Digital Commons Network^™

What Determines Parasite Species Richness Across Host Species?, Tad Dallas, Lauren A. Holian, Grant Foster

Faculty Publications

© 2020 British Ecological Society In Focus: Dáttilo, W., Barrozo-Chávez, N., Lira-Noriega, A., Guevara, R., Villalobos, F., Santiago-Alarcon, D., Neves, F. S., Izzo, T., & Ribeiro, S. P. (2020). Species-level drivers of mammalian ectoparasite faunas. Journal of Animal Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13216. The question of what drives the number of parasite species able to infect a given host species is still a largely open question, despite decades of research. Dáttilo and colleagues examine the potential drivers of ectoparasite species across a large set of host species to explore the taxonomic and trait drivers of host-parasite interactions. Here, we contextualize their findings, explore …

Tepr Encoding A Bacterial Enhancer-Binding Protein Orchestrates The Virulence And Interspecies Competition Of Burkholderia Glumae Through Qsmr And A Type Vi Secretion System, Jingyu Peng, Tiago Lelis, Ruoxi Chen, Inderjit Barphagha, Surendra Osti, Jong Hyun Ham

Faculty Publications

The pathogenesis of the rice pathogenic bacterium Burkholderia glumae is under the tight regulation of the tofI/tofR quorum-sensing (QS) system. tepR, encoding a group I bacterial enhancer-binding protein, negatively regulates the production of toxoflavin, the phytotoxin acting as a major virulence factor in B. glumae. In this study, through a transcriptomic analysis, we identified the genes that were modulated by tepR and/or the tofI/tofR QS system. More than half of the differentially expressed genes, including the genes for the biosynthesis and transport of toxoflavin, were significantly more highly expressed in the ΔtepR mutant but less expressed in the ΔtofI-tofR (tofI/tofR …

Increase In Absolute Leaf Water Content Tends To Keep Pace With That Of Leaf Dry Mass—Evidence From Bamboo Plants, Weiwei Huang, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Yueyi Li, Jørgen Bo Larsen, Peijian Shi

Faculty Publications

Leaves, as the most important photosynthetic organ of plants, are intimately associated with plant function and adaptation to environmental changes. The scaling relationship of the leaf dry mass (or the fresh mass) vs. leaf surface area has been referred to as “diminishing returns”, suggesting that the leaf area fails to increase in proportion to leaf dry mass (or fresh mass). However, previous studies used materials across different families, and there is lack of studies testing whether leaf fresh mass is proportional to the leaf dry mass for the species in the same family, and examining the influence of the scaling …

Effect Of Precipitation And Temperature On Larval Survival Of Cephus Cinctus (Hymenoptera: Cephidae) In Barley Cultivars, Buddhi B. Achhami, Gadi V.P. Reddy, Jamie D. Sherman, Robert K.D. Peterson, David K. Weaver

Faculty Publications

Host plant traits strongly affect survivorship of insect herbivores, and host suitability is especially important for the wheat stem sawfly, Cephus cinctus Norton, which spends its entire egg, larval, and pupal periods in a single stem. Measuring larval survival inside stems from egg hatch through diapause-mediated dormancy is a potential measure of population size for the next year but is also useful in assessing effects of growing season precipitation and temperature. Larval growth is synchronized with host plant growth, and the larva cannot switch hosts. Thus, incorporating plant physiological time, as growing degree days (GDD), may yield a better prediction …

A Cubic C0 Interior Penalty Method For Elliptic Distributed Optimal Control Problems With Pointwise State And Control Constraints, Susanne C. Brenner, Li Yeng Sung, Zhiyu Tan

Faculty Publications

We design and analyze a cubic C interior penalty method for linear–quadratic elliptic distributed optimal control problems with pointwise state and control constraints. Numerical results that corroborate the theoretical error estimates are also presented. 0

Strong Qcd From Hadron Structure Experiments, S. J. Brodsky, V. D. Burkert, D. S. Carman, J. P. Chen, Z. F. Cui, M. Döring, H. G. Dosch, J. Draayer, L. Elouadrhiri, D. I. Glazier, A. N. Hiller Blin, T. Horn, K. Joo, H. C. Kim, V. Kubarovsky, S. E. Kuhn, Y. Lu, W. Melnitchouk, C. Mezrag, V. I. Mokeev, J. W. Qiu, M. Radici, D. Richards, C. D. Roberts, J. Rodríguez-Quintero, J. Segovia, A. P. Szczepaniak, G. F. De Téramond, D. Winney

Faculty Publications

The topical workshop Strong QCD from Hadron Structure Experiments took place at Jefferson Lab from November 6-9, 2019. Impressive progress in relating hadron structure observables to the strong QCD mechanisms has been achieved from the ab initio QCD description of hadron structure in a diverse array of methods in order to expose emergent phenomena via quasi-particle formation. The wealth of experimental data and the advances in hadron structure theory make it possible to gain insight into strong interaction dynamics in the regime of large quark-gluon coupling (the strong QCD regime), which will address the most challenging problems of the Standard …

Nucleon Pair Shell Model In M Scheme, B. C. He, Lei Li, Y. A. Luo, Y. Zhang, F. Pan, J. P. Draayer

Faculty Publications

The nucleon pair shell model (NPSM) is cast into the so-called M scheme for the cases with isospin symmetry and without isospin symmetry. The odd system and even system are treated on the same footing. The uncoupled commutators for nucleon pairs, which are suitable for the M scheme, are given. Explicit formula of matrix elements in M scheme for overlap, one-body operators, and two-body operators are obtained. It is found that the CPU time used in calculating the matrix elements in M scheme is much shorter than that in the J scheme of NPSM.

Cellulose Nanofibers From Rapidly Microwave-Delignified Energy Cane Bagasse And Their Application In Drilling Fluids As Rheology And Filtration Modifiers, Chaozheng Liu, Meichun Li, Changtong Mei, Weimin Chen, Jingquan Han, Yiying Yue, Suxia Ren, Alfred D. French, Giovanna M. Aita, Gillian Eggleston, Qinglin Wu

Faculty Publications

Energy cane bagasse (ECB) is the major residue after the cane is milled to extract juice for sugar, biochemical, and/or biofuel production. The sustainable conversion of ECB into high value-added products can help reduce agricultural waste, and enhance utilization of bioresources. In the present work, we demonstrate that ECB can be converted into cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) that can serve as high value-added additives in bentonite water-based fluids (BT-WDFs). Particularly, cellulose fibers (CFs) were rapidly isolated from ECB by microwave-assisted NaOH / NaClO2 treatments. CFs treated with the higher NaOH concentration and microwave irradiation lost more lignin (96.2 % delignification) and …

On How Wetlands Can Provide Flood Resilience In A Large River Basin: A Case Study In Nenjiang River Basin, China, Yanfeng Wu, Guangxin Zhang, Alain N. Rousseau, Y. Jun Xu, Étienne Foulon

Faculty Publications

Wetlands are often acknowledged as a nature-based solution for improving flood resilience in a large river basin. However, the effects of wetlands on floods have not been assessed as extensively within a large river basin, as previous studies have mainly focused on assessing the effect on peak flows of a certain given return period. In this study, a distributed hydrological modeling platform was used to (i) quantify the effect of wetlands on floods with respect to event hydrographs, and (ii) investigate how flood regulation services can occur on the rising and falling limbs of an event hydrograph. Further, we hypothesized …

Effects Of Irrigation Discharge On Salinity Of A Large Freshwater Lake: A Case Study In Chagan Lake, Northeast China, Xuemei Liu, Guangxin Zhang, Jingjie Zhang, Y. Jun Xu, Yao Wu, Yanfeng Wu, Guangzhi Sun, Yueqing Chen, Hongbo Ma

Faculty Publications

The salinization of freshwater lakes by agricultural activities poses a threat to many lake ecosystems around the world. Quantitative, medium-to long-term studies are needed to understand how some common agricultural practices, such as the discharge of crop irrigation in the vicinities of large lakes, may affect lake salinization. In this study, hydrological, hydrodynamics, water quality and meteorological datasets were used to analyze the long-term spatial-temporal variations of water salinities of a major lake, the Chagan Lake, in Northeast China. An integrated hydrodynamics-salinity model was used to simulate lake water salinity changes taking place at different times and locations, including (i) …

Riverbed Changes Of The Uppermost Atchafalaya River, Usa-A Case Study Of Channel Dynamics In Large Man-Controlled Alluvial River Confluences, Bo Wang, Y. Jun Xu, Wei Xu, Heqin Cheng, Zhongyuan Chen, Weiguo Zhang

Faculty Publications

River confluences are important nodes for downstream sediment transport and geomorphological development. Previous studies have established the knowledge that under natural conditions, river confluence zones experience channel scour followed with middle channel bar development. Less care is however given to the intensity of a confluence scour zone under man-controlled conditions, such as discharge regulation and levee confinement. In general, our knowledge about long-term bed evolution downstream of large alluvial river confluences is limited. Here we conducted a study focused on the 69-km uppermost channel of the Atchafalaya River, the largest distributary of the Mississippi River, to test the hypothesis that …

3-D Printed Customizable Vitrification Devices For Preservation Of Genetic Resources Of Aquatic Species, Connor J. Tiersch, Yue Liu, Terrence R. Tiersch, William T. Monroe

Faculty Publications

Sperm vitrification as an alternative approach to conventional cryopreservation (equilibrium freezing) allows quick and low-cost sample preservation and is suitable for small-bodied aquatic species with miniscule testis, fieldwork at remote locations, and small-scale freezing for research purposes. The goal of this present study was to develop operational prototypes of 3-dimensional (3-D) printed vitrification devices with innovative components that can provide comprehensive functionalities for practical repository development for aquatic species. The design featured an elongated loop to suspend a thin film of sperm sample in cryoprotectant, a retractable sleeve to protect the vitrified samples and allow permanent labeling, a handle to …

Birds In Fragmented Amazonian Rainforest: Lessons From 40 Years At The Biological Dynamics Of Forest Fragments Project, Philip C. Stouffer

Faculty Publications

For decades, ecologists have studied fundamental questions of how Amazonian biodiversity is maintained, and whether that diversity can persist following deforestation. The long history of avian research at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, near Manaus, Brazil, has helped advance this understanding in the context of a broader research program focused on rainforest fragments embedded in a dynamic matrix. By sampling birds beginning before fragments were isolated, in the late 1970s, and continuing the protocol to the present, our work has revealed community dynamics driven not just by area and isolation, but also by larger landscape patterns, particularly second …

Temporal And Concentration Effects Of Methanol On Cryopreservation Of Zebrafish (Danio Rerio) Sperm, Huiping Yang, E. Hu, Terrence Tiersch, Carrie Carmichael, Jen Matthews, Zoltan M. Varga

Faculty Publications

We evaluated the cryoprotective effects of methanol on zebrafish sperm at different concentrations, exposure times, and stages during cryopreservation. Samples were collected by crushing of dissected testes or abdominal stripping. After exposure to 0%, 2%, 5%, 8%, and 10% methanol for 0-11 min, fresh sperm (1 × 106 cells/mL) did not show changes in plasma membrane integrity (measured by flow cytometer), but cell size changes (light scatter) were observed after exposure to 8% or 10%. After exposure for 0-60 min, fresh sperm (1 × 108 cells/mL) did not show significant changes in survival or membrane integrity. Sperm cryopreserved in 5%, …

Bark Water Vapour Conductance Is Associated With Drought Performance In Tropical Trees, Brett T. Wolfe

Faculty Publications

Bark water vapour conductance (g bark) is a rarely considered functional trait. However, for the few tree species measured to date, it appears high enough to create stem water deficits associated with mortality during droughts, when access to water is limited. I tested whether g bark correlates with stem water deficit during drought conditions in two datasets of tropical trees: One of saplings in forest understories during an annual dry season and one of potted saplings in a shadehouse during extreme drought conditions. Among all 14 populations of eight species measured, g bark varied more than 10-fold (0.86-12.98 mmol m-2 …

Potential Use Of Biochar And Rhamnolipid Biosurfactant For Remediation Of Crude Oil-Contaminated Coastal Wetland Soil: Ecotoxicity Assessment, Zhuo Wei, Jim J. Wang, Yili Meng, Jiabing Li, Lewis A. Gaston, Lisa M. Fultz, Ronald D. Delaune

Faculty Publications

Remediation of wetland soils contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons is a challenging task. Biosurfactant and biochar have been used in oil remediation. However, little is known about the ecotoxicity of these materials when applied in wetland ecosystems. In this study, the ecotoxicity of biochar and rhamnolipid (RL) biosurfactant as crude oil remediation strategies in a Louisiana wetland soil was investigated. A pot experiment was set up with wetland soil treated with/without crude oil followed by subjecting to application of 1% biochar and various levels of RL ranging from 0.1% to 1.4%. The ecotoxicity was evaluated regarding to high plant (S. Alterniflora), …

Using Public Databases For Genomic Prediction Of Tropical Maize Lines, Pedro Patric Pinho Morais, Deniz Akdemir, Luciano Rogério Braatz De Andrade, Jean Luc Jannink, Roberto Fritsche-Neto, Aluízio Borém, Filipe Couto Alves, Danilo Hottis Lyra, Ítalo Stefanine Correia Granato

Faculty Publications

In this paper, the aims were (a) to test the usefulness of using genomic and phenotypic information from public databases (open access) to predict genetic values for tropical maize inbred lines regarding plant and ear height; (b) to identify how the population structure, the use of optimized training sets (OTSs) and the amount of information originating from public databases affect the predictive ability. Thus, 29 training sets (TSs) were defined considering three diversity panels: the University of São Paulo (USP—validation set (VS)) and the ASSO and USDA North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station (NCRPIS) (external public panels—predictors), which were divided …

A Structure-Preserving Fem For The Uniaxially Constrained Q -Tensor Model Of Nematic Liquid Crystals, Juan Pablo Borthagaray, Ricardo H. Nochetto, Shawn W. Walker

Faculty Publications

We consider the one-constant Landau-de Gennes model for nematic liquid crystals. The order parameter is a traceless tensor field Q, which is constrained to be uniaxial: Q= s(n⊗ n- d^{- 1}I) where n is a director field, s∈ R is the degree of orientation, and d≥ 2 is the dimension. Building on similarities with the one-constant Ericksen energy, we propose a structure-preserving finite element method for the computation of equilibrium configurations. We prove stability and consistency of the method without regularization, and Γ -convergence of the discrete energies towards the continuous one as the mesh size goes to …

Evaluating The Implementation And Effectiveness Of The Switch-Ms: An Ecological, Multi-Component Adolescent Obesity Prevention Intervention, Senlin Chen, Richard R. Rosenkranz, Gabriella M. Mcloughlin, Spyridoula Vazou, Lorraine Lanningham-Foster, Douglas A. Gentile, David A. Dzewaltowski

Faculty Publications

Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of an ecological, multi-component adolescent obesity prevention intervention called School Wellness Integration Targeting Child Health-Middle School (SWITCH-MS).Methods: Following the effectiveness-implementation hybrid type 3 quasi-experimental design, seven middle schools (377 students) in Iowa, United States, were stratified into "experienced" (n= 3; 110 students) or "inexperienced" (n= 4; 267 students) groups to receive the 12-week SWITCH-MS intervention. To evaluate implementation, school informants (n= 10) responded to a survey and students completed behavioral tracking in the classroom on a website. For effectiveness evaluation, students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades …

The Title Ix Paradox, Emily Suski

Faculty Publications

When Christine Blasey Ford explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee why she had not reported her sexual assault at age fifteen, she captured the struggle of many children who must decide whether to make such reports: “For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone the details.” Thousands of sexual assaults happen to children in school each year. Title IX, a potentially powerful civil rights law, should protect them. Title IX’s main purpose is to protect individuals from sex discrimination, including in the form of sexual harassment and assault, in public schools. Yet Title IX …

Provenance Of Thal Desert Sand: Focused Erosion In The Western Himalayan Syntaxis And Foreland-Basin Deposition Driven By Latest Quaternary Climate Change, Eduardo Garzanti, Wendong Liang, Sergio Andò, Peter D. Clift, Alberto Resentini, Pieter Vermeesch, Giovanni Vezzoli

Faculty Publications

© 2020 Elsevier B.V. As a latest Pleistocene repository of Indus River sand at the entry point to the Himalayan foreland basin, the Thal dune field in northern Pakistan stores crucial information that can be used to reconstruct the erosional evolution of the Himalayan-Karakorum orogen and the changes in the foreland-basin landscape that took place between the Last Glacial Maximum and the early Holocene. This comprehensive provenance study of Thal Desert sand integrates previously existing petrographic, heavy-mineral, mineral-chemical, isotopic, and geochronological databases with original bulk-sediment geochemistry, zircon-age, and Nd-isotope data. Dune sand is low in quartz and rich in feldspars, …

The "Challenge" Of Depletion: Why The Oyster Fishery Is Not Self-Regulating, Eric N. Powell, John M. Klinck, Leanne M. Poussard

Faculty Publications

© 2020 National Shellfisheries Association. All rights reserved. The possibility that the economics of the oyster fishery impose a self-limitation on overharvesting has been proffered on occasion. The inefficiency of harvesting by the fishery has been evaluated and estimates of the exploitation rate permissible under conditions of maximum sustainable yield have been obtained in previous studies. The question becomes to what extent does the inefficiency of harvest interact with the economics of the fishery to compromise ready detection of overfishing? This study explores the possibility that the constraint of economics on the fishery occurs at oyster exploitation rates that are …

“Toxic” Schools? How School Exposures During Adolescence Influence Trajectories Of Health Through Young Adulthood, Courtney E. Boen, Karen Kozlowski, Karolyn D. Tyson

Faculty Publications

© 2020 The Author(s) A large body of research identifies the critical role of early-life social contexts such as neighborhoods and households in shaping life course trajectories of health. Less is known about whether and how school characteristics affect individual health and contribute to population health inequality. However, recent scholarship argues that some school environments are so stressful due to high levels of violence, disorder, and poverty that they may be “toxic” to student health, but this hypothesis has not been tested using population data. Integrating insights from the life course perspective and stress process model, we use rich longitudinal …

Three-Photon Absorption Spectra And Bandgap Scaling In Direct-Gap Semiconductors, Sepehr Benis, Claudiu M. Cirloganu, Nicholas Cox, Trenton Ensley, Honghua Hu, Gero Nootz, Peter D. Olszak, Lazaro A. Padilha, Davorin Peceli, Matthew Reichert, Scott Webster, Milton Woodall, David J. Hagan, Eric W. Van Stryland

Faculty Publications

This paper presents three-photon absorption (3PA) measurement results for nine direct-gap semiconductors, including full 3PA spectra for ZnSe, ZnS, and GaAs. These results, along with our theory of 3PA using an eight-band Kane model (four bands with double spin degeneracy), help to explain the significant disagreements between experiments and theory in the literature to date. 3PA in the eight-band model exhibits quantum interference between the various possible pathways that is not observed in previous two-band theories. We present measurements of degenerate 3PA coefficients in InSb, GaAs, CdTe, CdSe, ZnTe, CdS, ZnSe, ZnO, and ZnS. We examine bandgap, E_g, …

Catalytic Encounters At The Molecular Level: Gabor A. Somorjai Award Symposium For Creative Research In Catalysis In Honor Of Professor Manos Mavrikakis, Ye Xu, Lars C. Grabow

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Traffic Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Statewide Analysis Of Social Separation And Activity Restriction, Scott Parr, Brian Wolshon, John Renne, Pamela Murray-Tuite, Karl Kim

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in significant social and economic impacts throughout the world. In addition to the health consequences, the impacts on travel behavior have also been sudden and wide ranging. This study describes the drastic changes in human behavior using the analysis of highway volume data as a representation of personal activity and interaction. Same-day traffic volumes for 2019 and 2020 across Florida were analyzed to identify spatial and temporal changes in behavior resulting from the disease or fear of it and statewide directives to limit person-to-person interaction. Compared to similar days in 2019, overall statewide traffic volume dropped …

Welcome To The Fourth International Workshop On Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering (Crowdre'20), Muneera Bano, Eduard C. Groen, Irit Hadar, Anas Mahmoud

Faculty Publications

Welcome to the 4th International Workshop on Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering (CrowdRE'20), where scientists and representatives of industry meet to exchange ideas, experiences, and other contributions regarding the state of the art of Crowd-Based Requirements Engineering (CrowdRE). The discipline of CrowdRE seeks to address the challenges of traditional requirements engineering (RE) in scaling up to settings with thousands to millions of users of (software) products or (softwaredriven) services, who form a large and heterogeneous group that can be denoted as a 'crowd' [1],[2]. The user feedback generated by the crowd, such as texts or usage data, can be a valuable source …

Democracy, Deference, And Compromise: Understanding And Reforming Campaign Finance Jurisprudence, Scott P. Bloomberg

Faculty Publications

In Citizens United, the Supreme Court interpreted the government’s interest in preventing corruption as being limited to preventing quid pro quo—cash-for-votes—corruption. This narrow interpretation drastically circumscribed legislatures’ abilities to regulate the financing of elections, in turn prompting scholars to propose a number of reforms for broadening the government interest in campaign finance cases. These reforms include urging the Court to recognize a new government interest such as political equality, to adopt a broader understanding of corruption, and to be more deferential to legislatures in defining corruption. Building upon that body of scholarship, this Article begins with a descriptive account of …

Supporting Teaching With Primary Sources At Brigham Young University: An Ithaka S+R Local Report, J. Gordon Daines Iii, Matthew J. K. Hill, Maggie Kopp, Dainan Skeem

Faculty Publications

“Supporting Teaching with Primary Sources at Brigham Young University: An Ithaka S+R Local Report” is a research study that examines the pedagogical practices of humanities and social science faculty teaching with primary sources at the undergraduate level. The goal of the study is to understand faculty members’ undergraduate teaching processes for the purpose of developing resources and services at Brigham Young University (BYU) to support the faculty in their work. The study is part of a larger research project carried out from 2019-2020 by the Harold B. Lee Library (HBLL) in cooperation with Ithaka S+R, a not-for-profit organization whose aim …

Provider Contributions To Disparities In Mental Health Care, Scott A. Baldwin, Kritzia Merced, Zac E. Imel, Heidi Fischer, Tae Yoon, Christine Stewart, Greg Simon, Brian Ahmedani, Arne Beck, Yihe Daida, Sam Hubley, Rebecca Rossom, Beth Waitzfelder, John E. Zeber, Karen J. Coleman

Faculty Publications

Objective: Disparities in diagnosis of mental health problems and in access to treatment among racial-ethnic groups are apparent across different behavioral conditions, particularly in the quality of treatment for depression. This study aimed to determine how much disparities differ across providers.

Methods: Bayesian mixed-effects models were used to estimate whether disparities in patient adherence to antidepressant medication (N=331,776) or psychotherapy (N=275,095) were associated with specific providers. Models also tested whether providers who achieved greater adherence to treatment, on average, among non-Hispanic white patients than among patients from racial-ethnic minority groups attained lower disparities and whether the percentage of patients from …