Digital Commons Network^™

Use Of An Invertebrate Animal Model (Aplysia Californica) To Develop Novel Neural Interfaces For Neuromodulation, Junqi Zhuo, Jeffrey P. Gill, Michael W. Jenkins, Hillel J. Chiel

Faculty Scholarship

New tools for monitoring and manipulating neural activity have been developed with steadily improving functionality, specificity, and reliability, which are critical both for mapping neural circuits and treating neurological diseases. This review focuses on the use of an invertebrate animal, the marine mollusk Aplysia californica, in the development of novel neurotechniques. We review the basic physiological properties of Aplysia neurons and discuss the specific aspects that make it advantageous for developing novel neural interfaces: First, Aplysia nerves consist only of unmyelinated axons with various diameters, providing a particularly useful model of the unmyelinated C fibers in vertebrates that are known …

Gardner-Webb Names New Head Soccer Coach, Office Of University Communications

Gardner-Webb NewsCenter Archive

Gardner-Webb University VP and Director of Athletics Dr. Andrew Goodrich announced the hiring of Scott Wells as the Runnin’ Bulldogs head men’s soccer coach on Thursday.

“We empowered our men’s soccer student-athletes to discuss and develop the criteria and values they wanted from their next head coach,” said Goodrich. “They made it clear they wanted a person who cared deeply about the players on and off the field, a person with a proven NCAA championship pedigree, and a person who is skillful in helping diverse international and domestic players come together to play their best as a unified team. I …

Former Captain Pledges $2m To Unh Ski Team, Erika Mantz

Media Relations

No abstract provided.

The Weekly Challenger, December 22, 2022, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The December 22, 2022, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Niche Modeling Of Eight Crayfish Species In Texas, Nathan Schubert

Biology Theses

Freshwater species make up ~10% of all known species and occupy less than one percent of earth’s habitat, which is being degraded by human usage. Crayfish have a large impact on their aquatic or terrestrial environment and can serve as a health indicator of aquatic environments, as they generally require undegraded environments. In many habitats, crayfish make up more than half of the macroinvertebrate biomass, and play important ecological roles, as a food resource for both aquatic and terrestrial species, as predators of fish and invertebrates, and as bioprocessors of vegetation and detritus. The objective of this project was to …

Movements In C Minor: Vocal Soundscapes In Eastern Amazonia (Araweté), Guilherme Orlandini Heurich

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article examines the capture of forest spirits through music in the Anĩ pihi speech-songs of the Araweté, a small Amerindian society in Eastern Amazonia, Brazil. The Anĩ pihi are unique in their combination of spoken and sung forms, in which spirits and divinities are voiced by a ritual specialist. I explore how particular sounds index the presence of different kinds of others (gods and spirits), and how these sounds are, in turn, related to the use of reported speech – in other words, how others talk about other others in sung form. As such, the Anĩ pihi are a …

The Fiscal Sustainability Of Retiree Health Care Benefits Among New York State School Districts, Robert Bifulco, Minch Lewis, Iuliia Shybalkina

Center for Policy Research

We examine spending on retiree health care as a percentage of revenues for a sample of New York State school districts. The fiscal burden of these benefits grew from 2010 to 2021, and big city school districts have faced the largest burdens. Assuming CBO forecasts regarding growth in health care costs and continuation of recent trends in revenue growth, we project that the burden of retiree health care benefits will exceed 10 percent of revenue by 2050. Projected burdens are greatest big city and high need rural districts. We discuss cutting benefits and pre-funding as possible policy responses.

Analysis Of Discriminatory Measures From European Union Renewable Energy Directive Ii To Indonesia As A Palm Oil Producer Country, Enrico Denis Sihotang

Indonesia Law Review

On 21 December 2018, the European Union (EU) issued a regulation titled Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II), where the RED II policy introduced the indirect land use change (ILUC) criteria for palm oil. RED II states that palm oil is classified as a commodity with a “ high ILUC risk” type, and as such, the EU will gradually reduce palm oil consumption and no longer use palm oil by 2030. Indonesia brought this issue to WTO in 2020. Indonesia, through its consultation, argued that the RED II is inconsistent with the few provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs …

A Recovery Pathway After Covid-19 Teacher Burnout, Laura Sokal, Lesley Eblie Trudel

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Burnout in the helping professions, including teaching, has been well documented for over fifty years and has been captured within two seminal models offered by Maslach and her colleagues. For this study we interviewed 22 teachers bi-weekly to determine whether these models captured their COVID-19 pandemic work experiences during the 2020–2021 school year. Only one teacher, however, left work on a medical leave and then returned to work after burning out, and therefore provided a case study of the processes of both teacher burnout and recovery under pandemic conditions. The existing models of burnout were upheld as salient in understanding …

Reindeer From Alaska Are Brought To Sun Valley, John W. Lundin

Works by Local Authors

No abstract provided.

Rare Diseases And Space Health: Optimizing Synergies From Scientific Questions To Care, Maria Puscas, Gabrielle Martineau, Gurjot Bhella, Penelope E Bonnen, Phil Carr, Robyn Lim, John Mitchell, Matthew Osmond, Emmanuel Urquieta, Jaime Flamenbaum, Giuseppe Iaria, Yann Joly, Étienne Richer, Joan Saary, David Saint-Jacques, Nicole Buckley, Etienne Low-Decarie

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Knowledge transfer among research disciplines can lead to substantial research progress. At first glance, astronaut health and rare diseases may be seen as having little common ground for such an exchange. However, deleterious health conditions linked to human space exploration may well be considered as a narrow sub-category of rare diseases. Here, we compare and contrast research and healthcare in the contexts of rare diseases and space health and identify common barriers and avenues of improvement. The prevalent genetic basis of most rare disorders contrasts sharply with the occupational considerations required to sustain human health in space. Nevertheless small sample …

Preface, Alexander Belton, Uwe Franz

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

The Density Of States Method In Yang-Mills Theories And First Order Phase Transitions, David Mason, Biagio Lucini, Maurizio Piai, Enrico Rinaldi, Davide Vadacchino

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Extensions of the standard model that lead to first-order phase transitions in the early universe can produce a stochastic background of gravitational waves, which may be accessible to future detectors. Thermodynamic observables at the transition, such as the latent heat, can be determined by lattice simulations, and then used to predict the expected signatures in a given theory. In lattice calculations, the emergence of metastabilities in proximity of the phase transition may make the precise determination of these observables quite challenging, and may lead to large uncontrolled numerical errors. In this contribution, we discuss as a prototype lattice calculation the …

Composite Dynamics In Sp(2N) Gauge Theories, Jong Wan Lee, Ed Bennett, Deog Ki Hong, Ho Hsiao, C. J.David Lin, Biagio Lucini, Maurizio Piai, Davide Vadacchino

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Sp(2N) gauge theories with fermonic matter provide an ideal laboratory to build extensions of the standard model based on novel composite dynamics. Examples include composite Higgs along with top partial compositeness and composite dark matter. Without fermions, their study also complements those based on SU(Nc) gauge theories with which they share a common sector in the large Nc = 2N limit. We report on our recent progress in the numerical studies of Sp(2N) gauge theories discretised on a four-dimensional Euclidean lattice. In particular, we present preliminary results for the low-lying mass spectra of mesons and chimera baryons in the theories …

A Review On Nanomaterials And Nanohybrids Based Bio-Nanocomposites For Food Packaging, Kalpani Y. Perera, Amit K. Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

Articles

With an increasing demand for a novel, eco-friendly, high-performance packaging material “bio-nanocomposites” has attracted great attention in recent years. The review article aims at to evaluating recent innovation in bio-nanocomposites for food packaging applications. The current trends and research over the last three years of the various bio-nanocomposites including inorganic, organic nanomaterials, and nanohybrids, which are suitable as food packaging materials due to their advanced properties such as high mechanical, thermal, barrier, antimicrobial, and antioxidant are described in detail. In addition, the legislation, migration studies, and SWOT analysis on bio-nanocomposite film have been discussed. It has been observed that the …

The Original “Market” Understanding Of The Commerce Clause: Insights From Early Federal Government Practice And Precedent, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Equivalent Hazard Magnitude Scale, Yi Victor Wang, Antonia Sebastian

Institute for ECHO Articles and Research

Hazard magnitude scales are widely adopted to facilitate communication regarding hazard events and the corresponding decision making for emergency management. A hazard magnitude scale measures the strength of a hazard event considering the natural forcing phenomena and the severity of the event with respect to average entities at risk. However, existing hazard magnitude scales cannot be easily adapted for comparative analysis across different hazard types. Here, we propose an equivalent hazard magnitude scale to measure the hazard strength of an event across multiple types of hazards. We name the scale the Gardoni Scale after Professor Paolo Gardoni. We design the …

How Does Allium Leafy Parts Metabolome Differ In Context To Edible Or Inedible Taxa? Case Study In Seven Allium Species As Analyzed Using Ms-Based Metabolomics, Mostafa H. Baky, Samir N. Shamma, Mohamed R. Khalifa, Mohamed A. Farag

Faculty Journal Articles

Genus Allium (F. Amaryllidaceae) includes a wide variety of edible foods widely consumed for their nutritive as well as health benefits. Seven Allium species, viz., chives, Egyptian leek, French leek, red garlic, white garlic, red onion, and white onion aerial parts were assessed for metabolome heterogeneity targeting both aroma and nutrients phytochemicals. A headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) were employed. Results revealed extensive variation in volatiles and nutrients profile among the seven Allium species represented by a total of 77 nutrients and 148 volatiles. Among edible Allium species, French leek encompassed high levels of nutrients, viz., …

Bio-Inspired Micromachined Volumetric Flow Sensor With A Big Dynamic Range For Intravenous Systems, Lansheng Zhang, Yingchen Yang, Georgios A. Bertos, Chang Liu, Huan Hu

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Real-time monitoring of drug delivery in an intravenous infusion system can prevent injury caused by improper drug doses. As the medicine must be administered into the vein at different rates and doses in different people, an ideal intravenous infusion system requires both a low flow rate and large dynamic range monitoring. In this study, a bio-inspired and micromachined volumetric flow sensor is presented for the biomedical application of an intravenous system. This was realized by integrating two sensing units with different sensitivities on one silicon die to achieve a large dynamic range of the volumetric flow rate. The sensor was …

Investigation, Detection And Prevention Of Online Child Sexual Abuse Material: A Comprehensive Survey, Vuong Ngo, Christina Thorpe, Cach N. Dang, Susan Mckeever

Conference papers

Child sexual abuse inflicts lifelong devastating consequences for victims and is a growing social concern. In most countries, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) distribution is illegal. As a result, there are many research papers in the literature which proposed technologies to detect and investigate CSAM. In this survey, a comprehensive search of the peer reviewed journal and conference paper databases (including preprints) is conducted to identify high-quality literature. We use the PRISMA methodology to refine our search space to 2,761 papers published by Springer, Elsevier, IEEE and ACM. After iterative reviews of title, abstract and full text for relevance to …

Clinical Cancer And Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Test Result-Sharing Behavior: Findings From Hints 2020, Sukh Makhnoon, Robert Yu, Susan K Peterson, Sanjay Shete

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: Sharing genetic test results with different stakeholders such as family members, healthcare providers and genetic counselors (HCP/GCs), spouses/partners, and friends is a health behavior of clinical importance in genomic medicine.

METHODS: Using nationally representative population-based data collected from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS 5, cycle 4), we identified the prevalence and factors associated with genetic test result-sharing behavior for high-risk cancer tests, genetic health risk tests, and ancestry tests within four groups: HCP/GCs, first-degree relatives (FDRs), spouse/partner, and friend/other.

RESULTS: Overall, 68.4% of those who underwent high-risk cancer genetic testing shared their results with FDRs, whereas 89.9% …

A Study Of The Association Between Blunt Thoracic Aortic Injury And A Type Of Collision In Fatal Motorcycle Accident, Wachiraporn Nantakarn, Peerayuht Phuangphung

Asian Medical Journal and Alternative Medicine

Introduction/Objective: To determine the association between blunt thoracic aortic injury (BTAI) and the type of collision in fatal motorcycle riders in Thai postmortem cases.

Methods: Data from autopsy reports of motorcycle riders who were sent for medico-legal autopsies at the Department of Forensic Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University between 1^st January 2018 and 31^st December 2020 and presented with BTAI were retrospectively reviewed. Sex, age, height and weight, causes of death, types of collision, details of aortic injuries and associated injuries were recorded. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test and contingency table Chi-square test were analyzed where it was …

Cytotoxic Activity On Colorectal Cancer Cells And Antioxidant Activity Of Crude Extracts Of Pi-Kad-Tri-Khan-Tha-Wart Remedy And Its Component, Katanchalee Houngiam, Arunporn Itharat, Bhanuz Dechayont, Pathompong Phuaklee, Jitpisute Chunthorng-Orn

Asian Medical Journal and Alternative Medicine

Introduction: Pi-Kad-Tri-Khan-Tha-Wart (PK) is a Thai traditional remedy utilizing for gastrointestinal tract disorder such as nausea vomiting stomachache. It consists of three medicinal plants. Two ingredients of the remedy, nutmeg (seed of Myristica fragrans Houtt., MF) and clove (flower buds of Syzygium aromaticum (L.) Merr. & L.M. Perry., SA), had anti-inflammation, antioxidation and cytotoxic property against breast cancer cells (MCF-7). Fruit of Amomum xanthioides Wall. (AX) had cytotoxicity against ovarian cancer cells (SK-OV-3) and malignant melanoma cells (SK-MEL-2). This study investigated the cytotoxicity against colorectal cancer cells and antioxidant of the Pi-Kad-Tri-Khan-Tha-Wart remedy and its components.

Methods: The remedy and …

Heat Stressed Exercise Elicits Shifts In Cooling Strategies Across Body Mass In Tropical Songbirds, Kristen Dee Oliver

Biology ETDs

In resting animals, water use positively correlates with metabolic rate, for example smaller animals using proportionally more water per gram of body mass. However, animals also must endure heat and exertion, and evaporative cooling requires additional water use that may not scale similarly with body size. How evaporative water loss allometrically scales with body mass during heat-stressed exercise is poorly resolved, particularly for birds, yet is critically important for understanding the consequences of climate warming on the fitness of bird populations. Here, we evaluated how air temperature (T_a) influenced evaporative water loss during exercise (EWL_exercise) across …

Myocardial Contractility Pattern Characterization In Radiation-Induced Cardiotoxicity Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Pilot Study With Contractix, El-Sayed H Ibrahim, Antonio Sosa, Sherry-Ann Brown, Dayeong An, Slade Klawikowski, John Baker, Carmen Bergom

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Radiation therapy (RT) plays an integral role in treating thoracic cancers, despite the risk of radiation-induced cardiotoxicity. We hypothesize that our newly developed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based contractility index (ContractiX) is a sensitive marker for early detection of RT-induced cardiotoxicity in a preclinical rat model of thoracic cancer RT. Adult salt-sensitive rats received image-guided heart RT and were imaged with MRI at 8 weeks and 10 weeks post-RT or sham. The MRI exam included cine and tagging sequences to measure left-ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), mass, myocardial strain, and ContractiX. Furthermore, ventricular torsion, diastolic strain rate, and mechanical dyssynchrony were measured. …

Engineering Naturally Occurring Cd7- T Cells For The Immunotherapy Of Hematological Malignancies, Abdullah Freiwan, Jaquelyn T Zoine, Jeremy Chase Crawford, Abishek Vaidya, Stefan A Schattgen, Jacquelyn A Myers, Sagar L Patil, Mahsa Khanlari, Hiroto Inaba, Jeffery M Klco, Charles G Mullighan, Giedre Krenciute, Peter J Chockley, Swati Naik, Deanna M Langfitt, Maksim Mamonkin, Esther A Obeng, Paul G Thomas, Stephen Gottschalk, M Paulina Velasquez

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy targeting T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) faces limitations such as antigen selection and limited T-cell persistence. CD7 is an attractive antigen for targeting T-ALL, but overlapping expression on healthy T cells leads to fratricide of CD7-CAR T cells, requiring additional genetic modification. We took advantage of naturally occurring CD7- T cells to generate CD7-CAR (CD7-CARCD7-) T cells. CD7-CARCD7- T cells exhibited a predominantly CD4+ memory phenotype and had significant antitumor activity upon chronic antigen exposure in vitro and in xenograft mouse models. Based on these encouraging results, we next explored the utility of CD7- …

The Interaction Of Adipose Derived Stem Cells And Breast Cancer, Natasha Cunningham, Ava O'Meara, Cathy L. Brougham

SURE Journal: Science Undergraduate Research Experience Journal

Introduction: Mesenchymal stem cells are adult stem cells capable of self-renewal and multilineage differentiation (Schweizer et al., 2015). Adipose derived stem cells have been used in breast reconstruction following surgical intervention in breast cancer patients. MicroRNAs have been linked to gene regulation essential in oncogenic, and tumour suppression as well as cell signalling pathways in BC.

Aim: To research the hypothesis of ADSCs and their therapeutic properties in BC patients.

Methods: Proliferation assays were carried out to demonstrate how ADSC conditioned media influenced BC cell lines MDA-MB-231, SKBR3, and T47D. The expression of six miRNAs (miR-21, miR-133, miR-222, miR-146, miR-221, …

Therapies For Mitochondrial Disorders, Kayli Sousa Smyth, Anne Mulvihill

SURE Journal: Science Undergraduate Research Experience Journal

Mitochondria are cytoplasmic, double-membrane organelles that synthesise adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondria contain their own genome, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is maternally inherited from the oocyte. Mitochondrial proteins are encoded by either nuclear DNA (nDNA) or mtDNA, and both code for proteins forming the mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) complexes of the respiratory chain. These complexes form a chain that allows the passage of electrons down the electron transport chain (ETC) through a proton motive force, creating ATP from adenosine diphosphate (ADP). This study aims to explore current and prospective therapies for mitochondrial disorders (MTDS). MTDS are clinical syndromes coupled with abnormalities …

Deadly Snow: Meditations On Muriel Rukeyser, Andrei Tarkovsky, And The Pandemic Era, Nicole Lawrence

Critical Humanities

The following personal essay meditates on Appalachian fatalism and its relationship to vaccine and mask hesitancy. The analogous relationship between ecological destruction and uncertainty with the exploitation and abuse of the body serves as a waypoint to explore Appalachia’s larger dismissal towards “protection” during the pandemic. Included are original art pieces that serve to intertextually converse with Rukeyser’s activism, West Virginia’s aesthetic schism between industrial catastrophe and symbols of prosperity, and Tarkovsky’s imagery of desolation and hope.

Overview Of Research And Application On Autonomous Vehicle Oriented Perception System Simulation, Ruoxuan Wang, Jianping Wu, Hui Xu

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Following the rapid progress of science and technology, vehicles with autonomous driving or auxiliary driving function enter into vehicle market. However, in the past decade, traffic accidents still occurred frequently, and the safety of these functions become the focus. Simulation technology provides a good platform to test the perception system of autonomous vehicle. Focus on the sensor simulation modeling of autonomous vehicle perception system, from the perspective of single sensor simulation, multi-sensor simulation and classic simulation platform including millimeter wave radar, lidar and camera, the existing research are reviewed, and the shortcomings and development trends of simulation modeling of …