Digital Commons Network^™

Constructing A Series Of Informative Videos And Building Social Media Platforms For Save One Soul Animal Rescue League, Cassandra Munroe

Senior Honors Projects

Approximately six million animals enter shelters each year. Of those six million animals, about two million are killed each year. Due to the lack of spaying and neutering and overcrowding, especially in the southern states of the U.S., the population of animals in high-kill shelters is alarming. Save One Soul Animal Rescue League (SOSARL) is a volunteer-driven non-profit dog rescue founded and based in Rhode Island. The mission of SOSARL is to permanently rehome homeless, neglected, abandoned, and at-risk dogs. The majority of the dogs rehomed by SOSARL are transported from overcrowded high-kill shelters in the Southern U.S. or from …

Energy Stores, Oxidative Balance, And Sleep In Migratory Garden Warblers ( Sylvia Borin) And Whitethroats ( Sylvia Communis) At A Spring Stopover Site, Andrea Ferretti, Scott R. Mcwilliams, Niels C. Rattenborg, Ivan Maggini, Massimiliano Cardinale, Leonida Fusani

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Little is known about how songbirds modulate sleep during migratory periods. Due to the alternation of nocturnal endurance flights and diurnal refueling stopovers, sleep is likely to be a major constraint for many migratory passerine species. Sleep may help to increase the endogenous antioxidant capacity that counteracts free radicals produced during endurance flight and reduces energy expenditure. Here, we investigated the relationship between sleep behavior, food intake, and two markers of physiological condition—the amount of energy reserves and oxidative status—in two migratory songbird species, the garden warbler (Sylvia borin) and the whitethroat (Sylvia communis). In garden warblers, birds with high …

Horror Literacy: Why We Write The Stories That Scare Readers, Ashley Schwegler

Senior Honors Projects

Children’s books often have animals as central characters with the animals displaying human traits in order to explore basic values in a general manner, or poke fun and invert values in order to provide gentle criticism and moral lessons. Seldom, if ever, do children’s books aim to scare readers or invert values and call them into question. In recent years, however, a few children’s books have begun to rewrite classics like Clifford The Big Red Dog in order to introduce elements through grotesque, irrelevant, cynicism, or horror. Such a rewriting is called a remix. It can be simply an inversion …

Calf Heath And Oxidative Stress, Samantha Cardin

Senior Honors Projects

In recent years, beef cattle operations such as farms and ranches in the U.S. have surpassed 900,000 and have been steadily increasing. With this rise in the beef industry, comes a greater concern for calf health since it has huge impacts on production and viability. There are multiple different factors that can affect calf health ranging from the intrauterine environment to conditions early on post parturition. An improper maternal environment during pregnancy can impact fetal growth because it can decrease the amount of nutrients reaching the calf. This can lead to low birth weights and undeveloped organ systems. Additionally, if …

Longitudinal Cognitive Decline In A Novel Rodent Model Of Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy Type-1, Dominique L. Popescu, William Van Nostrand, John K. Robinson

Psychology Faculty Publications

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is a small vessel disease characterized by β-amyloid (Aβ) accumulation in and around the cerebral blood vessels and capillaries and is highly comorbid with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Familial forms of CAA result from mutations within the Aβ domain of the amyloid β precursor protein (AβPP). Numerous transgenic mouse models have been generated around expression of human AβPP mutants and used to study cerebral amyloid pathologies. While behavioral deficits have been observed in many AβPP transgenic mouse lines, relative to rats, mice are limited in behavioral expression within specific cognitive domains. Recently, we generated a novel rat …

Altered Motoneuron Properties Contribute To Motor Deficits In A Rabbit Hypoxia-Ischemia Model Of Cerebral Palsy, Preston R. Steele, Clarissa Fantin Cavarsan, Lisa Dowaliby, Megan Westefeld, Natallia Katenka, Alexander Drobyshevsky, Monica A. Gorassini, Katharina A. Quinlan

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Cerebral palsy (CP) is caused by a variety of factors attributed to early brain damage, resulting in permanently impaired motor control, marked by weakness and muscle stiffness. To find out if altered physiology of spinal motoneurons (MNs) could contribute to movement deficits, we performed whole-cell patch-clamp in neonatal rabbit spinal cord slices after developmental injury at 79% gestation. After preterm hypoxia-ischemia (HI), rabbits are born with motor deficits consistent with a spastic phenotype including hypertonia and hyperreflexia. There is a range in severity, thus kits are classified as severely affected, mildly affected, or unaffected based on modified Ashworth scores and …

A Conceptual Map Of Invasion Biology: Integrating Hypotheses Into A Consensus Network, Laura A. Meyerson, Et Al

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Background and aims

Since its emergence in the mid‐20th century, invasion biology has matured into a productive research field addressing questions of fundamental and applied importance. Not only has the number of empirical studies increased through time, but also has the number of competing, overlapping and, in some cases, contradictory hypotheses about biological invasions. To make these contradictions and redundancies explicit, and to gain insight into the field’s current theoretical structure, we developed and applied a Delphi approach to create a consensus network of 39 existing invasion hypotheses.

Results

The resulting network was analysed with a link‐clustering algorithm that revealed …

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes March 19, 2020, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

No abstract provided.

Molecular Characterization Of Haemaphysalis Species And A Molecular Genetic Key For The Identification Of Haemaphysalis Of North America, Alec T. Thompson, Kristen Dominguez, Christopher A. Cleveland, Shaun J. Dergousoff, Kandai Doi, Richard C. Falco, Talleasha Greay, Peter Irwin, L. Robbin Lindsay, Jingze Liu, Thomas N. Mather, Charlotte L. Oskam, Roger I. Rodriguez-Vivas, Mark G. Ruder, David Shaw, Stacey L. Vigil, Seth White, Michael J. Yabsley

Plant Sciences and Entomology Faculty Publications

Haemaphysalis longicornis (Acari: Ixodidae), the Asian longhorned tick, is native to East Asia, but has become established in Australia and New Zealand, and more recently in the United States. In North America, there are other native Haemaphysalis species that share similar morphological characteristics and can be difficult to identify if the specimen is damaged. The goal of this study was to develop a cost-effective and rapid molecular diagnostic assay to differentiate between exotic and native Haemaphysalis species to aid in ongoing surveillance of H. longicornis within the United States and help prevent misidentification. We demonstrated that restriction fragment length polymorphisms …

The Reliability Of Foot And Ankle Bone And Joint Kinematics Measured With Biplanar Videoradiography And Manual Scientific Rotoscoping, Jayishni N. Maharaj, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. Rainbow, Susan E. D'Andrea, Nicolai Konow, Luke A. Kelly, Glen A. Lichtwark

Kinesiology Faculty Publications

The intricate motion of the small bones of the feet are critical for its diverse function. Accurately measuring the 3-dimensional (3D) motion of these bones has attracted much attention over the years and until recently, was limited to invasive techniques or quantification of functional segments using multi-segment foot models. Biplanar videoradiography and model-based scientific rotoscoping offers an exciting alternative that allows us to focus on the intricate motion of individual bones in the foot. However, scientific rotoscoping, the process of rotating and translating a 3D bone model so that it aligns with the captured x-ray images, is either semi- or …

Anthropogenic Electromagnetic Fields (Emf) Influence The Behaviour Of Bottom-Dwelling Marine Species, Zoe L. Hutchison, Andrew B. Gill, Peter Sigray, Haibo He, John W. King

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Many marine animals have evolved sensory abilities to use electric and magnetic cues in essential aspects of life history, such as to detect prey, predators and mates as well as to orientate and migrate. Potential disruption of vital cues by human activities must be understood in order to mitigate potential negative influences. Cable deployments in coastal waters are increasing worldwide, in capacity and number, owing to growing demands for electrical power and telecommunications. Increasingly, the local electromagnetic environment used by electro- and magneto-sensitive species will be altered. We quantified biologically relevant behavioural responses of the presumed, magneto-receptive American lobster and …

Exploring And Interpreting Spatiotemporal Interactions Between Native And Invasive Carnivores Across A Gradient Of Rainforest Degradation, Zach J. Farris, Brian Gerber, Sarah Karpanty, Asia Murphy, Erin Wampole, Felix Ratelolahy, Marcella J. Kelly

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Studies of elusive carnivores often rely on passive sampling when investigating either spatial or temporal interactions. However, inference on behavioral mechanisms are usually lacking. We present an analysis that combines previously published spatial co-occurrence estimates and temporal kernel density estimates to explore spatiotemporal interspecific interactions. We do so by deriving a spatiotemporal value (STV) that is a relative measure of potential interaction in both niche dimensions, across a gradient of degradation, for rainforest carnivore pairs in Madagascar. We also use a conceptual framework to provide insight into the potential behavioral mechanisms of habitat selection. Of the six native and three …

Robust Neuroinflammation And Perivascular Pathology In Rtg-Di Rats, A Novel Model Of Microvascular Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy, Xiaoyue Zhu, Joshua Hatfield, Joseph K. Sullivan, Feng Xu, William Van Nostrand

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Background

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is a common cerebral small vessel disease of the aged and a prominent comorbidity of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). CAA can promote a variety of vascular-related pathologies including neuroinflammation, cerebral infarction, and hemorrhages, which can all contribute to vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID). Our understanding of the pathogenesis of CAA remains limited and further investigation of this condition requires better preclinical animal models that more accurately reflect the human disease. Recently, we generated a novel transgenic rat model for CAA (rTg-DI) that develops robust and progressive microvascular CAA, consistent microhemorrhages and behavioral deficits.

Methods

In …

Variability Approaching The Thermal Limits Can Drive Diatom Community Dynamics, Stephanie Anderson, Tatiana A. Rynearson

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Organismal distributions are largely mediated by temperature, suggesting thermal trait variability plays a key role in defining species' niches. We employed a trait‐based approach to better understand how inter‐ and intraspecific thermal trait variability could explain diatom community dynamics using 24 strains from 5 species in the diatom genusSkeletonema, isolated from Narragansett Bay (NBay), where this genus can comprise up to 99% of the microplankton. Strain‐specific thermal reaction norms were generated using growth rates obtained at temperatures ranging from −2°C to 36°C. Comparison of thermal reaction norms revealed inter‐ and intraspecific similarities in the thermal optima, but significant …

Aquaculture And Fisheries Internship Afs 399, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Toward A Multifaceted Heuristic Of Digital Reading To Inform Assessment, Research, Practice, And Policy, Julie Coiro

College of Education Faculty Publications

In this commentary, the author explores the tension between almost 30 years of work that has embraced increasingly complex conceptions of digital reading and recent studies that risk oversimplifying digital reading as a singular entity analogous with reading text on a screen. The author begins by tracing a line of theoretical and empirical work that both informs and complicates our understanding of digital literacy and, more specifically, digital reading. Then, a heuristic is proposed to systematically organize, label, and define a multifaceted set of increasingly complex terms, concepts, and practices that characterize the spectrum of digital reading experiences. Research that …

A Double-Thermostad Warm-Core Ring Of The Gulf Stream, Igor Belkin, Annie Foppert, Thomas Rossby, Sandra Fontana, Christopher R. Kincaid

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

An unusual double-thermostad warm-core ring of the Gulf Stream was discovered in the Slope Sea, south of Georges Bank, during the R/V Endeavor cruise 578 in May 2016. The ring’s stratification was peculiar as it included two thermostads at, respectively, 100–200 m (core T = 18.14°C, S = 36.52) and 250–500 m (core T= 16.70°C, S = 36.35). Extensive use of satellite data (SST imagery and SSH maps) allowed the life history of this ring to be reconstructed, with independent SST and SSH data mutually corroborating each other. The double-thermostad ring was formed by vertical alignment of two preexisting …

Online Graduate Certificate In Fisheries Science, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Impact Of A Nutritional Supplement During Gestation And Early Childhood On Child Salivary Cortisol, Hair Cortisol, And Telomere Length At 4–6 Years Of Age: A Follow-Up Of A Randomized Controlled Trial, Brietta M. Oaks, Seth Adu-Afarwuah, Sika Kumordzie, Mark L. Laudenslager, Dana L. Smith, Jue Lin, Rebecca R. Young, Charles D. Arnold, Helena Bentil, Harriet Okronipa, Maku Ocansey, Kathryn G. Dewey

Nutrition Faculty Publications

Dysregulation of the stress response can occur early in life and may be affected by nutrition. Our objective was to evaluate the long-term effect of nutritional supplementation during gestation and early childhood on child cortisol and buccal telomere length (a marker of cellular aging) at 4–6 years of age. We conducted a follow-up study of children born to women who participated in a nutritional supplementation trial in Ghana. In one group, a lipid-based nutrient supplement (LNS) was provided to women during gestation and the first 6 months postpartum and to their infants from age 6 to 18 months. The control …

Three-Dimensional Digital Mapping Of Ecosystems: A New Era In Spatial Ecology, Tim D'Urban Jackson, Gareth J. Williams, Guy Walker-Springett, Andrew J. Davies

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Ecological processes occur over multiple spatial, temporal and thematic scales in three-dimensional (3D) ecosystems. Characterizing and monitoring change in 3D structure at multiple scales is challenging within the practical constraints of conventional ecological tools. Remote sensing from satellites and crewed aircraft has revolutionized broad-scale spatial ecology, but fine-scale patterns and processes operating at sub-metre resolution have remained understudied over continuous extents. We introduce two high-resolution remote sensing tools for rapid and accurate 3D mapping in ecology—terrestrial laser scanning and structure-from-motion photogrammetry. These technologies are likely to become standard sampling tools for mapping and monitoring 3D ecosystem structure across currently under-sampled …

Ultrasound-Enhanced Chemiluminescence For Bioimaging, Duong Le, Danesh Dhamecha, Andrea Gonsalves, Jyothi Menon

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Tissue imaging has emerged as an important aspect of theragnosis. It is essential not only to evaluate the degree of the disease and thus provide appropriate treatments, but also to monitor the delivery of administered drugs and the subsequent recovery of target tissues. Several techniques including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computational tomography (CT), acoustic tomography (AT), biofluorescence (BF) and chemiluminescence (CL), have been developed to reconstruct three-dimensional images of tissues. While imaging has been achieved with adequate spatial resolution for shallow depths, challenges still remain for imaging deep tissues. Energy loss is usually observed when using a magnetic field or …

Effect Of Radiation Dose Fractionation And Radiation Energy On Gold Nanoparticle Enhancement Of Radiation Therapy, Bindeshwar Sah, Jing Wu, Adam Vanasse, Michael Antosh

Computer Science and Statistics Faculty Publications

Objective: Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have the potential to enhance the effects of radiation therapy, using Auger electrons to cause additional damage to tumors. In this work, we explore the effect of two clinically important variables: dose fractionation and radiation energy. In clinical radiation therapy, radiation is fractionated (split into multiple sessions) and high-energy radiation is used. However, in the field of GNP research, radiation has generally been given in one session and lower radiation energies have generally been used.

Methods: Mice with JC breast tumors implanted in the flank were given radiation therapy over 1, 2, or 4 …

Understanding Rural Attitudes Toward The Environment And Conservation In America, Robert Bonnie, Emily Pechar Diamond, Elizabeth Rowe

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

Rural Americans matter—a lot—to the fate of U.S. environmental policy. Not only do farmers, ranchers, and forest owners manage huge portions of American lands and watersheds, but rural voters also have an outsized impact on national policy. While rural Americans express support for natural resource conservation, they and their elected officials often voice less support for existing federal environmental policies and laws. Congressional action on a variety of environmental issues has been impeded by opposition from rural stakeholders.

Why do rural voters and their representatives often oppose environmental regulations? What accounts for this apparent rural/urban divide on attitudes toward environmental …

Parents As Pimps: Survivor Accounts Of Trafficking Of Children In The United States, Jody Raphael

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This article discusses four survivor accounts of survivors of being sold for sexual exploitation by their parents for monetary gain. These narratives, supplemented by other accounts from 100 newspaper stories between 2012 and 2018, reveal the fact that many survivors were sold as very young children, and the abuse continued through their teen years, blurring distinctions between pedophilia and the sex trade industry. In their accounts, survivors described the motivations of their parents as well as the buyers, who used excessive force and violence. Some researchers are beginning to document the existence of parental pimping and its prevalence, which ranges …

Loss Of Self In Dissociation In Prostitution; Recovery Of Self In Connection To Horses: A Survivor's Journey, Sandra Norak

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This narrative is about dissociation in the lives of women who have been exploited through prostitution. When we speak about prostitution, we do not speak often enough about the dissociation needed for women and girls to survive sexual exploitation. The author challenges the wisdom of governments such as Germany that legalize prostitution, treating it as a “job” and ignoring the violence and subsequent dissociation in women. The author describes her personal journey, explaining how women are traumatized even after the first commercial sex act, which is a sexual assault. They dissociate which makes their lives bearable, but they fail to …

Environmental Enrichment: Disentangling The Influence Of Novelty, Social, And Physical Activity On Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy In A Transgenic Mouse Model, Lisa S. Robison, Nikita Francis, Dominique L. Popescu, Maria E. Anderson, Joshua Hatfield, Feng Xu, Brenda J. Anderson, William Van Nostrand, John K. Robinson

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is the deposition of amyloid protein in the cerebral vasculature, a common feature in both aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). However, the effects of environmental factors, particularly cognitive stimulation, social stimulation, and physical activity, on CAA pathology are poorly understood. These factors, delivered in the form of the environmental enrichment (EE) paradigm in rodents, have been shown to have beneficial effects on the brain and behavior in healthy aging and AD models. However, the relative importance of these subcomponents on CAA pathology has not been investigated. Therefore, we assessed the effects of EE, social enrichment (SOC), …

Curriculum And Standards Committee Report No. #2019-20-7 (Courses), University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

Common Temperature-Growth Dependency And Acclimation Response In Three Herbivorous Protists, Gayantonia Franze, Susanne Menden-Deuer

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Phytoplankton growth dependence on temperature is recognized and has been quantified comprehensively. However, no similar relationship exists for the major phytoplankton predators, the herbivorous protists, especially at low temperatures representing polar and coastal oceans during most seasons. Their acclimation to changing temperatures is also largely unexplored. Here we report acclimated growth and acclimation rates from 0 to 22°C for 3 cosmopolitan herbivorous dinoflagellates. Due to interactive effects between size and temperature, growth increased 40% more rapidly with increasing temperature for production- compared to division-based growth rates (0.043 and 0.062 d^-1 °C^-1, respectively). Biomass-based growth rates were 10-fold …

Cell-Mediated Immunity Generated In Response To A Purified Inactivated Vaccine For Dengue Virus Type 1, Heather Friberg, Luis J. Martinez, Leyi Lin, Jason M. Blaylock, Rafael A. De La Barrera, Alan L. Rothman, J. Robert Putnak, Kenneth H. Eckels, Stephen J. Thomas, Richard G. Jarman, Jeffrey R. Currier

Institute for Immunology and Informatics Faculty Publications

Dengue is the most prevalent arboviral disease afflicting humans, and a vaccine appears to be the most rational means of control. Dengue vaccine development is in a critical phase, with the first vaccine licensed in some countries where dengue is endemic but demonstrating insufficient efficacy in immunologically naive populations. Since virus-neutralizing antibodies do not invariably correlate with vaccine efficacy, other markers that may predict protection, including cell-mediated immunity, are urgently needed. Previously, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research developed a monovalent purified inactivated virus (PIV) vaccine candidate against dengue virus serotype 1 (DENV-1) adjuvanted with alum. The PIV vaccine …

Radiofrequency And Near-Infrared Responsive Core-Shell Nanostructures Using Layersome Templates For Cancer Treatment, Animesh Pan, Md Golam Jakaria, Samantha A. Meenach, Geoffrey D. Bothun

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

We report a multifunctional nanotherapeutic platform based on liposomes loaded with drug and iron oxide nanoparticles (IONs) coated with a gold nanoshell synthesized using a polyelectrolyte (layersome) soft templating technique. IONs and gold nanoshells were used to provide combined hyperthermia and triggered drug release via radio frequency (RF) or near-infrared (NIR) stimulation. IONs and the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) were coencapsulated inside liposomes composed of zwitterionic phosphatidylcholine, anionic phosphatidylglycerol, and cholesterol lipids. Coating the magneto-liposomes with positively charged poly-l-lysine enriched the interface with gold anions to form a dense gold nanoshell and protected the structure against deformation and DOX cargo …