Digital Commons Network^™

Conscious Identity Performance, Leslie P. Culver

San Diego Law Review

Marginalized groups in the legal profession sometimes feel pressure to perform strategies to communicate their identity in a predominantly white legal profession. Relevant legal scholarship describes this phenomenon, for example, in terms such as covering and passing—largely forms of assimilation. The notion is that outsiders—women, people of color, LGBTQ—use these strategies to communicate with insiders—white, heterosexual, males—in ways designed to advance their status in the legal profession. This article expands on that scholarship by drawing on a theoretical framework that legal scholars have largely ignored: co-cultural theory. This interdisciplinary theory describes how non-dominant cultures communicate in a dominant society. In …

Representational Fluidity In Embodied (Artificial) Cognition, D Windridge, S Thill

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Theories of embodied cognition agree that the body plays some role in human cognition, but disagree on the precise nature of this role. While it is (together with the environment) fundamentally engrained in the so-called 4E (or multi-E) cognition stance, there also exists interpretations wherein the body is merely an input/output interface for cognitive processes that are entirely computational. In the present paper, we show that even if one takes such a strong computationalist position, the role of the body must be more than an interface to the world. To achieve human cognition, the computational mechanisms of a cognitive agent …

Determination Of Kinetic Parameters And Metabolic Modes Using The Chemostat, R Boden, L Hutt

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.

A Control Architecture With Online Predictive Planning For Position And Torque Controlled Walking Of Humanoid Robots, S Dafarra, G Nava, M Charbonneau, N Guedelha, Et Al

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

A common approach to the generation of walking patterns for humanoid robots consists in adopting a layered control architecture. This paper proposes an architecture composed of three nested control loops. The outer loop exploits a robot kinematic model to plan the footstep positions. In the mid layer, a predictive controller generates a Center of Mass trajectory according to the well-known table-cart model. Through a whole-body inverse kinematics algorithm, we can define joint references for position controlled walking. The outcomes of these two loops are then interpreted as inputs of a stack-of-task QP-based torque controller, which represents the inner loop of …

Can Transplanting Enhance Mobile Marine Invertebrates In Ecologically Engineered Rock Pools?, Rl Morris, As Martinez, Lb Firth, Ra Coleman

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd The field of eco-engineering has burgeoned in recent years in response to the proliferation of artificial structures. Adding water-retaining features to seawalls has been successful in increasing biodiversity relative to the surrounding structure. Artificial rock pools may not, however, completely mimic natural rock pools. Here, we compared natural colonisation, through dispersal and recruitment, of intertidal mobile species to water-retaining flowerpots on seawalls with that into rock pools. This represents the more usual ‘passive’ approach to eco-engineering where features are built to enhance biodiversity and are allowed to colonise naturally, as opposed to seeding or transplanting organisms …

Marine Plastics Threaten Giant Atlantic Marine Protected Areas, Dka Barnes, Sa Morley, J Bell, P Brewin, Et Al

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

There has been a recent shift in global perception of plastics in the environment, resulting in a call for greater action. Science and the popular media have highlighted plastic as an increasing stressor [1,2]. Efforts have been made to confer protected status to some remote locations, forming some of the world's largest Marine Protected Areas, including several UK overseas territories. We assessed plastic at these remote Atlantic Marine Protected Areas, surveying the shore, sea surface, water column and seabed, and found drastic changes from 2013-2018. Working from the RRS James Clark Ross at Ascension, St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha, Gough …

Theobromine And Related Methylxanthines As Inhibitors Of Primary Amine Oxidase, Padraig Shanahan, Jeffrey O’Sullivan, Keith Tipton, Gemma Kinsella, Barry Ryan, Gary Henehan

Articles

Methylxanthines are the most widely consumed drugs in the world and evidence of their health benefits has been growing in recent years. Primary Amine Oxidase (PrAO) has been recognised as a therapeutic target for amelioration of inflammatory, vascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Previous work in our laboratories showed that caffeine inhibited Bovine PrAO with a Ki of 1.0mM using benzylamine as substrate.

This study aimed to extend our previous work and explore the possibility that related methylxanthines might influence PrAO activity. While paraxanthine, theophylline and 7-methylxanthine had little effect on PrAO, theobromine was a noncompetitive inhibitor with a Ki of 276±44µM. …

The Role Of Alkalinity In Setting Water Quality Metrics: Phosphorus Standards In United Kingdom Rivers., Alan D. Tappin, Alba Navarro-Rodriguez, S. D.W. Comber, Paul J. Worsfold

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

UK implementation of the European Union Water Framework Directive (for the 2015-2021 cycle) Ecological Status (ES) classification for river phosphorus is based on the calculation of reference conditions for reactive phosphorus (RP) using river alkalinity measurements. Underpinning this approach is that the alkalinity is primarily from rock weathering and is free of anthropogenic influences. However, the potential contribution of anthropogenic alkalinity needs to be considered and, if possible, quantified. In the rural South West River Basin District of England, 38 river sites were examined with respect to river alkalinity loads in order to test this consideration. At river base flow …

The Importance Of Evaluating Long-Term Impacts: Utah Master Naturalist Program As A Case Study, Mark Larese-Casanova

Journal of Extension

Understanding long-term impacts is essential to knowing whether an Extension program is achieving its goals. I describe a process for long-term program evaluation, using evaluation of the Utah Master Naturalist Program (UMNP) as a successful example. Surveys revealed that the UMNP had impacts on participants up to 10 years after program completion. The UMNP is achieving its goal of promoting stewardship through fostering a deeper connection to nature, encouraging lifelong learning, increasing stewardship feelings and activities, and providing effective professional development. Further long-term evaluation efforts will focus on quantifying behavior change. Overall, the UMNP evaluation process and results underscore the …

The Influence Of Acculturation Level And Family Relationships On Quality Of Life Among U.S. Chinese Older Adults, Yiwei Chen, Yisheng Peng, Minzhi Ye, Ling Xu, Xinqi Dong

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

The present study examined the influence of acculturation level and family relationships (i.e., positive family support and negative family strain) on quality of life (QOL), using the data from the Population Study of ChINese Elderly (PINE) in Chicago (N = 3159). Controlling for sociodemographic variables and health status, it was found that individuals’ acculturation level and positive family support were positively related to QOL, whereas negative family strain was negatively associated with QOL. More importantly, higher acculturation levels were associated with increased protective effects of positive family support and reduced risk effects of negative family strain on QOL among …

Development Of Bioactive Peptidomimetics, Fengyu She

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peptidomimetics are synthetic foldamers that expected more resistant to proteolytic degradation and enormous chemodiversity when compared with peptides. To date, the functional peptidomimetics such as β-peptides, peptoids, oligoureas, etc have been developed in many science fields. In order to explore the unnatural foldameric architectures, it’s necessary to discover the novel frameworks and molecular scaffolds. γ-AApeptides were reported to be a new class of peptidomimetics that showed its potential applications in drug discovery and chemical biology. However, a wide function and property of γ-AApeptides need to be further explored. To expand the potential application of γ-AApeptides in biochemistry, I have been …

Putting Rooted Networks Into Practice, Alida Cantor, Elizabeth A. Stoddard, Dianne Rocheleau, Jennifer F. Brewer, Robin Roth, Trevor Birkenholtz, Katherine Foo, Padini Nirmal

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Rooted networks provide a conceptual framework that embeds network thinking in nature-society geography in order to investigate socio-ecological relations, while emphasizing the place-specific materiality of these relations. This progress report examines how geographers have put the framework into scholarly practice. The conceptual approach has enabled researchers to: 1) articulate the territoriality and materiality of networks as assemblages, which may be simultaneously rooted and mobile; 2) discern diverse types of power that flow through network connections; and 3) conduct analyses that unearth multiply-situated knowledges within networks. Challenges emerge as we seek to integrate the approach more fully with disciplinary traditions, including …

Patterns And Drivers Of Recent Disturbances Across The Temperate Forest Biome, Andreas Sommerfeld, Cornelius Senf, Brian Buma, Anthony W. D'Amato, Tiphaine Despres, Ignacio Díaz-Hormazábal, Shawn Fraver, Lee E. Frelich, Alvaro G. Gutiérrez, Sarah J. Hart, Brian J. Harvey, Hong S. He, Tomáš Hlásny, Andrés Holz, Multiple Additional Authors

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Increasing evidence indicates that forest disturbances are changing in response to global change, yet local variability in disturbance remains high. We quantified this considerable variability and analyzed whether recent disturbance episodes around the globe were consistently driven by climate, and if human influence modulates patterns of forest disturbance. We combined remote sensing data on recent (2001–2014) disturbances with in-depth local information for 50 protected landscapes and their surroundings across the temperate biome. Disturbance patterns are highly variable, and shaped by variation in disturbance agents and traits of prevailing tree species. However, high disturbance activity is consistently linked to warmer and …

Unnatural Voluntary Parentage Acknowledgments Under The 2017 Uniform Parentage Act, Jeffrey A. Parness

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

The 2017 Uniform Parentage Act expands the opportunities for formal parentage establishments via voluntary acknowledgements (VAPs) by intended parents with no natural ties to their acknowledged children. This constitutes a significant departure from earlier UPAs which limited VAPs to acknowledging parents with actual or alleged natural ties, which were in line with the approach to VAPs under the federal Social Security Act since the mid-1990s and with most American state statutes on VAPs. This article urges that the UPA continue to recognize VAPs only where acknowledgements by non-birth mothers include pronouncements of actual or alleged natural ties. It agrees VAPs …

Epidemiology Of Moderate Alcohol Consumption And Breast Cancer: Association Or Causation?, Samir Zakhari, Jan B. Hoek

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Epidemiological studies have been used to show associations between modifiable lifestyle habits and the incidence of breast cancer. Among such factors, a history of alcohol use has been reported in multiple studies and meta-analyses over the past decades. However, associative epidemiological studies that were interpreted as evidence that even moderate alcohol consumption increases breast cancer incidence have been controversial. In this review, we consider the literature on the relationship between moderate or heavy alcohol use, both in possible biological mechanisms and in variations in susceptibility due to genetic or epigenetic factors. We argue that there is a need to incorporate …

Effects Of Mismanaged Condensed Project Life Cycles In The U.S. Consumer Ready Meat Industry, John E. Johnson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Projects have been undertaken by the United States (U.S.) consumer ready meat industry to advance strategic objectives and provide consumers with desired food products. The management of the projects’ industry life cycles was impacted by diverse consumer groups’ continual demands for new and varied products. The problem addressed was the inefficient management of projects’ costs, scopes, and deliverables because of the shortened projects’ life cycles for consumer ready processing lines in the U.S. meat industry. The purpose of this study was to explore the effects inefficient management of condensed project life cycles had on stakeholders and deliverables. This study used …

The Relationship Between Test Of Essential Academic Skills And Nursing Final Course Grades For Sophomore Students In A Residential, Undergraduate, Pre-Licensure Bachelor Of Science Nursing Program, Tracey Milton Turner

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In light of the national nursing shortage, there is a heightened need to admit students to schools of nursing who are likely to persist through graduation. The purpose of this quantitative predictive correlational study was to determine if Test of Essential Academic Skills (TEAS) subscale testing scores could predict the final course grade in a fundamentals of nursing course for sophomore students in a residential, undergraduate, pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in nursing (BSN) program at a private university. Archival data consisting of information related to sophomore, residential, undergraduate, pre-licensure BSN students at a private university during the 2015-2016, 2016-2017, and …

A Culturally Relevant Opening Weeks Curriculum: Seeking To Engage All Students To Succeed In The Middle School Science Classroom, Altringer Nicholas

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was How can a culturally relevant opening weeks unit help all students to succeed in the middle school science classroom? Topics explored in the literature review include challenges, themes, engagement of all students, gaps between students of color and their white peers, students of color and disproportionality trends in discipline, youth positions as hip-hop or survival mode, social construction of black inferiority, curriculum as windows and mirror, culturally responsive classroom management, using citizen science and student-driven investigation, restorative practices and restorative circles in the science classroom, shared responsibility for the classroom community, and …

Why Is Invasive Species Education Important, Alexandra Crofts

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This research question addressed the importance of invasive species education in the Midwest Great Lakes Regions. Invasive species threaten most ecosystems around the world and can lead to decreasing biodiversity and even the extinction of native species. Humans are one of the largest vectors responsible for the transportation of invasive species. This research focused on providing evidence of the negative impact aquatic invasive species can have on native fish populations. Fish population data was collected using gill nets in the East Metro Area of the Twin Cities in Minnesota in the 2018 field season. This data was compared to Minnesota’s …

Memorization And Mastery: Teaching Disciplinary Vocabulary In The Secondary Classroom, Matthew Granoff

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

This capstone posed the question, how can disciplinary vocabulary best be taught in a secondary classroom? As little direct research had previously been conducted on that topic, this curriculum design project drew from work in a variety of connected fields, such as the science of memory, second language acquisition and effective assessment practices and study habits, to create an original structure for instruction. Designed to complement rather than replace existing units, this capstone offers not a set of specific lessons but a set of detailed guidelines (grounded in theories such as depth of processing and the "testing effect") which can …

Sexually Dimorphic Regulation Of Eet Synthesis And Metabolism: Roles Of Estrogen, An Huang, Dong Sun

NYMC Faculty Publications

Epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs) are metabolites of arachidonic acid via cytochrome P450 (CYP)/epoxygenase and are hydrolyzed by soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH). Circulating and tissue levels of EETs are controlled by CYP (EET synthesis) and sEH (EET degradation). Therefore, both increases in CYP activity and decreases in sEH expression potentiate EET bioavailability, responses that prevail in the female sex as a function of estrogen. This mini review, based on subtitles listed, briefly summarizes studies focusing specifically on (1) female-specific potentiation of CYP/epoxygenase activity to compensate for the endothelial dysfunction; and (2) estrogen-dependent downregulation of sEH expression, which yields divergent actions in both …

Fall 2018 Gsbms Alumni Connections, New York Medical College

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

• GSBMS Launches New M.S. in Clinical Laboratory Sciences Program
• Graduate School of Basic Medical Sciences and School of Medicine Forge New Agreement
• College Supporters Gather for a Festive Evening at the Founder's Dinner
• NYMC Welcomes Bess J. Chazhur, M.S., as Chief Development Officer and Executive Director of Alumni Relations
• NYMC Hosts Fourth Annual East-West Integrative Medical Symposium for Immunology and Wellness
• GSBMS Hosts Largest STAR Program to Date
• GSBMS Kicks Off New Academic Year
• Department of Pharmacology Hosts Talk by Regeneron Executive

Impact Of Pre-Existing Treatment With Statins On The Course And Outcome Of Tick-Borne Encephalitis, Petra Bogovic, Lara Lusa, Dasa Stupica, Tereza Rojko, Misa Korva, Gary P. Wormser, Franc Strle

NYMC Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVES: Although statins have anti-inflammatory and potentially also antimicrobial (including antiviral) activity, their therapeutic impact on infectious diseases is controversial. In this study, we evaluated whether pre-existing statin use influenced the course and outcome of tick-borne encephalitis. METHODS: To assess the influence of statin usage on the severity of acute illness and the outcome of tick-borne encephalitis, univariate and multivariable analyses were performed for 700 adult patients with tick-borne encephalitis of whom 77 (11%) were being treated with statins, and for 410 patients of whom 53 (13%) were receiving statins, respectively. RESULTS: Multivariable analyses found no statistically significant association between …

Cystamine And Cysteamine As Inhibitors Of Transglutaminases In Vivo, Thomas M. Jeitner, John T. Pinto, Arthur J. L. Cooper

NYMC Faculty Publications

Cystamine is commonly used as a transglutaminase inhibitor. This disulfide undergoes reduction in vivo to the aminothiol compound, cysteamine. Thus, the mechanism by which cystamine inhibits transglutaminase activity in vivo could be due to either cystamine or cysteamine, which depends on the local redox environment. Cystamine inactivates transglutaminases by promoting the oxidation of two vicinal cysteine residues on the enzyme to an allosteric disulfide, whereas cysteamine acts as a competitive inhibitor for transamidation reaction catalyzed by this enzyme. The latter mechanism is likely to result in the formation of a unique biomarker, N -(gamma-glutamyl)cysteamine that could serve to indicate how …

Ethanol Enhances Estrogen Mediated Angiogenesis In Breast Cancer, Rachana Maniyar, Sanjukta Chakraborty, Robert Suriano

NYMC Faculty Publications

Angiogenesis, a highly regulated process, is exploited by tumors like breast cancer to ensure a constant supply of oxygen and nutrients and is key for tumor survival and progression. Estrogen and alcohol independently have been observed to contribute to angiogenesis in breast cancer but their combinatorial effects have never been evaluated. The exact mechanism by which estrogen and alcohol contribute to breast cancer angiogenesis remains to be elucidated. In this study, we defined the in vitro effects of the combination of estrogen and alcohol in breast cancer angiogenesis using the tubulogenesis and scratch wound assays. Conditioned media, generated by culturing …

Uv-Based Advanced Oxidation Of P22 Bacteriophage And E. Coli Bacteria, Vincent Martino

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Two novel, sustainable UV-LED advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) were evaluated for their ability to improve inactivation efficacy of P22 bacteriophage and E. coli bacteria. The first objective of this research was to determine the treatment efficacy of P22 bacteriophage and E. coli bacteria using UV-LED at wavelengths of 255, 265, and 285 nm. The UV-LED system demonstrated high inactivation potential for both contaminants at all wavelengths, suggesting it could be a potential alternative to typical low-pressure and medium-pressure mercury-based UV systems. Increased inactivation of both microorganisms was observed with decreasing wavelength (255>265>285 nm). As the peak UV absorbance …

Associations Between Environmental Quality And Infant Mortality In The United States, 2000–2005, Achal P. Patel, Jyotsna S. Jagai, Lynne C. Messer, Christine L. Gray, Kristen M. Rappazzo

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The United States (U.S.) suffers from high infant mortality (IM) rates and there are significant racial/ethnic differences in these rates. Prior studies on the environment and infant mortality are generally limited to singular exposures. We utilize the Environmental Quality Index (EQI), a measure of cumulative environmental exposure (across air, water, land, sociodemographic, and land domains) for U.S. counties from 2000 to 2005, to investigate associations between ambient environment and IM across maternal race/ethnicity.

Methods: We linked 2000–2005 infant data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the EQI (n = 22,702,529; 144,741 deaths). We utilized multi-level …

Developmental Chromatin Restriction Of Pro‐Growth Gene Networks Acts As An Epigenetic Barrier To Axon Regeneration In Cortical Neurons, Ishwariya Venkatesh, Vatsal Mehra, Zimei Wang, Ben Califf, Murray G. Blackmore

Biomedical Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Axon regeneration in the central nervous system is prevented in part by a developmental decline in the intrinsic regenerative ability of maturing neurons. This loss of axon growth ability likely reflects widespread changes in gene expression, but the mechanisms that drive this shift remain unclear. Chromatin accessibility has emerged as a key regulatory mechanism in other cellular contexts, raising the possibility that chromatin structure may contribute to the age‐dependent loss of regenerative potential. Here we establish an integrated bioinformatic pipeline that combines analysis of developmentally dynamic gene networks with transcription factor regulation and genome‐wide maps of chromatin accessibility. When applied …

Regeneration Of Neurotransmission Transcriptome In A Model Of Epileptic Encephalopathy After Antiinflammatory Treatment, Dumitru Iacobas, Libor Velisek

NYMC Faculty Publications

Inflammation is an established etiopathogenesis factor of infantile spasms (IS), a therapy-resistant epileptic syndrome of infancy. We investigated the IS-associated transcriptomic alterations of neurotransmission in rat hypothalamic arcuate nucleus, how they are corrected by antiinflamatory treatments and whether there are sex differences. IS was triggered by repeated intraperitoneal administration of N-methyl-D-aspartic acid following anti-inflammatory treatment (adreno-cortico-tropic-hormone (ACTH) or PMX53) or normal saline vehicle to prenatally exposed to betamethasone young rats. We found that treatments with both ACTH and PMX53 resulted in substantial recovery of the genomic fabrics of all types of synaptic transmission altered by IS. While ACTH represents the …

The Influence Of Tissue Plasminogen Activator I/D Polymorphism On The Tpa Response To Exercise, Adam M. Coughlin

International Journal of Exercise Science

International Journal of Exercise Science 11(3): 1136-1144, 2018. The purpose was to determine if the Alu-insertion (I)/deletion (D) polymorphism of the tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) gene influences the tPA response to maximal exercise. Fifty male subjects (age = 23.6 ± 4.7 yrs) completed a maximal treadmill exercise test. Blood samples were drawn before and immediately after exercise for determination of plasma tPA antigen and activity. Isolated DNA was amplified via polymerase chain reaction, electrophoresed, and visually amplified to determine tPA genotype. Subjects were classified as possessing the D allele (D) (n = 28) or being homozygous for the I allele …