Digital Commons Network^™

Government Information For Your Mobile Phone, Rebecca Arzola, Debbie Rabina

Publications and Research

A tasting menu of selected apps, created by U.S. government agencies, that provides information accessible from your mobile phone.

“Municipal Welfare” And The Neoliberal Prison Town: The Political Economy Of Prison Closures In New York State, Andrea Morrell

Publications and Research

Since 2010, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has closed nine state prisons for adults. For the prison towns that dot diversely rural and urban places of New York —each uniquely tied to the maintenance of mass incarceration— the closure of a state prison marks the end of an infusion of state capital constructed and construed quite explicitly as projects of economic development in the 1980's. After decades of growing corrections budgets and expanding prisons across the United States, why is New York closing prisons now? Tracing the history of prison growth and urban governance in prison towns, I posit …

Central Park East Secondary School: Teaching And Learning Through Freire, Alia R. Tyner-Mullings

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

From Genre To Portrait: The Etymology Of The 'Conversation Piece', Ching-Jung Chen

Publications and Research

During the late 1720s and early 1730s, a new type of portrait painting, called the conversation piece, became fashionable in England. This article will trace the origin and evolution of the term "conversation piece" from its earliest appearance in the English language to the present. First used in English for genre pictures in the Dutch tradition as well as Watteau's fetes galantes, the term was adopted for small-scale group portraits around 1730 when this type of portraiture became popular. Long after the rise of the portrait conversation, the term continued to be used for genre pictures. The use of …

Students As Donors To University Archives: A Study Of Student Perceptions With Recommendations, Jessica Wagner, Debbi A. Smith

Publications and Research

Most of the literature that explores the relationship between students and university archives focuses on how to integrate archival materials into the undergraduate curriculum. Little exists that analyzes student perceptions of the types of materials that are found in archives; even less discusses how to induce students to donate materials that document life on campus. This case study examines student perceptions of various aspects of university archives, with the goal of developing better methods of reaching out to encourage donation of student life materials.

The Quantum Effective Action, Wave Functions And Yang-Mills(2+1), V. Parameswaran Nair

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Determinants Of Helminth Infection In Baboons, Rita Monfort

Publications and Research

THE DETERMINANTS OF HELMINTH INFECTION IN BABOONS

Summary Paragraph:

Intestinal parasitic helminths are common in wild primate populations [1, 2] and can impose a significant burden on their host’s fitness. Numerous factors can affect the prevalence and diversity of intestinal parasites in natural populations including environmental factors [3, 4], the host’s behavior and genetics [5, 6]. How these different factors interact in natural populations remains unclear. This is in all probability due to the fact that previous studies have seldom looked at the prevalence and diversity of parasitic helminths in the same species but in different habitats over periods longer …

Competition Between Conjugation And M13 Phage Infection In Escherichia Coli In The Absence Of Selection Pressure: A Kinetic Study, Zhenmao Wan, Noel L. Goddard

Publications and Research

Inter- and intraspecies horizontal gene transfer enabled by bacterial secretion systems is a powerful mechanism for bacterial genome plasticity. The type IV secretion system of Escherichia coli, encoded by the F plasmid, enables cell-to-cell contact and subsequent DNA transfer known as conjugation. Conjugation is compromised by phage infection that specifically targets the secretion machinery. Hence, the use of phages to regulate the spread of genes, such as acquired antibiotic resistance or as general biosanitation agents, has gained interest. To predict the potential efficacy, the competition kinetics must first be understood. Using quantitative PCR to enumerate genomic loci in a resource-limited …

Signs Of Change: Rethinking Language, Branding, And Design In Library Signage, Mark Aaron Polger, Amy F. Stempler

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Multiculturalist Liberalism And Harms To Women: Lookin Through The Issue Of "The Veil", Anissa Helie, Marie Ashe

Publications and Research

Hélie & Ashe law review writing raises and responds to a reformulated and broadened version of Susan Okin’s 1999 inquiry, Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? It identifies social and political developments, as well as legal and theoretical developments, that have occurred in the 21^st century and that demand that reformulation.

Not limiting itself (as did Okin’s question) to interrogating the relationship between women’s equality interests and interests in “religious freedom” advanced by minority-religious groups, Hélie & Ashe is the broader inquiry, critical for liberal theory of the 21^st century which has been greatly affected by the “ethos …

The Role Of Dental Hygienists In Conducting Rapid Hiv Testing, Anthony J. Santella, Susan H. Davide, Marilyn Cortell, Winnie Furnari, Janet Tuthill

Publications and Research

Expanding rapid HIV testing in the dental setting may increase the number of individuals who are aware of their HIV status and can begin medical care and social support services if seropositive and appropriate.

Who Defaults On Their Home Mortgage?, Eric Doviak, Sean P. Macdonald

Publications and Research

Since Feb. 13, 2010, detailed information on every home mortgage default and foreclosure in New York State must be filed with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). The data come from pre-foreclosure filing (PFF) notices that mortgage servicers must send to both the borrower and the DFS 90 days prior to initiating the foreclosure process and when a foreclosure has commenced. Pairing the PFF data with data on originations from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) reveals the race and ethnicity of borrowers who defaulted on their home mortgages. HMDA analyses consistently reveal strong racial and ethnic …

In Support Of A Distinction Between Voluntary And Stimulus-Driven Control: A Review Of The Literature On Proportion Congruent Effects, Julie M. Bugg, Matthew J. C. Crump

Publications and Research

Cognitive control is by now a large umbrella term referring collectively to multiple processes that plan and coordinate actions to meet task goals. A common feature of paradigms that engage cognitive control is the task requirement to select relevant information despite a habitual tendency (or bias) to select goal-irrelevant information. At least since the 1970s, researchers have employed proportion congruent (PC) manipulations to experimentally establish selection biases and evaluate the mechanisms used to control attention. PC manipulations vary the frequency with which irrelevant information conflicts (i.e., is incongruent) with relevant information. The purpose of this review is to summarize the …

Functional Deficits Of The Attentional Networks In Autism, Jin Fan, Silvia Bernardi, Nicholas T. Dam, Evdokia Anagnostou, Xiaosi Gu, Laura Martin, Yunsoo Park, Xun Liu, Alexander Kolevzon, Latha Soorya, David Grodberg, Eric Hollander, Patrick R. Hof

Publications and Research

Attentional dysfunction is among the most consistent observations of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, the neural nature of this deficit in ASD is still unclear. In this study, we aimed to identify the neurobehavioral correlates of attentional dysfunction in ASD. We used the Attention Network Test-Revised and functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine alerting, orienting, and executive control functions, as well as the neural substrates underlying these attentional functions in unmedicated, high-functioning adults with ASD (n = 12) and matched healthy controls (HC, n = 12). Compared with HC, individuals with ASD showed increased error rates in alerting and executive …

What Is The Predictive Power Of The Colobine Protein-To-Fiber Model And Its Conservation Value?, Jan F. Gogarten, Melissa Guzman, Colin A. Chapman, Aerin L. Jacob, Patrick A. Omeja, Jessica Rothman

Publications and Research

Predicting variation in animal abundance across time and space has proven very difficult; however, a model exists to predict the biomass of small folivorous primates that has considerable correlative support. This model suggests that the protein-to-fiber ratio of leaves in a habitat can predict folivore biomass. Here we present an experimental test of this protein-to-fiber model to assess if the number of infant monkeys per female and group size can be predicted based on the leaf chemistry of a habitat. We expected regenerating forest in Kibale National Park, Uganda to have leaves with higher concentrations of crude protein and lower …

Lesula: A New Species Of Cercopithecus Monkey Endemic To The Democratic Republic Of Congo And Implications For Conservation Of Congo’S Central Basin, John A. Hart, Kate M. Detwiler, Christopher C. Gilbert, Andrew S. Burrell, James L. Fuller, Maurice Emetshu, Terese B. Hart, Ashley Vosper, Eric J. Sargis, Anthony J. Tosi

Publications and Research

In June 2007, a previously undescribed monkey known locally as “lesula” was found in the forests of the middle Lomami Basin in central Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). We describe this new species as Cercopithecus lomamiensis sp. nov., and provide data on its distribution, morphology, genetics, ecology and behavior. C. lomamiensis is restricted to the lowland rain forests of central DRC between the middle Lomami and the upper Tshuapa Rivers. Morphological and molecular data confirm that C. lomamiensis is distinct from its nearest congener, C. hamlyni, from which it is separated geographically by both the Congo (Lualaba) and the Lomami …

Empirical Evaluation Of Scoring Functions For Bayesian Network Model Selection, Zhifa Liu, Brandon Malone, Changhe Yuan

Publications and Research

In this work, we empirically evaluate the capability of various scoring functions of Bayesian networks for recovering true underlying structures. Similar investigations have been carried out before, but they typically relied on approximate learning algorithms to learn the network structures. The suboptimal structures found by the approximation methods have unknown quality and may affect the reliability of their conclusions. Our study uses an optimal algorithm to learn Bayesian network structures from datasets generated from a set of gold standard Bayesian networks. Because all optimal algorithms always learn equivalent networks, this ensures that only the choice of scoring function affects the …

A Librarian's Defense Of The Practicable Over The Perfect In Scholarly Communication, Jill Cirasella

Publications and Research

This peer commentary is an invited response to "Scientific Utopia: I. Opening Scientific Communication" by Brian A. Nosek and Yoav Bar-Anan. It appeared alongside the target article in Psychological Inquiry, Volume 23, Issue 3, 2012.

A Probability Sample For Monitoring The Hiv-Infected Population In Care In The U.S. And In Selected States, Martin R. Frankel, Ad Mcnaghten, Martin F. Shapiro, Patrick S. Sullivan, Sandra H. Berry, Christopher H. Johnson, Elaine W. Flagg, Sally Morton, Samuel A. Bozzette

Publications and Research

Epidemiologic and clinical changes in the HIV epidemic over time have presented a challenge to public health surveillance to monitor behavioral and clinical factors that affect disease progression and HIV transmission. The Medical Monitoring Project (MMP) is a supplemental surveillance project designed to provide representative, population-based data on clinical status, care, outcomes, and behaviors of HIV-infected persons receiving care at the national level. We describe a three-stage probability sampling method that provides both nationally and state-level representative estimates. In stage-I, 20 states, which included 6 separately funded cities/counties, were selected using probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling. PPS sampling was …

Risk Factor Detection As A Metric Of Starhs Performance For Hiv Incidence Surveillance Among Female Sex Workers In Kigali, Rwanda, Sarah L. Braunstein, Janneke H. Van De Wijgert, Joseph Vyankandondera, Evelyn Kestelyn, Justin Ntirushwa, Denis Nash

Publications and Research

Background:
The epidemiologic utility of STARHS hinges not only on producing accurate estimates of HIV incidence, but also on identifying risk factors for recent HIV infection.

Methods:
As part of an HIV seroincidence study, 800 Rwandan female sex workers (FSW) were HIV tested, with those testing positive further tested by BED-CEIA (BED) and AxSYM Avidity Index (Ax-AI) assays. A sample of HIV-negative (N=397) FSW were followed prospectively for HIV seroconversion. We compared estimates of risk factors for: 1) prevalent HIV infection; 2) recently acquired HIV infection (RI) based on three different STARHS classifications (BED alone, Ax-AI alone, BED/Ax-AI combined); and …

Children’S Eyewitness Identification As Implicit Moral Decision-Making, Toni Spring, Herbert D. Saltzstein, Roger Peach

Publications and Research

Why are young children particularly prone to make false positive errors or false alarms when identifying a wrongdoer? In three studies the problem was approached using a signal detection analysis, focusing on the moral costs of false alarms, as understood at different points in development. The findings are: (1) decisional criteria became more conservative, indicating fewer false alarms, with age in three studies, (2) children’s beliefs about the seriousness of false alarms and misses changed from (a) a non-moral concern to (b) a moral concern for false negatives or misses to (c) a moral concern for false alarms. (3) These …

Sex & Vision I: Spatio-Temporal Resolution, Israel Abramov, James Gordon, Olga Feldman, Alla Chavarga

Publications and Research

Background Cerebral cortex has a very large number of testosterone receptors, which could be a basis for sex differences in sensory functions. For example, audition has clear sex differences, which are related to serum testosterone levels. Of all major sensory systems only vision has not been examined for sex differences, which is surprising because occipital lobe (primary visual projection area) may have the highest density of testosterone receptors in the cortex. We have examined a basic visual function: spatial and temporal pattern resolution and acuity. Methods We tested large groups of young adults with normal vision. They were screened with …

Sex And Vision Ii: Color Appearance Of Monochromatic Lights, Israel Abramov, James Gordon, Olga Feldman, Alla Chavarga

Publications and Research

Background Because cerebral cortex has a very large number of testosterone receptors, we examined the possible sex differences in color appearance of monochromatic lights across the visible spectrum. There is a history of men and women perceiving color differently. However, all of these studies deal with higher cognitive functions which may be culture-biased. We study basic visual functions, such as color appearance, without reference to any objects. We present here a detailed analysis of sex differences in primary chromatic sensations. Methods We tested large groups of young adults with normal vision, including spatial and temporal resolution, and stereopsis. Based on …

But Are They Connected?: A Report On The Queens College Technology Survey Of The Use Of Ubiquitous Tools For Learning, Eva M. Fernández, Michelle C. Fraboni

Publications and Research

The casual observer of the student population at Queens College (an urban, public, predominantly undergraduate campus) is awed by the ubiquity of technology, offering students the ability to communicate and participate in learning anytime, anywhere. They text, email, facebook, and tweet all day long. They have nearly instant access to the digital tools that have been touted as changing teaching and learning at all levels of education. With over 80% of our population born in or after 1980, there is an assumption that these digital natives intuitively know about and prefer digital tools for learning. With this in mind, and …

Early Invasion Of Brain Parenchyma By African Trypanosomes, Ute Frevert, Alexandru Movila, Olga V. Nikolskaia, Jayne Raper, Zachary B. Mackey, Maha Abdulla, James Mckerrow, Dennis J. Grab

Publications and Research

Human African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness is a vector-borne parasitic disease that has a major impact on human health and welfare in sub-Saharan countries. Based mostly on data from animal models, it is currently thought that trypanosome entry into the brain occurs by initial infection of the choroid plexus and the circumventricular organs followed days to weeks later by entry into the brain parenchyma. However, Trypanosoma brucei bloodstream forms rapidly cross human brain microvascular endothelial cells in vitro and appear to be able to enter the murine brain without inflicting cerebral injury. Using a murine model and intravital brain imaging, …

Chronic Ketamine Administration Modulates Midbrain Dopamine System In Mice, Sijie Tan, Wai Ping Lam, Maria S. M. Wai, Wan-Hua Amy Yu, David T. Yew

Publications and Research

Ketamine is an anesthetic and a popular abusive drug. As an anesthetic, effects of ketamine on glutamate and GABA transmission have been well documented but little is known about its long-term effects on the dopamine system. In the present study, the effects of ketamine on dopamine were studied in vitro and in vivo. In pheochromocytoma (PC 12) cells and NGF differentiated-PC 12 cells, ketamine decreased the cell viability while increasing dopamine (DA) concentrations in a dose-related manner. However, ketamine did not affect the expression of genes involved in DA synthesis. In the long-term (3 months) ketamine treated mice, significant increases …

Validation Of The Vivago Wrist-Worn Accelerometer In The Assessment Of Physical Activity, Jérémy Vanhelst, Rémy Hurdiel, Jacques Mikulovic, Gilles Bui-Xuân, Paul Fardy, Denis Theunynck, Laurent Béghin

Publications and Research

Background Most accelerometers are worn around the waist (hip or lower back) to assess habitual physical activity. Wrist-worn accelerometers may be an alternative to the waist-worn monitors and may improve compliance in studies with prolonged wear. The aim of this study was to validate the Vivago® Wrist-Worn Accelerometer at various intensities of physical activity (PA) in adults. Methods Twenty-one healthy adults aged 20–34 years were recruited for the study. Accelerometer data and oxygen uptake (VO2) were measured at sedentary, light, moderate and vigorous levels of PA. Results Activity categories and accelerometer counts were: sedentary, 0–15 counts·min−1; light, 16–40 counts·min−1; moderate, …

Spontaneous Brain Activity Relates To Autonomic Arousal, Jin Fan, Pengfei Xu, Nicholas T. Van Dam, Tehila Eilam-Stock, Xiaosi Gu, Yue-Jia Luo, Patrick R. Hof

Publications and Research

Although possible sources and functions of the resting-state networks (RSNs) of the brain have been proposed, most evidence relies on circular logic and reverse inference. We propose that autonomic arousal provides an objective index of psychophysiological states during rest that may also function as a driving source of the activity and connectivity of RSNs. Recording blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal using functional magnetic resonance imaging and skin conductance simultaneously during rest in human subjects, we found that the spontaneous fluctuations of BOLD signals in key nodes of RSNs are associated with changes in nonspecific skin conductance response, a sensitive psychophysiological …

The Structural Stability Of The Endothelial Glycocalyx After Enzymatic Removal Of Glycosaminoglycans, Ye Zeng, Eno E. Ebong, Bingmei M. Fu, John M. Tarbell

Publications and Research

Rationale It is widely believed that glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) and bound plasma proteins form an interconnected gel-like structure on the surface of endothelial cells (the endothelial glycocalyx layer–EGL) that is stabilized by the interaction of its components. However, the structural organization of GAGs and proteins and the contribution of individual components to the stability of the EGL are largely unknown. Objective To evaluate the hypothesis that the interconnected gel-like glycocalyx would collapse when individual GAG components were almost completely removed by a specific enzyme. Methods and Results Using confocal microscopy, we observed that the coverage and thickness of heparan sulfate (HS), …

Psychosocial Vulnerabilities To Depression After Acute Coronary Syndrome: The Pivotal Role Of Rumination In Predicting And Maintaining Depression, Ellen-Ge Denton, Nina Rieckmann, Karina W. Davidson, William F. Chaplin

Publications and Research

Psychosocial vulnerabilities may predispose individuals to develop depression after a significant life stressor, such as an acute coronary syndrome (ACS).The aims are (1) to examine the interrelations among vulnerabilities, and their relation with changes in depressive symptoms 3 months after ACS, (2) to prospectively assess whether rumination interacts with other vulnerabilities as a predictor of later depressive symptoms, and (3) to examine how these relations differ between post-ACS patients who meet diagnostic criteria for depression at baseline versus patients who do not. Within 1week after hospitalization for ACS, and again after 3 months, 387 patients (41% female, 79.6% white, mean …