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Hsc Connects Newsletter - July 20, 2023, Unm Hsc Communications

HSC Connects Newsletters

Weekly newsletter of the UNM Health Sciences Center.

Current Developmental Challenges In Nepal: How Can The Diaspora Help?, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal now enjoys a unique opportunity to positively transform the country’s economy and society. The economic activities fueled by remittance, supported by foreign aid, and aided by domestic economic activities such as tourism, trade, and services, including start-ups, are helping increase individual incomes. However, the earnings from remittances, which measure to about 25% of Nepal’s GDP, are spent on consumer goods and not on investments that can generate employment and raise the standards of living. The foreign aid is often donor driven and also not always well managed and wisely spent on national priorities. Further, it is frequently marred by …

Phylogeographic History Of The Leaf-Eared Mouse, Phyllotis Xanthopygus Complex, Tabitha R. Mcfarland

Biology ETDs

Museum collections provide essential biodiversity sampling needed to understand the species limits, phylogeny, and biogeographic history of mammals, all key features of the foundation for comparative analyses in ecology and evolution. We add to this framework a diverse assemblage of species of leaf-eared mice (genus Phyllotis) in South America and then focus on the Phyllotis xanthopygus complex by combining available mitochondrial sequence (cytochrome b; cytb) data (351 GenBank samples) with 52 newly sequenced museum samples from the northern extent of this complex’s range (51 from Bolivia and 1 from northern Chile) to reconstruct evolutionary relationships using maximum …

The Effect Of Sodium Bicarbonate On Acute Kidney Injury Markers During Physical Work In The Heat, Abdulaziz Abdulrahman A. Masoud, Fabiano Amorim, Christine Mermier, Michael Deyhle, Zidong Li

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

Sodium bicarbonate supplementation (NaHCO₃) before physical work in the heat may reduce the risk of developing acute kidney injury (AKI). Purpose: To determine the effects of NaHCO₃ supplementation before a prolonged bout of physical work in the heat on AKI markers and kidney function. Method: A randomized, cross-over, double blinded design was conducted on 8 participants (3 females) who consumed NaHCO₃ (0.2 g/kg body weight) or placebo (CON) before prolonged (120 minutes) moderate intensity (~65% of maximal heart rate) physical work in the heat [40℃ and 23% relative humidity (RH)]. Blood and urine samples were collected …

Assessing Ecological Relationships Among Late Triassic Vertebrates In Petrified Forest National Park, Alexandra Davis Apgar

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

The complex vertebrate ecosystem of the Late Triassic has not yet been fully understood, largely due to oversimplification of hypothesized trophic hierarchies and limited preservation of direct evidence of faunal interaction. Paleocommunity reconstruction attempts can also fall victim to taphonomic biases, time-averaging inaccuracies, and non-analogue paleoecologies. Utilizing a combination of PAIRS analysis and NMDS ordination, we highlight vertebrate faunal relationships within the Adamanian and Revueltian faunachrons of Petrified Forest National Park, assess the likelihood that these patterns have ecological rather than preservational drivers, and examine how these potential interactions may have been impacted by the Adamanian-Revueltian turnover event. We are …

Photophysical Properties Of Synthetic Oligomeric Phenylene Ethynylene, Hugh F. Fritz Jr.

Chemistry and Chemical Biology ETDs

Oligomeric Phenylene Ethynylenes (OPEs) are a class of synthetically prepared compounds with the basic structure of phenylene rings connected by triple-bonded carbon atoms, also known as an ethyne link. This structure can be modified by incorporating functional groups onto one or more of the phenylene rings. The addition of functional groups, such as sulfoxide or imidazole, may alter the photophysical properties in detectable ways. The photophysical techniques used in this report include fluorescence, spectroscopy in the ultraviolet and visible light range (UVVIS), and photon-based excitation using a photo chamber.

One attractive function of OPEs is their antimicrobial property. Previously published …

The Bearing Earth: Colonization, Conservation, And Political Ecology In Costa Rica (Coto Brus 1948 - Present), Pablo Alonso Arias-Benavides

Latin American Studies ETDs

This thesis presents two questions: How are relationships between people in Coto Brus and the land – specifically, forest – mediated by social, political, and economic forces? How are personal and collective identities expressed through relationship with the landscape? I chose Coto Brus because it is a forested region of Costa Rica which was populated with state support in the 1950s, and because it is my father’s hometown. In order to understand the subjective experiences of Costa Ricans involved in deforestation and reforestation, I performed interviews in the canton, visited conservation sites, and analyzed historical sources. This study combines multiscale …

Hsc Connects Newsletter - July 7, 2023, Unm Hsc Communications

HSC Connects Newsletters

Weekly newsletter of the UNM Health Sciences Center.

New Mexico Teachers’ Perceptions Of Students Who Stutter, Kyla Evelyn Cook

Speech and Hearing Sciences ETDs

Although stuttering may have a negative impact on quality of life, social support can mediate this impact and result in better outcomes. Teachers can be an important support for children. However, studies have shown that teachers have similar biases and knowledge compared to the public, and therefore may hold harmful beliefs about their students who stutter. This online survey is part of the assessment phase that aims to investigate the local attitudes and beliefs of K-12 school teachers in New Mexico. The data showed that New Mexico teachers have similar knowledge and biases as teachers globally. Results indicate New Mexico …

The Association Between Intrauterine Exposure To Opioids, Tobacco, Alcohol, And Cannabis And Length Of Birth Hospitalization Among Neonates Without Nows, Steven J. Ondersma, Amii M. Kress, Annemarie Stroustrup, Robert D. Annett, Lyndsay A. Avalos, Maria Talavera-Barber, Patricia A. Brennan, Carlos A. Camargo Jr, Elisabeth Conradt, Anne L. Dunlop, Amy J. Elliott, Monique M. Hedderson, Ximin Li, Monica Mcgrath, Ruby H N Nguyen, Grier P. Page, Sheela Sathyanarayana, Barry Lester

Pediatrics Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unm Pathology, Pathfinder Summer 2023, Unm Department Of Pahtology

Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Validation Of The Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment Among Diverse Individuals With Alcohol Use Disorder, Elena R. Stein

Psychology ETDs

Individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) are heterogeneous in terms of etiology, maintenance, symptoms, and recovery, yet current diagnostic categories fail to adequately capture this heterogeneity. Corresponding to the neurobiological addiction cycle, the Alcohol and Addictions Research Domain Criteria proposes a framework of three core domains disrupted in AUD: negative emotionality, incentive salience, and executive function. The Addictions Neuroclinical Assessment (ANA) is a hypothesized multimodal assessment battery of these three domains, which may better characterize AUD heterogeneity. The current study validated the ANA in a sample of drinkers (N=245) who were diverse with respect to ethnicity and alcohol treatment-seeking status. …

Data-Driven Porosity Prediction For Directed Energy Deposition, Georgia E. Kaufman

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Stochastic flaw formation leading to poor print quality is a major obstacle to the utility of directed energy deposition (DED), a laser and metal powder-based additive manufacturing technology for construction and repair of custom metal parts. While melt pool temperature variability is known to be a major factor in flaw formation, control schemes to decrease flaw formation are limited by a lack of physics-based models that fully and accurately describe DED. In this work, a stochastic reachability analysis with a data-driven model based on thermal images of the melt pool was conducted to determine the likelihood of violating melt pool …

High Extracellular Glucose Promotes Cell Motility By Modulating Cell Deformability And Contractility Via The Camp-Rhoa-Rock Axis In Human Breast Cancer Cells, Mijung Oh, Skylar Batty, Nayan Banerjee, Tae-Hyung Kim

Pathology Research and Scholarship

The mechanical properties, or mechanotypes, of cells are largely determined by their deformability and contractility. The ability of cancer cells to deform and generate contractile force is critical in multiple steps of metastasis. Identifying soluble cues that regulate cancer cell mechanotypes and understanding the underlying molecular mechanisms regulating these cellular mechanotypes could provide novel therapeutic targets to prevent metastasis. Although a strong correlation between high glucose level and cancer metastasis has been demonstrated, the causality has not been elucidated, and the underlying molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this study, using novel high-throughput mechanotyping assays, we show that human breast …

Long-Term Monitoring And Maintenance Plan For The Mixed Waste Landfill – March 2012, Revision 2, July 2023, Sandia National Laboratories/Nm Snl

Facilities-Units

The New Mexico Environment Department approved the Class 2 Permit Modification Request (23-024) to plug and abandon monitoring well MWL-MW4. The proposed revisions to the LTMMP have been incorporated as Revision 2 (July 2023) of the Long-Term Monitoring and Maintenance Plan for the Mixed Waste Landfill and replaces Revision 1 (dated February 2022). 268 pages.

Dynamic Fallowing In The Middle Rio Grande: A Look At The Environmental Water Leasing Program, Jared Wood

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

The Environmental Water Leasing Program (EWLP) is a federally-funded collaborative effort of the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that has paid irrigators in the Middle Rio Grande to temporarily lease water rights and forgo their water use so that it may be used to provide environmental flows for the endangered Rio Grande Silvery Minnow. The program operates in a sometimes socially contentious context, in a region with an overallocated, legally constrained water system, to offer much needed water management flexibility. While dynamic fallowing payments for ecosystem services programs like the EWLP are common policy …

Capacity And Communication: Addressing Barriers To Agricultural Innovations In The Middle Rio Grande Basin, Corina Michelle Gomez

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Farmers and ranchers across the American Southwest are battling intense droughts, leaving them with decreasing water supplies to irrigate their fields or perform the necessary activities their operations require. These shortages have placed mounting pressures on agricultural water users and water managers alike to seek techniques and innovations that will stretch water supplies further and help them survive into the future. In an area like the Middle Rio Grande (MRG) basin in central New Mexico, for many farmers agriculture is more than a way to generate income, it’s a way of life. It is closely intertwined with the history of …

Motivations And Barriers To Participation In Community Outreach And Engagement Among Environmental And Water Resources Students And Postdocs, Sydney Donohue

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

There is a need to utilize knowledge exchange avenues between academia and non-academic communities in order to advance environmental science and engineering education. Many universities and research centers attempt to enhance knowledge sharing by organizing broader impact outreach events such as lab tours, demonstrations, hands-on activities, and public presentations. Anecdotally, at two NSF-funded centers, the Transformation Network and Center for Water and the Environment, we have seen that only the same small subset of students and postdocs frequently participate while over 70% of those invited never volunteer. This study aims to survey environmentally-focused undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs’ motivations …

Methods Of Magneto-Optical Spectroscopy And Analysis For Porphyrins And Polymer Thin-Films, Emigdio E. Turner

Chemistry and Chemical Biology ETDs

This dissertation describes the construction of two high precision magneto-polarimeters for performing Faraday rotation and Magnetic Circular Dichroism (MCD) measurements of polymer thin-films. There is a focus in materials science on the development of thin-film magneto-optically active materials. These materials could allow for the construction of a thin-film optical diode, an important device for next-generation photonic technology. Upon completion of the Faraday rotation spectrometer, two publications were generated from Faraday rotation measurements of novel polymer thin-film materials.

With growing interest by materials scientists in magneto-optically active transition-metal containing materials, an MCD spectrometer was constructed to study these materials. This spectrometer …

Parents' Perspectives On The Utility Of Genomic Sequencing In The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Amy A Lemke, Michelle L Thompson, Emily C Gimpel, Katelyn C Mcnamara, Carla A Rich, Candice R Finnila, Meagan E Cochran, James M J Lawlor, Kelly M East, Kevin M Bowling, Donald R Latner, Susan M Hiatt, Michelle D Amaral, Whitley V Kelley, Veronica Greve, David E Gray, Stephanie A Felker, Hannah Meddaugh, Ashley Cannon, Amanda Luedecke, Kelly E Jackson, Laura G Hendon, Hillary M Janani, Marla Johnston, Lee Ann Merin, Sarah L Deans, Carly Tuura, Trent Hughes, Heather Williams, Kelly Laborde, Matthew B Neu, Jessica Patrick-Esteve, Anna C E Hurst, Brian M Kirmse, Renate Savich, Steven B Spedale, Sara J Knight, Gregory S Barsh, Bruce R Korf, Gregory M Cooper, Kyle B Brothers

Pediatrics Research and Scholarship

BACKGROUND: It is critical to understand the wide-ranging clinical and non-clinical effects of genome sequencing (GS) for parents in the NICU context. We assessed parents' experiences with GS as a first-line diagnostic tool for infants with suspected genetic conditions in the NICU.

METHODS: Parents of newborns (N = 62) suspected of having a genetic condition were recruited across five hospitals in the southeast United States as part of the SouthSeq study. Semi-structured interviews (N = 78) were conducted after parents received their child's sequencing result (positive, negative, or variants of unknown significance). Thematic analysis was performed on all interviews.

RESULTS: …

Some Single Valued Neutrosophic Queueing Systems With Maple Code, Fatina Masri, Mohamed Bisher Zeina, Omar Zeitouny

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

A Neutrosophic Based C-Means Approach For Improving Breast Cancer Clustering Performance, Ahmed Abdelhafeez, Hoda K. Mohamed, Ali Maher, Ahmed Abdelmonem

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Arianna Medina

Western Journal of Orthopaedics

No abstract provided.

Let’S Focus On The Fibrosis: Targeting Ccn2 In Dupuytren’S Disease, Alex G. Lambi, Ryan Dahlberg, Tomas Holy, Joseph T. Tarr, Deana Mercer, Steven N. Popoff, Mary F. Barbe

Western Journal of Orthopaedics

Dupuytren’s disease is a progressive, benign fibroproliferative disorder of the hands that can lead to debilitating hand contractures. Once symptomatic, treatment involves either surgical intervention, specifically fasciectomy or percutaneous needle aponeurotomy, or enzymatic degradation with clostridial collagenase. Currently, collagenase is the only pharmacotherapy that has been approved for the treatment of Dupuytren’s contracture. There is a need for a pharmacotherapeutic that can be administered to limit disease progression and prevent recurrence after treatment. Targeting the underlying fibrotic pathophysiology is critical. The authors propose a novel target to be considered in Dupuytren’s disease – cell communication network factor 2/connective tissue growth …

Perioperative Nutritional Considerations In Orthopaedic Surgery: A Review Of The Literature, William Curtis, Timothy Choi, Aamir Ahmad, Christopher Shultz

Western Journal of Orthopaedics

Macronutrients and micronutrients play an essential role in the surgical process, beginning in preoperative preparation and extending well into postoperative recovery. It is important that orthopaedic surgeons and their patients understand the physiological impact of the surgical stress response and the ways in which adequate perioperative nutrition can help combat its negative effects. Throughout this article, the authors discuss the important roles of macronutrients, such as carbohydrates, protein, and fatty acids, and that of micronutrients, including zinc and vitamins C, D, A, and E, in the perioperative period. The authors aim to explain the physiological effects of surgery on nutrition …

Social Tolerance, Cooperation, And Constraint Shape Differentiated Social Relationships In Female Chimpanzees, Stephanie A. Fox

Anthropology ETDs

In this dissertation, I investigate variables that promote and constrain female-female social relationships in chimpanzees, a species where females disperse at sexual maturity, reside primarily among non-kin as adults, and where fission fusion social structure can reveal how female social behavior responds to different social contexts. I conducted my research using a combination of detailed behavioural data that I collected during a one-year field season (2019-2020) and long-term data (2010-2019) collected by the Kibale Chimpanzee Project. I show that female chimpanzees form stable, differentiated social relationships, which reflect active preferences and variation in social tolerance (Chapter 2); females leverage these …

Determining The Existence And Regulation Of Microlipophagy In Primary Brown And White Adipocytes, Sara C. Arenas De Leon

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Lipids are one of life’s four main macromolecules and provide essential functions to cells, as they serve as building blocks of cellular membranes, mediate cell signaling, and are a critical energy source. Within cells, esterified fatty acids aggregate into lipid droplets in the form of triglycerides, consisting of a neutral lipid core surrounded by a phospholipid monolayer decorated with various proteins.

The degradation of lipid droplets and mobilization of lipids occurs through lipolysis, a process that hydrolyzes a molecule of triglyceride into a glycerol and three fatty acids. Emerging evidence demonstrates the involvement of a selective form of autophagy in …

Neuroinflammatory And Metabolomic Temporal Dynamics Following Wood Smoke Inhalation, David Scieszka, Yan Jin, Shahani Noor, Ed Barr, Marcus Garcia, Jessica Begay, Guy Herbert, Russell P. Hunter, Kiran Bhaskar, Rahul Kumar, Rama Gullapalli, Alicia Bolt, Mark A. Mccormick, Barry Bleske, Haiwei Gu, Matthew Campen

Pathology Research and Scholarship

Smoke from wildland fires has been shown to produce neuroinflammation in preclinical models, characterized by neural infiltrations of neutrophils and monocytes, as well as altered neurovascular endothelial phenotypes. To address the longevity of such outcomes, the present study examined the neuroinflammatory and metabolomic temporal dynamics after inhalation exposures from biomass-derived smoke. 2-month-old female C57BL/6J mice were exposed to wood smoke every other day for two weeks at an average exposure concentration of 0.5mg/m

In Vivo Tissue Distribution Of Microplastics And Systemic Metabolomic Alterations After Gastrointestinal Exposure, Marcus M. Garcia, Aaron S. Romero, Seth D. Merkley, Jewel L. Meyer-Hagen, Charles Forbes, Eliane El Hayek, David P. Sciezka, Rachel Templeton, Jorge Gonzalez-Estrella, Yan Jin, Haiwei Gu, Angelica Benavidez, Russell P. Hunter, Selita Lucas, Guy Herbert, Kyle Joohyung Kim, Julia Yue Cui, Rama Gullapalli, Julie G. In, Matthew J. Campen, Eliseo F. Castillo

Pathology Research and Scholarship

Global plastic use has consistently increased over the past century with several different types of plastics now being produced. Much of these plastics end up in oceans or landfills leading to a substantial accumulation of plastics in the environment. Plastic debris slowly degrades into microplastics (MPs) that can ultimately be inhaled or ingested by both animals and humans. A growing body of evidence indicates that MPs can cross the gut barrier and enter into the lymphatic and systemic circulation leading to accumulation in tissues such as the lungs, liver, kidney, and brain. The impacts of mixed MPs exposure on tissue …

The Reward Positivity As An Additive And Temporally Independent Event-Related Potential Feature, Trevor C J Jackson

Psychology ETDs

The reward positivity (RewP) is a feedback-related event-related potential elicited in response to reward with two distinct defining features. First, it reflects an axiomatic reward prediction error signal. Second, it is spectrally represented within the delta band. We propose a third defining feature, namely that it is an additive and temporally independent event-related potential feature. Across five datasets and ten studies, this dissertation tested three major hypotheses. First, we show that stimulus modality (e.g. visual and auditory stimuli) and parametric delays can shift the RewP in time, which empirically indicates an additive and temporally independent feature. Second, we provide some …