Digital Commons Network^™

Vigorous-Intensity Exercise As A Modulator Of Cardiac Adipose Tissue In Women With Obesity: A Cross-Sectional And Randomized Pilot Study, Sumsen Thapa, Bharath S Selvaraj, Paige N Davis, Bryan Smith, Amy H Givan, Jose A Perez-Rivera, Pamela K Woodard, Jon D Klingensmith, Maria Fernandez-Del-Valle

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Cardiac adipose tissue (CAT) has become an important target for the reduction of disease risk. Supervised exercise programs have shown potential to "significantly" reduce CAT; however, the impact of different exercise modalities is not clear, and the relationships between CAT, physical activity (PA) levels and fitness (PFit) remain unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships between CAT, PA and PFit, and to explore the effects of different exercise modalities in a group of women with obesity. A total of 26 women (age: 23.41 ± 5.78 years-old) were enrolled in the cross-sectional study. PA, cardiorespiratory fitness, …

Impact Of Early Pericardial Fluid Chymase Activation After Cardiac Surgery, Brittany Butts, Lee A Goeddel, Jingyi Zheng, Betty Pat, Pamela Powell, James Mobley, Sarfaraz Ahmad, Chad Steele, David Mcgiffin, James E Davies, James F George, Spencer J Melby, Carlos M Ferrario, Louis J Dell'italia

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Chymase is a highly destructive serine protease rapidly neutralized in the circulation by protease inhibitors. Here we test whether pericardial fluid (PCF) chymase activation and other inflammatory biomarkers determine intensive care unit length of stay, and explore mechanisms of chymase delivery by extracellular vesicles to the heart.

METHODS: PCF was collected from adult patients (17 on-pump; 13 off-pump) 4 h after cardiac surgery. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) containing chymase were injected into Sprague-Dawley rats to test for their ability to deliver chymase to the heart.

RESULTS: The mean intensive care unit (ICU) stay and mean total length of stay was …

Sleep Deprivation, Sleep Fragmentation, And Social Jet Lag Increase Temperature Preference In Drosophila, S Tanner Roach, Melanie C Ford, Vikram Simhambhatla, Vasilios Loutrianakis, Hamza Farah, Zhaoyi Li, Erica M Periandri, Dina Abdalla, Irene Huang, Arjan Kalra, Paul J Shaw

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Despite the fact that sleep deprivation substantially affects the way animals regulate their body temperature, the specific mechanisms behind this phenomenon are not well understood. In both mammals and flies, neural circuits regulating sleep and thermoregulation overlap, suggesting an interdependence that may be relevant for sleep function. To investigate this relationship further, we exposed flies to 12 h of sleep deprivation, or 48 h of sleep fragmentation and evaluated temperature preference in a thermal gradient. Flies exposed to 12 h of sleep deprivation chose warmer temperatures after sleep deprivation. Importantly, sleep fragmentation, which prevents flies from entering deeper stages of …

Genotype And Clinical Characteristics Of Patients With Wolfram Syndrome And Wfs1-Related Disorders, Evan M Lee, Megha Verma, Nila Palaniappan, Emiko M Pope, Sammie Lee, Lindsey Blacher, Pooja Neerumalla, William An, Toko Campbell, Cris Brown, Stacy Hurst, Bess Marshall, Tamara Hershey, Fumihiko Urano, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Clinical Characteristics And Outcomes Of Infection With Human T-Lymphotropic Virus In A Non-Endemic Area: A Single Institution Study, Margery Gang, Feng Gao, Sneha Poondru, Theodore Thomas, Lee Ratner

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Understanding of human T-lymphotropic virus (HTLV) remains largely based on epidemiologic and clinical data from endemic areas. Globalization has resulted in migration of persons living with HTLV (PLHTLV) from endemic to non-endemic areas, and a rise of HTLV infection in the United States. Yet, due to the historical rarity of this disease, affected patients are often under- and mis-diagnosed. Thus, we sought to characterize the epidemiology, clinical features, comorbidities, and survival of HTLV-1- or HTLV-2-positive individuals identified in a non-endemic area.

METHODS: Our study was a single institution, retrospective case-control analysis of HTLV-1 or HTLV-2 patients between 1998 and …

Locus Specific Endogenous Retroviral Expression Associated With Alzheimer's Disease, Tyson Dawson, Uzma Rentia, Jessie Sanford, Carlos Cruchaga, John S K Kauwe, Keith A Crandall

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are transcriptionally-active remnants of ancient retroviral infections that may play a role in Alzheimer's disease.

METHODS: We combined two, publicly available RNA-Seq datasets with a third, novel dataset for a total cohort of 103 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 45 healthy controls. We use telescope to perform HERV quantification for these samples and simultaneously perform gene expression analysis.

RESULTS: We identify differentially expressed genes and differentially expressed HERVs in Alzheimer's disease patients. Differentially expressed HERVs are scattered throughout the genome; many of them are members of the HERV-K superfamily. A number of HERVs are correlated …

Functional Trajectories During Innate Spinal Cord Repair, Nicholas O Jensen, Brooke Burris, Lili Zhou, Hunter Yamada, Catrina Reyes, Zachary Pincus, Mayssa H Mokalled

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Adult zebrafish are capable of anatomical and functional recovery following severe spinal cord injury. Axon growth, glial bridging and adult neurogenesis are hallmarks of cellular regeneration during spinal cord repair. However, the correlation between these cellular regenerative processes and functional recovery remains to be elucidated. Whereas the majority of established functional regeneration metrics measure swim capacity, we hypothesize that gait quality is more directly related to neurological health. Here, we performed a longitudinal swim tracking study for 60 individual zebrafish spanning 8 weeks of spinal cord regeneration. Multiple swim parameters as well as axonal and glial bridging were integrated. We …

Carotid Atherosclerotic Plaque Segmentation In Multi-Weighted Mri Using A Two-Stage Neural Network: Advantages Of Training With High-Resolution Imaging And Histology, Ran Li, Jie Zheng, Mohamed A Zayed, Jeffrey E Saffitz, Pamela K Woodard, Abhinav K Jha

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: A reliable and automated method to segment and classify carotid artery atherosclerotic plaque components is needed to efficiently analyze multi-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) images to allow their integration into patient risk assessment for ischemic stroke. Certain plaque components such as lipid-rich necrotic core (LRNC) with hemorrhage suggest a greater likelihood of plaque rupture and stroke event. Assessment for presence and extent of LRNC could assist in directing treatment with impact upon patient outcomes.

METHODS: To address the need to accurately determine the presence and extent of plaque components on carotid plaque MRI, we proposed a two-staged deep-learning-based approach that …

Identification Of Prok2 Gene Polymorphisms As Predictors Of Methamphetamine Use Disorder Risk And Indicators Of Craving Scale In The Chinese Han Population, Zhao Jiang, Tianxiao Zhang, Wei Han, Jing Xiao, Wenpei Zhang, Xiaochen Wang, Jianing Liu, Ying Yang, Congying Yang, Fanglin Guan, Tao Li, John P Rice

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Assessment Of Cochlear Synaptopathy By Electrocochleography To Low Frequencies In A Preclinical Model And Human Subjects, Raymond A Haggerty, Kendall A Hutson, William J Riggs, Kevin D Brown, Harold C Pillsbury, Oliver F Adunka, Craig A Buchman, Douglas C Fitzpatrick

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Cochlear synaptopathy is the loss of synapses between the inner hair cells and the auditory nerve despite survival of sensory hair cells. The findings of extensive cochlear synaptopathy in animals after moderate noise exposures challenged the long-held view that hair cells are the cochlear elements most sensitive to insults that lead to hearing loss. However, cochlear synaptopathy has been difficult to identify in humans. We applied novel algorithms to determine hair cell and neural contributions to electrocochleographic (ECochG) recordings from the round window of animal and human subjects. Gerbils with normal hearing provided training and test sets for a deep …

Non-Canonical Functions Of Ezh2 In Cancer, Sarah M Zimmerman, Phyo Nay Lin, George P Souroullas

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Mutations in chromatin modifying genes frequently occur in many kinds of cancer. Most mechanistic studies focus on their canonical functions, while therapeutic approaches target their enzymatic activity. Recent studies, however, demonstrate that non-canonical functions of chromatin modifiers may be equally important and therapeutically actionable in different types of cancer. One epigenetic regulator that demonstrates such a dual role in cancer is the histone methyltransferase EZH2. EZH2 is a core component of the polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2), which plays a crucial role in cell identity, differentiation, proliferation, stemness and plasticity. While much of the regulatory functions and oncogenic activity of …

Women's Preferences For A New Contraceptive Under Development: An Exploratory Study, Tessa Madden, Sarah Y Cohen, Rachel Paul, Emily G Hurley, Michael A Thomas, Giovanni Pauletti

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: Currently available contraceptive methods do not meet the needs of all users. We sought to explore preferences of potential end-users regarding an on-demand, non-hormonal female contraceptive currently under development, using a web-based survey.

STUDY DESIGN: We recruited respondents for an exploratory survey via web link on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Individuals were eligible if they were 18-44 years of age, identified as cis-gender female, were English-speaking, not pregnant, and had used barrier contraception previously. Respondents provided demographic characteristics and a basic reproductive history. We then provided a brief description of the potential contraceptive. Respondents were asked about their interest …

Characterization Of High-Gamma Activity In Electrocorticographic Signals, Johannes Gruenwald, Sebastian Sieghartsleitner, Christoph Kapeller, Josef Scharinger, Kyousuke Kamada, Peter Brunner, Christoph Guger

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Electrocorticographic (ECoG) high-gamma activity (HGA) is a widely recognized and robust neural correlate of cognition and behavior. However, fundamental signal properties of HGA, such as the high-gamma frequency band or temporal dynamics of HGA, have never been systematically characterized. As a result, HGA estimators are often poorly adjusted, such that they miss valuable physiological information.

METHODS: To address these issues, we conducted a thorough qualitative and quantitative characterization of HGA in ECoG signals. Our study is based on ECoG signals recorded from 18 epilepsy patients while performing motor control, listening, and visual perception tasks. In this study, we first …

Assessment Of Antibodies In The Upper And Lower Human Respiratory Tract At Steady State And After Respiratory Viral Infection, Marios Koutsakos, Jackson S Turner, M Cristina Vazquez Guillamet, Daniel Reynolds, Tingting Lei, Derek E Byers, Ali H Ellebedy, Philip A Mudd

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVES: There is an increasing appreciation for the need to study mucosal antibody responses in humans. Our aim was to determine the utility of different types of samples from the human respiratory tract, specifically nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs obtained for diagnostic purposes and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) obtained in outpatient and inpatient settings.

METHODS: We analysed antibody levels in plasma and NP swabs from 67 individuals with acute influenza as well as plasma and BAL from individuals undergoing bronchoscopy, including five control subjects as well as seven moderately and seven severely ill subjects with a respiratory viral infection. Levels of α2-macroglobulin were …

Tourette Syndrome Research Highlights From 2022, Andreas Hartmann, Per Andrén, Cyril Atkinson-Clément, Virginie Czernecki, Cécile Delorme, Nanette Marinette Monique Debes, Kirsten Müller-Vahl, Peristera Paschou, Natalia Szejko, Apostolia Topaloudi, Keisuke Ueda, Kevin J. Black

2020-Current year OA Pubs

This is the ninth yearly article in the Tourette Syndrome Research Highlights series, summarizing selected research reports from 2022 relevant to Tourette syndrome. The authors briefly summarize reports they consider most important or interesting.

Evaluation Of Gliovascular Functions Of Aqp4 Readthrough Isoforms, Shayna M Mueller, Kelli Mcfarland White, Stuart B Fass, Siyu Chen, Zhan Shi, Xia Ge, John A Engelbach, Seana H Gaines, Annie R Bice, Michael J Vasek, Joel R Garbow, Joseph P Culver, Zila Martinez-Lozada, Martine Cohen-Salmon, Joseph D Dougherty, Darshan Sapkota

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Aquaporin-4 (AQP4) is a water channel protein that links the astrocytic endfeet to the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and regulates water and potassium homeostasis in the brain, as well as the glymphatic clearance of waste products that would otherwise potentiate neurological diseases. Recently, translational readthrough was shown to generate a C-terminally extended variant of AQP4, known as AQP4x, which preferentially localizes around the BBB through interaction with the scaffolding protein α-syntrophin, and loss of AQP4x disrupts waste clearance from the brain. To investigate the function of AQP4x, we generated a novel AQP4 mouse line (AllX) to increase relative levels of the …

Whole Genome Sequence Analysis Of Apparent Treatment Resistant Hypertension Status In Participants From The Trans-Omics For Precision Medicine Program, Nicole D Armstrong, Dabeeru C Rao, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

A Bone To Pick-Cellular And Molecular Mechanisms Of Bone Pain In Sickle Cell Disease, Jahnavi Gollamudi, Kristine A Karkoska, Oluwabukola T Gbotosho, Wei Zou, Hyacinth I Hyacinth, Steven L Teitelbaum

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The bone is one of the most commonly affected organs in sickle cell disease (SCD). Repeated ischemia, oxidative stress and inflammation within the bone is largely responsible for promoting bone pain. As more individuals with SCD survive into adulthood, they are likely to experience a synergistic impact of both aging and SCD on their bone health. As bone health deteriorates, bone pain will likely exacerbate. Recent mechanistic and observational studies emphasize an intricate relationship between bone remodeling and the peripheral nervous system. Under pathological conditions, abnormal bone remodeling plays a key role in the propagation of bone pain. In this …

Recruitment Methods And Yield Rates For A Multisite Clinical Trial Exploring Risk Reduction For Alzheimer's Disease (Rrad), Amanda N Szabo-Reed, Monica Sewell, Ellen F Binder, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: The risk reduction for Alzheimer's disease (rrAD) trial was a multisite clinical trial to assess exercise and intensive vascular pharmacological treatment on cognitive function in community-dwelling older adults at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease.

METHODS: Eligibility, consent, and randomization rates across different referral sources were compared. Informal interviews conducted with each site's project team were conducted upon study completion.

RESULTS: Initially, 3290 individuals were screened, of whom 28% were eligible to consent, 805 consented to participate (87.2% of those eligible), and 513 (36.3% of those consented) were randomized. Emails sent from study site listservs/databases yielded the highest amount (20.9%) …

A Critical Scientific Evaluation Of A Purportedly Negative Data Report - Response To Seneviratne Et Al. 2022, Bankole Johnson, Giovanni Addolorato, Otto Lesch, Lei Liu, Zachary A Rodd

2020-Current year OA Pubs

A core principle in the pursuit of scientific knowledge is that science is self-correcting and that important results should be replicable. Hypotheses need to be reinforced, adjusted, or rejected when novel results are obtained. Replication of results confirms hypotheses and enhances their integration into scientific practice. In contrast, publication of substantiated and replicated negative findings (i.e., non-significant or opposite findings) can be the basis to reject erroneous hypotheses or develop alternative strategies for investigation. Replication is a problem in all research fields. The Psychology Reproductivity Project reported that only 36% of 'highly influential' published research in highly ranked journals were …

Critcom: Assessment Of Quality Of Interdisciplinary Communication Around Deterioration In Pediatric Oncologic Patients, Jocelyn Rivera, Sara Malone, Kim Prewitt, Lara Counts, Douglas A Luke, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: High-quality clinical care requires excellent interdisciplinary communication, especially during emergencies, and no tools exist to evaluate communication in critical care. We describe the development of a pragmatic tool focusing on interdisciplinary communication during patient deterioration (CritCom).

METHODS: The preliminary CritCom tool was developed after a literature review and consultation with a multidisciplinary panel of global experts in communication, pediatric oncology, and critical care to review the domains and establish content validity iteratively. Face and linguistic validity were established through cognitive interviews, translation, and linguistic synthesis. We conducted a pilot study among an international group of clinicians to establish reliability …

An Image-Based Modeling Framework For Predicting Spatiotemporal Brain Cancer Biology Within Individual Patients, Kamila M Bond, Lee Curtin, Sara Ranjbar, Ariana E Afshari, Leland S Hu, Joshua B Rubin, Kristin R Swanson

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Imaging is central to the clinical surveillance of brain tumors yet it provides limited insight into a tumor's underlying biology. Machine learning and other mathematical modeling approaches can leverage paired magnetic resonance images and image-localized tissue samples to predict almost any characteristic of a tumor. Image-based modeling takes advantage of the spatial resolution of routine clinical scans and can be applied to measure biological differences within a tumor, changes over time, as well as the variance between patients. This approach is non-invasive and circumvents the intrinsic challenges of inter- and intratumoral heterogeneity that have historically hindered the complete assessment of …

Use Of Learner-Driven, Formative, Ad-Hoc, Prospective Assessment Of Competence In Physical Therapist Clinical Education In The United States: A Prospective Cohort Study, Carey Holleran, Jeffrey Konrad, Barbara Norton, Tamara Burlis, Steven Ambler

2020-Current year OA Pubs

PURPOSE: The purpose of this project was to implement a process for learner-driven, formative, prospective, ad-hoc, entrustment assessment in Doctor of Physical Therapy clinical education. Our goals were to develop an innovative entrustment assessment tool, and then explore whether the tool detected (1) differences between learners at different stages of development and (2) differences within learners across the course of a clinical education experience. We also investigated whether there was a relationship between the number of assessments and change in performance.

METHODS: A prospective, observational, cohort of clinical instructors (CIs) was recruited to perform learner-driven, formative, ad-hoc, prospective, entrustment assessments. …

The Purpose Of Cybersecurity Governance In The Digital Transformation Of Public Services And Protecting The Digital Environment, Maad Mijwil, Youssef Filali, Mohammad Aljanabi, Mariem Bounabi, Mariem Bounabi

Mesopotamian Journal of CyberSecurity

As it tries to incorporate computer-based technology into the public services provided by businesses or organisations, the digital transformation process is currently regarded one of the most prominent topics in circulation. Establishing fundamentals and points is necessary for digital transformation, as is relying on a specific set of employee talents and actively incorporating customers in the process's evolution. Cybersecurity has become an increasingly important issue for governments and businesses worldwide, and this shift towards digital services is a top priority for all of them. Accelerating the digital transformation process and the usage of its services are the vulnerabilities to cyberspace, …

Theoretical Background Of Cryptography, Rusul Mansoor Al-Amri, Dalal N. Hamood, Alaa Kadhim Farhan

Mesopotamian Journal of CyberSecurity

Cryptography is the practice of secure communication and the study of secure communication techniques. The theoretical foundations of cryptography include concepts such as cryptography, secure key exchange, digital signatures, and authentication. These technologies are used to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and reliability of information while it is being transmitted over a network or stored in digital form. The core of encryption is the concept of an encryption algorithm, which is a set of mathematical rules used to encrypt and decrypt data. The security of a cryptographic system depends on the strength of the underlying algorithm and the confidentiality of the …

Advanced Cyber Security Using Spectral Entity Feature Selection Based On Cyber Crypto Proof Security Protocol (C2psp), Gopalakrishnan S, Karabi Saikia, Ranadheer Reddy Vallem

Mesopotamian Journal of CyberSecurity

The growth of internet become more development in communication medium to provide various services. Information sharing ad security is mostly suffered by crime attackers because of different models of cyber-attacks are carried out by attackers. Attackers creates jamming principles, communication delays, packet dropping, and information hacking, duplicate injection to do so many activities to destroy the security. Based on the communication data analysis and features are non-identified and difficult to find the malicious activities. So the development of cyber security needs advancement to find the attackers based on the communication breaking activities. To resolve this problem, we propose a Spectral …

The Impact Of Blockchain Technique On Trustworthy Healthcare Sector, Nour Sadeq, Zeid Hamzeh, Ghalia Nassreddine, Tamima Elhassan, Tamima Elhassan

Mesopotamian Journal of CyberSecurity

Following the COVID epidemic, the healthcare sector faced numerous issues as telehealth became more prevalent and the necessity for a safe and efficient healthcare record system became critical. Many issues plague the healthcare industry today, including security, trust, data availability, and drug traceability. Blockchain technology is a relatively new technology that has demonstrated its effectiveness in a variety of industries, including finance, banking, bitcoin, and healthcare. This research investigates the impact of blockchain on the trustworthiness of healthcare. The authors adopt a descriptive-analytical methodology. The trustworthiness of the healthcare sector is considered a dependent variable. However, blockchain technology is considered …

The Psychology Of Science Denialism And Lessons For Public Health Authorities, Brenna Moreno, Molly J. Walker Wilson

All Faculty Scholarship

As it wreaked tragedy on the world, the outbreak of COVID-19 helped expose a pandemic of a different kind, one steeped in distrust and contrarianism. This movement, termed science denialism, has been lurking and undermining public health efforts for decades. Specifically, it is “the employment of rhetorical arguments to give the appearance of legitimate debate where there is none, an approach that has the ultimate goal of rejecting a proposition on which a scientific consensus exists.” Unlike skepticism, which is “doubt as to the truth of something” and works to progress both science and society, denialism is characterized by individuals’ …

Brief Amici Curiae Legal Scholars Of Sex And Gender In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellant, Kyle Velte, Ezra Young, Jeremiah A. Ho, M. Dru Levasseur, Nancy C. Marcus, Dara E. Purvis, Eliot Tracz, Ann E. Tweedy

All Faculty Scholarship

This amicus brief was filed in Griffith v. El Paso County, Colorado, case no. 23-1135 (10th Circuit) in support of appellant Darlene Griffith. Amici curiae are legal scholars of sex and gender. They offer expertise in their personal capacities to assist the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in assessing whether the El Paso County Sheriff officials violated Ms. Griffith’s Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection when they refused to house Ms. Griffith, a transgender woman, in the women's unit of the El Paso County Jail as a pretrial detainee.

Anti-Carceral Theory And Immigration: A View From Two Law School Clinics, Sabrina Balgamwalla, Lauren Bartlett

All Faculty Scholarship

This article explores clinical teaching philosophies related to anti-carceral theory and provides examples of how to support student learning in clinics serving immigrant clients. Anti-carceral theory in this context is used to refer to an approach that resists criminalization and incarceration within law, drawing on abolitionism, intersectional and anti-carceral feminism, and decolonization.

The anti-carceral lens provides framing and language to name the dynamics of social exclusion and discrimination inherent in immigration law. It also allows us to unpack immigration regulation as a series of choices made within the larger context of law enforcement and its systems of surveillance, policing, and …