Digital Commons Network^™

Genetic And Stress Influences On The Prevalence Of Hypertension Among Hispanics/Latinos In The Hispanic Community Health Study/Study Of Latinos (Hchs/Sol), Liana K. Preudhomme, Marc D. Gellman, Nora Franceschini, Krista M. Perreira, Lindsay E. Fernández-Rhodes, Linda C. Gallo, Carmen R. Isasi, Sylvia Smoller, Sheila F. Castañeda, Martha Daviglus, Christina Hutten, Richard S. Cooper, Jianwen Cai, Neil Schneiderman, Maria M. Llabre

Faculty Publications

Purpose: The current study examined the effects of chronic stress and a genetic risk score on the presence of hypertension and elevated systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure among Hispanics/Latinos in the target population of Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos. Materials and Methods: Of the participants (N = 11,623) assessed during two clinic visits (Visit 1 2008–2013 & Visit 2 2014–2018), we analysed data from 7,429 adults (50.4% female), aged 18–74, who were genotyped and responded to chronic stress questionnaires. We calculated an unweighted genetic risk score using blood pressure increasing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) found to be …

Effects Of Testing And Disclosing Ancestry-Specific Genetic Risk For Kidney Failure On Patients And Health Care Professionals: A Randomized Clinical Trial, Girish N. Nadkarni, Kezhen Fei, Michelle A. Ramos, Diane Hauser, Emilia Bagiella, Stephen B. Ellis, Saskia Sanderson, Stuart A. Scott, Tatiana Sabin, Ebony Madden, Richard Cooper, Martin Pollak, Neil Calman, Erwin P. Bottinger, Carol R. Horowitz

Faculty Publications

Importance: Risk variants in the apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1 [OMIM 603743]) gene on chromosome 22 are common in individuals of West African ancestry and confer increased risk of kidney failure for people with African ancestry and hypertension. Whether disclosing APOL1 genetic testing results to patients of African ancestry and their clinicians affects blood pressure, kidney disease screening, or patient behaviors is unknown. Objective: To determine the effects of testing and disclosing APOL1 genetic results to patients of African ancestry with hypertension and their clinicians. Design, Setting, and Participants: This pragmatic randomized clinical trial randomly assigned 2050 adults of African ancestry with …

Alternative Nesting Strategies Of Polistine Wasps In A Subtropical Locale, Scott Nacko, Mark A. Hall, Gregg Henderson

Faculty Publications

Phylogenetic studies suggest that historically all paper wasps (Vespidae: Polistinae) in North America have tropical origins, but some species have adapted to survive temperate conditions. Subtropical climates, which are intermediate between temperate and tropical, allow a unique opportu-nity to study ancestral traits which can be retained or lost within populations, and ultimately elucidate the process of social wasp evolution. We investigated the phenology of paper wasps at study sites in subtropical Baton Rouge, USA, through nest searching and monitoring of nest parameters throughout the warm season (March–October). Across the year, two periods of nest initiation occurred: from March–May (early season …

Holistic Management Of Pollinators And Pests: Integrating Semiochemicals With On-Farm Pesticides, Olabimpe O. Okosun, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

Insect pollinators and insect herbivores affect plant reproduction and fitness. Floral displays are used to attract and manipulate pollinators' behavior to support plant sexual reproduction while rewarding the visitors with access to nectar and pollen. The plant-pollinator interactions use various semiochemicals as important communication channels for successful species interaction networks. Floral display and scents can also attract insect herbivores (in which case they act as kairomones). Consequently, semiochemical-color-based traps used for monitoring pest insects in crop fields often accidentally capture pollinators, and these interactions simultaneously affect pest monitoring, pollinator assemblages, and crop production in agroecosystems. An integrated interdisciplinary approach that …

On The Need For New Measures Of Phylogenomic Support, Robert C. Thomson, Jeremy M. Brown

Faculty Publications

The scale of data sets used to infer phylogenies has grown dramatically in the last decades, providing researchers with an enormous amount of information with which to draw inferences about evolutionary history. However, standard approaches to assessing confidence in those inferences (e.g., nonparametric bootstrap proportions [BP] and Bayesian posterior probabilities [PPs]) are still deeply influenced by statistical procedures and frameworks that were developed when information was much more limited. These approaches largely quantify uncertainty caused by limited amounts of data, which is often vanishingly small with modern, genome-scale sequence data sets. As a consequence, today's phylogenomic studies routinely report near-complete …

Influence Of Market Type And Time Of Purchase On Bacterial Counts And Salmonella And Listeria Prevalence In Whole Chickens In Vietnam, April K. Englishbey, Anuraj T. Sukumaran, Phuong T. T. Vu, Yen T. Thuc, Man V. V. Le, Dzung H. Nguyen, Paul R. Broadway, Lacey M. Guillen, Mindy M. Brashears, Janet R. Donaldson, M. Wes Schilling, Chelsie B. Dahlgren, Brian J. Rude, Mark A. Crenshaw, Thu T. N. Dinh

Faculty Publications

The objective of the current study was to determine the influence of market type and sampling time on Salmonella and Listeria prevalence and bacterial counts of 180 whole chicken carcasses collected from 6 supermarkets (SM), 6 indoor markets (IM), and 6 open markets (OM) in Vietnam, at opening (T0) and 4 h after the opening (T4). Salmonella and Listeria prevalence was at least 25.6% and 42.7%, respectively. Whole birds in IM had greater Salmonella prevalence than birds from both SM and OM by 28.4% and 23.0% (P = 0.006 and 0.022, respectively). Listeria prevalence was lower in whole chickens from …

Nekton Community Dynamics Within Active And Inactive Deltas In A Major River Estuary: Potential Implications For Altered Hydrology Regimes, Caleb B. Taylor, John Andrew Nyman, Megan K. La Peyre

Faculty Publications

High fisheries production within estuaries is associated with coastal upwelling, tidal mixing, and land-based runoff facing increasing impacts from climate and human activities. Active river deltas receive large riverine inflows compared to inactive river deltas, providing contrasting estuaries to compare impacts of river inflow on estuarine nekton. We quantified nekton assemblages and stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N) of commercially important blue crab Callinectes sapidus Rathbun, 1896 within an active and inactive delta in coastal Louisiana to explore the impacts of differing riverine inflow. Crustaceans dominated estuarine assemblages, differing only by season and not delta type, with summer and fall supporting highest …

An Open Hardware 3-D Printed Device For Measuring Tensile Properties Of Thermoplastic Filament Polymers At Cryogenic Temperatures, Yue Liu, Ju Dong, Terrence R. Tiersch, Qinglin Wu, William T. Monroe

Faculty Publications

With the emerging recognition of open scientific hardware, rapid prototyping technology such as three-dimensional (3-D) printing is becoming widely available for fields such as cryobiology, and cryopreservation, where material selection for instruments and hardware has traditionally been problematic due to extreme low temperatures. A better understanding of the mechanical properties of 3-D printing thermoplastics at cryogenic temperatures is essential to material selection, part design, and printing optimization. The goal of the present study was to explore the feasibility of development for a 3-D printed device (‘CryoTensileDevice’) to hold a test specimen in liquid nitrogen and be mounted in standard mechanical …

Racial Discrimination And Hazardous Drinking Among Black Drinkers: The Role Of Social Anxiety In The Minority Stress Model, Julia D. Buckner, Nina I. Glover, Justin M. Shepherd, Michael J. Zvolensky

Faculty Publications

Objective: Black Americans who consume alcohol experience worse alcohol-related outcomes. Thus, identifying psycho-sociocultural factors that play a role in hazardous drinking among Black individuals is vital to informing prevention and treatment efforts to reduce these disparities. Racial discrimination is related to hazardous drinking among Black adults, suggesting that some may drink (and continue to drink despite drinking-related problems) to alleviate negative affect (e.g., depression, anxiety) associated with discrimination. Yet, despite the social nature of both racial discrimination and drinking, no known research has examined the role of social anxiety in the relations among racial discrimination experiences and hazardous drinking. Method: …

Monitoring Leaf Phenology In Moist Tropical Forests By Applying A Superpixel-Based Deep Learning Method To Time-Series Images Of Tree Canopies, Guangqin Song, Shengbiao Wu, Calvin K.F. Lee, Shawn P. Serbin, Brett T. Wolfe, Michael K. Ng, Kim S. Ely, Marc Bogonovich, Jing Wang, Ziyu Lin, Scott Saleska, Bruce W. Nelson, Alistair Rogers, Jin Wu

Faculty Publications

Tropical leaf phenology—particularly its variability at the tree-crown scale—dominates the seasonality of carbon and water fluxes. However, given enormous species diversity, accurate means of monitoring leaf phenology in tropical forests is still lacking. Time series of the Green Chromatic Coordinate (GCC) metric derived from tower-based red–greenblue (RGB) phenocams have been widely used to monitor leaf phenology in temperate forests, but its application in the tropics remains problematic. To improve monitoring of tropical phenology, we explored the use of a deep learning model (i.e. superpixel-based Residual Networks 50, SP-ResNet50) to automatically differentiate leaves from non-leaves in phenocam images and to derive …

Deriving Tree Growth Models From Stand Models Based On The Selfthinning Rule Of Chinese Fir Plantations, Xiongqing Zhang, Quang V. Cao, Yancheng Qu, Jianguo Zhang

Faculty Publications

Self-thinning due to density-dependent mortality usually occurs during the forest development. To improve predictions of such processes during forest successions under climate change, reliable stand-level models are needed. In this study, we developed an integrated system of tree-and stand-level models by deriving tree diameter and survival models from stand growth and survival models based on climate-sensitive self-thinning rule of Chinese fir plantations in subtropical China. The resulting integrated system, having a unified mathematical structure, should provide consistent estimates at both tree and stand levels. Predictions were reasonable at both stand and tree levels. Because stand-level values aggregated from the tree …

Perceptions Of Purpose, Cohesion, And Military Leadership: A Path Analysis Of Potential Primary Prevention Targets To Mitigate Suicidal Ideation, Benjamin Trachik, Emma H. Moscardini, Michelle L. Ganulin, Jen L. Mcdonald, Ashlee B. Mckeon, Raymond P. Tucker, Walter J. Sowden, Walter J. Sowden

Faculty Publications

Rates of suicide in the US Army continue to rise, and by some accounts exceed the general population. This increase has renewed efforts to identify protective factors that may inform novel suicide prevention strategies. Previous research has demonstrated that a sense of purpose in life and perceived cohesion with military peers are related to a reduction in the severity of suicidal ideation (SI). Additionally, research in military samples supports decreased SI in Soldiers who endorse that their leaders convey a sense of purpose and meaning in their shared mission. However, no work has investigated whether these leadership styles relate to …

Phylogenetics Of Archerfishes (Toxotidae) And Evolution Of The Toxotid Shooting Apparatus, M. G. Girard, M. P. Davis, Tan H.H., D. J. Wedd, P. Chakrabarty, W. B. Ludt, A. P. Summers, W. L. Smith

Faculty Publications

Synopsis: Archerfishes (Toxotidae) are variously found in the fresh- and brackish-water environments of Asia Pacific and are well known for their ability to shoot water at terrestrial prey. These shots of water are intended to strike their prey and cause it to fall into the water for capture and consumption. While this behavior is well known, there are competing hypotheses (blowpipe vs. pressure tank hypothesis) of how archerfishes shoot and which oral structures are involved. Current understanding of archerfish shooting structures is largely based on two species, Toxotes chatareus and T. jaculatrix. We do not know if all archerfishes possess …

Molecular Data From The Holotype Of The Enigmatic Bornean Black Shrew, Suncus Ater Medway, 1965 (Soricidae, Crocidurinae), Place It In The Genus Palawanosorex, Jonathan A. Nations, Thomas C. Giarla, Muhd Amsyari Morni, Julius William Dee, Mark T. Swanson, Anna E. Hiller, Faisal Ali Anwarali Khan, Jacob A. Esselstyn

Faculty Publications

Although Borneo has received more attention from biologists than most other islands in the Malay Ar-chipelago, many questions regarding the systematic relationships of Bornean mammals remain. Using next-generation sequencing technology, we obtained mitochondrial DNA sequences from the holotype of Suncus ater, the only known specimen of this shrew. Several shrews collected recently in Sarawak are closely aligned, both morphologically and mitochondrially, with the holotype of S. ater. Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial sequences indicate that the S. ater holotype and new Sarawak specimens do not belong to the genus Suncus, but instead are most closely related to Palawanosorex muscorum. Until now …

New Species Of Virola (Myristicaceae) From South America, Daniel Santamaría-Aguilar, Laura P. Lagomarsino

Faculty Publications

With about 70 species Virola, is the largest genus of Myristicaceae in the Neotropics, the genus ranked in the top ten genera of abundance across Amazonia. Ten new species are proposed in this striking genus, which are described based on morphology, and are illustrated. The new species were discovered thanks to herbarium specimens collected mainly in the 1980s and 1990s when field documentations were more active. The new species come from Colombia (V. calimensis sp. nov., V. cogolloi sp. nov., V. excisa sp. nov., V. tuckerae sp. nov.), Ecuador (V. alvaroperezii sp. nov., V. bombuscaroensis sp. nov., V. calimensis, V. …

No Guts About It: Captivity, But Not Neophobia Phenotype, Influences The Cloacal Microbiome Of House Sparrows (Passer Domesticus), T. R. Kelly, A. E. Vinson, G. M. King, C. R. Lattin

Faculty Publications

Behavioral traits such as anxiety and depression have been linked to diversity of the gut microbiome in humans, domesticated animals, and lab-bred model species, but the extent to which this link exists in wild animals, and thus its eco- logical relevance, is poorly understood. We examined the relationship between a behavioral trait (neophobia) and the cloacal microbiome in wild house sparrows ( Passer domesticus, n = 22) to determine whether gut microbial diversity is related to per- sonality in a wild animal. We swabbed the cloaca immediately upon capture, assessed neophobia phenotypes in the lab, and then swabbed the cloaca …

Morphology Of Migration: Associations Between Wing Shape, Bill Morphology And Migration In Kingbirds (Tyrannus), Maggie P. Macpherson, Alex E. Jahn, Nicholas A. Mason

Faculty Publications

Morphology is closely linked to locomotion and diet in animals. In animals that undertake long-distance migrations, limb morphology is under selection to maximize mobility and minimize energy expenditure. Migratory behaviours also interact with diet, such that migratory animals tend to be dietary generalists, whereas sedentary taxa tend to be dietary specialists. Despite a hypothesized link between migration status and morphology, phylogenetic comparative studies have yielded conflicting findings. We tested for evolutionary associations between migratory status and limb and bill morphology across kingbirds, a pan-American genus of birds with migratory, partially migratory and sedentary taxa. Migratory kingbirds had longer wings, in …

A Low-Cost Greenhouse-Based High-Throughput Phenotyping Platform For Genetic Studies: A Case Study In Maize Under Inoculation With Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria, Rafael Massahiro Yassue, Giovanni Galli, Ronaldo Borsato, Hao Cheng, Gota Morota, Roberto Fritsche-Neto

Faculty Publications

Greenhouse-based high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) presents a useful approach for studying novel plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB). Despite the potential of this approach to leverage genetic variability for breeding new maize (Zea Mays L.) cultivars exhibiting highly stable symbiosis with PGPB, greenhouse-based HTP platforms are not yet widely used because they are highly expensive; hence, it is challenging to perform HTP studies under a limited budget. In this study, we built a low-cost greenhouse-based HTP platform to collect growth-related image-derived phenotypes. We assessed 360 inbred maize lines with or without PGPB inoculation under nitrogen-limited conditions. Plant height, canopy coverage, and canopy volume …

Genome And Environment Based Prediction Models And Methods Of Complex Traits Incorporating Genotype × Environment Interaction, José Crossa, Osval Antonio Montesinos-López, Paulino Pérez-Rodríguez, Germano Costa-Neto, Roberto Fritsche-Neto, Rodomiro Ortiz, Johannes W.R. Martini, Morten Lillemo, Abelardo Montesinos-López, Diego Jarquin, Flavio Breseghello, Jaime Cuevas, Renaud Rincent

Faculty Publications

Genomic-enabled prediction models are of paramount importance for the successful implementation of genomic selection (GS) based on breeding values. As opposed to animal breeding, plant breeding includes extensive multienvironment and multiyear field trial data. Hence, genomic-enabled prediction models should include genotype × environment (G × E) interaction, which most of the time increases the prediction performance when the response of lines are different from environment to environment. In this chapter, we describe a historical timeline since 2012 related to advances of the GS models that take into account G × E interaction. We describe theoretical and practical aspects of those …

The Anti-Parent Juvenile Court, Barbara A. Fedders

Faculty Publications

This Article identifies and analyzes features of the juvenile delinquency court that harm the people on whom children most heavily depend: their parents. By negatively affecting a child’s family—creating financial stress, undermining a parent’s central role in rearing her child, and damaging the parent-child bond—these parent-harming features imperil a child’s healthy growth and development. In so doing, the Article argues, they contravene the juvenile court’s stated commitment to rehabilitation.

In juvenile court, fees and fines are assessed against parents, who also often must incur lost wages to comply with court orders. In addition, while youths of all economic backgrounds and …

The Gender Gap In Academic Patenting, W. Michael Schuster, Miriam Marcowitz-Bitton, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

The gender gap in academia has long been the focus of public discourse regarding the role of universities in promoting social values. In this study, we consider women’s participation in transferring knowledge from the academy to industry. A prominent model for such transfer is reflected in patent registration for inventions developed through scholarly research. And while academic patenting is a significant component of the professional activities of many faculty members, the extent to which women’s scientific discoveries are patented and commercialized has received relatively little attention.

The U.S. academy is a leader in science and a pioneer of technology transfer. …

Nonmarriage And Choice In South Africa And The United States, Holning Lau, Suzanne A. Kim

Faculty Publications

In this Article, we examine three insights about free choice that emerge from studying the development of South Africa’s law of nonmarriage. First, South African jurisprudence advances understandings of nonmarriage as a valid choice. Unlike U.S. jurisprudence, which has been accused of overprivileging marriage and demeaning nonmarriage, South African jurisprudence draws attention to people’s legitimate reasons for choosing not to marry and the dignity interests attached to that choice. South African law helps to broaden the imagination of what is possible when nonmarriage is respected as a valid choice.

Second, South African jurisprudence illuminates the fact that the choice whether …

Systemically Important Platforms, Caleb N. Griffin

Faculty Publications

Regulating Big Tech is now a matter of intense public debate. We ask how well Big Tech companies fulfill their role as gatekeepers of the public square. We ponder whether their dominant market positions merit an antitrust response. We assess their culpability and complicity in spreading online misinformation and hate. However, in the many normative debates over how Big Tech should use its power, the source of that power remains largely unexamined.

Big Tech, like Big Tobacco before it, is an industry founded on addiction. Although typically “free” to use, the world’s largest digital platforms exploit users’ dopamine pathways to …

Reflections On Teaching Constitutional Law In The Midst Of A Constitutional Crisis, Sean Kammer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Appellate Judge As The Thirteenth Juror: Combating Implicit Bias In Criminal Convictions, Andrew S. Pollis

Faculty Publications

Research has documented the effect that implicit bias plays in the disproportionately high wrongful-conviction rate for people of color. This Article proposes a novel solution to the problem: empowering individual appellate judges, even over the dissent of two colleagues, to send cases back for retrial when the trial record raises suspicions of a conviction tainted by the operation of implicit racial bias.

Factual review on appeal is unwelcome in most jurisdictions. But the traditional arguments against it, which highlight the importance of deference to the jury’s fact-finding powers, are overly simplistic. Scholars have already demonstrated the relative institutional competency of …

A New Species Of New Guinea Worm-Eating Snake (Serpentes, Elapidae, Toxicocalamus Boulenger, 1896) From Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea, Jackson R. Roberts, Bulisa Iova, Christopher C. Austin

Faculty Publications

We describe a new species of New Guinea Worm-Eating Snake (Elapidae: Toxicocalamus) from a specimen in the reptile collection of the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery. Toxicocalamus longhagen sp. nov. can be easily distinguished from other species of this genus by the presence of paired subcaudals, a preocular scale unfused from the prefrontal scale, a prefrontal distinct from the internasal scale that contacts the supralabials, a single large posterior temporal and two postocular scales. The new taxon is currently known only from one specimen, which was collected from Mt. Hagen Town in Western Highlands Province, Papua New …

Disparities In Demand For Covid-19 Hospital Care In The United States: Insights From A Longitudinal Hierarchical Study, Wolfgang Messner

Faculty Publications

Background and aims

This study examined disparities in hospitalization for COVID-19 within the U.S. by racial and ethnic groups, health insurance status, and social support structure.

Methods

Using publicly available ecological case and contextual data from July 2020 to April 2021, a longitudinal hierarchical model for the 51 U.S. states was constructed.

Results

Racial/ethnic disparities were observed, such as that hospitalization rates were higher in states with a higher percentage of Black (β = .002, P = .009) and American Indian or Alaska Native persons (β = .003, P = .03). Conversely, lack of health insurance was related …

Adjudicating Identity, Laura Lane-Steele

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Ldh On The Dissolution And Adsorption Behaviors Of Sulfate In Portland Cement Early Hydration Process, Zedong Qiu, Limin Deng, Shuang Lu, Guoqiang Li, Zhen Tang

Faculty Publications

In recent years, it has been widely recognized that the incorporation of Mg-Al-LDH into cement-based materials can improve the salt corrosion resistance of cement-based materials. The reason for the improvement comes from the anion adsorption capacity of Mg-Al-LDH. It was confirmed that the addition of Mg-Al-LDH would accelerate the setting and hardening of cement paste. With the increase in the Mg-Al-LDH content, the initial setting time of cement slurry with different gypsum contents will decrease by 10-50% and the viscosity of the cement slurry will increase by 100-200%. Depending on different gypsum contents, the degree of cement hydration varied. This …

Event-Triggered Control For Discrete-Time Systems Using A Positive Systems Approach, Frederic Mazenc, Michael Malisoff, Corina Barbalata, Zhong Ping Jiang

Faculty Publications

We provide an output feedback event-triggered controller for discrete-time linear systems. We make novel use of positive systems, interval observers, an event-triggered state estimator, and triggering times that are computed from estimator values. This provides a discrete-time analog of our recent positive systems approach for continuous-time systems. A key novel ingredient in our discrete-time event triggers is their use of vectors of absolute values, instead of the usual Euclidean norm. We illustrate the benefits of our method using a model for event-triggered BlueROV2 underwater vehicles.