Digital Commons Network^™

Adolescent- And Adult-Initiated Alcohol Exposure In Mice Differentially Promotes Tumorigenesis And Metastasis Of Breast Cancer, Mei Xu, Hui Li, Danlei Chen, Huaxun Wu, Wen Wen, Hong Xu, Jacqueline Frank, Gang Chen, Jia Luo

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Background: Alcohol exposure increases the risk of breast cancer. Alcohol consumption by adolescents is a serious social and public health issue. This study investigated the impact of adolescent alcohol consumption on mammary tumorigenesis and progression and compared it to that of adult alcohol exposure in animal models. Methods: Female adolescent (5 weeks) and adult (8 weeks) MMTV-Wnt1 mice were exposed to alcohol either chronically or acutely. For chronic alcohol exposure, animals were fed a liquid diet containing 6.7% ethanol for 23 weeks. For acute exposure, animals were treated with ethanol (2.5 g/kg, 25% w/v) via intraperitoneal (IP) injection for 15 …

Bilirubin Nanoparticle Treatment In Obese Mice Inhibits Hepatic Ceramide Production And Remodels Liver Fat Content, Zachary A. Kipp, Genesee J. Martinez, Evelyn A. Bates, Agil B. Maharramov, Robert M. Flight, Hunter N. B. Moseley, Andrew J. Morris, David E. Stec, Terry D. Hinds Jr.

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Studies have indicated that increasing plasma bilirubin levels might be useful for preventing and treating hepatic lipid accumulation that occurs with metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. We have previously demonstrated that mice with hyperbilirubinemia had significantly less lipid accumulation in a diet-induced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) model. However, bilirubin’s effects on individual lipid species are currently unknown. Therefore, we used liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy (LC-MS) to determine the hepatic lipid composition of obese mice with NAFLD treated with bilirubin nanoparticles or vehicle control. We placed the mice on a high-fat diet (HFD) for 24 weeks and then treated …

Clic And Membrane Wound Repair Pathways Enable Pandemic Norovirus Entry And Infection, B. Vijayalakshmi Ayyar, Khalil Ettayebi, Wilhelm Salmen, Umesh C. Karandikar, Frederick H. Neill, Victoria R. Tenge, Sue E. Crawford, Erhard Bieberich, B. V. Venkataram Prasad, Robert L. Atmar, Mary K. Estes

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Globally, most cases of gastroenteritis are caused by pandemic GII.4 human norovirus (HuNoV) strains with no approved therapies or vaccines available. The cellular pathways that these strains exploit for cell entry and internalization are unknown. Here, using nontransformed human jejunal enteroids (HIEs) that recapitulate the physiology of the gastrointestinal tract, we show that infectious GII.4 virions and virus-like particles are endocytosed using a unique combination of endosomal acidification-dependent clathrin-independent carriers (CLIC), acid sphingomyelinase (ASM)-mediated lysosomal exocytosis, and membrane wound repair pathways. We found that besides the known interaction of the viral capsid Protruding (P) domain with host glycans, the Shell …

Contouring Quality Assurance Methodology Based On Multiple Geometric Features Against Deep Learning Auto-Segmentation, Jingwei Duan, Mark E. Bernard, James Castle, Xue Feng, Chi Wang, Mark C. Kenamond, Quan Chen

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Background: Contouring error is one of the top failure modes in radiation treatment. Multiple efforts have been made to develop tools to automatically detect segmentation errors.Deep learning-based auto-segmentation (DLAS) has been used as a baseline for flagging manual segmentation errors, but those efforts are limited to using only one or two contour comparison metrics.

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to develop an improved contouring quality assurance system to identify and flag manual contouring errors.

Methods and materials: DLAS contours were used as a reference to compare with manually segmented contours. A total of 27 geometric agreement metrics were …

Critical Role Of The Sulfiredoxin-Peroxiredoxin Iv Axis In Urethane-Induced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer, Yanning Hao, Hong Jiang, Pratik Thapa, Na Ding, Aziza Alshahrani, Junichi Fujii, Michel B. Toledano, Qiou Wei

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common type of lung cancer, etiologically associates with tobacco smoking which mechanistically contributes to oxidative stress to facilitate the occurrence of mutations, oncogenic transformation and aberrantly activated signaling pathways. Our previous reports suggested an essential role of Sulfiredoxin (Srx) in promoting the development of lung cancer in humans, and was causally related to Peroxiredoxin IV (Prx4), the major downstream substrate and mediator of Srx-enhanced signaling. To further explore the role of the Srx-Prx4 axis in de novo lung tumorigenesis, we established Prx4−/− and Srx−/−/Prx4−/− mice in pure FVB/N background. Together with wild-type litter …

Production And Characterization Of Monoclonal Antibodies To Xenopus Proteins, Brett Horr, Ryan Kurtz, Ankit Pandey, Benjamin G. Hoffstrom, Elizabeth Schock, Carole Labonne, Dominique Alfandari

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Monoclonal antibodies are powerful and versatile tools that enable the study of proteins in diverse contexts. They are often utilized to assist with identification of subcellular localization and characterization of the function of target proteins of interest. However, because there can be considerable sequence diversity between orthologous proteins in Xenopus and mammals, antibodies produced against mouse or human proteins often do not recognize Xenopus counterparts. To address this issue, we refined existing mouse monoclonal antibody production protocols to generate antibodies against Xenopus proteins of interest. Here, we describe several approaches for the generation of useful mouse anti-Xenopus antibodies to multiple …

The Utilization Of Artificial Intelligence Applications To Improve Breast Cancer Detection And Prognosis, Walaa M. Alsharif

Saudi Medical Journal

Breast imaging faces challenges with the current increase in medical imaging requests and lesions that breast screening programs can miss. Solutions to improve these challenges are being sought with the recent advancement and adoption of artificial intelligent (AI)-based applications to enhance workflow efficiency as well as patient-healthcare outcomes. rtificial intelligent tools have been proposed and used to analyze different modes of breast imaging, in most of the published studies, mainly for the detection and classification of breast lesions, breast lesion segmentation, breast density evaluation, and breast cancer risk assessment. This article reviews the background of the Conventional Computer-aided Detection system …

Assessing The Adverse Effects Of Covid-19 Vaccine In Different Scenarios In Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study, Ahad Amer Alsaiari, Mamdouh Allahyani, Abdulelah Aljuaid, Alaa Shafie, Ayman Al-Hazmi, Haytham A. Dahlawi, Osama Abdulaziz, Ebtisam Alosimi, Albatool Alzaidi, Mazen Almehmadi

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To assess the different side effects of COVID-19 vaccines at different scenarios in Saudi Arabia. Methods: This cross-sectional study sought to investigate the side effects of COVID-19 vaccines through an online survey of 2,718 participants in Saudi Arabia. Results: People can manage their expectations about vaccine side effects and deal with symptoms better by knowing beforehand that they are likely to experience mild side effects for a short period, symptoms that are manifested regardless of age, and infection before or after vaccination. There are certain uncommon side effects that affect more people who got infected, and not before vaccination; …

Development Of A Porous Layer-By-Layer Microsphere With Branched Aliphatic Hydrocarbon Porogens, Farah Shahjin, Milankumar Patel, Mahmudul Hasan, Jacob D. Cohen, Farhana Islam, Md Ashaduzzaman, Mohammad Ullah Nayan, Mahadevan Subramaniam, You Zhou, Irene Andreu, Howard E. Gendelman, Bhavesh D. Kevadiya

Nebraska Center for Biotechnology: Faculty and Staff Publications

Porous polymer microspheres are employed in biotherapeutics, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Porosity dictates cargo carriage and release that are aligned with the polymer physicochemical properties. These include material tuning, biodegradation, and cargo encapsulation. How uniformity of pore size affects therapeutic delivery remains an area of active investigation. Herein, we characterize six branched aliphatic hydrocarbon-based porogen(s) produced to create pores in single and multilayered microspheres. The porogens are composed of biocompatible polycaprolactone, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), and polylactic acid polymers within porous multilayered microspheres. These serve as controlled effective drug and vaccine delivery platforms.

Caribbean Partnership Expands, Sarah Schaier

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Ptrm 217s.01: Parks & Outdoor Recreation Management, Melissa J. Weddell, Elena A. Bigart

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Ptrm 300.01: Recreation Behavior, Elizabeth Covelli Metcalf

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Csd 222.50: Introduction To Audiology, Catherine A. Drescher

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Csd 110.50n: Introduction To Speech, Language, And Audiology, Jennifer K. Schoffer Closson

University of Montana Course Syllabi, 2021-2025

No abstract provided.

Genomic Underpinnings Of Population Persistence In Isle Royale Moose, Christopher C. Kyriazis, Annabel C. Beichman, Kristin Brzeski, Sarah Hoy, Rolf O. Peterson, John A. Vucetich, Leah Vucetich, Kirk E. Lohmueller, Robert K. Wayne

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Island ecosystems provide natural laboratories to assess the impacts of isolation on population persistence. However, most studies of persistence have focused on a single species, without comparisons to other organisms they interact with in the ecosystem. The case study of moose and gray wolves on Isle Royale allows for a direct contrast of genetic variation in isolated populations that have experienced dramatically differing population trajectories over the past decade. Whereas the Isle Royale wolf population recently declined nearly to extinction due to severe inbreeding depression, the moose population has thrived and continues to persist, despite having low genetic diversity and …

Randomized Controlled Trial Of A Novel Lifestyle Intervention Used With Or Without Meal Replacements In Work Sites, Sai Krupa Das, Rachel E Silver, Taylor A Vail, Meghan K Chin, Caroline M Blanchard, Stephanie L Dickinson, Xiwei Chen, Lisa Ceglia, Edward Saltzman, David B Allison, Susan B Roberts

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

Objective: Lifestyle interventions have had limited effectiveness in work sites when evaluated in randomized trials. This study assessed the effectiveness of a novel lifestyle intervention for weight loss (Healthy Weight for Living [HWL]) implemented with or without meal replacements (MR) in work sites. HWL used a new behavioral approach emphasizing reducing hunger and building healthy food preferences, and, unlike traditional lifestyle interventions, it did not require calorie counting.

Methods: Twelve work sites were randomized to an 18-month intervention (n = 8; randomization within work sites to HWL, HWL + MR) or 6-month wait-listed control (n = 4). Participants were employees …

Quantifying Wheat Blast Disease Induced Yield And Production Losses Of Wheat: A Quasi-Natural Experiment, Khondoker Abdul Mottaleb, David P. Hodson, Timothy J. Krupnik, Kai Sonder

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Faculty Publications and Presentations

Applying the difference-in-difference (DID) estimation procedure, this study quantifies the wheat blast (Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum) induced losses in wheat yield, quantity of wheat sold, consumed, or stored, as well as wheat grain value in Bangladesh in 2016 following a disease outbreak that affected over 15,000 ha. Estimates show that the blast-induced yield loss was 540 kg ha⁻¹ on average for households in blast-affected districts. Estimated total wheat production loss was approximately 8,205 tons worth USD 2.1 million in during the 2016 outbreak. Based on these insights, we discuss the need for long-term assured investment and concerted research …

No Fixed Limit For Storing Simple Visual Features: Realistic Objects Provide An Efficient Scaffold For Holding Features In Mind, Yong Hoon Chung

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Prominent theories of visual working memory postulate that the capacity to maintain a particular visual feature is fixed. In contrast to these theories, recent studies have demonstrated that meaningful objects are better remembered than simple, non-meaningful stimuli. Here, we test whether this is solely because meaningful stimuli can recruit additional features — and thus more storage capacity — or whether simple visual features that are not themselves meaningful can also benefit from being part of a meaningful object. Across five experiments (each N=30) we demonstrate that visual working memory capacity for color is increased when colors are part of recognizable …

Age And Racial Disparities In The Utilization Of Anticancer, Antihypertension, And Anti-Diabetes Therapies, And In Mortality In A Large Population-Based Cohort Of Older Women With Breast Cancer, Xianglin L Du, Lulu Song

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the receipt of therapies for cancer, hypertension, and diabetes in association with age and racial disparities in mortality among women with breast cancer.

METHODS: This study identified 92,829 women diagnosed with breast cancer at age ≥ 65 years in 2007-2015 with follow-up to 2016 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database.

RESULTS: There were substantial age and racial disparities in the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes, which was higher in women ≥ 75 (86.3% and 32.0%) than younger women 65-74 (72.8% and 29.3%), and the highest in Black women (91.1% and 49.1%), followed …

Low Molecular Weight Cyclin E Deregulates Dna Replication And Damage Repair To Promote Genomic Instability In Breast Cancer, Mi Li

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Low molecular weight cyclin E (LMW-E) are oncogenic forms of cyclin E that are post translationally generated by neutrophil elastase (NE) mediated cleavage of the 50 KDa full-length cyclin E1 (FL-cycE, encoded by CCNE1gene). The resultant N-terminus deleted (40 amino acids) form of LMW-E is detected in breast cancer cells and tumor tissues, but not in normal mammary epithelial cells or adjacent normal tissues. Unlike FL-cycE, LMW-E drives mammary epithelial cell transformation in human cells and spontaneous mammary tumor formation in transgenic mouse models, but the oncogenic mechanisms of LMW-E and its unique function(s) independent of FL-cycE are not …

Racial And Ethnic Disparities In Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer Survival, Timothy A Zaki, Peter S Liang, Folasade P May, Caitlin C Murphy

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Young adults diagnosed with colorectal cancer (CRC) comprise a growing, yet understudied, patient population. We estimated 5-year relative survival of early-onset CRC and examined disparities in survival by race-ethnicity in a population-based sample.

METHODS: We used the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program of cancer registries to identify patients diagnosed with early-onset CRC (20-49 years of age) between January 1, 1992, and December 31, 2013. For each racial-ethnic group, we estimated 5-year relative survival, overall and by sex, tumor site, and stage at diagnosis. to illustrate temporal trends, we compared 5-year relative survival in 1992-2002 vs …

Relationships Between Urinary Metals And Diabetes Traits Among Mexican Americans In Starr County, Texas, Usa, Margaret C Weiss, Yu-Hsuan Shih, Molly Scannell Bryan, Brian P Jackson, David Aguilar, Craig L Hanis, Maria Argos, Robert M Sargis

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Hispanics/Latinos have higher rates of type 2 diabetes (T2D), and the origins of these disparities are poorly understood. Environmental endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), including some metals and metalloids, are implicated as diabetes risk factors. Data indicate that Hispanics/Latinos may be disproportionately exposed to EDCs, yet they remain understudied with respect to environmental exposures and diabetes. The objective of this study is to determine how metal exposures contribute to T2D progression by evaluating the associations between 8 urinary metals and measures of glycemic status in 414 normoglycemic or prediabetic adults living in Starr County, Texas, a Hispanic/Latino community with high rates of …

Reduced Spag17 Expression In Systemic Sclerosis Triggers Myofibroblast Transition And Drives Fibrosis, Paulene Sapao, Elisha D O Roberson, Bo Shi, Shervin Assassi, Brian Skaug, Fred Lee, Alexandra Naba, Bethany E Perez White, Carlos Córdova-Fletes, Pei-Suen Tsou, Amr H Sawalha, Johann E Gudjonsson, Feiyang Ma, Priyanka Verma, Dibyendu Bhattacharyya, Mary Carns, Jerome F Strauss, Delphine Sicard, Daniel J Tschumperlin, Melissa I Champer, Paul J Campagnola, Maria E Teves, John Varga

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a clinically heterogeneous fibrotic disease with no effective treatment. Myofibroblasts are responsible for unresolving synchronous skin and internal organ fibrosis in SSc, but the drivers of sustained myofibroblast activation remain poorly understood. Using unbiased transcriptome analysis of skin biopsies, we identified the downregulation of SPAG17 in multiple independent cohorts of patients with SSc, and by orthogonal approaches, we observed a significant negative correlation between SPAG17 and fibrotic gene expression. Fibroblasts and endothelial cells explanted from SSc skin biopsies showed reduced chromatin accessibility at the SPAG17 locus. Remarkably, mice lacking Spag17 showed spontaneous skin fibrosis with increased …

Genetic Effect On Body Mass Index And Cardiovascular Disease Across Generations, Chloé Sarnowski, Matthew P Conomos, Ramachandran S Vasan, James B Meigs, Josée Dupuis, Ching-Ti Liu, Aaron Leong

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Whether genetics contribute to the rising prevalence of obesity or its cardiovascular consequences in today's obesogenic environment remains unclear. We sought to determine whether the effects of a higher aggregate genetic burden of obesity risk on body mass index (BMI) or cardiovascular disease (CVD) differed by birth year.

METHODS: We split the FHS (Framingham Heart Study) into 4 equally sized birth cohorts (birth year before 1932, 1932 to 1946, 1947 to 1959, and after 1960). We modeled a genetic predisposition to obesity using an additive genetic risk score (GRS) of 941 BMI-associated variants and tested for GRS-birth year interaction …

Cross-Sectional And Prospective Associations Of Rest-Activity Rhythms With Body Mass Index In Older Men: A Novel Analysis Using Harmonic Hidden Markov Models, Brian Heckler, Miryoung Lee, Katie Stone, Cici Bauer, Qian Xiao

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Growing evidence supports a role for rest-activity rhythms (RARs) in metabolic health. Epidemiological studies in adolescents and young adults showed that RAR characteristics consistent with weakened rhythmicity were associated with obesity. However, studies in older adults are lacking. The objective of this study was to examine the cross-sectional and prospective associations between RAR and obesity in older men using the Harmonic Hidden Markov Model (HHMM), a novel analytical approach with several advantages over conventional methods for characterizing RAR. The analysis included nearly 3,000 participants in the Osteoporotic Fractures in Men study with 5-day 24-h actigraphy data. The strength of RAR …

Patent Forfeiture, Sean B. Seymore

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Patent law doesn't look kindly on patent owners who engage in wrongdoing involving the patent. The U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have refused to enforce patents tainted with inequitableness, fraud, or bad faith. This issue typically arises in patent litigation when an accused infringer asserts that the patent should be unenforceable if the patentee engaged in one of four proscribed activities: inequitable conduct (deliberate misrepresentations or omissions of material information from the Patent Office); patent misuse (anticompetitive licensing practices); unclean hands (business or litigation misconduct); or waiver/estoppel (a lack of candor before a standard-setting organization). This seems right--a patentee …

Using An Evolutionary Approach To Improve Predictive Ability In Social Sciences: Property, The Endowment Effect, And Law, Owen D. Jones, Sarah F. Brosnan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

From the perspective of other disciplines, evolutionary approaches more often provide explanation and coherence than they help to solve discrete problems. We believe that more examples of the latter sort will help both with disciplinary synthesis and with the advance of knowledge. Here we describe a 20-year arc of research to demonstrate the problem-solving utility of an evolutionary perspective by focusing, as a case study, on a particular cognitive bias – the endowment effect – that has implications for law. Legal systems often assume that humans make decisions that are substantively rational, consistent, and aimed at maximizing their own wellbeing. …

Instrumental Variables Estimation: Assumptions, Pitfalls, And Guidelines, Nicolas Bastardoz, Michael J. Matthews, Gwendolin B. Sajons, Tyler Ransom, Thomas K. Kelemen, Samuel H. Matthews

Management Faculty Publications

Researchers striving to ensure rigor in their scientific findings face a common pitfall: Endogeneity. To tackle this problem, scholars have increasingly adopted instrumental variables estimation (IVE). Although there are many published works showing how IVE should be used, many applied researchers still have trouble understanding how to use the method correctly. In this article, we provide a methodological overview of IVE by discussing the underlying conditions valid instruments must satisfy as well as common mistakes made in using IVE. Using simulated data, we further demonstrate the sensitivity of IVE to violations of its conditions. We then take stock of …

Me-Em Enewsbrief, December 2022, Department Of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering eNewsBrief

No abstract provided.

Adopting Social Media In Family And Adoption Law, Stacey B. Steinberg, Meredith Burgess, Karla Herrera

Utah Law Review

Social media has dramatically changed the landscape facing families brought together through adoption. Just as adoptive families thirty years ago could not have predicted the impact of DNA technology on postadoption family life, adoptive families are only now beginning to grasp the impact of social media connectivity on the lives of their growing children. This change is related both to social media’s impact on family life and to fundamental shifts in our understanding of privacy more generally. Understanding the legal rights of parents and children in these circumstances is a novel and underexplored area of family law, constitutional law, and …