Digital Commons Network^™

Neuroscience Changes More Than You Can Think, Paul S. Davies, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

In this Essay, we consider the contribution of a startling new book, Law & Neuroscience (L&N), by Owen Jones, Jeffrey Schall, and Francis Shen. It is a law school course book (a genre not often the focus of a scholarly review essay) that supports fundamental inquiry into the relationship between emerging neuroscientific insights and doctrinal conceptions in the law. We believe that the book shifts the paradigm and so may profoundly affect the course of normative evaluation of law. In this Essay, we trace and evaluate the “argument” of the book and suggest ways in which its contribution to the …

Liberty In Loyalty: A Republican Theory Of Fiduciary Law, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Conventional wisdom holds that the fiduciary duty of loyalty is a prophylactic rule that serves to deter and redress harmful opportunism. This idea can be traced back to the dawn of modern fiduciary law in England and the United States, and it has inspired generations of legal scholars to attempt to explain and justify the duty of loyalty from an economic perspective. Nonetheless, this Article argues that the conventional account of fiduciary loyalty should be abandoned because it does not adequately explain or justify fiduciary law’s core features.

The normative foundations of fiduciary loyalty come into sharper focus when viewed …

Property As A Management Institution, Lynda L. Butler

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Lateral Occipital Cortex Is Selective For Object Shape, Not Texture/Color, At Six Months, Lauren L. Emberson, Stephen L. Crosswhite, J. E. Richards, Richard N. Aslin

Faculty Publications

Understanding howthe human visual system develops is crucialto understandingthe nature and organization of our complex and varied visual representations. However, previous investigations of the development of the visual system using fMRI are primarily confined to a subset of the visual system (high-level vision: faces, scenes) and relatively late in visual development (starting at 4 –5 years of age). The current study extends our understanding of human visual development by presenting the first systematic investigation of a mid-level visual region [the lateral occipital cortex (LOC)] in a population much younger than has been investigated in the past: 6 month olds. We …

Inflammatory Potential Of Diet, Weight Gain, And Incidence Of Overweight/Obesity: The Sun Cohort, Alyson Haslam, Sara Wagner Robb, James R. Hébert, Hanwen Huang, Michael David Wirth, Nitin Shivappa, Mark H. Ebell

Faculty Publications

Objective

The Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII)TM, which was developed to characterize the inflammatory potential of a person’s diet, has been shown to be associated with inflammatory conditions such as cancer. The present study aimed to investigate the association between DII scores and colorectal adenoma (CRA), a pre-cancerous condition.

Design

Responses to baseline dietary questionnaires were used calculate DII scores. In a cross-sectional study design, the association between DII scores and CRA prevalence was determined in men and women separately using logistic regression models.

Setting

Ten cancer screening centres across the USA.

Subjects

Participants were those included in the screening arm …

Arthropod Diversity And Functional Importance In Old-Growth Forests Of North America, Timothy Schowalter

Faculty Publications

Old-growth forests have become rare in North America but provide habitat for unique assemblages of species that often are rare in younger forests. Insects and related arthropods reach their highest diversity in old-growth forests because of their stable moderate temperature and relative humidity and the rich variety of resources represented by high plant species richness and structural complexity. Old-growth arthropod assemblages typically are distinct from those in younger, managed forests. Major subcommunities include the arboreal community that is composed of a rich assemblage of herbivores, fungivores, and their associated predators and parasitoids that function to regulate primary production and nutrient …

Status Spillovers, Brian P. Reschke, Pierre Azoulay, Toby E. Stuart

Faculty Publications

When an actor experiences a sudden gain in status—for example, when a scientist wins a Nobel Prize, or a film director wins an Oscar—what does this increase do to the fates of that actor’s many ‘neighbors’? Do they bask in the reflected glory of the prize recipient, and therefore gain with her? Or, does competition for attention ensue, attenuating the recognition neighbors otherwise would have received? We investigate these questions in science. Using expert-assigned article keywords, we identify papers that are topically related to publications of future appointees to the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). In difference-in-difference specifications we …

Erratum To: Aquaculture Genomics, Genetics And Breeding In The United States: Current Status, Challenges, And Priorities For Future Research. [Bmc Genomics. 18, (2017), (191)] Doi: 10.1186/S12864-017-3557-1, Hisham Abdelrahman, Mohamed Elhady, Acacia Alcivar-Warren, Standish Allen, Rafet Al-Tobasei, Lisui Bao, Ben Beck, Harvey Blackburn, Brian Bosworth, John Buchanan, Jesse Chappell, William Daniels, Sheng Dong, Rex Dunham, Evan Durland, Ahmed Elaswad, Marta Gomez-Chiarri, Kamal Gosh, Ximing Guo, Perry Hackett, Terry Hanson, Dennis Hedgecock, Tiffany Howard, Leigh Holland, Molly Jackson, Yulin Jin, Karim Khalil, Thomas Kocher, Tim Leeds, Ning Li, Lauren Lindsey, Shikai Liu, Zhanjiang Liu

Faculty Publications

In the version of this article that was originally published [1] there was an error with the author name "Karim Khalil" as it was incorrectly put as "Karim Kahlil". The original article was corrected.

Data-Driven Identification Of Potential Zika Virus Vectors, Michelle V. Evans, Tad Dallas, Barbara A. Han, Courtney C. Murdock, John M. Drake

Faculty Publications

Zika is an emerging virus whose rapid spread is of great public health concern. Knowledge about transmission remains incomplete, especially concerning potential transmission in geographic areas in which it has not yet been introduced. To identify unknown vectors of Zika, we developed a data-driven model linking vector species and the Zika virus via vector-virus trait combinations that confer a propensity toward associations in an ecological network connecting flaviviruses and their mosquito vectors. Our model predicts that thirty-five species may be able to transmit the virus, seven of which are found in the continental United States, including Culex quinquefasciatus and Cx. …

Oysters And Mammoths: Fossils In Central Texas–Texas Academy Of Science 2017, Chris Barker, R. Larell Nielson

Faculty Publications

Texas Academy of Science, 2017 Field Trip

This year's Texas Academy of Science Geology Field Trip takes you to two very different fossil sites in central Texas. Stop 1 is along a quiet road in the Hill Country where you can collect abundant invertebrate fossils from the Lower Cretaceous Comanche Peak Limestone and Walnut Clay. The second stop of the trip is at one of the newest units of America's park service: the Waco Mammoth National Monument. At this site you will see a spectacular fossil discovery that is now one of the main mammoth sites in North America. And …

Review Essay: Charity For The Autonomous Self, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

Review essay for "Charity Law and the Liberal State", by Matthew Harding and "Religion, Charity and Human Rights", by Kerry O'Halloran.

Nitric Oxide Promotes Gaba Release By Activating A Voltage-Independent Ca2+ Influx Pathway In Retinal Amacrine Cells, J. Wesley Maddox, Evanna Gleason

Faculty Publications

© 2017 the American Physiological Society. Retinal amacrine cells express nitric oxide (NO) synthase and produce NO, making NO available to regulate the function of amacrine cells. Here we test the hypothesis that NO can alter the GABAergic synaptic output of amacrine cells. We investigate this using whole cell voltage clamp recordings and Ca2 imaging of cultured chick retinal amacrine cells. When recording from amacrine cells receiving synaptic input from other amacrine cells, we find that NO increases GABAergic spontaneous postsynaptic current (sPSC) frequency. This increase in sPSC frequency does not require the canonical NO receptor, soluble guan-ylate cyclase, or …

Groundcover Community Assembly In High-Diversity Pine Savannas: Seed Arrival And Fire-Generated Environmental Filtering, Kyle E. Harms, Paul R. Gagnon, Heather A. Passmore, Jonathan A. Myers, William J. Platt

Faculty Publications

© 2017 Harms et al. Environmental filtering-abiotic and biotic constraints on the demographic performance of individual organisms-is a widespread mechanism of selection in communities. A given individual is "filtered out" (i.e., selectively removed) when environmental conditions or disturbances like fires preclude its survival and reproduction. Although interactions between these filters and dispersal from the regional species pool are thought to determine much about species composition locally, there have been relatively few studies of dispersal × filtering interactions in species-rich communities and fewer still where fire is also a primary selective agent. We experimentally manipulated dispersal and filtering by fire (pre-fire …

Stat5-Interacting Proteins: A Synopsis Of Proteins That Regulate Stat5 Activity, Ashley A. Able, Jasmine A. Burrell, Jacqueline M. Stephens

Faculty Publications

© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Signal Transducers and Activators of Transcription (STATs) are key components of the JAK/STAT pathway. Of the seven STATs, STAT5A and STAT5B are of particular interest for their critical roles in cellular differentiation, adipogenesis, oncogenesis, and immune function. The interactions of STAT5A and STAT5B with cytokine/hormone receptors, nuclear receptors, transcriptional regulators, proto-oncogenes, kinases, and phosphatases all contribute to modulating STAT5 activity. Among these STAT5 interacting proteins, some serve as coactivators or corepressors to regulate STAT5 transcriptional activity and some proteins can interact with STAT5 to enhance or repress STAT5 signaling. In addition, …

Simultaneous Delivery Of Antibiotics Neomycin And Ampicillin In Drinking Water Inhibits Fermentation Of Resistant Starch In Rats, Diana G. Carvajal-Aldaz, Justin L. Guice, Ryan C. Page, Anne M. Raggio, Roy J. Martin, Claudia Husseneder, Holiday A. Durham, James Geaghan, Marlene Janes, Ted Gauthier, Diana Coulon, Michael J. Keenan

Faculty Publications

© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Scope: Antibiotics ampicillin 1 g/L and neomycin 0.5 g/L were added to drinking water before or during feeding of resistant starch (RS) to rats to inhibit fermentation. Methods and results: In a preliminary study, antibiotics and no RS were given prior to rats receiving a transplant of cecal contents via gavage from donor rats fed RS (without antibiotics) or a water gavage before feeding resistant starch to both groups. Antibiotics given prior to feeding RS did not prevent later fermentation of RS regardless of either type of gavage. In the second …

Association Between Famacha Scores And Fecal Egg Counts In Katahdin Lambs, D. R. Notter, J. M. Burke, J. E. Miller, J. L.M. Morgan

Faculty Publications

© 2017 American Society of Animal Science. All rights reserved. The FAMACHA system was introduced to the U.S. just over 10 yr ago to allow selective deworming of lambs with anemia associated with Haemonchus contortus and retard the development of anthelmintic resistance. The FAMACHA system was initially developed as a predictor of packed cell volume (PCV), but correlations between FAMACHA and fecal egg counts (FEC) have also been reported. It is important to understand factors that influence FAMACHA scores among farms to improve management of gastrointestinal nematodes. The objectives of this study were therefore to quantify associations between FAMACHA scores, …

Simultaneous Delivery Of Antibiotics Neomycin And Ampicillin In Drinking Water Inhibits Fermentation Of Resistant Starch In Rats, Diana G. Carvajal-Aldaz, Justin L. Guice, Ryan C. Page, Anne M. Raggio, Roy J. Martin, Claudia Husseneder, Holiday A. Durham, James Geaghan, Marlene Janes, Ted Gauthier, Diana Coulon, Michael J. Keenan

Faculty Publications

© 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Scope: Antibiotics ampicillin 1 g/L and neomycin 0.5 g/L were added to drinking water before or during feeding of resistant starch (RS) to rats to inhibit fermentation. Methods and results: In a preliminary study, antibiotics and no RS were given prior to rats receiving a transplant of cecal contents via gavage from donor rats fed RS (without antibiotics) or a water gavage before feeding resistant starch to both groups. Antibiotics given prior to feeding RS did not prevent later fermentation of RS regardless of either type of gavage. In the second …

Factors Affecting The Ovarian Response To A Combined Estradiol-Sulpiride Treatment In Seasonally Anovulatory Mares, Erin L. Oberhaus, Donald L. Thompson, Carolyn K. Pham

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. Twenty-three seasonally anovulatory mares, housed at two separate farms, were treated with 50 mg of estradiol cypionate (ECP) and 3 g of sulpiride in January to study factors that contributed to success of the treatment (response = ovulation within 28 days). Every other day, blood samples and pretreatment secretagogue challenges were used to characterize prolactin, luteinizing hormone (LH), insulin-like growth factor-I, leptin, and insulin concentrations. Ovaries of each mare were scanned via ultrasound regularly until detection of a 32–35 mm follicle, at which time the mare was artificially inseminated. Prolactin was stimulated in all treated mares …

Song Evolution, Speciation, And Vocal Learning In Passerine Birds, Nicholas A. Mason, Kevin J. Burns, Joseph A. Tobias, Santiago Claramunt, Nathalie Seddon, Elizabeth P. Derryberry

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s). Evolution © 2016 The Society for the Study of Evolution. Phenotypic divergence can promote reproductive isolation and speciation, suggesting a possible link between rates of phenotypic evolution and the tempo of speciation at multiple evolutionary scales. To date, most macroevolutionary studies of diversification have focused on morphological traits, whereas behavioral traits─including vocal signals─are rarely considered. Thus, although behavioral traits often mediate mate choice and gene flow, we have a limited understanding of how behavioral evolution contributes to diversification. Furthermore, the developmental mode by which behavioral traits are acquired may affect rates of behavioral evolution, although this …

Caenorhabditis Elegans Rig-I Homolog Mediates Antiviral Rna Interference Downstream Of Dicer-Dependent Biogenesis Of Viral Small Interfering Rnas, Stephanie R. Coffman, Jinfeng Lu, Xunyang Guo, Jing Zhong, Hongshan Jiang, Gina Broitman-Maduro, Wan Xiang Li, Rui Lu, Morris Maduro, Shou Wei Ding

Faculty Publications

© 2017 Coffman et al. Dicer enzymes process virus-specific double-stranded RNA (ds RNA) into small interfering RNAs (si RNAs) to initiate specific antiviral defense by related RNA interference (RNAi) pathways in plants, insects, nematodes, and mammals. Antiviral RNAi in Caenorhabditis elegans requires Dicer-related helicase 1 (DRH-1), not found in plants and insects but highly homologous to mammalian retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I)-like receptors (RLRs), intracellular viral RNA sensors that trigger innate immunity against RNA virus infection. However, it remains unclear if DRH-1 acts analogously to initiate antiviral RNAi in C. elegans. Here, we performed a forward genetic screen to characterize …

Experimentally Reducing Corticosterone Mitigates Rapid Captivity Effects On Behavior, But Not Body Composition, In A Wild Bird, Christine R. Lattin, Anita V. Pechenenko, Richard E. Carson

Faculty Publications

© 2017 Elsevier Inc. Wild animals and captives display physiological and behavioral differences, and it has been hypothesized, but rarely tested, that these differences are caused by sustained elevation of the hormone corticosterone. We used repeated computed tomography (CT) imaging to examine body composition changes in breeding male and female wild house sparrows (Passer domesticus; n = 20) in response to two weeks of captivity, and assessed behavioral changes using video recordings. Half of the birds received the drug mitotane, which significantly decreased stress-induced corticosterone titers compared to controls. Based on the CT images, fat volumes increased, and pectoralis muscle …

Relationship Of Neuropeptide Ff Receptors With Pubertal Maturation Of Gilts, Jennifer F. Thorson, Neely L. Heidorn, Vitaly Ryu, Krzysztof Czaja, Danny J. Nonneman, C. Richard Barb, Gary J. Hausman, Gary A. Rohrer, Ligia D. Prezotto, Richard B. Mccosh, Elane C. Wright, Brett R. White, Bradley A. Freking, William T. Oliver, Stanley M. Hileman, Clay A. Lents

Faculty Publications

Mechanisms governing the timing of puberty in pigs are poorly understood. A genome-wide association study for age at first estrus in pigs identified candidate genes including neuropeptide FF receptor 2 (NPFFR2), which is a putative receptor for RFamide-related peptides (RFRP). RFRP has been shown to negatively regulate secretion of reproductive hormones from hypothalamic and pituitary tissue of pigs in culture. Here, the porcine NPFFR2 gene was further screened and four potentially functional variants were identified to be associated with age at first estrus in pigs (1,288 gilts). The RFRP neurons in the porcine hypothalamus were localized in the paraventricular and …

Dynamic Changes In Death Cues Modulate Risks And Rewards Of Corpse Management In A Social Insect, Qian Sun, Kenneth F. Haynes, Xuguo Zhou

Faculty Publications

In social insects, the efficiency of exploitation of resources and colony defence are mediated by chemical communication. In colonies dependent on nutritionally limited resources, corpses represent both a food resource and a risk of pathogens. Because this risk vs. reward changes with time after death, behavioural plasticity in the response to corpses would be advantageous. How social insects regulate this trade-off remains unknown. We conducted quantitative behavioural bioassay and chemical analysis to study corpse management in the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes. We hypothesized that R. flavipes responds differently towards corpses with prolonged post-mortem time, and this behavioural plasticity is …

Coordinated Dispersal And Pre-Isthmian Assembly Of The Central American Ichthyofauna, Victor A. Tagliacollo, Scott M. Duke-Sylvester, Wilfredo A. Matamoros, Prosanta Chakrabarty, James S. Albert

Faculty Publications

© The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Society of Systematic Biologists. We document patterns of coordinated dispersal over evolutionary time frames in heroine cichlids and poeciliine live-bearers, the two most species-rich clades of freshwater fishes in the Caribbean basin. Observed dispersal rate (DO) values were estimated from time-calibrated molecular phylogenies in LAGRANGE+, a modified version of the ML-based parametric biogeographic program LAGRANGE. DO is measured in units of "wallaces" (wa) as the number of biogeographic range-expansion events per million years. DO estimates were generated on a dynamic paleogeographic landscape of five areas over three …

Niche Evolution And Diversification In A Neotropical Radiation Of Birds (Aves: Furnariidae), Glenn F. Seeholzer, Santiago Claramunt, Robb T. Brumfield

Faculty Publications

© 2017 The Author(s). Evolution © 2017 The Society for the Study of Evolution. Rapid diversification may be caused by ecological adaptive radiation via niche divergence. In this model, speciation is coupled with niche divergence and lineage diversification is predicted to be correlated with rates of niche evolution. Studies of the role of niche evolution in diversification have generally focused on ecomorphological diversification but climatic-niche evolution may also be important. We tested these alternatives using a phylogeny of 298 species of ovenbirds (Aves: Furnariidae). We found that within Furnariidae, variation in species richness and diversification rates of subclades were best …

What Is Physics? The Individual And The Universal, And Seeing Past The Noise, A. R.P. Rau

Faculty Publications

Along with weaving together observations, experiments, and theoretical constructs into a coherent mesh of understanding of the world around us, physics over its past five centuries has continuously refined the base concepts on which the whole framework is built. In quantum physics, first in nonrelativistic mechanics and later in quantum field theories, even familiar concepts of position, momentum, wave, or particle, are derived constructs from the classical limit in which we live but not intrinsic to the underlying physics. Most crucially, the very idea of the individual, whether an object or an event, distinguished only in a mere label of …

Hemolysis As A Rapid Screening Technique For Assessing The Toxicity Of Native Surfactin And A Genetically Engineered Derivative, William J. Colonna, Mustafa E. Martı, John A. Nyman, Chris Green, Charles E. Glatz

Faculty Publications

If biosurfactants are to achieve their promise in environmental oil-spill remediation, their toxicity to marine life must be assessed. A killifish larvae assay is commonly used as a measure of toxicity but is difficult and nonlinear in response. Red blood cell (RBC) hemolysis has also been the basis for assays of some surfactant levels. Here we present a modified sheep RBC suspension assay and compare its response to that of the fish assay for surfactin and its genetically modified variant fatty-acyl-glutamate (FA-Glu). This is the first report of hemolytic activity as a property of FA-Glu. The method's potential for screening …

Before Breaking Bad News: Relationships Among Topic, Reasons For Sharing, Messenger Concerns, And The Reluctance To Share The News, Jayson L. Dibble, William F. Sharkey

Faculty Publications

Messengers are reluctant to reveal bad news, and this reluctance can hamper effective communication. With this investigation, we explore linkages among the topic of the news, messengers’ reasons for sharing, messenger concerns about sharing, the locus of the news, and whether these variables associate systematically with messenger reluctance to share the news. Retrospective self-reports (n = 330) revealed that bad news occurred in reliable topic categories, which in turn related to reasons for sharing, how extreme the news was perceived to be, and the concerns messengers had before sharing the bad news. Messengers reported more reluctance to share the news …

Student Outcomes From Participating In An International Stem Service-Learning Course, Kristy L. Daniel, Chandrani Mishra

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to measure student affective, behavior, and content (ABC) and global awareness outcomes after participating in a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-based international service-learning (ISL) course and impacts on long-term retention in STEM fields. We compared experiences from 12 participants (undergraduate and graduate students) enrolled in a STEM-based ISL course with experiences from four students enrolled in the same course without the service-learning component. The ISL course involved classroom discussions on environmental topics and four local and ISL projects with community partners to contribute to conservation efforts. Data came from student responses on a …

Tv White Spaces In Public Libraries: A Primer, Kristen Rebmann, Emmanuel Te, Donald Means

Faculty Publications

TV White Space (TVWS) represents one new wireless communication technology that has the potential to improve internet access and inclusion. This primer describes TVWS technology as a viable, long-term access solution for the benefit of public libraries and their communities, especially for underserved populations. Discussion focuses first on providing a brief overview of the digital divide and the emerging role of public libraries as internet access providers. Next, a basic description of TVWS and its features is provided, focusing on key aspects of the technology relevant to libraries as community anchor institutions. Several TVWS implementations are described with discussion of …