Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluating The Health Implications Of Kombucha Fermented With Gardenia Jasminoides Teas: A Comprehensive Analysis Of Antioxidant, Antimicrobial, And Cytotoxic Properties, Gayathree Thenuwara, Xu Cui, Zhen Yao, Bilal Javed, Azza Silotry Naik, Furong Tian

Articles

No abstract provided.

Vitamin K2 In Health And Disease: A Clinical Perspective, Tao Zhang, Christine O'Connor, Helen Sheridan, James W. Barlow

Articles

Vitamins are essential organic compounds that vary widely in chemical structure and are vital in small quantities for numerous biochemical and biological functions. They are critical for metabolism, growth, development and maintaining overall health. Vitamins are categorised into two groups: hydrophilic and lipophilic. Vitamin K (VK), a lipophilic vitamin, occurs naturally in two primary forms: phylloquinone (VK1), found in green leafy vegetables and algae, and Menaquinones (VK2), present in certain fermented and animal foods and widely formulated in VK supplements. This review explores the possible factors contributing to VK deficiency, including dietary influences, and discusses the pharmacological and therapeutic potential …

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis Of Human Blood Serum Of Glaucoma Patients Supplemented With Macular Pigment Carotenoids, Joy Udensi, Ekaterina Loskutova, James Loughman, Hugh J. Byrne

Articles

As all major dietary carotenoids are contained in blood, it is a suitable substrate to evaluate their content, in vivo. Following 18-month supplementation of open-angle glaucoma patients with macula-pigment carotenoids (Lutein, Zeaxanthin and Meso-Zeaxanthin) in the European Nutrition in Glaucoma Management trial, Raman spectroscopic analysis of the carotenoid content of pre- and post-supplementation participant blood serum was carried out, to investigate the systemic impact of the supplementation regimen and explore a more direct way of quantifying this impact using routine blood tests. Using a 532 nm laser source for optimal response, a consistent increase in serum carotenoid concentration was observed …

The Motherhood Penalty In The United Kingdom: An Unconditional Quantile Regression Analysis, Abhijit Sharma, Stefano Grillini, Richard Woodward

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No abstract provided.

Investigating The Potential For Students To Contribute To Climate Data Rescue: Introducing The Climate Data Rescue Africa Project (Clidar‐Africa), Simon Noone, C. D'Arcy, S. Donegan, W. Durkan, B. Essel, K. Healion, H. Hersbach, S. Madden, Jack Marshall, L. Mcconnell, I. Mensah, N. Scroxton, S. Thiesen, Peter Thorne

Articles

The majority of available climate data in global digital archives consist of data only from the 1940s or 1950s onwards, and many of these series have gaps and/or are available for only a subset of the variables which were actually observed. However, there exist billions of historical weather observations from the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s that are still in hard‐copy form and are at risk of being lost forever due to deterioration. An assessment of changes in climate extremes in several IPCC regions was not possible in IPCC AR6 WGI owing, in many cases, to the lack of available …

Probing A Neural Unreliability Account Of Auditory Sensory Processing Atypicalities In Rett Syndrome, Tufikameni Brima, Shlomit Beker, Kevin D. Prinsloo, John Butler, Aleksandra Djukic, Edward G. Freedman, Sophie Molholm, John J. Foxe

Articles

Background: In the search for objective tools to quantify neural function in Rett Syndrome (RTT), which are crucial in the evaluation of therapeutic efficacy in clinical trials, recordings of sensory-perceptual functioning using event-related potential (ERP) approaches have emerged as potentially powerful tools. Considerable work points to highly anomalous auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) in RTT. However, an assumption of the typical signal-averaging method used to derive these measures is “stationarity” of the underlying responses – i.e. neural responses to each input are highly stereotyped. An alternate possibility is that responses to repeated stimuli are highly variable in RTT. If so, this …

Radiobiological Applications Of Vibrational Spectroscopy: A Review Of Analyses Of Ionising Radiation Effects In Biology And Medicine, Jade F. Monaghan, Hugh J. Byrne, Fiona M. Lyng, Aidan D. Meade

Articles

Vibrational spectroscopic techniques, such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) absorption and Raman spectroscopy (RS), offer unique and detailed biochemical fingerprints by detecting specific molecular vibrations within samples. These techniques provide profound insights into the molecular alterations induced by ionising radiation, which are both complex and multifaceted. This paper reviews the application of rapid and label-free vibrational spectroscopic methods for assessing biological radiation responses. These assessments span from early compartmentalised models such as DNA, lipid membranes, and vesicles to comprehensive evaluations in various living biological models, including tissues, cells, and organisms of diverse origins. The review also discusses future perspectives, highlighting …

An Analysis Of The Public Participation Processes Employed For An Urban Greenway Project, Maeve O'Connell

Articles

The purpose of this study is to examine the public participation mechanisms employed for a proposed new infrastructure project. Public participation is a core characteristic of a contemporary democratic society as policy makers are increasingly encouraged to engage with citizens for learning and legitimacy. Participation is a loose concept with many forms and interpretations. This study explores the key characteristics of public participation formats, challenges to and the criteria for success. This analysis is then applied to the proposed local infrastructure consultation process. An additional survey is designed and its role in the public participation process is assessed. The processes …

Covid-19 Vaccine Race–The Shadow Of Political And Multinational Interests, Daniel Rajmil, Lucía Morales, Toni Aira

Articles

The COVID-19 pandemic caused global disruption in 2020, throwing the world into an unprecedented health crisis with unpredicted socio-economic consequences. Strikingly, politicians and supranational organizations failed to collaborate and coordinate a united global response. In light of this, this research study explores how the vaccine race may have been used as a weapon of political communication, constantly influenced by international relations and economic interests. This study analyses the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how the vaccine development was used to support Trump's political discourse to gain international political leadership amidst the electoral campaign to become reelected. The core …

Mechanisms Of Action And Preservation Effects Of Packaging Systems For Mushrooms: Novel Approaches To Preserve Irish Edible Mushrooms, Tigist Tadesse Shonte, Mehraj Fatema Mulla, Lorraine Foley, Shivani Pathania

Articles

Mushrooms support the Irish economy, with a farm gate value of roughly EUR 130 million in 2022 and with 80%–85% of Irish production exported to the United Kingdom. In order to apply cutting edge technologies and offer creative solutions to increase the shelf life of mushrooms, it is essential to understand the mechanisms of action and preservation effects of the current trends in edible mushroom packaging systems. This review summarises the mechanisms of action for nanopackaging, biodegradable packaging, edible coatings, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP), and active packaging in terms of their enzyme activity, antimicrobial activity, antioxidant activity, and rate of …

A Multi-Life Cycle Assessment Of External Wall Insulation Strategies In An Irish Domestic Retrofit, Sara Carrigan, Patrick Daly, Alberta Congeduti

Articles

European Union (EU) policy and initiatives are driving both building renovation and the uptake of low-embodied carbon and circular design in the construction sector. The European Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) recast (2021) introduces global warming potential (GWP) methodology, and the future state will likely be embodied carbon targets for which life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings will be required. External wall insulation (EWI) will have an important role to play in meeting targets. In this context, this paper compares the carbon emission payoff of three alternative EWI strategies that address conventional, low-carbon and circular solutions to EWI respectively, in …

Biobased Construction From Agricultural Crops: Paper 2 - Supply Chain Dynamics Of European Case Studies, Patrick Daly, Paula G. Barril

Articles

Energy security, economics and environmental factors are key drivers toward greater energy efficiency, decarbonisation and circularisation of the building sector.

Bio-based construction provides a potential low carbon and circular strategy toward these aims, as these materials can sequester carbon, are derived from renewable and nontoxic sources and can be re circulated in either technical or bio cycles.

This innovative research undertakes a state of play into select agri-crop biobased construction materials, products and systems across Europe focusing on their supply chain types and dynamics.

The research is based on a multi case study applying a range of mainly qualitative research …

Meme Corporate Governance, Dhruv Aggarwal, Albert H. Choi, Yoon-Ho Alex Lee

Articles

Can retail investors revolutionize corporate governance and make public companies more responsive to social concerns? Beginning in 2021, there was a dramatic influx of retail investors into the shareholder base of “meme” stock companies such as GameStop, AMC, and Bed Bath & Beyond. Observing the unprecedented, coordinated trading among retail investors, scholars and practitioners predicted that the influx of retail investors would reduce the power of large institutional investors and democratize corporate governance. These predictions were driven by three factors: generational, with assumptions that millennial and Gen Z investors would challenge corporate management; societal, reflecting growing discontent with slow progress …

Competency-Based Training Within The Prison System: Enhancing The Likelihood Of Entrepreneurial Activity Upon Release, Martina Brophy, Ana Pérez-Luño, Thomas M. Cooney

Articles

Recidivism rates across the world remain high, and one of the key reasons for this situation is that people leaving the prison system have great difficulty in securing employment. Addressing this issue must be explored from a broad perspective, but one potential career option that is under-explored is self-employment, with few entrepreneurship programmes available within prison systems. This study explores a competency-based approach to training, examining the knowledge, skills, and behaviours needed to enhance the prospects of persons with lived experience of prison becoming entrepreneurs. Using thematic analysis on ten in-depth interviews, this article identifies three categories of competency (generic,specific, …

Toxicological And Biomarker Assessment Of Freshwater Zebra Mussels (Dreissena Polymorpha) Exposed To Nano-Polystyrene, Andrew Reynolds, Enya Cody, Michelle Giltrap, Gordon Chambers

Articles

The presence of sub-micron-sized plastics in the environment has been increasing, with the possible risks of these particles remaining relatively unknown. In order to assess the toxicity of these particles, 100 nm diameter green fluorescent nano-polystyrene spheres (NPS) (20–60 mg/L) were exposed to zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha) to investigate the mortality, clearance rate and stress-related biomarker responses. D. polymorpha were collected and analysed with standard OECD toxicological tests and biomarker analysis to detect both physical and biochemical responses after exposure to NPS. The toxicity of the NPS to D. polymorpha was low, with 60 mg/L NPS causing a mortality rate …

Overview Of Antimicrobial Resistant Eskapee Pathogens In Food Sources And Their Implications From A One Health Perspective, Naomi Oyenuga, José Francisco Cobo Díaz, Avelino Alvarez-Ordóñez, Elena Alexandra Alexa

Articles

No abstract provided.

What Is The Goal Of Health Insurance Reform?, Gabriel Scheffler

Articles

No abstract provided.

Truth Bounties: A Market Solution To Fake News, Yonathan A. Arbel, Michael D. Gilbert

Articles

False information poses a threat to individuals, groups, and society. Many people struggle to judge the veracity of the information around them, whether that information travels through newspapers, talk radio, TV, or social media. Concerned with the spread of misinformation and harmful falsehoods, much of the policy, popular, and scholarly conversation today revolves around proposals to expand the regulation of individuals, platforms, and the media. While more regulation may seem inevitable, it faces constitutional and political hurdles. Furthermore, regulation can have undesirable side effects and be ripe for abuse by powerful actors, public and private.

This Article presents an alternative …

Just Don’T Do It: Why Cannabis Regulations Are The Reason Cannabis Businesses Are Failing, Edward Adams

Articles

Part I will provide a historical overview of the cannabis plant and our country’s experience with it prior to the election of President Richard Nixon. It is at that point, the early 1970s, that the current federal cannabis scheme began to take shape. Sections I.A though I.C will discuss the inception of the War on Drugs during the Nixon Administration and examine the subsequent social movement that led President Reagan to revamp and expand the War on Drugs throughout the 1980s.

The legal framework for federal cannabis regulation has largely remained stagnant since the Reagan Administration. Nevertheless, the federal stance …

Writing With Ai: University Students’ Use Of Chatgpt, Nikola Crcek, Jakob Patekar

Articles

Background: ChatGPT, a chatbot based on a large language model, captured global attention toward the end of 2022. With its potential to generate comprehensive texts of a variety of genres based on a string of straightforward prompts, it was soon perceived as a threat by many in various fields, including – and in particular – education. Schools across the world began banning its use as instructors started to receive suspiciously well-written essays and assignments from their students.

Aim: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of use of ChatGPT among university students for written assignments, explore the ways students utilize …

Pricing Corporate Governance, Albert Choi

Articles

Scholars and practitioners have long theorized that by penalizing firms with unattractive governance features, the stock market incentivizes firms to adopt the optimal governance structure at their initial public offerings (IPOs). This theory, however, does not seem to match with practice. Not only do many IPO firms offer putatively suboptimal governance arrangements, such as staggered boards and dual-class structures, but these arrangements have been gaining popularity among IPO firms. This Article argues that the IPO market is unlikely to provide the necessary discipline to incentivize companies to adopt the optimal governance package. In particular, when the optimal governance package differs …

Playing To Grow. Roundtable Interview On Games, Education, And Character, Owen Gottlieb, Matthew Farber, Paul Darvasi

Articles

In this roundtable interview moderated by Paul Darvasi, lecturer at the University of Toronto and co-founder of Gold Bug Interactive, Owen Gottlieb and Matthew Farber discuss research and practice at the intersection of religion, character education, and games in schools. Gottlieb is an associate professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, founder and lead faculty at the Initiative in Religion, Culture, and Policy at the MAGIC center, and founder and director of the Interaction, Media, and Learning Lab at RIT, where he specializes in interactive media, learning, religion, and culture. Farber is an associate professor of educational technology and coordinator …

Advances In Diagnostic Tools And Therapeutic Approaches For Gliomas: A Comprehensive Review, Gayathree Thenuwara Nanolab Research Centre, James Curtin, Furong Tian Nanolab Research Centre

Articles

Gliomas, a prevalent category of primary malignant brain tumors, pose formidable clinical challenges due to their invasive nature and limited treatment options. The current therapeutic landscape for gliomas is constrained by a “one-size-fits-all” paradigm, significantly restricting treatment efficacy. Despite the implementation of multimodal therapeutic strategies, survival rates remain disheartening. The conventional treatment approach, involving surgical resection, radiation, and chemotherapy, grapples with substantial limitations, particularly in addressing the invasive nature of gliomas. Conventional diagnostic tools, including computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET), play pivotal roles in outlining tumor characteristics. However, they face limitations, such as …

Relative Effectiveness Of A Radionuclide (210pb), Surface Elevation Table (Set), And Lidar At Monitoring Mangrove Forest Surface Elevation Change, Richard Mackenzie, Ken Krauss, Nicole Cormier, Eugene Eperiam, Jan Van Aardt, Ali Rouzbeh-Kargar, Jessica Grow, Val Klump

Articles

Sea-level rise (SLR) is one of the greatest future threats to mangrove forests. Mangroves have kept up with or paced past SLR by maintaining their forest floor elevation relative to sea level through root growth, sedimentation, and peat development. Monitoring surface elevation change (SEC) or accretion rates allows us to understand mangrove response to SLR and prioritizes resilient ecosystems for conservation or vulnerable ecosystems for restoration. We compared three methods to measure SEC and accretion in mangrove forests: 210Pb, surface elevation tables (SETs), and a terrestrial light detection and ranging system (compact biomass LiDAR—CBL). Lead-210 accretion rates were not significantly …

The Need For Energy Storage On Renewable Energy Generator Outputs To Lessen The Geeth Effect, I.E. Short-Term Variations Mainly Associated With Wind Turbine Active Power Output, Tony Kealy

Articles

Many studies investigating the short-term variations associated with the power output from wind turbine generators utilise simulated or modelled data in the analysis. This current study uses short-term empirical data downloaded directly from operational wind turbines via electrical power quality meters. The empirical data shows that the short-term variations (one-second or sub-one-second timeframe) occur continuously over most of the power output range. A novel name is proposed, the Geeth Effect, for this variability phenomenon. The Geeth Effect is measured using the coefficient of variation mathematical expression and is likely contributing to (i) lower-than-expected financial and environmental benefits associated with …

Exploring The Impact Of Signal Quality Enhancement On Heart Sound Classification Models, Davoud Shariat Panah, Andrew Hines, Susan Mckeever

Articles

Limited cardiology resources increase the urgency for automated heart disease screening for the general public. Heart sound diagnostic models have been recently employed as a cost-effective solution for the initial screening of heart disease. Noise in heart sound recordings, however, can reduce the performance of such data-driven models. Various quality enhancement approaches have been adopted to alleviate the destructive impact of noise on model performance. One approach is universal noise reduction which applies denoising techniques to recordings, irrespective of their noise level. The second approach is targeted noise reduction, which applies denoising solely to recordings deemed to need it, based …

Tech Supremacy: The New Arms Race Between China And The United States, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

In the brewing tech war between the United States and China, the quest for tech supremacy is in full force. Through enacting a series of laws and policies, China aims to reach its goal of tech supremacy. If China succeeds, U.S. corporations will face a daunting task in competing against Chinese products and services in core industries and in sectors where artificial intelligence and technological breakthroughs reign. This Article is the first to identify and analyze China’s 2022 Law on Science and Technology Progress, Personal Information Protection Law, Made in China 2025, National Intellectual Property Strategies, and digital currency e-CNY; …

The Future Of Anti-Poverty Legislation, Andrew Hammond, Ariel Jurow Kleiman, Gabriel Scheffler

Articles

The era of big-government COVID relief is over. The initial pandemic relief legislation, followed by two years of Democratic control in Washington, seemed to herald the expansion and modernization of the U.S. safety net. But sustained reform proved elusive. Now that this window of opportunity has closed, it's time to step back and take stock. For those who focus on anti-poverty programs, one question persists: The next time there is such an opportunity to strengthen anti-poverty programs through legislation, how should federal law change?

This Article suggests the answer to that question lies in lessons from recent experience, including, but …

Residual Pulmonary Vascular Obstruction Following Mechanical Thrombectomy For Submassive Pulmonary Embolism: A Single-Center Analysis, Brian Stegman, Thom G. Dahle, Wade Schmidt, Jacob R. Dutcher, Tanya Glenz

Articles

Background:

Residual pulmonary vascular obstruction (RPVO) following pulmonary embolism (PE) is associated with residual dyspnea, recurrent venous thromboembolism, and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension. Historically, acute PE treated with anticoagulation alone results in high rates of significant RPVO. Contemporary treatment of submassive PE often involves catheter-based interventions, including mechanical thrombectomy (MT), although their relation to RPVO is not characterized. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the rate of greater than or equal to 10% RPVO in patients treated with MT.

Methods:

Twenty consecutive patients with submassive PE in a single center underwent MT and subsequent planar ventilation/perfusion scintigraphy scan at …

States’ Duty Under The Federal Elections Clause And A Federal Right To Education, Evan Caminker

Articles

Fifty years ago, in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the Supreme Court failed to address one of the preeminent civil rights issues of our generation—substandard and inequitable public education—by holding that the federal Constitution does not protect a general right to education. The Court didn’t completely close the door on a narrower argument that the Constitution guarantees “an opportunity to acquire the basic minimal skills necessary for the enjoyment of the rights of speech and of full participation in the political process.” Both litigants and scholars have been trying ever since to push that door open, pressing …