Digital Commons Network^™

An Overview Of Undergraduate Research In The Cuny Community College System, Avrom J. Caplan, Effie S. Maclachlan Phd

Publications and Research

CUNY community colleges occupy a unique niche because they are part of a larger geographically focused university system in which all faculty members are governed by a single set of standards for professional development. Research is clearly a part of the wider institutional culture, and dedicated faculty members who obtained support from state and federal funding agencies have conducted successful student-research programs. Close partnerships between community colleges and their four-year counterparts can contribute to positive student outcomes and to the subsequent transfer of students. The main roadblock to broadening participation is the small number of students who can be supported …

1207-3900_Nir_Spex, Jonathan Gagné

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

1207-3900_Opt_Mage, Jonathan Gagné

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Multi-Leg One-Loop Massive Amplitudes From Integrand Reduction Via Laurent Expansion, Hans Van Deurzen, Gionata Luisoni, Pierpaolo Mastrolia, Edoardo Mirabella, Giovanni Ossola, Tiziano Peraro

Publications and Research

We present the application of a novel reduction technique for one-loop scattering amplitudes based on the combination of the integrand reduction and Laurent expansion. We describe the general features of its implementation in the computer code Ninja, and its interface to GoSam. We apply the new reduction to a series of selected processes involving massive particles, from six to eight legs.

Uranium And Radon In Private Bedrock Well Water In Maine: Geospatial Analysis At Two Scales, Qiang Yang, Paul Smitherman, C. T. Hess, Charles W. Culbertson, Robert G. Marvinney, Andrew E. Smith, Yan Zheng

Publications and Research

In greater Augusta of central Maine, 53 out of 1093 (4.8%) private bedrock well water samples from 1534 km2 contained [U] >30 μg/L, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for drinking water; and 226 out of 786 (29%) samples from 1135 km2 showed [Rn] >4,000 pCi/L (148 Bq/L), the U.S. EPA’s Alternative MCL. Groundwater pH, calcite dissolution and redox condition are factors controlling the distribution of groundwater U but not Rn due to their divergent chemical and hydrological properties. Groundwater U is associated with incompatible elements (S, As, Mo, F, and Cs) in water samples within …

What Students Think They Feel Differs From What They Really Feel - Academic Self-Concept Moderates The Discrepancy Between Students' Trait And State Emotional Self-Reports, Madeleine Bieg, Thomas Goetz, Anastasiya A. Lipnevich

Publications and Research

This study investigated whether there is a discrepancy pertaining to trait and state academic emotions and whether self-concept of ability moderates this discrepancy. A total of 225 secondary school students from two different countries enrolled in grades 8 and 11 (German sample; n = 94) and grade 9 (Swiss sample; n = 131) participated. Students' trait academic emotions of enjoyment, pride, anger, and anxiety in mathematics were assessed with a self-report questionnaire, whereas to assess their state academic emotions experience-sampling method was employed. The results revealed that students' scores on the trait assessment of emotions were generally higher than their …

Economic Growth Assumptions In Climate And Energy Policy, Nir Y. Krakauer

Publications and Research

The assumption that the economic growth seen in recent decades will continue has dominated the discussion of future greenhouse gas emissions and the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Given that long-term economic growth is uncertain, the impacts of a wide range of growth trajectories should be considered. In particular, slower economic growth would imply that future generations will be relatively less able to invest in emissions controls or adapt to the detrimental impacts of climate change. Taking into consideration the possibility of economic slowdown therefore heightens the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions now by moving to renewable …

Nnll Momentum-Space Resummation For Stop-Pair Production At The Lhc, Alessandro Broggio, Andrea Ferroglia, Matthias Neubert, Leonardo Vernazza, Li Lin Yang

Publications and Research

If supersymmetry near the TeV scale is realized in Nature, the pair production of scalar top squarks is expected to be observable at the Large Hadron Collider. Recently, effective field-theory methods were employed to obtain approximate predictions for the cross section for this process, which include soft-gluon emission effects up to nextto- next-to-leading order (NNLO) in perturbation theory. In this work we employ the same techniques to resum soft-gluon emission effects to all orders in perturbation theory and with next-to-next-to-logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy. We analyze the effects of NNLL resummation on the stop-pair production cross section by obtaining NLO+NNLL predictions in …

Synergism Between Airborne Singlet Oxygen And A Trisubstituted Olefin Sulfonate For The Inactivation Of Bacteria, Rajib Choudhury, Alexander Greer

Publications and Research

The reactivity of a trisubstituted alkene surfactant (8-methylnon-7-ene-1 sulfonate, 1) to airborne singlet oxygen in a solution containing E. coli was examined. Surfactant 1 was prepared by a Strecker-type reaction of 9-bromo-2-methylnon-2-ene with sodium sulfite. Submicellar concentrations of 1 were used that reacted with singlet oxygen by an “ene” reaction to yield two hydroperoxides (7-hydroperoxy-8-methylnon-8-ene-1 sulfonate and (E)-8-hydroperoxy-8-methylnon-6-ene-1 sulfonate) in a 4:1 ratio. Exchanging the H₂O solution for D₂O where the lifetime of solution-phase singlet oxygen increases by 20-fold led to an ∼2-fold increase in the yield of hydroperoxides pointing to surface activity …

Cretaceous-Paleogene Dinoflagellate Biostratigraphy And The Age Of The Clayton Formation, Southeastern Missouri, Usa, Natalie R. Dastas, John A. Chamberlain Jr., Matthew P. Garb

Publications and Research

Sedimentary deposits in Stoddard County, southeastern Missouri, reveal a K-Pg transition sequence represented by the uppermost Maastrichtian Owl Creek Formation and the Paleocene Clayton Formation. The Clayton Formation is characterized by a basal fossiliferous coquinite that contains reworked late Maastrichtian macrofossils. Dinoflagellate biostratigraphy is used to determine the age of the coquinite layer and specifically whether or not it is an end-K tsunamite deposit resulting from the Chicxulub impact event. Results indicate a mixed assemblage of late Maastrichtian and early Danian dinocysts within the basal coquinite of the Clayton Formation. Maastrichtian dinocyst taxa identified are Riculacysta amplexa, Pierceites pentagonus, Phelodinium …

Capping Amyloid Β‑Sheets Of The Tau-Amyloid Structure Vqivyk With Hexapeptides Designed To Arrest Growth. An Oniom And Density Functional Theory Study, Joshua A. Plumley, Jorge Ali-Torres, Gabor Pohl, J. J. Dannenberg

Publications and Research

We present ONIOM calculations using density functional theory (DFT) as the high and AM1 as the medium level that explore the abilities of different hexapeptide sequences to terminate the growth of a model for the tau-amyloid implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. We delineate and explore several design principles (H-bonding in the side chains, using antiparallel interactions on the growing edge of a parallel sheet, using all-D residues to form rippled interactions at the edge of the sheet, and replacing the H-bond donor N−H’s that inhibit further growth) that can be used individually and in combination to design such peptides that will …

Groundwater Flow Across Spatial Scales: Importance For Climate Modeling, Nir Krakauer, Haibin Li, Ying Fan

Publications and Research

Current regional and global climate models generally do not represent groundwater flow between grid cells as a component of the water budget. We estimate the magnitude of between cell groundwater flow as a function of grid cell size by aggregating results from a numerical model of equilibrium groundwater flow run and validated globally. We find that over a broad range of cell sizes spanning that of state of the art regional and global climate models, mean between cell groundwater flow magnitudes scale with the reciprocal of grid cell length. We also derive this scaling a priori from a simple statistical …

Intramolecular Nitrogen Delivery For The Synthesis Of C-Glycosphingolipids. Application To The C-Glycoside Of The Immunostimulant Krn7000, Ahmad Sabri Altiti, David R. Mootoo

Publications and Research

The key reaction in this approach to C-glycosphingolipids is the stereoselective iodocyclization of a sugar-linked homoallylic carbonimidothioate. E and Z reaction substrates were assembled in a convergent fashion via an alkene metathesis strategy and exhibited the same alkene facial selectivity in the iodocyclization irrespective of alkene geometry, although the E alkene was found to be less reactive.

Dynamic Association Of Mortality Hazard With Body Shape, Nir Y. Krakauer, Jesse C. Krakauer

Publications and Research

Background A Body Shape Index (ABSI) had been derived from a study of the United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2004 mortality data to quantify the risk associated with abdominal obesity (as indicated by a wide waist relative to height and body mass index). A national survey with longer follow-up, the British Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS), provides another opportunity to assess the predictive power for mortality of ABSI. HALS also includes repeat observations, allowing estimation of the implications of changes in ABSI. Methods and Findings We evaluate ABSI z score relative to population normals as a …

Gender-Based Screening For Chlamydial Infection And Divergent Infection Trends In Men And Women, Susan M. Rogers, Charles F. Turner, William C. Miller, Emily Erbelding, Elizabeth Eggleston, Sylvia Tan, Anthony Roman, Marcia Hobbs, James Chromy, Ravikiran Muvva, Laxminarayana Ganapathi

Publications and Research

Objectives: To assess the potential impact of chlamydial screening policy that recommends routine screening of women but not men.

Methods: Population surveys of probability samples of Baltimore adults aged 18 to 35 years in 1997–1998 and 2006–2009 collected biospecimens to estimate trends in undiagnosed chlamydial infection. Survey estimates are compared to surveillance data on diagnosed chlamydial infections reported to the Health Department.

Results: Prevalence of undiagnosed chlamydial infection among men increased from 1.6% to 4.0%, but it declined from 4.3% to 3.1% among women (p = 0.028 for test of interaction). The annual (average) number of diagnosed infections was substantially …

Are Climate Model Simulations Useful For Forecasting Precipitation Trends? Hindcast And Synthetic-Data Experiments, Nir Y. Krakauer, Balázs M. Fekete

Publications and Research

Water scientists and managers currently face the question of whether trends in climate variables that affect water supplies and hazards can be anticipated. We investigate to what extent climate model simulations may provide accurate forecasts of future hydrologic nonstationarity in the form of changes in precipitation amount. We compare gridded station observations (GPCC Full Data Product, 1901–2010) and climate model outputs (CMIP5 Historical and RCP8.5 simulations, 1901–2100) in real and syntheticdata hindcast experiments. The hindcast experiments show that imputing precipitation trends based on the climate model mean reduced the root mean square error of precipitation trend estimates for 1961–2010 by …

A Review Of Air–Ice Chemical And Physical Interactions (Aici): Liquids, Quasi-Liquids, And Solids In Snow, T. Bartels-Rausch, H-W Jacobi, T. F. Kahan, J. L. Thomas, E. S. Thomson, J. P. D. Abbatt, M. Ammann, J. R. Blackford, H. Bluhm, Chris Boxe, F. Domine, M. M. Frey, I. Gladich, M. I. Guzmán, D. Heger, Th. Huthwelker, P. Klán, W. F. Kuhs, M. H. Kuo, S. Maus, S. G. Moussa, V. F. Mcneill, J. T. Newberg, J. B. C. Pettersson, M. Roeselová, J. R. Sodeau

Publications and Research

Snow in the environment acts as a host to rich chemistry and provides a matrix for physical exchange of contaminants within the ecosystem. The goal of this review is to summarise the current state of knowledge of physical processes and chemical reactivity in surface snow with relevance to polar regions. It focuses on a description of impurities in distinct compartments present in surface snow, such as snow crystals, grain boundaries, crystal surfaces, and liquid parts. It emphasises the microscopic description of the ice surface and its link with the environment. Distinct differences between the disordered air–ice interface, often termed quasi-liquid …

Big Data Analytics In Healthcare: Promise And Potential, Wullianallur Raghupathi, Viju Raghupathi

Publications and Research

Objective To describe the promise and potential of big data analytics in healthcare.

Methods The paper describes the nascent field of big data analytics in healthcare, discusses the benefits, outlines an architectural framework and methodology, describes examples reported in the literature, briefly discusses the challenges, and offers conclusions.

Results The paper provides a broad overview of big data analytics for healthcare researchers and practitioners.

Conclusions Big data analytics in healthcare is evolving into a promising field for providing insight from very large data sets and improving outcomes while reducing costs. Its potential is great; however there remain challenges to overcome.

Deconstructing A Plant Macromolecular Assembly: Chemical Architecture, Molecular Flexibility, And Mechanical Performance Of Natural And Engineered Potato Suberins, Olga Serra, Subhasish Chatterjee, Merce Figueras, Marisa Molinas, Ruth E. Stark

Publications and Research

Periderms present in plant barks are essential protective barriers to water diffusion, mechanical breakdown, and pathogenic invasion. They consist of densely packed layers of dead cells with cell walls that are embedded with suberin. Understanding the interplay of molecular structure, dynamics, and biomechanics in these cell wall-associated insoluble amorphous polymeric assemblies presents substantial investigative challenges. We report solid-state NMR coordinated with FT-IR and tensile strength measurements for periderms from native and wound-healing potatoes and from potatoes with genetically modified suberins. The analyses include the intact suberin aromatic; aliphatic polymer and cell-wall polysaccharides, previously reported soluble depolymerized transmethylation products, and undegraded …

A Broadly Implementable Research Course In Phage Discovery And Genomics For First-Year Undergraduate Students, Tuajuanda C. Jordan, Sandra H. Burnett, Susan Carson, Steven M. Caruso, Kari Clase, Randall J. Dejong, John J. Dennehy, Dee R. Denver, David Dunbar, Sarah C. R. Elgin, Ann M. Findley, Chris R. Gissendanner, Urszula P. Golebiewska, Nancy Guild, Grant A. Hartzog, Wendy H. Grillo, Gail P. Hollowell, Lee E. Hughes, Allison Johnson, Rodney A. King, Lynn O. Lewis, Wei Li, Frank Rosenzweig, Michael R. Rubin, Margaret S. Saha, James Sandoz, Christopher D. Shaffer, Barbara Taylor, Louise Temple, Edwin Vazquez, Vassie C. Ware, Lucia P. Barker, Kevin W. Bradley, Deborah Jacobs-Sera, Welkin H. Pope, Daniel A. Russell, Steven G. Cresawn, David Lopatto, Cherly P. Bailey, Graham F. Hatfull

Publications and Research

Engaging large numbers of undergraduates in authentic scientific discovery is desirable but difficult to achieve. We have developed a general model in which faculty and teaching assistants from diverse academic institutions are trained to teach a research course for first-year undergraduate students focused on bacteriophage discovery and genomics. The course is situated within a broader scientific context aimed at understanding viral diversity, such that faculty and students are collaborators with established researchers in the field. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) course has been widely implemented and has been …

Utilizing Fast Spin Echo Mri To Reduce Image Artifacts And Improve Implant/Tissue Interface Detection In Refractory Parkinson’S Patients With Deep Brain Stimulators, Subhendra N. Sarkar, Pooja R. Sarkar, Efstathios Papavassiliou, Rafael Rojas

Publications and Research

Introduction. In medically refractory Parkinson’s disease (PD) deep-brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective therapeutic tool. Postimplantation MRI is important in assessing tissue damage and DBS lead placement accuracy. We wanted to identify which MRI sequence can detectDBS leads with smallest artifactual signal void, allowing better tissue/electrode edge conspicuity.

Methods. Using an IRB approved protocol 8 advanced PDpatientswere imagedwithinMRconditional safety guidelines at lowRF power (SAR ≤ 0.1 W/kg) in coronal plane at 1.5T by various sequences.The image slices were subjectively evaluated for diagnostic quality and the lead contact diameters were compared to identify a sequence least affected by metallic leads.

Results …

Cyclic Phosphonium Ionic Liquids, Sharon I. Lall-Ramnarine, Joshua A. Mukhlall, James F. Wishart, Robert R. Engel, Alicia R. Romeo, Masao Gohdo, Sharon Ramati, Marc B. Berman, Sophia N. Suarez

Publications and Research

Ionic liquids (ILs) incorporating cyclic phosphonium cations are a novel category of materials. We report here on the synthesis and characterization of four new cyclic phosphonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)amide ILs with aliphatic and aromatic pendant groups. In addition to the syntheses of these novel materials, we report on a comparison of their properties with their ammonium congeners. These exemplars are slightly less conductive and have slightly smaller self-diffusion coefficients than their cyclic ammonium congeners.

Quality-Space Theory In Olfaction, Benjamin D. Young, Andreas Keller, David Rosenthal

Publications and Research

Quality-space theory (QST) explains the nature of the mental qualities distinctive of perceptual states by appeal to their role in perceiving. QST is typically described in terms of the mental qualities that pertain to color. Here we apply QST to the olfactory modalities. Olfaction is in various respects more complex than vision, and so provides a useful test case for QST. To determine whether QST can deal with the challenges olfaction presents, we show how a quality space (QS) could be constructed relying on olfactory perceptible properties and the olfactory mental qualities then defined by appeal to that QS of …

Impacts Of Aerosol Particle Size Distribution And Land Cover Land Use On Precipitation In A Coastal Urban Environment Using A Cloud-Resolving Mesoscale Model, Nathan Hosannah, Jorge Gonzalez

Publications and Research

Urban environments influence precipitation formation via response to dynamic effects, while aerosols are intrinsically necessary for rainfall formation; however, the partial contributions of each on urban coastal precipitation are not yet known.Here, the authors use aerosol particle size distributions derived from the NASA aerosol robotic network (AERONET) to estimate submicron cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and supermicron CCN (GCCN) for ingestion in the regional atmospheric modeling system (RAMS). High resolution land data from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) were assimilated into RAMS to provide modern land cover and land use (LCLU).Thefirst two of eight total simulationswere month long runs for …

Wave Function For Harmonically Confined Electrons In Time-Dependent Electric And Magnetostatic Fields, Hong-Ming Zhu, Jin-Wang Chen, Xiao-Yin Pan, Viraht Sahni

Publications and Research

We derive via the interaction “representation” the many-body wave function for harmonically confined electrons in the presence of a magnetostatic field and perturbed by a spatially homogeneous time-dependent electric field—the Generalized Kohn Theorem (GKT) wave function. In the absence of the harmonic confinement – the uniform electron gas – the GKT wave function reduces to the Kohn Theorem wave function. Without the magnetostatic field, the GKTwave function is the Harmonic Potential Theorem wave function. We further prove the validity of the connection between the GKT wave function derived and the system in an accelerated frame of reference. Finally, we provide …

Behavioral And Emotional Dynamics Of Two People Struggling To Reach Consensus About A Topic On Which They Disagree, Levent Kurt, Katharina G. Kugler, Peter T. Coleman, Larry S. Liebovitch

Publications and Research

We studied the behavioral and emotional dynamics displayed by two people trying to resolve a conflict. 59 groups of two people were asked to talk for 20 minutes to try to reach a consensus about a topic on which they disagreed. The topics were abortion, affirmative action, death penalty, and euthanasia. Behavior data were determined from audio recordings where each second of the conversation was assessed as proself, neutral, or prosocial. We determined the probability density function of the durations of time spent in each behavioral state. These durations were well fit by a stretched exponential distribution, with an exponent, …

Boosted Top Production: Factorization And Resummation For Single-Particle Inclusive Distributions, Andrea Ferroglia, Simone Marzani, Ben D. Pecjak, Li Lin Yang

Publications and Research

We study single-particle inclusive (1PI) distributions in top-quark pair production at hadron colliders, working in the highly boosted regime where the top-quarkpTis much larger than its mass. In particular, we derive a novel factorization formula validin the small-mass and soft limits of the differential partonic cross section. This providesa framework for the simultaneous resummation of soft gluon corrections and small-mass logarithms, and also an efficient means of obtaining higher-order corrections to the differential cross section in this limit. The result involves five distinct one-scale functions, three of which arise through the subfactorization of soft real radiation in the small-mass limit. …

Disciplinarity And Trandisciplinarity In The Study Of Knowledge, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Scholarly inquiry about the nature and significance of knowledge has been shaped by disciplinary traditions and priorities that define “knowledge” differently and result in disconnected literatures. In the mid to late twentieth century, library science educator Jesse Shera sought to bridge the conceptual gap between epistemological and sociological approaches to knowledge in proposing a new discipline he called social epistemology. Around the same time, long-term projects by the economist Fritz Machlup and the physical chemist turned philosopher of science Michael Polanyi did not merely combine existing disciplinary approaches but transcended conventional frameworks for conceptualizing knowledge. These scholars can be viewed …

A Course-Based Research Experience: How Benefits Change With Increased Investment In Instructional Time, Christopher D. Shaffer, Consuelo J. Alvarez, April E. Bednarski, David Dunbar, Anya L. Goodman, Catherine Reinke, Anne G. Rosenwald, Michael J. Wolyniak, Cheryl Bailey, Daron Barnard, Christopher Bazinet, Dale L. Beach, James E. J. Bedard, Satish Bhalla, John Braverman, Martin Burg, Vidya Chandrasekaran, Hui-Min Chung, Kari Clase, Randall J. Dejong, Shubha Govind, Gerard Mcneil, Karim Sharif

Publications and Research

While course-based research in genomics can generate both knowledge gains and a greater appreciation for how science is done, a significant investment of course time is required to enable students to show gains commensurate to a summer research experience. Nonetheless, this is a very cost-effective way to reach larger numbers of students.

Investigation Of The Structure Of The Few Body Kaonic Nuclei Using The Method Of Hyperspherical Functions In Momentum Space, Roman Ya. Kezerashvili, Shalva M. Tsiklauri

Publications and Research

The kaonic clusters KNN and KNNN are studied within the method of hyperspherical functions in the momentum representation. Binding energies and widths of three- and four-body nuclear quasibound states are calculated by employing realistic NN potentials and the energy dependent chiral KN interaction, as well as a phenomenological KN potential. The comparison of the results of calculations obtained in the framework of the variational method, Faddeev, Faddeev-Yakubovsky equations, and method of hyperspherical functions in configuration space are discussed.