Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring The Concept Of The Digital Educator During Covid-19, Fernando Jimenez, Gracia Sanchez, Jose Palma, Luis Miralles-Pechuán, Juan A. Botia

Articles

T In many machine learning classification problems, datasets are usually of high dimensionality and therefore require efficient and effective methods for identifying the relative importance of their attributes, eliminating the redundant and irrelevant ones. Due to the huge size of the search space of the possible solutions, the attribute subset evaluation feature selection methods are not very suitable, so in these scenarios feature ranking methods are used. Most of the feature ranking methods described in the literature are univariate methods, which do not detect interactions between factors. In this paper, we propose two new multivariate feature ranking methods based on …

Comparison Of Vibrational Spectroscopic Techniques For Quantification Of Water In Natural Deep Eutectic Solvents, Suha Elderderi, Pierre-Yves Sacré, Laura Wils, Igor Chourpa, Abdalla A. Elbashir, Philippe Hubert, Hugh Byrne, Leslie Boudesocque-Delaye, Eric Ziemons, Franck Bonnier Franck Bonnier

Articles

Vibrational spectroscopic techniques, i.e., attenuated total reflectance infrared (ATRIR), near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and Raman spectroscopy (RS), coupled with Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR), were evaluated as cost-effective label-free and reagent-free tools to monitor water content in Levulinic Acid/L-Proline (LALP) (2:1, mol/mol) Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent (NADES). ATR-IR delivered the best outcome of Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of Cross- Validation (CV) = 0.27% added water concentration, RMSE of Prediction (P) = 0.27% added water concentration and mean % relative error = 2.59%. Two NIRS instruments (benchtop and handheld) were also compared during the study, respectively yielding RMSECV = 0.35% …

Ordinary And Extraordinary Images: Making Visible The Operations Of Stock Photography In Posters Against The Repeal Of The 8th Amendment, Ann Curran

Articles

The operations of stock photographs, as utilised by the Irish anti-abortion lobby, have not been examined before. Many of the ‘Vote No’ posters in the 2018 Irish referendum campaign on the 8th amendment maintained a visual and textual focus on foetal personhood: asking the Irish electorate to ‘love both,’ while deploying a range of stock photographs. In this article, I trace specific stock images used on anti-abortion posters against Repeal back to their online image bank sources. I make visible the role of generic or stereotypical photographs in anti-abortion messaging, in the knowledge that stock photographs often function best when …

Recruiting, Retaining, And Advancing Women In Stem At An Hbcu:A Model For Institutional Transformation, Sherrice V. Allen, Anna Lee, Maya Corneille, Robin N. Coger, Margaret I. Kanipes, Stephanie Luster-Teasley, Anthony Depass

Articles

Women, especially women of color (WOC), STEM faculty are underrepresented in full professor and leadership positions and overrepresented in non-tenure track positions. It is essential to develop organizational-level approaches which foster equitable and sustainable practices that lead to the success of women STEM faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The purpose of this paper is to share a model for institutional transformation focusing on recruitment, retention, and advancement of women STEM faculty. We describe our approaches, outcomes, challenges, successes, and lessons learned to serve as a model for other institutions. In order to transform our institution, we focused …

Recent Advances In Luminescence And Lasing Research In Zbya Glass, Changjun Xu, Jiquan Zhang, Mo Liu, Haiyan Zhao, Fengzi Ling, Shijie Jia, Gerald Farrell, Shunbin Wang, Pengfei Wang

Articles

In the last few decades, fluoride glasses have attracted a growing interest due to their unique advantages compared to multi-component oxide glasses. Among them, the most studied and widely used were fluorozirconate glasses, represented by ZrF4–BaF2–LaF3–AlF3–NaF (ZBLAN) glasses. However, compared with ZBLAN glasses, a kind of fluorozirconate glass with the components ZrF4–BaF2–YF3–AlF3 (ZBYA) has higher thermal and chemical stability. In this paper, we first introduce the advantages of ZBYA glasses compared to ZBLAN glasses. Then we review and discuss recent advances in research on luminescence and lasing in ZBYA glass and fiber. These studies suggest that ZBYA glass has strong …

Inheriting Citizenship, Scott Titshaw

Articles

Most of us become citizens at birth based either on our birthplace or our parents' citizenship status. Over thirty countries recognize birthplace citizenship, but inherited citizenship is nearly universal. Such universal legal rules are rare, and they are particularly remarkable in the context of citizenship, where state sovereignty is near its apex. This Article explores why inherited citizenship is necessary, even in nations recognizing birthplace citizenship. It surveys the history, definitions, purposes, current rules, politics, and global trends in this area and identifies three modern categories of birthright citizenship laws: primary inherited citizenship systems, dual inherited and birthplace systems, and …

Encapsulation Of Essential Oils In Nanocarriers For Active Food Packaging, Shubham Sharma, Lilly Mulrey, Megan Byrne, Amit Jaiswal, Swarma Jaiswal

Articles

Active packaging improves a packaging system’s effectiveness by actively integrating additional components into the packaging material or the headspace around the packaging. Consumer demand and awareness have grown enough to replace chemical agents with natural active agents. Essential oils (EOs) are extensively distributed throughout nature but at low levels and sometimes with poor recovery yields, which poses an issue with their application in food. Due to the instability of EOs when added directly into a food product, they require encapsulation before being added to a packaging matrix such as liposomes, solid-lipid nanoparticles, nano-emulsions, cyclodextrins, and nanostructured lipid nano-carriers. This article …

In-Flow Dynamics Of An Area-Difference-Energy Spring-Particle Red Blood Cell Model On Non-Uniform Grids, Brendan Walsh, Fergal Boyle

Articles

In this paper the area-difference-energy spring-particle (ADE-SP) red blood cell (RBC) structural model developed by Chen and Boyle is coupled with a lattice Boltzmann flux solver to simulate RBC dynamics. The novel ADE-SP model accounts for bending resistance due to the membrane area difference of RBCs while the lattice Boltzmann flux solver offers reduced computational runtimes through GPU parallelisation and enabling the employment of non-uniform meshes. This coupled model is used to simulate RBC dynamics and predictions are compared with existing experimental measurements. The simulations successfully predict tumbling, tank-treading, swinging and intermittent behaviour of an RBC in shear flow, and …

Narratives Of Black Women Stem Faculty: Breaking Barriers To Promote Institutional Transformation At Historically Black Colleges And Universities, Anna Lee, Maya Corneille, Karen T. Jackson, Bahby Banks, Sherrice Allen, Robin N. Coger, Margaret I. Kanipes, Stephanie Luster-Teasley

Articles

Women faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), experience many barriers. HBCUs’ rich histories of advancing racial equity have often outweighed a focus on gender equity, with issues at the intersection of race and gender receiving minimal attention. This study highlights the need for institutional transformation at HBCUs by identifying the structural factors that promote and inhibit Black women STEM faculty advancement. Interviews (n=15) were conducted with HBCU Black women STEM faculty using the Life Interview approach. The three major themes related to barriers included: (a) greater likelihood of having their expertise questioned, (b) increased pressure to work harder, …

A Core–Shell Au@Tio2 And Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube-Based Sensor For The Electroanalytical Determination Of H2o2 In Human Blood Serum And Saliva, Ayman Ali Saeed, Mohammed Nooredeen Abbas, Waheed Fathi El-Hawary, Yousry Moustafa Issa, Baljit Singh

Articles

A hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) sensor was developed based on core–shell gold@ titanium dioxide nanoparticles and multi-walled carbon nanotubes modified glassy carbon electrode (Au@TiO2/MWCNTs/GCE). Core–shell Au@TiO2 material was prepared and characterized using a scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM/EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Zeta-potential analyzer. The proposed sensor (Au@TiO2/MWCNTs/GCE) was investigated electrochemically using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The analytical performance of the sensor was evaluated towards H2O2 using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). The proposed sensor exhibited excellent stability and sensitivity with a linear concentration …

Micro-Rna And Proteomic Profiles Of Plasma-Derived Exosomes From Irradiated Mice Reveal Molecular Changes Preventing Apoptosis In Neonatal Cerebellum, Simonetta Pazzaglia, Barbara Tanno, Ilaria De Stefano, Paola Giardullo, Simona Leonardi, Caterina Merla, Gabriele Babini, Seda Tuncay Cagatay, Ammar Mayah, Munira Kadhim, Fiona Lyng, Christine Von Toerne, Zohaib N. Khan, Prabal Subedi, Soile Tapio, Anna Saran, Mariateresa Mancuso

Articles

Cell communication via exosomes is capable of influencing cell fate in stress situations such as exposure to ionizing radiation. In vitro and in vivo studies have shown that exosomes might play a role in out-of-target radiation effects by carrying molecular signaling mediators of radiation damage, as well as opposite protective functions resulting in resistance to radiotherapy. However, a global understanding of exosomes and their radiation-induced regulation, especially within the context of an intact mammalian organism, has been lacking. In this in vivo study, we demonstrate that, compared to sham-irradiated (SI) mice, a distinct pattern of proteins and miRNAs is found …

Transferring Studies Across Embodiments: A Case Study In Confusion Detection, Na Li, Robert J. Ross

Articles

Human-robot studies are expensive to conduct and difficult to control, and as such researchers sometimes turn to human-avatar interaction in the hope of faster and cheaper data collection that can be transferred to the robot domain. In terms of our work, we are particularly interested in the challenge of detecting and modelling user confusion in interaction, and as part of this research programme, we conducted situated dialogue studies to investigate users' reactions in confusing scenarios that we give in both physical and virtual environments. In this paper, we present a combined review of these studies and the results that we …

Advancing Competency In Managing Risk And Knowledge: Steps Toward Operationalisation Of The Risk-Knowledge Infinity Cycle (Rki Cycle) Part 3: Uncovering Knowledge For Qrm Through Knowledge Mapping At Node 1, Martin Lipa, Valerie Mulholland, Anne Greene

Articles

To date, literature on the Risk-Knowledge Infinity Cycle (RKI Cycle) has mainly been theoretical. This paper series intent is to focus on the operationalisation of the RKI Cycle by describing a series of steps – the “How to” – for RKI Cycle deployment, to help move the RKI Cycle from theory to practice. The third paper in this series focuses on ensuring the best available knowledge flows into QRM through a case study demonstrating knowledge mapping to support effective quality risk assessment during commissioning and qualification activities.

Development And Validation Of A Raman Spectroscopic Classification Model For Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (Cin), Damien Traynor, Shiyamala Duraipandian, Ramya Bhatia, Kate Cuschieri, Prerna Tewari, Padraig Kearney, Tom D'Arcy, John J. O'Leary, Cara M. Martin, Fiona Lyng

Articles

The mortality associated with cervical cancer can be reduced if detected at the precancer stage, but current methods are limited in terms of subjectivity, cost and time. Optical spectroscopic methods such as Raman spectroscopy can provide a rapid, label-free and nondestructive measurement of the biochemical fingerprint of a cell, tissue or biofluid. Previous studies have shown the potential of Raman spectroscopy for cervical cancer diagnosis, but most were pilot studies with small sample sizes. The aim of this study is to show the clinical utility of Raman spectroscopy for identifying cervical precancer in a large sample set with validation in …

Mirna-Mediated Fibrosis In The Out-Of-Target Heart Following Partial-Body Irradiation, Barbara Tanno, Flavia Novelli Flavia Novelli, Simona Leonardi, Caterina Merla, Gabriele Babini, Paola Giardullo, Munira Kadhim, Damian Traynor, Dinesh Medipally, Aidan Meade, Fiona Lyng, Soile Tapio, Luca Marcetti, Anna Saran, Simonetta Pazzaglia, Mariateresa Mancuso

Articles

A causal association between radiation exposure and various types of non-malignant diseases, especially cardiovascular diseases, has been extensively reported [1,2]. The risks of radiation-induced heart disease (RIHD) were described in therapeutically exposed cohorts of patients with thoracic tumors in which a high incidence of long-term complications (i.e., pericarditis, cardiomyopathy, coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, conduction abnormalities and myocardial fibrosis) increased the risk of heart-disease-related mortality [3]. Patients who received post-mastectomy radiotherapy for left-sided breast cancer were at a 2–3-time higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease, due to the apex and anterior wall of the heart being exposed to doses …

The Epistemology Of The Internet And The Regulation Of Speech In America, Brian Leiter

Articles

The Internet is the epistemological crisis of the 21st century: it has fundamentally altered the social epistemology of societies with relative freedom to access it. Most of what we think we know about the world is due to reliance on epistemic authorities, individuals, or institutions that tell us what we ought to believe about Newtonian mechanics, evolution by natural selection, climate change, resurrection from the dead, or the Holocaust. The most practically fruitful epistemic norm of modernity, empiricism, demands that knowledge be grounded in sensory experience, but almost no one who believes in evolution by natural selection or the reality …

Formation Of Gold Nanoparticle Self-Assembling Films In Various Polymer Matrices For Sers Substrates, Ksenia A. Maleeva, Ilia E. Kaliya, Anton P. Tkach, Anton A. Babaev, Michail Baranov, Kevin Berwick, Tatiana S. Perova, Alexander V. Baranov, Kirill V. Bogdanov

Articles

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is regarded as a versatile tool for studying the composition and structure of matter. This work has studied the preparation of a SERS substrate based on a self-assembling plasmonic nanoparticle film (SPF) in a polymer matrix. Several synthesis parameters for the SPF are investigated, including the size of the particles making up the film and the concentration and type of the self-assembling agent. The result of testing systems with different characteristics is discussed using a model substance (pseudo isocyaniniodide). These models can be useful in the study of biology and chemistry. Research results contain the optimal …

Development And Characterisation Of A Whole Hybrid Sol-Gel Optofluidic Platform For Biosensing Applications, Emma Mchugh, Graceson Antony, Arun Kumar Mallik, Alicja Kaworek, Declan Mccormack, Brendan Duffy, Mohamed Oubaha

Articles

This work outlines, for the first time, the fabrication of a whole hybrid sol-gel optofluidic platform by integrating a microfluidic biosensor platform with optical waveguides employing a standard photolithography process. To demonstrate the suitability of this new hybrid sol-gel optofluidic platform, optical and bio-sensing proof-of-concepts are proposed. A photoreactive hybrid sol-gel material composed of a photopolymerisable organically modified silicon alkoxide and a transition metal complex was prepared and used as the fabrication material for the entire optofluidic platform, including the optical waveguides, the sensing areas, and the microfluidic device. The most suitable sol-gel materials chosen for the fabrication of the …

Whither The Lofty Goals Of The Environmental Laws?: Can Statutory Directives Restore Purposivism When We Are All Textualists Now?, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

Congress set ambitious goals to protect public health and the environment when it enacted the federal environmental laws through bipartisan efforts in the 1970s. For many years, the federal courts interpreted the environmental laws to carry out those enacted purposes. Over time, however, courts greatly reduced their focus on the environmental and public health purposes of the environmental laws when interpreting those statutes due to the rise in textualism, the declining influence of the Chevron doctrine, and the increasing willingness of courts to defer to agency underenforcement of statutory responsibilities across all regulatory statutes.

In 2020, the Environmental Protection Network, …

Inclusion And Belonging In Irish Higher Education For Black And Minority Ethnic Students., Fionnuala Darby

Articles

Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as an analytical prism, this study interrogates the sense of belonging and inclusion experienced by Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students on one higher education campus in Ireland. The most important story told within the study is as simple as it is complicated. The simple part is that the BME students felt that the campus was inclusive and that they experienced a sense of belonging. The complicated part is that the findings are premised in a normative assumption of whiteness as evidenced by numerous and incremental moments of exclusion in the daily experience of microaggressions, …

The Potential Beneficial Effects Of Vaccination On Antigenically Evolving Pathogens, Frank Wen, Anup Malani, Sarah Cobey

Articles

No abstract provided.

Democratic Backsliding And Multiracial Democracy. A Response To The 2021 Jorde Symposium Lecture By Steven Levitsky, Tom Ginsburg

Articles

We live in an anxious era, particularly about the possibility of multiethnic democracy. The polarization of American democracy in general, accelerated by Trumpism in particular, has challenged narratives of race as gradually declining in significance. Instead, conventional wisdom suggests that Trumpism results directly from rising racial resentment of a White population that fears losing its relative power.² “Dog Whistle Politics” have been discarded in favor of openly nativist appeals, including by media figures such as Tucker Carlson.³

We are not alone. In France, the theory of the Grand Remplacement (Great Replacement) has spread from the fringes to the …

Streaming Property, Lee Anne Fennell

Articles

People acquire property rights in objects and real estate in order to capture the stream of services that these assets can provide over time. The thing or parcel itself is merely a delivery mechanism, a way of packaging and protecting rights to that value stream. And, significantly, these assets cannot stream services to anyone without a set of facilitating conditions and complementary goods, such as public infrastructure, that do not lie within the asset owner’s individual control. This Essay argues that we can gain fresh traction on inequality by recasting property as service streams rather than as owned things. Doing …

The Banality Of Evil (?): The Strange(Ly Quiet) Careers Of Korematsu And Hirabayashi In The Federal Circuit Courts, 1943‐2016, Scott Dewey

Articles

Korematsu v. United States (1944) and Hirabayashi v. United States (1943), the most famous Supreme Court cases associated with the tragic internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, now “live in infamy”, along with the likes of Plessy v. Ferguson and Scott v. Sandford, among the worst constitutional law train-wrecks of American legal history. Ironically, American courts and judges also used the two towering internment cases for their resounding language supporting racial equality and non-discrimination. In either guise, the cases came to cast a long shadow over America’s legal landscape. Thus, it may be somewhat surprising to discover that …

Bostock: An Inevitable Guarantee Of Heightened Scrutiny For Sexual Orientation And Transgender Classifications, Kaleb Byars

Articles

n June 2020, the Supreme Court decided Bostock v. Clayton County. In Bostock, the Court held that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and transgender status per se constitutes discrimination "because of sex" for purposes of Title VIL But Bostock inspires the question of whether its holding and reasoning apply in other contexts, including the Equal Protection Clause context. While the Supreme Court has held intermediate scrutiny applies to sex classifications analyzed under the Equal Protection Clause, the Court has yet to elucidate the level of scrutiny that applies to LGBTQ classifications. Meanwhile, state and federal courts …

Bias Impedes Progress In Physical Biology, Consciousness Studies And Quantum Gravity, Maurice Goodman

Articles

If scientists hope to make progress in consciousness studies they needs to accept that biased judgments have a major influence on the sciences, how we divide them up, how they are funded and this, in turn, has a profound impact on progress. The imbalance in funding, resulting from bias, in favour of the life and health sciences needs to be addressed as does why perversely little of this funding is devoted to a physics explanation of self-organisation and life on the mesoscopic scale? While life (the cell) is an outstanding example of self-organisation on the mesoscopic scale we need to …

Assessing Sex-Specific Circadian, Metabolic, And Cognitive Phenotypes In The Aβpp/Ps1 And Appnl-F/Nl-F Models Of Alzheimer's Disease., Jesse Britz, Emmanuel Ojo, Asmita Dhukhwa, Takashi Saito, Takaomi C Saido, Erin R Hascup, Kevin N Hascup, Shelley A Tischkau

Articles

BACKGROUND: Circadian disruption has long been recognized as a symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, emerging data suggests that circadian dysfunction occurs early on in disease development, potentially preceding any noticeable cognitive deficits.

OBJECTIVE: This study compares the onset of AD in male and female wild type (C57BL6/J), transgenic (AβPP/PS1), and knock-in (APPNL-F/NL-F) AD mouse models from the period of plaque initiation (6 months) through 12 months.

METHODS: Rhythmic daily activity patterns, glucose sensitivity, cognitive function (Morris water maze, MWM), and AD pathology (plaques formation) were assessed. A comparison was made across sexes.

RESULTS: Sex-dependent hyperactivity in AβPP/PS1 mice was …

Assessing Sex-Specific Circadian, Metabolic, And Cognitive Phenotypes In The Aβpp/Ps1 And Appnl-F/Nl-F Models Of Alzheimer's Disease., Jesse Britz, Emmanuel Ojo, Asmita Dhukhwa, Takashi Saito, Takaomi C Saido, Erin R Hascup, Kevin N Hascup, Shelley A Tischkau

Articles

BACKGROUND: Circadian disruption has long been recognized as a symptom of Alzheimer's disease (AD); however, emerging data suggests that circadian dysfunction occurs early on in disease development, potentially preceding any noticeable cognitive deficits.

OBJECTIVE: This study compares the onset of AD in male and female wild type (C57BL6/J), transgenic (AβPP/PS1), and knock-in (APPNL-F/NL-F) AD mouse models from the period of plaque initiation (6 months) through 12 months.

METHODS: Rhythmic daily activity patterns, glucose sensitivity, cognitive function (Morris water maze, MWM), and AD pathology (plaques formation) were assessed. A comparison was made across sexes.

RESULTS: Sex-dependent hyperactivity in AβPP/PS1 mice was …

An Analysis Of Repeated High Intensity Efforts (Rhie) Across Different Competition Levels In Elite Rugby Union, Adam Sheehan, Shane Malone, Anthony Weldon, Aled Waters, Kieran Collins

Articles

The current investigation aimed to understand the differing positional demands across two elite rugby union competitions, with special reference to high-intensity effort (HIE) and repeated high-intensity effort (RHIE) activity. Four hundred and forty-one (n = 441) individual game files from thirty-five competitive games from the European Rugby Champions Cup (tier 1; n = 8) and PRO12 League (tier 2; n = 24) were analysed. Players’ locomotor profiles were recorded using wearable global positioning system microtechnology (10 Hz Catapult S5, Catapult Innovations, Australia). Locomotor activities were classified as running (4.4 ms1), high-speed running (5.5 ms1), accelerations (2 ms2) and decelerations (2 …

Protein With Negative Surface Charge Distribution, Bnr1, Shows Characteristics Of Adna‐Mimic Protein Andmay Be Involved In The Adaptation Of Burkholderia Cenocepacia, Ruth Dennehy, Niamh Duggan, Simon Dignam, Sarah Mccormack, Eugene Dillon, Jessica Molony, Maria Romano, Yueran Hou, Laura Ardill, Matthew Whelan, Zuzanna Drulis‐Kawa, Tadhg Ó'Cróinín, Miguel Valvano, Rita Berisio, Siobhán Mcclean

Articles

Adaptation of opportunistic pathogens to their host environment requires reprogramming of a vast array of genes to facilitate survival in the host. Burkholderia cenocepacia, a Gram-negative bacterium with a large genome of ∼8 Mb that colonizes environmental niches, is exquisitely adaptable to the hypoxic environment of the cystic fibrosis lung and survives in macrophages. We previously identified an immunoreactive acidic protein encoded on replicon 3, BCAS0292. Deletion of the BCAS0292 gene significantly altered the abundance of 979 proteins by 1.5-fold or more; 19 proteins became undetectable while 545 proteins showed ≥1.5-fold reduced abundance, suggesting the BCAS0292 protein is a …