No description available.

Living cells manufacture and degrade thousands of chemical compounds in vivo. To do this cells rely on the activities of thousands of different protein catalysts distributed in aqueous interior compartments. Over the past several decades studies have shown that the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of most proteins, including enzymes, are different in vivo as compared to in vitro. Based on in vitro studies metabolic pathways have traditionally been thought to consist of intermediates randomly diffusing between soluble enzymes and are still portrayed as such in many biochemistry textbooks. A large number of metabolic pathways however are now known to exist as enzyme complexes due to molecular crowding effects in vivo. These differences have contributed to the controversy that surrounds explanations of how metabolic pathways are spatially organized and regulated in the living cell. The organization of enzymes in vivo is now thought to play a significant role in normal cellular physiology but evidence of this role, beyond intermediate channeling, is lacking. The long term goal of this work is to develop an experimental model and test the validity of theories concerning the spatial arrangement of enzymes in regulating metabolic pathways. The studies described in this dissertation have been focused on understanding how living cells organize metabolic pathways. I have examined some of the theoretical aspects of enzyme-enzyme interactions by modeling the complex formed by mitochondrial malate dehydrogenase and citrate synthase. These studies show that MDH and CS may bind in a specific orientation that facilitates the direct transfer of oxaloacetate from MDH to CS through a molecular channel. During these studies it was determined that A. thaliana does not encode stilbene synthase (STS), which catalyzes the first step in a pathway that competes with flavonoid biosynthesis in other plant species. Moreover, it was shown that flavonols are not required for pollen viability in A. thaliana as they are in maize and petunia. I also describe a novel method to clone fragments of DNA without ligase using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). To establish an experimental model I have used a variety of techniques to analyze interactions between enzymes in the well-characterized flavonoid biosynthetic pathway in Arabidopsis thaliana. Evidence is presented that indicates that the first four enzymes in this pathway form a complex. Collectively this work suggests that the structural organization of enzymes into complexes is an important aspect of cellular metabolism and might directly impact the relative levels of specific compounds that are synthesized in vivo. / Ph. D.

Although the advance of social media has enabled people to build social connections much more easily than ever before, loneliness—an aversive feeling of being isolated and disconnected—persists in modern society. In this dissertation, I examine when, how, and why loneliness influences consumer behavior. First, I develop an experimental method to induce loneliness and identify a circumstance that experimenters can obtain a successful loneliness priming effect. Across three experiments, I demonstrate that the same loneliness primes produce different loneliness responses based on the availability of cognitive resources. Specifically, participants who are cognitively depleted tend to rely on responses evoked by the loneliness primes (showing the intended loneliness priming effect) while those with abundant cognitive resources are not affected by the loneliness primes. Building on the findings from Experiments 1-3, I investigate how loneliness affects consumer behaviors in two different marketing contexts, nostalgic product consumption and charitable giving by focusing on how consumers cope with loneliness through consumption. In Experiments 4-5, I demonstrate that consumers who lack cognitive resources tend to form positive attitudes toward nostalgic products when experiencing loneliness. In Experiments 6-7, I show that lonely consumers with limited cognitive resources are likely to donate money to a charitable organization. Additionally, I find that consumers can regulate feelings of loneliness by spending money either for themselves (i.e., nostalgic products) or for others (i.e., charitable giving). This dissertation contributes to our understanding of loneliness in marketing by identifying a circumstance in which such emotional distress significantly influences consumer behavior and by showing how consumers spend money to cope with loneliness. / Ph. D.

This study explored the relationship between the multidimensional construct of emotion regulation and relationship satisfaction in couples seeking couple or family therapy at an outpatient mental health clinic. Recognizing the necessarily interdependent nature of dyadic data, study data were analyzed via path analysis consistent with the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kenny, Kashy, and Cook, 2006). While overall emotion regulation was not found to be significantly related to relationship satisfaction, results indicated differential effects for the various dimensions of emotion regulation. Perceived access to emotion regulation strategies was significantly positively associated with relationship satisfaction for both men and women. Awareness of emotions was significantly negatively associated with satisfaction for men, with women displaying a trend toward significance, and acceptance of emotions was significantly negatively associated with satisfaction for women, with men displaying a trend toward significance. Women's acceptance of emotions was also significantly negatively associated with her partner's relationship satisfaction, while her ability to control her impulses was significantly positively associated with her partner's satisfaction. No partner effects were found for men's emotion regulation dimensions. Study limitations as well as research and clinical implications are discussed. / Master of Science

Parents, especially mothers, of a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are more likely to experience higher levels of stress, and adaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as mindfulness and acceptance, may decrease stress among parents of children with ASD. Research has shown that mindfulness-based interventions reduce perceived stress among parents of typically developing children and improve the parent-child relationship, and similar interventions may be helpful for mothers of children with ASD. However, research has not yet established that mindfulness is related to decreased stress among parents. It is important to first establish this relationship, given the possibility that other factors, such as child behavioral difficulties or parental psychopathology are stronger predictors of maternal stress than the mother's regulation strategies. This study examined the unique contribution of maternal mindfulness to maternal stress in a sample of mothers (n = 154) who completed an online battery of measures. As predicted, maternal mindfulness significantly predicted level of maternal stress, above and beyond child behavior problems and maternal psychopathology, and this relationship was not moderated by child's ASD diagnosis. Maternal emotion regulation and effortful control were also significantly related to maternal stress, and may account for the explained variance of mindfulness. These findings and their implications are discussed. / Master of Science

Emotion regulation is an important skill to acquire during childhood, as an inability to do so can lead to negative outcomes such as aggression, anxiety, eating disorders, and personality disorders during adolescence. Much research has demonstrated that maternal factors play a role in childhood emotion regulation; however, little research has looked at how these factors might predict emotion regulation during adolescence. Therefore, my thesis study assessed how maternal personality, parenting behaviors, and emotion regulation during middle childhood and adolescence predicted adolescent emotion regulation. Specifically, I hypothesized that maternal parenting behaviors during middle childhood would positively predict adolescent cognitive reappraisal, that this association would be moderated by maternal intrapersonal and interpersonal personality, and that maternal cognitive reappraisal during middle childhood would positively predict adolescent cognitive reappraisal. Participants included 122 mother-child dyads who provided data on parenting and maternal emotion regulation when the children were 9-years-old, in addition to data on child emotion regulation, maternal emotion regulation, and maternal personality when the children were adolescents. My initial hypotheses were not supported by the data, but post-hoc analyses revealed that maternal emotion suppression during middle childhood and adolescence predicts adolescent emotion suppression and that this association between maternal emotion suppression during middle childhood and adolescent emotion suppression was moderated by maternal intrapersonal personality. These results support the idea that maternal characteristics continue to play a role in shaping emotion regulation in children through adolescence, but not in the manner I had originally predicted. / M.S. / Emotion regulation refers to our ability to adjust to changes in our emotions. Difficulty with emotion regulation early in life can lead to negative outcomes such as aggression, anxiety, eating disorders, and personality disorders later in life. Maternal factors, like parenting, emotion regulation, and personality, affect emotion regulation during early childhood, but the research is lacking when it comes to looking at how these maternal factors might predict emotion regulation abilities during adolescence. This is important to consider, as adolescence is a time when we see some of these negative outcomes associated with difficulties in emotion regulation emerge. Therefore, my thesis study looked at how these maternal factors during middle childhood and adolescence predicted adolescent emotion regulation. Specifically, I hypothesized that optimal maternal parenting behaviors during middle childhood would predict better adolescent emotion regulation, that maternal personality during adolescence would moderate this association, and that better maternal emotion regulation during middle childhood would predict better emotion regulation during adolescence. Participants included 122 mother-child dyads. Mothers provided data on parenting and their own emotion regulation when their children were 9-years-old and data on their own personality and emotion regulation when the children were adolescents. Adolescents self-reported their own emotion regulation. My initial hypotheses were not supported, later analyses showed that maternal emotion regulation during middle childhood predicted adolescent emotion regulation and that this association was moderated by maternal personality. These results support the idea that maternal characteristics continue to play a role in shaping emotion regulation in children through adolescence.

Cells generally manage to maintain stable phenotypes in the face of widely varying environmental conditions. This fact is particularly surprising since the key step of gene expression is fundamentally a stochastic process. Many hypotheses have been suggested to explain this robustness. First, the special topology of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) seems to be an important factor as they possess feedforward loops and certain other topological features much more frequently than expected. Second, genes often regulate each other in a canalizing fashion: there exists a dominance order amidst the regulators of a gene, which in silico leads to very robust phenotypes. Lastly, an entirely novel gene regulatory mechanism, discovered and studied during the last two decades, which is believed to play an important role in cancer, is shedding some light on how canalization may in fact take place as part of a cell’s gene regulatory program. Short segments of single-stranded RNA, so-called microRNAs, which are embedded in several different types of feedforward loops, help smooth out noise and generate canalizing effects in gene regulation by overriding the effect of certain genes on others. Boolean networks and their multi-state extensions have been successfully used to model GRNs for many years. In this dissertation, GRNs are represented in the time- and statediscrete framework of Stochastic Discrete Dynamical Systems (SDDS), which captures the cell-inherent stochasticity. Each gene has finitely many different concentration levels and its concentration at the next time step is determined by a gene-specific update rule that depends on the current concentration of the gene’s regulators. The update rules in published gene regulatory networks are often nested canalizing functions. In Chapter 2, this class of functions is introduced, generalized and analyzed with respect to its potential to confer robustness. Chapter 3 describes a simulation study, which supports the hypothesis that microRNA-mediated feedforward loops have a stabilizing effect on GRNs. Chapter 4 focuses on the cellular DNA mismatch repair machinery. A first regulatory network for this machinery is introduced, partly validated and analyzed with regard to the role of microRNAs and certain genes in conferring robustness to this particular network. Due to steady exposure to mutations, GRNs have evolved over time into their current form. In Chapter 5, a new framework for modeling the evolution of GRNs is developed and then used to identify topological features that seem to stabilize GRNs on an evolutionary time-scale. Chapter 6 addresses a completely separate project in Bioinformatics. A novel functional enrichment method is developed and compared to various popular methods. Funding for this work was provided by NSF grant CMMI-0908201 and NSF grant 1062878. / Ph. D.

Extant research on temperament shows that it may be related to certain developmental outcomes. However, according to the goodness-of-fit hypothesis (Chess and Thomas, 1999), developmental outcomes are the result of how well the biological tendencies of an individual (i.e. temperament) fit with the contextual demands of their environment. Thus, temperament should only affect developmental outcomes as a function of their environmental context. The current study proposes that parent temperament may serve as an environmental context that interacts with adolescent temperament to affect the development of the adolescent emotion regulatory system. Structural equation modeling results revealed parent temperament, specifically parent effortful control, to moderate the relationship between adolescent temperament and the adolescent emotion regulatory system. Several gender differences were also found for both main and interaction effects. Adolescent negative affect was negatively related to emotion regulation for girls only. Parent effortful control moderated the relationship between adolescent effortful control and suppression use also for girls only. Parent effortful control moderated the relationship between adolescent surgency and emotion lability for boys only, and parent effortful control moderated the relationship between adolescent surgency and suppression for both boys and girls, but in opposite directions. The interaction term was negatively related to suppression for girls, and it was positively related to suppression for boys. Results have several implications for potential parenting interventions and may inform programs that teach emotion regulation strategies. / Ph. D.

This study seeks to explore and describe education-related laws in Kuwait with respect to the broader context of educational law. Employing a methodical, qualitative approach, data were collected using semi-structured interviews with twelve Kuwaiti official influencers that included parliamentary members, ex-Minsters of Education, and directors of general education. Interviews were conducted to generate insights regarding the nature and extent of the existing education- related laws in Kuwait. In addition, the interviews delved into the process surrounding the formation and implementation of education-related laws, and the influences that can affect them. Lastly, data from the interviews identified areas for improvement in Kuwait's education-related law. During the interview process, measures were taken to ascertain the credibility and dependability of the results obtained. Data were analyzed and validated using thematic analysis for reduction and identification of essential themes. Five main themes emerged from the data analysis: (a) the characteristics of education-related laws; (b) the problems in forming education- related laws; (c) the obstacles hindering implementation of education-related laws; (d) the strong influence of actors on education-related laws; and (c) the need for more effective education- related laws. For each theme two sub-categories were also developed. The findings of this study demonstrate that education-related laws play a vital role in structuring, and the monitoring of, the educational system in Kuwait. Moreover, findings illustrate the absence of, and critical need for, an authority to evaluate existing education-related laws. In addition, the lack of stakeholder participation, or the influence of scientific research, in creating education policy became evident. The analysis of the research data determined that actors, both official and unofficial, affecting education-related laws included legislators, Ministers of Education, the judiciary, local and international professional association representatives, parents, and the media. Furthermore, there is evidence suggests that policymakers must become more aware of the important role stakeholders should play in the formation of education-related laws and the need for building capacity to develop, implement and evaluate education-related laws. In addition, findings show the need for new education- related laws to ensure that teacher, student, and parent rights are protected. Perhaps most importantly, this study reveals the necessity for the State to create a long-term strategic vision regarding education policy that is free from the whims of the Minister of Education, to provide continuity and stability in the growth of the Kuwaiti educational system. / Ph. D.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive data privacy law that limits how businesses can collect personal information about their consumers living in the European Union. For our research, we aimed to evaluate the impact that the GDPR has on the open-source community, an online community that encourages open collaboration between software developers. We conducted a quantitative analysis of GitHub pull requests in which we compared pull requests explicitly related to the GDPR to other non-GDPR pull requests from the same projects. We also conducted a qualitative pilot study in which we interviewed software developers with experience implementing GDPR requirements in industry or in open-source. From our research, we found that GDPR-related pull requests had significantly more activity than other pull requests, but that open-source developers did not perceive a significant impact on their software development processes when implementing GDPR compliance. Industry developers, on the other hand, had a more negative outlook on the GDPR, and found implementation to be difficult. Our results indicate a need to involve software developers in the lawmaking process in order to create direct and realistic expectations for developers when implementing privacy policies. / Master of Science / The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive data privacy law that limits how businesses can collect personal information about their consumers living in the European Union. For our research, we aimed to evaluate the impact that the GDPR has on the open-source community, an online community that encourages open collaboration between software developers. We conducted a quantitative analysis of GitHub, a major online open-source platform. We compared pull requests (major contributions to a project) explicitly related to the GDPR to other non-GDPR pull requests from the same projects. We also conducted a qualitative pilot study in which we interviewed software developers with experience implementing GDPR requirements in industry or in open-source. From our research, we found that GDPR-related pull requests had significantly more activity than other pull requests, but that open-source developers did not perceive a significant impact on their software development processes when implementing GDPR compliance. Industry developers, on the other hand, had a more negative outlook on the GDPR, and found implementation to be difficult. Our results indicate a need to involve software developers in the lawmaking process in order to create direct and realistic expectations for developers when implementing privacy policies.