Digital Commons Network^™

Lower Socioeconomic Status Neighborhoods In Puerto Rico Have More Diverse Mosquito Communities And Higher Aedes Aegypti Abundance, Nicole A. Scavo, Roberto Barrera, Limarie J. Reyes-Torres, Donald A. Yee

Faculty Publications

Mosquito community dynamics in urban areas are influenced by an array of both social and ecological factors. Human socioeconomic factors (SEF) can be related to mosquito abundance and diversity as urban mosquito development sites are modified by varying human activity, e.g., level of abandoned structures or amount of accumulated trash. The goal of this study was to investigate the relationships among mosquito diversity, populations of Aedes aegypti, and SEF in a tropical urban setting. Mosquitoes were collected using BG Sentinel 2 traps and CDC light traps during three periods between late 2018 and early 2019 in San Juan, Puerto …

Functional Altruism Among Agreeable And Narcissistic Donors: Evidence From Crowdsourced Fundraisers, Kelsey M. Drea, Mitch Brown, Donald F. Sacco

Faculty Publications

Given the increasing popularity of crowdsourced fundraisers, understanding how characteristics of funding initiatives and donors influence donations has critical real-world implications. Across two studies, we identified potential situational factors most conducive to successful crowdsourcing while also determining whether individual differences in various personality factors predicted differing levels of donation. Participants in Study 1 (MAge = 19.99; 309 women, 75 men) viewed descriptions that manipulated donation type (organizer donation, anonymous donation, no donation) and type of fundraiser (self-organized, other-organized), and reported their willingness to donate to an individual’s medical treatment and completed inventories assessing Big Five personality traits. In Study 2 …

Utilizing Theories And Evaluation In Digital Gaming Interventions To Increase Human Papillomavirus Vaccination Among Young Males: Qualitative Study, Gabrielle Darville, Jade Burns, Tanaka Chavanduka, Charkarra Anderson-Lewis

Faculty Publications

Background: Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. HPV attributes to most cancers including anal, oral, cervical, and penile. Despite infection rates in the United States, recommendations and communication campaigns have traditionally focused on females. Because of this, males lack knowledge about reasons for vaccination, the benefits of being vaccinated, and their HPV risk, overall. Gaming as a health education strategy can be beneficial as mechanism that can promote behavior change for this key demographic because of the popularity of gaming.

Objective: We sought to explore the relationship between gamification and …

The Rise And Fall Of The Ancient Northern Pike Master Sex Determining Gene, Qiaowei Pan, Romain Feron, Elodie Jouanno, Hugo Darras, Amaury Herpin, Ben Koop, Eric Rondeau, Frederick W. Goetz, Wesley A. Larson, Louis Bernatchez, Mike Tringali, Stephen S. Curran, Eric Saillant, Gael P.J. Denys, Frank A. Von Hippel, Songlin Chen, J. Andrés López, Hugo Verreycken, Konrad Ocalewicz, Rene Guyomard, Camille Eche, Jerome Lluch, Celine Roques, Hongxia Hu, Roger Tabor, Patrick Dehaan, Krista M. Nichols, Laurent Journot, Hugues Parrinello, Christophe Klopp, Elena A. Interesova, Vladimir Trifonov, Manfred Schartl, John Postlethwait, Yann Guiguen

Faculty Publications

The understanding of the evolution of variable sex determination mechanisms across taxa requires comparative studies among closely related species. Following the fate of a known master sex-determining gene, we traced the evolution of sex determination in an entire teleost order (Esociformes). We discovered that the northern pike (Esox lucius) master sex-determining gene originated from a 65 to 90 million-year-old gene duplication event and that it remained sex-linked on undifferentiated sex chromosomes for at least 56 million years in multiple species. We identified several independent species-or population-specific sex determination transitions, including a recent loss of a Y-chromosome. These findings highlight the …

Policy Interactions In Large-Scale Marine Protected Areas, Rebecca L. Gruby, Noella J. Gray, Luke Fairbanks, Elizabeth Havice, Lisa M. Campbell, Alan Friedlander, Kirsten L.L. Oleson, King Sam, Lillian Mitchell, Quentin Hanich

Faculty Publications

Large-scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs) have proliferated in recent years, now accounting for most of the world's MPA coverage. However, little is known about LSMPA outcomes and the factors that affect them. Here we argue that policy interactions—the cumulative effect of co-existing policies for an issue and/or geographical area—can play a critical, but under-recognized, role in influencing LSMPA design and outcomes. We analyze interactions between national LSMPAs within Palau and Kiribati, and regional fisheries management established by the Nauru Agreement to show how policy actors can account for policy interactions in LSMPA design, and to demonstrate the profound influence that …

Being Needed, Cared For, And Present: Belonging And Disability In The Seventh-Day Adventist Church In North America, Shannon M. Trecartin, Mikelle Wile, Terrance P. Trecartin, Petr Činčala

Faculty Publications

Many Christian churches seek to be places of belonging, yet present barriers to inclusion. The present research focuses on disability and belonging in members of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church in North America. Data from the SDA Global Church Survey (2017–2018) were used to measure attendance, perceived care, and sense of being needed. Results: Differences in attendance, leadership, and “feeling cared for” were observed. The findings of this study suggest that the SDA Church has had both successes and room for growth in terms of creating opportunities for belonging among people with disabilities. Implications for other denominations are also discussed.

The Covid-19 Vaccine Race: Intellectual Property, Collaoration(S), Nationalism And Misinformation, Ana Santos Rutschman

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a national and global vaccine race. This Article examines the race with respect to contemporary frameworks for biopharmaceutical research and development. Specifically, this Article focuses on the effect of patents, pre-production agreements, public-private partnerships, and vaccine misinformation. This Article analyzes lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, advocates for promoting vaccine affordability and equity, and suggests modifications to existing preparedness frameworks to prepare for upcoming outbreaks of infectious disease.

Governing Privacy In Knowledge Commons, Brett M. Frischmann, Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo, Katherine J. Standburg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

52 Life Changing Devotional Thoughts: Spiritual Food For The Journey, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

Over the last twenty years that I have worked as a professor of Church History at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University, I have given a short devotion to my students at the beginning of each class period to inspire and encourage them in their faith journey and to affirm them in their call to ministry. I have gathered up these precious devotional thoughts and put them in this small book, so there will be a permanent record of these spiritual reflections. Enclosed you will find short scriptural reflections, homilies, inspirational poems, bible readings, and common-sense instructions. I hope …

America: A Bipolar Nation--The Lamb Or The Dragon, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Design And Catastrophe: 51 Scientists Explore Evidence In Nature, Gordon J. Atkins

Faculty Publications

Review of

L. James Gibson, Ronny Nalin, and Humberto M. Rasi, eds. Design and Catastrophe: 51 Scientists Explore Evidence in Nature (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press, 2021). ISBN: 9781940980305 (Print). 240 pages (Hardback), US$24.99.

Bottom-Up Approach To Assess The Molecular Structure Of Aqueous Poly(N‑Isopropylacrylamide) At Room Temperature Via Infrared Spectroscopy, Habtom B. Gobeze, Jianbo Ma, Fedra M. Leonik, Daniel G. Kuroda

Faculty Publications

© 2020 American Chemical Society The structure of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) in solution is still an unresolved topic. Here, the PNIPAM structure in water was investigated using a bottom-up approach, involving the monomer, dimer, and trimer, and a combination of infrared (IR) spectroscopies as well as molecular dynamics simulations. The experiments show that the monomer and oligomers exhibit a broad and asymmetric amide I band with two underlying transitions, while PNIPAM presents the same major transitions and a minor one. Analysis of the 2D IR spectra and theoretical modeling of the amide I band indicates that the two transitions of the …

Efficient Low-Cost Procedure For Microextraction Of Estrogen From Environmental Water Using Magnetic Ionic Liquids, Paula Berton, Noureen Siraj, Susmita Das, Sergio De Rooy, Rodolfo G. Wuilloud, Isiah M. Warner

Faculty Publications

In this study, three magnetic ionic liquids (MILs) were investigated for extraction of four estrogens, i.e., estrone (E1), estradiol (E2), estriol (E3), and ethinylestradiol (EE2), from environmental water. The cation trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium ([P66614]+), selected to confer hydrophobicity to the resulting MIL, was combined with tetrachloroferrate(III), ferricyanide, and dysprosium thiocyanate to yield ([P66614][FeCl4]), ([P66614]3[Fe(CN)6]), and ([P66614]5[Dy(SCN)8]), respectively. After evaluation of various strategies to develop a liquid-liquid microextraction technique based on synthesized MILs, we placed the MILs onto a magnetic stir bar and used them as extracting solvents. After extraction, the MIL-enriched phase was dissolved in methanol and injected into an HPLC-UV for …

High-Resolution Sampling Of A Broad Marine Life Size Spectrum Reveals Differing Size- And Composition-Based Associations With Physical Oceanographic Structure, Adam T. Greer, John C. Lehrter, Benjamin M. Binder, Aditya R. Nayak, Ranjoy Barua, Ana E. Rice, Jonathan H. Cohen, Malcolm N. Mcfarland, Alexis Hagemeyer, Nicole D. Stockley, Kevin M. Boswell, Igor Shulman, Sergio Derada, Bradley Penta

Faculty Publications

Observing multiple size classes of organisms, along with oceanographic properties and water mass origins, can improve our understanding of the drivers of aggregations, yet acquiring these measurements remains a fundamental challenge in biological oceanography. By deploying multiple biological sampling systems, from conventional bottle and net sampling to in situ imaging and acoustics, we describe the spatial patterns of different size classes of marine organisms (several microns to ∼10 cm) in relation to local and regional (m to km) physical oceanographic conditions on the Delaware continental shelf. The imaging and acoustic systems deployed included (in ascending order of target organism size) …

Juvenile Leaves Or Adult Leaves: Determinants For Vegetative Phase Change In Flowering Plants, Darren Manuela, Mingli Xu

Faculty Publications

Vegetative leaves in Arabidopsis are classified as either juvenile leaves or adult leaves based on their specific traits, such as leaf shape and the presence of abaxial trichomes. The timing of the juvenile-to-adult phase transition during vegetative development, called the vegetative phase change, is a critical decision for plants, as this transition is associated with crop yield, stress responses, and immune responses. Juvenile leaves are characterized by high levels of miR156/157, and adult leaves are characterized by high levels of miR156/157 targets, SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE (SPL) transcription factors. The discovery of this miR156/157-SPL module provided a critical tool for …

The Supercam Instrument Suite On The Nasa Mars 2020 Rover: Body Unit And Combined System Tests, Roger C. Wiens, Sylvestre Maurice, Scott H. Robinson, Anthony E. Nelson, Philippe Cais, Pernelle Bernardi, Raymond T. Newell, Sam Clegg, Shiv K. Sharma, Steven Storms, Jonathan Deming, Darrel Beckman, Ann M. Ollila, Olivier Gasnault, Ryan B. Anderson, Yves André, Stanley M. Angel, Gorka Arana, Elizabeth Auden, Pierre Beck, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

The SuperCam instrument suite provides the Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, with a number of versatile remote-sensing techniques that can be used at long distance as well as within the robotic-arm workspace. These include laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), remote time-resolved Raman and luminescence spectroscopies, and visible and infrared (VISIR; separately referred to as VIS and IR) reflectance spectroscopy. A remote micro-imager (RMI) provides high-resolution color context imaging, and a microphone can be used as a stand-alone tool for environmental studies or to determine physical properties of rocks and soils from shock waves of laser-produced plasmas. SuperCam is built in three parts: …

Weaving Strands Of Knowledge: Leaning About Environmental Change In The Bhutan Himalayas, Sameer Honwad, Andrew D. Coppens, Greg Defrancis, Marcos Stafne Montshire, Shivaraj Bhattarai

Faculty Publications

Climate change is a complex phenomenon, so much so that even those with expert knowledge on the scientific data struggle to understand the impacts of climate change on their everyday lives. Contradictions across systems of knowledge make clear that climate change is not just a problem of scientific understanding but is also simultaneously a problem of global coordination as well as a sociopolitical problem of connecting domains of knowledge that are seldom valued equitably. The project described in this paper is a prototype effort to put knowledge from community members in two culturally distinct rural areas of the world at …

Bilite: A Bayesian Randomized Phase Ii Design For Immunotherapy By Jointly Modeling The Longitudinal Immune Response And Time-To-Event Efficacy, Beibei Guo, Yong Zang

Faculty Publications

Immunotherapy—treatments that target a patient's immune system—has attracted considerable attention in cancer research. Its recent success has led to generation of novel immunotherapeutic agents that need to be evaluated in clinical trials. Two unique features of immunotherapy are the immune response and the fact that some patients may achieve long-term durable response. In this article, we propose a two-arm Bayesian adaptive randomized phase II clinical trial design for immunotherapy that jointly models the longitudinal immune response and time-to-event efficacy (BILITE), with a fraction of patients assumed to be cured by the treatment. The longitudinal immune response is modeled using hierarchical …

Cultural Identity Formation: A Personal Narrative, Jose Carbajal

Faculty Publications

This paper provides an autoethnography of personal experiences and perceptions of being a minoritized individual. This is the story of a professional social worker learning to adapt to social norms and expectations of self. I discuss the struggles I experienced as an adolescent and as a young adult attending college. This narrative highlights the intersection of faith and social work at moments in my professional development. It is at this intersection that this social worker learns to live a holistic life without feeling discriminated against or ashamed of his identity. I begin to actualize a reality with imperfect beings who …

Destabilizing Effects On A Classic Tri-Trophic Oyster Reef Cascade, Virginia R. Schweiss, Chet F. Rakocinski

Faculty Publications

How interactions among multiple predators affect the stability of trophic cascades is a topic of special ecological interest. To examine factors affecting the stability of the classic tri-trophic oyster reef cascade within a different context, configurations of three predators, including the Gulf toadfish, Gulf stone crab, and oystershell mud crab, were manipulated together with either oyster shell or limestone gravel substrate within a multiple predator effects (MPE) experiment. Additionally, a complimentary set of trait-mediated-indirect interaction (TMII) experiments examined the inhibition of oyster consumption relative to mud-crab size and top predator identity in the absence of other cues and factors. The …

The Evolution Of A Tropical Biodiversity Hotspot, M G. Harvey, G A. Bravo, S Claramunt, A M. Cuervo, M G. Harvey, J Battilana, G F. Seeholzer, J S. Mckay, B C. O'Meara, B C. Faircloth, S V. Edwards, J Perez-Eman, R G. Moyle, F H. Sheldon, A Aleixo, B T. Smith, R T. Chesser, L F. Silveira, J Cracraft, R T. Brumfield, E P. Derryberry

Faculty Publications

The tropics are the source of most biodiversity yet inadequate sampling obscures answers to fundamental questions about how this diversity evolves. We leveraged samples assembled over decades of fieldwork to study diversification of the largest tropical bird radiation, the suboscine passerines. Our phylogeny, estimated using data from 2389 genomic regions in 1940 individuals of 1287 species, reveals that peak suboscine species diversity in the Neotropics is not associated with high recent speciation rates but rather with the gradual accumulation of species over time. Paradoxically, the highest speciation rates are in lineages from regions with low species diversity, which are generally …

Camkiiα-Positive Interneurons Identified Via A Microrna-Based Viral Gene Targeting Strategy, Marianna K. Keaveney, Bahar Rahsepar, Hua-An Tseng, Fernando R. Fernandez, Rebecca A. Mount, Tina Ta, John A. White, Jim Berg, Xue Han

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Interleukin-17-Induced Neutrophil Extracellular Traps Mediate Resistance To Checkpoint Blockade In Pancreatic Cancer, Yu Zhang, Vidhi Chandra, Erick Riquelme Sanchez, Prasanta Dutta, Pompeyo R. Quesada, Amanda Rakoski, Michelle Zoltan, Nivedita Arora, Seyda Baydogan, William Horne, Jared Burks, Hanwen Xu, Perwez Hussain, Huamin Wang, Sonal Gupta, Anirban Maitra, Jennifer M. Bailey, Seyed J. Moghaddam, Sulagna Banerjee, Ismet Sahin, Pratip Bhattacharya

Faculty Publications

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains a lethal malignancy with an immunosuppressive microenvironment that is resistant to most therapies. IL17 is involved in pancreatic tumorigenesis, but its role in invasive PDAC is undetermined. We hypothesized that IL17 triggers and sustains PDAC immunosuppression. We inhibited IL17/IL17RA signaling using pharmacological and genetic strategies alongside mass cytometry and multiplex immunofluorescence techniques. We uncovered that IL17 recruits neutrophils, triggers neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), and excludes cytotoxic CD8 T cells from tumors. Additionally, IL17 blockade increases immune checkpoint blockade (PD-1, CTLA4) sensitivity. Inhibition of neutrophils or Padi4-dependent NETosis phenocopies IL17 neutralization. NMR spectroscopy revealed changes in …

The Acute Effects Of 5 Fluorouracil On Skeletal Muscle Resident And Infiltrating Immune Cells In Mice, Brandon N. Vanderveen, Alexander T. Sougiannis, Kandy T. Velazquez, James A. Carson, Daping Fan, E. Angela Murphy

Faculty Publications

5 fluorouracil (5FU) has been a first-choice chemotherapy drug for several cancer types (e.g., colon, breast, head, and neck); however, its efficacy is diminished by patient acquired resistance and pervasive side effects. Leukopenia is a hallmark of 5FU; however, the impact of 5FU-induced leukopenia on healthy tissue is only becoming unearthed. Recently, skeletal muscle has been shown to be impacted by 5FU in clinical and preclinical settings and weakness and fatigue remain among the most consistent complaints in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Monocytes, or more specifically macrophages, are the predominate immune cell in skeletal muscle which regulate turnover and homeostasis …

Repetition Of Computer Security Warnings Results In Differential Repetition Suppression Effects As Revealed With Functional Mri, C. Brock Kirwan, Daniel K. Bjornn, Bonnie Brinton Anderson, Anthony Vance, David Eargle, Jeffrey L. Jenkins

Faculty Publications

Computer users are often the last line of defense in computer security. However, with repeated exposures to system messages and computer security warnings, neural and behavioral responses show evidence of habituation. Habituation has been demonstrated at a neural level as repetition suppression where responses are attenuated with subsequent repetitions. In the brain, repetition suppression to visual stimuli has been demonstrated in multiple cortical areas, including the occipital lobe and medial temporal lobe. Prior research into the repetition suppression effect has generally focused on a single repetition and has not examined the pattern of signal suppression with repeated exposures. We used …

New Record Of Bacopa Egensis (Plantaginaceae) For The Flora Of Mexico, Daniel Gonzalez-Socoloske, Nicholas P. Tippery, Nelly Del Carmen Jiménez Pérez, Donald H. Les

Faculty Publications

Bacopa egensis is newly reported for the flora of Mexico and an updated key is provided for the Mexican Bacopa species

Groundwater Production From Geothermal Heating On Early Mars And Implication For Early Martian Habitability, Lujendra Ojha, Jacob Buffo, Suniti Karunatillake, Matthew Siegler

Faculty Publications

Copyright © 2020 The Authors, In explaining extensive evidence for past liquid water, the debate on whether Mars was primarily warm and wet or cold and arid 4 billion years (Ga) ago has continued for decades. The Sun’s luminosity was ~30% lower 4 Ga ago; thus, most martian climate models struggle to elevate the mean surface temperature past the melting point of water. Basal melting of ice sheets may help resolve that paradox. We modeled the thermophysical evolution of ice and estimate the geothermal heat flux required to produce meltwater on a cold, arid Mars. We then analyzed geophysical and …

Lc-Ms/Ms Quantification Of Nevirapine And Its Metabolites In Hair For Assessing Long-Term Adherence, Haoran Yang, Liuxi Chu, Yan Wu, Wei Wang, Jin Yang, Quan Zhang, Shan Qiao Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph. D., Zhiyong Shen, Yuejiao Zhou, Shuaifeng Liu, Huihua Deng

Faculty Publications

The adherence assessment based on the combination of nevirapine (NVP) and its two metabolites (2-hydroxynevirapine and 3-hydroxynevirapine) would more comprehensively and accurately reflect long-term adherence than that of a single prototype. This study aimed to develop a specific, sensitive and selective method for simultaneous detection of the three compounds in hair and explore whether there was consistency among the three compounds in assessing long-term adherence. Furthermore, 75 HIV-positive patients who were taking the NVP drug were randomly recruited and divided into two groups (high-and low-adherence group). All participants self-reported their days of oral drug administration per month and provided their …

The Promise Of A Multi-Disciplinary, Mixed-Methods Approach To Inform Insect Pest Management: Evidence From Wyoming Alfalfa, Randa Jabbour, Shiri Noy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Geographic Patterns And Environmental Correlates Of Phylogenetic Relatedness And Diversity For Freshwater Fish Assemblages In North America, Hong Qian, Yong Cao, Daijiang Li, Cindy Chu, Brody Sandel, Xianli Wang

Faculty Publications

© 2020 The Authors. Ecography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Nordic Society Oikos The tropical niche conservatism hypothesis suggests that most groups should be most phylogenetically clustered in cold, dry environments. This idea has been well-tested in plants and some animal groups, but not for fishes. We assess the geographic patterns of freshwater fish phylogenetic structure and investigate the relationships between these patterns and environmental variables across North America and within two biogeographic realms. Phylogenetic relatedness and diversity of 360 freshwater fish assemblages across North America were quantified with three metrics based on a well-dated …