Digital Commons Network^™

Study Protocol: Identifying Transcriptional Regulatory Alterations Of Chronic Effects Of Blast And Disturbed Sleep In United States Veterans, Molly J. Sullan, Kelly A. Stearns-Yoder, Zhaoyu Wang, Andrew J. Hoisington, Adam D. Brenoweth, Walter Carr, Yongchao Ge, Hanga Galfalvy, Fatemah Haghighi, Lisa A. Brenner

Faculty Publications

Injury related to blast exposure dramatically rose during post-911 era military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is among the most common injuries following blast, an exposure that may not result in a definitive physiologic marker (e.g., loss of consciousness). Recent research suggests that exposure to low level blasts and, more specifically repetitive blast exposure (RBE), which may be subconcussive in nature, may also impact long term physiologic and psychological outcomes, though findings have been mixed. For military personnel, blast-related injuries often occur in chaotic settings (e.g., combat), which create challenges in the immediate assessment of …

Dissociating Reading And Auditory Comprehension In Persons With Aphasia, Rachel M. Harrington, Sigfus Kristinsson, Janina Wilmskoetter, Natalie Busby, Dirk Den Ouden, Chris Rorden, Julius Fridriksson Ph.D., Leonardo Bonilha

Faculty Publications

Language comprehension is often affected in individuals with post-stroke aphasia. However, deficits in auditory comprehension are not fully correlated with deficits in reading comprehension and the mechanisms underlying this dissociation remain unclear. This distinction is important for understanding language mechanisms, predicting long-term impairments and future development of treatment interventions. Using comprehensive auditory and reading measures from a large cohort of individuals with aphasia, we evaluated the relationship between aphasia type and reading comprehension impairments, the relationship between auditory versus reading comprehension deficits and the crucial neuroanatomy supporting the dissociation between post-stroke reading and auditory deficits. Scores from the Western Aphasia …

Developmental Differences In Reported Speech And Internal State Language In Preschoolers’ Personal Narratives, Megan E. Welliver, Alice J. Davidson, Alexandra Mccrary

Faculty Publications

The present study explored developmental differences in preschoolers’ use of reported speech and internal state language in personal narratives. Three-, four-, and five-year-olds attending a laboratory preschool shared 204 stories about ‘a time when you were happy/sad’. Stories were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded for reported speech (direct, indirect, narrativized) and internal state language (cognitive states, total emotion terms, unique emotion terms). Personal narratives told by five-year-olds included more cognitive states and more narrativized speech than those told by three- and four-year-olds, even when accounting for children’s vocabulary skills, and that reported speech (narrativized, direct) were positively correlated with cognitive state …

The Impact Of Data Preparation And Model Complexity On The Natural Language Classification Of Chinese News Headlines, Torrey J. Wagner, Dennis Guhl, Brent T. Langhals

Faculty Publications

Given the emergence of China as a political and economic power in the 21st century, there is increased interest in analyzing Chinese news articles to better understand developing trends in China. Because of the volume of the material, automating the categorization of Chinese-language news articles by headline text or titles can be an effective way to sort the articles into categories for efficient review. A 383,000-headline dataset labeled with 15 categories from the Toutiao website was evaluated via natural language processing to predict topic categories. The influence of six data preparation variations on the predictive accuracy of four algorithms was …

A Quantum Logic Gate In The Dna Deoxyribose Moiety, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The deoxyribose moiety of a nucleotide in the DNA molecule can act as a quantumlogic gate, in which the enantiomeric shift between the C2-endo and C3-endo conformations of each nucleotide, occurs within a logically and thermodynamically reversible situation of electron spin qubits, that are coherently held within the topologically insulating DNA crystalline nanostructure, and that are coherently conducted along the delocalized electrons of the pi-stacked nucleotide base pairs. The enantiomeric symmetry between the C2-endo and C3-endo conformations is logically and thermodynamically reversible because it functions as a symmetry-breaking Szilard engine that is effectively built out of the physicality of the …

Investigating Consumer Purchase Intention Of Athleisure Products: A Study Of Lululemon’S Sns Ad, Julia Prigl, Jiyeon Kim Ph.D., Karen Edwards J.D.

Faculty Publications

This study investigated how SNS advertising by Lululemon affected consumer purchase intention from the brand. The influence of specific ad traits such as informativeness, creativity, and emotional appeal, on attitude towards the advertisement, the influence of attitude towards the advertisement on willingness to engage with the brand and the influence of willingness to engage with the brand on purchase intention. A moderating effect of a sedentary or active lifestyle is tested. Also, the influence of perceived behavior of others on subjective norm, and the influence of subjective norm on willingness to engage with the brand were investigated. This study contributes …

The Prevalence Of Gram-Negative Bacteria With Difficult-To-Treat Resistance And Utilization Of Novel Β-Lactam Antibiotics In The Southeastern United States, Y. Vivian Tsai, P. Brandon Bookstaver Pharm.D., Joseph Kohn, Julie Ann Justo, Darrell Childress, Stefanie Stramel, Douglas Slain, Patrick Tu, Mary Joyce B. Wingler, Bruce M. Jones, Daniel T. Anderson, Megan M. Seddon, David A. Cretella, Joshua Eudy, Hana Winders, Kayla Antosz Pharm.D., Pamela Bailey, Majdi N. Al-Hasan

Faculty Publications

Objective:

To evaluate temporal trends in the prevalence of gram-negative bacteria (GNB) with difficult-to-treat resistance (DTR) in the southeastern United States. Secondary objective was to examine the use of novel β-lactams for GNB with DTR by both antimicrobial use (AU) and a novel metric of adjusted AU by microbiological burden (am-AU). Design:

Retrospective, multicenter, cohort. Setting:

Ten hospitals in the southeastern United States. Methods:

GNB with DTR including Enterobacterales, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Acinetobacter spp. from 2015 to 2020 were tracked at each institution. Cumulative AU of novel β-lactams including ceftolozane/tazobactam, ceftazidime/avibactam, meropenem/vaborbactam, imipenem/cilastatin/relebactam, and cefiderocol in days of therapy (DOT) …

Balancing Best Practice And Reality In Behavioral Intervention Development: A Survey Of Principal Investigators Funded By The National Institutes Of Health, Lauren Von Klinggraeff, Sarah Burkart, Christopher D. Pfledderer, Alexander Mclain, Bridget Armstrong Ph.D., Robert Glenn Weaver Med, Phd, Michael Beets Med, Mph, Phd

Faculty Publications

Preliminary studies play a prominent role in the development of large-scale behavioral interventions. Though recommendations exist to guide the execution and interpretation of preliminary studies, these assume optimal scenarios which may clash with realities faced by researchers. The purpose of this study was to explore how principal investigators (PIs) balance expectations when conducting preliminary studies. We surveyed PIs funded by the National Institutes of Health to conduct preliminary behavioral interventions between 2000 and 2020. Four hundred thirty-one PIs (19% response rate) completed the survey (November 2021 to January 2022, 72% female, mean 21 years post-terminal degree). Most PIs were aware …

Whole-Of-School Physical Activity Implementation In The Context Of The Dubai Fitness Challenge, Chris Mcmahon, Collin A. Webster, Robert Weaver, Christophe El Haber, Gönül Tekkurşun Demir, Zainab Mohamed Ismail, Syeda Zoha Fatima Naqvi, Mehnaz Ghani, Şevval Kepenek, Manel Kherraf, Thrisha Krishnakumar, Pranati Prakash, Yeowon Seo

Faculty Publications

Introduction

Physical activity (PA) promotion among school-aged youth is a global health priority. Recommendations for such promotion include implementing whole-of-school approaches that maximize resources across the school environment. This study examined schools’ participation in an annual, government-led, and emirate-wide initiative in Dubai, called the Dubai Fitness Challenge, in which the goal is to accrue 30 minutes of PA every day for 30 days (as such, the initiative is colloquially referred to as “Dubai 30x30”).

Methods

A mixed-methods design was employed for this study. Three schools were recruited using convenience sampling. Participants were 18 physical education teachers, 20 classroom teachers, 2 …

Growing New Librarians Through Meaningful Internships, Nicole Lewis

Faculty Publications

Internships have the potential to be incredible learning experiences for students, but without thoughtful preparation, they may be nothing more than short-term jobs. Using a metadata internship as a case study, this presentation will discuss how using effective teaching and course design principles could create more thoughtful and meaningful internship experiences, specifically how crafting an internship objective and learning outcomes can help with creating content and learning activities that prepare interns for their hands-on projects. The result is an internship that combines theory and practice into a meaningful experience for the student and delivers needed work for the library.

Pal-Bert: An Improved Question Answering Model, Wenfeng Zheng, Siyu Lu, Zhuohang Cai, Ruiyang Wang, Lei Wang, Lirong Yin

Faculty Publications

In the field of natural language processing (NLP), there have been various pre-training language models in recent years, with question answering systems gaining significant attention. However, as algorithms, data, and computing power advance, the issue of increasingly larger models and a growing number of parameters has surfaced. Consequently, model training has become more costly and less efficient. To enhance the efficiency and accuracy of the training process while reducing the model volume, this paper proposes a first-order pruning model PAL-BERT based on the ALBERT model according to the characteristics of question-answering (QA) system and language model. Firstly, a first-order network …

Now It’S Your Turn!: Eye Blink Rate In A Jenga Task Modulated By Interaction Of Task Wait Times, Effortful Control, And Internalizing Behaviors, Kelley E. Gunther, Xiaoxue Fu Ph.D., Leigha A. Macneill, Morgan Jones, Briana Ermanni, Koraly Pérez-Edgar

Faculty Publications

Dopamine is a versatile neurotransmitter with implications in many domains, including anxiety and effortful control. Where high levels of effortful control are often regarded as adaptive, other work suggests that high levels of effortful control may be a risk factor for anxiety. Dopamine signaling may be key in understanding these relations. Eye blink rate is a non-invasive proxy metric of midbrain dopamine activity. However, much work with eye blink rate has been constrained to screen-based tasks which lack in ecological validity. We tested whether changes in eye blink rate during a naturalistic effortful control task differ as a function of …

Enriched Regions Of 228Ra Along The U.S. Geotraces Pacific Meridional Transect (Gp15), Willard S. Moore, Matt Charette, Paul Henderson, Doug Hammond, Nathaniel Kemnitz, Emilie Leroy, Eun Young Kwon, Mikael Hult

Faculty Publications

The half‐life of 228Ra (5.7 years) aligns well with near‐surface and near‐bottom ocean mixing timescales. Because 228Ra is sourced from sediments, regions of enhanced activity represent water that has recently interacted with sediments on the continental margin or seabed. The GP15 meridional transect from Alaska to Tahiti along152°W encountered several regions in the upper ocean where 228Ra was enriched. These enrichments follow surface and subsurface ocean current patterns and pair with earlier measurements of 228Ra and transient radionuclides to reveal the origins of these enriched regions. An enriched region at Alaska margin stations 1–3 was sourced locally but did not …

Graph Theory And Graph Neural Network Assisted High-Throughput Crystal Structure Prediction And Screening For Energy Conversion And Storage, Joshua Ojih, Mohammed Al-Fahdi, Yagang Yao, Jianjun Hu, Ming Hu

Faculty Publications

Prediction of crystal structures with desirable material properties is a grand challenge in materials research, due to the enormous search space of possible combinations of elements and their countless arrangements in 3D space. Despite the recent progress of a few crystal structure prediction algorithms, most of those methods only target a few specific material families or are restricted to simple systems with limited element diversity. Moreover, these algorithms are usually coupled with first principles calculations and thus are computationally expensive and very time consuming. Therefore, establishing a workflow that can generate a large number of hypothetical structures with diverse elements …

Achieving Equity In Child And Adolescent Mental Health By Addressing Racism Through Prevention Science, Nada M. Goodrum, Daniel K. Cooper, Sarah Edmunds, Guillermo M. Wippold, Jessica Bradshaw, Julie K. Nguyen, Norweeta Milburn, Funlola Are

Faculty Publications

Prevention science is a multidisciplinary field dedicated to promoting public health and reducing early risk factors that lead to negative health outcomes. It has been used to successfully improve child and family mental health and well-being, including for families affected by adversity. Despite advances in prevention efforts, major public health inequities remain for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) children and families, in part because of equity-implicit “one-size-fits-all” approaches that do not directly address racism which in part underlies the very health concerns these efforts aim to prevent. Structural racism not only introduces additional risk for negative health …

Motivators Of Circular Fashion: The Antecedents Of Chinese Consumers’ Fashion Renting Intentions, Chunmin Lang, Ruirui Zhang

Faculty Publications

This study investigates how intrinsic (i.e., shopping values, frugality, and perceived enjoyment) and extrinsic factors (i.e., perceived risks) influence Chinese consumers’ intentions regarding fashion renting. A quantitative study was conducted with data collected from a Chinese online research platform named Wenjuanxing. Data cleaning generated 322 valid samples out of 354 returned responses. Both SPSS 23.0 and Mplus 7 were used for data analysis. The hypotheses were tested through a structural equation model (SEM). The results theoretically confirm and expand the knowledge regarding what conceptual constructs impel or restrain consumers’ renting behaviors. The positive influences of frugality, perceived enjoyment, and attitude …

Waning Effectiveness Of Mrna Covid-19 Vaccines Against Inpatient And Emergency Department Encounters, Theodoros V. Giannouchos, Nicole L. Hair Ph.D., Bankole Olatosi Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

In the United States, most real-world estimates of COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness are based on data drawn from large health systems or sentinel populations. More data is needed to understand how the benefits of vaccination may vary across US populations with disparate risk profiles and policy contexts. We aimed to provide estimates of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against moderate and severe outcomes of COVID-19 based on state population-level data sources. Using statewide integrated administrative and clinical data and a test-negative case-control study design, we assessed mRNA COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2-related hospitalizations and emergency department visits among adults in South Carolina. …

In Situ Chlorine Generation And Rare Earth Chlorination By Molten Salt Electrolysis, Mark Schvaneveldt, Tyler Williams, Ranon Fuller, Devin Rappleye

Faculty Publications

Chloride volatility processes for purifying actinide and rare earth elements have historically required the use of Cl₂ tanks. To minimize the hazards associated with these processes, an apparatus was designed to produce Cl₂ via molten salt electrolysis. Within this apparatus, one can generate Cl₂, chlorinate metals, and consume excess Cl₂. Here, electrode materials were tested for their ability to generate Cl₂, the composition of the gaseous electrolysis product was evaluated using a quadrupole mass spectrometer, and a Ce foil sample was successfully chlorinated using the electrochemically generated Cl₂.

Predictors Of Prior Hiv Testing And Acceptance Of A Community-Based Hiv Test Offer Among Male Bar Patrons In Northern Tanzania, Deng B. Madut, Preeti Manavalan, Antipas Mtalo, Timothy Peter, Jan Ostermann, Bernard Njau, Nathan M. Thielman

Faculty Publications

Community-based HIV testing offers an alternative approach to encourage HIV testing among men in sub-Saharan Africa. In this study, we evaluated a community-based HIV testing strategy targeting male bar patrons in northern Tanzania to assess factors predictive of prior HIV testing and factors predictive of accepting a real-time HIV test offer. Participants completed a detailed survey and were offered HIV testing upon survey completion. Poisson regression was used to identify prevalence ratios for the association between potential predictors and prior HIV testing or real-time testing uptake. Of 359 participants analyzed, the median age was 41 (range 19–82) years, 257 (71.6%) …

Detecting Substance Use Disorder Using Social Media Data And Dark Web: Time And Knowledge Aware Study, Usha Lokala, Orchid Chetia Phukan, Triyasha Ghosh Dastidar, Francois Lamy, Raminta Daniulaityte, Amit Sheth

Faculty Publications

Opioid and substance misuse is rampant in the United States today, with the phenomenon known as the "opioid crisis". The relationship between substance use and mental health has been extensively studied, with one possible relationship being: substance misuse causes poor mental health. However, the lack of evidence on the relationship has resulted in opioids being largely inaccessible through legal means. This study analyzes the substance use posts on social media with opioids being sold through crypto market listings. We use the Drug Abuse Ontology, state-of-the-art deep learning, and knowledge-aware BERT-based models to generate sentiment and emotion for the social media …

Comparative Methods For Teaching Contemporary And Ancient Saints, Todd E. French, Mohammed Forero Bucheli

Faculty Publications

This paper argues that a comparative study of saints is not only a useful classroom tool for historians and religionists, but an exceptionally powerful locus of pedagogical insight and cultural understanding. By reframing contemporary consumptive patterns, media representations, and power discourses as religious vectors of saintliness, the professor has an opportunity to explore and assess cultural values, rituals, beliefs, worldviews, communities, traditions, and meaning making in the contemporary college student’s world. By acknowledging the dangers and possibilities of the category of saint while reframing the ascetical impact on developing subjectivities, we propose six pedagogical examples of how this might best …

Identification Of Potential Therapist “Missteps” In The Context Of Engagement In Public Mental Health Services: Analysis Of Digital Recordings And Key Informant Validation, Hyun Seon Park, Kimberly Becker, Wendy Chu, Kendal Reeder, Carolina Lechuga, Johnathan K. Ahuna, Eleanor Wu, Lanalle Darden, Rosalyn Williams, Rosana Serrano, Bruce F. Chorpita

Faculty Publications

Objective: This study aimed to characterize and validate potential therapist “missteps,” or inadvertent behaviors that may impact youth and family engagement in mental health services.

Method: Ten misstep types were coded from 224 treatment sessions provided by 92 therapists. Rapid qualitative analysis using key informant interviews was conducted to examine insights related to the occurrence, expected impact, and perceived severity of therapist missteps as an indicator of the face validity of the missteps construct and types.

Results: All 10 misstep types demonstrated good reliability (Fleiss’ k = .71−.88). All 10 misstep types appeared to have facevalidity with key informants. Key …

Effects Of Adjunct Questions On L2 Reading Comprehension With Texts Of Different Types, Yunmei Sun, Wenhui Zhou, Shifang Tang

Faculty Publications

Answering text-related questions while reading is a questioning strategy which is called adjunct questions or embedded questions, the benefits of which have been established in first language reading as to enhance comprehension. The present study aims to study the effects different adjunct questions exert on second-language (L2) readers’ comprehension of texts of various types. One hundred and forty-four intermediate-level Chinese EFL learners participated in this study and were divided randomly into six groups. Each group was given either a narrative or an expository text with ‘what or why’ questions or no questions. A brief topic familiarity questionnaire was attached to …

Radiation From An Oscillating Dipole In The Presence Of Photon-Sector Cpt And Lorentz Violation, Joshua O'Connor, Brett Altschul

Faculty Publications

We examine one of the standard loci for studying electromagnetic wave emission - the radiation from an oscillating electric dipole - in a model in which the electromagnetic sector is modified to include novel CPT- and Lorentz-violating propagation effects involving a preferred axial vector background. We evaluate the vacuum-birefringent radiation fields, including nonperturbative terms where appropriate. In general, the energy momentum carried by the fields in this model is known to have a complicated nonperturbative structure, which cannot be captured by naive power-series expansions in the components of the preferred background vector. However, we nevertheless find that at the lowest …

Food Systems Under Shock: The Evolution Of Food Security Status Of Karantina Residents After The Beirut Explosion, Mariana Makoukji, Nour El Houda Amhez, Abed Al Kareem Yehya, Hala Ghattas Ph.D., Yaser Abunnasr, Rami Zurayk

Faculty Publications

Robust food systems are crucial for ensuring access to affordable and nutritious food, particularly in times of crisis. Economic instability, currency devaluation, and political turmoil can disrupt food systems, leading to higher food prices, compromised nutrition, and increased vulnerability. Lebanon is a stark example of this, where a catastrophic explosion in Beirut’s Port in 2020 worsened an existing economic and humanitarian crisis. The depreciation of the Lebanese currency led to soaring food prices, impacting people’s ability to buy food, and pushing many into poverty, illustrating the significant impact of the state food systems during crises (FAO, 2021). In times of …

Children In The Workplace: An Exploration In Library Policy Making, Sharolyn Swenson, Marissa Anne Bischoff, Ryan Lee

Faculty Publications

Children in the workplace are becoming a more common discussion in various work environments, including libraries. Since the university has no policy addressing this issue, a task force was charged to draft a recommended policy for the university library regarding bringing children to the workplace. The task force reviewed existing policies and conducted a survey and interviews with library employees. The resulting policy provided guidelines for employees and their supervisors without being overly prescriptive. This article provides a case study of how the task force used assessment methods and tools to create an appropriate and inclusive policy. While the specific …

Examining The Evolution Of Network Governance Forms Of An Event Leveraging Collective: A Longitudinal Investigation, Landy Lu, Ran Zhou, Guangzhou Chen, Laura Misener

Faculty Publications

This study aims to investigate how an event leveraging collective’s network governance forms evolved from pre- to post‐Games and how these forms influenced members' collaborative engagement. We adopted a longitudinal qualitative case study approach. Our primary data sources included 996 pages of archival documents and 18 interviews with collective members. We found that in the pre- and during-Games stage, the leveraging collective adopted a shared participant-governed form with a facilitator. This participant-driven structure could enhance connectedness and collaborative engagement among member organizations. In the postevent phase, the collective assumed a pillar-governed form with a facilitator. Although this structure appeared to …

Unimer Suppression Enables Supersaturated Homopolymer Swollen Micelles With Long-Term Stability After Glassy Entrapment, Eric R. Williams, Christian X. Ruff, Morgan Stefik

Faculty Publications

Micelle sizes are critical for a range of applications where the simple ability to adjust and lock in specific stable sizes has remained largely elusive. While micelle swelling agents are well-known, their dynamic re-equilibration in solution implies limited stability. Here, a non-equilibrium processing sequence is studied where supersaturated homopolymer swelling is combined with glassy-core (“persistent”) micelles. This path-dependent process was found to sensitively depend on unimer concentration as revealed by DLS, SAXS, and TEM analysis. Here, lower-selectivity solvent combinations led to the formation of unimer-homopolymer aggregates and eventual precipitation, reminiscent of anomalous micellization. In contrast, higher-selectivity solvents enabled supersaturated homopolymer …

Unimer Suppression Enables Supersaturated Homopolymer Swollen Micelles With Long-Term Stability After Glassy Entrapment, Eric R. Williams, Christian X. Ruff, Morgan Stefik

Faculty Publications

Micelle sizes are critical for a range of applications where the simple ability to adjust and lock in specific stable sizes has remained largely elusive. While micelle swelling agents are well-known, their dynamic re-equilibration in solution implies limited stability. Here, a non-equilibrium processing sequence is studied where supersaturated homopolymer swelling is combined with glassy-core (“persistent”) micelles. This path-dependent process was found to sensitively depend on unimer concentration as revealed by DLS, SAXS, and TEM analysis. Here, lower-selectivity solvent combinations led to the formation of unimer-homopolymer aggregates and eventual precipitation, reminiscent of anomalous micellization. In contrast, higher-selectivity solvents enabled supersaturated homopolymer …

Muse-Alma Haloes X: The Stellar Masses Of Gas-Rich Absorbing Galaxies, Ramona Augustin, Céline Péroux, Arjun Karki, Varsha Kulkarni, Simon Weng, A Hamanowicz, M Hayes, J C. Howk, G G. Kacprzak, A Klitsch, M A. Zwaan, A Fox, A Biggs, A Y. Fresco, S Kassin, H. Kuntschner

Faculty Publications

The physical processes by which gas is accreted onto galaxies, transformed into stars, and then expelled from galaxies are of paramount importance to galaxy evolution studies. Observationally constraining each of these baryonic components in the same system, however, is challenging. Furthermore, simulations indicate that the stellar mass of galaxies is a key factor influencing CGM properties. Indeed, absorption lines detected against background quasars offer the most compelling way to study the cold gas in the circumgalactic medium (CGM). The MUSE-ALMA Haloes survey is composed of quasar fields covered with VLT/MUSE observations, comprising 32 H i absorbers at 0.2 < z < 1.4 and 79 associated galaxies, with available or upcoming molecular gas measurements from ALMA. We use a dedicated 40-orbit HST …