Digital Commons Network^™

The History Of Algorithmic Complexity, Audrey A. Nasar

Publications and Research

This paper provides a historical account of the development of algorithmic complexity in a form that is suitable to instructors of mathematics at the high school or undergraduate level. The study of algorithmic complexity, despite being deeply rooted in mathematics, is usually restricted to the computer science curriculum. By providing a historical account of algorithmic complexity through a mathematical lens, this paper aims to equip mathematics educators with the necessary background and framework for incorporating the analysis of algorithmic complexity into mathematics courses as early on as algebra or pre-calculus.

Narrative Review Of Vitamin D And Its Specific Impact On Balance Capacity In Older Adults, Ray Marks

Publications and Research

Introduction and Aims: Falls injuries among older adults, a widespread well-established contributor to high disability levels, excess morbidity and mortality rates, have many causes. This review examines the association between vitamin D levels and postural stability or balance control—a fairly consistent predictor of falls among older adults.

Materials and Method: All relevant English language peer reviewed research publications detailing the relationship between vitamin D levels and balance control among the elderly were sought. Key words included “Vitamin D and Balance or Postural Control.” Databases used were Academic Search Complete, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science.

Results: Analysis showed no consistent …

The Science Teaching Fellows Program: A Model For Online Faculty Development Of Early Career Scientists Interested In Teaching, Loretta Branacaccio-Taras, Kelly A. Gull, Claudia Ratti

Publications and Research

The American Society for Microbiology (ASM) has a history of providing a wide range of faculty development opportunities. Recently, ASM developed the Science Teaching Fellows Program (STF) for early career biologists and postdoctoral students to explore student-centered teaching and develop the skills needed to succeed in positions that have a significant teaching component. Participants were selected to STF through a competitive application process. The STF program consisted of a series of six webinars. In preparation for each webinar, participants completed a pre-webinar assignment. After each webinar, fellows practiced what they learned by completing a post-webinar assignment. In a survey used …

The Power Of Associative Learning And The Ontogeny Of Optimal Behaviour, Magnus Enquist, Johan Lind, Stefano Ghirlanda

Publications and Research

Behaving efficiently (optimally or near-optimally) is central to animals’ adaptation to their environment. Much evolutionary biology assumes, implicitly or explicitly, that optimal behavioural strategies are genetically inherited, yet the behaviour of many animals depends crucially on learning. The question of how learning contributes to optimal behaviour is largely open. Here we propose an associative learning model that can learn optimal behaviour in a wide variety of ecologically relevant circumstances. The model learns through chaining, a term introduced by Skinner to indicate learning of behaviour sequences by linking together shorter sequences or single behaviours. Our model formalizes the concept of conditioned …

Dissociable Early Attentional Control Mechanisms Underlying Cognitive And Affective Conflicts, Taolin Chen, Keith M. Kendrick, Chunliang Feng, Shiyue Sun, Xun Yang, Xiaogang Wang, Wenbo Luo, Suyong Yang, Xiaoqi Huang, Pedro A. Valdes-Sosa, Qiyong Gong, Jin Fan, Yue-Jia Luo

Publications and Research

It has been well documented that cognitive conflict is sensitive to the relative proportion of congruent and incongruent trials. However, few studies have examined whether affective conflict processing is modulated as a function of proportion congruency (PC). To address this question we recorded eventrelated potentials (ERP) while subjects performed both cognitive and affective face-word Stroop tasks. By varying the proportion of congruent and incongruent trials in each block, we examined the extent to which PC impacts both cognitive and affective conflict control at different temporal stages. Results showed that in the cognitive task an anteriorly localized early N2 component occurred …

Gruber Explores The Living Lights Of The Oceans., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

The ocean waters are full of creatures that produce light, from microscopic organisms to sharks and marine turtles. Sometimes human vision is not prepared to detect it, but that does not mean such phenomena, known as bioluminescence and biofluorescence, are unimportant.

“There’s so many different ways in which life perceives light, and trying to get inside these animals, to get behind their eyes, is almost like walking in someone else’s shoes,” says Dr. David Gruber, an associate professor of biology at Baruch College in New York City. “It’s like being someone else for a day.”

Temporary Nerve Block At Selected Digits Revealed Hand Motor Deficits In Grasping Tasks, Aude Cateron, Kerry Mcpartlan, Christina Gioeli, Emily Reid, Matt Turturro, Barry Hahn, Cynthia Benson, Wei Zhang

Publications and Research

Peripheral sensory feedback plays a crucial role in ensuring correct motor execution throughout hand grasp control. Previous studies utilized local anesthesia to deprive somatosensory feedback in the digits or hand, observations included sensorimotor deficits at both corticospinal and peripheral levels. However, the questions of how the disturbed and intact sensory input integrate and interact with each other to assist the motor program execution, and whether the motor coordination based on motor output variability between affected and non-affected elements (e.g., digits) becomes interfered by the local sensory deficiency, have not been answered. The current study aims to investigate the effect of …

Regional Variation In Ascaris Lumbricoides And Trichuris Trichiura Infections By Age Cohort And Sex: Effects Of Market Integration Among The Indigenous Shuar Of Amazonian Ecuador, Theresa E. Gildner, Tara J. Cepon-Robins, Melissa A. Liebert, Samuel S. Urlacher, Felicia C. Madimenos, J. Josh Snodgross, Lawrence S. Sugiyama

Publications and Research

Background: Soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infection peaks during childhood and varies by sex. The impact of market integration (MI) (increasing production for and consumption from a market-based economy) on these infection patterns, however, is unclear. In this study, STH infection is examined by sex and age among indigenous Shuar inhabiting two regions of Amazonian Ecuador: (1) the modestly market-integrated Upano Valley (UV) and (2) the more traditional Cross-Cutucú (CC) region.

Methods: Kato-Katz fecal smears were examined for parasite presence and infection intensity. Factorial ANOVAs and post hoc simple effects analyses were performed by sex to compare infection intensity between regions and …

Illegitimate Tasks As An Impediment To Job Satisfaction And Intrinsic Motivation: Moderated Mediation Effects Of Gender And Effort-Reward Imbalance, Rachel Omansky, Erin M. Eatough, Marcus J. Fila

Publications and Research

The current work examines a contemporary workplace stressor that has only recently been introduced into the literature: illegitimate tasks. Illegitimate tasks are work tasks that violate identity role norms about what can reasonably be expected from an employee in a given position. Although illegitimate tasks have been linked to employee well-being in past work, we know little about the potential explanatory mechanisms linking illegitimate tasks to work-relevant negative psychological states. Using a sample of 213 US-based employees of mixed occupations and a cross-sectional design, the present study examines job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation as outcomes of illegitimate tasks. Additionally, we …

Anti-Intellectualism Casts Shadow Over Higher Ed., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

In addition to all of the issues affecting higher education,

like the lack of appropriate funding, diminishing

enrollments, insularity, and the like, now it is

time to recognize the biggest problem of all – anti-intellectualism.

Anti-intellectualism is defined as a negative attitude

toward intellectual pursuits, whether in the

form of education or scholarly activities and toward

their practitioners, such as college professors and

intellectuals in general.

Statistical Learning In Songbirds: From Self-Tutoring To Song Culture, Olga Fehér, Iva Ljubičić, Kenta Suzuki, Kazuo Okanoya, Ofer Tchernichovski

Publications and Research

At the onset of vocal development, both songbirds and humans produce variable vocal babbling with broadly distributed acoustic features. Over development, these vocalizations differentiate into the well-defined, categorical signals that characterize adult vocal behaviour. A broadly distributed signal is ideal for vocal exploration, that is, for matching vocal production to the statistics of the sensory input. The developmental transition to categorical signals is a gradual process during which the vocal output becomes differentiated and stable. But does it require categorical input?We trained juvenile zebra finches with playbacks of their own developing song, produced just a few moments earlier, updated continuously …

Hiv Glycoprotein Gp120 Impairs Fast Axonal Transport By Activating Tak1 Signaling Pathways, Sarah H. Berth, Nichole Mesnard-Hoaglin, Bin Wang, Hajwa Kim, Yuyu Song, Maria Sapar, Gerardo Morfini, Scott T. Brady

Publications and Research

Sensory neuropathies are the most common neurological complication of HIV. Of these, distal sensory polyneuropathy (DSP) is directly caused by HIV infection and characterized by length-dependent axonal degeneration of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. Mechanisms for axonal degeneration in DSP remain unclear, but recent experiments revealed that the HIV glycoprotein gp120 is internalized and localized within axons of DRG neurons. Based on these findings, we investigated whether intra-axonal gp120 might impair fast axonal transport (FAT), a cellular process critical for appropriate maintenance of the axonal compartment. Significantly, we found that gp120 severely impaired both anterograde and retrograde FAT. Providing a …

Interaction Between The Stress Phase Angle (Spa) And The Oscillatory Shear Index (Osi) Affects Endothelial Cell Gene Expression, Ronny Amaya, Limary M. Cancel, John M. Tarbell

Publications and Research

Hemodynamic forces play an important role in the non-uniform distribution of atherosclerotic lesions. Endothelial cells are exposed simultaneously to fluid wall shear stress (WSS) and solid circumferential stress (CS). Due to variations in impedance (global factors) and geometric complexities (local factors) in the arterial circulation a time lag arises between these two forces that can be characterized by the temporal phase angle between CS and WSS (stress phase angle±SPA). Asynchronous flows (SPA close to -180Ê) that are most prominent in coronary arteries have been associated with localization of atherosclerosis. Reversing oscillatory flows characterized by an oscillatory shear index (OSI) that …

Habitual Coffee Consumption And Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes, Ischemic Heart Disease, Depression And Alzheimer’S Disease: A Mendelian Randomization Study, Man Ki Kwok, Gabriel M. Leung, C. Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Observationally, coffee is inversely associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), depression and Alzheimer’s disease, but not ischemic heart disease (IHD). Coffee features as possibly protective in the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Short-term trials suggest coffee has neutral effect on most glycemic traits, but raises lipids and adiponectin. To clarify we compared T2DM, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, and IHD and its risk factors by genetically predicted coffee consumption using two-sample Mendelian randomization applied to large extensively genotyped case-control and cross-sectional studies. Childhood cognition was used as a negative control outcome. Genetically predicted coffee consumption was not associated with T2DM (odds …

Radiation Damage In Xfel: Case Study From The Oxygen-Evolving Complex Of Photosystem Ii, Muhamed Amin, Ashraf Badawi, S.S. Obayya

Publications and Research

Structural changes induced by radiation damage in X-ray crystallography hinder the ability to understand the structure/function relationship in chemical reactions. Serial femtosecond crystallography overcomes this problem by exposing the sample to very short and intense laser pulse leading to measurement before destruction. Here we use molecular modeling to map the radiation damage during the 10–50 fs to the intensity, the energy and the time duration of the laser pulse on the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) of photosystem II. In the model, the nuclei move classically in a fully quantum potential created by electron density under the effect of strong laser pulse …

Glucose-6-Phosphate Dehydrogenase Deficiency And Physical And Mental Health Until Adolescence, Man Ki Kwok, Gabriel M. Leung, C. Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Background: To examine the association of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency with adolescent physical and mental health, as effects of G6PD deficiency on health are rarely reported.

Methods: In a population-representative Chinese birth cohort: ªChildren of 1997º (n = 8,327), we estimated the adjusted associations of G6PD deficiency with growth using generalized estimating equations, with pubertal onset using interval censored regression, with hospitalization using Cox proportional hazards regression and with size, blood pressure, pubertal maturation and mental health using linear regression with multiple imputation and inverse probability weighting.

Results: Among 5,520 screened adolescents (66% follow-up), 4.8% boys and 0.5% girls had …

Memorable Audiovisual Narratives Synchronize Sensory And Supramodal Neural Responses, Samantha S. Cohen, Lucas C. Parra

Publications and Research

Our brains integrate information across sensory modalities to generate perceptual experiences and form memories. However, it is difficult to determine the conditions under which multisensory stimulation will benefit or hinder the retrieval of everyday experiences. We hypothesized that the determining factor is the reliability of information processing during stimulus presentation, which can be measured through intersubject correlation of stimulus-evoked activity. We therefore presented biographical auditory narratives and visual animations to 72 human subjects visually, auditorily, or combined, while neural activity was recorded using electroencephalography. Memory for the narrated information, contained in the auditory stream, was tested 3 weeks later. While …

Less Citation, Less Dissemination: The Case Of French Psychoanalysis, Rémy Potier, Olivier Putois, Charlotte Dolez, Elliot Jurist

Publications and Research

The future of all publishing is open to question, and this is especially true in the case of psychoanalytic publishing. Stepansky (2009) has explored the future of psychoanalytic publishing with a particular emphasis upon how the digital era has had an impact upon the decline of scholarly publication in the United States. If this trend continues, the survival of contemporary psychoanalytic research will depend upon its capacity to embrace and utilize digital publishing.

Echoing this perspective, we tried to determine whether the seemingly small international visibility of contemporary French psychoanalytic research could be related to its lack of acknowledgment of …

Ashamed And Afraid: A Scoping Review Of The Role Of Shame In Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Ptsd), Tanya Saraiya, Teresa Lopez-Castro

Publications and Research

Background: Despite considerable progress in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a large percentage of individuals remain symptomatic following gold-standard therapies. One route to improving care is examining affective disturbances that involve other emotions beyond fear and threat. A growing body of research has implicated shame in PTSD’s development and course, although to date no review of this specific literature exists. This scoping review investigated the link between shame and PTSD and sought to identify research gaps. Methods: A systematic database search of PubMed, PsycInfo, Embase, Cochrane, and CINAHL was conducted to find original quantitative research related to shame …

Perceived Body Image, Eating Behavior, And Sedentary Activities And Body Mass Index Categories In Kuwaiti Female Adolescents, Lemia H. Shaban, Joan A. Vaccaro, Shiryn D. Sukhram, Fatma G. Huffman

Publications and Research

Background. The State of Kuwait has a growing obesity epidemic in both genders and all age groups; however, obesity rates in the young seem to be rising. Methods.We conducted a cross-sectional survey in 169 Kuwaiti female adolescents attending both private and public schools spanning the six governorates in the State of Kuwait in order to explore female adolescents’ self-image, body dissatisfaction, type of school (private versus public), TV viewing, and computer games and their relationship to body mass index.

Results. Approximately half the students classified as obese perceived their body image to lie in the normal range. Females in the …

Collective Influence Of Multiple Spreaders Evaluated By Tracing Real Information Flow In Large- Scale Social Networks, Xian Teng, Sen Pei, Flaviano Morone, Hernán A. Makse

Publications and Research

Identifying the most influential spreaders that maximize information flow is a central question in network theory. Recently, a scalable method called “Collective Influence (CI)” has been put forward through collective influence maximization. In contrast to heuristic methods evaluating nodes’ significance separately, CI method inspects the collective influence of multiple spreaders. Despite that CI applies to the influence maximization problem in percolation model, it is still important to examine its efficacy in realistic information spreading. Here, we examine real-world information flow in various social and scientific platforms including American Physical Society, Facebook, Twitter and LiveJournal. Since empirical data cannot be directly …

Sex And Seasonal Differences In Diet And Nutrient Intake In Verreaux's Sifakas (Propithecus Verreauxi), Flávia Koch, Joerg U. Ganzhorn, Jessica M. Rothman, Colin A. Chapman, Claudia Fichtel

Publications and Research

Fluctuations in food availability are a major challenge faced by primates living in seasonal climates. Variation in food availability can be especially challenging for females, because of the high energetic costs of reproduction. Therefore, females must adapt the particular demands of the different reproductive stages to the seasonal availability of resources. Madagascar has a highly seasonal climate, where food availability can be extremely variable. We investigated the seasonal changes in diet composition, nutrient and energy intake of female and male sifakas (Propithecus verreauxi) in a dry deciduous forest in western Madagascar. We examined how females adjust their diet to different …

Airborne Infectious Agents And Other Pollutants In Automobiles For Domestic Use: Potential Health Impacts And Approaches To Risk Mitigation, Syed A. Sattar, Kathryn E. Wright, Bahram Zargar, Joseph R. Rubino, M. Khalid Ijaz

Publications and Research

Theworld total of passenger cars is expected to go fromthe current one billion to >2.5 billion by 2050. Cars for domestic use account for ∼74% of the world’s yearly production ofmotorized vehicles. In North America, ∼80% of the commuters use their own car with another 5.6% travelling as passengers.With the current life-expectancy of 78.6 years, the average North American spends 4.3 years driving a car! This equates to driving 101 minutes/day with a lifetime driving distance of nearly 1.3 million km inside the confined and often shared space of the car with exposure to a mix of potentially harmful pathogens, …

Direct Current-Induced Calcium Trafficking In Different Neuronal Preparations, Andrzej Wieraszko, Zaghloul Ahmed

Publications and Research

The influence of direct current (DC) stimulation on radioactive calcium trafficking in sciatic nerve in vivo and in vitro, spinal cord, and synaptosomes was investigated. The exposure to DC enhanced calcium redistribution in all of these preparations. The effect was dependent on the strength of the stimulation and extended beyond the phase of exposure to DC. The DC-induced increase in calcium sequestration by synaptosomes was significantly reduced by cobalt and rupture of synaptosomes by osmotic shock. Although both anodal and cathodal currents were effective, the experiments with two electrodes of different areas revealed that cathodal stimulation exerted stronger effect. The …

Cooperative Stimulation Of Megakaryocytic Differentiation By Gfi1b Gene Targets Kindlin3 And Talin1, Divya Singh, Ghanshyam Upadhyay, Ananya Sengupta, Mohammed A. Biplob, Shaleen Chakyayil, Tiji George, Shireen Saleque

Publications and Research

Understanding the production and differentiation of megakaryocytes from progenitors is crucial for realizing the biology and functions of these vital cells. Previous gene ablation studies demonstrated the essential role of the transcriptional repressor Gfi1b (growth factor independence 1b) in the generation of both erythroid and megakaryocytic cells. However, our recent work has demonstrated the down-regulation of this factor during megakaryocytic differentiation. In this study we identify two new gene targets of Gfi1b, the cytoskeletal proteins Kindlin3 and Talin1, and demonstrate the inverse expression and functions of these cytoskeletal targets relative to Gfi1b, during megakaryocytic differentiation. Both kindlin3 and talin1 promoters …

The Evolution Of Line-1 In Vertebrates, Stephane Boissinot, Akash Sookdeo

Publications and Research

The abundance and diversity of the LINE-1 (L1) retrotransposon differ greatly among vertebrates. Mammalian genomes contain hundreds of thousands L1s that have accumulated since the origin of mammals. A single group of very similar elements is active at a time in mammals, thus a single lineage of active families has evolved in this group. In contrast, non-mammalian genomes (fish, amphibians, reptiles) harbor a large diversity of concurrently transposing families, which are all represented by very small number of recently inserted copies. Why the pattern of diversity and abundance of L1 is so different among vertebrates remains unknown. To address this …

Novel Adaptive Photosynthetic Characteristics Of Mesophotic Symbiotic Microalgae Within The Reef-Building Coral, Stylophora Pistillata, Shai Einbinder, David F. Gruber, Eitan Salomon, Oded Liran, Nir Keren, Dan Tchernov

Publications and Research

Photosynthetic coral reef structures extend from the shallow sundrenched waters to the dimly lit, “twilight” mesophotic depths. For their resident endosymbiotic dinoflagellates, primarily from the genus Symbiodinium spp., this represents a photic environment that varies ~15-fold in intensity and also differs in spectral composition. We examined photosynthesis in the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata in shallow (3 m) and mesophotic settings (65 m) in the northern Red Sea. Symbiodinium spp. in corals originating from the mesophotic environment consistently performed below their photosynthetic compensation point and also exhibited distinct light harvesting antenna organization. In addition, the non-photochemical quenching activity of Symbiodinium spp. …

A P-Value Model For Theoretical Power Analysis And Its Applications In Multiple Testing Procedures, Fengqing Zhang, Jiangtao Gou

Publications and Research

Background: Power analysis is a critical aspect of the design of experiments to detect an effect of a given size. When multiple hypotheses are tested simultaneously, multiplicity adjustments to p-values should be taken into account in power analysis. There are a limited number of studies on power analysis in multiple testing procedures. For some methods, the theoretical analysis is difficult and extensive numerical simulations are often needed, while other methods oversimplify the information under the alternative hypothesis. To this end, this paper aims to develop a new statistical model for power analysis in multiple testing procedures.

Methods: We propose a …

Large-Scale Off-Target Identification Using Fast And Accurate Dual Regularized One- Class Collaborative Filtering And Its Application To Drug Repurposing, Hansaim Lim, Aleksandar Poleksic, Yuan Yao, Hanghang Tong, Di He, Luke Zhuang, Patrick Meng, Lei Xie

Publications and Research

Target-based screening is one of the major approaches in drug discovery. Besides the intended target, unexpected drug off-target interactions often occur, and many of them have not been recognized and characterized. The off-target interactions can be responsible for either therapeutic or side effects. Thus, identifying the genome-wide off-targets of lead compounds or existing drugs will be critical for designing effective and safe drugs, and providing new opportunities for drug repurposing. Although many computational methods have been developed to predict drug-target interactions, they are either less accurate than the one that we are proposing here or computationally too intensive, thereby limiting …

Electro-Chemotactic Fields Induce Cooperative Movement Of Cns Cells, Shawn Mishra, Stephen Redenti, Maribel Vazquez

Publications and Research

Vision loss in adults with Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is attributed to damage of retinal photoreceptor cells that initiate vision by absorbing light. Mouse models have suggested that transplantation of precursor cells may be a novel approach to restore vision. This project uses a combination of electrotactic and chemotactic stimuli to promote and guide CNS cell migration within a microdevice model.