Digital Commons Network^™

Mobile Apps In Collection Development: Supporting A Mobile Learning Environment, Stefanie Havelka, Rebecca Arzola

Publications and Research

We will discuss our rationale and thoughts on why we believe mobile apps should be part of a library’s collection development policy. An updated policy with apps encourages a mobile learning environment that is technologically diverse while being holistically supportive of its users and research.

Exploring Social Networking Technologies As Tools For Hiv Prevention For Men Who Have Sex With Men, Jorge Ramallo, Thomas Kidder, Tashuna Albritton, Gary Blick, John Pachankis, Valen Grandeleski, Trace Kershaw

Publications and Research

Social networking technologies are influential among men who have sex with men (MSM) and may be an important strategy for HIV prevention. We conducted focus groups with HIV positive and negative participants. Almost all participants used social networking sites to meet new friends and sexual partners. The main obstacle to effective HIV prevention campaigns in social networking platforms was stigmatization based on homosexuality as well as HIV status. Persistent stigma associated with HIV status and disclosure was cited as a top reason for avoiding HIV-related conversations while meeting new partners using social technologies. Further, social networking sites have different social …

Captain Beefheart, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Milling Additives On Powder Properties And Sintered Body Microstructure Of Nio, L. Jay Deiner, Michael A. Rottmayer, Bryan C. Eigenbrodt

Publications and Research

The evolution of powder particle size, crystal structure, and surface chemistry was evaluated for micron scale NiO powders subjected to impact milling with commonly employed milling additives: methanol, Vertrel XF, and amorphous carbon. The effect of the different comminution protocols on sintered body microstructure was evaluated for high temperature sintering in inert atmosphere (N2). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that NiO powder surface chemistry is surprisingly sensitive to milling additive choice. In particular, the proportion of powder surface defect sites varied with additive, and methanol left an alcohol or alkoxy residue even after drying. Upon sintering to intermediate temperatures (1100 ℃), …

The Future Of Public Health Informatics: Alternative Scenarios And Recommended Strategies, Margo Edmunds, Lorna Thorpe, Martin Sepulveda, Clem Bezold, David A. Ross

Publications and Research

Background: In October 2013, the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) and Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) convened a multidisciplinary group of experts to evaluate forces shaping public health informatics (PHI) in the United States, with the aim of identifying upcoming challenges and opportunities. The PHI workshop was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its larger strategic planning process for public health and primary care. Workshop Context: During the two-day workshop, nine experts from the public and private sectors analyzed and discussed the implications of four scenarios regarding the United States economy, health care system, information technology …

Green Tea Polyphenol Treatment Is Chondroprotective, Anti-Inflammatory And Palliative In A Mouse Posttraumatic Osteoarthritis Model, Daniel J. Leong, Marwa Choudhury, Regina Hanstein, David M. Hirsh, Sun Jin Kim, Robert Majeska, Mitchell B. Schaffler, John A. Hardin, David C. Spray, Mary B. Goldring, Neil J. Cobelli, Hui B. Sun

Publications and Research

Introduction Epigallocatechin 3-gallate (EGCG), a polyphenol present in green tea, was shown to exert chondroprotective effects in vitro. In this study, we used a posttraumatic osteoarthritis (OA) mouse model to test whether EGCG could slow the progression of OA and relieve OA-associated pain. Methods C57BL/6 mice were subjected to surgical destabilization of the medial meniscus (DMM) or sham surgery. EGCG (25 mg/kg) or vehicle control was administered daily for 4 or 8 weeks by intraperitoneal injection starting on the day of surgery. OA severity was evaluated using Safranin O staining and Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) scores, as well as …

Performance Analysis Of A Hybrid Raman Optical Parametric Amplifier In The O- And E-Bands For Cwdm Pons, Sasanthi Peiris, Nicolas Madamopoulos, Neophytos A. Antoniades, Dwight Richards, Roger Dorsinville

Publications and Research

We describe a hybrid Raman-optical parametric amplifier (HROPA) operating at the O- and E-bands and designed for coarse wavelength division multiplexed (CWDM) passive optical networks (PONs). We present the mathematical model and simulation results for the optimization of this HROPA design. Our analysis shows that separating the two amplification processes allows for optimization of each one separately, e.g., proper selection of pump optical powers and wavelengths to achieve maximum gain bandwidth and low gain ripple. Furthermore, we show that the proper design of optical filters incorporated in the HROPA architecture can suppress idlers generated during the OPA process, as well …

Inhibition Of Osteoclastogenesis And Inflammatory Bone Resorption By Targeting Bet Proteins And Epigenetic Regulation, Kyung-Hyun Park-Min, Elisha Lim, Min Joon Lee, Sung Ho Park, Eugenia Giannopoulos, Anna Yarilina, Marjolein Van Der Meulen, Baohong Zhao, Nicholas Smithers, Jason Witherington, Kevin Lee, Paul P. Tak, Rab K. Prinjha, Lionel B. Ivashkiv

Publications and Research

Emerging evidence suggests that RANKL-induced changes in chromatin state are important for osteoclastogenesis, but these epigenetic mechanisms are not well understood and have not been therapeutically targeted. In this study we find that the small molecule I-BET151 that targets bromo and extra-terminal (BET) proteins that “read” chromatin states by binding to acetylated histones strongly suppresses osteoclastogenesis. I-BET151 suppresses pathologic bone loss in TNF-induced inflammatory osteolysis, inflammatory arthritis, and post-ovariectomy models. Transcriptome analysis identifies a MYC-NFAT axis important for osteoclastogenesis. Mechanistically, I-BET151 inhibits expression of the master osteoclast regulator NFATC1 by suppressing expression and recruitment of its newly identified upstream regulator …

Supervisor Use Of Video As A Tool In Teacher Reflection, Laura H. Baecher, Bede Mccormack, Shiao-Chuan Kung

Publications and Research

Supervisors play a critical role in fostering teacher candidates’ reflective thinking on their practice, yet too often it is the supervisor, rather than the teacher, doing most of the observation work. Video-­‐based supervision offers a promising alternative, as teachers have an opportunity to examine their own lesson and thus engage with the supervisor in a more collaborative conference. In this paper, we explore the ways supervisors approach video in their conferencing with teachers as a vehicle for teacher reflective practice at one TESOL master’s program in the USA. We examine what supervisors find salient in video observations, how they approach …

Raw Milk, Raw Power: States Of (Mis)Trust, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

In recent years, raw milk has emerged as one of the most contentious food commodities, considered a serious health risk by public health officials and a source of healing and nourishment by raw milk proponents. The purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which consumers construct and experience trust in food that is often procured in informal markets. Because the image of an overreaching, exploitative government features prominently in popular narratives surrounding raw milk consumption, this article is explicitly concerned with the role of the state in public food debates. Drawing on two complementary empirical cases of …

Open Scholarship For Open Education: Building The Justpublics@365 Pooc, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz, Polly Thistlethwaite, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

This article outlines the collaboration between librarians at the Graduate Center Library of the City University of New York (CUNY) and JustPublics@365 (http://justpublics365.commons.gc.cuny.edu/about/), an initiative designed to open scholarly communication in ways that connect to social justice activism, part of which involved producing an open, online interdisciplinary course with a geographical focus on East Harlem. This Participatory Open Online Course, or POOC, was developed locally without a licensed provider platform or licensed scholarly content. It was designed to be open to CUNY students, to citizens of East Harlem, and to a global public with an interest in social …

Introduction: Critical Perspectives On Food Sovereignty, Marc Edelman, Tony Weis, Amita Baviskar, Saturnino M. Borras Jr., Eric Holt-Giménez, Deniz Kandiyoti, Wendy Wolford

Publications and Research

Visions of food sovereignty have been extremely important in helping to galvanize broad-based and diverse movements around the need for radical changes in agro-food systems. Yet while food sovereignty has thrived as a ‘dynamic process’, until recently there has been insufficient attention to many thorny questions, such as its origins, its connection to other food justice movements, its relation to rights discourses, the roles of markets and states and the challenges of implementation. This essay contributes to food sovereignty praxis by pushing the process of critical self- reflection forward and considering its relation to critical agrarian studies – and vice …

Food Sovereignty: Forgotten Genealogies And Future Regulatory Challenges, Marc Edelman

Publications and Research

‘Food sovereignty’ has become a mobilizing frame for social movements, a set of legal norms and practices aimed at transforming food and agriculture systems, and a free- floating signifier filled with varying kinds of content. Canonical accounts credit the Vía Campesina transnational agrarian movement with coining and elaborating the term, but its proximate origins are actually in an early 1980s Mexican government program. Central American activists nonetheless appropriated and redefined it in the late 1980s. Advocates typically suggest that ‘food sovereignty’ is diametrically opposed to ‘food security’, but historically there actually has been considerable slippage and overlap between these concepts. …

The Health Advantage Of A Vegan Diet: Exploring The Gut Microbiota Connection, Marian Glick-Bauer, Ming-Chin Yeh

Publications and Research

This review examines whether there is evidence that a strict vegan diet confers health advantages beyond that of a vegetarian diet or overall healthy eating. Few studies include vegan subjects as a distinct experimental group, yet when vegan diets are directly compared to vegetarian and omnivorous diets, a pattern of protective health benefits emerges. The relatively recent inclusion of vegan diets in studies of gut microbiota and health allows us the opportunity to assess whether the vegan gut microbiota is distinct, and whether the health advantages characteristic of a vegan diet may be partially explained by the associated microbiota profile. …

Detroit Works Long-Term Planning Project: Engagement Strategies For Blending Community And Technical Expertise, Toni L. Griffin, Dan Cramer, Megan Powers

Publications and Research

In January 2013, civic leaders, community stakeholders, and residents came together to release Detroit Future City: 2012 Detroit Strategic Framework Plan, a guiding blueprint for transforming Detroit from its current state of population loss and excessive vacancy into a model for the reinvention of post-industrial American cities. Three years prior, the U.S. Census had reported that the city had lost 24% of its population over the last decade and had experienced a 20% increase in vacant and abandoned property, bringing total vacancy to roughly the size of Manhattan. In addition to physical and economic challenges, Detroiters had also acknowledged significant …

On The Origin And Future Of Poetry: Notes Towards An Investigation, Carlos Aguasaco

Publications and Research

An exploration on the historical and material conditions that allowed the emergence of metaphors and poetry alongside language. This article analyzes the historical relation between poetry and technology across history. It discusses the so-called ontological crisis of poetry and opens the conversation on its future.

Induced Expression Of Nucleolin Phosphorylation-Deficient Mutant Confers Dominant-Negative Effect On Cell Proliferation, Shu Xiao, Elif Caglar, Priscilla Maldonado, Dibash Das, Zaineb Nadeem, Angela Chi, Benjamin Trinité, Xin Li, Anjana Saxena

Publications and Research

Nucleolin (NCL) is a major nucleolar phosphoprotein that has pleiotropic effects on cell proliferation and is elevated in a variety of tumors. NCL is highly phosphorylated at the N-terminus by two major kinases: interphase casein kinase 2 (CK2) and mitotic cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1). Earlier we demonstrated that a NCL-mutant that is partly defective in undergoing phosphorylation by CK2 inhibits chromosomal replication through its interactions with Replication Protein A, mimicking the cellular response to DNA damage. We further delineated that the N-terminus of NCL associates with Hdm2, the most common E3 ubiquitin ligase of p53. We reported that NCL antagonizes …

Automate The Internet With “If This Then That” (Ifttt), Steven Ovadia

Publications and Research

The article evaluates a web-based service called "If This Then That" (IFTTT), which connects web services to each other in ways that have implications for academics.

A Low-Hassle, Low-Cost Method To Survey Student Attitudes About Library Space, Jennifer Poggiali, Madeline Cohen

Publications and Research

This article discusses how two members of the space planning committee at Lehman College library created a brief paper survey, distributed it to students in the library, and designed a Google spreadsheet to enable the committee to work as a group to compile results. We provide our survey tool as an example; explain how we simplified data compilation through a “quick and dirty” coding process; outline step-by-step instructions on how to design a Google spreadsheet that enables many librarians to input survey results consistently; and describe our mistakes and “lessons learned.” We believe our practical approach could be easily implemented …

Human Sexuality As A Critical Subfield In Social Work, Emily Mccave, Benjamin C. Shepard, Virginia Ramseyer Winter

Publications and Research

Human sexuality is of vital importance to social work practitioners, educators, and scholars. Yet historically, the profession’s leadership around it has waxed and waned, impacting practice. This article discusses the importance of human sexuality as a critical subfield within social work. It suggests that the mechanisms, namely textbooks, journals, and national conferences, for stimulating human sexuality social work scholarship are limited. The authors assert that the taboo of human sexuality limits the advancement of a cohesive professional discourse and contributes to the continued oppression of marginalized populations. Recommendations for providing better support for those who study, teach, and practice in …

Utopias Misplaced: The Cost Of Outsourcing Dystopian Poetics To North Korea, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

This is a slightly revised version of the text of a talk that I (Seo-Young Chu) gave as part of the Fall 2014 Franke Lectures in the Humanities at Yale University. I'm sharing the text here to make the lecture more accessible. Topics include: North Korea/the DPRK, the "uncanny body politic," the uncanny valley, "dystopian poetics," what it means to outsource dystopian poetics, the intersection of aesthetics and politics. Authors/artists mentioned include: Thomas Hobbes, Mary Shelley, David Mitchell, Marjane Satrapi, Song Byeok, Sun Mu, Masahiro Mori, Andy Warhol. The talk also discusses the James Bond film Die Another Day.

Wsq: Solidary Editor's Note, Cynthia Chris, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

This Editor's Note introduces the WSQ issue "Solidarity," co-edited by Saadia Toor and Shefali Chandra, which explores the urgent need for simultaneous action in multiple political registers.

Do We Speak The Same Language? A Study Of Faculty Perceptions Of Information Literacy, Jonathan Cope, Jesús E. Sanabria

Publications and Research

The authors analyze twenty in-depth interviews with faculty members about how they perceive information literacy (IL) to examine two key factors: how disciplinary background influences conceptions of IL among faculty members in academic departments and how the instructors’ perception of information literacy differs from that of professionals in library and information science. The investigators analyzed these interviews by utilizing a phenomenological method. The faculty members were interviewed at a four-year college, the College of Staten Island, and at a community college, the Bronx Community College, both part of the City University of New York.

The Regional North Indian Popular Music Industry In 2014: From Cassette Culture To Cyberculture, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

This article explores the current state of the regional vernacular popular music industry in North India, assessing the changes that have occurred since around 2000 with the advent of digital technologies, including DVD format, and especially the Internet, cellphones and ‘pen-drives’. It provides a cursory overview of the regional music scene as a whole, and then focuses, as a case study, on a particular genre, namely the languriya songs of the Braj region, south of Delhi. It discusses how commercial music production is adapting, or failing to adapt, to recent technological developments, and it notes the vigorous and persistent flowering …

"Epidermic" And Visceral Works: Lygia Pape And Anna Maria Maiolino, Claudia Calirman

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Testimony Of University Dean Curtis L. Kendrick To The New York City Council Higher Education Committee On Textbook Affordability, Curtis Kendrick

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Carboxymethylcellulose Hydrogels Support Central Nervous System-Derived Tumor-Cell Chemotactic Migration: Comparison With Conventional Extracellular Matrix Macromolecules, Tanya Singh, Chandrasekhar Kothapalli, Devika Varma, Steven B. Nicoll, Maribel Vazquez

Publications and Research

The local microenvironment plays an important role in maintaining the dynamics of the extracellular matrix and the cell-extracellular matrix relationship. The extracellular matrix is a complex network of macromolecules with distinct mechanical and biochemical characteristics. Disruptions in extracellular matrix homeostasis are associated with the onset of cancer. The extracellular matrix becomes highly disorganized, and the cell-matrix relationship changes, resulting in altered cell-signaling processes and metastasis. Medulloblastoma is one of the most common malignant pediatric brain tumors in the United States. In order to gain a better understanding of the interplay between cell-extracellular matrix interactions and cell-migratory responses in tumors, eight …

Improving Mycobacterium Bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guèrin As A Vaccine Delivery Vector For Viral Antigens By Incorporation Of Glycolipid Activators Of Nkt Cells, Manjunatha M. Venkataswamy, Tony W. Ng, Shalu S. Kharkwal, Leandro J. Carreño, Alison J. Johnson, Shajo Kunnath-Velayudhan, Zheng Liu, Robert Bittman, Peter J. Jervis, Liam R. Cox, Gurdyal S. Besra, Xiangshu Wen, Weiming Yuan, Moriya Tsuji, Xiangming Li, David D. Ho, John Chan, Sunhee Lee, Richard Frothingham, Barton F. Haynes

Publications and Research

Recombinant Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guèrin (rBCG) has been explored as a vector for vaccines against HIV because of its ability to induce long lasting humoral and cell mediated immune responses. To maximize the potential for rBCG vaccines to induce effective immunity against HIV, various strategies are being employed to improve its ability to prime CD8+ T cells, which play an important role in the control of HIV infections. In this study we adopted a previously described approach of incorporating glycolipids that activate CD1d-restricted natural killer T (NKT) cells to enhance priming of CD8+ T cells by rBCG strains expressing an …

Sticking Your Neck Out And Burying The Hatchet: What Idioms Reveal About Embodied Simulation, Natalie A. Kacinik

Publications and Research

Idioms are used in conventional language twice as frequently as metaphors, but most research, particularly recent work on embodiment has focused on the latter. However, idioms have the potential to significantly deepen our understanding of embodiment because their meanings cannot be derived from their component words. To determine whether sensorimotor states could activate idiomatic meaning, participants were instructed to engage in postures/actions reflecting various idioms (e.g.,sticking your neck out) relative to non-idiomatic control postures/actions while reading and responding to statements designed to assess idiomatic meaning. The results showed that statements were generally more strongly endorsed after idiom embodiment than control …

Commuter Students Using Technology, Mariana Regalado, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

• A multi-year qualitative study of undergraduates at six colleges at the City University of New York focused on how, where, and when students accomplished their academic work and how the presence or absence of access to technology helped and hindered them.
• CUNY students have an average commute time of 45–60 minutes each way and typically use public transportation, making commuting a defining feature of undergraduate life at CUNY that offers both opportunities and challenges.
• The study sought to understand how students made time and found space to do their schoolwork outside of class, including their use of technology for coursework. …