Digital Commons Network^™

Technical Report: Solving Global Problems [Composition], Lara V. Kattekola

Open Educational Resources

This assignment was developed as part of a 2018-19 Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) -sponsored Learning Matters Global Learning Mini-grant awarded to support the ENG 259 Technical Writing course. This course is required for engineering students as the second course in their composition sequence to be taken in lieu of ENG 102. The aim of the mini-grant was to integrate LaGuardia’s Global Learning Core Competency into the ENG 259 course via the development of a high stakes global learning assignment. The assignment was developed during the Fall 2018 CTL Learning Matters Mini-Grant seminar meetings led by Drs. Karen Miller …

Rasp 4: Ancestral State Reconstruction Tool For Multiple Genes And Characters, Yan Yu, Christopher Blair, Xingjin He

Publications and Research

With the continual progress of sequencing techniques, genome-scale data are increasingly used in phylogenetic studies. With more data from throughout the genome, the relationship between genes and different kinds of characters is receiving more attention. Here, we present version 4 of RASP, a software to reconstruct ancestral states through phylogenetic trees. RASP can apply generalized statistical ancestral reconstruction methods to phylogenies, explore the phylogenetic signal of characters to particular trees, calculate distances between trees, and cluster trees into groups. RASP 4 has an improved graphic user interface and is freely available from http://mnh.scu.edu.cn/soft/blog/RASP (program) and https://github.com/sculab/RASP (source code).

Venom Diversity And Evolution In The Most Divergent Cone Snail Genus Profundiconus, Guilia Fassio, Maria Vittoria Modica, Lou Mary, Paul Zaharias, Alexander E. Fedosov, Juliette Gorson, Yuri I. Kantor, Mandë E. Holford, Nicolas Puillandre

Publications and Research

Profundiconus is the most divergent cone snail genus and its unique phylogenetic position, sister to the rest of the family Conidae, makes it a key taxon for examining venom evolution and diversity. Venom gland and foot transcriptomes of Profundiconus cf. vaubani and Profundiconus neocaledonicus were de novo assembled, annotated, and analyzed for differential expression. One hundred and thirty-seven venom components were identified from P. cf. vaubani and 82 from P. neocaledonicus, with only four shared by both species. The majority of the transcript diversity was composed of putative peptides, including conotoxins, profunditoxins, turripeptides, insulin, and prohormone-4. However, there were also …

From The Human To The Planetary: Speculative Futures Of Care, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

This is largely a theoretical, speculative essay that takes on the question of what ‘care’ looks like at a moment when climate change is increasingly taking center stage in public and political discussions. Starting with two new practices, namely, humanitarian care for nonhumans and One Health collaborations, I seek to determine what forms of political care can incorporate the well-being of future generations and future iterations of the earth. After an exploration of One Health as an approach to planetary care, I ask what its parts enable us to think, despite its limitations; I focus on the new human-nonhuman assemblages …

Invertebrate Retinal Progenitors As Regenerative Models In A Microfluidic System, Caroline D. Pena, Stephanie Zhang, Robert Majeska, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez

Publications and Research

Regenerative retinal therapies have introduced progenitor cells to replace dysfunctional or injured neurons and regain visual function. While contemporary cell replacement therapies have delivered retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) within customized biomaterials to promote viability and enable transplantation, outcomes have been severely limited by the misdirected and/or insuffcient migration of transplanted cells. RPCs must achieve appropriate spatial and functional positioning in host retina, collectively, to restore vision, whereas movement of clustered cells differs substantially from the single cell migration studied in classical chemotaxis models. Defining how RPCs interact with each other, neighboring cell types and surrounding extracellular matrixes are critical to …

Cs For What? Diverse Visions Of Computer Science Education In Practice, Rafi Santo, Sara Vogel, Dixie Ching

Publications and Research

CS Visions highlights the importance of core values when it comes to computer science education. Understanding different reasons for teaching computer science isn’t just important so that we can get other people to care about CS, they should also shape what computer science education efforts look like - who gets opportunities to learn, what kinds of things get taught and in what ways. Our values should be expressed in our practice.

Specific Effects Of Antitumor Active Norspermidine On The Structure And Function Of Dna, Takashi Nishio, Yuko Yoshikawa, Chwen-Yang Shew, Naoki Umezawa, Tsunehiko Higuchi, Kenichi Yoshikawa

Publications and Research

We compared the effects of trivalent polyamines, spermidine (SPD) and norspermidine (NSPD), a chemical homologue of SPD, on the structure of DNA and gene expression. The chemical structures of SPD and NSPD are different only with the number of methylene groups between amine groups,[N-3-N-4-N] and [N-3-N-3-N], respectively. SPD plays vital roles in cell function and survival, including in mammals. On the other hand, NSPD has antitumor activity and is found in some species of plants, bacteria and algae, but not in humans. We found that both polyamines exhibit biphasic effect; enhancement and inhibition on in vitro gene expression, where SPD …

Nuclear Tau, P53 And Pin1 Regulate Parn-Mediated Deadenylation And Gene Expression, Jorge Baquero, Sophia Varriano, Martha Ordonez, Pawel Kuczaj, Michael R. Murphy, Gamage Aruggoda, Devon Lundine, Viktoriya Morozova, Ali Elhadi Makki, Alejandra Del C. Alonso, Frida E. Kleiman

Publications and Research

While nuclear tau plays a role in DNA damage response (DDR) and chromosome relaxation, the mechanisms behind these functions are not fully understood. Here, we show that tau forms complex(es) with factors involved in nuclear mRNA processing such as tumor suppressor p53 and poly(A)-specific ribonuclease (PARN) deadenylase. Tau induces PARN activity in different cellular models during DDR, and this activation is further increased by p53 and inhibited by tau phosphorylation at residues implicated in neurological disorders. Tau’s binding factor Pin1, a mitotic regulator overexpressed in cancer and depleted in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), also plays a role in the activation of …

The Ticker, October 7, 2019

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

Human Biology Oer, Bio 1100, Course Outline, Tatiana Voza

Open Educational Resources

This course will include selected biological concepts, including the chemical basis of life, cell structure and division, a broad survey of the major systems of the human body with a special emphasis on human health disease, human evolution and ecology. This course should provide students who do not plan to continue in the sciences or pre-health programs with a working knowledge of life science that will be useful in making informed decisions on health and the environment

The Personal Is Historical: Slavery, Black Power And Resistance In Octavia Butler’S Kindred, Megan Behrent

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Classified Information: The Newsletter Of The Lloyd Sealy Library, Lloyd Sealy Library, Cuny John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

Reports and Publications from John Jay College

Classified Information was a publication that informed the College about Library services, personnel, upcoming events, new technologies, and available resources.

Create A Revolution In Undergraduates' Understanding Of Science: Teach Through Close Analysis Of Scientific Literature, Sally G. Hoskins

Publications and Research

The teaching of science to undergraduates aligns poorly with the practice of science, leading many students to conclude that research is boring and researchers themselves are antisocial geniuses. Creativity, a key driver of scientific progress, is underemphasized or ignored altogether in many classrooms, as teaching focuses on the complex integrated concepts and voluminous amounts of information typical of STEM curricula. Faculty, largely untrained in science education per se, teach largely as they were taught, through lectures based in textbooks. This situation could change, and students' understanding of research practice could be fostered relatively easily, if faculty began teaching classes focused …

Temporal Changes In Abundance–Occupancy Relationships Over 40 Years, Lisa L. Manne, Richard R. Veit

Publications and Research

1. Abundance–occupancy (A–O) relationships are widely documented for many organismal groups and regions, and have been used to gain an understanding of regional population and community trends. Monitoring changes in abundance and occupancy over time may be what is required to document changes in conservation status and needs for some species, communities, or areas.
2. We hypothesize that if there is a higher proportion of declining species in one group of species compared with another (e.g., migratory species vs. permanent residents), then a consequence of that difference will be vastly different abundance–occupancy relationships. If this difference persists through time, then the resulting …

Bright Green Biofluorescence In Sharks Derives From Bromo-Kynurenine Metabolism, Hyun Bong Park, Yick Chong Lam, Jean P. Gaffney, James C. Weaver, Sara Rose Krivoshik, Randy Hamchand, Vincent Pieribone, David F. Gruber, Jason M. Crawford

Publications and Research

Although in recent years there has been an increased awareness of the widespread nature of biofluorescence in the marine environment, the diversity of the molecules responsible for this luminescent phenotype has been mostly limited to green fluorescent proteins (GFPs), GFP-like proteins, and fluorescent fatty acid-binding proteins (FABPs). In the present study, we describe a previously undescribed group of brominated tryptophan-kynurenine small molecule metabolites responsible for the green biofluorescence in two species of sharks and provide their structural, antimicrobial, and spectral characterization. Multi-scale fluorescence microscopy studies guided the discovery of metabolites that were differentially produced in fluorescent versus non-fluorescent skin, as …

Repeated Transspinal Stimulation Decreases Soleus H-Reflex Excitability And Restores Spinal Inhibition In Human Spinal Cord Injury, Maria Knikou, Lynda M. Murray

Publications and Research

Transcutaneous spinal cord or transspinal stimulation over the thoracolumbar enlargement, the spinal location of motoneurons innervating leg muscles, modulates neural circuits engaged in the control of movement. The extent to which daily sessions (e.g. repeated) of transspinal stimulation affects soleus H-reflex excitability in individuals with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) remains largely unknown. In this study, we established the effects of repeated cathodal transspinal stimulation on soleus H-reflex excitability and spinal inhibition in individuals with and without chronic SCI. Ten SCI and 10 healthy control subjects received monophasic transspinal stimuli of 1-ms duration at 0.2 Hz at subthreshold and suprathreshold …

Normal And Pathological Tau Uptake Mediated By M1/M3 Muscarinic Receptors Promotes Opposite Neuronal Changes, Viktoriya Morozova, Leah S. Cohen, Ali El-Hadi Makki, Alison Shur, Guillermo Pilar, Abdeslem El Idrissi, Alejandra D. Alonso

Publications and Research

The microtubule associated protein tau is mainly found in the cell’s cytosol but recently it was also shown in the extracellular space. In neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s disease (AD), pathological tau spreads from neuron to neuron enhancing neurodegeneration. Here, we show that HEK293 cells and neurons in culture uptake extracellular normal and pathological Tau. Muscarinic receptor antagonists atropine and pirenzepine block 80% this uptake. CHO cells do not express these receptors therefore cannot uptake tau, unless transfected with M1 and/or M3 receptor. These results strongly suggest that muscarinic receptors mediate this process. Uptake of normal tau in neurons enhances neuronal …

Harlem And Abroad: Notes To An International 'Renaissance', Joshua I. Cohen

Publications and Research

Like other intractable figures of the Harlem Renaissance, the movement’s visual artists sometimes exceeded their expected parameters, and thus their anticipated representativeness of a locality. Their images, in other words, did not automatically disclose Harlem-bound or even US-bound concerns. Now familiar through continual reproduction in exhibition catalogues, scholarly monographs and literary compendia, certain artworks from the period – such as Archibald J. Motley’s Blues (1929; Figure 1) and Aaron Douglas’s Congo (c. 1928; Figure 2) – subverted any definition of the Harlem Renaissance that would hinge on a narrowly delimited urban geography or national imaginary. Motley, who painted ‘Blues’ during …

Editor’S Introduction For Nano Special Issue 14: Captivity Narratives Then And Now: Gender, Race, And The Captive In Twentieth- And Twenty-First-Century American Literature And Culture, Megan Behrent

Publications and Research

In 2018, forty-five years after the high-profile abduction of Patricia Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army, CNN returned her captivity narrative to mass media in the documentary series The Radical Story of Patty Hearst. A year later, Netflix brought to a close the narrative of Kimmy Schmidt, the ever optimistic and resilient survivor of childhood abduction and fifteen years of captivity in a bunker. Tales of captivity have dominated the digital streaming universe in recent years even as the captivity narrative has proven to be a malleable genre: from the dark dystopia of The Handmaid’s Tale which powerfully depicts …

The Distribution, Fractionation, And Application Of The 210po/210pb System: Insights From Three Geotraces Transects, Yi Tang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The sinking flux of particles is an important pathway for the removal of carbon and other elements from the surface ocean via the biological pump. The ²¹⁰Po/²¹⁰Pb disequilibrium method can be used to study particle export at high spatial resolution over the time scale of months. The distribution of ²¹⁰Po and ²¹⁰Pb activity was measured during two GEOTRACES transects of the North Atlantic and one GEOTRACES transect of the eastern tropical South Pacific. This dissertation aimed to advance the knowledge and improve methods of the application of the ²¹⁰Po/²¹⁰Pb pair to quantify …

Cue-Based Reflexive Reference Resolution: Evidence From Korean Reflexive Caki, Namseok Yong

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation aims to reveal cognitive mechanisms and factors that underlie the reflexive dependency formation. In recent years, a lot of attention has been paid to the question of how our mind works in building linguistic dependencies (including an antecedent-reflexive dependency) because relevant research has proved promising and illuminating in regard to the properties (e.g., system architecture, computational algorithms, etc.) of human language processor and its close connection with other cognitive functions such as memory (Lewis & Vasishth, 2005; Lewis, Vasishth, & Van Dyke, 2006; McElree, 2000; McElree, Foraker, & Dyer, 2003; Van Dyke & Johns, 2012; Wagers, Lau, & …

Black Women At Work In Corrections In The Era Of Mass Incarceration: Documenting Demographic Changes In The New York City Department Of Correction, Carolyn Fisher

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Recent work has popularized the idea that mass incarceration arose in the wake of the civil rights movement to maintain the social and economic subordination of African Americans previously enforced under Jim Crow. This discussion has not accounted for the many black Americans working in corrections, particularly in large metropolitan jail systems. This paper documents the increase in black women working as correction officers and administrators in the New York City Department of Correction since the late 1970s and explores the implications of this growth on the strict racial argument about mass incarceration. Using administrative and archival sources, it argues …

Transforming Through Power: Teachers And The Negotiation Of Authority In Schools, Madhu Narayanan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Schools are unique institutions where structural and cultural dynamics shape the actions of humans. Teachers work within structures of power to establish themselves as legitimate figures of authority worthy of the right to command respect. Such efforts are complicated by the multi-faceted and swirling relationships of power that exist everywhere in schools, defining and guiding individuals. In this study, I interview and observe the practice of seven secondary teachers working in New York City public schools. All in their third year of teaching, they were at an interesting time in their development, not novice teachers and not quite veteran. Using …

Dermatoglyphic Measures In Relation To Depressive Symptoms Among Non-Clinical Adolescents And Young Adults, Yosefa A. Modiano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Depressive disorders are highly prevalent and can be devastating. Increasingly, depressive symptomatology is understood from a dimensional perspective such that non- or sub-clinical presentations may share a similar etiology. Depression etiology is believed to include genetic and environmental factors that may contribute to underlying vulnerability (diathesis) by way of neurodevelopment. Birth cohort studies have provided empirical evidence of the relationship between prenatal insult and later experience of adverse outcomes, including increased risk for depressive disorders. Retrospective investigation of the possible influence of prenatal disturbance on later experience of depressive symptoms has methodological limitations. Dermatoglyphic measurements offer a more methodologically viable …

Anti-Cancer Effects Of Oleocanthal And Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Limor Goren

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Oleocanthal is a phenolic compound found in varying concentrations in extra virgin olive oil. Oleocanthal has been shown to be active physiologically, benefiting several diseased states by conferring anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective benefits. Recently, we and other groups have demonstrated its specific and selective toxicity toward cancer cells; however, the mechanism leading to cancer cell death is still disputed. The current study demonstrates that oleocanthal induced damage to cancer cells’ lysosomes leading to cellular toxicity in vitro. Non-cancer cells were significantly less affected. Lysosomal membrane permeabilization following oleocanthal treatment in various cell lines was assayed via three complementary methods. Additionally, …

Through The Mouth: An Essay On Appetite And Ecocide, Iemanja Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an exploration of mourning and resilient joy in the midst of ecocide. Resisting the pervasive classification of the human as inherently destructive, I look to appetite as an aesthetic procedure that includes a material desire for intimacy with the more-than-human. My study considers the intersections of aesthetic production (primarily twentieth-century poetry and visual art), climate science, geology, cultural studies, theory within the contemporary nonhuman turn, and Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy of organism. I employ an interdisciplinary approach, which helps me explore the various ways that literal and figurative appetite can be a way of sensing and exploring …

Cyborgs For Environmental Justice: East Asian American Stories From The 1991 People Of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, Lisa Ng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this paper is threefold: to serve as an oral history archive of the East Asian American experience at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to analyze the role of East Asian Americans in the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM), and to fill an ideological and political vacuum that exists in East Asian American communities. This work analyses the experiences of East Asian Americans who were present at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit--an event scholars have attributed to igniting the EJM. The paper argues that East Asian Americans act as “Cyborgs”—both as their ascribed …

Memory-Guided Selective Attention: An Instance Theory Of Automatic Attentional Control, Nicholaus Paul Brosowsky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cognitive control enables flexible goal-directed behavior via attention and action selection processes that prioritize goal-relevant over irrelevant information. These processes allow us to behave flexibly in the face of contradicting or ambiguous information and update behavior in response to the changing environment. Furthermore, they are thought to be in direct opposition to learned, automatic processing in that they enable us to disregard learned behaviors when they are inconsistent with our current goals. The strict dichotomy between stimulus-driven and goal-driven influences, however, has downplayed the role of memory in guiding attention. The position forwarded in this thesis is that a memory-based …

A Series Of Acts That Disappear: The Valparaíso School’S Ephemeral Architectures, 1952–1982, Elizabeth Rose Donato

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1952, Chilean architect Alberto Cruz (1917–2013) and Argentine poet Godofredo Iommi (1917–2001) launched one of the most idiosyncratic experiments in postwar art and architectural pedagogy in the industrial port of Valparaíso, Chile. Founded on the premise that architecture must be “co-generada” with poetry, the so-called Valparaíso School developed an expanded conception of the discipline that encompassed ephemeral forms, from urban drifting to performative and ludic actions. This dissertation examines four specific “acts” in the Valparaíso School’s corpus: the exhibition, the poetic act, the journey, and the game. Across these different forms, I identify a tendency toward openness, improvisation, indeterminacy, …

The Effects Of Language Background And Foreign Accent On Listening Comprehension, Sita Carraturo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The act of listening to a linguistic signal is an involved process, and, rarely occurs in absolute silence. A person trying to listen and comprehend speech is likely in an environment that has some sort of additional noise: white noise from a fan, passing traffic, construction, or just other talkers. Each of these additional auditory signals creates an unfavorable environment for the listener who is trying to capture the target signal. Research has been able to quantify and describe the effects of noise on the comprehension of linguistic signals, and has also shown that that bilinguals and monolinguals — though …