Digital Commons Network^™

Using 3d Printed Eggs To Examine The Egg-Rejection Behaviour Of Wild Birds, Branislav Igic, Valerie Nunez, Henning U. Voss, Rebecca Croston, Zachary Aidala, Analía V. López, Aimee Van Tatenhove, Mandë E. Holford, Matthew D. Shawkey, Mark E. Hauber

Publications and Research

The coevolutionary relationships between brood parasites and their hosts are often studied by examining the egg rejection behaviour of host species using artificial eggs. However, the traditional methods for producing artificial eggs out of plasticine, plastic, wood, or plaster-of-Paris are laborious, imprecise, and prone to human error. As an alternative, 3D printing may reduce human error, enable more precise manipulation of egg size and shape, and provide a more accurate and replicable protocol for generating artificial stimuli than traditional methods. However, the usefulness of 3D printing technology for egg rejection research remains to be tested. Here, we applied 3D printing …

La Souffrance Animale À Distance: Des Vétérinaires Dans L’Action Humanitaire, Frédéric Keck, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

Résumé

Cet article étudie le rôle des vétérinaires dans l’humanitaire à partir de deux types de pratique : la défense des animaux contre la cruauté et la surveillance des animaux touchés par les épidémies. En suivant l’extension de l’action humanitaire aux animaux comme nouvelles figures de victimes innocentes, nous cherchons à dépasser l’approche compassionnelle de l’humanitaire pour étudier les nouvelles formes scientifiques impliquant des non-humains, comme la médecine vétérinaire légale, les neurosciences et l’immunologie. Nous soutenons finalement que ces sciences produisent de nouveaux collectifs d’humains et de non-humains.

Abstract

This article traces the role of veterinarians in humanitarian action, focusing …

Histology And Morphology Of The Brain Subarachnoid Trabeculae, Parisa Saboori, Ali Sadegh

Publications and Research

The interface between the brain and the skull consists of three fibrous tissue layers, dura mater, arachnoid, and pia mater, known as the meninges, and strands of collagen tissues connecting the arachnoid to the pia mater, known as trabeculae. The space between the arachnoid and the pia mater is filled with cerebrospinal fluid which stabilizes the shape and position of the brain during head movements or impacts. The histology and architecture of the subarachnoid space trabeculae in the brain are not well established in the literature. The only recognized fact about the trabeculae is that they are made of collagen …

The Hand Of Cercopithecoides Williamsi (Mammalia, Primates): Earliest Evidence For Thumb Reduction Among Colobine Monkeys, Stephen R. Frost, Christopher C. Gilbert, Kelsey D. Pugh, Emily H. Guthrie, Eric Delson

Publications and Research

Thumb reduction is among the most important features distinguishing the African and Asian colobines from each other and from other Old World monkeys. In this study we demonstrate that the partial skeleton KNM-ER 4420 from Koobi Fora, Kenya, dated to 1.9 Ma and assigned to the Plio-Pleistocene colobine species Cercopithecoides williamsi, shows marked reduction of its first metacarpal relative to the medial metacarpals. Thus, KNM-ER 4420 is the first documented occurrence of cercopithecid pollical reduction in the fossil record. In the size of its first metacarpal relative to the medial metacarpals, C. williamsi is similar to extant African colobines, but …

Climate Change And Phenology: Empoasca Fabae (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) Migration And Severity Of Impact, Mitchell B. Baker, P. Dilip Venugopal, William O. Lamp

Publications and Research

Climate change can benefit individual species, but when pest species are enhanced by warmer temperatures agricultural productivity may be placed at greater risk. We analyzed the effects of temperature anomaly on arrival date and infestation severity of potato leafhopper, Empoasca fabae Harris, a classic new world long distance migrant, and a significant pest in several agricultural crops. We compiled E. fabae arrival dates and infestation severity data at different states in USA from existing literature reviews and agricultural extension records from 1951–2012, and examined the influence of temperature anomalies at each target state or overwintering range on the date of …

Alternative Chelator For 89zr Radiopharmaceuticals: Radiolabeling And Evaluation Of 3,4,3-(Li-1,2-Hopo), Melissa A. Deri, Shashikanth Ponnala, Brian M. Zeglis, Gabor Pohl, J. J. Dannenberg, Jason S. Lewis, Lynn C. Francesconi

Publications and Research

Zirconium-89 is an effective radionuclide for antibody-based positron emission tomography (PET) imaging because its physical half-life (78.41 h) matches the biological half-life of IgG antibodies. Desferrioxamine (DFO) is currently the preferred chelator for 89Zr4+; however, accumulation of 89Zr in the bones of mice suggests that 89Zr4+ is released from DFO in vivo. An improved chelator for 89Zr4+ could eliminate the release of osteophilic 89Zr4+ and lead to a safer PET tracer with reduced background radiation dose. Herein, we present an octadentate chelator 3,4,3-(LI-1,2-HOPO) (or HOPO) as a potentially superior alternative to DFO. The HOPO ligand formed a 1:1 Zr-HOPO complex …

The Walled Gardens Of Ebook Surveillance, Alycia Sellie

LACUNY Institute 2015

Libraries have more options than ever before to provide access to ebooks for their patrons. New platforms, approaches and content providers get involved in ebook sales as time goes on. And there is a lack of critical evaluation of what information is being sent to whom about what our patrons view, download and read.

In this talk, I discuss the concept of patron tracking in ebooks, by looking at various other services and platforms outside of libraries (i.e. Starbucks, Disney Land) which are well known to track user information. I’ll compare these to common ebook platforms (which use Digital Restrictions/Rights …

Genetically Predicted Testosterone And Systemic Inflammation In Men: A Separate-Sample Mendelian Randomization Analysis In Older Chinese Men, Jie Zhao, Chaoqiang Jiang, Tai Hing Lam, Bin Liu, Kar Keung Cheng, Lin Xu, Shiu Lun Au Yeung, Weisen Zhang, Gabriel M. Leung, C. Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Objectives Observationally, testosterone is negatively associated with systemic inflammation, but this association is open to both residual confounding and reverse causality. Large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs), assessing exogenous effects, are presently unavailable. We examined the association of endogenous testosterone with well-established systemic inflammatory markers (white blood cell, granulocyte, lymphocyte and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP)) using a separate-sample Mendelian randomization analysis to minimize reverse causality. Methods A genetic prediction rule for serum testosterone was developed in 289 young Chinese men with mean age of 21.0, using selected testosterone-related SNPs (rs10046, rs1008805 and rs1256031). Multivariable linear regression was used to examine the …

Teaching Evolution: A Students’ Perspective, Abdullah Allaoa, Tyniqua Hinton

Publications and Research

Many may wonder “where do we come from?” Over time, scientists have pondered and tested the concept of evolution. Simply put, evolution is gradual change over time. A major tenet of evolution is natural selection, which includes three principles which are variation in population, differential reproduction due to competition, and heredity. These principles are supported by multiple lines of evidence, including biochemical, geographical, fossil, and anatomical evidence. By providing tangible, real-world examples of evolution, we hope to provide a clear understanding of this long-studied scientific breakthrough, while at the same time showing how animals (including us) are related to each …

Moving The Needle On Justice Reform: A Report On The American Justice Summit 2014, Daniel L. Stageman, Robert Riggs, Jonathan Gordon, Ethiraj G. Dattatreyan

Publications and Research

Executive Summary: Taking place over 5 hours during the afternoon of November 10th, 2014, in John Jay College’s Gerald W. Lynch Theater, the American Justice Summit was an unprecedented public meeting of some of the most important individuals working in contemporary criminal justice reform. The event placed these individuals in front of an audience of six hundred-odd practitioners, activists, students, elected officials, and policy professionals, in conversation with leading journalists and each other, to describe the scope and contours of the problems posed by the country’s dysfunctional and interlocking systems of criminal justice – mass incarceration, police-community relations, the system’s …

Blood Inorganic Mercury Is Directly Associated With Glucose Levels In The Human Population And May Be Linked To Processed Food Intake, Renee Dufault, Zara Berg, Raquel Crider, Roseanne Schnoll, Larry Wetsit, Wayne Two Bulls, Steven G. Gilbert, H.M. “Skip” Kingston, Mesay Mulugeta Wolle, G.M. Mizanur Rahman, Dan R. Laks

Publications and Research

Background: The goals of the study were (1) to determine the impact of inorganic mercury exposure on glucose homeostasis; and (2) to evaluate the effectiveness of two community-based interventions in promoting dietary changes among American Indian college students to reduce risk factors for Type-2 Diabetes including fasting glucose, insulin, and mercury levels, weight, and body mass index.

Methods: To accomplish goal one, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset was analyzed using a previously published method to determine if there is a relationship between inorganic blood mercury and fasting glucose. To accomplish goal two, ten college students were …

Situating Urban Moving Images: Illuminating Place, Annie Dell'aria

Graduate Student Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Buddhist Meditation And The Possibility Of Free Will, Rick Repetti

Publications and Research

I argue that an analysis of Buddhist meditation theory and practice may be used to ground a model of the possibility of free agency that stands up against four powerful arguments for free will skepticism in contemporary analytic philosophy: Peter van Inwagen’s consequence argument, which asserts that if choices are lawfully necessary consequences of prior events, then they are unfree; Derk Pereboom’s two arguments for hard incompatibilism: the manipulation argument, which asserts that manipulated choices are unfree, determinism is functionally equivalent to manipulation, and thus determined choices are unfree; and the randomness argument, which asserts that we cannot claim authorship …

The Medicalization Of Stress: Hans Selye And The Transformation Of The Postwar Medical Marketplace, Vanessa L. Burrows

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation employs historical methodology and public health theory to examine how critical changes in the culture and political economy of biomedical research shaped Hungarian-Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye's concept of biological stress, guiding him to develop a highly individualistic and commercially-appealing disease model that complimented major interests of the postwar medical marketplace: the state, the corporation and the consumer. In the mid-1930s Selye proposed that the human body adapted to a diverse range of stressors--including, extreme temperatures, intoxification, surgical trauma, physical exercise and complete immobilization--by releasing adrenocortical hormones to regulate bodily functions. For the next fifty years he devoted his …

Adolescent Girls, Human Rights And The Expanding Climate Emergency, Holly G. Atkinson, Judith Bruce

Publications and Research

Many adolescent girls—the poorest girls in the poorest communities—already live in an “emergency.” Humanitarian crises only amplify the call on their coping and caring capacities, while exacerbating their vulnerabilities. The frequency and intensity of emergencies, including natural disasters, conflicts, and infectious disease outbreaks such as Ebola, appear to be growing.¹ These emergencies threaten entire communities and whole countries, often with global implications. Many become virtually permanent. The authors urge key actors responding to both the threats and opportunities that climate change poses to understand adolescent girls as exceptionally at risk on the one hand, and as exceptionally resilient and …

Resistance, Acquiescence Or Incorporation? An Introduction To Land Grabbing And Political Reactions ‘From Below’, Marc Edelman, Ruth Hall, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Ian Scoones, Ben White, Wendy Wolford

Publications and Research

Political reactions ‘from below’ to global land grabbing have been vastly more varied and complex than is usually assumed. This essay introduces a collection of ground- breaking studies that discuss responses that range from various types of organized and everyday resistance to demands for incorporation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals. Initiatives ‘from below’ in response to land deals have involved local and transnational alliances and the use of legal and extra-legal methods, and have brought victories and defeats. The relevance of political reactions to land grabbing is discussed in light of theories of social movements and …

Islands Of Change Vs. Islands Of Disaster: Managing Pigs And Birds In The Anthropocene Of The North Atlantic, Seth Brewington, Megan Hicks, Ágústa Edwald, Árni Einarsson, Kesara Anamthawat-Jónsson, Gordon Cook, Philippa Ascough, Kerry L. Sayle, Símun V. Arge, Mike Church, Julie Bond, Steve Dockrill, Adolf Friðriksson, George Hambrecht, Arni Daniel Juliusson, Vidar Hreinsson, Steven Hartman, Konrad Smiarowski, Ramona Harrison, Thomas Mcgovern

Publications and Research

The offshore islands of the North Atlantic were among some of the last settled places on earth, with humans reaching the Faroes and Iceland in the late Iron Age and Viking period. While older accounts emphasizing deforestation and soil erosion have presented this story of island colonization as yet another social–ecological disaster, recent archaeological and paleoenvironmental research combined with environmental history, environmental humanities, and bioscience is providing a more complex understanding of long-term human ecodynamics in these northern islands. An ongoing interdisciplinary investigation of the management of domestic pigs and wild bird populations in Faroes and Iceland is presented as …

Jus Post Bellum And Transitional Justice, Edited By Larry May And Elizabeth Edenberg, Barbara R. Walters

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Utilizing Remote Sensing Imagery To Monitor Vegetation Change Within World Heritage Sites, Mimi Eve Hatzis

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

World Heritage sites provide a glimpse into the stories and civilizations of the past. There are currently 1007 unique World Heritage properties with 779 being classified as cultural sites, 197 as natural sites, and 31 falling into the categories of both cultural and natural sites (UNESCO & World Heritage Centre, 1992-2015). However, of these 1007 World Heritage sites, at least 46 are categorized as in danger and this number continues to grow. These unique and irreplaceable sites are exceptional because of their universality. Consequently, since World Heritage sites belong to all the people of the world and provide inspiration …

Comparison Of Α-Glucosyl Hesperidin Of Citrus Fruits And Epigallocatechin Gallate Of Green Tea On The Loss Of Rotavirus Infectivity In Cell Culture, Steven M. Lipson, Fatma S. Ozen, Samantha Louis, Laina Karthikeyan

Publications and Research

A number of secondary plant metabolites (e.g., flavonoids) possess antiviral/antimicrobial activity. Most flavonoids, however, are difficult to study, as they are immiscible in water-based systems. The relatively new semisynthetic α-glucosyl hesperitin (GH), and the natural plant product epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) are unique among most flavonoids, as these flavonoids are highly soluble. The antiviral activity of these plant metabolites were investigated using the rotavirus as a model enteric virus system. Direct loss of virus structural integrity in cell-free suspension and titration of amplified RTV in host cell cultures was measured by a quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (qEIA). After 30 min. 100 …

Blocking Anaplerotic Entry Of Glutamine To Tca Cycle Sensitizes K-Ras Mutant Cancer Cells To Cytotoxic Drugs, Mahesh Saqcena, Suman Mukhopadhyay, Carol Hosny, Arwa Alhamed, Amrita Chatterjee, David A. Foster

Publications and Research

Cancer cells undergo a metabolic transformation that allows for increased anabolic demands wherein glycolytic and TCA cycle intermediates are shunted away for the synthesis of biological molecules required for cell growth and division. One of the key shunts is the exit of citrate from the mitochondria and the TCA cycle for the generation of cytosolic acetyl-CoA that can be used for fatty acid and cholesterol biosynthesis. With the loss of mitochondrial citrate, cancer cells rely on the “conditionally essential” amino acid glutamine (Q) as an anaplerotic carbon source for TCA cycle intermediates. While Q deprivation causes G1 cell cycle arrest …

Comparisons Of 6-N-Propylthiouracil (Prop) Sensitivity, Food Liking And Food Intake Between Vegetarian And Non-Vegetarian Women, Sung-Eun Choi

Publications and Research

Background: Previous studies have suggested that vegetarians have a lower risk of overweight and obesity than do non-vegetarians. However, little is known about how meat consumption interacts with taste perception, thereby influencing food intake and body weight.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the relationship of meat consumption with 6-npropylthiouracil (PROP) sensitivity, food liking, food intake and body mass index in female long term vegetarians and non-vegetarians.

Methods: A cross-sectional design with a total of 94 racially diverse female subjects (mean age 23 years, 42 vegetarians, 52 non-vegetarians) living in the New York City area was used …

Imagining The Future In London And New York City: The Aspirations And Imagined Futures Of High School Seniors, Patrick Alexander

Conference Proceedings

No abstract provided.

Death Associated Protein Kinase (Dapk) -Mediated Neurodegenerative Mechanisms In Nematode Excitotoxicity, John S. Del Rosario, Katherine Genevieve Feldmann, Towfiq Ahmed, Uzair Amjad, Bakkeung Ko, Junhyung An, Tauhid Mahmud, Maha Salama, Shirley Mei, Daniel Asemota, Itzhak Mano

Publications and Research

Background: Excitotoxicity (the toxic overstimulation of neurons by the excitatory transmitter Glutamate) is a central process in widespread neurodegenerative conditions such as brain ischemia and chronic neurological diseases. Many mechanisms have been suggested to mediate excitotoxicity, but their significance across diverse excitotoxic scenarios remains unclear. Death Associated Protein Kinase (DAPK), a critical molecular switch that controls a range of key signaling and cell death pathways, has been suggested to have an important role in excitotoxicity. However, the molecular mechanism by which DAPK exerts its effect is controversial. A few distinct mechanisms have been suggested by single (sometimes contradicting) studies, and …

Was It For Walrus? Viking Age Settlement And Medieval Walrus Ivory Trade In Iceland And Greenland, Karen M. Frei, Ashley N. Coutu, Konrad Smiarowski, Ramona Harrison, Christian K. Madsen, Jette Arneborg, Robert Frei, Gardar Guðmundsson, Søren M. Sindbækg, James Woollett, Steven Hartman, Megan Hicks, Thomas Mcgovern

Publications and Research

Walrus-tusk ivory and walrus-hide rope were highly desired goods in Viking Age north-west Europe. New finds of walrus bone and ivory in early Viking Age contexts in Iceland are concentrated in the south-west, and suggest extensive exploitation of nearby walrus for meat, hide and ivory during the first century of settlement. In Greenland, archaeofauna suggest a very different specialized long-distance hunting of the much larger walrus populations in the Disko Bay area that brought mainly ivory to the settlement areas and eventually to European markets. New lead isotopic analysis of archaeological walrus ivory and bone from Greenland and Iceland offers …

Butterfly Redreaming: Rethinking Free, With Zhuangzi Flying Westerly With Descartes, Lacan, Waldman…, Kyoo Lee

Publications and Research

Usually, Zhuangzi’s parable of “the butterfly dream/dreaming butterfly” is read as an enigmatic version, from “the East”, of the Cartesian skeptical challenges to “objective reality” or else the Lacanian psycho-drama of the “pure gaze” in which “he”, Zhuangzi, “is a butterfly for nobody”, who stands for “the Real”. Retooling some of the critical insights from these standard dialectical or anxiogenic approaches to this allegorical puzzle of self-identity, both of which, however, tend to leave unquestioned or else structurally overrate the binarized inner-exclusivity of typical pairs such as in/out, subject/object, illusion/reality, and all/nothing, this article proposes a relatively novel, fluid model …

Climate And Changing Winter Distribution Of Alcids In The Northwest Atlantic, Richard R. Veit, Lisa L. Manne

Publications and Research

Population level impacts upon seabirds from changing climate are increasingly evident, and include effects on phenology, migration, dispersal, annual survivorship, and reproduction. Most population data on seabirds derive from nesting colonies; documented climate impacts on winter ecology are scarce. We studied interannual variability in winter abundance of six species of alcids (Charadriiformes, Alcidae) from a 58-year time series of data collected in Massachusetts 1954–2011. We used counts of birds taken during fall and winter from coastal vantage points. Counts were made by amateur birders, but coverage was consistent in timing and location. We found significant association between winter abundance of …

Catecholaminergic Innervation Of Central And Peripheral Auditory Circuitry Varies With Reproductive State In Female Midshipman Fish, Porichthys Notatus, Paul M. Forlano, Zachary N. Ghahramani, Camillia M. Monestime, Philip Kurochkin, Alena Chernenko, Dmitriy Milkis

Publications and Research

In seasonal breeding vertebrates, hormone regulation of catecholamines, which include dopamine and noradrenaline, may function, in part, to modulate behavioral responses to conspecific vocalizations. However, natural seasonal changes in catecholamine innervation of auditory nuclei is largely unexplored, especially in the peripheral auditory system, where encoding of social acoustic stimuli is initiated. The plainfin midshipman fish, Porichthys notatus, has proven to be an excellent model to explore mechanisms underlying seasonal peripheral auditory plasticity related to reproductive social behavior. Recently, we demonstrated robust catecholaminergic (CA) innervation throughout the auditory system in midshipman. Most notably, dopaminergic neurons in the diencephalon have widespread projections …

Accuracy Of Highly Sexually Active Gay And Bisexual Men’S Predictions Of Their Daily Likelihood Of Anal Sex And Its Relevance For Intermittent Event-Driven Hiv Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, Jeffrey T. Parsons, H. Jonathon Rendina, Christian Grov, Ana Ventuneac, Brian Mustanski

Publications and Research

Objective: We sought to examine highly sexually active gay and bisexual men’s accuracy in predicting their sexual behavior for the purposes of informing future research on intermittent, event-driven HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP).

Design: For 30 days, 92 HIV-negative men completed a daily survey about their sexual behavior (n = 1,688 days of data) and indicated their likelihood of having anal sex with a casual male partner the following day.

Method: We utilized multilevel modeling to analyze the association between self-reported likelihood of and subsequent engagement in anal sex.

Results: We found a linear association between men’s reported likelihood …

Toward A Genealogy Of Americanist Expressionism, R. Arvo Carr

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.