Digital Commons Network^™

Genetically Engineered Food, Food Security, And Climate Change, Joanna K. Sax

The Business, Entrepreneurship & Tax Law Review

Malnutrition is the leading cause of death and disease worldwide. Climate change is an existential crisis. We need to feed people and address the role of agriculture in climate change – at the same time. This is problematic, as agriculture inherently creates issues that contributes to climate change. Utilizing science, through genetically engineered crops, is one way to close the harm gap between food security and climate change. This essay addresses the controversial issue of genetically engineered crops with the complicated issues of food security and cli-mate change by analyzing three main issues: (1) how the science of genetically engineered …

2022-March-01-Etsu Ranked By Forbes Among Americas Best Employers, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – East Tennessee State University has been recognized by Forbes in its 2022 listing of America’s Best Employers.

The listing on Forbes.com was compiled by Forbes and Statista based on data from an independent survey taken by approximately 60,000 employees working for companies with more than 1,000 workers in the United States. The evaluation was based on direct and indirect recommendations from respondents who were asked to rate their willingness to recommend their own employer to friends and family.

In total, 1,000 employers were recognized across 25 different industry sectors. The list is divided into two rankings: …

2022-March-01-Etsu Scientist Playing On A Global Stage, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (March 2022) – Late last month, Dr. Aruna Kilaru wrote a piece aimed at addressing food insecurity and climate change using agricultural biotechnology. 

Suggesting how both farmers and government agencies can work together to reduce harmful emissions and minimize food waste, the article appeared as part of her work as a science, technology and policy fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and science adviser and international trade policy officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, New Technologies and Production Methods Divisions.

Dr. Aruna Kilaru

It means that Kilaru, a professor …

Annual Color Photo Section

Nebraska Bird Review

The next seven pages show examples of this year's theme: cavity nesting birds. A cavity nest can be in a birdhouse, a hole in a tree, a hole in a stream bank, a burrow in the ground, or even a mud nest the birds construct themselves.

Female Yellowbellied Sapsucker, photographer's residence, Garfield Co., 5 Jan 2022. Photo by Bob Gerten.

Louisiana Waterthrush with young at nest under bank overhang, Rock Creek Station State Historical Park, Jefferson Co., 18 May 2016. Photo by John Carlini.

Pygmy Nuthatch, GilbertBaker WMA, Sioux Co., 11 July 2021. Photo by Colleen Childers.

Winter Wren, Platte …

2021-2022 Christmas Bird Counts, Don Paseka

Nebraska Bird Review

With the addition of the new Fort Niobrara circle, 19 counts were run during the 2021-2022 CBC season. Thirteen of them were run from December 14 through December 21 and the other six were done December 27 or later. The weather was mild to start the count period with almost all water open. As the count period progressed, the weather became more seasonable and much of the standing water froze, but conditions remained fairly benign with the exception of the Lake McConaughy count on January 2. Though it was cold but sunny on that day, the previous day’s snow and …

Improving Adversarial Attacks Against Malconv, Justin Burr

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation proposes several improvements to existing adversarial attacks against MalConv, a raw-byte malware classifier for Windows PE files. The included contributions greatly improve the success rates and performance of gradient-based file overlay attacks. All improvements are included in a new open-source attack utility called BitCamo.

Several new payload initialization strategies for use with gradient-based attacks are proposed and evaluated as potential replacements for the randomized initialization method used by current attacks. An algorithm for determining the optimal payload size is also proposed. The resulting improvements achieve a 100% evasion rate against eligible target executables using an average payload size …

New Treatment For Multiple Sclerosis Could Halt Disease Progression Without Weakening Immune System, Carter Helquist, Dario Mizrachi

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

• Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a debilitating neurological and autoimmune disease in which immune cells cause demyelination of axons in nervous tissue.
• Current treatments for the disease are principally aimed at weakening the immune system to therefore weaken the autoimmune attack on the brain. This leaves patients prone to other sicknesses.
• We seek a treatment that prevents the immune cells from entering the central nervous system (CNS) thereby protecting its cells.
• We can prevent immune cells from entering the CNS by strengthening the blood brain barrier through targeting claudin 5 proteins in the tight junctions.
• This new treatment could mean increased …

Chimeric Claudins Reveal Role In Neural Tube Defects, Wesley Allen, Nathan Beckett, Emma Brenchley, Jacob Wengler, Lauren Hall, Cailey Winn, Meredith Mann, Sion Jung, Spencer Thacker, Rachel May, Dario Mizrachi, Micheal Stark

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Claudins (CLDN), a family of proteins found in the tight junction, play a major role in membrane permeability. While claudin disruption is known to contribute to the formation of neural tube defects (NTD), current research methods rely heavily on a non-specific toxin, CPE, when exploring the importance of CLDNs within neural tube formation. This makes it difficult to identify individual CLDN’s contribution to NTD formation, creating a need for a more specific method.

Potential Regulation Of Breast Cancer Invasion By Thymidine Kinase 1, Eliza E. Bitter, Rachel M. Morris, Toni O. Mortimer, Kai Barlow, Abigail Schekall, Michelle H. Townsend, Jonathan Skidmore, Brett E. Pickett, Kim L. O'Neill

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and is largely treatable within the early stages of the disease. However, patient mortality drastically declines as the tumor begins to invade other tissues and metastasize, making aggressive phenotypes especially problematic to treat. Such treatment typically requires an aggressive and decisive multidisciplinary approach. The recent expansion of immunotherapy as a viable treatment option has greatly improved treatment outcomes, especially with aggressive breast cancer phenotypes. Thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) is a DNA salvage pathway enzyme that is highly expressed during S phase and involved in cell cycle repair. Past studies indicated that …

Ancestral State Reconstruction Of Oviposition Techniques In New World Stick Insects, Ellie Mcgregor, Jackson Linde, Michael F. Whiting

Library/Life Sciences Undergraduate Poster Competition 2022

Phasmids, commonly known as stick bugs, are unique and interesting creatures, both phenotypically and genotypically. Their cryptic abilities are what draws most people to them, but their oviposition techniques, or how they disperse eggs, has become a new source of interest. While most phasmids are known to flick or drop their eggs from the canopy, there are several other techniques including inserting the eggs into the soil or gluing them to a substrate. New world phasmids have not been thoroughly studied, especially in understanding which technique was ancestral. The purpose of this paper was to construct a phylogenetic tree to …

Fields Of Revision: Adaptations Of Wren’S Elegy By Mo Yun-Suk And Kim Ki-Young, Irhe Sohn, Ki-In Chong

East Asian Languages & Cultures: Faculty Publications

This essay investigates the ‘field of revision’, in which multiple texts permeate each other to question and transform a given story. To do so, it examines the adaptations of Wren’s Elegy, a South Korean epistolary poem that narrates the story of its titular character’s love for a married man named Simon. The decades-long development of its story—from Mo Yun-suk’s initial publication in 1937 as a revisionist project based on Yi Kwang-su’s Heartless, to three revisions made by the author herself, to its film adaptation by Kim Ki-young—shows how adaptation involves multiple texts, authors, and historical and cultural conditions …

Growth Performance Parameters Of European Sea Bass (Dicentrarchus Labrax) Cultured In Marine Water Farm And Fed Commercial Diets Of Different Protein Levels, Basma Saleem, Ola Orma, Amr Abd El-Wahab, Tarek Ibrahim

Mansoura Veterinary Medical Journal

Objective: To evaluate the growth performance and whole-body composition of growing E. Sea bass cultured in marine water farm and fed commercial fish diets containing 42.3% to 39.60% crude protein (CP) and 17.4 % to 17.8 % fat. Design: Randomized controlled study Samples: Five ponds out of the 8-ponds open marine water farm of 12 Feddans were used. Procedures: Each pond (120 m length x 40 m width x 1.5 m depth) stocked with 5500 growing E. Sea bass of about 25 g initial mean body weight. Fish feeding and management were followed up for 6 months (June to November …

Prevalence, Virulence Genes, And Antibiotic Resistance Of Escherichia Coli And Salmonella Spp. Isolated From Pigeons And Humans, Ahmed Hagag, Doaa Naguib, Amro Mohamed, Adel Elgohary

Mansoura Veterinary Medical Journal

AbstractObjective: To investigate the prevalence of Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. and their virulence genes and antimicrobial resistance in pigeons and humans in El-Dakahlia province, Egypt.Design: Descriptive study.Samples: A total of 274 samples were collected from pigeons (148 cloacal swabs, 20 feather swabs, and 26 egg samples), pigeons’ environment (21 feed samples and 21 water samples), and their contact humans (20 hand swabs and 18 stool samples) in El- Dakahlia province, EgyptProcedures: Cultural media, biochemical tests, and serotyping were used to isolate and identify E. coli and Salmonella from the collected samples. Moreover, multiplex-PCR for detecting virulence genes and antibiotic …

Additional Records Of Ectosymbionts From The Ovenbird (Seiurus Aurocapilla) On Vaca Key, Florida, Lawrence J. Hribar

Florida Field Naturalist

No abstract provided.

Fourteen Years Of Jay Watch Data Gathered On Small Scrub Fragments In Indian River County, Florida, Eleanor K. Van Os, Joseph D. Carroll

Florida Field Naturalist

The Florida Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma coerulescens) is the only bird en- demic to Florida and is now listed as imperiled under the Federal Endangered Species Act. The primary reasons for this status are the loss of scrub habitat to development and inconsistent land management. Even with the protection provided by state and fed- eral laws, many jay populations are likely to disappear as a result of their small size and isolation from larger populations. We assessed 14 years (2007–2020) of data from Jay Watch, a statewide citizen-science initiative, in Indian River County Florida where fragmented sites range from 3.5–6.5 …

Chemical Thermodynamics—A Practical Wonderland, Rubin Battino, Trevor M. Letcher

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Chemical thermodynamics is frequently thought of as being a hard subject and quite abstract. In fact, it is one of the most practical of subjects when you consider that the field of chemical engineering (responsible for endless useful applications) is effectively applied chemical thermodynamics. In this essay, examples of these applications are given, especially with respect to sustainability. The essay first considers the limits of thermodynamics and the constraints put on it in terms of the rigorous definitions of the principal function’s energy, entropy, and Gibbs energy.

Another Second Chance: Rehabilitation Of Marital Rape Offender For The Victim’S Recovery, Iva Kasuma, Farisa Azhara, Afida Ilfa, Shofiyah Adila Farhana

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

Not all victims of marital rape want a divorce, generally victims long to maintain their marriage and for the perpetrators to correct their own behaviors. Victims are also bound to the strong culture that condones sexual relations without consent as long as it is carried out within the framework of a legal marriage. This study aims to demonstrate the importance of rehabilitation for offenders of marital rape by examining various laws and regulations in Indonesia and the obstacles to their implementation. Methodologically, data were obtained from doctrinal studies of Indonesian law and court decisions related to marital rape and empirical …

Forest Structure And Seasonally Inundated Grassland Shape Tropical Mammal Communities Under Moderate Disturbance, Juliana Masseloux, Quy Tan Le, Jessica Burr, Brian D. Gerber

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Tropical biodiversity is threatened globally by anthropogenic disturbances, particularly forest degradation and overhunting. Where large mammals have been extirpated, smaller bodied “mesomammals” may play an important ecological role (e.g., as seed dispersers). However, these species are disproportionally affected by overhunting for wildlife trade markets and are routinely understudied as they tend to be rare, cryptic, and nocturnal. Few studies have examined spatiotemporal responses to anthropogenic disturbance by mesomammals at the community level, which may identify imbalances within an ecosystem that could threaten species persistence. We deployed camera traps throughout Cat Tien National Park (i.e., Nam Cat Tien area), southern Vietnam, …

Partial Ablation Of Postsynaptic Dopamine D2 Receptors In The Central Nucleus Of The Amygdala Increases Risk Avoidance In Exploratory Tasks, Eric Casey, María Elena Avale, Alexxai Kravitz, Marcelo Rubinstein

Open Access Publications

The central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) is involved in the expression of fear and has been implicated in several anxiety disorders. This structure is densely innervated by DAergic projections that impinge on amygdalar neurons expressing various dopamine (DA) receptor subtypes, including D2 receptors (D2Rs). Although various pharmacological approaches have assessed the role of D2Rs in the CeA, the actual participation of postsynaptic D2Rs in the CeA to defensive behaviors remains unclear. Here, we investigated the distribution of D2Rs in the CeA and their role in modifying neuronal activity and fear related behaviors in mice. First, using the mouse reporter …

Fire Effects In Montane Meadows, Rosie Deak

Master's Theses

The impact of forest fires on downstream meadow communities across California is of great ecological interest, as meadows are an important source of biodiversity in this region. Over a century of fire suppression has led to increased forest stand densities, which in turn has resulted in less water availability due to increased transpiration of densely growing trees. This potentially has left less available water for downstream plant communities in meadows. If true, then high mortality wildfires in surrounding forest are predicted to lead to an increase in available downstream moisture where obligate and facultative-wetland taxa increase and dry-adapted upland taxa …

The Perfect Storm: Substance Abuse, Mental Illness, And Rural America, Bailey D. Barnes

Faculty Publications

Across the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, substance abuse and mental illness have clashed with the criminal justice system to produce inequitable and tragic results. The War on Drugs especially affects rural communities, where resources for rehabilitative services, mental health treatment, and transitional housing are scarce. In these areas, the significant strain on the criminal justice system caused by the frequent intersection of substance abuse and mental illness has wrought overcrowded correctional facilities, congested criminal court dockets, exhausted public defenders, and devastated families. This Article is a case study of one such rural community's experience …

Sustainability In Design: The Exploration Of Using Digital Design As A Tool To Promote Environmental Conservation And Sustainable Practice, Kaitlyn Maxwell

Theses

The final website deliverable functions not only as a means of presentation, but as a jumping off point for digital designers to build off of, using the carefully curated resources and informational findings that are included in, and crafted specifically for, this project. By focusing on three main aspects of how to answer the research question 1) creating awareness, 2) making a case for caring, and 3) effective messaging methods, a framework has been created that the audience can expand upon without being overwhelmed by a question with many potential routes to travel down. A digital designer can promote sustainable …

N Y State Dent J March 2022

The New York State Dental Journal

In the March 2022 issue, the reader will find the following feature articles:

• Orthognathic Surgery and Quality-of-Life Outcomes: Findings from a Hospital-Based Patient Satisfaction Survey
• Recommendations for Co-Prescription of Opioids and Naloxone in the Dental Office
• Papillon-LeFevre Syndrome: A Case Study of Two Siblings
• Treatment of Peri-implant Soft-tissue Deficiency around a Narrow Diameter Implant with Subepithelial Connective-tissue Graft: A Case Report
• Simple Lipoma Mimicking Oral Infiltrating Lipoma: Case Report

This issue includes regular columns with regional news impacting the New York membership including: editorial and perspectives columns, legal, association activities, component news, continuing education opportunities, and classifieds.

Deception-Based Knowledge In Indigenous And Scientific Societies American Indian Tricksters And Experimental Research Designs, Yancey Orr, Raymond Orr

Environmental Science and Policy: Faculty Publications

The emerging movement to decolonize the sciences, social sciences, and humanities has emphasized the differences between Indigenous and Western scientific ways of knowing. Paradoxically, emphasizing the difference between these systems has also been the principle undergirding modern science’s claim to being a uniquely valid means of knowledge creation. Yet as each approach focused solely on contrasting Indigenous and scientific ways of knowing, potential similarities between these knowledge systems may have been ignored. One such oversight is the use of deception by each system, which is central to experimental research designs in the social and psychological sciences, and in American Indian …

Hsp90 Inhibitors Modulate Sars-Cov-2 Spike Protein Subunit 1-Induced Human Pulmonary Microvascular Endothelial Activation And Barrier Dysfunction, Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, Pavel Solopov, Betsy W. Gregory, Yara Khodour, John D. Catravas

Bioelectrics Publications

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused more than 5 million deaths worldwide. Multiple reports indicate that the endothelium is involved during SARS-Cov-2-related disease (COVID-19). Indeed, COVID-19 patients display increased thrombophilia with arterial and venous embolism and lung microcapillary thrombotic disease as major determinants of deaths. The pathophysiology of endothelial dysfunction in COVID-19 is not completely understood. We have investigated the role of subunit 1 of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein (S1SP) in eliciting endothelial barrier dysfunction, characterized dose and time relationships, and tested the hypothesis that heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) inhibitors would prevent and repair such injury. S1SP …

2022 March, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for March of 2022.

Water Chemistry, Exposure Routes, And Metal Forms Determine The Bioaccumulation Dynamics Of Silver (Ionic And Nanoparticulate) In Daphnia Magna, Emma Lesser, Fatima Noor Sheikh, Mithun Sikder, Marie Noële Croteau, Natasha Franklin, Mohammed Baalousha, Niveen S. Ismail

Engineering: Faculty Publications

Treatment wetlands utilize various physical and biological processes to reduce levels of organic contaminants, metals, bacteria, and suspended solids. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are one type of contaminant that can enter treatment wetlands and impact the overall treatment efficacy. Grazing by filter-feeding zooplankton, such as Daphnia magna, is critical to treatment wetland functioning; but the effects of AgNPs on zooplankton are not fully understood, especially at environmentally relevant concentrations. We characterized the bioaccumulation kinetics of dissolved and nanoparticulate (citrate-coated) 109Ag in D. magna exposed to environmentally relevant 109Ag concentrations (i.e., 0.2–23 nmol L−1 Ag) using a stable isotope as a tracer …

Brain Barriers Virtual: An Interim Solution Or Future Opportunity?, Brianna M. Holder, Shaina E. Tolan, Kaleb K. Heinrich, Kaitlin C. Miller, Natalie Hudson, Geetika Nehra, Michelle E. Pizzo, Steffen E. Storck, William F. Elmquist, Britta Engelhardt, Irena Loryan, Michal Toborek, Bjoern Bauer, Anika M. S. Hartz, Brandon J. Kim

Biology Faculty Publications

Background: Scientifc conferences are vital communication events for scientists in academia, industry, and government agencies. In the brain barriers research feld, several international conferences exist that allow researchers to present data, share knowledge, and discuss novel ideas and concepts. These meetings are critical platforms for researchers to connect and exchange breakthrough fndings on a regular basis. Due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, all in-person meetings were canceled in 2020. In response, we launched the Brain Barriers Virtual 2020 (BBV2020) seminar series, the frst stand-in virtual event for the brain barriers feld, to ofer scientists a virtual platform to present …

Framing Human Action In Physics: Valid Reconstruction, Invalid Reduction, Shabnam Mousavi, Shyam Sunder

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We propose framing human action in physics before reaching to biology and social sciences, rearranging the order of their usual deployment. As an example, consider efforts to model altruism that start in a frame of psychological or social attributes such as reciprocity, empathy, and identity. Evolutionary roots might also be used by appeal to survival of the species from biology. Only then the modeler abstracts to work on notations, and to establish relationships using mathematical apparatus from physics. This top-down deployment of principles from various scientific disciplines has generated a body of coherent models, partially generalizable theories, and disagreements. In …

Computational Characterization Of Charge Transport Resiliency In Molecular Solids, Balaji Sesha Sarath Pokuri, Seab M. Ryno, Ramin Noruzi, Chad Risko, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Organic semiconductors have found utility in a diverse array of applications. A key property impacting device performance is the charge transport mobility of the molecular solids making up the active layer in these devices. There is increasing interest in accessing, quantifying, and understanding the resilience of charge transport mobility to thermal, mechanical, and chemical perturbations in molecular solids. Here, we integrate molecular simulations with graph characterization to quantify the resilience of charge transport. We consider all-atom simulations of the PTB7 system and build on earlier graph approaches to rapidly characterize the charge mobility of the PTB7 molecular simulations. We introduce …