Digital Commons Network^™

Panorama November 2019, Southern Adventist University

Panorama Parent Newsletter

This print edition of Panorama features an article on improvements scheduled for McKee Library and Wright Hall.

Forum: Critical Decision Dates For Drought Management In Centraland Northern Great Plains Rangeland, Alexander J. Smart, Keith Harmoney, J. Derek Scasta, Mitchell B. Stephenson, Jerry D. Volesky, Lance T. Vermeire, Jeffrey C. Mosley, Kevin Sedivec, Miranda Meehan, Tonya Haigh, Justin D. Derner, Mitchel P. Mcclaran

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Ranchers and other land managers of central and northern Great Plains rangelands face recurrent droughts that negatively influence economic returns and environmental resources for ranching enterprises. Accurately estimating annual forage production and initiating drought decision-making actions proactively early in the growing season are both critical to minimize financial losses and degradation to rangeland soil and plant resources. Long-term forage production data sets from Alberta, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming demonstrated that precipitation in April, May, and June (or some combination of these months) robustly predict annual forage production. Growth curves from clipping experiments and ecological site …

Twenty Novel Disease Group-Specific And 12 New Shared Macrophage Pathways In Eight Groups Of 34 Diseases Including 24 Inflammatory Organ Diseases And 10 Types Of Tumors., Bin Lai, Jiwei Wang, Alexander Fagenson, Yu Sun, Jason Saredy, Yifan Lu, Gayani Nanayakkara, William Y Yang, Daohai Yu, Ying Shao, Charles Drummer, Candice Johnson, Fatma Saaoud, Ruijing Zhang, Qian Yang, Keman Xu, Kevin Mastascusa, Ramon Cueto, Hangfei Fu, Susu Wu, Lizhe Sun, Peiqian Zhu, Xuebin Qin, Jun Yu, Daping Fan, Ying H Shen, Jianxin Sun, Thomas Rogers, Eric T Choi, Hong Wang, Xiaofeng Yang

Center for Translational Medicine Faculty Papers

The mechanisms underlying pathophysiological regulation of tissue macrophage (Mφ) subsets remain poorly understood. From the expression of 207 Mφ genes comprising 31 markers for 10 subsets, 45 transcription factors (TFs), 56 immunometabolism enzymes, 23 trained immunity (innate immune memory) enzymes, and 52 other genes in microarray data, we made the following findings. (1) When 34 inflammation diseases and tumor types were grouped into eight categories, there was differential expression of the 31 Mφ markers and 45 Mφ TFs, highlighted by 12 shared and 20 group-specific disease pathways. (2) Mφ in lung, liver, spleen, and intestine (LLSI-Mφ) express higher M1 Mφ …

Enhancing Clinical Concept Extraction With Contextual Embeddings, Yuqi Si, Jingqi Wang, Hua Xu, Kirk Roberts

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: Neural network-based representations ("embeddings") have dramatically advanced natural language processing (NLP) tasks, including clinical NLP tasks such as concept extraction. Recently, however, more advanced embedding methods and representations (eg, ELMo, BERT) have further pushed the state of the art in NLP, yet there are no common best practices for how to integrate these representations into clinical tasks. The purpose of this study, then, is to explore the space of possible options in utilizing these new models for clinical concept extraction, including comparing these to traditional word embedding methods (word2vec, GloVe, fastText).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Both off-the-shelf, open-domain embeddings and …

Biomarker Discovery In Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Using Network-Based Feature Selection, Mostafa Abbas, John Matta, Thanh Le, Halima Bensmail, Tayo Obafemi-Ajayi, Vasant Honavar, Yasser El-Manzalawy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Reliable identification of Inflammatory biomarkers from metagenomics data is a promising direction for developing non-invasive, cost-effective, and rapid clinical tests for early diagnosis of IBD. We present an integrative approach to Network-Based Biomarker Discovery (NBBD) which integrates network analyses methods for prioritizing potential biomarkers and machine learning techniques for assessing the discriminative power of the prioritized biomarkers. Using a large dataset of new-onset pediatric IBD metagenomics biopsy samples, we compare the performance of Random Forest (RF) classifiers trained on features selected using a representative set of traditional feature selection methods against NBBD framework, configured using five different tools for inferring …

Microplastic Occurrence And Effects In Commercially Harvested North American Finfish And Shellfish: Current Knowledge And Future Directions, Britta Baechler, Cheyenne Stienbarger, Dorothy Horn, Jincy Joseph, Allison Taylor, Elise F. Granek, Susanne Brander

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Commercial fisheries yield essential foods, sustain cultural practices, and provide widespread employment around the globe. Commercially harvested species face a myriad of anthropogenic threats including degraded habitats, changing climate, overharvest, and pollution. Microplastics are pollutants of increasing concern, which are pervasive in the environment and can harbor or adsorb pollutants from surrounding waters. Aquatic organisms, including commercial species, encounter and ingest microplastics, but there is a paucity of data about those caught and cultured in North America. Additional research is needed to determine prevalence, physiological effects, and population-level implications of microplastics in commercial species from Canada, the United States, and …

Skin In The Game: Colorism And The Subtle Operation Of Stereotypes In Men’S College Basketball, Steven L. Foy, Rashawn Ray

Sociology Faculty Publications

Colorism research often suffers from endogeneity issues related to human capital outcomes and researchers’ inability to compare the effects of skin tone to those of racial classification. Furthermore, colorism research focuses on intraracial differences in skin tone inequality while insufficiently considering skin tone inequality across racial groups. Using data from video broadcasts of the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s annual, single-elimination Men’s Division I Basketball Tournament for the years 2000–2010, we quantitatively examine comments made by announcers about the performance, physical characteristics, and mental characteristics of players across various skin tones. Controlling for objective measures of performance, we find that announcers …

The Integrity Of Marriage, Kaiponanea T. Matsumura

William & Mary Law Review

While the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges resolved a dispute about access to legal marriage, it also exposed a rift between the Justices about what rights, obligations, and social meanings marriage should entail. The majority opinion described marriage as a “unified whole” comprised of “essential attributes,” both legal and extralegal. The dissents, in contrast, were more skeptical about marriage’s inherent legal content. Justice Scalia, for instance, characterized marriage as a mere bundle of “civil consequences” attached to “whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements [the law] wishes.” This side debate has taken center stage in several recent disputes. In …

Alternative Reproductive Tactics In Lake Michigan Populations Of Invasive Round Goby (Neogobius Melanostomus): How Fish Increase Fitness By Doing Less, Alex Florian, Steve Smit

Student Summer Scholars Manuscripts

Understanding the reproductive biology of invasive species is an important step in managing populations. Yet, little is known about the reproductive strategies of invasive round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) in Lake Michigan. For round goby, fertilization occurs externally in nests guarded by large “paternal” males. However, some males pursue alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs), where males sneak into a larger male’s nest and fertilize a portion of the eggs, these males are called “sneakers”. We investigated if the proportion of ARTs varies between sites and how that affects population dynamics of round goby. We caught 264 fish from 4 lakes along Eastern …

Illinois State Magazine, November 2019, University Marketing And Communications

Illinois State Magazine (1999-present)

Alumni magazine for Illinois State University

A Review Of The Association Between Vitamin D And Postpartum Depression, Christa Fernando

Biomedical Sciences Undergraduate Research

Vitamin D (specifically vitamin D3) is a lipid soluble essential nutrient. It is found in few foods naturally but can be synthesized upon skin exposure to sunlight. Its intermediate structure in the blood is serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, also called calcidiol, and is formed in the liver. Vitamin D receptors have been found in numerous areas of the brain that are involved in mood-related hormone production. It has also been found to be protective against the brain degradation of Alzheimer’s. Numerous studies have found a significant relationship between vitamin D and major depressive disorder. This review summarizes research on the connection …

Delineating The Mechanisms Of Misfolded Endoplasmic Reticulum (Er) Luminal Protein Retrotranslocation For Er-Associated Degradation, Christina Oikonomou

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Secreted, plasma membrane, and resident proteins of the secretory pathway are synthesized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) where they undergo post-translational modifications, oxidative folding, and subunit assembly in tightly monitored processes. An ER quality control (ERQC) system oversees protein maturation and ensures that only those reaching their native state will continue trafficking into the secretory pathway to reach their final destinations. Proteins that fail quality control must be recognized and eliminated to maintain ER proteostasis. The ER-associated degradation (ERAD) was discovered nearly 30 years ago and entails the identification of improperly matured secretory pathway proteins and their retrotranslocation to the …

Bs News November/December

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Genome-Wide Identification Of Short 2',3'-Cyclic Phosphate-Containing Rnas And Their Regulation In Aging., Megumi Shigematsu, Keisuke Morichika, Takuya Kawamura, Shozo Honda, Yohei Kirino

Computational Medicine Center Faculty Papers

RNA molecules generated by ribonuclease cleavage sometimes harbor a 2',3'-cyclic phosphate (cP) at their 3'-ends. Those cP-containing RNAs (cP-RNAs) form a hidden layer of transcriptome because standard RNA-seq cannot capture them as a result of cP's prevention of an adapter ligation reaction. Here we provide genome-wide analyses of short cP-RNA transcriptome across multiple mouse tissues. Using cP-RNA-seq that can exclusively sequence cP-RNAs, we identified numerous novel cP-RNA species which are mainly derived from cytoplasmic tRNAs, mRNAs, and rRNAs. Determination of the processing sites of substrate RNAs for cP-RNA generation revealed highly-specific RNA cleavage events between cytidine and adenosine in cP-RNA …

Global Research Trend On Cyber Security: A Scientometric Analysis, Somesh Rai, Kunwar Singh Dr, Akhilesh Kumar Varma

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Scientometrics is a quantitative analysis of scholarly literature related to a particular subject or area (well defined by some limits, scope and coverage), which helps to understand different aspects about the scholarly literature’s growth in various dimensions of knowledge. Similarly, this study is a quantitative analysis of the Global research trends in cyber security. Some works related to scientometrics of ‘deception, counter-deception in cyberspace’ had been published in 2011, but we have focused on ‘cyber security’ as the topic of research. For analysis we have utilised the published data available in Scopus database, which is directly related to ‘cyber security’. …

Ghd8 Controls Rice Photoperiod Sensitivity By Forming A Complex That Interacts With Ghd7, Peng Wang, Rong Gong, Ying Yang, Sibin Yu

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Background: Flowering time is one of the most important agronomic characteristics that ultimately determine yield potential and eco-geographical adaptation in crops. Ghd8 and Ghd7, two major flowering genes, have similar functions and large pleiotropic effects in controlling the heading date, plant height and grain yield of rice. However, these gene interactions at the genetic and molecular levels have not been determined to date.

Results: In this study, we investigated the genetic interaction between Ghd8 and Ghd7 by using a set of near-isogenic lines and a panel of natural germplasm accessions in rice. We found that Ghd8 affected multiple agronomic traits …

Remodeling Of Chlamydomonas Metabolism Using Synthetic Inducers Results In Lipid Storage During Growth, Nishikant Wase, Boqiang Tu, Girish Kumar Rasineni, Ronald Cerny, Ryan Grove, Jiri Adamec, Paul N. Black, Concetta Dirusso

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

Microalgae accumulate lipids during stress such as that of nutrient deprivation, concomitant with cessation of growth and depletion of chloroplasts. By contrast, certain small chemical compounds selected by high-throughput screening in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii can induce lipid accumulation during growth, maintaining biomass. Comprehensive pathway analyses using proteomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics data were acquired from Chlamydomonas cells grown in the presence of one of two structurally distinct lipid activators. WD10784 stimulates both starch and lipid accumulation, whereas WD30030-treated cells accumulate only lipids. The differences in starch accumulation are largely due to differential effects of the two compounds on substrate levels that feed …

Are Proton Pump Inhibitors Among The Risk Factors For Acute Coronary Syndrome?: A Multi-Centric Case-Control Study Between Patients Attending Governmental Hospitals In Western Saudi Arabia, Banan M. Alamoudi, Nahla K. Ibrahim

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To identify the predictors of acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and to determine the relationship between usage of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and the occurrence of a first non-fatal ACS event among patients that attended governmental hospitals in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Methods: A matched, multi-centric case-control study was performed between January and June of 2015 in Jeddah involving 2 governmental hospitals and the main university hospital. A total of 118 cases aged ≥18 years who were recently diagnosed with ACS were selected. For each case, one control matched by age and gender was selected. Information from an interview questionnaire and …

Study Of Low Vitamin D Among Children With Anorexia In Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region, Iraq During Summer Months, Riyadh A. Al-Obeidi, Aws H. Al-Numan

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To determine the impact of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency on the development of anorexia in children with mild malnutrition without an obvious cause. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Faruk Medical City, Sulaymaniyah, Kurdistan Region, Iraq, between May and September 2018. It included 39 mildly malnourished children with a poor appetite for over 3 months and 156 children who were healthy except for minor illnesses as the control group. All the children were regular attendees at the outpatient clinic and were tested for serum levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D. We used binary logistic regression statistical analysis to …

Overall Survival Of Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia Based On Cytogenetic And Molecular Abnormalities During 5 Years In A Single Center Study, Enaam M. Alsobhi, Fayssal M. Farahat, Mustafa F. Daghistani, Khadeeja A. Awad, Omar S. Al-Zahrani, Afaf S. Al-Saiari, Fai K. Koshak

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To determined the 5-year overall survival (OS) rates for adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, based on cytogenetic and molecular abnormalities. Methods: A retrospective cohort study reviewing adult AML patient files between 2011 and 2018. Sixty-three patients were excluded due to pediatric age and secondary AML. The remaining 87 adult patients with de novo AML were enrolled in this study. Results: The most frequent cytogenetic abnormalities were t(15;17) (17.2%), followed by complex cytogenetic (13.8%) and t(8;21) (5.7%). The most frequent molecular abnormalities were promyelocytic leukemia/retinoic acid receptor alpha (PML-RARA) …

Resistance To Targeted Therapies Against Adult Brain Cancers, Neveen A. Amer

Saudi Medical Journal

No abstract provided.

Immune System Upgrade: Catalytic Immunotherapy For Cancer: Nanoparticles Act As Artificial Enzymes

Saudi Medical Journal

No abstract provided.

Realtime Object Detection Via Deep Learning-Based Pipelines, James G. Shanahan, Liang Dai

Information Systems and Analytics Department Faculty Conference Proceedings

Ever wonder how the Tesla Autopilot system works (or why it fails)? In this tutorial we will look under the hood of self-driving cars and of other applications of computer vision and review state-of-the-art tech pipelines for object detection such as two-stage approaches (e.g., Faster R-CNN) or single-stage approaches (e.g., YOLO/SSD). This is accomplished via a series of Jupyter Notebooks that use Python, OpenCV, Keras, and Tensorflow. No prior knowledge of computer vision is assumed (although it will be help!). To this end we begin this tutorial with a review of computer vision and traditional approaches to object detection such …

Spatial And Temporal Variations In Abundance And Composition Of Benthic Macrofauna Associated With Seagrass Beds In Abu Dhabi, Maitha Mohamed Al Hameli

Biology Theses

This study compared the seasonal variations of macrofaunal communities found within the seagrass beds of protected areas and non-protected areas in Abu Dhabi. The study took into consideration the spatial and temporal differences of the sites and seasons as well as other environmental factors, like trace metals concentrations, water temperature, sediment composition, salinity and pH. The main objective and aim of this study is to investigate changes in the community structure of macrofauna with changes in location and seasons. Environmental parameters and biological samples were collected in-situ and analyzed at UAEU labs from both sites, during both seasons (winter and …

Transformational Leadership And Follower Risk-Taking: Examining The Effects Of Psychological Safety And Power Distance Orientation, Josephine Poh Tin Kang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Risk-taking is a necessary part of business, yet little is known about how leaders might impact follower risk-taking. A theoretical model is developed in which transformational leaders are hypothesized to indirectly affect follower risk-taking through follower psychological safety. Additionally, this partially mediated effect is theorised to be moderated by follower power distance orientation. Data were collected over two time periods from followers (N = 331) to test the hypothesized model. Results provided limited support for the hypothesized model. Specifically, results indicated that transformational leadership positively affected psychological safety, but psychological safety did not predict follower risk-taking. Power distance orientation did …

An Examination Of The Effectiveness Of A Training Programme To Improve Decision Making In Insurance Risk Underwriting, Gavin Raj Maistry

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation studies the effectiveness of a training programme to improve decision making in insurance risk underwriting. A key component of insurance risk underwriting decisions is qualitative judgement, in addition to quantitative analytical modelling. In the training of insurance underwriters, great strides have been made on the analytical side. However, the training of judgement, both intuitive and deliberate, has largely been ignored. The aim of this research proposal is to design and test a training programme to improve judgement in insurance underwriting.

Our research extends the script training concept, used extensively in medical training, to the domain of insurance underwriting …

The Gut Microbiome Of Freshwater Unionidae Mussels Is Determined By Host Species And Is Selectively Retained From Filtered Seston, Eric A. Weingarten, Carla L. Atkinson, Colin R. Jackson

Faculty and Student Publications

© 2019 Weingarten et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Freshwater mussels are a species-rich group of aquatic invertebrates that are among the most endangered groups of fauna worldwide. As filter-feeders that are constantly exposed to new microbial inoculants, mussels represent an ideal system to investigate the effects of species or the environment on gut microbiome composition. In this study, we examined if host species or site exerts a greater influence …

Assessment Of Conventional Wastewater Treatment Plants In Removing Pharmaceutical Compounds: A Case Study Of Al Ain City, Uae, Ahmad Mohammad I Hassan Alhalab

Theses

This thesis is concerned with the assessment of conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in removing pharmaceutical compounds (PCs). PCs have classes like analgesics, antibiotics, antiseptics, hormones, cosmetic products, personal care products. They are used extensively by humans and they don’t have actual guidelines describing their concentration in domestic wastewater discharge. Thus, they may still be present in treated sewage effluent (TSE) or sludge and could consequently pose adverse environmental effects. Limited work has been done to assess the removal of PCs at WWTPs in arid and semi-arid countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As such, this study aimed at …

Prevalence, Antibiotic-Resistance And Growth Profile Of Vibrio Spp., Isolated From Imported Fish In The Local Markets, Tarfa Ali Mohamed

Theses

Seafood and fish are important food components for a large section of the world population. Seafood is prone to bacterial contamination, many are pathogenic to human and marine animals, and three species, Vibrio mimicus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Vibrio vulnificus, are responsible for most cases of seafood-related human illness caused by Vibrio species. The study on the prevalence of these microorganisms in seafood of the United Arab Emirates is vital due to the cultural background of the Emiratis as a coastal heritage. A study was conducted to assess the prevalence of Vibrio spp. in imported fishes from local …

The Association Of Dna And Histone Methyltransferase Genes With Different Methylation Levels In Fragile X Syndrome Individuals, Sara Humaid Sembaij

Theses

Fragile X Mental Retardation 1 (FMR1) gene produces an FMR protein (FMRP) which is known to regulate the translation process in various organs. It has a significant role in neurons function, maturation, and synaptic plasticity. FMR1 gene encompasses 5 - 30 CGG repeats and the greater number of repeats has the potential to expand during gametogenesis. The expansion depending on the number of CGG repeat undergoes hyper-methylation and is considered as a dynamic mutation in which the expansion increases through generation. Methylation of expanded CGG repeats results in inhibiting the transcription and silencing the gene. There are two types of …