Digital Commons Network^™

Comparison Of Daily Activity Patterns Across Seasons Using Gps Telemetry And Camera Trap Data For A Widespread Mammal, David W. Wolfson, Peter E. Schlichting, Raoul K. Boughton, Ryan S. Miller, Kurt C. Vercauteren, Jesse S. Lewis

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Daily activity patterns of animals can be dynamic across seasons in response to changing environmental conditions. Daily activity, though, has rarely been evaluated in relation to multiple factors (for example, seasons, demographics, and data collection methods), which could be important for understanding what drives activity patterns. Here, we evaluated the daily activity patterns of a widespread invasive species, wild pigs (Sus scrofa), across two ecologically different study areas at Buck Island Ranch, Florida, and Tejon Ranch, California (United States), from 2015 to 2018. Using GPS telemetry data (62 individuals in Florida, 21 individuals in California) and detections from …

Discerning Friend From Foe: Systematic Revision Of Cuscuta L. Section Indecorae Using A Combined Ecological, Morphometric, And Phylogenetic Approach., Corey Burt

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The genus Cuscuta (Dodder; Convolvulaceae) are obligate parasitic plants. In one clade known as section Indecorae, there are species which are considered pests that pose significant threats to agricultural crop production, while other species are rare or known only from historical records. Section Indecorae contains three species: C. coryli, C. warneri, and C. indecora (the latter with three infraspecific taxa: var. indecora, var. longisepala, and var. attenuata). The systematics of section Indecorae are not currently resolved. Cuscuta indecora has a long and complicated taxonomic history with many infraspecific varieties described, and …

Investigating The Effects Of Disturbance And Competition On Establishment, Growth, And Reproduction Of The Endangered Ripariosida Hermaphrodita, Daniel Engelking

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Ripariosida hermaphrodita (Virginia Mallow) is a perennial riparian plant with broad, maple-like leaves. It grows up to three meters high and is often found in large clonal patches, but sexually reproduces readily. While this plant may seem like a redoubtable competitor when growing in large colonies, it is declining across its range in North America. The only known occurrences in Canada are in southern Ontario. Prior to this study, no new populations had been recorded even though one of the known populations produces copious amounts of viable seed with potential to disperse. There are many hypotheses for its rarity, but …

Analyzing The Benthic Cover Of Crustose Coralline Algae Using Mask-R Cnn, Rachana Ravindra

Master's Projects

Coral reefs, supporting 25% of marine biodiversity, confront challenges from local and global impacts like overfishing, runoff, acidification, and warming. Crustose Coralline Algae (CCA), pivotal for reef structure and coral settlement, are underrepresented in research. Current methods like Coral Point Count with Excel Extensions (CPCe) have limitations, relying on image quality and being time-consuming. This paper proposes computer vision and Mask R-CNN, a supervised machine learning model, for CCA analysis in reef images, considering color, texture, and shape. Results indicate promise in clustering and classifying organisms. The innovative technology reduces manual labor, enhancing image analysis, simplifying the understanding of CCA’s …

Residential Segregation And County-Level Covid-19 Booster Coverage In The Deep South: Surveillance Report And Ecological Study, Chengbo Zeng, Jiajia Zhang Ph.D., Zhenlong Li, Xiaowen Sun, Huan Ning, Xueying Yang, Sharon Weissman, Bankole Olatosi Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Background: COVID-19 had a greater impact in the Deep South compared with other regions in the United States. While vaccination remains a top priority for all eligible individuals, data regarding the progress of booster coverage in the Deep South and how the coverage varies by county and age are sparse. Despite existing evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 vaccinations at the individual level, there is an urgent need for evidence at the population level. Such information could highlight vulnerable communities and guide future health care policy-making and resource allocation.

Objective: We aimed to evaluate county-level COVID-19 booster coverage …

The Potential Link Between Pfas And Colorectal Cancer: A Narrative Review, Amina Mutalib

Public Health Theses

Background: Currently, there is information on the detrimental impacts of exposure to pollutants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) but there is still limited information on the impact PFAS has on colorectal cancer.Aim: To review and examine the evidence available in the existing published literature showing an association between exposure to PFAS and colorectal cancer. Methods: In this narrative review using searches of PubMed, SCOPUS and Google Scholar, publications between 2003 and 2023 were identified to ensure the inclusion of all recent development in this area of research. Inclusion criteria included a focus on the association between PFAS/PFOS and …

Protection Against Cholera From Killed Whole-Cell Oral Cholera (Kocv) Vaccines: Systematic Review And Meta-Regression Of Randomized Control Trials And Observational Studies, Helena Hojeong Kwon

Public Health Theses

Introduction: Although killed whole-cell oral cholera vaccines (kOCVs) are widely used as a part of cholera control strategy, mixed evidence around the vaccine induced protection remains.Objectives: The primary objective of this systematic review was to update estimates of kOCV protection: vaccine efficacy and effectiveness. A secondary objective was to estimate the waning dynamic of kOCV protection by duration of follow-up. Methods: On August 15th, 2022, we searched for randomized control trials and observational studies that reported kOCV protection in low- and middle-income countries on PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and The Cochrane Review Library with a start date …

Evaluating Environmental Risk Factors For Community-Associated C. Difficile Infection In New Haven County, Connecticut, 2016-2021, Hannah Liat Litwak

Public Health Theses

Background: Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is classified as an urgent threat to public health and has been increasing in incidence and severity. CDI is commonly considered hospital- acquired; however, rates of community-associated CDI (CA-CDI) have been increasing and now make up more than 50% of cases reported. Risk factors for CA-CDI exposure are poorly understood and inadequately studied. This study uses regression to evaluate if community characteristics are associated with CA-CDI incidence at the census tract level in New Haven County. The goal is to determine if where someone lives in proximity to these potential risk factors may contribute to …

Drivers Of Global Waterborne Disease Transmission Following Extreme Precipitation Events: A Systematic Review, Claire Latendresse

Public Health Theses

Precipitation events such as hurricanes, typhoons, and heavy rainfall can have devastating impacts on water and sanitation infrastructure around the world and have led to large-scale waterborne outbreaks. As climate change amplifies the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, it is also triggering an increase in waterborne disease transmission. This master’s thesis consists of a systematic review of academic literature pertaining to extreme precipitation events and the pathways by which they trigger waterborne outbreaks.

A systematic review of the literature in PubMed was conducted to identify waterborne disease outbreaks associated with extreme precipitation. The initial search yielded 3,248 results …

A Geospatial Analysis Of Demographic Characteristics And Environmental Burdens In Communities Near Superfund Sites, Long Island, New York, Fintan Mooney

Public Health Theses

Nassau and Suffolk Counties of Long Island, New York, have over 30 federal Superfund sites, which may contribute to increased health inequities in nearby communities due to potential drinking water contamination and air pollutant emissions. We assessed the proximity to Superfund sites on Long Island in relation to community demographics and the presence of other environmental burdens. Data were obtained from the 2022 United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJScreen) and included proximity to Superfund sites (operationalized through the EJScreen distance weighting score), presence of other environmental hazards, and sociodemographic variables from the U.S. Census …

Characterizing Populations Living Near Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations: Implications For Health Equity And Environmental Justice, Leah Salzano

Public Health Theses

Current literature has highlighted that concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOS) are associated with adverse health outcomes among populations living in close proximity to the farms and that, in certain states, vulnerable populations may be disproportionately exposed to CAFOs. However, none of the existing studies have assessed the sociodemographic makeup of areas highly exposed to CAFOs across a diverse geographic range. Using locations of CAFOs across six states with robust operations, we conducted logistic regression models assessing the likelihood of high exposure vs. low exposure at the census tract level for each 10% increase in sociodemographic variables (percent unemployed, percent minority, …

Cover, Editorial Staff, Journal Information

Human–Wildlife Interactions

This includes the cover, editorial staff, and journal information.

Livestock Depredation By Leopards, Associated Economic Losses, And Financial Compensation To Communities In Chhota Udepur District Of Central Gujarat, India, Shalu Mesaria, Pratik Desai, Shruti Patel, Dhaval Gadhavi, Anthony J. Giordano, Nishith Dharaiya

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Livestock depredation by large carnivores has been documented across the entire Indian subcontinent. The failure of managers to mitigate livestock losses in landscapes dependent on subsistence agriculture poses a threat to the conservation of carnivores. For much of Gujarat, a western Indian state characterized by extensive semi-arid habitats, the Indian leopard (Panthera pardus fusca) is considered an apex predator. Increasing regional leopard populations in response to protection efforts has led to more attacks on humans, along with an increase in rates of livestock depredation. In many cases, the regional forest department financially compensates livestock owners for depredation caused …

Cover, Editorial Staff, Journal Information

Human–Wildlife Interactions

This includes the cover, editorial staff, and journal information.

An Automatic System To Evaluate Bait Station Visitation By Brown Treesnakes And Mongooses, Robert T. Sugihara, William C. Pitt, Are R. Berentsen, Francis L. Benevides Jr.

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Understanding the temporal, spatial, and behavioral patterns of the free-ranging target species in response to candidate baits and baiting strategies is important to ensure control success. This information can also assist in the development and deployment of feeding stations and can exclude non-target species while constituting effective bait delivery and control strategies for certain invasive animals, especially at environmentally sensitive sites. We used passive integrated transponder (PIT) tags in conjunction with very-high frequency radio-telemetry to remotely record bait station visitations and evaluate bait attractiveness in separate field research studies of brown treesnakes (Boiga irregularis) on Andersen Air Force …

Cover, Editorial Staff, Journal Information

Human–Wildlife Interactions

This includes the cover, editorial staff, and journal information.

An Ecological Approach To Data Governance, Jasmine Mcnealy

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Weather Events On Dengue Fever In Brazil 2014-2022, Maryclare Gabel

All ETDs from UAB

Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that is spread through the bite of an infected Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquito. Half the world's population lives in a dengue fever risk zone. There are an estimated 100 million symptomatic dengue fever cases each year, with 40,000 deaths reported. Brazil reports the highest annual dengue fever cases in Latin America. In 2022, Brazil recorded 2.36 million dengue fever cases, the highest number of cases ever recorded in the country. We designed a retrospective ecological study to evaluate the temporal trends and the association between weather events and dengue fever incidence …

Implementing And Evaluating A Higher Resolution Weather Dataset On A Coupled Hydrological-Crop Model, Diego Andres Quintero Puentes

Theses

Climate change and climate variability stand as threats to agriculture, especially in low-income countries. Crop models, which simulate crop growth and development, can be used to support decision making in water and agriculture in the context of an uncertain and variable climate. RHEAS is a modeling framework that integrates a hydrologic model, a crop model, and satellite-based observations. It uses gridded input data as forcing variables for the estimation of land surface fluxes and regional crop yield. One of the input datasets is the meteorology dataset, which contains temperature and wind speed data. RHEAS includes the NCEP reanalysis dataset as …

Patterns, Mechanisms, And Characterization Of Carbon Cycling Stability Following Partial Forest Disturbance, Kayla C. Mathes

Theses and Dissertations

Among the most essential questions in the era of climate change is how the forest carbon (C) cycle will respond to an increase in the extent of biotic disturbances from insects and pathogens. While research has focused on stand-replacing disturbance regimes, less is known about C cycling stability following partial disturbances that produce gradients of disturbance severity. Belowground C cycling responses to disturbance are especially poorly understood, even though temperate forest soils contain up to 50% of total ecosystem C and soil respiration (R_s) accounts for more than half of temperate forest C loss. Interpreting trends and mechanisms …

Excess Body Weight And It’S Association To Diabetes Mortality Among Florida Adults, Shivanie M. Sharma

High Impact Practices Student Showcase Fall 2023

“Excess Body Weight and Its Association to Diabetes Mortality” is a topic that has been highly studied and researched. However, there has yet been a study that looks at excess body weight and its association to Diabetes Mortality among Florida Adults. Specifically, by utilizing data from the Florida Health Charts. This includes the analyzation by Person (Florida Blacks versus Whites), Place (Florida counties), and Time (rate of diabetes mortality though the years in Florida). This study further provides information on the idea of the “obesity paradox.” But, it also sheds light on the implications and limitations based on previous epidemiological …

Evaluating Nurse Engagement With And Opportunities For Human Papillomavirus (Hpv) Vaccine Promotion In Montana, Juthika Jayendra Thaker

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Purpose: Parental vaccine hesitancy is a known driver of sub-optimal vaccine uptake in the United States.1 Even though a study analyzing parental responses in National Immunization Survey-Teen found that HPV vaccine hesitancy has slightly declined (69% in 2010 v/s 63% in 2019) over the years, only about 52.6% of adolescents in Montana had received all the required doses of the HPV vaccine series in 2021.2,3 Nurses are at the forefront of healthcare provision and possess a unique ability to influence parental vaccine decisions.5 By listening to and addressing parents' concerns about immunizations, nurses can dispel misinformation and help change parents' …

Linking Life History And Population Dynamics Of An Ice-Associated Seabird, The Kittlitz’S Murrelet (Brachyramphus Brevirostris), Michelle Lynn Kissling

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mechanistic understanding of population dynamics requires linking population change and demographic processes. However, for some species, accurate estimation of population parameters can be difficult owing to their life histories, resulting in reduced or biased inference. Mobile species that are not territorial or use dynamic habitats are susceptible to estimation problems arising from variable exposure to sampling, or temporary emigration, and common approaches to account for it like robust design are not feasible. The outcome is a population mismatch whereby the statistical population, or what was sampled, is not aligned with the biological population, which is what we want to know …

Stories From Superfund, Rachel M. Neal

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Superfund sites are the most contaminated places in the nation, but they do not exist in isolation. Stories from Superfund examines Superfund sites in three different communities, sharing the stories of people with varying relationships to these sites.

An audio story explores how the largest Superfund complex in the U.S., the Clark Fork River, serves as a living laboratory. Researchers and agency staff explain what we can learn from the nation’s most contaminated places.

A graphic, written piece uses data to understand environmental justice in a community in Southeast Georgia. Environmental inequities are visualized through graphs and maps showing demographic …

Environmental Factors And Breast Cancer Mortality, Joel Collazo Rodriguez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Breast cancer is a public health problem in the United States that impacts diverse ethnic female groups in different ways regarding incidence and mortality. Much is known about the factors increasing the risk of developing breast cancer, but little is known about those that increase the chances of dying from it, other than access to health care, screening, and appropriate treatment. This study aimed to understand the association between exposure to Environmental Protection Agency-regulated air pollutants and breast cancer mortality, including how the interaction between these air contaminants impacts the outcome of interest, considering median income, education level, and percentage …

Confocal Analysis Of Sindbis Virus In Aedes Aegypti Unveils Novel Infection Site At Pyloric Armature, Katie Gillian Peters

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses), such as Sindbis virus (SINV), generate foci of infection within the midgut of viremic blood-fed mosquitoes. Arboviruses can disseminate out of the midgut into the surrounding musculature and hemolymph, eventually making it to the salivary glands where virus can be transmitted by saliva during a subsequent blood-feed. In this study, the virus SINV containing the reporter gene GFP, combined with immunohistochemistry, was imaged using confocal microscopy and used to evaluate the infection within the vector mosquito Aedes aegypti. The spatial distribution of SINV infection revealed two common characteristics of foci generated in the midgut. (1) There …

Health Impacts From Pm2.5 Exposure Using Environmental Epidemiology And Health Risk Assessment: A Review, Thanakon Sukuman, Kayo Ueda, Sarunya Sujaritpong, Hirunwut Praekunatham, Kornwipa Punnasiri, Tuangsit Wimuktayon, Trakarn Prapaspongsa

Applied Environmental Research

Exposure to PM2.5 has been known to cause a variety of serious health consequences. Quantifying and investigating the health effects of PM2.5 pollution are imperative to understand and collect scientific evidence for supporting policies and associated actions. In this paper, we reviewed published environ-mental epidemiological studies and health risk assessments evaluating the health impacts of PM2.5 exposure in the PubMed database to identify the attributes of each method and aggregate the health impact results to perform analyses and summaries. Forty-two studies were identified after applying our search strategy, inclusion, and exclusion criteria. The epidemiological studies found an increased risk of …

Abundance And Distribution Of Fish Larvae In The Central Coast Of The Algerian Sea, Etsouri Mohamed, Khames Ghollame Ellah Yacine, Seridji Rabea

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

This study was conducted on a seasonal basis in five (5) stations along the central Algerian coast between April 2013 and April 2014 aboard professional fishing boats. Horizontal plankton tows with a WP2-type net were used to collect ichthyoplankton samples. At each station, temperature, salinity, and chlorophyll-a levels were measured. We identified the larvae of 18 species from 11 different families by sorting ichthyoplankton (Clupeidae, Engraulidae, Gobidae, Gonostomatidae, Mugilidae, Myctophidae, Scombridae, Sparidae, Carangidae, Labridae, Blennidae). Redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to determine the relationship between the abundance of harvested larvae and environmental variables. The results show a clear dominance of …

Temporal Trends In Tularemia Incidence In The United States From 2010 To 2020. Are Age And Sex Associated With These Changing Trends?, Carla V. Brooks

All ETDs from UAB

Background: Tularemia or Rabbit Fever was discovered in 1911 in a plague-like outbreak among rodents in Tulare County, California. Tularemia in the US has expanded from rural to more metropolitan areas, which may be potentially correlated with the escalating exposure of humans to animal vectors. There has not been a recent study evaluating trends in Tularemia, especially one that has evaluated if the trends in Tularemia over time differ by demographic characteristics. Methods: This is an ecological study to evaluate the temporal trends and if trends Tularemia incidence over time differs by age and sex in the United States from …

Emerging Patterns In Population Structure And Trap Efficacy After Three Years Of A Survey Of Western Painted Turtles (Chrysemys Picta Bellii, Gray, 1830) In Marshall County, South Dakota, Heather L. Waye, Amy C. Dolan, Peter C. Dolan

Biology Publications

Turtles are long-lived and globally declining, but relatively little is known about the natural history of many turtle species. Even amongst relatively well-studied species, there is a paucity of information for some habitats and long-term population trends are lacking. Here we report the results from the first three years of an intended long-term population survey of Western Painted Turtles (Chrysemys picta bellii) in the prairie highlands of the Coteau des Prairies, South Dakota. Turtles were sampled using basking traps, hoop traps, and dip nets. Catch per unit effort varied between years, but not significantly so, and hoop traps …