna elephant lineages, respectively) was estimated as 5.5 Ma. We estimated that the (African) ancestor of the mammoth and Asian elephant lineages diverged 6.0 Ma, indicating that four elephantid lineages had differentiated in Africa by the Miocene–Pliocene transition, concurrent with drier climates. The coalescent date for forest elephant mtDNAs was c. 2.4 Ma, suggesting that the decrease in tropical forest cover during the Pleistocene isolated distinct African forest elephant lineages. For all elephantid lineages, the ratio of mtDNA to nuclear coalescent dates was much greater than 0.25. This is consistent with the expectation that sex differences in dispersal and in variance of reproductive success would have increased the effective population size of mtDNA relative to nuclear markers in elephantids, contributing to the persistence of incongruent mtDNA phylogeographic patterns.
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Eternal Delight and Deliciousness: The Book of Jonah After Ten Years
Tom Bolin
This article reviews scholarship on the Book of Jonah in the decade after the publication of Thomas M. Bolin, Freedom Beyond Forgiveness: The Book of Jonah Re-Examined. Works by Yvonne Sherwood, Sergei Frolov, Ehud Ben Zvi, and Theodore Perry.
