Digital Commons Network^™

Gene Editing Of Pigs To Control Influenza A Virus Infections, Taeyong Kwon, Bianca L. Artiaga, Chester D. Mcdowell, Kristin M. Whitworth, Kevin D. Wells, Randall S. Prather, Gustavo Delhon, Mark Cigan, Stephen N. White, Jamie Retallick, Natasha N. Gaudreault, Igor Morozov, Juergen A. Richt

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Proteolytic activation of the hemagglutinin (HA) glycoprotein by host cellular proteases is pivotal for influenza A virus (IAV) infectivity. Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses possess the multibasic cleavage site of the HA which is cleaved by ubiquitous proteases, such as furin; in contrast, the monobasic HA motif is recognized and activated by trypsin-like proteases, such as the transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2). Here, we aimed to determine the effects of TMPRSS2 on the replication of pandemic H1N1 and H3N2 subtype IAVs in the natural host, the pig. The use of the CRISPR/Cas 9 system led to the establishment of homozygous …

Badger Ecology, Bovine Tuberculosis, And Population Management: Lessons From The Island Of Ireland, Andrew W. Byrne, Adrian Allen, Simone Ciuti, Eamonn Gormley, David J. Kelly, Nikki J. Marks, Nicola M. Marples, Fraser Menzies, Ian Montgomery, Chris Newman, Maria O’Hagan, Neil Reid, David M. Scantlebury, Peter Stuart, Ming-Shan Tsai

Publications

The European badger, Meles meles, is an important wildlife host for Mycobacterium bovis and contributes to the epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle in several countries. The control of zoonotic diseases, such as bTB, is a central component of global One-Health strategies. Such strategies are complicated by human–wildlife conflicts, particularly where wildlife reservoirs are legally protected. The contrasting objectives of disease management and wildlife conservation, therefore, can require significant investment in research to support evidence-based policies. In Britain and Ireland, for example, badgers are a legally protected species but are also subject to lethal control and vaccination for …

Roper V. New York City Department Of Housing Preservation And Development

All Decisions

Tenant sought succession rights to a Mitchell-Lama apartment after the death of the tenant of record, who she claimed was her grandmother-in-law (non-traditional familial relationship case). Landlord denied the claim, stating tenant failed to provide sufficient evidence of a financial and emotional commitment and interdependence with the tenant of record. Court remanded the case to landlord for further consideration, finding that the Hearing Officer did not adequately consider all relevant factors and evidence. Key Legal Points: Need to carefully consider all enumerated factors in succession regulations and provide applicants with a fair opportunity to present their case.

Kinase Inhibitor Pulldown Assay (Kip) For Clinical Proteomics, Alexander B Saltzman, Doug W Chan, Matthew V Holt, Junkai Wang, Eric J Jaehnig, Meenakshi Anurag, Purba Singh, Anna Malovannaya, Beom-Jun Kim, Matthew J Ellis

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Protein kinases are frequently dysregulated and/or mutated in cancer and represent essential targets for therapy. Accurate quantification is essential. For breast cancer treatment, the identification and quantification of the protein kinase ERBB2 is critical for therapeutic decisions. While immunohistochemistry (IHC) is the current clinical diagnostic approach, it is only semiquantitative. Mass spectrometry-based proteomics offers quantitative assays that, unlike IHC, can be used to accurately evaluate hundreds of kinases simultaneously. The enrichment of less abundant kinase targets for quantification, along with depletion of interfering proteins, improves sensitivity and thus promotes more effective downstream analyses. Multiple kinase inhibitors were therefore deployed as …

Metabolomic Rewiring Promotes Endocrine Therapy Resistance In Breast Cancer, Songyeon Ahn, Jun Hyoung Park, Sandra L Grimm, Danthasinghe Waduge Badrajee Piyarathna, Tagari Samanta, Vasanta Putluri, Dereck Mezquita, Suzanne A W Fuqua, Nagireddy Putluri, Cristian Coarfa, Benny Abraham Kaipparettu

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Approximately one-third of endocrine-treated women with estrogen receptor-alpha positive (ER+) breast cancers (BC) are at risk of recurrence due to intrinsic or acquired resistance. Thus, it is vital to understand the mechanisms underlying endocrine therapy resistance in ER+ BC to improve patient treatment. Mitochondrial fatty acid β-oxidation (FAO) has been shown to be a major metabolic pathway in triple-negative BC (TNBC) that can activate Src signaling. Here, we found metabolic reprogramming that increases FAO in ER+ BC as a mechanism of resistance to endocrine therapy. A metabolically relevant, integrated gene signature was derived from transcriptomic, metabolomic, and lipidomic analyses in …

Novel Pan-Err Agonists Ameliorate Heart Failure Through Enhancing Cardiac Fatty Acid Metabolism And Mitochondrial Function, Weiyi Xu, Cyrielle Billon, Hui Li, Andrea Wilderman, Lei Qi, Andrea Graves, Jernie Rae Dela Cruz Rideb, Yuanbiao Zhao, Matthew Hayes, Keyang Yu, Mckenna Losby, Carissa S Hampton, Christiana M Adeyemi, Seok Jae Hong, Eleni Nasiotis, Chen Fu, Tae Gyu Oh, Weiwei Fan, Michael Downes, Ryan D Welch, Ronald M Evans, Aleksandar Milosavljevic, John K Walker, Brian C Jensen, Liming Pei, Thomas Burris, Lilei Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Cardiac metabolic dysfunction is a hallmark of heart failure (HF). Estrogen-related receptors ERRα and ERRγ are essential regulators of cardiac metabolism. Therefore, activation of ERR could be a potential therapeutic intervention for HF. However, in vivo studies demonstrating the potential usefulness of ERR agonist for HF treatment are lacking, because compounds with pharmacokinetics appropriate for in vivo use have not been available.

METHODS: Using a structure-based design approach, we designed and synthesized 2 structurally distinct pan-ERR agonists, SLU-PP-332 and SLU-PP-915. We investigated the effect of ERR agonist on cardiac function in a pressure overload-induced HF model in vivo. We …

Novel Species Of Triatoma (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) Identified In A Case Of Vectorial Transmission Of Chagas Disease In Northern Belize, Sarah M Gunter, Alisa Nelson, Alexander R Kneubehl, Silvia A Justi, Russell Manzanero, Emily Zielinski-Gutierrez, Claudia Herrera, Julie Thompson, Rajendra Mandage, Hans Desale, Adrianna Maliga, Kim Bautista, Shannon E Ronca, Francis Morey, Rafael Chacon Fuentes, Beatriz Lopez, Eric Dumonteil, Gerhaldine H Morazan, Kristy O Murray

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Chagas disease is a leading cause of non-ischemic cardiomyopathy in endemic regions of Central and South America. In Belize, Triatoma dimidiata sensu lato has been identified as the predominate taxon but vectorial transmission of Chagas disease is considered to be rare in the country. We recently identified an acute case of vector-borne Chagas disease in the northern region of Belize. Here we present a subsequent investigation of triatomines collected around the case-patient's home. We identified yet undescribed species, closely related to Triatoma huehuetenanguensis vector by molecular systematics methods occurring in the peridomestic environment. The identification of a T. cruzi-positive, novel …

Microbiome Preterm Birth Dream Challenge: Crowdsourcing Machine Learning Approaches To Advance Preterm Birth Research, Jonathan L. Golob, Tomiko T. Oskotsky, Alice S. Tang, Alennie Roldan, Verena Chung, Connie W.Y. Ha, Abigail Kuntzleman, Isaac Bigcraft, Stephen Techtmann, Et Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Every year, 11% of infants are born preterm with significant health consequences, with the vaginal microbiome a risk factor for preterm birth. We crowdsource models to predict (1) preterm birth (PTB; <37 >weeks) or (2) early preterm birth (ePTB; <32 >weeks) from 9 vaginal microbiome studies representing 3,578 samples from 1,268 pregnant individuals, aggregated from public raw data via phylogenetic harmonization. The predictive models are validated on two independent unpublished datasets representing 331 samples from 148 pregnant individuals. The top-performing models (among 148 and 121 submissions from 318 teams) achieve area under the receiver operator characteristic (AUROC) curve scores of 0.69 and …

Microbiome Preterm Birth Dream Challenge: Crowdsourcing Machine Learning Approaches To Advance Preterm Birth Research, Jonathan L. Golob, Tomiko T. Oskotsky, Alice S. Tang, Alennie Roldan, Verena Chung, Connie W. Ha, Abigail Kuntzleman, Isaac Bigcraft, Et Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

Every year, 11% of infants are born preterm with significant health consequences, with the vaginal microbiome a risk factor for preterm birth. We crowdsource models to predict (1) preterm birth (PTB < 37 weeks) or (2) early preterm birth (ePTB < 32 weeks) from 9 vaginal microbiome studies representing 3,578 samples from 1,268 pregnant individuals, aggregated from public raw data via phylogenetic harmonization. The predictive models are validated on two independent unpublished datasets representing 331 samples from 148 pregnant individuals. The top-performing models (among 148 and 121 submissions from 318 teams) achieve area under the receiver operator characteristic (AUROC) curve scores of 0.69 and 0.87 predicting PTB and ePTB, respectively. Alpha diversity, VALENCIA community state types, and composition are important features in the top-performing models, most of which are tree-based methods. This work is a model for translation of microbiome data into clinically relevant predictive models and to better understand preterm birth.

Gad65abs Are Not Associated With Beta-Cell Dysfunction In Patients With T2d In The Grade Study, Christiane S Hampe, Ali Shojaie, Barbara Brooks-Worrell, Sepideh Dibay, Kristina Utzschneider, Steven E Kahn, Mary E Larkin, Mary L Johnson, Naji Younes, Neda Rasouli, Cyrus Desouza, Robert M Cohen, Jean Y Park, Hermes J Florez, Willy Marcos Valencia, Robert Stempel, Jerry P Palmer, Ashok Balasubramanyam

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

CONTEXT: Autoantibodies directed against the 65-kilodalton isoform of glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD65Abs) are markers of autoimmune type 1 diabetes (T1D) but are also present in patients with Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adults and autoimmune neuromuscular diseases, and also in healthy individuals. Phenotypic differences between these conditions are reflected in epitope-specific GAD65Abs and anti-idiotypic antibodies (anti-Id) against GAD65Abs. We previously reported that 7.8% of T2D patients in the GRADE study have GAD65Abs but found that GAD65Ab positivity was not correlated with beta-cell function, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), or fasting glucose levels.

CONTEXT: In this study, we aimed to better characterize islet autoantibodies …

Catalytic Isoforms Of Amp-Activated Protein Kinase Differentially Regulate Impdh Activity And Photoreceptor Neuron Function, Tae Jun Lee, Yo Sasaki, Philip A. Ruzycki, Norimitsu Ban, Joseph B. Lin, Hung-Ting Wu, Andrea Santeford, Rajendra S. Apte

2020-Current year OA Pubs

AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) plays a crucial role in maintaining ATP homeostasis in photoreceptor neurons. AMPK is a heterotrimeric protein consisting of α, β, and γ subunits. The independent functions of the 2 isoforms of the catalytic α subunit, PRKAA1 and PRKAA2, are uncharacterized in specialized neurons, such as photoreceptors. Here, we demonstrate in mice that rod photoreceptors lacking PRKAA2, but not PRKAA1, showed altered levels of cGMP, GTP, and ATP, suggesting isoform-specific regulation of photoreceptor metabolism. Furthermore, PRKAA2-deficient mice displayed visual functional deficits on electroretinography and photoreceptor outer segment structural abnormalities on transmission electron microscopy consistent with neuronal dysfunction, …

The Pan-Microbiome Profiling System Taxa4meta Identifies Clinical Dysbiotic Features And Classifies Diarrheal Disease, Qinglong Wu, Shyam Badu, Sik Yu So, Todd J Treangen, Tor C Savidge

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Targeted metagenomic sequencing is an emerging strategy to survey disease-specific microbiome biomarkers for clinical diagnosis and prognosis. However, this approach often yields inconsistent or conflicting results owing to inadequate study power and sequencing bias. We introduce Taxa4Meta, a bioinformatics pipeline explicitly designed to compensate for technical and demographic bias. We designed and validated Taxa4Meta for accurate taxonomic profiling of 16S rRNA amplicon data acquired from different sequencing strategies. Taxa4Meta offers significant potential in identifying clinical dysbiotic features that can reliably predict human disease, validated comprehensively via reanalysis of individual patient 16S data sets. We leveraged the power of Taxa4Meta's pan-microbiome …

Host Ip3r Channels Are Dispensable For Rotavirus Ca2+ Signaling But Critical For Intercellular Ca2+ Waves That Prime Uninfected Cells For Rapid Virus Spread, Jacob L Perry, Francesca J Scribano, John T Gebert, Kristen A Engevik, Jenna M Ellis, Joseph M Hyser

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Many viruses exploit host Ca2+ signaling to facilitate their replication; however, little is known about how Ca2+ signals from different host and viral channels contribute to the overall dysregulation of Ca2+ signaling or promote virus replication. Using cells lacking IP3R, a host ER Ca2+ channel, we delineated intracellular Ca2+ signals within virus-infected cells and intercellular Ca2+ waves (ICWs), which increased Ca2+ signaling in neighboring, uninfected cells. In infected cells, IP3R was dispensable for rotavirus-induced Ca2+ signaling and replication, suggesting the rotavirus NSP4 viroporin supplies these signals. However, IP3R-mediated ICWs increase rotavirus replication kinetics and spread, indicating that the Ca2+ signals …

Susceptibility Of Toxoplasma Gondii To Autophagy In Human Cells Relies On Multiple Interacting Parasite Loci, Nicholas Rinkenberger, Alex Rosenberg, Joshua B Radke, Jaya Bhushan, Tadakimi Tomita, Louis M Weiss, L David Sibley

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Autophagy is a process used by cells to recycle organelles and macromolecules and to eliminate intracellular pathogens. Previous studies have shown that some stains of

Human Pluripotent Stem Cell Modeling Of Alveolar Type 2 Cell Dysfunction Caused By Abca3 Mutations, Yuliang L Sun, Erin E Hennessey, Hillary Heins, Ping Yang, Carlos Villacorta-Martin, Julian Kwan, Krithi Gopalan, Marianne James, Andrew Emili, F. Sessions Cole, Jennifer A. Wambach, Darrell N. Kotton

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Mutations in ATP-binding cassette A3 (ABCA3), a phospholipid transporter critical for surfactant homeostasis in pulmonary alveolar type II epithelial cells (AEC2s), are the most common genetic causes of childhood interstitial lung disease (chILD). Treatments for patients with pathological variants of ABCA3 mutations are limited, in part due to a lack of understanding of disease pathogenesis resulting from an inability to access primary AEC2s from affected children. Here, we report the generation of AEC2s from affected patient induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) carrying homozygous versions of multiple ABCA3 mutations. We generated syngeneic CRISPR/Cas9 gene-corrected and uncorrected iPSCs and ABCA3-mutant knockin ABCA3:GFP …

Covid-19 Pandemic’S Effect On Occupational Therapy Students’ Time-Use And Occupational Engagement On Returning To In-Person Learning, Jhannell Hannah D. Ocampo, Susan Macdermott, Karen Mccarthy

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

The COVID-19 pandemic emotionally and physically impacted students in occupational therapy and occupational therapy assistant programs. College students lost autonomy and access to meaningful occupations and environments. As students returned to campus, they struggled to navigate and adapt to in-person occupations and how they use their time. This study uses a mixed method descriptive research design to understand how the pandemic affected occupational therapy students' time-use and occupational engagement during the transition to in-person learning. Seventy-three students completed an online survey, while 12 of those students additionally participated in a follow-up time-use diary and interview. Eighty-three percent of the participants …

Practice And Recommendations For Universal Design For Learning In Occupational Therapy Client Education, Heather L. Panczykowski, Lynne F. Murphy, Victoria Christmas, Whitely Macintyre

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Background: Universal Design for Learning (UDL), an educational framework that describes flexible approaches to teaching and learning, can be used to address problems related to limitations in health literacy in health care settings.

Methods: This exploratory observational study, using a web-based online survey, was undertaken to discern how occupational therapists use the principles of UDL in educating their clients and to determine if differences exist between degree type or practice settings and UDL implementation.

Results: Of the 147 respondents only 30.6% indicated prior awareness of UDL principles. The most frequently cited means of client engagement were displaying …

Experiencing High Loneliness Increases Evaluation Of Products In Social Media Ads, Youjung Jun, Taehyeon Eom

Asia Marketing Journal

This research investigates how loneliness affects people’s preferences for products that appear in social media ads. Four studies examine the impact of loneliness that is both measured in an established scale and situationally induced via a recall task. Individuals who experience higher levels of loneliness evaluate the same products more highly when they are advertised in a social (i.e., Instagram) compared to non-social (i.e., brand website) media platform. This effect occurs because loneliness increases people’s attention to others’ social evaluation of a product, and social media ads provide this information via social cues such as “likes” embedded in the ads. …

Seeing Eye To Eye? Comparing Faculty And Student Perceptions Of Biomolecular Visualization Assessments, Josh T. Beckham, Daniel R. Dries, Bonnie L. Hall, Rarchel M. Mitton-Fry, Shelly Engelman, Charmita Burch, Roderico Acevedo, Pamela S. Mertz, Didem Vardar-Ulu, Swati Agrawal, Kristin M. Fox, Shane Austin, Margaret A. Franzen, Henry V. Jakubowski, Walter R. P. Novak, Rebecca Roberts, Alberto I. Roca, Kristen Procko

Chemistry Faculty Publications

While visual literacy has been identified as a foundational skill in life science education, there are many challenges in teaching and assessing biomolecular visualization skills. Among these are the lack of consensus about what constitutes competence and limited understanding of student and instructor perceptions of visual literacy tasks. In this study, we administered a set of biomolecular visualization assessments, developed as part of the BioMolViz project, to both students and instructors at multiple institutions and compared their perceptions of task difficulty. We then analyzed our findings using a mixed-methods approach. Quantitative analysis was used to answer the following research questions: …

Ephrinb2 Knockdown In Cervical Spinal Cord Preserves Diaphragm Innervation In A Mutant Sod1 Mouse Model Of Als, Mark W. Urban, Brittany A. Charsar, Nicolette M. Heinsinger, Shashirekha S. Markandaiah, Lindsay Sprimont, Wei Zhou, Eric V. Brown, Nathan T. Henderson, Samantha J. Thomas, Biswarup Ghosh, Rachel E. Cain, Davide Trotti, Piera Pasinelli, Megan C. Wright, Matthew B. Dalva, Angelo C. Lepore

Farber Institute for Neuroscience Staff Papers and Presentations

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor neuron loss. Importantly, non-neuronal cell types such as astrocytes also play significant roles in disease pathogenesis. However, mechanisms of astrocyte contribution to ALS remain incompletely understood. Astrocyte involvement suggests that transcellular signaling may play a role in disease. We examined contribution of transmembrane signaling molecule ephrinB2 to ALS pathogenesis, in particular its role in driving motor neuron damage by spinal cord astrocytes. In symptomatic SOD1G93A mice (a well-established ALS model), ephrinB2 expression was dramatically increased in ventral horn astrocytes. Reducing ephrinB2 in the cervical spinal cord ventral horn via …

Dynamics Of Soil Microbial Communities Involved In Carbon Cycling Along Three Successional Forests In Southern China, Minghui Hu, Shuyidan Zhou, Xin Xiong, Xuan Wang, Yu Sun, Ze Meng, Dafeng Hui, Jianling Li, Deqiang Zhang, Qi Deng

Biology Faculty Research

Dynamics of plant communities during forest succession have been received great attention in the past decades, yet information about soil microbial communities that are involved in carbon cycling remains limited. Here we investigated soil microbial community composition and carbohydrate degradation potential using metagenomic analysis and examined their influencing factors in three successional subtropical forests in southern China. Results showed that the abundances of soil bacteria and fungi increased (p ≤ 0.05 for both) with forest succession in relation to both soil and litter characteristics, whereas the bacterial diversity did not change (p > 0.05) and the fungal diversity of Shannon-Wiener index …

Associations Of Galectin-3 Levels With Measures Of Vascular Disease In Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis, Amanda Nussdorf, Elizabeth Park, Isabelle Amigues, Laura Geraldino-Pardilla, Sabahat Bokhari, Jon T. Giles, Joan M. Bathon

Division of Rheumatology Faculty Papers

OBJECTIVES: Galectin-3 is a beta-galactoside-binding lectin and is a marker of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in the general population. It may also play a role in joint inflammation. We asked whether serum galectin-3 is a useful marker of subclinical vascular disease in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

METHODS: RA patients without clinical CVD underwent assessment of coronary artery calcium (CAC) score, aortic inflammation (using 18Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission-computed tomography [FDG PET/CT]), and myocardial flow reserve (MFR). Aorta FDG uptake was measured as standardized uptake values (SUV). Generalized linear models were constructed to explore the associations of galectin-3 levels with CAC score, aortic …

When Policies Problematize The Local: Social-Environmental Justice And Forest Policies In Burkina Faso And Vietnam, Grace Yee Wong, Mawa Karambiri, Pham Thu Thuy, Alizée Ville, Tuan Long Hoang, Chi Dao Thi Linh, Andrea Downing, Amanda Jiménez-Aceituno, Maria Brockhaus

Forest and Society

We examine social-environmental justice in forest governance by asking who is problematized as drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. We adapt Bacchi’s “What is the problem represented to be” approach to the community forest (CAF) model in Burkina Faso and the Payment for Forest Environmental Services (PFES) in Vietnam and examine the implementation of these policies in specific sites through disaggregated focus group discussions (men, women, youth, ethnic minorities). We delve into the discursive, lived and subjectification effects of the policies’ problematizations, highlighting tensions and contestations relating to forest access and benefits. For both countries, what is left unproblematized in …

A Pilot Model Of Community-Based Forest Management In Xuan Nha Nature Reserve, Son La Province, Vietnam, Thuy Thi Phan, Duong Huu Nong

Forest and Society

This study evaluated the implementation of a pilot model for promoting community-based conservation through a contracting program in Xuan Nha Nature Reserve, located in Son La province, northern Vietnam, from 2014 to 2022. To assess the effectiveness of the program, in-depth interviews were conducted with 26 officials and 100 individuals residing in three villages. The findings revealed that the program successfully facilitated community-based conservation by involving local communities in participatory land use planning and forest protection at the village level. The study identified four main factors that contributed to the successful implementation of the program: (1) clearly defined objectives, (2) …

Mapping The Demand For Ecosystem Services In Human-Dominated Topical Forest Of Sabah, Malaysia, Kamlisa Uni Kamlun, Renate Bürger-Arndt, Fazleen Abdul Fatah

Forest and Society

Mapping the demand for ecosystem services (ES) is a profoundly debated research topic that needs to be investigated further to overcome spatial discrepancies between supply and demand in the literature. This study proposes a holistic approach to valuing ES, which is demanded by local people living adjacent to Sabah’s protected area in the southwestern part of Sabah, Malaysia. To assess the local people's demand for ecosystem services, we applied the 'ES Matrix Assessment' method. Timber, global climate regulation, recreation, and ecotourism are selected to illustrate the changes in ES demand patterns reported in the Klias Peninsula region. To identify the …

Plant Diversity, Traditional Utilization, And Community-Based Conservation Of The Small-Scale Nong Sakae Community Forest In Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, Thanakorn Saengsanga, Sarochinee Kaewthani, Tarntip Rattana

Forest and Society

This study aimed to investigate plant diversity, traditional utilization, and create a web-based application for sustainable community-based utilization management of the small-scale Nong Sakae Community Forest, Dan Chak sub-district, Non Thai district, Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand. Our results revealed 29 plant species belonging to 21 genera. Notably, the Fabaceae family dominated the forest and comprised seven species, including two recognized as invasive species. Diversity indices revealed a moderate level of species diversity, with Shannon–Weaver (H’) and Simpson's diversity indices at 1.7844 and 0.6076, respectively. Species richness indices involving Margalef and Menhinick were 4.3805 and 1.1869, respectively, whereas evenness was 0.5414. The …

Ethnobotany Of The Kombong Agroforestry System And Tongkonan Conservation In The Toraja Tribe, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, Syamsuddin Millang, Eny Yuniati, Samuel A. Paembonan, Budi Arty, Ahmad R. Makkasau

Forest and Society

The Kombong agroforestry system (KAS) has long been practiced and plays an important role in the livelihoods of the Toraja tribe's settlements, in addition to their social, cultural, and environmental sustainability. This research aims to explain the species composition and wood volume, how the utilization of plant species in the KAS has social, cultural, economic, and ecological functions, analyze the plant cultural significance of KAS of the Toraja tribe, the role of KAS for the conservation of Tongkonan Traditional Houses (TTHs) and KAS in preserving the Rambu Tuka' and Rambu Solo’ traditional ceremonies of the Toraja tribe. The research used …

Essential Ecosystem Area Policies As A Means To Promote Participatory And Inclusive Conservation In Forest Landscape Governance: Centering Perspectives Of Marginalized Women In Taman Kili-Kili, Indonesia, Titiek Kartika Hendrastiti, Rahmanta Setiahadi, Siti Kusujiarti, Dian Pratiwi, Hale Irfan Safrudi

Forest and Society

This study analyses dimensions of participatory forest landscape governance of the Essential Ecosystem Area (EEA) of Taman Kili-Kili, Indonesia. The voices of marginalized communities, and especially women, are rarely incorporated into forest landscape governance and conservation policies. The recently established Indonesian EEA policy mandates a participatory approach, with explicit requirements to involve marginalized groups and gendered perspectives. However, on a practical level, policy formulation and application unfold in very different ways. Using a Postcolonial Feminist Participatory Action Research (PFPAR) approach, we center local communities' power relations in our analysis as a specific means for drawing out various intersectional relations to …

Impacts Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Livelihood Assets Of Smallholder Agroforestry Farmers In Selected Upland Farming Communities In The Philippines, Leila Landicho, Kenneth A. Laruan, Mary Anne G. Abadillos, Romnick S. Pascua

Forest and Society

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the social and economic activities of humanity across the globe. It has created immediate negative impacts on the livelihoods and agricultural production activities of smallholder farmers. A study was conducted in 2022-2023 to assess the impacts of the pandemic on smallholder farmers engaged in vegetable-based agroforestry systems in the Philippines. Using mixed methods of data gathering such as focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and a survey of 383 smallholder agroforestry farmers, results revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in travel restrictions and lockdowns, which has caused the immobility of farmers, farm labor, farm inputs …

Qiditangshen Granules Alleviates Diabetic Nephropathy Podocyte Injury: A Network Pharmacology Study And Experimental Validation In Vivo And Vitro, Fei Gao, Ying Zhou, Borui Yu, Huidi Xie, Yang Shi, Xianhui Zhang, Hongfang Liu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: QiDiTangShen granules (QDTS), a traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) compound prescription, have remarkable efficacy in diabetic nephropathy (DN) patients, and their pharmacological mechanism needs further exploration.

METHODS: According to the active ingredients and targets of the QDTS in the TCMSP database, the network pharmacology of QDTS was investigated. The potential active ingredients were chosen based on the oral bioavailability and the drug similarity index. At the same time, targets for DN-related disease were obtained from GeneCards, OMIM, PharmGKB, TTD, and DrugBank. The TCM-component-target network and the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network were constructed with the Cytoscape and STRING platforms, respectively, and …