Digital Commons Network^™

Protective Versus Pathologic Pre-Exposure Cytokine Profiles In Dengue Virus Infection, Heather Friberg, Coreen M. Beaumier, Sangshin Park, Pamela Pazoles, Timothy P. Endy, Anuja Mathew, Jeffrey R. Currier, Richard G. Jarman, Kathryn B. Anderson, Steve Hatch, Stephen J. Thomas, Alan L. Rothman

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Background: Hyperendemic circulation of all four types of dengue virus (DENV-1-4) has expanded globally, fueling concern for increased incidence of severe dengue. While the majority of DENV infections are subclinical, epidemiologic studies suggest that type-cross-reactive immunity can influence disease outcome in subsequent infections. The mechanisms controlling these differential clinical outcomes remain poorly defined.

Methodology/Principal findings: Blood samples were collected from a cohort of school-aged Thai children who subsequently experienced a subclinical DENV infection or developed dengue illness. PBMC collected prior to infection were stimulated in vitro with DENV and the secretion of 30 cytokines was measured using a …

Upregulation Of Hla‐E By Dengue And Not Zika Viruses, Elena Drews, Awadalkareem Adam, Phone Htoo, Elizabeth Townsley, Anuja Mathew

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Introduction. The most severe form of dengue virus (DENV) illness, dengue haemorrhagic fever, is characterised by plasma leakage and increased vascular permeability. Objectives. Given the critical role that endothelial cells play in the pathogenesis of DENV, we wanted to determine whether infection with DENV altered the expression of MHC class I related genes including HLA‐E. Results. In this study, we provide evidence that HLA‐E but not MICA/B or HLA‐G is upregulated by all four serotypes of DENV in an endothelial cell line human microvascular endothelial cells (HMEC)‐1. In contrast, Zika virus (ZIKV), a related flavivirus, where plasma leakage is …

Occupancy Of Freshwater Turtles Across A Gradient Of Altered Landscapes, Scott W. Buchanan, Bill Buffum, Gavino Puggioni, Nancy E. Karraker

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Turtles are one of the most threatened groups of vertebrates worldwide. In the northeastern United States, a legacy of centuries of dramatic landscape alteration has affected freshwater turtle populations, but the relationships between the current landscape and distributions and abundances of freshwater turtles remain poorly understood. We used a stratified random approach to select 88 small, isolated wetlands across a gradient of forest cover throughout Rhode Island, USA, and systematically sampled freshwater turtles in these wetlands. We report estimates of relative abundance and used a canonical correspondence analysis to investigate relationships between species relative abundance and environmental covariates. We also …

Fine-Scale Habitat Comparison Of Two Sympatric Cottontail Species In Eastern Connecticut, Amy E. Gottfried Mayer, Thomas J. Mcgreevy Jr., Mary E. Sullivan, Bill Buffum, Thomas P. Husband

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Changing landscapes in the Northeastern United States over the past century have had a profound effect on the abundance and distribution of native wildlife species that prefer early successional habitat, including New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis). Populations of New England cottontail have been in decline for several decades, whereas during this same time period the nonnative eastern cottontail (S. floridanus) range has expanded. We conducted intensive vegetation analyses at 17 known locations of New England cottontail and 19 known locations of eastern cottontail in Connecticut to better describe their chosen habitat and identify any difference in habitat used by the …

Zoo Animal Management Avs 327x, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Philippine Aquatic Food Production Afs 450, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Curricular Affairs Committee Minutes December 11, 2017, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Committee Reports and Appendices

No abstract provided.

Sea Star Wasting Disease In Asterias Forbesi Along The Atlantic Coast Of North America, Caitlin Bucci, Madison Francoeur, Jillon Mcgreal, Roxanna Smolowitz, Vanesa Zazueta-Novoa, Gary M. Wessel, Marta Gomez-Chiarri

Fisheries, Animal and Veterinary Sciences Faculty Publications

As keystone species, sea stars serve to maintain biodiversity and species distribution through trophic level interactions in marine ecosystems. Recently, Sea Star Wasting Disease (SSWD) has caused widespread mass mortality in several sea star species from the Pacific Coast of the United States of America (USA) and Asterias forbesi on the Atlantic Coast. A densovirus, named Sea Star associated Densovirus (SSaDV), has been associated with the wasting disease in Pacific Coast sea stars, and limited samples of A. forbesi. The goal of this research is to examine the pathogenesis of SSWD in A. forbesi on the Atlantic …

The Five Hundred And Forty-Fourth Report Of The Curricular Affairs Committee: Curricular Proposals, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes December 7, 2017, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

No abstract provided.

Genetically Engineered Animals, Drugs, And Neoliberalism: The Need For A New Biotechnology Regulatory Policy Framework, Zahra Meghani

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Genetically engineered (GE) animals that are meant for release in the wild could significantly impact ecosystems given the interwoven or entangled existence of species. Therefore, among other things, it is all too important that regulatory agencies conduct entity appropriate, rigorous risk assessments that can be used for informed decision-making at the local, national and global levels about the release of those animals in the wild. In the United States (US), certain GE animals that are intended for release in the wild may be regulated as new animal drugs by the Food and Drug Administration. This paper argues that the decision …

Is Your Research Reproducible?, Andrée Rathemacher, Harrison Dekker, Amanda Izenstark

Technical Services Faculty Presentations

Slides from a presentation, "Is Your Research Reproducible?", offered at the University of Rhode Island Libraries on December 1 and December 5, 2017.

"Learn more about the reproducibility crisis, how tools like the Open Science Framework can help you contribute to solutions, and about how proper management of your code and data helps you and other researchers."

Part of the University Libraries' Search Savvy Seminar series.

Main file is a PDF file of speaker slides as presented. Supplementary file is a PDF file of speaker slides with notes, including extra slides that were not used for presentation.

A Miniature Acoustic Device For Tracking Small Marine Animals Or Submerged Drifters, Godi Fischer, Thomas Rossby, Daniel Moonan

Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents an acoustic archival tag capable of tracking small marine animals. It is also a technology that can be ported to other platforms, such as the next-generation acoustic and Argo floats as well as gliders. Tracking is achieved by standard RAFOS triangulation using the arrival times of unique sound signals emitted by moored sources. At the core of the tag is a custom microchip that controls all system operations. It incorporates the critical acoustic arrival time detector, a thermal sensor, and a pressure sensor interface. All the electronic components are housed inside a cylindrical hydrophone of 25.4-mm length …

A Review Of Epstein Barr Virus Immunity, Pathogenesis And Immunotherapies, Heather Stuart

Senior Honors Projects

Epstein – Barr Virus (EBV), a member of the Herpesviridae family, is commonly known as the cause of infectious mononucleosis. While EBV infection has acute effects, its primary significance in human health stems from its association with multiple cancers resulting from chronic infection. EBV first establishes infection in epithelial cells of the oropharynx, where it is lytic, and later establishes latent infection in B cells, where it exists in latency for remainder of the host’s lifetime. Dendritic cells and natural killer cells are first to control expansion of the infection followed by cytotoxic T cells and helper T cells. Through …

Stronger At Depth: Jamming Grippers As Deep Sea Sampling Tools, Stephen Licht, Everett Collins, Emmanuel Lopes Mendes, Christopher Baxter

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In this work we experimentally demonstrate (a) that the holding strength of universal jamming grippers increases as a function of the jamming pressure to greater than three atmospheres, and (b) that jamming grippers can be used for deep sea grasping tasks in ambient pressures exceeding one hundred atmospheres, where such high jamming pressures can be readily achieved. Laboratory experiments in a pressurized, water filled test cell are used to measure the holding force of a 'universal' style jamming gripper as a function of the pressure difference between internal membrane pressure and ambient pressure. Experiments at sea are used to demonstrate …

Structural Biochemistry Cmb 426/526, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Curricular Report No. 2017-18-2 From The Graduate Council To The Faculty Senate: Curricular Changes, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

Graduate Certificate In Science Writing, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Technology Transfer At Uri: Navigating The Processes And Maximizing The Benefits, Michael Katz

Amgen Seminar Series in Chemical Engineering

The impact of your research can extend beyond scientific publications and presentations. Your discoveries could lead to the development of products, services and new businesses that change people’s lives for the better. Learn how to leverage the Office of Intellectual Property and Economic Development to access additional channels of knowledge and technology transfer.

Curricular Report No 2017-18-2 From The Graduate Council To The Faculty Senate: Curricular Changes, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

Curricular Report No. 2017-18-2 From The Graduate Council To The Faculty Senate, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

The Five Hundred And Forty-Third Report Of The Curricular Affairs Committee: Curricular Proposals, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

The Five Hundred And Forty-Third Report Of The Curricular Affairs Committee, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes November 16, 2017, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes

No abstract provided.

Curricular Report No. 2017-18-2 From The Graduate Council To The Faculty Senate, University Of Rhode Island Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Bills

No abstract provided.

A Bayesian Method For Detecting Pairwise Associations In Compositional Data, Emma Schwager, Himel Mallick, Steffen Ventz, Curtis Huttenhower

Computer Science and Statistics Faculty Publications

Compositional data consist of vectors of proportions normalized to a constant sum from a basis of unobserved counts. The sum constraint makes inference on correlations between unconstrained features challenging due to the information loss from normalization. However, such correlations are of long-standing interest in fields including ecology. We propose a novel Bayesian framework (BAnOCC: Bayesian Analysis of Compositional Covariance) to estimate a sparse precision matrix through a LASSO prior. The resulting posterior, generated by MCMC sampling, allows uncertainty quantification of any function of the precision matrix, including the correlation matrix. We also use a first-order Taylor expansion to approximate the …

Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Mutation In Vibrio Anguillarum Results In Virulence Attenuation And Immunoprotection In Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus Mykiss), Xiangyu Mou, Edward J. Spinard, Shelby L. Hillman, David R. Nelson

Cell and Molecular Biology Faculty Publications

Background

Vibrio anguillarum is an extracellular bacterial pathogen that is a causative agent of vibriosis in finfish and crustaceans with mortality rates ranging from 30% to 100%. Mutations in central metabolism (glycolysis and the TCA cycle) of intracellular pathogens often result in attenuated virulence due to depletion of required metabolic intermediates; however, it was not known whether mutations in central metabolism would affect virulence in an extracellular pathogen such as V. anguillarum.

Results

Seven central metabolism mutants were created and characterized with regard to growth in minimal and complex media, expression of virulence genes, and virulence in juvenile rainbow …

Conductance-Based Profiling Of Nanopores: Accommodating Fabrication Irregularities, Y. M. D. Y. Bandara, Maher Harb, Jonathan W. Nichols, Buddini Iroshika Karawdeniya, Jason R. Dwyer

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Solid-state nanopores are nanoscale channels through otherwise impermeable membranes. Single molecules or particles can be passed through electrolyte-filled nanopores by, e.g. electrophoresis, and then detected through the resulting physical displacement of ions within the nanopore. Nanopore size, shape, and surface chemistry must be carefully controlled, and on extremely challengingwork, confirmed the suitability of the basic conductance equation using the results of a time-dependent experimental conductance measurement during nanopore fabrication by Yanagi et al., and then deliberately relaxed the model constraints to allow for (1) the presence of defects; and (2) the formation of two small pores instead of one larger …

Biology Of Sharks And Their Relatives Bio 422x, Michael Cerbo

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

Editorial: Modeling The Plankton-Enhancing The Integration Of Biological Knowledge And Mechanistic Understanding, Christian Lindemann, Dag L. Aksnes, Kevin J. Flynn, Susanne Menden-Deuer

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.