Digital Commons Network^™

Effect Of Lower Body Negative Pressure On Phase I Cardiovascular Responses At Exercise Onset, Nazzareno Fagoni, Paolo Bruseghini, Alessandra Adami, Carlo Capelli, Frederic Lador, Christian Moia, Enrico Tam, Aurelien Bringard, Guido Ferretti

Kinesiology Faculty Publications

We hypothesised that vagal withdrawal and increased venous return interact in determining the rapid cardiac output (CO) response (phase I) at exercise onset. We used lower body negative pressure (LBNP) to increase blood distribution to the heart by muscle pump action and reduce resting vagal activity. We expected a larger increase in stroke volume (SV) and smaller for heart rate (HR) at progressively stronger LBNP levels, therefore CO response would remain unchanged. To this aim ten young, healthy males performed a 50 W exercise in supine position at 0 (Control), −15, −30 and −45 mmHg LBNP exposure. On single beat …

Avian Bornaviral Ganglioneuritis: Current Debates And Unanswered Questions, Susan Boatright-Horowitz

Psychology Faculty Publications

Avian bornaviral ganglioneuritis, often referred to as parrot wasting disease, is associated with a newly discovered avian virus from the taxonomic family Bornaviridae. Research regarding the pathogenesis and treatment for this disease is ongoing, with implications for understanding other emerging human and nonhuman diseases, as well as the health and ecology of wildlife. At this time, numerous questions remain unanswered regarding the transmission of the disease, best practices for diagnostic sampling and testing, and whether currently used drug therapies are effective or harmful for afflicted birds. The pathogenesis of the disease also remains unclear with many birds showing resistance to …

Fruit Syndromes In Viburnum: Correlated Evolution Of Color, Nutritional Content, And Morphology In Bird-Dispersed Fleshy Fruits, Miranda A. Sinnott-Armstrong, Chong Lee, Wendy L. Clement, Michael J. Donoghue

Nutrition Faculty Publications

Premise

A key question in plant dispersal via animal vectors is where and why fruit colors vary between species and how color relates to other fruit traits. To better understand the factors shaping the evolution of fruit color diversity, we tested for the existence of syndromes of traits (color, morphology, and nutrition) in the fruits of Viburnum. We placed these results in a larger phylogenetic context and reconstructed ancestral states to assess how Viburnum fruit traits have evolved across the clade.

Results

We find that blue Viburnum fruits are not very juicy, and have high lipid content and large, …

Laser Facilitates Week-Long Sustained Transdermal Drug Delivery At High Doses, Prateek Kakar, Zhuofan Li, Yibo Li, Yan Cao, Xinyuan Chen

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Traditional patches are most successful in transdermal delivery of low-dose hydrophobic drugs. Week-long transdermal delivery of high-dose hydrophilic drugs remains a big challenge. This study explored ablative fractional laser (AFL) to assist 3-day to week-long sustained transdermal delivery of powder hydrophilic drugs in murine models. Bulk drug powder was coated into reservoir patches followed by topical application onto AFL-treated skin. Water evaporated from AFL-generated skin microchannels (MCs) gradually dissolve topical drug powder to elicit multi-day sustained drug delivery. Using sulforhodamine b, zidovudine, and bovine serum albumin as model hydrophilic drugs, we found tapped coating could coat 10–20 mg drug per …

Momentum: Research & Innovation For Spring 2020, University Of Rhode Island

Publications (Research and Economic Development)

The Spring 2020 issue of Research & Innovation, a periodical focused on research at the University of Rhode Island.

Momentum: Research & Innovation For Spring 2020, University Of Rhode Island

Publications (Research and Economic Development)

The Spring 2020 issue of Momentum: Research & Innovation, a periodical focused on research at the University of Rhode Island.

Uri Muskmelon Trial – 2020 Report, Rebecca Brown

University of Rhode Island Vegetable Production Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Sub-Lethal Predatory Shell Damage Does Not Affect Physiology Under High Co2 In The Intertidal Gastropod Tritia Reticulata, Leonardo Querobim Yokoyama, Alexander Turra, Coleen Suckling, Gabriela Torres, Andrew Davies, Ian Mccarthy

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Ocean acidification (OA) poses a major threat to marine animals, especially marine shelled invertebrates such as molluscs. Although many organisms are capable of compensating for the effects of OA, this can impose physiological costs and impact performance (e.g. through increased metabolism and decreased growth). Sublethal injuries on shells may provoke changes in energy allocation. Under acidified conditions, organisms would spend less energy on reproduction and somatic growth to repair the damage. Therefore, we analysed the physiological responses of the intertidal gastropod Tritia reticulata during shell regeneration under OA conditions. We simulated a sub-lethal predation event (a notch in the outer …

The Effects Of Dietary Linoleic Acid And Hydrophilic Antioxidants On Basal, Peak, And Sustained Metabolism In Flight‐Trained European Starlings, Wales A. Carter, Kristen J. Demoranville, Barbara J. Pierce, Scott R. Mcwilliams

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Dietary micronutrients have the ability to strongly influence animal physiology and ecology. For songbirds, dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and antioxidants are hypothesized to be particularly important micronutrients because of their influence on an individual's capacity for aerobic metabolism and recovery from extended bouts of exercise. However, the influence of specific fatty acids and hydrophilic antioxidants on whole‐animal performance remains largely untested. We used diet manipulations to directly test the effects of dietary PUFA, specifically linoleic acid (18:2n6), and anthocyanins, a hydrophilic antioxidant, on basal metabolic rate (BMR), peak metabolic rate (PMR), and rates of fat catabolism, lean catabolism, and …

Implanted Satellite Transmitters Affect Sea Duck Movement Patterns At Short And Long Timescales, Juliet S. Lamb, Peter W. C. Paton, Jason E. Osenkowski, Shannon S. Badzinski, Alicia M. Berlin, Tim Bowman, Chris Dwyer, Luke J. Fara, Scott G. Gilliland, Kevin Kenow, Christine Lepage, Mark L. Mallory, Glenn H. Olsen, Matthew C. Perry, Scott A. Petrie, Jean-Pierre L. Savard, Lucas Savoy, Michael Schummer, Caleb S. Spiegel, Scott R. Mcwilliams

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Studies of the effects of transmitters on wildlife often focus on survival. However, sublethal behavioral changes resulting from radio-marking have the potential to affect inferences from telemetry data and may vary based on individual and environmental characteristics. We used a long-term, multi-species tracking study of sea ducks to assess behavioral patterns at multiple temporal scales following implantation of intracoelomic satellite transmitters. We applied state-space models to assess short-term behavioral patterns in 476 individuals with implanted satellite transmitters, as well as comparing breeding site attendance and migratory phenology across multiple years after capture. In the short term, our results suggest an …

Supportive Wind Conditions Influence Offshore Movements Of Atlantic Coast Piping Plovers During Fall Migration, Pamela H. Loring, James D. Mclaren, Holly F. Goyert, Peter W C Paton

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

In advance of large-scale development of offshore wind energy facilities throughout the U.S. Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), information on the migratory ecology and routes of federally threatened Atlantic Coast Piping Plovers (Charadrius melodus melodus) is needed to conduct risk assessments pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. We tagged adult Piping Plovers (n = 150) with digitally coded VHF transmitters at 2 breeding areas within the southern New England region of the U.S. Atlantic coast from 2015 to 2017. We tracked their migratory departure flights using a regional automated telemetry network (n = 30 stations) extending across a portion of …

Mitochondrial Dna Analysis Of Critically Endangered Chinese Pangolins (Manis Pentadactyla) From Nepal, Sandeep Shrestha, Ashish Bashyal, Ashna Dhaka, Thomas J. Mcgreevy Jr., Bill Buffum, Jyoti Joshi, Hemanta Kumari Chaudhary, Sanjay Nath Khanal

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Chinese Pangolins (Manis pentadactyla) are Critically Endangered and one of the most illegally traded mammals globally. We generated first COI sequences from five individuals of this species from Nepal. BLASTn search of our 600bp sequences at GenBank showed pair-wise identity between 99.17% and 100% to M. pentadactyla. There were three haplotypes and a total of five variable sites among five M. pentadactyla sequences. Neighbor-joining tree revealed that all M. pentadactyla from Nepal clustered into same group further splitting into two sub-groups albeit with low bootstrap value, suggesting potential multiple geographic origins. The K2P distance was 0.3% within …

Community Forestry: Sustainability And Equity Issues, Bill Buffum

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Governments around the world are increasingly handing over the authority for the management of national forests to the local communities. By 2016, governments in 62 countries had given communities legal rights to manage 732 million hectares of national forest. This approach has been particularly widespread in South Asia. Nepal and India have the oldest and largest programs in the region: community forest user groups in Nepal managed 22 million hectares of national forest in 2016, while forest protection committees in India managed 17 million ha of national forest in 2011. The experience of Nepal and India in the 1980s and …

Food Insecurity Is Associated With Increased Risk Of Obesity In Us College Students, Aseel El Zein, Sarah E. Colby, Wenjun Zhou, Karla P. Shelnutt, Geoffrey W. Greene, Tanya M. Horacek, Melissa D. Olfert, Anne E. Mathews

Nutrition Faculty Publications

Background

Food insecurity affects millions of Americans and college students are especially vulnerable. Little is known about the relation of food insecurity with weight status and dietary intake during this critical phase of emerging adulthood. Objectives

We aimed to examine the sex-specific associations of food insecurity with obesity and dietary intake among college students. The study also explored these associations by meal plan (MP) enrollment. Methods

This cross-sectional study included 683 second-year students at 8 universities in the United States. Food security status and dietary intake were assessed using the USDA Adult Food Security Survey and the Dietary Screener Questionnaire, …

Dietary Contributors To Food Group Intake In Preschool Children Attending Family Childcare Homes: Differences Between Latino And Non-Latino Providers, Andrea Ramirez, Maya Vadiveloo, Patricia M. Risica, Kim M. Gans, Mary L. Greaney, Noreem Z. Mena, Kristen Cooksey Stowers, Alison Tovar

Nutrition Faculty Publications

While there are several factors that contribute to the diet quality of children in childcare, one contributing factor in Family Childcare Homes (FCCHs) is the provider’s ethnicity. However, research examining the food items provided in this setting is limited; in particular, with regards to differences between FCCHs of Latino and non-Latino providers. The aim of this study was to identify and describe the food items that contribute to food group intake in preschool-aged children attending FCCHs, and to examine differences by provider ethnicity. This secondary data analysis used baseline data from Healthy Start/Comienzos Sanos: a cluster-randomized trial. Children’s dietary intake …

Compost And Black Polyethylene Mulches Improve Spring Production Of Romaine Lettuce In Southern New England, Rahmatallah Gheshm, Rebecca Brown

Plant Sciences and Entomology Faculty Publications

Romaine lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is the most popular leafy vegetable in the United States. Organic and synthetic mulch materials are applied by farmers to reduce their weeding expenditures, manage soil temperatures, and increase the yield and quality of their crops. This study examined the impacts of using black polyethylene, compost, and shredded leaves as surface mulches in spring open field romaine lettuce by using data regarding the soil temperature, lettuce growth, and yield parameters. Mulch treatments were compared to determine effects on soil temperature, lettuce growth rates, leaf area index (LAI), yield, and plant size. Experiments were conducted …

Interrupted Blood Feeding In Ticks: Causes And Consequences, Djamel Tahir, Leon Meyer, Josephus Fourie, Frans Jongejan, Thomas N. Mather, Valérie Choumet, Byron Blagburn, Reinhard K. Straubinger, Marie Varloud

Plant Sciences and Entomology Faculty Publications

Ticks are obligate hematophagous arthropods and act as vectors for a great variety of pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and helminths. Some tick-borne viruses, such as Powassan virus and tick-borne encephalitis virus, are transmissible within 15–60 min after tick attachment. However, a minimum of 3–24 h of tick attachment is necessary to effectively transmit bacterial agents such as Ehrlichia spp., Anaplasma spp., and Rickettsia spp. to a new host. Longer transmission periods were reported for Borrelia spp. and protozoans such as Babesia spp., which require a minimum duration of 24–48 h of tick attachment for maturation and migration of the …

Moving Forward With Digital Disruption: What Big Data, Iot, Synthetic Biology, Ai, Blockchain, And Platform Businesses Mean To Libraries, Bohyun Kim

Technical Services Faculty Publications

Digital disruption, also known as “the fourth industrial revolution,” is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. This issue of Library Technology Reports (vol. 56, no. 2) examines today’s leading-edge technologies and their disruptive impacts on our society through examples such as extended reality, Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), synthetic biology, 3-D bio-printing, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and platform businesses in the sharing economy. This report explains

• how new digital technologies are merging the physical and the biological with the digital;
• what kind of transformations are taking place as a result in production, management, and …

Paleoenvironments, Taphonomy, And Stable Isotopic Content Of The Terrestrial, Fossil-Vertebrate–Bearing Sequence Of The El Disecado Member, El Gallo Formation, Upper Cretaceous, Baja California, México, David Fastovsky, Marisol Montellano-Ballesteros, Henry C. Fricke, Jahandar Ramezani, Kaori Tsukui, Gregory P. Wilson, Paul Hall, Rene Hernandez-Rivera, Geraldo Alvarez

Geosciences Faculty Publications

The Late Campanian (Late Cretaceous), upper part of the El Disecado Member, El Gallo Formation, Baja California, México, preserves a rich fossil assemblage of microvertebrates and macrovertebrates, silicified logs, macroscopic plant remains, and pollen that was likely deposited as the distal part of a subaerial fan. The unit was episodic and high energy, with its salient features deriving from active river channels and sheet, debris-flow deposits. Landscape stability is indicated by the presence of compound paleosol horizons, containing Fe₂O₃ mottling in B horizons, cutans, and calcium carbonate concretions. All of these features indicate wet/dry cyclicity in subsurface …

Application Of A Biphasic Mathematical Model Of Cancer Cell Drug Response For Formulating Potent And Synergistic Targeted Drug Combinations To Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Jinyan Shen, Li Li, Niall G. Howlett, Paul S. Cohen, Gongqin Sun

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Triple negative breast cancer is a collection of heterogeneous breast cancers that are immunohistochemically negative for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and ErbB2 (due to deletion or lack of amplification). No dominant proliferative driver has been identified for this type of cancer, and effective targeted therapy is lacking. In this study, we hypothesized that triple negative breast cancer cells are multi-driver cancer cells, and evaluated a biphasic mathematical model for identifying potent and synergistic drug combinations for multi-driver cancer cells. The responses of two triple negative breast cancer cell lines, MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468, to a panel of targeted therapy drugs were …

Sex-Segregated Range Use By Black-And-White Ruffed Lemurs (Varecia Variegata) In Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar, Andrea L. Baden, Jelisa Oliveras, Brian Gerber

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Ranging behavior is one important strategy by which nonhuman primates obtain access to resources critical to their biological maintenance and reproductive success. As most primates live in permanent social groups, their members must balance the benefits of group living with the costs of intragroup competition for resources. However, some taxa live in more spatiotemporally flexible social groups, whose members modify patterns of association and range use as a method to mitigate these costs. Here, we describe the range use of one such taxon, the black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata), at an undisturbed primary rain forest site in Ranomafana …

Editorial: Integrating Predation Risk Across Scales: From Neurons To Ecosystems And Milliseconds To Generations, Jacqueline J. Blundell, Evan L. Preisser

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Seasonal Movements And Habitat Use Of Juvenile Smooth Hammerhead Sharks In The Western North Atlantic Ocean And Significance For Management, Ryan K. Logan, Jeremy J. Vaudo, Lara L. Sousa, Mark Sampson, Bradley M. Wetherbee, Mahmood S. Shivji

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Upper trophic level predators dramatically impacted by fisheries include the large-bodied hammerhead sharks, which have become species of conservation concern worldwide. Implementing spatial management for conservation of hammerhead populations requires knowledge of temporal distribution patterns and habitat use, identification of essential habitat for protection, and quantification of interactions with human activities. There is little such information for the smooth hammerhead shark, Sphyrna zygaena. We used fin-mounted satellite tags to examine the movements and habitat use of juvenile smooth hammerheads, a demographic segment particularly threatened by exploitation. Six sharks were tagged off the US mid-Atlantic and tracked for 49–441 days …

Copper Accumulation And The Effect Of Chelation Treatment On Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy Compared To Parenchymal Amyloid Plaques, Xiayoue Zhu, Tiffany W. Victor, Ashwin Ambi, Joseph K. Sullivan, Joshua Hatfield, Feng Xu, Lisa M. Miller, William E. Van Nostrand

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Accumulation of fibrillar amyloid β-protein (Aβ) in parenchymal plaques and in blood vessels of the brain, the latter condition known as cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), are hallmark pathologies of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related disorders. Cerebral amyloid deposits have been reported to accumulate various metals, most notably copper and zinc. Here we show that, in human AD, copper is preferentially accumulated in amyloid-containing brain blood vessels compared to parenchymal amyloid plaques. In light of this observation, we evaluated the effects of reducing copper levels in Tg2576 mice, a transgenic model of AD amyloid pathologies. The copper chelator, tetrathiomolybdate (TTM), was …

Cyclodextrin-Based Contrast Agents For Medical Imaging, Yurii Shepelytskyi, Camryn J. Newman, Vira Grynko, Lauren E. Seveney, Brenton Deboef, Francis T. Hane, Mitchell S. Albert

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Cyclodextrins (CDs) are naturally occurring cyclic oligosaccharides consisting of multiple glucose subunits. CDs are widely used in host–guest chemistry and biochemistry due to their structural advantages, biocompatibility, and ability to form inclusion complexes. Recently, CDs have become of high interest in the field of medical imaging as a potential scaffold for the development of a large variety of the contrast agents suitable for magnetic resonance imaging, ultrasound imaging, photoacoustic imaging, positron emission tomography, single photon emission computed tomography, and computed tomography. The aim of this review is to summarize and highlight the achievements in the field of cyclodextrin-based contrast agents …

Tn-Seq Reveals Hidden Complexity In The Utilization Of Host-Derived Glutathione In Francisella Tularensis, Kathryn M. Ramsey, Hannah E. Ledvina, Tenayaann M. Tresko, Jamie M. Wandzilak, Catherine A. Tower, Thomas A. Tallo, Caroline E. Schramm, S. Brook Peterson, Shawn J. Skerrett, Joseph D. Mougous, Simon L. Dove

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Host-derived glutathione (GSH) is an essential source of cysteine for the intracellular pathogen Francisella tularensis. In a comprehensive transposon insertion sequencing screen, we identified several F. tularensis genes that play central and previously unappreciated roles in the utilization of GSH during the growth of the bacterium in macrophages. We show that one of these, a gene we named dptA, encodes a proton-dependent oligopeptide transporter that enables growth of the organism on the dipeptide Cys-Gly, a key breakdown product of GSH generated by the enzyme γ-glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT). Although GGT was thought to be the principal enzyme involved in …

Effectiveness Of Public Versus Private Ownership: Violations Of The Safe Drinking Water Act (Sdwa), Guanlong Fu, Pengfei Liu, Stephen K. Swallow

Environmental and Natural Resource Economics Faculty Publications

The relative performance of public and private enterprises has been long debated. We construct a comprehensive violation dataset based on the EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System to empirically investigate the compliance behavior of publicly and privately owned Public Water Systems (PWSs). Our results show that publicly owned PWSs commit significantly more Maximum Contamination Level, Treatment Technique, and Health-Related violations but fewer Monitor and Reporting violations than privately owned PWSs. We also find that municipal-level heterogeneities explain a substantial amount of variation in violation behaviors among PWSs, suggesting water supply quality depends crucially on location-specific regulations and local economic conditions.

(Un)Sustainability And Organization Studies: Towards A Radical Engagement, Seray Ergene, Bobby S. Banerjee, Andrew J. Hoffman

College of Business Faculty Publications

In this essay, we trace the evolution of the field of sustainability in management and organization studies and narrate its epistemological twists and turns. Concerned by the current trajectory that tends to diminish a focus on political concerns, we propose a new research agenda, ecological case for business, that transforms our paradigmatic orientation in four shifts: 1) altering our epistemological lenses from managerial to critical perspectives, 2) altering our ontological lenses from realist to relational view, 3) changing the way we design and conduct research from discipline-focused to interdisciplinary knowledge, and 4) transforming our scholarly stance from value-neutral to engaged …

Attractiveness Of Carbon Removal Technologies For Consumers In Germany And The Usa, Dominik Rüdiger Daniel Brysch

Open Access Master's Theses

In recent times, millions of people realized the urgency to act against the threat of climate change through protests around the world. Achieving the goal of carbon neutrality as defined in the Paris climate agreement while the world population is growing and consumption is increasing with rising wealth, will only be possible with the large-scale implementation of carbon removal technologies. Thus, carbon removal will not only become an important issue for governments, but also for manufacturing companies and private consumers.

The aim is to identify possible carbon removal technologies, compare them with each other and highlight the respective advantages and …

Synthetic Scene Based Object Detection: Can You Train Neural Networks With Synthetically Generated Data To Recognize Real Objects For Manufacturing?, Gabriella M. Aiello

Open Access Master's Theses

Within the manufacturing industry, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the way manufacturers mass produce goods and has supported a more consumer driven focus. The ability of computers to understand digital images or videos is a key sensing capability that enables connected enterprise systems. Deep learning (DL) techniques used for computer vision tasks such as object detection reliably learn features without explicitly defining said features in the training process. Evaluating deep learning techniques for object detection applications can be broken into three steps: gathering/processing data, model training/evaluation and model deployment. This research focuses on the validity of using synthetically generated data …