Digital Commons Network^™

Firearms And Protest: Lessons From The Black Tradition Of Arms, Nicholas J. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Kenosha was no aberration. Our history is filled with episodes of righteous protest boiling over into violence. Where violence is imminent, our traditions and laws allow innocents to use corresponding violence in self-defense. This arrangement is imperfect and demands hard thinking about how to refine and possibly improve it. One source of lessons toward this end is the experience of Black freedom fighters who navigated turmoil that dwarfs our current troubles. The principles that guided their struggle help frame a sphere of legitimate gun use during periods of civil unrest. These principles emerge from a considered philosophy and practice of …

The Dilemma Of Liberal Pluralism, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Supporters of reproductive rights and of queer rights may sometimes live in harmony with advocates for religious exemptions. But sometimes these goals conflict. This Article explores this tension as a matter of liberal democratic theory and U.S. constitutional law, offering a case for seeing a robust pluralism as contained within a proper understanding of the liberal democratic state. The state’s claimed authority may be the starting point, but just as the modern state was born in decentralized religious toleration, so should the modern state accommodate religious and other views of the good that compete with the state’s own views. The …

A New Telecommunications Act: Prioritizing Consumer Protection And Equality, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Through the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress imposed long overdue duties and structural limits on the telephone, broadcasting, and cable industries. Though the 1934 law was bold and important, legislators unwittingly enabled a handful of companies to concentrate power in those markets.

As needed as it was, the Telecommunications Act also had flaws. Congress’s structureof- the-market approach in 1996 did not protect against disparities in consumers’ access. Nor did it (or could it) anticipate the informational harms that the internet would facilitate or enable.

These concerns ought to be the primary focus of reform today. To be sure, the Federal …

Predicting Cybersecurity Incidents Through Mandatory Disclosure Regulation, Aniket Kesari

Faculty Scholarship

Cybersecurity risk is an increasingly common concern for organizations
that collect and maintain vast troves of data. In 2011, the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) provided guidelines for how
publicly traded companies should convey these risks to potential investors. But
does this mandatory disclosure regime effectively serve this purpose in the
cybersecurity context? This Article uses machine learning and natural language
processing techniques to analyze firms’ mandatory risk disclosure statements,
predict which firms are at the greatest risk of suffering cybersecurity incidents,
and evaluate how well disclosure meets the goals of the broad regulatory
regime. More broadly, this …

Proceedings Of The 10th Annual Deep Brain Stimulation Think Tank: Advances In Cutting Edge Technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Neuromodulation, Neuroethics, Interventional Psychiatry, And Women In Neuromodulation, Joshua K Wong, Helen S Mayberg, Doris D Wang, R Mark Richardson, Casey H Halpern, Lothar Krinke, Mattia Arlotti, Lorenzo Rossi, Alberto Priori, Sara Marceglia, Ro'ee Gilron, James F Cavanagh, Jack W Judy, Svjetlana Miocinovic, Annaelle D Devergnas, Roy V Sillitoe, Stephanie Cernera, Carina R Oehrn, Aysegul Gunduz, Wayne K Goodman, Erika A Petersen, Helen Bronte-Stewart, Robert S Raike, Mahsa Malekmohammadi, David Greene, Petra Heiden, Huiling Tan, Jens Volkmann, Valerie Voon, Luming Li, Pankaj Sah, Terry Coyne, Peter A Silburn, Cynthia S Kubu, Anna Wexler, Jennifer Chandler, Nicole R Provenza, Sarah R Heilbronner, Marta San Luciano, Christopher J Rozell, Michael D Fox, Coralie De Hemptinne, Jaimie M Henderson, Sameer A Sheth, Michael S Okun

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The deep brain stimulation (DBS) Think Tank X was held on August 17–19, 2022 in Orlando FL. The session organizers and moderators were all women with the theme women in neuromodulation. Dr. Helen Mayberg from Mt. Sinai, NY was the keynote speaker. She discussed milestones and her experiences in developing depression DBS. The DBS Think Tank was founded in 2012 and provides an open platform where clinicians, engineers and researchers (from industry and academia) can freely discuss current and emerging DBS technologies as well as the logistical and ethical issues facing the field. The consensus among the DBS Think …

Intragovernmental Speech And Sanction, Katherine A. Shaw

Articles

This Essay, prepared as part of a symposium on Professor Helen Norton’s The Government’s Speech and the Constitution, asks what role, if any, we should understand the Constitution to play in mediating disputes over speech between and among government entities. Focusing on the examples of impeachment and censure, the piece considers scenarios in which one arm of government takes action in response to the speech of another arm or entity of government, exploring what role the Constitution should play in shaping or constraining those responses.

Ubiquitous Aberration In Cholesterol Metabolism Across Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma, Venugopal Gunda, Thiago C. Genaro-Mattos, Jyoti B. Kaushal, Ramakanth C. Venkata, Gopalakrishnan Natarajan, Kavita Mallya, Paul M. Grandgenett, Karoly Mirnics, Surinder K. Batra, Zeljka Korade, Satyanarayana Rachagani

Journal Articles: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is characterized by metabolic deregulations that often manifest as deviations in metabolite levels and aberrations in their corresponding metabolic genes across the clinical specimens and preclinical PC models. Cholesterol is one of the critical metabolites supporting PC, synthesized or acquired by PC cells. Nevertheless, the significance of the de novo cholesterol synthesis pathway has been controversial in PC, indicating the need to reassess this pathway in PC. We utilized preclinical models and clinical specimens of PC patients and cell lines and utilized mass spectrometry-based sterol analysis. Further, we also performed in silico analysis to corroborate the significance …

Liquid Biopsies To Occult Brain Metastasis, Asad Ur Rehman, Parvez Khan, Shailendra K. Maurya, Jawed A. Siddiqui, Juan A. Santamaria-Barria, Surinder K. Batra, Mohd W. Nasser

Journal Articles: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Brain metastasis (BrM) is a major problem associated with cancer-related mortality, and currently, no specific biomarkers are available in clinical settings for early detection. Liquid biopsy is widely accepted as a non-invasive method for diagnosing cancer and other diseases. We have reviewed the evidence that shows how the molecular alterations are involved in BrM, majorly from breast cancer (BC), lung cancer (LC), and melanoma, with an inception in how they can be employed for biomarker development. We discussed genetic and epigenetic changes that influence cancer cells to breach the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and help to establish metastatic lesions in the …

Gdf15 Promotes Prostate Cancer Bone Metastasis And Colonization Through Osteoblastic Ccl2 And Rankl Activation, Jawed A. Siddiqui, Parthasarathy Seshacharyulu, Sakthivel Muniyan, Ramesh Pothuraju, Parvez Khan, Raghupathy Vengoji, Sanjib Chaudhary, Shailendra K. Maurya, Subodh M. Lele, Maneesh Jain, K Datta, Mohd W. Nasser, Surinder K. Batra

Journal Articles: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology

Bone metastases occur in patients with advanced-stage prostate cancer (PCa). The cell-cell interaction between PCa and the bone microenvironment forms a vicious cycle that modulates the bone microenvironment, increases bone deformities, and drives tumor growth in the bone. However, the molecular mechanisms of PCa-mediated modulation of the bone microenvironment are complex and remain poorly defined. Here, we evaluated growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF15) function using in vivo preclinical PCa-bone metastasis mouse models and an in vitro bone cell coculture system. Our results suggest that PCa-secreted GDF15 promotes bone metastases and induces bone microarchitectural alterations in a preclinical xenograft model. Mechanistic studies …

The Value Hierarchies Of J.R.R. Tolkien And His Legacy: A Reimagining Of Fantasy Fiction And The Propagation Of Colonial Racism, Alexander Richburg

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

J.R.R. Tolkien’s impact on modern fantasy fiction is remarkable. However, while some of the changes to the genre ushered in by Tolkien’s work are positive, other aspects of his legacy are more problematic. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion are based on his colonial worldview. They are biographical in that Tolkien draws heavily from his life experience to tell his stories. The biographical influence manifests in a hierarchical representation of everything from trees and their ancestry to the elves, humans, dwarves, hobbits, and orcs that populate his fiction. The hierarchies are value structures and the …

Population Assignment Of Entrained Migratory Westslope Cutthroat Trout In North Idaho, Craig D. Wells

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

The Clark Fork-Pend Oreille River basin of northeastern Washington and the Idaho Panhandle historically supported a robust metapopulation of Westslope Cutthroat Trout (WCT) Oncorhynchus clarkii lewisi, a western native salmonid of high cultural and economic value. The construction of impassible hydroelectric dams and smaller in-stream barriers has prevented the return of migratory WCT to spawning tributaries, likely leading to the fragmentation of this metapopulation over the last 100 years. One such impassible barrier is Albeni Falls Dam near Newport, Washington. Completed without fish passage capabilities in 1955, Albeni Falls Dam has been of interest as a site for restoring fish …

Modernizing Fish Surveys: Evaluating How Reliable Environmental Dna Sampling Is In Monitoring Fish Populations, Alicia Cozza

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of Impa2 & Isyna1 Gene Expression And Intracelular Myo-Inositol Levels In Bipolar And Non-Bipolar Disorder Derived Human Lymphoblasts, Christina Rosette

Master's Theses

The thesis objective was to determine if myo-inositol concentration levels and the gene expression of IMPA2 & ISYNA1 differ among bipolar disorder types 1 and 2 compared to healthy controls (non-bipolar disorder). Previous studies have correlated different myo-inositol concentration levels with specific phases of bipolar and pharmaceutical treatments. Two genes, inositol monophosphatase 2 (IMPA2) and inositol-3-phosphate synthase 1 (ISYNA1), involved in de novo myo-inositol biosynthesis have been implicated in the pathophysiology of bipolar. In this study, differences in myo-inositol concentration and IMPA2 & ISYNA1 gene expression in lymphoblasts derived from subjects with bipolar types 1, 2, and healthy control were …

Peruvian Mammals Collected By The Andrews University. Department Of Biology : Expeditions & Patterns Of Diversity, Kieran M. Taylor

Master's Theses

The Department of Biology at Andrews University conducted three expeditions to Peru in 1964, 1965, and 1968. During the expeditions, thousands of specimens were collected of several taxa, including mammals. As far as we know, no complete summary of the expeditions and the mammals collected has been created. Knowledge of the expeditions and evaluation of the mammals collected compared to current literature could have conservation implications. My purpose was to recreate the story of the expeditions and use this contextual information to catalog and identify the number of mammal species collected and evaluate the mammal diversity collected according to current …

Comparative Analysis Of Dcas9-Vp64 Variants And Multiplexed Guide Rnas Mediating Crispr Activation, Kohei Omachi, Jeffrey H. Miner

2020-Current year OA Pubs

CRISPR/Cas9-mediated transcriptional activation (CRISPRa) is a powerful tool for investigating complex biological phenomena. Although CRISPRa approaches based on the VP64 transcriptional activator have been widely studied in both cultured cells and in animal models and exhibit great versatility for various cell types and developmental stages in vivo, different dCas9-VP64 versions have not been rigorously compared. Here, we compared different dCas9-VP64 constructs in identical contexts, including the cell lines used and the transfection conditions, for their ability to activate endogenous and exogenous genes. Moreover, we investigated the optimal approach for VP64 addition to VP64- and p300-based constructs. We found that MS2-MCP-scaffolded …

Initial Experiences Using Plasma Rich In Growth Factors To Treat Keratoneuralgia, Margaret Wang, Sowmya Yennam, Stephen Pflugfelder

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Keratoneuralgia, a clinical diagnosis of sensitized corneal pain without visible ocular surface damage, generally has minimal response to conventional therapies. Causes include refractive surgery and chronic dry eye. We evaluated the efficacy of Plasma Rich in Growth Factors (PRGF), a novel treatment prepared using a commercially available kit, in patients with keratoneuralgia. A retrospective chart review identified patients who had the clinical diagnosis of keratoneuralgia and were treated with PRGF for at least 3 months from October 2015 to April 2020 at a single academic institution. Both objective eye exam findings and concurrent treatments were obtained at baseline, 3 months, …

Biblical Anthropology: Foundations And Teaching Models, Hebert Davi Liessi, Lucicleide Maria Da Silva Liessi

All Books

Human beings have searched for meaning in different ways over the millennia. This book presents how God sees the human being from a biblical-grammatical perspective through the book of Exodus. The sense of existence has new sources, with God and his purpose for each individual and humanity being the main ones. In addition, this book analyses and offers possibilities and models for teaching biblical anthropology to university students.

Spirituality And Prayer: Biblical Foundations And Models For Current Dilemmas, Hebert Davi Liessi, Lucicleide Maria Da Silva Liessi

All Books

Every human being seeks to be happy. However, it faces several challenges in this process. These challenges are considered as deserts that each person goes through on the journey of life. Spirituality and prayer are practices that go together and are used by many religions to help human beings live with more satisfaction and find themselves and God. This book brings biblical reflections to deepen the journey of intimacy with God. In addition, it seeks to systematize the pillars of prayer from the perspective of biblical spirituality and apply them to improving personal and spiritual life.

Welcoming Address, Siegfried Wiessner

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

Siegfried Wiessner's (Professor and Intercultural Human Rights Program Director) welcoming address for the 2022 Intercultural Human Rights Law Review Annual Symposium.

Stop The Steal: The History Of Voter Suppression In America, And Who Is Really Stealing Votes?, Cheryl T. Page

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

President Barack Obama once quipped, "elections have consequences." It is clear that 245 years later, the Founding Fathers understood the implications of voting and the weight it carries. These men knew that to maintain power, they would have to limit the people that would have the ability to vote. These fifty-six men who represented the new thirteen colonies met on July 4, 1776, to sign what would be called the Declaration of Independence. In part are the words: "[w]e hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain …

Toward Raising The Child And The Village: Analyzing The Barriers To Implementing Community-Based Curriculum In New York City High Schools, Ife Damon

Publications and Research

As automation increases and single-skill set jobs become non-existent, employees can no longer only possess the technical knowledge of their industry but must also be well versed in a variety of essential skills that artificial intelligence cannot acquire. It is evident from the research that the United States’ traditional approach to teaching and learning has not kept up with the demands of the changing labor market because young adults are graduating from high school lacking the 21st-century skills needed for contemporary careers. High school educators can develop these skills within students by implementing community-based learning (CBL) activities into the curriculum. …

Judean Piracy, Judea And Parthia, And The Roman Annexation Of Judea: The Evidence Of Pompeius Trogus, Kenneth Atkinson

Faculty Publications

Pompey the Great’s 63 BCE conquest of the Jewish kingdom known as the Hasmonean State has traditionally been viewed as an inevitable event since the Roman Republic had long desired to annex the Middle Eastern nations. The prevailing consensus is that the Romans captured the Hasmonean state, removed its high-priest kings from power, and made its territory part of the Republic merely through military force. However, Justin’s Epitome of the Philippic Histories of Pompeius Trogus is a neglected source of new information for understanding relations between the Romans and the Jews at this time. Trogus’s brief account of this period …

Thermal Death Kinetics Of Three Representative Salmonella Enterica Strains In Toasted Oats Cereal, Matthew Chick, Antonio Lourenco, Alice Maserati, Ryan C. Fink, Francisco Diez-Gonzalez

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Several reports have indicated that the thermal tolerance of Salmonella at low-water activity increases significantly, but information on the impact of diverse food matrices is still scarce. The goal of this research was to determine the kinetic parameters (decimal reduction time, D; time required for the first decimal reduction, δ) of thermal resistance of Salmonella in a previously cooked low water activity food. Commercial toasted oats cereal (TOC) was used as the food model, with or without sucrose (25%) addition. TOC samples were inoculated with 10⁸ CFU/mL of a single strain of one of three Salmonella serovars (Agona, Tennessee, …

Unlocking The Functional Potential Of Polyploid Yeasts, Simone Mozzachiodi, Kristoffer Krogerus, Brian Gibson, Alain Nicolas, Gianni Liti

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Breeding and domestication have generated widely exploited crops, animals and microbes. However, many Saccharomyces cerevisiae industrial strains have complex polyploid genomes and are sterile, preventing genetic improvement strategies based on breeding. Here, we present a strain improvement approach based on the budding yeasts’ property to promote genetic recombination when meiosis is interrupted and cells return-to-mitotic-growth (RTG). We demonstrate that two unrelated sterile industrial strains with complex triploid and tetraploid genomes are RTG-competent and develop a visual screening for easy and high-throughput identification of recombined RTG clones based on colony phenotypes. Sequencing of the evolved clones reveal unprecedented levels of RTG-induced …

Robotic Replica Of A Human Spine Uses Soft Magnetic Sensor Array To Forecast Intervertebral Loads And Posture After Surgery, Frank Vrionis

All Publications

No abstract provided.

Coronary Artery Disease, Cardiac Arrest, And Shared Decision Making In A Recreational Athlete, Juan Batlle, Eli Friedman

All Publications

A highly active 59-year-old-man with a history of cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction presented for exercise recommendations. Multimodality risk stratification led to ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest at the completion of a maximal effort cardiopulmonary exercise test. Using shared decision making, the safety and feasibility of returning to exercise were discussed. (Level of Difficulty: Intermediate.) (J Am Coll Cardiol Case Rep 2022;4:1110–1114)

Infant Motor Development Predicts The Dynamics Of Movement During Sleep, Aaron Demasi, Melissa N. Horger, Anat Scher, Sarah E. Berger

Publications and Research

The characteristics of infant sleep change over the first year. Generally, infants wake and move less at night as they grow older. However, acquisition of new motor skills leads to temporary increases in night waking and movement at night. Indeed, sleep-dependent movement at night is important for sensorimotor development. Nevertheless, little is known about how movement during sleep changes as infants accrue locomotor experience. The current study investigated whether infant sleep and movement during sleep were predicted by infants' walking experience. Seventy-eight infants wore an actigraph to measure physical activity during sleep. Parents reported when their infants first walked across …

Can Heritage Speakers Predict Lexical And Morphosyntactic Information In Reading?, Olga Parshina, Anastasiya Lopukhina, Irina A. Sekerina

Publications and Research

Ample evidence suggests that monolingual adults can successfully generate lexical and morphosyntactic predictions in reading and that correct predictions facilitate sentence comprehension. In this eye-tracking corpus reading study, we investigate whether the same is true for reading in heritage language. Specifically, we ask whether heritage speakers (HSs) of Russian are able to anticipate lexical and/or morphosyntactic information of the upcoming words in the sentence and whether they differ in the predictions from monolingual children and L2 learners. We are also interested in whether the literacy level (i.e., Russian literacy experience or reading fluency in English) influences lexical and morphosyntactic prediction. …

Addictive Technology And Its Implications For Antitrust Enforcement, James Niels Rosenquist, Fiona M. Scott Morton, Samuel N. Weinstein

Articles

The advent of mobile devices and digital media platforms in the past decade represents the biggest shock to cognition in human history. Robust medical evidence is emerging that digital media platforms are addictive and, when used in excess, harmful to users’ mental health. Other types of addictive products, like tobacco and prescription drugs, are heavily regulated to protect consumers. Currently, there is no regulatory structure protecting digital media users from these harms. Antitrust enforcement and regulation that lowers entry barriers could help consumers of social media by increasing competition. Economic theory tells us that more choice in digital media will …

Tennessee Farm Bureau News - January 2022, Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation

Tennessee Farm Bureau News

No abstract provided.