Digital Commons Network^™

Cytochrome P450 Enzyme Inhibition And Herb-Drug Interaction Potential Of Medicinal Plant Extracts Used For Management Of Diabetes In Nigeria, Ogochukwu Amaeze, Heather Eng, Lauren Horlbogen, Manthena V.S. Varma, Angela Slitt

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background and Objective

The use of herbal medicines is common in Africa, and patients often use a combination of herbs and drugs. Concurrent herbal and pharmaceuticals treatments can cause adverse effects through herb-drug interactions (HDI). This study evaluated the potential risk of HDI for five medicinal plants, Vernonia amygdalina, Ocimum gratissimum, Moringa oleifera, Azadirachta indica, and Picralima nitida, using in vitro assays. Patients with diabetes and some other disease conditions commonly use these medicinal plants in Nigeria, and little is known regarding their potential for drug interaction, despite their enormous use.

Methods

Crude extracts of the medicinal plants were …

Urinformed Commencement 2021, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Inclusive Science Communication Starter Kit, Christina Dicenzo, Sunshine Menezes, H. Smith, K. Murray-Johnson, M. Azizi, K. Mcduffie

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

This report summarizes responses from focus groups conducted during the 2019 Inclusive SciComm Symposium and survey responses collected from Symposium attendees before and after their participation in the event. Quotes used herein came directly from Symposium surveys and focus groups or represent paraphrased composites of multiple comments received from symposium attendees.

An Ecological Assessment Of Critically Endangered Chinese Pangolin Manis Pentadactyla (Mammalia: Pholidota: Manidae) In The Midhills Region Of Nepal, Sandeep Shrestha, Ashish Bashyal, Rojeena Rijal, Janam Shrestha, Palistha Shrestha, Nischal Shrestha, Thomas J. Mcgreevy Jr., Bill Buffum, Sanjay Nath Khanal

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

The Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) is a “Critically Endangered” insectivorous mammal. There is a lack of information on the ecology, distribution and behavior of this species in Nepal, even though community forests in the Midhills Region of Nepal are considered to be prime habitats for the species. We conducted an ecological assessment of the habitat use of this species in nine community forests covering an area of 170.69 ha in Balthali village in Kavrepalanchok district, Nepal. We divided each forest into 50 × 50 m grids and searched for Chinese Pangolin burrows along 50 m transects in each …

Dietary Vitamin E Reaches The Mitochondria In The Flight Muscle Of Zebra Finches But Only If They Exercise, Clara Cooper-Mullin, Wales A. Carter, Ronald S. Amato, David Podlesak, Scott R. Mcwilliams

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Whether dietary antioxidants are effective for alleviating oxidative costs associated with energy-demanding life events first requires they are successfully absorbed in the digestive tract and transported to sites associated with reactive species production (e.g. the mitochondria). Flying birds are under high energy and oxidative demands, and although birds commonly ingest dietary antioxidants in the wild, the bioavailability of these consumed antioxidants is poorly understood. We show for the first time that an ingested lipophilic antioxidant, α-tocopherol, reached the mitochondria in the flight muscles of a songbird but only if they regularly exercise (60 min of perch-to-perch flights two times in …

Urinformed Summer 2021, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Traceall: A Real-Time Processing For Contact Tracing Using Indoor Trajectories, Louai Alarabi, Saleh Basalamah, Abdeltawab Hendawi, Mohammed Abdalla

Computer Science and Statistics Faculty Publications

The rapid spread of infectious diseases is a major public health problem. Recent developments in fighting these diseases have heightened the need for a contact tracing process. Contact tracing can be considered an ideal method for controlling the transmission of infectious diseases. The result of the contact tracing process is performing diagnostic tests, treating for suspected cases or self-isolation, and then treating for infected persons; this eventually results in limiting the spread of diseases. This paper proposes a technique named TraceAll that traces all contacts exposed to the infected patient and produces a list of these contacts to be considered …

Mce Capstone Team 13: Seabud, Joshua Vannoy, Sam Coleman, Lucas Peckham, Matthew C. Wray

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

The Naval Undersea Warfare Center sponsored team 13’s mechanical engineering capstone project. The task given to the team was the recovery of a cylindrical body into a cylinder tube that is twice the diameter. After our initial meet with our sponsor, Vadim Gurevich, the team was presented with designing a system to recover a UUV into the launch tube of a submarine. After performing research, designs were developed by each team member. These designs were analysed and compared by the team and a system was conceptualized that consists of a robotic arm mounted inside a hollowed out torpedo tube that …

Recovery Of A Cylindrical Body Into An Outer Tube, David Acciardo, Jacob Doherty, Gianni Figueroa, Joshua Kang

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

The U.S. Navy lacks the ability for reliable and consistent undersea vehicle recovery. During missions and tests concerning unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV) and or remote operated undersea vehicles (ROUV), the standard retrieval process for such vehicles involves an expensive, time consuming, and highly coordinated operation carried out by humans. Conventional retrieval methods usually involve a surface vessel crew, a team of highly trained-professional divers, and a dockside command crew to ensure that the entire operation is carried out safely and according to plan. Today, it is of particular interest to explore capabilities pertaining to the recovery of a cylindrical body …

Combined Responses Of Primary Coral Polyps And Their Algal Endosymbionts To Decreasing Seawater Ph, Federica Scucchia, Assaf Malik, Paul Zaslansky, Hollie M. Putnam, Tali Mass

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

With coral reefs declining globally, resilience of these ecosystems hinges on successful coral recruitment. However, knowledge of the acclimatory and/or adaptive potential in response to environmental challenges such as ocean acidification (OA) in earliest life stages is limited. Our combination of physiological measurements, microscopy, computed tomography techniques and gene expression analysis allowed us to thoroughly elucidate the mechanisms underlying the response of early-life stages of corals, together with their algal partners, to the projected decline in oceanic pH. We observed extensive physiological, morphological and transcriptional changes in surviving recruits, and the transition to a less-skeleton/more-tissue phenotype. We found that decreased …

Hepatotoxicity Reports In The Fda Adverse Event Reporting System Database: A Comparison Of Drugs That Cause Injury Via Mitochondrial Or Other Mechanisms, Payal Rana, D. Aleo, Xuerong Wen, Stephen Jon Kogut

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is a leading reason for preclinical safety attrition and post-market drug withdrawals. Drug-induced mitochondrial toxicity has been shown to play an essential role in various forms of DILI, especially in idiosyncratic liver injury. This study examined liver injury reports submitted to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) for drugs associated with hepatotoxicity via mitochondrial mechanisms compared with non-mitochondrial mechanisms of toxicity. The frequency of hepatotoxicity was determined at a group level and individual drug level. A reporting odds ratio (ROR) was calculated as the measure of effect. Between the two DILI …

Adjuvantation Of Influenza Vaccines To Induce Cross-Protective Immunity, Zhoufan Li, Yiwen Zhao, Yibo Li, Xinyuan Chen

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Influenza poses a huge threat to global public health. Influenza vaccines are the most effective and cost-effective means to control influenza. Current influenza vaccines mainly induce neutralizing antibodies against highly variable globular head of hemagglutinin and lack cross-protection. Vaccine adjuvants have been approved to enhance seasonal influenza vaccine efficacy in the elderly and spare influenza vaccine doses. Clinical studies found that MF59 and AS03-adjuvanted influenza vaccines could induce cross-protective immunity against non-vaccine viral strains. In addition to MF59 and AS03 adjuvants, experimental adjuvants, such as Toll-like receptor agonists, saponin-based adjuvants, cholera toxin and heat-labile enterotoxin-based mucosal adjuvants, and physical adjuvants, …

Association Of Gestational Opioid Exposure And Risk Of Major And Minor Congenital Malformations, Xuerong Wen, Nicholas Belviso, Emily Murray, Adam K. Lewkowitz, Kristina E. Ward, Kimford J. Meador

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Importance: The rapid increase of opioid-related overdoses and deaths has become a public health concern in the US. Use of prescription opioids in pregnant women has increased; results from teratogenicity studies remain controversial.

Objective: To evaluate the association between maternal prescription opioid use (excluding opioid use disorders) during pregnancy and the incidence of congenital malformations.

Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective population-based cohort study evaluated linked Rhode Island Medicaid claims and vital statistics data of live births from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2016. Data analysis was conducted from May 1, 2019, to May 31, 2020. …

A Solution To An Ergonomics Problem, Jarred Bodziony, Josh Borczynski, Stephen Cacchoitti, Hunter Claudio

Mechanical Engineering Capstone Design Projects

Team 2 (MAG-Shine) was given the responsibility of increasing the ergonomics and e ciency of the current magnet polishing process at MagSeal, while also decreasing the fatigue on the operator and maintaining safe operation. The current process is one of hand-operation and only polishes one magnet at a time, resulting in fatigue and lacking in efficiency. The purpose of the polishing process is to expose porosity within the cast magnet early on before more modi cations are made to the geometry, as to not waste production time on a defective work piece. After gaining an understanding of the problem and …

The Belt And Road Initiative (Bri): An Intercultural Communication Perspective., Guo-Ming Chen

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) represents present economic and foreign policy of the People's Republic of China (PRC). However, while the BRI provides the PRC a great potential for its national development, it also causes uncertainty, anxiety, and criticism from other countries. For years, research has been examining the BRI from economic, foreign policy, political, or military perspective, very few of them explore it from the perspective of intercultural communication. Because the BRI itself is a process of intercultural communication, this paper attempts to examine it from five perspectives of intercultural communication, including cultural values, intercultural adaptation, intercultural relationship, …

Advances In Lipid-Based Nanoparticles For Cancer Chemoimmunotherapy, Tianqi Wang, Yusuke Suite, Saradha Miriyala, Jordan Dean, Nikos Tapinos, Jie Shen

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Nanomedicines have shown great potential in cancer therapy; in particular, the combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy (namely chemoimmunotherapy) that is revolutionizing cancer treatment. Currently, most nanomedicines for chemoimmunotherapy are still in preclinical and clinical trials. Lipid-based nanoparticles, the most widely used nanomedicine platform in cancer therapy, is a promising delivery platform for chemoimmunotherapy. In this review, we introduce the commonly used immunotherapy agents and discuss the opportunities for chemoimmunotherapy mediated by lipid-based nanoparticles. We summarize the clinical trials involving lipid-based nanoparticles for chemoimmunotherapy. We also highlight different chemoimmunotherapy strategies based on lipid-based nanoparticles such as liposomes, nanodiscs, and lipid-based hybrid …

Treprostinil Reduces Mitochondrial Injury During Rat Renal Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury, Meiwen Ding, Evelyn Tolbert, Mark Birkenbach, Reginald Gohh, Fatemeh Akhlaghi, Nisanne S. Ghonem

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background: Renal ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) is a major factor contributing to acute kidney injury and it is associated with a high morbidity and mortality if untreated. Renal IRI depletes cellular and tissue adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which compromises mitochondrial function, further exacerbating renal tubular injury. Currently, no treatment for IRI is available. This study investigates the protective role of treprostinil in improving mitochondria biogenesis and recovery during rat renal IRI.

Methods: Male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly assigned to groups: control, sham, IRI-placebo or IRI-treprostinil and subjected to 45 min of bilateral renal ischemia followed by 1–72 h reperfusion. Placebo or …

A Long-Acting Curcumin Nanoparticle/In Situ Hydrogel Composite For The Treatment Of Uveal Melanoma, Lingxiao Xie, Weizhou Yue, Khaled Ibrahim, Jie Shen

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Uveal melanoma (UM) is the most common primary intraocular tumor in adults with high mortality. In order to improve prognosis and survival of UM patients, it is critical to inhibit tumor progression and metastasis as early as possible after the initial presentation/diagnosis of the disease. Sustained local delivery of antitumor therapeutics in the posterior region can potentially achieve long-term UM inhibition, improve target therapeutic delivery to the posterior segments, as well as reduce injection frequency and hence improved patient compliance. To address the highly unmet medical need in UM therapy, a bioinspired in situ gelling hydrogel system composed of naturally …

A New Paper-Based Microfluidic Device For Sensitive Detection Of Nitrate In Seawater, Amer Charbaji

Open Access Dissertations

Nitrate is a naturally occurring nutrient that is part of the nitrogen cycle. Monitoring of this nutrient in water bodies ensures its safety for consumption, guards against water nutrient pollution, and provides oceanographers and marine scientists with data to better understand nitrogen cycling and other phenomena of interest. Currently, there are several techniques available for nitrate detection. However, they either lack the required sensitivity for use in the field, or are costly, time consuming, and require special handling of the water sample as it gets sent to a laboratory for analysis.

Paper-based technologies possess several advantages that can facilitate sensitive …

Developing Global Sociotechnical Competency Through Humanitarian Engineering: A Comparison Of In-Person And Virtual International Project Experiences, Jessica M. Smith, Juan Lucena, Angelina Rivera, Thomas Phelan, Kathleen Smits, Robin Bullock

Journal of International Engineering Education

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of engineering educators in the United States and Colombia designed and led a two-week virtual “field session” for engineering undergraduate students that aimed at achieving the same educational outcomes as those from the previous in-country field session. Our NSF PIRE funded Responsible Mining, Resilient Communities (RMRC) project uses multi-country, interinstitutional, and interdisciplinary collaboration to train U.S. engineering students to co-design socially responsible and sustainable artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) systems with mining communities and engineers in Latin America. Drawing from pre- and post-field session student interviews, essays, and survey responses, this …

Genome Evolution In Bacteria Isolated From Million-Year-Old Subseafloor Sediment, William D. Orsi, Tobias Magritsch, Sergio Vargas, Ömer K. Coskun, Aurele Vuillemin, Sebastian Höhna, Gert Wörheide, Steven D'Hondt, B. Jesse Shapiro, Paul Carini

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Beneath the seafloor, microbial life subsists in isolation from the surface world under persistent energy limitation. The nature and extent of genomic evolution in subseafloor microbes have been unknown. Here, we show that the genomes of Thalassospira bacterial populations cultured from million-year-old subseafloor sediments evolve in clonal populations by point mutation, with a relatively low rate of homologous recombination and elevated numbers of pseudogenes. Ratios of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions correlate with the accumulation of pseudogenes, consistent with a role for genetic drift in the subseafloor strains but not in type strains of Thalassospira isolated from the surface world. Consistent …

A Sensitive Method For The Detection Of Legacy And Emerging Per- And Polyfluorinated Alkyl Substances (Pfas) In Dairy Milk, Nicholas I. Hill, Jitka Becanova, Rainer Lohmann

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

There is widespread contamination by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) across the globe, with adverse effects on human and environmental health. For human exposure, drinking water and dietary exposure have been recognized as important PFAS exposure pathway for the general population. Several documented cases of dairy milk contamination by PFAS have raised concerns over this exposure pathway in general. A sensitive method for determination of 27 PFAS in milk was hence modified and applied on raw and processed milk samples from 13 farms across the United States (U.S.). A combination of acid and basic extraction method and ENVI-Carb clean-up achieved …

Integrating The Humanities With Engineering Through A Global Case Study Course, Kirsten A. Davis, Siddhant S. Joshi, Lori Czerwionka, Francisco Montalvo, Gabriel O. Rios-Rojas, Joe Tort, Jennifer Marston William, E. Nauman

Journal of International Engineering Education

As the world becomes more connected and globalized, the problems that engineers are called upon to solve are increasingly complex and interdependent. Unfortunately, engineering coursework has traditionally focused on abstract and closed-ended problem solving, offering few opportunities for students to develop these skills. In this practice paper, we argue for the importance of integrating the humanities and engineering to understand the multiple and intersecting layers of context in an engineering project. We then describe the Humanities-Informed Engineering Projects course, which we developed to help students acquire this perspective. The course was piloted in Spring 2021 in response to the obstacles …

Uri Undergraduate And Graduate Course Catalog 2021-2022, University Of Rhode Island

URI Course Catalogs Archive

This is a downloadable PDF version of the University of Rhode Island course catalog.

Transcranial Focal Electrical Stimulation Modifies Biogenic Amines’ Alterations Induced By 6-Hydroxydopamine In Rat Brain, Cesar Emmanuel Santana-Gómez, Daniel Pérez-Pérez, Daniel Fonseca-Barriendos, Oscar Arias-Carrión, Walter Besio, Luis Rocha

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

Transcranial focal stimulation (TFS) is a non-invasive neuromodulation strategy with neuroprotective effects. On the other hand, 6-hidroxidopamine (6-OHDA) induces neurodegeneration of the nigrostriatal system producing modifications in the dopaminergic, serotoninergic, and histaminergic systems. The present study was conducted to test whether repetitive application of TFS avoids the biogenic amines’ changes induced by the intrastriatal injection of 6-OHDA. Experiments were designed to determine the tissue content of dopamine, serotonin, and histamine in the brain of animals injected with 6-OHDA and then receiving daily TFS for 21 days. Tissue content of biogenic amines was evaluated in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and …

Stress Conditioning To Hypercapnic Seawater In The Pacific Geoduck Panopea Generosa, Samuel J. Gurr

Open Access Dissertations

Expansion and enhancement of sustainable shellfish production is necessary to prevent overexploitation of wild stock and satisfy international trade, but hatchery rearing poses a critical production bottleneck due partially to environmental stressors such as ocean acidification. Given that stress conditions exacerbated by anthropogenic activity are projected to intensify in the near-future, long-lived molluscs, such as Pacific geoduck Panopea generosa (known lifespan up to 168 years), may rely on intragenerational acclimation to buffer against rapid environmental change. While acute stressors can be detrimental, environmental stress conditioning can improve performance. For example, moderate oxidative stress (i.e. temperature, irradiance, and dietary restriction) shows …

Self-Adjuvanted Virus-Like Particle For Safe And Highly Immunogenic Vaccination, Yiwen Zhao

Open Access Dissertations

Vaccination is one of the most outstanding inventions in medical history and has made significant contributions to prevent various types of infectious diseases. Once highly fatal disease, smallpox, was eradicated in 1980 after decades of vaccination effort. Mounting evidence also supports vaccination as the most effective way to control the recent outbreak of COVID-19.

Different types of vaccines have been developed from the early inactivated and live-attenuated vaccines to recent subunit vaccines, and to recent emerging nucleic acid-based vaccines that vary in vaccine immunogenicity and safety. Subunit vaccines are attractive vaccine types due to its good safety profiles, flexible design, …

Dietary Fermentable Carbohydrate (Fc) Consumption And Associations With Diet Quality And Health Parameters, Ajita Jadhav

Open Access Dissertations

Excessive body fat and related dysmetabolic complications concern both emerging and developed countries. An important environmental cause of these conditions is the altered composition of gut microbiota, which is influenced by the host diet. A number of clinical trials target gut microbiome composition or functions with fermentable carbohydrates (FCs) to promote a healthier profile. Total dietary fiber, which includes both FC and non-fermentable carbohydrates, is considered a promising tool for the prevention of chronic diseases. This has led to significant changes in food and health recommendation with an increase in dietary fiber intake advised. However, reference to other FCs such …

Association Between Prenatal Opioid Exposure And Neurodevelopmental Outcomes In Children, Xuerong Wen, D. Lawal, Nicholas Belviso, Kelly Matson, Shuang Wang, Brian J. Quilliam, Kimford J. Meador

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Introduction: Several studies have reported increasing prevalence of prescription opioid use among pregnant women. However, little is known regarding the effects of maternal opioid use on neurodevelopmental disorders in early childhood in pregnant women with no evidence of opioid use disorders or drug dependence.

Objective: The aim of this study was to quantify the association between prenatal opioid exposure from maternal prescription use and neurodevelopmental outcomes in early childhood.

Methods: This retrospective study included pregnant women aged 12–55 years and their live-birth infants born from 2010 to 2012 present in Optum’s deidentified Clinformatics® Data Mart database. Eligible infants born to …

Characterization Of Impact Pile Driving Signals And Fin Whale Vocalizations At The Block Island Wind Farm Site, Jennifer L. Amaral

Open Access Dissertations

Offshore wind farm development is rapidly expanding and with that comes the need for assessment of the potential short and long term environmental impacts. As a by-product of the construction, operation, and eventual decommissioning of offshore wind farms, sound is generated both in air and underwater through various activities and mechanisms. With the rate of wind farm development continuing to increase worldwide, regulatory agencies, industry, and scientists are attentive to the potential physiological and behavioral effects these sounds might have on marine life living in the surrounding environment. The impact pile driving used to install the wind turbine foundations is …