Digital Commons Network^™

Targeting Of Oncogenic Aaa-Atpase Trip13 Reduces Progression Of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma, Farrukh Afaq, Sumit Agarwal, Prachi Bajpai, Sameer Al Diffalha, Hyung-Gyoon Kim, Shajan Peter, Moh'd Khushman, Subhash Chauhan, Priyabrata Mukherjee, Sooryanarayana Varambally, Upender Manne

School of Medicine Publications

Thyroid hormone receptor-interacting protein 13 (TRIP13) is involved in cancer progression, but its role in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is unknown. Thus, we assessed the expression, functional role, and mechanism of action of TRIP13 in PDAC. We further examined the efficacy of TRIP13 inhibitor, DCZ0415, alone or in combination with gemcitabine on malignant phenotypes, tumor progression, and immune response. We found that TRIP13 was overexpressed in human PDACs relative to corresponding normal pancreatic tissues. TRIP13 knockdown or treatment of PDAC cells with DCZ0415 reduced proliferation and colony formation, and induced G2/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Additionally, TRIP13 knockdown …

Facilitating Mathematics And Computer Science Connections: A Cross-Curricular Approach, Kimberly E. Beck, Jessica F. Shumway, Umar Shehzad, Jody Clarke-Midura, Mimi Recker

Publications

In the United States, school curricula are often created and taught with distinct boundaries between disciplines. This division between curricular areas may serve as a hindrance to students' long-term learning and their ability to generalize. In contrast, cross-curricular pedagogy provides a way for students to think beyond the classroom walls and make important connections across disciplines. The purpose of this paper is a theoretical reflection on our use of Expansive Framing in our design of lessons across learning environments within the school. We provide a narrative account of our early work in using this theoretical framework to co-plan and enact …

Negotiating Inherent Asymmetries Of Co-Design: A Case Of Integrative Elementary Mathematics And Computer Science Instruction, Victor R. Lee, Stephanie Robillard, Mimi Recker, Jody Clarke-Midura, Jessica Shumway

Publications

Collaborative design, or “co-design”, is a term that has gained popularity in educational research and design communities, including those working with K-12 educators. While more groups are identifying with and pursuing co-design, much remains to be understood about how to structure the work within given different constraints, circumstances, and resources available to different parties. We propose understanding co-design as having inherent asymmetries and that structuring co-design work patterns involves negotiation of those asymmetries. Through a case of an elementary computer science and math integration research-practice partnership, we share ways that those asymmetries are both intentionally softened and leveraged at different …

Using Student Experience Reports As A Window For Teacher Reflections On Inquiry Science Instructional Practices, Jessie Nixon, Mimi Recker

Publications

This paper examines how student experience reports, collected as exit tickets, can be leveraged during professional learning to support science teachers’ understanding of their students and inform future classroom practices. Our analysis frames exit ticket data as a boundary object, which bridges across researchers’, teachers’, and students’ perspectives of the learning environment. During two successive professional learning activities, teachers examined and reflected upon their students’ exit ticket data. A thematic analysis of teachers’ discourse during these activities distilled two themes. The first theme surfaced how exit data helped teachers form new views about their students’ emerging science identities; the second …

Low Energy Availability, Disordered Eating, Exercise Dependence, Injury Prevalence, And Fueling Habits In Female Crossfit® Participants, Alyssum Reno-Smith

Dissertations

Disordered eating (DE) is primarily observed in endurance athletes and sports with aesthetics emphases. The prevalence of DE in resistance trained individuals, particularly CrossFit^®, is not well understood. CrossFit® promotes a culture encouraging strong, athletic, or muscular bodies, and both CrossFit® and endurance athletes aim to achieve a low body fat percentage to improve performance. This may lead to body dissatisfaction, exercise dependence (EXD), and/or DE behaviors, which may contribute to Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (REDs). This cross-sectional study investigated DE prevalence and relationship with EXD risk, body dissatisfaction, and fueling habits in female CrossFit® only (CO) …

Comparison Of Enhanced And Standard Data Sheets On Treatment Fidelity And Data Collection For Tact Training, Mary Halbur, Jessi Reidy, Tiffany Kodak, Landon Scott Cowan, Michael Harman

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Specifically designed data sheets have been recommended to assist with the fidelity of implementation of treatment procedures. The present study extended previous research (e.g., Bottini et al. Behavior Analysis: Research & Practice 21(2), 140–152, 2021; LeBlanc et al. Behavior Analysis in Practice 13(1), 53–62, 2020) by comparing an enhanced data sheet (i.e., the inclusion of randomized targets, prompts for treatment components of securing attending and reinforcement) to a standard data sheet (i.e., targets not preset, no prompts for treatment components) on the fidelity of tact training of features. Ten behavior therapists participated in each condition (n = …

Sexual Minority Behavioral Health Outcomes: The Role Of Identity Authenticity And Self-Regulation., Zane B. Ballard, Debra L. Oswald

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Genetic Risk For Alzheimer’S Disease Alters Perceived Executive Dysfunction In Cognitively Healthy Middle-Aged And Older Adults, Sarah A. Evans, Elizabeth R. Paitel, Riya Bhasin, Kristy A. Nielson

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background:

Subjective cognitive complaints (SCC) may be an early indicator of future cognitive decline. However, findings comparing SCC and objective cognitive performance have varied, particularly in the memory domain. Even less well established is the relationship between subjective and objective complaints in non-amnestic domains, such as in executive functioning, despite evidence indicating very early changes in these domains. Moreover, particularly early changes in both amnestic and non-amnestic domains are apparent in those carrying the Apolipoprotein-E ɛ4 allele, a primary genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Objective:

This study investigated the role of the ɛ4 allele in the consistency between subjective …

Editorial: Insights In Neurocognitive Aging And Behavior: 2022, Kristy A. Nielson, Annalena Venneri, Shin Murakami

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Intrusive Traumatic Re-Experiencing Domain: Functional Connectivity Feature Classification By The Enigma Ptsd Consortium, Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez, Amit Lazarov, Sigal Zilcha-Mano, Xi Zhu, Yoojean Kim, Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Intrusive traumatic re-experiencing domain (ITRED) was recently introduced as a novel perspective on posttraumatic psychopathology, proposing to focus research of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the unique symptoms of intrusive and involuntary re-experiencing of the trauma, namely, intrusive memories, nightmares, and flashbacks. The aim of the present study was to explore ITRED from a neural network connectivity connectivity perspective.

Methods

Data were collected from 9 sites taking part in the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) PTSD Consortium (n = 584) and included itemized PTSD symptom scores and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) data. We assessed the …

Listening To Families: Qualitative Analysis Of Family Perspectives On The Impact Of Participating In A Complex Care Program, Jessica L. Schnell, Astrida S. Kaugars, Sarah Johaningsmeir, Sara K. Quates, K. Jane Lee

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Complex Care Programs (CCPs) provide care for children with medical complexity (CMC). The broad impact of CCP participation on families is unknown. This study sought to elucidate what families value about participation in a CCP and what additional benefit families hope CCPs will provide.

Methods

Surveys from families of CMC in a CCP were collected over the course of two years. Responses were summarized for two fixed response satisfaction questions. Qualitative responses to two open-ended questions exploring CCP value were analyzed using content analysis.

Results

Most families (95% and 97%) were somewhat or very satisfied with the CCP. All …

Team Situation Awareness, Cohesion, And Autonomic Synchrony, Stephen J. Guastello, Cooper Bednarczyk, Ryan Hagan, Camerhon Johnson, Laura Marscisek, Laura M. Mcguigan, Anthony F. Peressini

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Objective

This study evaluated the causal relationships among situation awareness (SA), cohesion, and autonomic synchrony (SE) within teams. SA is often a team effort and should be more accurate in better-functioning teams.

Background

Cohesive teams perform better overall, although the relationship appears reciprocal; the relationship to SA has not been considered previously. SEis a collective neurocognitive activity that has been connected to team coordination, communication, and performance in some circumstances.

Method

In this experiment, 71 undergraduates, organized into 16 teams, played two matches of a first-person shooter computer game and completed self-report measures of cohesion …

Smaller Total And Subregional Cerebellar Volumes In Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Mega-Analysis By The Enigma-Pgc Ptsd Workgroup, Jacklynn M. Fitzgerald

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Although the cerebellum contributes to higher-order cognitive and emotional functions relevant to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), prior research on cerebellar volume in PTSD is scant, particularly when considering subregions that differentially map on to motor, cognitive, and affective functions. In a sample of 4215 adults (PTSD n = 1642; Control n = 2573) across 40 sites from the ENIGMA-PGC PTSD working group, we employed a new state-of-the-art deep-learning based approach for automatic cerebellar parcellation to obtain volumetric estimates for the total cerebellum and 28 subregions. Linear mixed effects models controlling for age, gender, intracranial volume, and site were used to …

Exploring The Association Between Structural Racism And Mental Health: Geospatial And Machine Learning Analysis, Fahimeh Mohebbi, Amir Masoud Forati, Lucas Torres, Terri A. Deroon-Cassini, Jennifer Harris, Carissa W. Tomas, John R. Mantsch, Rina Ghose

Psychology Faculty Research and Publications

Background:

Structural racism produces mental health disparities. While studies have examined the impact of individual factors such as poverty and education, the collective contribution of these elements, as manifestations of structural racism, has been less explored. Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, with its racial and socioeconomic diversity, provides a unique context for this multifactorial investigation.

Objective:

This research aimed to delineate the association between structural racism and mental health disparities in Milwaukee County, using a combination of geospatial and deep learning techniques. We used secondary data sets where all data were aggregated and anonymized before being released by federal agencies.

Methods:

We …

Cross-Temporal Hierarchical Forecast Reconciliation Of Natural Gas Demand, Colin O. Quinn, George F. Corliss, Richard J. Povinelli

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Local natural gas distribution companies (LDCs) require accurate demand forecasts across various time periods, geographic regions, and customer class hierarchies. Achieving coherent forecasts across these hierarchies is challenging but crucial for optimal decision making, resource allocation, and operational efficiency. This work introduces a method that structures the gas distribution system into cross-temporal hierarchies to produce accurate and coherent forecasts. We apply our method to a case study involving three operational regions, forecasting at different geographical levels and analyzing both hourly and daily frequencies. Trained on five years of data and tested on one year, our model achieves a 10% reduction …

Something For Every Kind Of Learner: Students’ Perceptions Of An Educational Recommender Study Tool, Cherie Noteboom, Alicia Mcnett

Research & Publications

The field of education has the potential to better facilitate student learning by employing educational recommender systems that adapt the learning process to the needs of individual learners. There is a lack of research that ties educational theory to the design and implementation of these systems. In this research, the design science methodology is employed to advocate for an educational recommender framework with a theoretical base in self-regulated learning. This paper focuses on the qualitative evaluation of this approach to gain insights on students’ perceptions of the resulting recommender when deployed to assist students when studying for an upcoming exam. …

Exploring Large Language Models For Ontology Learning, Olga Perera, Jun Liu

Research & Publications

Ontology Learning aims to facilitate automatic or semi-automatic ontology development based on machine learning techniques in context of big data. Recent evolution of technology has introduced Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) capable of creating new data, extracting insights from the existing data, and generating coherent texts from various inputs. This ability supports analysis of text data, providing insights and annotations that reduce human effort. This study explores the emerging field of Generative AI, specifically, Large Language Models for ontology learning. We conducted a survey of the current state of Generative AI research with focus on applicability and efficacy for ontology development …

Critical Success Factors For Bi Systems Implementation And Delivery: A Systematic Literature Review, Badr Harfoush, Omar F. El-Gayar, Noura Mansoura

Research & Publications

Despite the widespread acquisition of business intelligence (BI) systems, their implementation has not always been successful. This study examines the critical success factors (CSFs) that impact the implementation of BI systems in organizations. The systematic literature review follows the guidelines of Kitchenham and Charter’s research that was published in 2007. A total of 93 articles published between 2011 and 2021 were analyzed for CSF related to BI systems implementation and delivery. The study identified 56 CSFs linked to organization empowerment & operations, 52 CSFs related to system implementation, and 28 CSFs associated with user enablement. The study found a paucity …

Factors Influencing Blockchain Implementation In Supply Chain Management: An Exploratory Pilot Study, Aravindh Sekar, Deb Tech, Patti Brooks, Cherie Noteboom

Research & Publications

This study presents findings from a pilot study investigating key factors influencing the successful implementation of blockchain technology in supply chain organizations. Based on data collected from five participants, the pilot study offers valuable insights into the complex dynamics surrounding blockchain implementation. Through semi-structured interviews and grounded theory analysis, the study identifies key factors such as user adoption and acceptance, data integrity and protection, organizational strategy, strategic leadership, training, change management, and a supportive ecosystem. The findings highlight the multifaceted nature of blockchain implementation challenges and underscore the importance of comprehensive strategies for fostering user acceptance, aligning organizational goals, and …

Factors Affecting Users’ Satisfaction With Telehealth Apps: Analysis Of User Reviews Using Bert, Abdullah Wahbeh, Tyler Howes, Omar F. El-Gayar, Raed Seetan, Mohammad Al-Ramahi

Research & Publications

Telehealth mobile apps and telehealth services are increasingly used by patients, particularly, post-COVID-19.This study examines factors related to users’ satisfaction with these apps and services by analyzing reviews from actual telehealth app users. A total of 53,209 reviews were collected from nine telehealth apps on the Google Play store. Using BERT embeddings, UMAP, and HDBSCAN, topics were generated and labeled to identify these factors. Results showed that telehealth app users expressed several factors related to satisfaction with telehealth apps, which could impact the acceptability and adoption of such apps. These include usability (ease of use), usefulness, convenience and efficiency, cost …

A Comparative Analysis Of The Interpretability Of Lda And Llm For Topic Modeling: The Case Of Healthcare Apps, Omar El-Gayar, Mohammad Al-Ramahi, Abdullah Wahbeh, Tareq Nasralah, Ahmed Elnoshokaty

Research & Publications

This study compares the interpretability of the topics resulting from three topic modeling techniques, namely, LDA, BERTopic, and RoBERTa. Using a case study of three healthcare apps (MyChart, Replika, and Teladoc), we collected 39,999, 52,255, and 27,462 reviews from each app, respectively. Topics were generated for each app using the three topic models and labels were assigned to the resulting topics. Comparative qualitative analysis showed that BERTopic, RoBERTa, and LDA have relatively similar performance in terms of the final list of resulting topics concerning human interpretability. The LDA topic model achieved the highest rate of assigning labels to topics, but …

Intercropping Maize–Faba Bean Reduced Yield And Economiclosses Caused By Busseola Fusca (Fuller) In Semiarid Area, Tesfay Gidey, Daniel Hagos Berhe, Emiru Birhane, Haftu Abrha, Yirga Guf

All Grantees Publications

Climate change is impacting the sustainability of indigenous tree species. However, the impacts of climate change on African olivetree (Olea europaea subspecies Cuspidata) are less-explored. Tis study, conducted in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, aims to de-termine the impacts of climate change on the current and future distributions of the species. A total of 225 presence points andabundance of O. europaea within 20 m × 20 m plots at each location were collected. Additional input variables, such as the 19bioclimatic variables, 3 topographic variables, and Pedologic data, were used. Maxent software was employed to predict thedistribution of the species under current and …

First Report Of Penicillium Sclerotigenum Causing Post-Harvest Rotof Yam In Côte D’Ivoire, A Kamara, B Camara, A D. Armitage, O Ogunsanya, V Gouannou, D Koné

All Grantees Publications

Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is the third most produced non-cereal crop withglobal production of 72 million tonnes per year and is cultivated acrossWest Africa. With a production of over 7 million tonnes, Côte d’Ivoireis the world’s third largest producer and yam is the country’s main non-cereal food crop (Scott et al., 2020). However, the storage life of yamsis greatly reduced by post-harvest rots and previous studies revealedthat a range of fungi were responsible, including Aspergillus Botryodiplo-dia, Colletotrichum, Mucor and Penicillium species (Assiri Kouamé et al.,2017).

Insights On The Microbiology Of Ethiopian Fermented Milkproducts: A Review, Tiruha H. Karssa, Jamal B. Kussaga, Teresa Semedo-Lemsaddek, Jovin K. Mugula

All Grantees Publications

Fermented milk products play a vital role in the diets of Ethiopians. They are producedfrom either spontaneous fermentation or back- slopping methods at the householdlevel, in which lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and yeasts predominate. As a result, the pro-cessing steps are not standardized and overall safety is still of public health relevance.Therefore, quality and safety improvement, standardization of traditional manufac-turing practices, and commercialization of products to a wider market are important.Hence, this systematic review aimed to provide a comprehensive overview of themicrobiology of traditional Ethiopian fermented milk products, including ergo (spon-taneously fermented whole milk), dhanaan (fermented camel milk), ititu (concentratedsour …

Economic Benefits And Uses Of Indigenous Seasonal Weather Forecasts In Zimbabwe, Joseph Manzvera, Kwabena Asomanin Anaman, Akwasi Mensah-Bonsu, Alfred Barimah

All Grantees Publications

This study presents a seminal contribution regarding the economic value of indigenous seasonal weather forecasts in Zimbabwe. Many farmers (58%) use indigenous seasonal weather forecasts to make maize farming decisions such as selecting suitable varieties. The main indicators used for indigenous seasonal weather forecasts are flowering and fruition of specific trees. Based on travel cost analysis, which incorporates a multi-purpose visit scenario, the study establishes the economic importance of indigenous seasonal weather forecasts with a consumer surplus of US$1,044 per year among the 290 farmers using the forecasts. There is therefore a need to integrate indigenous weather forecasts into national …

Political Economy Analysis Of The Dissemination And Use Of Seasonal Weather Forecasts And Services In Zimbabwe, Joseph Manzvera, Kwabena Asomanin Anaman

All Grantees Publications

Weather and climate services are essential tools that help farmers make informed choices, such as choosing appropriate crop varieties. These services depend considerably on the availability of adequate investments in infrastructure related to weather forecasting, which are often provided by the State in most countries. Zimbabwean farmers generally have limited access to modern weather and climate services. While extensive attempts have been made to investigate farmers’ socioeconomic factors that influence access to and use of weather and climate services, comparative political economy analysis of weather and climate service production and use is limited. To address this knowledge gap, this study …

Barriers To Ensuring And Sustaining Street Food Safety In A Developing Economy, Abigail Ampomah Adaku, Irene Susana Egyir, Cynthia Gadegbeku, Angela Parry-Hanson Kunadu Kunadu, Vincent Amanor-Boadu, Amos Kankponang Laar

All Grantees Publications

Street foods are one of the highest contributors to foodborne illness in most developing economies around the world. In Ghana, diarrhoeal diseases, which are usually food or waterborne, are among the top ten causes of death. Most street food safety risks are avoidable when all food safety regulations are complied with. This paper identified and examined the barriers to the implementation of street food safety regulations in Ghana. A qualitative research approach was adopted by collecting data from nine focus group discussion sessions involving a total of 94 participants and five key informant interviews. The research uncovered three broad but …

First-Principles Calculations To Investigate The Elastic, Electronic, Dynamical, And Optical Properties Of Cubic Zrcoas Half-Heusler Semiconductor For Photovoltaic Applications, Lynet Allan, R E. Mapasha, Winfred M. Mulwa, Julius M. Mwabora, Robinson Juma Musembi

All Grantees Publications

The electronic, mechanical, elastic, dynamical, and optical properties of the ZrCoAs half-Heusler compound have been systematically investigated using the plane wave self-consistent field approach with the Perdew-BurkeErzerhof generalized gradient approximation (GGA-PBE) exchange-correlation functional. The study includes examinations with and without spin orbit coupling (SOC) effects. Results indicate a decrease in the Kohn-Sham band gap with the inclusion of SOC effects. Electronic bandgap formation was attributed to Co 3d, Zr 3d, and As 2p for the conduction band, and Co 3d and As 2p for the valence band without SOC effects. With SOC, Co 5d, Zr 8d, and As 3p dominated …

Improved Light Soaking And Thermal Stability Of Organic Solar Cells By Robust Interfacial Modification, Mwende Mbilo, Muhammad Haris, Du Hyeon Ryu Du Hyeon Ryu, Julius Mwakondo Mwabora Mwabora, Robinson Juma Musembi, Seungjin Le, Chang Eun Son, Won Suk Shin

All Grantees Publications

The most widely used material in electron transport layers (ETL) of invertedorganic solar cells (iOSCs) is zinc oxide (ZnO). However, the brittleness,inorganic nature, surface defects, and photocatalytic activity of ZnO lead to poorstability in iOSCs. Herein, the light-soaking and thermal stability of iOSCs aresubstantially improved by modifying ZnO surface with polyurethane diacrylate(SAR) or urethane acrylate (OCS)-based ultraviolet (UV) resins. The UV resinssignificantly reduce the energy barrier, suppress surface defects, and improveinterfacial contact between ZnO ETL and the organic photoactive layer. Notably,the SAR and OCS resins mitigate the photocatalytic activity of ZnO, electricalleakage, and interfacial resistance during photoaging of OSCs. As …

Performance Assessment Of Biomass-Derived Urea-Furfuraldehyde Resins As Oilfield Scale Inhibitors, Cynthia Onyekachi Victor-Oji, Una Dominica, Onyewuchi Akaranta

All Grantees Publications

Oilfield-scale formation is a persistent challenge in the oil industry. While numerous scale inhibitors have been in use for decades, there is a significant research gap in discovering renewable, cost-effective, ecologically friendly, and efficient inhibitors. This study sets out to fill this gap by investigating the potential of scale inhibitors (SIs) made from bio-resin derivatives of red onion skin; ROF and ROFU, in reducing CaCO3 and CaSO4 scales. The scale inhibition performance of ROF and ROFU was rigorously evaluated using the NACE standard static bottle test method. The data revealed that increasing scale-inhibitor contact time, concentration, and temperature enhances inhibitor …