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An Analysis Of Different Treatment Options For Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus, Ariella Shifteh

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus is a highly dangerous autoimmune disease. Type 1 diabetes is most commonly seen in children and young adults as pancreatic Beta (B) cell destruction is highest at this age. Patients with Type 1 Diabetes are required to take insulin injections to compensate for their lack of insulin, but many patients still have episodes of hyperglycemia. This paper analyzes and compares the effectiveness of different treatment options. The standard approach is to prescribe insulin injections, but this analysis finds insulin injections in conjunction with oral medications such as Metformin and Sodium-glucose co-transporter (SGLT) inhibitors has a positive …

Cerebral Organoids As Models For Neurological Disorders, Esther Karman

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Despite the devastating effects of neurological disorders on millions of people each year, for decades, brain research remained stagnant in the face of scientific advancement in other areas. Ethical concerns, debilitating costs, and a lack of suitable models created an unfriendly environment for the study of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and gliomas. Recent developments in the field of stem cells, including Yamanaka’s discovery of the four transcription factors necessary to induce pluripotency, and the subsequent culturing of induced pluripotent stem cell models known as organoids, opened …

Functional Mri Brain Scan, Miranda Bohn

Student Research Poster Presentations 2022

This project explains a functional MRI (fMRI) brain scan and the role magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can play in helping patients receive diagnoses and prepare for surgery. The purpose, contraindications, outcomes, methods, and common task performed are also discussed. A functional MRI records different areas of the brain that are active when the patient performs different tasks. Some of the different tasks that are done during task-based fMRI are sentence completion, finger tapping, verb generation and word generation. There are also times during the scan when the patient just lays still known as a resting-state fMRI. This brain scan has …

The Effect Of Creatine On Immortalized Schwann Cell Proliferation, Peyton Kimmel, Caitlyn Henry, Angela Asirvatham

Student Research Poster Presentations 2022

Creatine is an important component of the high-energy phosphate transfer to regulate cellular levels of ATP. The functions of creatine supplementation are well studied in the muscular and skeletal system, however the impact of creatine in the nervous system, specifically Schwann cells, is relatively unknown. Schwann cell growth in vitro is facilitated by heregulin, a neuron secreted growth factor, and forskolin, a pharmacological agent that activates cAMP. In peripheral nervous system injuries, recovery time is based around Schwann cell’s ability to proliferate and differentiate, and it is unknown what role creatine plays in this process. It was hypothesized that increasing …

Simulation Of An Inflammatory Model Using Schwann Cells, Caitlyn Henry, Peyton Kimmel, Angela Asirvatham

Student Research Poster Presentations 2022

During peripheral nerve injury, the myelin surrounding the neuronal axons is damaged, initiating an inflammatory response to remove myelin debris. Once myelin debris is cleared, Schwann cells acquire a proliferating phenotype which allows them to grow and divide so that remyelination can occur. The neuron stimulates Schwann cell division by secreting growth factors, like heregulin, and an unknown growth factor that activates the cAMP pathway. Although the role of cAMP in axonal regeneration is well-known, not much has been explored about its function in Schwann cells during nerve injury and inflammation. To simulate an inflammatory environment, the S16 Schwann cell …

Improving Classroom Climate And Engagement At The Secondary Special Education Level Through The Implementation Of Classroom Management Strategies, Pauline Mickavicz

Student Research Poster Presentations 2022

A lack of professional development, the complexity of interventions, and limited data to reflect upon have implemented successful classroom management strategies challenging for special educators. These barriers negatively impact classroom climate and achievement in special education rooms. Educators should receive support to execute classroom management strategies confidently to decrease problem behavior and increase student engagement. Best practice classroom management strategies should be narrowed down to hone in on interventions and simplify the complexity of the delivery. Data collection will play an integral role in the reflection process and provide insight into how classroom management can be examined at the high …

Comparison Of Educational Requirements For Entry To Healthcare Professions, Logan Savitcheff, Coryn Ochten

Student Research Poster Presentations 2022

Misericordia University offers over 15-degree programs and 12 entry and post-professional certificates in the College of Health Sciences. This research focuses on eight of these programs and the similarities and differences among them. Educational requirements for entry to the healthcare professions was compared in a table, with information found in each professions’ accreditation standards, as well as the Misericordia University program handbooks and program catalog. Some of the topics covered include accreditation standards, certification organizations, licensure requirements for the state of Pennsylvania, clinical/fieldwork hour requirements, and minimum degree requirements to enter the profession. Further research was conducted to determine the …

The Meaning Of Dark, Light And Shadows: Inferences In Art, Materiality And Cultural Practices, Frank Prendergast

Book/Book Chapter

Our visual awareness relies on light acting on the eye to perceive materiality and colour. Medieval thought wrestled to articulate and comprehend its nature. The notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, for example, included his descriptions to define light and make comparisons so as to differentiate between light and shadow. His focus was on the illumination of surfaces from the perspective of a painter, seeing shadows as ‘the diminution of light by the intervention of an opaque body’ and ‘the counterpart of luminous rays’. In his mind, a shadow ‘stood between light and darkness’, with darkness being ‘the absence of light’. …

Sure 2022 Undergraduate Science Conference Booklet, Sure Network

Group Reports

The SURE 2022 Conference was the fifth series of Science Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Conferences. The conference took place on Friday, 14th October, 2022, co-hosted by SETU – Carlow campus and TU Dublin as a live Face2Face event running simultaneously in both venues on the same day. Students from throughout Ireland completing their Final Year Project in a science discipline in 2021-22 presented their undergraduate research work to this conference.

The aims of each of the SURE conferences are to:

• Provide current students with an opportunity to gain an understanding of the work which has been undertaken by recent graduates, …

Transferring Studies Across Embodiments: A Case Study In Confusion Detection, Na Li, Robert J. Ross

Articles

Human-robot studies are expensive to conduct and difficult to control, and as such researchers sometimes turn to human-avatar interaction in the hope of faster and cheaper data collection that can be transferred to the robot domain. In terms of our work, we are particularly interested in the challenge of detecting and modelling user confusion in interaction, and as part of this research programme, we conducted situated dialogue studies to investigate users' reactions in confusing scenarios that we give in both physical and virtual environments. In this paper, we present a combined review of these studies and the results that we …

Advancing Competency In Managing Risk And Knowledge: Steps Toward Operationalisation Of The Risk-Knowledge Infinity Cycle (Rki Cycle) Part 3: Uncovering Knowledge For Qrm Through Knowledge Mapping At Node 1, Martin Lipa, Valerie Mulholland, Anne Greene

Articles

To date, literature on the Risk-Knowledge Infinity Cycle (RKI Cycle) has mainly been theoretical. This paper series intent is to focus on the operationalisation of the RKI Cycle by describing a series of steps – the “How to” – for RKI Cycle deployment, to help move the RKI Cycle from theory to practice. The third paper in this series focuses on ensuring the best available knowledge flows into QRM through a case study demonstrating knowledge mapping to support effective quality risk assessment during commissioning and qualification activities.

A Sense Of Trust: Somatic Spiritual Practices As A Path To Wholeness In Spiritually Integrated Trauma Care, Shyamaa Marie Creaven

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A traumatic event holds the power to rupture one’s world, generating lingering effects on embodied existence. Research has demonstrated that overwhelmingly stressful events often call into question deeply held values and beliefs and that spiritual struggles “tend to be partially responsible for the distress experienced" (Pomerleau et al., 2020, pp. 456–457). Similarly, research with veterans has demonstrated that religious and spiritual struggles mediate the relationship between a potentially morally injurious event and both anxiety and PTSD (Evans et al., 2018), often intensifying trauma and moral injury symptoms as well as opening a pathway for spiritual integration and growth (Pargament & …

Exploring Opportunities For Supporting Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth: A Path Forward Through Expanding Graduate Training In School Psychology, Erica L. Gleason

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School psychologists are equipped with a dynamic skill set and an ethical and moral responsibility to support the diverse needs of all youth. While juvenile justice-involved youth may not be a primary subpopulation served by all school psychologists, they are a high-needs group that requires special consideration and attention. As a professional entity, school psychologists’ knowledge and expertise are not optimally applied to serving these youth. Consequently, school psychologists may be forgoing an opportunity to improve rates of successful school and community reintegration and overall positive life outcomes for justice-involved youth. The first manuscript of this dissertation presents precipitating and …

Representation Matters: An Examination In To How The Patient Experience Is Impacted By The Inclusion Of Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Questions On A Health History Intake Form, Meghan N. Digneit

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

The disclosure of one’s sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) status is an extremely personal decision subject to a variety of internal and external factors. The disclosure of this status in the healthcare setting is an important topic that continues to be subject to discussion, research, education, and mutual understanding between the patient and provider. The purpose of this DNP project is to explore how answering SOGI questions on a general intake form impacts patient attitudes regarding the impending visit. This was a mixed-methods research study that included demographic questions, nominal data in the form of yes/no questions, and two …

2 - Cleared For Travel, University Of Alabama At Birmingham

UAB Magazine

No abstract provided.

Does The Thermal Mismatch Hypothesis Predict Disease Outcomes In Different Morphs Of A Terrestrial Salamander?, Matthew Venesky, Joseph Alan Demarchi, Cari-Ann M. Hickerson, Carl D. Anthony

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Many aspects of ectotherm physiology are temperature‐dependent. The immune system of temperate‐dwelling ectothermic host species is no exception and their immune function is often downregulated in cold temperatures. Likewise, species of ectothermic pathogens experience temperature‐mediated effects on rates of transmission and/or virulence. Although seemingly straightforward, predicting the outcomes of ectothermic host−pathogen interactions is quite challenging. A recent hypothesis termed the thermal mismatch hypothesis posits that cool‐adapted host species should be most susceptible to pathogen infection during warm temperature periods whereas warm‐adapted host species should be most susceptible to pathogens during periods of cool temperatures. We explore this hypothesis using two …

Dose-Dependent Alkaloid Sequestration And N-Methylation Of Decahydroquinoline In Poison Frogs, Adriana M. Jeckel, Sarah K. Bolton, Katherine R. Waters, Marta M. Antoniazzi, Carlos Jared, Kunihiro Matsumura, Keisuke Nishikawa, Yoshiki Morimoto5, Taran Grant, Ralph Saporito

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Sequestration of chemical defenses from dietary sources is dependent on the availability of compounds in the environment and the mechanism of sequestration. Previous experiments have shown that sequestration efficiency varies among alkaloids in poison frogs, but little is known about the underlying mechanism. The aim of this study was to quantify the extent to which alkaloid sequestration and modification are dependent on alkaloid availability and/or sequestration mechanism. To do this, we administered different doses of histrionicotoxin (HTX) 235A and decahydroquinoline (DHQ) to captive‐bred Adelphobates galactonotus and measured alkaloid quantity in muscle, kidney, liver, and feces. HTX 235A and DHQ were …

Hybridization Between The Woodland Salamanders Plethodon Cinereus And P. Electromorphus Is Not Widespread, Shawn R. Kuchta, Maggie M. Hantak, Brian P. Waldron, Cari-Ann M. Hickerson, Richard M. Lehtinen, Carl Anthony

2022 Faculty Bibliography

A recent study reported widespread hybridization between the Eastern Red-backed Salamander (Plethodon cinereus) and the Northern Ravine Salamander (P. electromorphus) in northern Ohio. In this study, DNA sequence data were obtained from three nuclear loci and 20 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified from the sequences. They found that 48 out of 90 individuals from 13 populations were hybrids, and in some localities every individual possessed an admixed genotype. As these results contradict our observations, and because levels of hybridization impact our interpretation of past and ongoing studies, we revisited the data. First we reanalyzed the original SNPs using STRUCTURE, …

Brief Report: Validity And Reliability Of The Nigerian Autism Screening Questionnaire, Muideen O. Bakare, Thomas Frazier, Arun Karpur, Amina Abubakar, Moses Kachama Nyongesa, Paul Murimu Mwangi, Pamela Dixon, Izma Khaliq, Natalie K. Gase, Jonathan Sandstrom, Nwanze Okidegbe, Michael Rosanoff, Kerim M. Munir, Andy Shih

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Informant-report measures for screening symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) are needed for low-resource settings if early identification is to be prioritized because early developmental concerns are likely to be expressed by parents and other caregivers. This paper describes the initial psychometric evaluation of the Nigeria Autism Screening Questionnaire (NASQ). Parents and other caregivers completed the NASQ on 12,311 children ages 1 to 18 in a Nigerian population sample as part of the World Bank National General Household Survey conducted in the country in 2016. Factor analyses indicated a parsimonious three-factor structure with social communication/interaction, …

Circumscription Of Fulbrightiella Gen. Nov. And Sherwoodiella Gen. Nov., Two Novel Genera In The Calotrichaceae (Nostocales, Cyanobacteria), Naresh Kumar, Aniket Saraf, Sagarika Paul, Deeksha Mishra, Prashant Singh, Jeffrey R. Johansen

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Three novel strains in Calotrichaceae from tropical habitats were isolated and characterized with regard to their morphology, phylogenetic placement, and secondary structures of conserved domains in the 16S‐23S internal transcribed spacer (ITS). The strains fell into two clades formerly identified as Calothrix from freshwater and brackish habitats. Based on both morphology and ecology, they differed from the type species of Calothrix, C. confervicola, which is marine, has wide trichomes with short cells, and narrows abruptly to a hyaline hair. The first clade grouped species with heteropolar filaments widened at the base and narrowed gradually toward the apex but not ending …

Maternal Provisioning Of Alkaloid Defenses Are Present In Obligate But Not Facultative Egg Feeding Dendrobatids, Emily D. Villanueva, Olivia L. Brooks, Sarah K. Bolton, Nina Savastano, Lisa M. Schulte, Ralph Saporito

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Poison frogs sequester alkaloid defenses from a diet of largely mites and ants. As a result, frogs are defended against certain predators and microbial infections. Frogs in the genus Oophaga exhibit complex maternal care, wherein mothers transport recently hatched tadpoles to nursery pools and return regularly to supply developing tadpoles with unfertilized (nutritive) eggs. Developing tadpoles are obligate egg feeders. Further, female O. pumilio and O. sylvatica maternally provision their nutritive eggs with alkaloid defenses, providing protection to their developing tadpoles at a vulnerable life-stage. In another genus of poison frog, Ranitomeya, tadpoles only receive and consume eggs facultatively, and …

Repeatability Of Foraging Behavior Following A Simulated Predation Attempt Depends On Color Morph, Sex, And Foraging Metric In Red-Backed Salamanders (Plethodon Cinereus), Brian P. Waldron, Marissa C. Ganzfried, Cari-Ann M. Hickerson, Carl D. Anthony

2022 Faculty Bibliography

Behavioral repeatability greatly affects the capacity of an individual to respond to varying environments. When multiple behaviors within individuals are repeatable and correlated across time or across contexts, it is termed a behavioral syndrome. However, not all behaviors exhibit the same level of repeatability, and relatively few studies have examined repeatability in amphibians. We examined the repeatability of foraging behavior in the Eastern Red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus), a color-polymorphic terrestrial salamander, following a simulated predation attempt. We tested several hypotheses: (1) Simulated predation would negatively affect foraging, increasing latency to feed and decreasing the number of prey items eaten in …

The Impact Of The Coronavirus Pandemic On Adolescent Mental Health: A Literature Review, Grace Murnane

Senior Honors Projects

The coronavirus pandemic, hereafter simply Covid-19, has pervaded and impacted in some way, shape or form the lives of everyone, globally. The disease itself can cause severe physical effects, but the indirect implications of quarantine and isolation have been shown to cause mental issues of concern among adolescents. Adolescents are at a unique point in their lives at which socialization is crucial for proper brain development. As such, this literature review will proceed with the goal of summarizing why adolescents need socialization, how Covid-19 has impeded that socialization, and the effects of a lack of socialization among that age group

Animal Models In Neuropsychiatry: Do The Benefits Outweigh The Moral Costs?, Carrie Figdor

Animal Models - Psychology

Animal models have long been used to investigate human mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia. This practice is usually justified in terms of the benefits (to humans) outweighing the costs (to the animals). The author argues on utility maximization grounds that we should phase out animal models in neuropsychiatric research. The leading theories of how human minds and behavior evolved invoke sociocultural factors whose relation to nonhuman minds, societies, and behavior has not been homologized. Thus, it is not at all clear that we are gaining the epistemic or clinical benefits we want from this animal-based research

World Happiness Report 2022, John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sacks, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara B. Atkin, Shun Wang

Happiness and Subjective Well-Being

This is the tenth anniversary of the World Happiness Report. From its first year, the report has had a large and growing readership – reaching over 9 million in 2021. It has been widely cited. But more important has been the message the Report has carried. The true measure of progress is the happiness of the people that happiness can be measured; and that we know a lot about what causes it. Given this knowledge, it is now possible for policy-makers to make people’s happiness the goal of their policies. And each of us can live a wiser life. We …

Pain Sentience Criteria And Their Grading, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg

Animal Sentience

On the basis of the target article by Crump and colleagues, we suggest a more parsimonious scheme for evaluating the evidence for sentience. Since some of the criteria used by Crump et al. are not independent and some are uninformative we exclude some criteria and amalgamate others. We propose that evidence of flexible learning and prioritization, in conjunction with relevant data on brain organization, is sufficient for assigning pain-sentience to an animal and we suggest a scoring scheme based on four criteria.

Truly Minimal Criteria For Animal Sentience, Mark Solms

Animal Sentience

The criteria for determining animal sentience proposed in the target article are sensible but they lack an explicit functional justification for the focus on pain. This commentary provides an abbreviated account of the most basic functional principles that underpin animal sentience and articulates some minimal criteria for determining its presence.

Crustacean Pain, Michael Tye

Animal Sentience

This commentary discusses the target article’s methodology, the relevance of the claim that crustaceans lack a neocortex to the thesis that they feel pain, and the evaluation of the results of some trade-off experiments done with hermit crabs.

No Need For Certainty In Animal Sentience, Yew Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

This commentary supports Crump et al.’s (2022) point that where risks to welfare are severe, strong evidence of sentience is sufficient to warrant protecting welfare. Crump et al.’s eight criteria for sentience are also useful. Flexible decision-making (5) and flexible behaviour (6) are consistent with Ng (1995). The concession that the “no-need-for-sentience” proposition is unnecessary also strengthens the importance of the target article’s conclusions.

What Might Decapod Sentience Mean For Policy, Practice, And Public?, Richard Gorman

Animal Sentience

Crump et al. provide eight criteria for evaluating sentience in decapods, with scope for for application to other taxa. Their work has attracted the interest of policymakers. This commentary discusses the limitations of conceptual and legal acknowledgement of sentience in chainging practice and public attitudes. More work is needed. Social science may be able to help.