Digital Commons Network^™

Association Of Low Diastolic Blood Pressure With Cardiovascular Outcomes And All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis, Tariq Jamal Siddiqi, Muhammad Shariq Usman, Amna Siddiqui, Ali Salman, Nicholas Talbot, Laibah Arshad Khan, Aisha Shabbir, Michael E Hall, George E Taffet

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Reduction of diastolic blood pressure (DBP) below 70 mmHg may decrease perfusion to the heart and worsen cardiovascular (CV) outcomes.

Aims: Explore the association between low DBP and CV outcomes.

Methods: We searched the online databases until August 2023 for studies reporting the risk of all-cause mortality (ACM) or CV outcomes in patients with low versus normal DBP (70-80mm Hg).

Results: Inclusion of 10 studies (n = 1,998,223 patients) found that a mean achieved DBP < 60 mmHg was associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality (HR 1.48; 95 % CI [1.26-1.74]), especially in patients with pre-existing CV disease. It was also associated to a higher risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (HR 1.84; [1.28-2.65]) and myocardial infarction (HR 1.49; [1.13-1.97]). A DBP of 60-69 mmHg was associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality (HR 1.11; [1.03-1.20]).

Conclusion: Reduction of DBP, particularly below 60 mmHg, is associated with increased risk of ACM.

Variability In Chest Radiology Interpretation Between Thoracic And Non-Thoracic Radiologists: Implications For Pulmonary Fibrosis Care, Daniel M Guidot, Danielle Seaman, Roy A Pleasants, Armando Bedoya, Robert M Tighe, Bhavika Kaul

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Characteristics And Contributing Factors Of Diagnostic Error In Surgery: Analysis Of Closed Medico-Legal Cases And Complaints In Canada, Janice L Kwan, Lisa A Calder, Cara L Bowman, Anna Macintyre, Richard Mimeault, Liisa Honey, Cynthia Dunn, Gary Garber, Hardeep Singh

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Diagnostic errors lead to patient harm; however, most research has been conducted in nonsurgical disciplines. We sought to characterize diagnostic error in the pre-, intra-, and postoperative surgical phases, describe their contributing factors, and quantify their impact related to patient harm.

Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of closed medico-legal cases and complaints using a database representing more than 95% of all Canadian physicians. We included cases if they involved a legal action or complaint that closed between 2014 and 2018 and involved a diagnostic error assigned by peer expert review to a surgeon.

Results: We identified 387 surgical …

Legacy Of Labour: The Impact Of Parental Occupations On Children’S Careers Choices And Income Inequality, Swapnil Landge

Publications and Research

This paper investigates how intergenerational occupational mobility and self-selection into occupations are influenced by the occupations of parents. The results demonstrate that children who pursue their parents’ occupations, particularly those in the lowest earnings percentiles, are more negatively self-selected compared to those whose parents are in the highest earning deciles. In particular, 65% of the children who pursue their parents’ occupation in Decile 1, 49% in Decile 2, 32% in Decile 3 and 26% in Decile 4 would have achieved higher productivity and earned higher earnings in high-income occupations (specifically in Decile 10 occupations). In contrast, children from high-income backgrounds …

Parents, Paths, And Paychecks: Examining Intergenerational Occupational Mobility And Career Choices, Swapnil Landge

Publications and Research

This paper examines the influence of fathers’ and mothers’ occupations on their children’s occupational outcomes, using a self-selection model to analyze intergenerational career mobility. By constructing and analyzing transition matrices, I estimate the extent of positive and negative self-selection for sons and daughters when they follow either their father’s or mother’s occupation. The results reveal distinct patterns for sons and daughters. Sons who follow their father’s occupation tend to avoid negative self-selection, particularly in higher-paying fields such as Professional Occupations and Technicians and Related Support Occupations, where negative self-selection is minimal. Conversely, sons following their mother’s occupation face higher rates …

Diagnostic Accuracy Of Urinary N Terminal Pro-B Type Natriuretic Peptides For Hemodynamically Significant-Patent Ductus Arteriosus In Preterm Infants, Srirupa Hari Gopal, Ganga Gokulakrishnan, Madhulika Kulkarni, Caraciolo J Fernandes, Mohan Pammi

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Echocardiography is the gold standard for the diagnosis hemodynamically significant-patent ductus arteriosus (hs-PDA). It requires trained personnel and is not readily available. Urinary biomarkers can be used as an adjunct.

Objective: The objective of this study was to systematically review the diagnostic accuracy of urinary N terminal pro-B type natriuretic peptides (NT-proBNP) for hs-PDA in preterm neonates.

Methods: We included studies that evaluated urinary NT-proBNP and urinary NT-proBNP/creatinine ratio (index tests) in preterm neonates with hs-PDA (participants) in comparison with echocardiogram (reference standard). Methodological quality and certainty of evidence were assessed using Quality Assessment of Diagnostic-Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) and …

Drosophila Parasitoids Go To Space: Unexpected Effects Of Spaceflight On Hosts And Their Parasitoids, Jennifer Chou, Johnny R. Ramroop, Amanda M. Saravia-Butler, Brian Wey, Matthew P. Lera, Medaya L. Torres, Mary Ellen Heavner, Janani Iyer, Siddhita D. Mhatre, Sharmila Bhattacharya, Shubha Govind

Publications and Research

While fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) and humans exhibit immune system dysfunction in space, studies examining their immune systems’ interactions with natural parasites in space are lacking. Drosophila parasitoid wasps modify blood cell function to suppress host immunity. In this study, naive and parasitized ground and space flies from a tumor-free control and a blood tumor-bearing mutant strain were examined. Inflammation-related genes were activated in space in both fly strains. Whereas control flies did not develop tumors, tumor burden increased in the space-returned tumor-bearing mutants. Surprisingly, control flies were more sensitive to spaceflight than mutant flies; many of their …

Structural And Magnetic Properties Of Molecular Beam Epitaxy (Mnsb2te4)X(Sb2te3)1−X Topological Materials With Exceedingly High Curie Temperature, Candice R. Forrester, Christophe Testelin, Kaushini Wickramasinghe, Ido Levy, Dominique Demaille, David Hrabovsky, Xiaxin Ding, Lisa Krusin-Elbaum, Gustavo Lopez, Maria C. Tamargo

Publications and Research

Tuning the properties of magnetic topological materials is of interest to realize exotic physical phenomena, new quantum phases and quasiparticles, and topological spintronic devices. However, current topological materials exhibit Curie temperature (T_C) values far below those needed for practical applications. In recent years, significant progress has been made to control and optimize T_C, particularly through defect-engineering of these structures. Most recently, we reported T_C values up to 80 K for (MnSb₂Te₄)_x(Sb₂Te₃)_1−x when 0.7 ≤ x ≤ 0.85 by controlling the composition x and the …

Photo-Induced Charge State Dynamics Of The Neutral And Negatively Charged Silicon Vacancy Centers In Room-Temperature Diamond, G. Garcia-Arellano, G. I. López-Morales, N. B. Manson, J. Flick, A. A. Wood, C. A. Meriles

Publications and Research

The silicon vacancy (SiV) center in diamond is drawing much attention due to its optical and spin properties, attractive for quantum information processing and sensing. Comparatively little is known, however, about the dynamics governing SiV charge state interconversion mainly due to challenges associated with generating, stabilizing, and characterizing all possible charge states, particularly at room temperature. Here, multi-color confocal microscopy and density functional theory are used to examine photo-induced SiV recombination — from neutral, to single-, to double-negatively charged — over a broad spectral window in chemical-vapor-deposition (CVD) diamond under ambient conditions. For the SiV⁰ to SiV^‒ transition, …

Radiation Pressure Induced Oscillations Of An Optically Levitating Mirror, Satyam Shekhar Jha, Tal Carmon, Fan Cheng, Lev Deych

Publications and Research

Optical Fabry–Perot cavity with a movable mirror is a paradigmatic optomechanical system. While usually the mirror is supported by a mechanical spring, it has been shown that it is possible to keep one of the mirrors in a stable equilibrium purely by optical levitation without any mechanical support. In this work, we expand previous studies of the nonlinear dynamics of such a system by demonstrating a possibility for mechanical parametric instability and the emergence of the “phonon laser” phenomenon.

On Cyclically 4-Connected Cubic Graphs, R. J. Kingan, S. R. Kingan

Publications and Research

A 3-connected cubic graph is cyclically 4-connected if it has at least n ≥ 8 vertices and when removal of a set of three edges results in a disconnected graph, only one component has cycles. By introducing the notion of cycle spread to quantify the distance between pairs of edges, we get a new characterization of cyclically 4-connected graphs. Let Q_n and V_n denote the ladder and Möbius ladder on n ≥ 8 vertices, respectively. We prove that a 3-connected cubic graph G is cyclically 4-connected if and only if G is either the Petersen graph, Q …

It Is Normal: The Probability Distribution Of Temperature Extremes, Nir Y. Krakauer

Publications and Research

The probability of heat extremes is often estimated using the non-stationary generalized extreme value distribution (GEVD) applied to time series of annual maximum temperature. Here, this practice was assessed using a global sample of temperature time series, from reanalysis (both at the grid point and the region scale) as well as station observations. This assessment used forecast negative log-likelihood as the main performance measure, which is particularly sensitive to the most extreme heat waves. It was found that the computationally simpler normal distribution outperforms the GEVD in providing probabilistic year-ahead forecasts of temperature extremes. Given these findings, it is suggested …

Training, Practice, And Career Considerations In Forensic Psychology: Results From A Field Survey Of Clinical And Non-Clinical Professionals In The United States, Casey Laduke, David Dematteo, Eve M. Brank, Antoinette Kavanaugh

Publications and Research

The current field survey describes the identities, training, practices, and careers of 351 U.S. forensic psychologists. Findings are presented for clinical forensic psychologists (n = 323) with additional consideration for those working in institutions (n = 119), private practice (n = 107), or both (n = 90), and separately for non-clinical forensic psychologists (n = 35). The sample was predominantly middle-aged, White, and female. Participants reported various training paths to the field, and professional settings and activities in the field. Student loan debt was common and significant in clinical Forensic psychologists. Income was generally high, …

Quotients Of The Curve Complex, Joseph Maher, Hidetoshi Masai, Saul Schleimer

Publications and Research

We consider three kinds of quotients of the curve complex, which are obtained by coning off uniformly quasiconvex subspaces: symmetric curve sets, non-maximal train track sets, and compression body disc sets. We show that the actions of the mapping class group on those quotients are strongly weakly properly discontinuously (WPD), which implies that the actions are non-elementary and those quotients are of infinite diameter.

South America Holds The Greatest Diversity Of Native Daisies (Asteraceae) In The World: An Updated Catalogue Supporting Continental-Scale Conservation, Andrés Moreira-Muñoz, Marcelo Monge, Mariana A. Grossi, Fabio Andrés Ávila, Vanezza Morales-Fierro, Gustavo Heiden, Berni Britto, Stephan Beck, Jimi N. Nakajima, Vanina G. Salgado, Juan Facundo Rodríguez-Cravero, Diego G. Gutiérrez

Publications and Research

Asteraceae is the world’s richest plant family and is found on all continents, in environments ranging from the coast to the highest mountains. The family shows all growth forms and, as in other angiosperm families, species richness is concentrated in tropical regions. South America has the highest diversity of Asteraceae in the world, yet taxonomic and distributional knowledge gaps remain. This study compiles an updated catalog of Asteraceae native to South America, based on national and regional checklists and ongoing large-scale flora projects. The resulting checklist includes a total of 6,940 species and 564 genera native to South America to …

Prosocial Behavior And Workplace Safety: Analysis Of The Role Of Emotional Intelligence And Perceived Organizational Support In Two Uk And Us Samples, Giacomo Moserle, Giulia Foti, Georgia Libera Finstad, Andrea Bazzoli, Matteo Curcuruto, Jim Morgan

Publications and Research

Prosocial safety behavior (PSB) is a critical element of workforce participation in the promotion of safety in the workplace. This study aims to examine the influence of various antecedents on PSB. Based on an analysis of the existing literature on prosocial behaviors, we investigate whether emotional intelligence (EI) and perceived organizational support (POS) significantly influence PSB. Furthermore, we analyze the mediating role of employees’ intrinsic motivation (IM) and affective commitment (AC) in these relationships. The research was conducted by administering an online questionnaire to a large sample of 488 workers employed in safety-critical industries based in the United States and …

Time-Efficient Filtering Of Imaging Polarimetric Data By Checking Physical Realizability Of Experimental Mueller Matrices, Tatiana Novikova, Alexey Ovchinnikov, Gleb Pogudin, Jessica C. Ramella-Roman

Publications and Research

Motivation: Imaging Mueller polarimetry has already proved its potential for biomedicine, remote sensing, and metrology. The real-time applications of this modality require both video rate image acquisition and fast data post-processing algorithms. First, one must check the physical realizability of the experimental Mueller matrices in order to filter out non-physical data, i.e. to test the positive semi-definiteness of the 4 × 4 Hermitian coherency matrix calculated from the elements of corresponding Mueller matrix pixel-wise. For this purpose, we compared the execution time for the calculations of (i) eigenvalues, (ii) Cholesky decomposition, (iii) Sylvester’s criterion, and (iv) coefficients of the characteristic …

Reflections On Williamson On Logic And Validity, Graham Priest

Publications and Research

Over many years now, Tim Williamson and I have engaged in debates over fundamental issues concerning logic. On some things, we have disagreed strongly; on others, we have agreed.

Social Atomism And Its Problems – Metaphysical And Political, Graham Priest

Publications and Research

Social atomism is a view that informs much contemporary social thinking. Drawing on arguments from Marxism and Buddhism, I will argue that it is false, and explore the consequences of this for a number of issues, notably those related to the ideology of capitalism.

Engaging Sexual Minority Adolescents In Nationwide At-Home Hiv Prevention Research In The U.S, Ali J. Talan, Carly Wolfer, Nicola Tavella, Cynthia Cabral, Ricardo Despradel, H. Jonathon Rendina

Publications and Research

Objectives: This study examined research-related privacy and confidentiality concerns among adolescent sexual minority males (ASMM) and provides lessons learned to inform recruitment and enrollment strategies for this population.

Methods: Participants were a 2017-2018 internet-based U.S. national sample of sexual minority adolescents who responded to self-report measures of privacy and confidentiality concerns. Results: Bivariate chi-square tests were used to identify participants’ mean differences in worry and likelihood of privacy breach occurrences. Many participants reported privacy-related concerns within remote HIV prevention research.

Conclusions: Study protocols were designed to ensure participants felt safe participating in online HIV prevention research. However, there are challenges …

A Definition Of A Heywood Case In Item Response Theory Based On Fisher Information, Jay Verkuilen, Peter J. Johnson

Publications and Research

Heywood cases and other improper solutions occur frequently in latent variable models, e.g., factor analysis, item response theory, latent class analysis, multilevel models, or structural equation models, all of which are models with response variables taken from an exponential family. They have important consequences for scoring with the latent variable model and are indicative of issues in a model, such as poor identification or model misspecification. In the context of the 2PL and 3PL models in IRT, they are more frequently known as Guttman items and are identified by having a discrimination parameter that is deemed excessively large. Other IRT …

It’S About Time, Part Ii: Does Time Poverty Contribute To Inequitable College Outcomes By Gender And Race/Ethnicity?, Claire Wladis, Alyse C. Hachey, Katherine M. Conway

Publications and Research

Existing research demonstrates gender- and race/ethnicity-based inequities in college outcomes. Separately, recent research suggests a relationship between time poverty and college outcomes for student parents and online students. However, to date, no studies have empirically explored whether differential access to time as a resource for college may explain differential outcomes by gender or race/ethnicity. To address this, this study explored the relationship between time poverty, gender or race/ethnicity, and college outcomes at a large urban public university with two and four year campuses. Time poverty explained a significant proportion of differential outcomes (retention and credit accumulation) by gender and race/ethnicity. …

A Tai Chi And Qigong Mind-Body Program For Low Back Pain: A Virtually Delivered Randomized Control Trial, Yang Yang, Sydne Mccluskey, Mohamad Bydon, Jaspal Ricky Singh, Robert D. Sheeler, Karim Rizwan Nathani, Ana C. Krieger, Neel D. Mehta, Joshua Weaver, Libin Jia, Sharo Decelle, Robert C. Schlagal, Jay Ayar, Sahar Abduljawad, Steven D. Stovitz, Ravindra Ganesh, Jay Verkuilen, Kenneth A. Knapp, Lin Yang, Roger Härtl

Publications and Research

Background: Mind-body treatments have the potential to manage pain, yet their effectiveness when delivered online for the treatment of low back pain (LBP) is unknown. We sought to evaluate whether a virtually delivered mind-body program integrating tai chi, qigong, and meditation (VDTQM) is effective for treating LBP.

Methods: This randomized controlled trial compared VDTQM (n=175) to waitlist control (n=175). Eligible participants were at least 18 years old, had LBP for at least 6 weeks, were not pregnant, had not previously taken tai chi classes, and had not undergone spine surgery within 6 months. The treatment group received a 12-week VDTQM …

Grid Culture, Eliot Bates, Arseni Troitski

Publications and Research

In this essay, we provide our initial ethnographic research about lines, which at a superficial level can be considered a platform, but which is also synonymous with a community of 8800 users, and with 606k unique posts authored by these users that in aggregate constitute a discourse network (Aufschreibesysteme, see Kittler 1990). lines—as platform, community, and discourse network—is primarily designed to support the development, documentation and user-generated code efforts specific to a set of hardware synthesis-related objects (the two we will focus on are called Norns and Grid; we’ll discuss what they are and what they do through the subsequent …

Assembling Hyperpop: Genre Formation On Wikipedia, Eliot Bates, Sophie Delphis, Romulo Moraes, Julia Santoli

Publications and Research

In this article, we analyze how a music genre is reciprocally defined online, through the crowdsourced ‘facts’ of Wikipedia. What are the traditional implicit and explicit exclusionary practices in this sort of genre formation? And how can internet-specific sociabilities create new exclusionary practices in the process of defining music? By analyzing the edit history of Wikipedia’s ‘hyperpop’ page, we locate ongoing debates, controversies, and contestations that point to shaping forces around online genre formation. These potentially have a huge impact on how hyperpop is understood both inside and outside of the music community. In locating the most active editors of …

Sociodemographic Correlates Of Low Health Literacy Skills Among Cancer Survivors: National Findings From Brfss 2016 And Implications For Precision Survivorship Care, Qi Chen, John Moore, Lailea Noel, Kirk Von Sternberg, Barbara Jones

Publications and Research

Purpose: This study aimed to explore associations of sociodemographic factors with difficulties in three health literacy (HL) skills and the severity of low HL skills.

Design: Cross-sectional secondary data analysis. Subjects: Data came from 17,834 adults who responded to the HL module with a response rate of 47% in the 2016 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Measures: Independent variables included sex, age, race/ethnicity, education, employment and income. Dependent variables are three HL skills: obtaining, understanding oral, and understanding written health information.

Analysis: We conducted weighted Chi-square tests and multinominal logistic regressions.

Results: Cancer survivors younger than 65 (aged 18-39: AOR=4.46, …

Effective Size Of A Parity-Time-Symmetric Dimer, Li Ge

Publications and Research

Parity-time (PT)-symmetric dimers were introduced to highlight the unusual properties of non-Hermitian systems that are invariant after a combined parity and time reversal operation. They are also the building blocks of a variety of symmetry and topologically protected structures, especially on integrated photonic platforms. As the name suggests, it consists of two coupled oscillators, which can be optical, mechanical, electronic, and so on in nature. In this article, we show that its effective size, defined by the number of lattice sites inversely proportional to the lattice momentum, is surprisingly three instead of two from the perspective of energy quantization. More …

Physical Violence And Aggression In Parkinson's Disease: A Systematic Review, Melissa B Jones, Lakeshia Gibson, Malena Gimenez-Zapiola, Ana Guerra, Gursimrat Bhatti, Dakota Broadway, Juliann Tea, Aksa Prasad, Rachel Gates, Elizabeth Hinton, Ricardo E Jorge, Laura Marsh

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Physical violence and aggression (PVA), defined as behaviors with the potential to cause bodily injury, are unfortunate risks in the management of all-cause neurodegenerative dementias. While dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD) may not be evident for many years after clinical onset, neuropsychiatric disturbances occur at all stages of the disease. At issue is whether PVA in PD is associated with clinical factors that can be targets for prevention and management in the absence of a prevailing dementia syndrome.

Objective: This systematic review examined the extent to which PVA in PD without dementia is a clinically significant concern and whether …

Sharing Stories Of Hope And Transformation In U.S. Higher Education: An Ereader By Portland State University Students, Óscar Fernández, David Peterson Del Mar

PDXOpen: Open Educational Resources

This eReader showcases stories of hope and transformation written by diverse students enrolled in University Studies courses at Portland State University. The goal is to motivate first-year and transfer students to see that, in higher education, they are not alone in their personal, familial, and academic struggles—and personal, familial, and educational achievements.

American Indian Census Rolls: An Underutilized Source Of Historical Demographic Information On Tribal Populations, David Swanson, Jeff Tayman

Publications, Reports and Presentations

Historical information on tribal populations in the United States is incomplete. American Indians and Alaska Natives were not enumerated with the general population until the 1940 decennial census. However, Indian Census Rolls were produced for the period 1885 – 1940 under the auspices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the U.S. The information given in the Indian Census Rolls varies but usually includes the roll number, age, gender, tribal identity, and relationship to the head of the family. In this paper, we present background information on Indian Census Rolls and demonstrate how the digitized microfiche census roll schedules can …