Digital Commons Network^™

Quarantine Survival Guide (Powerpoint), April 16, 2020, Amelia Meier

Monteverde Institute: Culture, Community, and Health

Quarantine survival guide

Shaped Stone Balls Were Used For Bone Marrow Extraction At Lower Paleolithic Qesem Cave, Israel, Ella Assaf, Isabella Caricola, Avi Gopher, Jordi Rosell, Ruth Blasco, Oded Bar, Ezra Zilberman, Cristina Lemorini, Javier Baena, Ran Barkai, Emanuela Cristiani

KIP Articles

No abstract provided.

School District Responses To Food Insecurity And Poor Nutrition In High Poverty Communities, Richard Grayes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Food insecure households are described as not having enough money or other resources to meet certain needs of all of their family members at some point during the year. Milam and Towns (2014) observed, “Child hunger exists in every county in every state” (p. 2). The hunger gap has been found to contribute to the lower academic achievement of students of color, particularly those from low-socioeconomic status (Jyoti, Frongillo, & Jones, 2005).

The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of food insecurity and poor nutrition on student learning and to review district responses, particularly in elementary schools …

Differences In Knowledge Acquisition, Perceived Engagement And Self-Efficacy In Latino Promotores Delivering The Heart Disease Prevention Program Su Corazόn, Su Vida, Samuel Matos-Bastidas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Su Corazόn, Su Vida (Your Heart, Your Life) is a community-based, small-group health intervention designed to empower Latinos to enhance cardiovascular disease awareness and initiate enduring lifestyle changes to improve health outcomes and quality of life. Originally developed to be delivered in weekly sessions in Spanish or English language, it addresses several heart disease risk factors including unhealthy eating habits, poor physical activity, high cholesterol, overweight, metabolic syndrome, diabetes and tobacco smoking, among others. Instructors use diverse learning and support strategies such as group discussion, role modeling, problem-solving, health action planning, and self-monitoring. Participants help each other to stay on …

The Green Revolution, Sustainable Agriculture, And Food Security, April 2020, Helix Bins

Monteverde Institute: Culture, Community, and Health

This essay provides an in-depth synthesized examination concerning the complicated relationship between sustainable agriculture and food security. In doing so, this analysis describes the history of the green revolution and its connection in pushing, what is now considered conventional yet harmful, agricultural methods and the impacts it has. While the evidence will have a concentration on Costa Rica, it will draw comparative examples from other developing countries, mainly India in order to offer a more thorough and nuanced perspective. This will demonstrate that the ideology of the green revolution failed to properly adapt to the needs of its country regardless …

Manual For A Vegetable Garden, April 2020, India Fleming-Klink

Monteverde Institute: Culture, Community, and Health

This manual seeks to generate support material for the families of Monteverde in order to strengthen diversification and value the contributions that the orchards generate in the food security of the area. These productive systems provide immediate benefits to the food, health and economy of the families and their communities where they are located. The manual describes the different stages of the preparation, establishment and handling /care of the vegetables that are planted in the garden.

La Revolución Verde, La Agricultura Sostenible Y La Seguridad Alimentaria, April 2020, Helix Bins

Monteverde Institute: Culture, Community, and Health

This essay provides an in-depth synthesized examination concerning the complicated relationship between sustainable agriculture and food security. In doing so, this analysis describes the history of the green revolution and its connection in pushing, what is now considered conventional yet harmful, agricultural methods and the impacts it has. While the evidence will have a concentration on Costa Rica, it will draw comparative examples from other developing countries, mainly India in order to offer a more thorough and nuanced perspective. This will demonstrate that the ideology of the green revolution failed to properly adapt to the needs of its country regardless …

Covid - Tourism, April 2020, Christina Pevey

Monteverde Institute: Culture, Community, and Health

The COVID-19 virus has affected everyone around the world. At the moment there is no cure for the virus but thousands have recovered. This has caused economic problems from big companies down to individual families. For example, Costa Rica. I will focus on the town of Santa Elena and surrounding areas. The data that was collected was based on a survey that was sent out to the community. The survey included questions referring to their jobs, sectors, and reasons for suspension of contracts. I limited the surveys to the surrounding areas and to specific questions that I wanted to focus …

Role Of Thyroid Hormone Modulating Astrocyte Activation, Payal Ghosh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Astrocytes are the specialized cells in the central nervous system (CNS). They play an important role in neuronal homeostasis. When activated, astrocytes may cause neuronal inflammation and degeneration. Thyroid hormones are important in maintaining neuronal development and homeostasis. Astrocytes play a pivotal role in this process. However, the role of levothyroxine (T4) in neuroinflammation is not clear. It is hypothesized that thyroid hormone treatment will reduce the inflammatory activation in astrocytes. Available oral T4 supplementations allow accumulation of T4 in the body and cause toxicity and side effects. It is hypothesized that the encapsulation of T4 in liposomes would reduce …

Mass Spectrometry Discovery-Based Proteomics To Examine Anti-Aging Effects Of The Nutraceutical Nt-020 In Rat Serum, Samantha M. Portis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Aging is a complex physiological process that leads to the deterioration of all cells and tissues throughout the body. Aging is a major risk factor for the onset of many degenerative diseases in both the central nervous system (CNS) and the periphery, but even nonpathological aging (“normal” aging) is associated with chronic inflammation, oxidative stress, and decreased stem cell proliferation and regenerative capacity. This decreased regenerative capacity in stem cell niches is thought to be a key component underlying the aging process and many disease states associated with aging.

While the exact biological mechanisms underlying impaired stem cell proliferation and …

The Weekly Challenger, March 26, 2020, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The March 26, 2020, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Predictive Validity Of Standards-Based And Curriculum-Embedded Assessments For Predicting Readiness At Kindergarten Entry, Elizabeth Ashton Decamilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As with traditional K-12 educational settings, early childhood assessments have been a primary source of information determining whether early educational experiences have promoted children’s readiness to start school in kindergarten. The level of use of Kindergarten Entry Assessments (KEAs) has become more wide-spread to establish levels of school readiness at kindergarten entry.

This quantitative, correlational study of children in schools that have blended Head Start/Voluntary Prekindergarten funded programs examined the predictive relationships between the independent variables (i.e., VPK Assessments and Teaching Strategies GOLD) and the dependent variable of kindergarten readiness, as measured by the Work Sampling System™ (WSS). Additionally, the …

The Weekly Challenger, February 20, 2020, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The February 20, 2020, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Isotope-Based Methods For Evaluating Fish Trophic Geographies, Julie L. Vecchio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Data on the movement and diets of fish during a variety of life stages are important inputs to fisheries stock assessments and marine ecosystem models. Stable isotopes may provide previously inaccessible information on movement and diet of a variety of managed and forage fish species. Here I used several novel means of interpretation for stable isotope data to infer diets and movements of several important fisheries species over both short (weeks to months) and long (lifetime) timescales. To calculate a constant partitioning offset (CPO) between the δ¹⁵N of muscle and of liver tissue, I conducted a literature search …

The Weekly Challenger, February 13, 2020, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The February 13, 2020, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Chronic Pah Exposures And Associated Declines In Fish Health Indices Observed For Ten Grouper Species In The Gulf Of Mexico, Erin Pulster, Adolfo Gracia, Maickel Armenteros, Brigid Carr, Justin Mrowicki, Steven Murawski

C-IMAGE Publications

Ten grouper species grouper (n = 584) were collected throughout the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) from 2011 through 2017 to provide information on hepatobiliary polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. Liver and bile samples were analyzed for PAHs and their metabolites using triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (GC/MS/MS) and high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC-F), respectively. Data were compared among species and sub-regions of the GoM to understand spatiotemporal exposure dynamics in these economically and ecologically important species. Significant differences in the composition and concentrations of PAHs were detected spatially, …

Targeting Cancer-Anorexia Cachexia Syndrome And Septic Inflammatory-Based Atrophy With R/S 1,3 Butanediol Acetoacetate Diester, Andrew P. Koutnik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cancer anorexia cachexia syndrome (CACS) is a distinct atrophy disease negatively influencing multiple aspects of clinical care and patient quality of life. Although it directly causes 20% of all cancer-related deaths, there are currently no model systems that encompass the entire multifaceted syndrome, nor are there any effective therapeutic treatments. Here, we show that the VM-M3 mouse model of systemic metastasis demonstrates a novel, immunocompetent, logistically feasible, repeatable phenotype with progressive tumor growth, spontaneous metastatic spread, and the full multifaceted CACS with expected sex dimorphisms across tissue wasting. We also demonstrate that the ubiquitin proteasomal degradation pathway was significantly upregulated …

Novel Insights Into Immune Systems Of Bats, Arinjay Banerjee, Michelle L. Baker, Kirsten Kulcsar, Vikram Misra, Raina Plowright, Karen Mossman

KIP Articles

No abstract provided.

Art, Artfulness, Or Artifice?: A Review Of The Art Of Statistics: How To Learn From Data, By David Spiegelhalter, Jason Makansi

Numeracy

David Spiegelhalter. 2019. The Art of Statistics: How to Learn From Data. (London: The Penguin Group). 444 pp. ISBN 978-1541618510

The author successfully eases the reader away from the rigor of statistical methods and calculations and into the realm of statistical thinking. Despite an engaging style and attention-grabbing examples, the reader of The Art of Statistics will need more than a casual grounding in statistics to get what Spiegelhalter, I believe, intends from his book. It should be viewed as a companion to a more rigorous textbook on statistical methods but not necessarily a book that makes statistics any …

Effects Of Quantitative Literacy On Healthcare Decision-Making: An Aural Context, Robert G. Root, Sonia Bhala

Numeracy

We propose a relationship between sensory modality, numerical formatting, and performance on a survey simulating healthcare decision-making. We examine the current literature on aural health literacy, and specifically aural literacy coupled with health numeracy. We then create a survey instrument called the Bhala test for this purpose and demonstrate that it is moderately internally consistent and provides results that correlate with the NUMi assessment, a widely accepted measure of health numeracy. The quantitative information provided in the Bhala test has two treatments, percentage and natural frequency formats, in an effort to determine which format is easier for subjects to use …

The Weekly Challenger, January 9, 2020, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The January 9, 2020, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Insights Into The Bioavailability Of Oceanic Dissolved Fe From Phytoplankton Uptake Kinetics, Yeala Shaked, Kristen N. Buck, Travis Mellett, Maria. T. Maldonado

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Phytoplankton growth in large parts of the world ocean is limited by low availability of dissolved iron (dFe), restricting oceanic uptake of atmospheric CO₂. The bioavailability of dFe in seawater is however difficult to appraise since it is bound by a variety of poorly characterized organic ligands. Here, we propose a new approach for evaluating seawater dFe bioavailability based on its uptake rate constant by Fe-limited cultured phytoplankton. We utilized seven phytoplankton species of diverse classes, sizes, and provenances to probe for dFe bioavailability in 12 seawater samples from several ocean basins and depths. All tested phytoplankton acquired …

Altered Tropical Seascapes Influence Patterns Of Fish Assemblage And Ecological Functions In The Western Indian Ocean, D. H. Chacin, C. D. Stallings, M. Eggertsen, C. Åkerlund, C. Halling, C. Berkström

Marine Science Faculty Publications

The arrangement and composition of habitats within landscapes and fine-scale habitat characteristics influence community structure and ecological processes. These aspects can be altered by anthropogenic activities, thus influencing associated assemblages. Farming of macroalgae is a common practice in tropical settings and alters the natural composition of seascapes by introducing monoculture patches. The farmed macroalgae may also differ in palatability compared to naturally-occurring macroalgae, influencing herbivory. This study assessed how these farms may differ from natural macroalgal beds in terms of habitat heterogeneity, fish assemblages, and herbivory. We surveyed fish assemblages and deployed macroalgal assays within macroalgal beds, farms and at …

The First Global Deep-Sea Stable Isotope Assessment Reveals The Unique Trophic Ecology Of Vampire Squid Vampyroteuthis Infernalis (Cephalopoda), A. V. Golikov, F. R. Ceia, R. M. Sabirov, J. D. Ablett, Ian G. Gleadall, Gudmundur Gudmundsson, Henk-Jan T. Hoving, Heather L. Judkins

USF St. Petersburg Campus Faculty Publications

Vampyroteuthis infernalis Chun, 1903, is a widely distributed deepwater cephalopod with unique morphology and phylogenetic position. We assessed its habitat and trophic ecology on a global scale via stable isotope analyses of a unique collection of beaks from 104 specimens from the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Cephalopods typically are active predators occupying a high trophic level (TL) and exhibit an ontogenetic increase in δ15N and TL. Our results, presenting the first global comparison for a deep-sea invertebrate, demonstrate that V. infernalis has an ontogenetic decrease in δ15N and TL, coupled with niche broadening. Juveniles are mobile zooplanktivores, while larger …

A Qualitative Exploration Of Racial And Ethnic Differences In Cost Of Care Conversations Among Older Adults, Kyaien Oquinn Conner, Jaqueline Wiltshire, Edlin Colato Garcia, Barbara Langland-Orban, Erica Anderson, Iraida Carrion, Amber Goodman, Ashley Goodman

Social Work Faculty Publications

Background: The rapidly growing racially diverse, aging population in the United States is presenting unique challenges for our social, economic, and healthcare systems. Rising health care costs, increased patient cost-sharing, and limited financial resources make this generation of older Americans susceptible to large medical bills or debt which disproportionally impacts older racial/ethnic minorities. Cost-of-care (CoC) conversations between patients and doctors is one recommended approach to containing health care costs and alleviating patients’ financial burden of care.

Methods: The current study used focus group methodology to qualitatively explore the contextual factors that influence CoC conversations in a diverse sample of older …

Environmental Variables Influencing Cynipid Gall Distribution In Southwest Florida, Christine R. Leonard

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Insect galls are a common feature in many xeric environments, where hiding away inside a plant host offers developing larvae consistent food and shelter from harsh conditions. This study aimed to identify the most significant environmental factors that affect local populations of oak-galling wasps (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae) associated with three Quercus species found in xeric habitats located in southwest Florida, USA. Cynipid gall diversity, richness, and abundance were quantified for 35 sample sites across 11 counties, counting only winter-season galls. All sample sites were located within xeric, fire-managed, vegetative communities. It was hypothesized that time since last fire, habitat size, latitude, …

Adult Environmental Education: Active Vs. Passive Learning Pedagogy, Kelly Mckenna

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

From wildfires to coral bleaching, the global effects of climate change are difficult to ignore. Unfortunately, the number of environmental education (EE) programs that target adults in the United States is lacking. Adults have the biggest impact on the environment and the greatest ability to make positive environmental changes and therefore, the need to expand environmental education for adults is imperative. In order to contribute to improved environmental quality, adults need to be exposed to environmental problems and to be taught ways to reduce their environmental impacts. Existing research highlights the difficulties when attempting to include adults in environmental education …

Effects Of An Exogenous Ketone Supplement On Five‐Kilometer Running Performance, Philip J. Prins, Andrew P. Koutnik, Dominic P. D’Agostino, Christopher Q. Rogers, Jacob F. Seibert, Jillian A. Breckenridge, Daniel S. Jackson, Edward J. Ryan, Jeffrey D. Buxton, Dana L. Ault

Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology Faculty Publications

Numerous oral ketone supplements are marketed with the claim that they will rapidly induce ketosis and improve exercise performance. The purpose of this study was to assess exercise performance time and related physiological, metabolic and perceptual responses of recreational endurance runners after ingestion of a commercially available oral ketone supplement. Recreational endurance runners (n = 10; age: 20.8 ± 1.0 years; body mass: 68.9 ± 5.6 kg; height: 175.6 ± 4.9 cm) participated in a double-blind, crossover, repeated-measures study where they were randomized to 300 mg.kg-1 body weight of an oral β-hydroxybutyrate-salt + Medium Chain Triglyceride (βHB-salt+MCT) ketone supplement or …

Ketone Bodies Attenuate Wasting In Models Of Atrophy, Andrew P. Koutnik, Angela M. Poff, Nathan P. Ward, Janine M. Deblasi, Maricel A. Soliven, Matthew A. Romero, Paul A. Roberson, Carl D. Fox, Michael D. Roberts, Dominic P. D'Agostino

Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology Faculty Publications

Background: Cancer Anorexia Cachexia Syndrome (CACS) is a distinct atrophy disease negatively influencing multiple aspects of clinical care and patient quality of life. Although it directly causes 20% of all cancer-related deaths, there are currently no model systems that encompass the entire multifaceted syndrome, nor are there any effective therapeutic treatments.

Methods: A novel model of systemic metastasis was evaluated for the comprehensive CACS (metastasis, skeletal muscle and adipose tissue wasting, inflammation, anorexia, anemia, elevated protein breakdown, hypoalbuminemia, and metabolic derangement) in both males and females. Ex vivo skeletal muscle analysis was utilized to determine ubiquitin proteasome degradation pathway activation. …

Using A Rapid Assessment Methodology To Identify And Address Immediate Needs Among Low-Income Households With Children During Covid-19, Shreela V. Sharma, Amier Haidar, Jacqueline Noyola, Jacqueline Tien, Melinda Rushing, Brittni M. Naylor, Ru-Jye Chuang, Christine Markham

All publications

Objective: Brighter Bites is a school-based health promotion program that delivers fresh produce and nutrition education to low-income children and families. Due to COVID-19-related school closures, states were under "shelter in place" orders, and Brighter Bites administered a rapid assessment survey to identify social needs among their families. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the methodology used to identify those with greatest social needs during this time ("high risk"), and to describe the response of Brighter Bites to these "high risk" families.

Methods: The rapid assessment survey was collected in April 2020 across Houston, Dallas, Washington DC, and …