Digital Commons Network^™

Potyviral Genome-Linked Protein And Its Interaction With Plant Defense Ribosome Inactivating Protein From Phytolacca Americana, Artem V. Domashevskiy

Publications and Research

Agriculture is an indispensable part of every person’s life, ensuring that nutritious and inexpensive food is readily available. Agriculture continues to be confronted with epidemics, having devastating effects on economies and the plant sources essential for human and animal life. Plants and their pathogens have developed evolutionary adaptations, each shaping the other’s defence and invasive strategies. Many different plants produce toxic ribosome inactivating proteins that aid in their defence mechanisms against pathogenic invaders. Viruses must adapt to the host translational machinery, several having evolved to include viral genome-linked proteins that carry numerous viral functions. Here, we review how a potyviral …

Calling In Sick: Impacts Of Fever On Intra-Urban Human Mobility, T. Alex Perkins, Valerie A. Paz-Soldan, Steven T. Stoddard, Amy C. Morrison, Brett M. Forshey, Kanya C. Long, Eric S. Halsey, Tadeusz J. Kochel, John P. Elder, Uriel Kitron, Thomas W. Scott, Gonzalo M. Vazquez-Prokopec

Faculty Publications

© 2016 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Pathogens inflict a wide variety of disease manifestations on their hosts, yet the impacts of disease on the behaviour of infected hosts are rarely studied empirically and are seldom accounted for in mathematical models of transmission dynamics. We explored the potential impacts of one of the most common disease manifestations, fever, on a key determinant of pathogen transmission, host mobility, in residents of the Amazonian city of Iquitos, Peru. We did so by comparing two groups of febrile individuals (dengue-positive and dengue-negative) with an afebrile control group. A …

Analyzing Regime Shifts In Agent-Based Models With Equation-Free Analysis, Romina Martin, Spencer Angus Thomas

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Conventional tools to analyze regime shifts in ecosystems, e.g. stable state and bifurcation analyses, are increasingly adapted to investigate social-ecological systems. The challenge lies in combining the analysis of system dynamics with the analysis of transient dynamics emerging from adaptive and heterogeneous agents. A typical question is, to which extent do micro level interactions contribute to a macro level outcome? We demonstrate the application of a new tool, equation-free analysis, for evaluating the state space from an agent-based model (ABM) on lake restoration. By sidestepping the requirement of an equation describing a systems macroscopic behavior, equation free analysis enables system …

Chemical Transformation System: Cloud Based Cheminformatic Services To Support Integrated Environmental Modeling, Kurt Wolfe, Nicholas Pope, Rajbir Parmar, Mike Galvin, Caroline Stevens, Eric Weber, Jonathan Flaishans, Tom Purucker

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Integrated Environmental Modeling (IEM) systems that account for the fate/transport of organics frequently require physicochemical properties as well as transformation products. A myriad of chemical property databases exist but these can be difficult to access and often do not contain the proprietary chemicals that environmental regulators must consider. We are building the Chemical Transformation System (CTS) to facilitate model parameterization and analysis. CTS integrates a number of physicochemical property calculators into the system including EPI Suite, SPARC, TEST and ChemAxon. The calculators are heterogeneous in their scientific methodologies, technology implementations and deployment stacks. CTS also includes a chemical transformation processing …

A Survey On Data-Driven Decision Support Systems Using Effective Narrative Pattern, Martin Komenda, Matěj Karolyi

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Nowadays information technology assists with decision making in various fields of human activities. This paper focuses on a survey of decision support portals and systems that provide any data visualization form and reporting in the environmental research field. Generally, data outputs in environmental research are too large, and it might be difficult for the general public to be well oriented when exploring shown data sets. Therefore, it would be appropriate to guide readers, or to point out the fundamental features of the presentation. One of the effective techniques to lead the reader is data visualization storytelling. It expands exploratory data …

Are Animals Persons?, Mark Rowlands

Animal Sentience

It is orthodox to suppose that very few, if any, nonhuman animals are persons. The category “person” is restricted to self-aware creatures: humans (above a certain age) and possibly some of the great apes and cetaceans. I argue that this orthodoxy should be rejected, because it rests on a mistaken conception of the kind of self-awareness relevant to personhood. Replacing this with a sense of self-awareness that is relevant requires us to accept that personhood is much more widely distributed through the animal kingdom.

Wavelet Packet Analysis Of Amino Acid Chain Sequences In The Proteins Of Mesophile And Thermophile Bacteria, John B. Linehan

DePaul Discoveries

In this project, proteins from mesophile and thermophile bacteria with similar functions are compared. Initially it is assumed that the differences between these two bacteria are substantial to be recognized in the amino acid sequences of their proteins. These differences would then lead to the creation of a statistical measure, which would allow the classification of a protein to its corresponding bacteria. By assigning hydrophobicity values from three well-known scales, a discrete numeric signal is produced for each protein, which is analyzed using wavelet packets. The result of this method indicates that the overall hydrophobic tendencies of these two bacteria’s …

Greenhouse Gas Flux Response To Harvest Of Typha X Glauca In A Great Lakes Coastal Wetland, Olivia Johnson

DePaul Discoveries

Although harvesting invasive species can promote biodiversity during wetlands restoration, there is little known about this mechanical treatment’s impacts on greenhouse gas flux, a significant biosphere-atmosphere interaction. We quantified greenhouse gas flux response to experimental harvest of invasive cattail (Typha x glauca) at Cheboygan Marsh in Northeastern Michigan during the 2015 growing season. During each sampling campaign (July 15, July 31, August 12) we collected gas samples from static PVC chambers at 6 harvest and adjacent Typha control plots. Using gas chromatograph analysis, we found no significant difference in CH4 or CO2 flux between harvest and control plots on any …

Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Flux Of Restored Vs. Unrestored Wetlands: A Case Study At Prairie Wolf Slough, Matthew Connors, Beth Lawrence

DePaul Discoveries

Wetlands provide ecological services such as cleansing the water supply, sequestering carbon, and providing habitat for wildlife, however wetland restoration often alters the greenhouse gas flux of the site. Our study aims to investigate the effects of wetland restoration on greenhouse gas flux at Prairie Wolf Slough. We did this by comparing greenhouse gas flux on matching hydric soil series from the restored wetland with an adjacent abandoned agricultural field. We measured known controls of greenhouse gas flux such as soil moisture and soil temperature. We found that there was no detectable methane and nitrous oxide flux at either site, …

Combinatory Effect Of Changing Co2, Temperature, And Long-Term Growth Temperature On Isoprene Emissions, Michael Cole

DePaul Discoveries

Isoprene, the most abundant hydrocarbon in the atmosphere, plays a significant role in atmospheric chemistry. Its reactions with NO_x lead to the formation of ozone in the lower troposphere, which is harmful to plants and detrimental to human health. As air temperatures and CO₂ concentrations increase with climate change, it is uncertain how isoprene emissions from plants will respond. We hypothesized that isoprene emissions will increase with the combination of increasing temperature and CO­₂ concentrations. We predict that oaks grown at a higher temperature will exhibit an increase in isoprene emissions with combined short-term increases in temperature …

Implications Of Manipulations Of Soil Quality On The Growth Of European Buckthorn (Rhamnus Cathartica) In A Greenhouse, Sam L. Pepper, Liam Heneghan

DePaul Discoveries

European buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica L.) is an invasive shrub that is capable of changing the nitrogen content of a soil through the deposition of its nitrogen rich leaf litter. This change creates conditions that may favor recolonizing by buckthorn and negatively affect the growth of native plants. In this greenhouse experiment, we examined the effect of altering soil quality by adding mulch comprised of buckthorn wood on above and belowground biomass, stem length and leaf production of buckthorn saplings. We found that buckthorn saplings planted in buckthorn mulch had reduced stem length and leaf production compared to growth in …

Comparison Of Soil Phosphorus Concentration In Farm Restored And Reference Wetlands In Lake County, Il, Catherine L. Pease

DePaul Discoveries

The soil in the Midwest is fertile for agriculture use and therefore a lot of the wetlands have been turned into farmland. Wetlands can act as a sink for excess nutrients such as phosphorus. In part due to their value for nutrient storage, restoration of wetlands has become more frequent, including restoration of wetlands on former farmland. I am interested in phosphorus and the potential of wetlands to either store or release phosphorus. I compared differences in soil reactive phosphorus of restored and reference wetlands. This study compares Prairie Wolf Slough (PWS), a restored wetland, to two reference wetlands, both …

Decomposition Of Horse Manure (As A Surrogate For Human Feces) In Three Soil Media And The Implications Of Manure Leachate For The Germination Of Radish Seeds, Edwin J. Castaneda, Caitlin Vaughn

DePaul Discoveries

In this microcosm study we examined the decomposition of horse manure in three substrates: potting soil, wood mulch, and sand. Microcosms consisted of a sample of horse manure placed in a small leachable chamber, containing one of the three substrates. Mulch promoted the greatest mass loss. Leachate collected by irrigating each microcosm with distilled water was used to germinate radish seeds. Only the leachate from microcosms in which manure decomposed in potting soil promoted greater radish radicle growth compared to the controls in which no manure was placed. The implications of these results for the design of a soil-based decomposing …

Host-Parasite Relationships Between The Copepod Naobranchia Lizae And Its Host (Striped Mullet, Mugil Cephalus): A Description Of Morphological Development, Sara R. Teemer

DePaul Discoveries

The parasitic copepod, Naobranchia lizae, is often found within the gill arches of the striped mullet, Mugil cephalus, in the Charleston Harbor Estuarine System of South Carolina. The parasite is relatively common, but little is known about its early stages of development. In order to describe the developmental stages and pattern of morphological development, 221 female N. lizae that were collected between February 2002 and May 2003 were used. Using variation in morphological characters (maxilla, trunk), these parasites were assigned to developmental stages (juvenile, subadult, adult). A small number of the males (three ‘dwarf’ males) were also found …

The Correlation Between Basal Isoprene Emissions And Climate Of The Native Range Across Oak Species, Mary J. Babiez

DePaul Discoveries

Isoprene is a biogenic volatile organic compound that is emitted by various plant species and plays an important role in the chemistry of the atmosphere. When it reacts with pollutants in the air, such as nitrogen oxides, the precursor to ozone (O₃) is formed. In this experiment, we measured leaf emissions from 20 different oak species at the Morton Arboretum (Lisle, Illinois). The aim was to better understand differences in isoprene emissions across oak species. Since emissions have been found to protect leaves against brief periods of heat stress, we hypothesized that oaks native to areas with greater …

Motivation For Change In Heroin And Opiate Users, Andrew W. Peterson, Sarah Callahan, Leonard A. Jason

DePaul Discoveries

Opioid and heroin abuse is a continuing problem in the United States that has been increasing dramatically since 2000. Common treatment programs tend to use methadone and behavioral therapies that do not focus on motivational factors despite the research suggesting it is an important element to treatment retention and sustained abstinence. Motivation for the purposes of this study is defined as an individual’s inner reasons for change. The current study focused on differences in motivation for change among different substance abusers. We found that opiate and heroin abusers had higher motivational scores in comparison to other substance abusers. These results …

Serendipitous Discovery Of A New Method For The Catalytic Synthesis Of Indole-Fused Benzazepanes, Edward Gluzman, Paul A. Vadola

DePaul Discoveries

We report here on our investigations into the application of 1,5-hydride transfer cyclization mechanisms to the synthesis of 2,3-disubstituted benzofurans and indoles. We found that PtI₄ in MeCN at 120 ºC was indeed capable of activating the alkyne, however, the expected 2,3-disubstituted indole product was not observed. Instead we isolated an indolyl-3-benzazepane via an unexpected intramolecular Steven’s rearrangement/ring expansion. While this transformation has been previously reported our method may prove to have increased substrate scope and more practical reaction conditions. Further studies are underway to optimize the reaction conditions and to fully explore the scope and mechanism of the …

Indexmed Projects: New Tools Using The Cigesmed Database On Coralligenous For Indexing, Visualizing And Data Mining Based On Graphs, Romain David, Jean-Pierre Féral, Anne-Sophie Archambeau, Nicolas Bailly, Cyrille Blanpain, Vincent Breton, Aurélien De Jode, Aurélie Delavaud, Alrick Dias, Sophie Gachet, Dorian Guillemain, Julien Lecubin, Geneviève Romier, Christian Surace, Laure Thierry De Ville D’Avray, Christos Arvanitidis, Anne Chenuil, Melih Ertan Ҫinar, Drosos Koutsoubas, Stéphane Sartoretto, Thierry Tatoni

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Data produced by the SeasEra CIGESMED project (Coralligenous based Indicators to evaluate and monitor the "Good Environmental Status" of the MEDiterranean coastal waters) have a high potential to be used by several stakeholders involved in environmental management. A new consortium called IndexMed whose task is to index Mediterranean biodiversity data, makes it possible to build graphs in order to analyse the CIGESMED data and develop new ways for data mining of coralligenous data. This paper presents the prototypes under development that test the ability of graphs dataBases and tools to connect biodiversity objects with non-centralized data. This project explores the …

In Situ Data Visualization Of Acme Land Model Simulations, Yu Pei, Benjamin Hernandez, Dali Wang, Brian Smith, Scott Atchley, Fengming Yuan, Chad Steed

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

With the ever increasing precision and complexity of various environmental models, writing large volumes of [email protected] to disk for post-processing becomes a huge bottleneck, and simulation modules diagnostic and tracking become difficult for scientists as well. In this paper, we propose a loosely coupled in situ visualization framework to address these problems when working with a representative land model within the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME). ACME land model (ALM) simulates energy, water, carbon nitrogen fluxes and state variables for various land surfaces. Loosely coupled in situ framework means simulation and visualization communicate through network, while tightly coupled means …

Location, Identification, And Low Complexity Tracking Algorithms With An Image Compression Strategy For A Long Term Multi-Tracking Application, Ramon Reig-Bolaño, Pere Marti-Puig, Moisès Serra-Serra

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A biological experiment that requires a continuous tracking of a group of 10 to 20 fish specimens was designed to obtain empirical data to estimate biological energy models from specimen’s activity. The surface in which specimens can move is enormous (2,5m x 5m) in comparison to the sizes of the individuals and it is mandatory to work with high resolution images in order to cover all the area. Furthermore, as each experiment must work uninterruptedly during fifteen days the cost of storing and post-processing all the generated information in its rough form is prohibitive, incurring into a big data problem. …

Group-Based Crop Change Planning: Application Of Smartscapetm Spatial Decision Support System For Resolving Conflicts, Amin Tayyebi, Jamal J. Arsanjani, Amir H. Tayyebi, Hichem Omrani, Hossein S. Moghadam

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agricultural changes are complex and managing an appropriate type of crop change to satisfy stakeholders with various interests is challenging. Decisions regarding a crop change need to be debated among multiple stakeholders with various conflicting viewpoints. Two kinds of conflicts might occur as a result of crop change in an agricultural landscape: 1) conflicts among multiple ecosystem services i.e., internal conflicts and 2) conflicts among multiple stakeholders i.e., external conflicts. In this study, we held a series of meetings with stakeholders, who were experts in economics, energy, soil erosion, greenhouse gas emission, surface water, and biodiversity, to develop two crop …

One Dimensional Riverine Water Quality Modeling System (Hec-Ras/Nsm), Billy E. Johnson, Zhonglong Zhang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The transport of nutrients from watersheds to aquatic resources (streams and rivers, lakes and reservoirs, and coastal zones) directly influences their environmental quality and ecosystem. While this is a natural process, excessive inputs from anthropogenic sources (e.g., intensive agriculture) can exceed the assimilative capacity and resilience of aquatic ecosystems. The result is accelerated rates of eutrophication and destabilized ecological communities susceptible to the establishment of invasive species or to changes in food web structure, loss of valuable habitat, threats to human health, and reduced economic and societal benefits. As part of the Ecosystem Management and Restoration Research Program (EMRRP), a …

Number Of Patterns In Lempel-Ziv Algorithm Applied To Iterative Maps And Measured Time Series, G. Mimić, I. Arsenić, D. T. Mihailović

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Some tests with information measure based on Kolmogorov complexity, using Lempel-Ziv algorithm, were performed. Information measure, which indicates randomness, was applied on the modeled and measured time series. The logistic map iterations were used as the modeled time series and the measurements of velocity data from the turbulent flow collected in a laboratory channel, were used as the measured one. The complexity counter, indicating the number of distinct patterns in the time series, was computed. An analysis has shown that the number of patterns in the measured time series is increasing with the time series length, but having a saturation …

An Experimental Comparison Of Methods To Handle Missing Values In Environmental Datasets, A. D. Maldonado, P. A. Aguilera, A. Salmeron

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper reports on a comparison of different techniques to handle missing data in a real environmental dataset containing missing values. In particular, we handled a dataset related to a surface water quality index. The chosen techniques were regression imputation by linear regression, a model tree and a Bayesian network; multiple imputation by chained equations; and data augmentation by a Bayesian network. The models were tested by analyzing the predictive maps and by comparing the density function of the predicted variable with the observed one. The experimental results showed that the imputation by linear regression and the multiple imputation by …

Design Of The Data Sensor Pre-Processing Stage For A Long Term Multi-Tracking Application, Pere Martí-Puig, Ramon Reig-Bolaño, Moisès Serra-Serra

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This paper presents a design strategy for an underwater computer vision data system and its pre-processing stage with the purpose of long-term fish behavior monitoring in a controlled environment. The biological experiment requires the continuous tracking of a group of fishes (of 10 to 20 specimens) in a prepared installation located in the Science Marine Laboratory in Mallorca. The experiment is thought to obtain empirical data to estimate biological energy models from specimen’s activity. In consequence it is required to identify and track each individual in the images, which supposes an important image processing effort. Our approach takes advantage from …

Structural Analysis And Form-Finding Of Mycelium-Based Monolithic Domes, Riccardo Andrea Baricci

Open Access Theses

As sustainability becomes an integral design driver for current civil structures, new materials and forms are investigated. The aim of this study is to investigate analytically and numerically the mechanical behavior of monolithic domes composed of mycological fungi. The study focuses on hemispherical and elliptical forms, as the most typical solution for domes. The influence of different types of loading, geometrical parameters, material properties and boundary conditions is investigated in this study. For the cases covered by the classical shell theory, a comparison between the analytical and the finite element solution is given. Two case studies regarding the dome of …

Student-Athletes Score With Medical School Acceptance, Sarah Gardner, Dave Albee

Press Releases

Ian Lancaster ’14 and Jordan Rode ’14 both came to Dominican at the same time as soccer players and Biological Sciences majors, formed a strong friendship, and this fall they will at the same time both enter medical school.

Effects Of Quercetin On Blood Pressure: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Randomized Controlled Trials, Maria-Corina Serban, Alberto Zanchetti, George Howard, Diana Antal, Wilbert S. Aronow, Lipid And Blood Pressure Meta-Analysis Collaboration (Lbpmc) Group

NYMC Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Quercetin, the most abundant dietary flavonol, has antioxidant effects in cardiovascular disease, but the evidence regarding its effects on blood pressure (BP) has not been conclusive. We assessed the impact of quercetin on BP through a systematic review and meta-analysis of available randomized controlled trials.

METHODS AND RESULTS: We searched PUBMED, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and EMBASE up to January 31, 2015 to identify placebo-controlled randomized controlled trials investigating the effect of quercetin on BP. Meta-analysis was performed using either a fixed-effects or random-effect model according to I(2) statistic. Effect size was expressed as weighted mean difference (WMD) and 95% …

Experimental Data Extraction And In Silico Prediction Of The Estrogenic Activity Of Renewable Replacements For Bisphenol A., Huixiao Hong, Benjamin G Harvey, Giuseppe R Palmese, Joseph F. Stanzione Iii, Hui Wen Ng, Sugunadevi Sakkiah, Weida Tong, Joshua M Sadler

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a ubiquitous compound used in polymer manufacturing for a wide array of applications; however, increasing evidence has shown that BPA causes significant endocrine disruption and this has raised public concerns over safety and exposure limits. The use of renewable materials as polymer feedstocks provides an opportunity to develop replacement compounds for BPA that are sustainable and exhibit unique properties due to their diverse structures. As new bio-based materials are developed and tested, it is important to consider the impacts of both monomers and polymers on human health. Molecular docking simulations using the Estrogenic Activity Database in …

30 Arts & Sciences Faculty Awarded Promotions, Ohio University College Of Arts & Sciences

All Forum Articles

No abstract provided.