Digital Commons Network^™

Men's Rights, Gun Ownership, Racism, And The Assault On Women's Reproductive Health Rights: Hidden Connections, Walter S. Dekeseredy

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In this current era characterized by much fear of, and anxiety about, the political influence and actions of the U.S. alternative right (alt-right), only a small number of men’s rights organizations receive attention from the media, the Democratic Party, or a large cadre of progressives. This article demonstrates that ignoring all-male anti-feminist organizations is a flawed strategy for challenging the recent rise of the alt-right because these misogynistic groups are heavily involved in the gun rights movement, major contributors to racist practices and discourses, and active participants in efforts to criminalize and curtail women’s access to abortion. Another, but equally …

Site-Based Assessment Of Oyster Shellfisheries And Associated Bio-Physical Conditions In Ghana And The Gambia, E. O. Chuku, I. Okyere, J. Adotey, S. Abrokwah, E. Effah, R. Adade, D. W. Aheto

Coastal Resources Center Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Acquisitions Unit Annual Report 2021-2022, Andrée J. Rathemacher

Technical Services Reports and Statistics

Annual Report of the Acquisitions Unit, University Libraries, University of Rhode Island for FY2022. Covers personnel, work flow, special projects, and serial, monograph, and e-resource acquisitions. Supplemental files include data on library materials expenditures by a number of variables as well as important working documents from the year.

Associations Of Lifestyle And Sociodemographic Factors With Dietary Supplement Use In College Students, Sydney Chratian

Senior Honors Projects

Background: Dietary supplement use has been shown to be significantly prevalent in the United States, especially among the young adult population. Studies have reported increasing use of dietary supplements among college students in the US. However, little research has investigated the sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics associated with dietary supplement use in this population.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of dietary supplement use and sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics associated with dietary supplement use in college students and examine the attitudes and beliefs of college students on dietary supplements.

Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted …

Promoting Adult Pneumococcal Vaccinations Through Pharmacy And Provider Educational Campaigns, Krysia Lesniak

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Nutrition In Uri Athletes Vs. Non-Athletes, Amity Tobias

Senior Honors Projects

Being a student athlete and growing up in sports has had both positive and negative effects on my life. Children often take part in sports at a young age to teach them important life skills such as dedication, hard work, and discipline. While sports are very effective for physical fitness and being a part of a team may be crucial in a kid’s life, there may also be some negative effects. Some sports such as gymnastics, hockey, soccer, etc., have an intensely high demand, both physically and mentally. Athletes are stereotyped to be the fittest, healthiest group of people and …

The Effect Of Cortisol On Abdominal Fat, Zach Guerrieo

Senior Honors Projects

ZACHARY GUERRIEO (Biological Sciences)

The effect of cortisol on abdominal fat accumulation

Sponsor: Brietta Oaks (Nutrition)

Cortisol is the stress hormone of the body, it increases sugars in the bloodstream, enhances the brain's use of glucose, and increases the availability of substances to repair tissues. A healthy person has a daily slope of cortisol where it is high when they wake up and then decreases throughout the day. Cortisol, however, can be high throughout the day for people who live stressful or unhealthy lives. There have been conversations that high cortisol can cause fat gain specifically in the abdominal area. …

What Socioeconomic Factors Influence Breastfeeding Rates?, Keely Ford

Senior Honors Projects

The American Academy of Pediatricians recommends exclusively breastfeeding for six months due to breast milk's nutritional value and protection against various long term and short-term illnesses. Children who are exclusively breastfed for six months have reduced rates of asthma, obesity, type 1 diabetes, severe lower respiratory disease, acute otitis media, sudden infant death syndrome, gastrointestinal infections, and necrotizing enterocolitis in premature infants. The CDC’s most recent national immunizations study, observing infants born in 2018, discovered that only 56.7% of infants were being breastfed at six months and not exclusively. And only 25.8% of infants born in 2018 were breastfed exclusively …

Assessment Of The University Of Rhode Island's Dining Halls And Student Perceptions Of On-Campus Dining, Maria Cherry

Senior Honors Projects

University dining halls are understudied food environments that affect student diet quality. This study (1) assessed dining hall offerings at the University of Rhode Island (URI) using the Partnership for a Healthier America’s Healthier Campus Initiative (PAHA) criteria for healthier campus food environments and (2) evaluated student perceptions of the dining hall through a campus-wide survey (n=165). We evaluated breakfast, lunch, and dinner using spring cycle menus (16 weeks in 2019 and 4 in 2021) from two full-service dining halls totaling 29 meals in 2019, and 84 meals in 2021 to determine adherence with PAHA criteria for availability of: 1) …

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes April 28, 2022, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

No abstract provided.

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari (2020): Having An Amerikorean Life, Nagehan Uzuner

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Minari by Lee Isaac Chung is a drama which chronicles the life of a Korean family who moves to the USA during 1980s in pursuit for a better life. The acculturation process is experienced differently by family members. Children are mostly bored with their new life in the rural area of Arkansas while their mother, Monica, is terrified of living in a mobile home which is made of a truck trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the grandmother joins the family from Korea to take care of the kids with a more positive approach dealing with their struggles. The …

Faculty Senate Meeting Agenda February 24, 2022, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Meeting Agendas

No abstract provided.

Tuning Agrochemical Chemistry At The Nanoscale To Enhance Stress Tolerance, Crop Nutrition, And Yield, Jason White

Amgen Seminar Series in Chemical Engineering

Low use and delivery efficiency of conventional agrichemicals is a significant impediment to maintaining global food security, particularly given that a 60-70% increase in food production is needed by 2050 to support the projected population. Further confounding these efforts is a changing climate, which may force increased growth of crops under more marginal and stress-inducing conditions. Novel and sustainable strategies for enhancing food production are needed all along the “farm-to-fork” continuum. We have focused on using nanotechnology to increase the delivery efficiency and efficacy of nutrients; e.g., given the known role of micronutrients in plant growth and defense against both …

Association Between Initial Opioid Prescription Diagnosis Type And Subsequent Chronic Prescription Opioid Use In Rhode Island: A Population-Based Cohort Study, Benjamin D. Hallowell, C. Chambers, Luke Barre, Nancy Diao, Collette Onyejekwe, Alexandra Banks, Jeffery Bratberg, Heidi Weidele, Samara Viner-Brown, James Mcdonald

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Objective To identify initial diagnoses associated with elevated risk of chronic prescription opioid use. Design Population-based, retrospective cohort study. Setting State of Rhode Island. Participants Rhode Island residents with an initial opioid prescription dispensed between 1 April 2019 and 31 March 2020. Primary outcome measure Subsequent chronic prescription opioid use, defined as receiving 60 or more days' supply of opioids in the 90 days following an initial opioid prescription. Results Among the 87 055 patients with an initial opioid prescription, 3199 (3.7%) subsequently became chronic users. Patients who become chronic users tended to receive a longer days' supply, greater quantity …

Division Of Research And Economic Development Annual Report For Fy2022, Uri Division Of Research And Economic Development

Reports (Research and Economic Development)

Annual report for the Division of Research and Economic Development of the University of Rhode Island for the year 2021-2022.

Includes statistics of project proposals, expenditures, URI Foundation Awards, previous annual report summaries and awards received by individual academic and administrative departments.

Momentum: Research & Innovation For Spring 2022, University Of Rhode Island

Publications (Research and Economic Development)

The Spring 2022 issue of Research & Innovation, a periodical focused on research at the University of Rhode Island.

The Relationship Of Physical Activity And Dietary Quality With Android Fat Composition And Distribution In Us Adults, Furong Xu, Jacob E. Earp, Dara L. Lobuono, Geoffrey Greene

College of Education Faculty Publications

This study examined the relationship of physical activity (PA) and dietary quality to android fat composition and distribution using a national representative adult sample and determined sex-based differences in these relationships. It is a cross-sectional (n = 10,014) analysis of the 2011–2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the US department of Agriculture’s Food Patterns Equivalents datasets. Variables utilized for this analysis include PA, 24-h dietary recalls, android percent fat, and android-gynoid (A/G) ratio measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Multiple linear regression was performed to examine the relationship between PA and/or dietary quality and android percent fat and A/G …

Screening The Prism Library Against Staphylococcus Aureus Reveals A Sesquiterpene Lactone From Liriodendron Tulipifera With Inhibitory Activity, Riley D. Kirk, Margaret E. Rosario, Nana Oblie, Terra Marie M. Jouaneh, Marina A. Carro, Christine Wu, Andrew M. Kim, Elizabeth Leibovitz, Elizabeth Sage Hunter, Robert Literman, Sara M. Handy, David C. Rowley, Matthew J. Bertin

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Infections caused by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus continue to pose threats to human health and put a financial burden on the healthcare system. The overuse of antibiotics has contributed to mutations leading to the emergence of methicillin-resistant S. aureus, and there is a critical need for the discovery and development of new antibiotics to evade drug-resistant bacteria. Medicinal plants have shown promise as sources of new small-molecule therapeutics with potential uses against pathogenic infections. The principal Rhode Island secondary metabolite (PRISM) library is a botanical extract library generated from specimens in the URI Youngken Medicinal Garden by upper-division undergraduate …

Blue-Sky Albedo Reduction And Associated Influencing Factors Of Stable Land Cover Types In The Middle-High Latitudes Of The Northern Hemisphere During 1982–2015, Saisai Yuan, Yeqiao Wang, Hongyan Zhang, Jianjun Zhao, Xiaoyi Guo, Tao Xiong, Hui Li, Hang Zhao

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Land surface albedo (LSA) directly affects the radiation balance and the surface heat budget. LSA is a key variable for local and global climate research. The complexity of LSA variations and the driving factors highlight the importance of continuous spatial and temporal monitoring. Snow, vegetation and soil are the main underlying surface factors affecting LSA dynamics. In this study, we combined Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS) products and ERA5 reanalysis products to analyze the spatiotemporal variation and drivers of annual mean blue-sky albedo for stable land cover types in the middle-high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (30~90°N) from 1982 to …

Maternal Stress And Excessive Weight Gain In Infancy, Katelyn Fox, Maya Vadiveloo, Karen Mccurdy, Sara E. Benjamin-Neelon, Truls Østbye, Alison Tovar

Nutrition Faculty Publications

Rapid weight gain in infancy increases the risk of developing obesity early in life and contributes significantly to racial and ethnic disparities in childhood obesity. While maternal perceived stress is associated with childhood obesity, little is known about the impact it has on infant weight gain. Therefore, this study explores the impact of maternal perceived stress on change in weight-for-length (WFL) z-scores and the risk of rapid weight gain in infancy. We conducted a secondary data analysis of the longitudinal Nurture birth cohort (n = 666). Most mothers in the cohort were non-Hispanic/Latinx Black (71.6%). About one-half of mothers had …

Moderation Of The Association Between Primary Language And Health By Race And Gender: An Intersectional Approach, Neelam H. Ahmed, Mary L. Greaney, Steven Cohen

Public Health Faculty Publications

In the United States (US), limited English proficiency is associated with a higher risk of obesity and diabetes. “Intersectionality”, or the interconnected nature of social categorizations, such as race/ethnicity and gender, creates interdependent systems of disadvantage, which impact health and create complex health inequities. How these patterns are associated with language-based health inequities is not well understood. The study objective was to assess the potential for race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status to jointly moderate the association between primary language (English/Spanish) and having obesity and diabetes. Using the 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (n = 431,045), weighted generalized linear …

Central American Parents’ Preferences For Content And Modality For A Family-Centered Intervention To Promote Healthful Energy Balance-Related Behaviors Of Their Preschool-Age Children, Elizabeth N. Diaz, Qun Le, Daniel Campos, Jesnny M. Reyes, Julie A. Wright, Mary L. Greaney, Ana Cristina Lindsay

Public Health Faculty Publications

This formative research used a cross-sectional survey to assess interest in informational content and intervention modalities for the design of an early childhood obesity prevention intervention for Central American families from the Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) living in the United States. A total of 74 parents (36 mothers, 38 fathers) with a mean age of 31.6 years (SD = 5.6) completed the survey; 59.5% of whom were born outside of the United States. Although most parents reported being very interested in receiving information related to the seven assessed energy balance-related behaviors, there were significant differences by …

Mechanisms Of Cannabidiol (Cbd) In Cancer Treatment: A Review, Camren G. Heider, Sasha A. Itenberg, Jiajia Rao, Hang Ma, Xian Wu

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Cannabis sativa L. (Cannabis) and its bioactive compounds, including cannabinoids and non-cannabinoids, have been extensively studied for their biological effects in recent decades. Cannabidiol (CBD), a major non-intoxicating cannabinoid in Cannabis, has emerged as a promising intervention for cancer research. The purpose of this review is to provide insights into the relationship between CBD and cancer based on recent research findings. The anticancer effects of CBD are mainly mediated via its interaction with the endocannabinoid system, resulting in the alleviation of pain and the promotion of immune regulation. Published reviews have focused on the applications of CBD in cancer pain …

Urinformed Fall 2022, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Urinformed Summer 2022, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Urinformed Spring 2022, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Urinformed Winter 2022, Urinformed

URInformed: The URI Employees' Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Appearance And Performance Enhancing Drug Usage And Body Image Across Three Age Cohorts Of Fitness Enthusiast Men, Jessica Strübel, Rose Leger, Xintong Guan

Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design Faculty Publications

Background: Because research findings on men’s body image and compensatory behaviors (e.g., appearance and performance enhancing drug (APED) usage) across the lifecycle in men is contradictory, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between age and body image concerns, and to investigate the specific types of APEDs used across the three age cohorts (emerging, established, and middle-aged men). Methods: Using an online survey and a sample of 1020 fitness enthusiast men, we investigated (1) type of APED/supplements used across three periods of life (emerging adulthood, established adulthood, middle age), and (2) any relationship between period …

Reference-Free Discovery Of Nuclear Snps Permits Accurate, Sensitive Identification Of Carya (Hickory) Species And Hybrids, Robert A. Literman, Brittany M. Ott, Jun Wen, L. J. Grauke, Rachel S. Schwartz, Sara M. Handy

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Premise: DNA-based species identification is critical when morphological identification is restricted, but DNA-based identification pipelines typically rely on the ability to compare homologous sequence data across species. Because many clades lack robust genomic resources, we present here a bioinformatics pipeline capable of generating genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data while circumventing the need for any reference genome or annotation data. Methods: Using the SISRS bioinformatics pipeline, we generated de novo ortholog data for the genus Carya, isolating sites where genetic variation was restricted to a single Carya species (i.e., species-informative SNPs). We leveraged these SNPs to identify both full-species and hybrid …

Defining A Flexible Notion Of “Good” Stem Writing Across Contexts: Lessons Learned From A Cross-Institutional Conversation, Sara M. Grady, Jenna Morton-Aiken, Caroline Gottschalk Druschke, Ingrid E. Lofgren, Nancy E. Karraker, Scott R. Mcwilliams, Nedra Reynolds, Elaine Finan, Patti L. Wolter, Donna R. Leff, Michael Kennedy

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

We respond to a surging interest in science communication training for graduate scientists by advocating for a focus on rhetorically informed approaches to STEM writing and its assessment. We argue that STEM communication initiatives would benefit by shifting from a strategic focus on products to a flexible understanding of writing as a practice worthy of attention and study. To do that, we use our experience across two universities and two distinct programmatic contexts to train STEM graduate students in writing and communication. We draw from cross-disciplinary conversations to identify four facets of “good” STEM writing: (1) connecting to the big …