Digital Commons Network^™

Review Of Receptacle Of The Sacred: Illustrated Manuscripts And The Buddhist Book Cult In South Asia By Jinah Kim., Alexander James O’Neill

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

No abstract provided.

Review Of Mapping Shangrila: Contested Landscapes In The Sino-Tibetan Borderlands Edited By Emily T. Yeh And Chris Coggins., Elsie Love

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

No abstract provided.

2018 Annual Meeting Of The American Academy Of Religion, Eric Haynie

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Conference Report on the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion.

Artemisinin: From Chinese Herbal Medicine To Modern Chemotherapy, Anthony Butler

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Malaria is a disease that has blighted humankind since early times. The first antimalarial treatment available to Europeans was the dried bark of the cinchona tree from Peru. The main problem in its use was adulteration by other material. The ‘active principle’ was first extracted in 1820 and named quinine. It was found to be a more powerful and reliable drug than cinchona bark. Once its chemical structure had been determined, it was possible to synthesize substances chemically related to quinine that were equally powerful but could be manufactured industrially. Mepacrine (atabrine) was amongst the most successful, but had adverse …

Challenging The Biomedical Notion Of ‘Active Substance’: The Botanical Plasticity Of Tibetan Medical Formulas, Herbert Schwabl, Jan M. A. Van Der Valk

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Sowa Rigpa (Tibetan medicine) has been practiced across vast regions of Central and South Asia for centuries. In this medical tradition, it is common practice to dynamically adapt the mainly herbal formulas according to the regional flora and local conditions, and to use local variants of ingredients. Consequently, one Tibetan ingredient name within a specific formula can signify a variety of therapeutically fitting botanical items, which appear quite different from the perspective of modern taxonomy. This has led many researchers to understand the botanical plasticity of Tibetan medical formulas as misidentifications. We develop an alternative approach, exploring the advantages of …

Conceptions Of Potency, Purity, And Synergy-By-Design: Toward Developing A Sowa Rigpa Medical Theory-Based Approach To Pharmaceutical Research, Tawni L. Tidwell, James H. Nettles

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Sowa Rigpa institutions and practitioners have growing interest in examining and legitimizing Sowa Rigpa formulas vis-à-vis pharmacological research methods, seeking scientific validation of what they view as ‘potency’ and ‘purity’ for their formulas. Likewise, the pharmacology researchers have demonstrated renewed interest in herbal medical traditions in mining for new drugs to address resistance, toxicity, and optimize what they view as ‘potency’ and ‘purity.’ However, differing conceptualizations emerge when the pharmacological drug discovery process is examined to determine what is being analyzed, how it is doing so, and what assumptions underlie such methods. Whether a formula is ‘active,’ ‘toxic’ or ‘effective’ …

Gold Ash: Contested Yet Immortal, The Exceptional Potency Of Burmese Alchemy, Céline Coderey

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

‘Gold ash’ (shway pya), a substance Burmese alchemists produce through a complex process of the combination and burning of metals, is considered by many Burmese as the most potent medical ingredient existing in the country. In this article, I explore the factors underpinning its exceptional potency. Grounding my analysis on ethnography conducted in Myanmar since 2004, and more specifically on the case study of Master U Shein (1926-2014), the most well-known alchemist of the country, I illustrate the multiple facets of gold medicine’s potency and show how they emerged from the dialogue between the substance and the layers of meanings …

Medicinal Mandala: Potency In Spatiality, Anna Sehnalova

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

This article explores the complexities of accomplishing potency, nüpa (nus pa), within a Tibetan healing, rejuvenation, and longevity ritual practice known as ‘medicinal accomplishment,’ mendrup (sman sgrub). The study is based on the observation and examination of the Light-Swirled Mendrup performed in the Tibetan exile Bonpo community in Nepal in 2012. The mendrup represents a meditative sādhana practice, which involves the production and consecration of ritual materia medica derived from the Tibetan medical Sowa Rigpa tradition as well as Buddhist tantric heritage. The article analyzes the generation of potency based on spatiality within the mendrup ritual—the potency of the ritual …

Garuda 5 (Khyung Lnga): Ecologies Of Potency And The Poison-Medicine Spectrum Of Sowa Rigpa’S Renowned ‘Black Aconite’ Formula, Jan M. A. Van Der Valk

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

This article focuses on ethnographic work conducted at the Men-Tsee-Khang (Dharamsala, India) on Garuda 5 (khyung lnga), a commonly prescribed Tibetan medical formula. This medicine’s efficacy as a painkiller and activity against infection and inflammation is largely due to a particularly powerful plant, known as ‘virulent poison’ (btsan dug) as well as ‘the great medicine’ (sman chen), and identified as a subset of Aconitum species. Its effects, however, are potentially dangerous or even deadly. How can these poisonous plants be used in medicine and, conversely, when does a medicine become a poison? How can ostensibly the same substance be both …

The Potency Of Tradition: Turquoise, Coral, And Pearl In Sowa Rigpa, Barbara Gerke

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Turquoise, coral, rubies, diamonds, amber, and pearls are among the potent substances used in Tibet’s medical traditions, specifically in ‘precious pills’ or rinchen rilbu (rin chen ril bu). Tibetan physicians use precious stones as medicines only after processing, without which none of them are considered medically beneficial. In this paper, I analyze three precious substances—turquoise, coral, and pearl—which appear together in many precious pill formulas and are processed using the same techniques. Based on textual analysis and interviews with Tibetan physicians in India, I address the questions: What makes these substances particularly ‘potent,’ expressed in the Tibetan term nüpa (nus …

Potency By Name? ‘Medicine Buddha Plant’ And Other Herbs In The Japanese Scroll Of Equine Medicine (Ba’I Sōshi Emaki, 1267), Katja Triplett

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Buddhist ritual healing and medical therapies included care for domestic animals, such as the horse. In pre-modern Japan, equine medicine (ba’i 馬医) was not restricted to the treatment of military horses; it was also practiced in a religious context. The Scroll of Equine Medicine (Ba’i sōshi emaki 馬医草紙絵 巻, 1267) is an enigmatic picture scroll held by the Tokyo National Museum. It extends to more than six meters and contains images of ten divine figures related to the healing of horses, followed by seventeen pictures of plants, and a postscript emphasizing that the content of the scroll should be kept …

Iron Tonics: Tracing The Development From Classical To Iatrochemical Formulations In Ayurveda, Dagmar Wujastyk

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Around the eleventh century CE, Sanskrit medical texts began to record profound changes in the methods used for drug manufacture. New substances, especially metallic and non-metallic minerals, were added to the ayurvedic pharmacopoeia or were given new prominence. More significantly, however, new ways of processing raw materials were introduced that were thought to make them fit for medical use. Most of the new, but also many of the traditional substances were now put through a series of complicated, multistage processes before they were used as components of compound medicines. In this article, I will use the example of recipes for …

The Soteriological Context Of A Tibetan Oracle, Katarina Turpeinen

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

This paper contributes to the study of Tibetan oracles by analyzing a distinctive case of a contemporary Tibetan oracle living in exile in India. The oracular practice and personal history of Lhamo, or ‘Goddess,’ present several unusual features compared to other ethnographic accounts of Tibetan oracles. The ritual of possession is performed behind closed doors hidden from clients, and the medium typically engages in oracular ingestion multiple times during every trance. Her trance sessions also appear orderly and lack an intermediary figure who decodes the oracle’s enigmatic statements. What do these features of her oracular activities illustrate? How do they …

Subjective Well-Being In Two Himalayan Communities, Post Road Development, Michelle U. Grocke, Kimber Haddix Mckay, Thomas Foor

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

Although the first road to ever be built into Humla, Nepal is still under construction, it has already spurred numerous sociocultural and economic changes, including an increased integration into the market economy, changing access to market-purchased foods, and new kinds of health-seeking behavior. This paper is part of a larger research project where we examined changing health and nutrition outcomes co-synchronous with the arrival of this road. In this paper, we focus on whether and how the road is affecting villagers’ subjective well-being (SWB). We studied this while living and working with people from two Humli villages, one that is …

Deadly Predators And Virtuous Buddhists: Dog Population Control And The Politics Of Ethics In Ladakh, Karine Gagné

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

The region of Ladakh in the Indian Himalayas has recently seen a rise in attacks by stray dogs, some of which have been fatal. The dogs’ claims on territory have not gone uncontested in an emotional landscape fraught with anxieties over religious identities as tensions prevail between a Buddhist and a Muslim population. Consideration for the political effects of ethical discourses about dogs in Ladakh reveals how dog population control, and the intricately linked question of dog care have implications for the shaping of an animal ethics as a contentious political question. In the public sphere, some interpret matters related …

Gallery | Potent Substances In A Thirteenth Century Japanese Scroll Painting, Katja Triplett, Barbara Gerke, Jan M. A. Van Der Valk

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies

No abstract provided.

Toward A Redefinition Of Afrofuturism And The Black Fantastic--A Postscript, Christopher A. Varlack

Third Stone

No abstract provided.

Factors Of Women-Founded High-Growth Technology Startup, Renee Gillard

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to identify and describe critical startup factors of high-growth technology startups as identified by women founders in Seattle, Washington.

Methodology: This mixed-method study identified and described 15 women founders of high-growth technology startups in Seattle. Participants were chosen based on specific criteria and recommendations of a sponsor and expert panel. Interviews were conducted with the participants and they completed an online survey.

Findings: Ten major findings emerged from the data. Founders fostered a strong network of professional and personal relationships to help develop and solidify their identity; they also …

Matriarchs And Martyrs: Women In Early Christian Apocrypha, Robert Wilf

Religious Studies Summer Fellows

"The Master Narrative of Christianity" as outlined by Karen King states that Jesus Christ passed down the one true gospel to his apostles who then spread it throughout the world among a sea of dissension. But exactly which texts contained the true gospel, and even who counted as an apostle, is far less cut and dried than the early church fathers would have you believe. In fact, many narratives involving powerful women preaching, baptizing, and facing down execution had been lost or purposely neglected from most canons. I looked at just a few of these works; The Gospel of Mary …

Beyond The 3rs: Expanding The Use Of Human-Relevant Replacement Methods In Biomedical Research, Kathrin Herrmann, Francesca Pistollato, Martin L. Stephens

Biomedical Research and Alternative Methods Collection

This year marks the 60th anniversary of Russell and Burch’s pioneering book, The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. Their 3Rs framework has helped to inspire humane and scientific progress in experimental technique. However, it is time to update its strategic application. The 21st century has already seen the development of promising, high-tech non-animal models, such as organs-on-a-chip and computational approaches that, in our view, will replace animals as the default option in biomedical experimentation. How fast this transition will take place will depend on the pace at which these new models are optimized to reflect the biology of humans, rather …

Network‐Based Feature Selection Reveals Substructures Of Gene Modules Responding To Salt Stress In Rice, Qian Du, Malachy Campbell, Huihui Yu, Kan Liu, Harkamal Walia, Qi Zhang, Chi Zhang

Center for Plant Science Innovation: Faculty Publications

Rice, an important food resource, is highly sensitive to salt stress, which is directly related to food security. Although many studies have identified physiological mechanisms that confer tolerance to the osmotic effects of salinity, the link between rice genotype and salt tolerance is not very clear yet. Association of gene co‐expression network and rice phenotypic data under stress has penitential to identify stress‐responsive genes, but there is no standard method to associate stress phenotype with gene co‐expression network. A novel method for integration of gene co‐expression network and stress phenotype data was developed to conduct a system analysis to link …

A Novel Rapamycin Analog Is Highly Selective For Mtorc1 In Vivo., Katherine H. Schreiber, Sebastian I. Arriola Apelo, Deyang Yu, Jacqueline A Brinkman, Michael C Velarde, Faizan A Syed, Chen-Yu Liao, Emma L. Baar, Kathryn A. Carbajal, Dawn S. Sherman, Denise Ortiz, Regina Brunauer, Shany E. Yang, Stelios T Tzannis, Brian K Kennedy, Dudley W Lamming

Natural Sciences and Mathematics | Student Professional Publications

Rapamycin, an inhibitor of mechanistic Target Of Rapamycin Complex 1 (mTORC1), extends lifespan and shows strong potential for the treatment of age-related diseases. However, rapamycin exerts metabolic and immunological side effects mediated by off-target inhibition of a second mTOR-containing complex, mTOR complex 2. Here, we report the identification of DL001, a FKBP12-dependent rapamycin analog 40x more selective for mTORC1 than rapamycin. DL001 inhibits mTORC1 in cell culture lines and in vivo in C57BL/6J mice, in which DL001 inhibits mTORC1 signaling without impairing glucose homeostasis and with substantially reduced or no side effects on lipid metabolism and the immune system. In …

How Characteristic Is The Species Characteristic Selection Scale?, Erica F. Stuber, Joseph J. Fontaine

Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit: Staff Publications

Aim: The importance of framing investigations of organism–environment relationships to interpret patterns at relevant spatial scales is increasingly recognized. However, most research related to environmental relationships is single‐scaled, implicitly or explicitly assuming that a “species characteristic selection scale” exists. We tested the premise that a single characteristic scale exists to understand species– environment relationships within species by asking (a) what are the characteristic scales of species’ relationships with environmental predictors, and (b) is within species, cross‐predictor consistency in characteristic scales a general phenomenon.

Location: Nebraska, USA.

Time period: 2016.

Major taxa studied: Birds.

Methods: We used data from 86 species …

Understanding Preservice Teachers' Spatial Reasoning And How It Affects Their Work With Elementary Students, Michelle R. Metzger,

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Spatial reasoning involves those skills that allow one to mentally picture and manipulate objects which plays a unique role in learning and succeeding in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields (STEM). Despite the urgent need for strong spatial reasoning skills, our current education system spends little time fostering elementary students’ visual and spatial reasoning skills. This is becoming increasingly problematic as the need to become literate in the STEM fields has never been greater.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the spatial reasoning skills that preservice teachers demonstrated and how their spatial reasoning skills were used in …

Alma Link Resolver Title & Issn Report (Top 500) 2018-2019, Andreé J. Rathemacher

Technical Services Reports and Statistics

Statistics for 2018-2019 on the total number of OpenURL requests by journal title and ISSN made to the Ex Libris Alma link resolver for items held by the University of Rhode Island Libraries. Includes only the top 500 journals.

Information provided includes journal Title, ISSN, EISSN, Number of Requests, Number of Clicked Requests, % Clicks from Requests.

Ending The Globalization Of Human Trafficking: The Need For Moral Agency And Nursing Responsiveness, Eileen Veronica Caulfield

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

This presentation addresses how moral agency and upholding human dignity is a hallmark of nursing practice requiring nurses to advocate for voiceless trafficked human persons.

Alma Link Resolver Subject Report 2018-2019, Andrée J. Rathemacher

Technical Services Reports and Statistics

Statistics for 2018-2019 on the number of OpenURL requests by Library of Congress classification code made to the Ex Libris Alma link resolver for items held by the University of Rhode Island Libraries.

Information provided includes Classification Code, Classifications, Number of Requests, Number of Clicked Requests, and % Clicks from Requests.

Cohort Description Of The Madagascar Health And Environmental Research–Antongil (Mahery–Antongil) Study In Madagascar, Christopher D. Golden, Cortni Borgerson, Benjamin L. Rice, Lindsay H. Allen, Evelin Jean Gasta Anjaranirina, Christopher B. Barrett, Godfred Boateng, Jessica A. Gephart, Daniela Hampel, Daniel L. Hartl, Erwin Knippenberg, Samuel S. Myers, Dera H. Ralalason, Herlyne Ramihantaniarivo, Hervet Randriamady, Setareh Shahab-Ferdows, Bapu Vaitla, Sarah K. Volkman, Miadana Arisoa Vonona

Department of Anthropology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The Madagascar Health and Environmental Research-Antongil (MAHERY-Antongil) study cohort was set up in September 2015 to assess the nutritional value of seafood for the coastal Malagasy population living along Antongil Bay in northeastern Madagascar. Over 28 months of surveillance, we aimed to understand the relationships among different marine resource governance models, local people’s fish catch, the consumption of seafood, and nutritional status. In the Antongil Bay, fisheries governance takes three general forms: traditional management, marine national parks, and co-management. Traditional management involves little to no involvement by the national government or non-governmental organizations, and focuses on culturally accepted Malagasy community …

White Matter Hyperintensity Regression: Comparison Of Brain Atrophy And Cognitive Profiles With Progression And Stable Groups, Omar M. Al-Janabi, Christopher E. Bauer, Larry B. Goldstein, Richard R. Murphy, Ahmed A. Bahrani, Charles D. Smith, Donna M. Wilcock, Brian T. Gold, Gregory A. Jicha

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Subcortical white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) in the aging population frequently represent vascular injury that may lead to cognitive impairment. WMH progression is well described, but the factors underlying WMH regression remain poorly understood. A sample of 351 participants from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative 2 (ADNI2) was explored who had WMH volumetric quantification, structural brain measures, and cognitive measures (memory and executive function) at baseline and after approximately 2 years. Selected participants were categorized into three groups based on WMH change over time, including those that demonstrated regression (n = 96; 25.5%), stability (n = 72; 19.1%), and …

Trans-Trismethoxy Resveratrol Decreased Fat Accumulation Dependent On Fat-6 And Fat-7 In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Yiren Yue, Peiyi Shen, Amanda L. Chang, Weipeng Qi, Kee Hong Kim, Daeyoung Kim, Yeonhwa Park

Department of Food Science Faculty Publications

trans-Trismethoxy resveratrol (TMR) is a methyl analog of resveratrol. It is found to exhibit enhanced biological effects compared to resveratrol, such as inhibition of cancer cell growth and pro-apoptotic activities. However, the role of TMR in lipid metabolism is not fully understood. In this study, we used Caenorhabditis elegans, an in vivo nematode model which has been widely applied in disease research, including research on obesity, to investigate the effect of TMR on lipid metabolism. Treatment with TMR (100 and 200 μM) for 4 days significantly reduced triglyceride accumulation (14% and 20% reduction over the control, respectively) of C. elegans, …