Digital Commons Network^™

Isatuximab For The Treatment Of Multiple Myeloma: Current Clinical Advances And Future Directions, Paul G Richardson, Elisabeth K O'Donnell, Peter O'Gorman, Lisa B Leypoldt, Jacob Laubach, Francesca Gay, Xavier Leleu, Thierry Facon, Philippe Moreau, Meletios A Dimopoulos, Hartmut Goldschmidt, Elias K Mai, Michele Cavo, Katja C Weisel, Jesus G Berdeja, Robert Z Orlowski, Meral Beksaç, Aurore Perrot, Joseph Mikhael, Thomas Martin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Introduction: The addition of the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody isatuximab to standard therapies is transforming the care of patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM), as previously seen in the relapsed/refractory setting. This is particularly important for patients with NDMM as early treatment with effective, well tolerated therapies may ensure better clinical outcomes.

Areas covered: Here, we examine recent results from pivotal Phase 3 and 2 clinical trials that demonstrate efficacy and safety of isatuximab across multiple combinations, for both transplant-ineligible and transplant-eligible NDMM patients. We then evaluate long-term outcomes from the IKEMA and ICARIA-MM trials as well as real-world evidence …

Predicting Sinonasal Inverted Papilloma Attachment Using Machine Learning: Current Lessons And Future Directions, Sean P Mckee, Xiaomin Liang, William C Yao, Brady Anderson, Jumah G Ahmad, David Z Allen, Salman Hasan, Andy J Chua, Chinmay Mokashi, Samia Islam, Amber U Luong, Martin J Citardi, Luca Giancardo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Hyperostosis is a common radiographic feature of inverted papilloma (IP) tumor origin on computed tomography (CT). Herein, we developed a machine learning (ML) model capable of analyzing CT images and identifying IP attachment sites.

Methods: A retrospective review of patients treated for IP at our institution was performed. The tumor attachment site was manually segmented on CT scans by the operating surgeon. We used a nnU-Net model, a state-of-the-art deep learning-based segmentation algorithm that automatically configures image preprocessing, network architecture, training, and post-processing to identify the IP attachment site. The model was trained and evaluated using a 5-fold cross …

Enl Mutation And Aml: A New Model That Reveals Oncogenic Condensate’S Function In Leukemogenesis, Zhong Fan, Yanan Jiang, Xiaotian Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Precise regulation of gene expression is essential for proper development and the maintenance of homeostasis in organisms. Studies have shown that some transcriptional regulatory proteins influence gene expression through the formation of dynamic, locally concentrated assemblies known as condensates, while dysregulation of transcriptional condensates was associated with several cancers, such as Ewing sarcoma and AML [Wang Y et al. (2023) Nat Chem Biol 19, 1223-1234; Chandra B et al. (2022) Cancer Discov 12, 1152-1169]. Mutations in the histone acetylation "reader" eleven-nineteen-leukemia (ENL) have been shown to form discrete condensates at endogenous genomic targets, but it remains unclear how ENL mutations …

Stat3 Inhibition In Combination With Cd47 Blockade Inhibits Osteosarcoma Lung Metastasis, Pradeep Shrestha, Rejeena Shrestha, You Zhou, Rafal Zielinski, Waldemar Priebe, Eugenie S Kleinerman

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: New therapies are urgently needed for patients with osteosarcoma (OS). STAT3 and CD47 are potential therapeutic target in OS. Here we investigated the therapeutic activity of the orally bioavailable STAT3 inhibitor, WP1066, and anti-CD47 antibody using OS mouse models.

Methods: Cytotoxic effect of WP1066 against OS cell lines and its immunomodulatory effects were evaluated in vitro. Experimental metastasis and orthotopic syngeneic mouse models were used to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of WP1066 and anti-CD47 antibody. Further flow cytometric analysis was performed.

Results: STAT3 was constitutively activated in multiple human and mouse OS cell lines. WP1066 suppressed STAT3 activation …

Cord Blood-Derived Ink T Cells As A Platform For Allogeneic Car T Cell Therapy, Maison Grefe, Abel Trujillo-Ocampo, Jelita Clinton, Hong He, Ling Yu, Dan Li, Qing Ma, Elizabeth J Shpall, Jeffrey J Molldrem, Jin S Im

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

CD1d-restricted invariant Natural Killer (iNK) T cells are a suitable candidate for allogeneic Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T cell therapy as they do not cause graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) due to the monomorphic nature of CD1d proteins. However, the phenotypic and functional heterogeneity of iNK T cells from adult donors (AD) may lead to the inconstant CAR-iNK T cell products. Cord blood-derived (CB) iNK T cells, in contrast, exhibit inter-donor homogeneity in phenotype including uniform CD4 expression and are enriched in memory iNK T cell populations. Thus, we evaluated the preclinical therapeutic potential of iNK T cells derived from cord blood …

Il-7: A Potential Next-Generation Adjuvant For Immune Cell Therapies, Richard S Hotchkiss, John F Dipersio, Cassian Yee, Russell K Pachynski, Marcel R M Van Den Brink

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Cell-based immune therapies ranging from CAR-T cells to tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and endogenous T-cell products, have produced unprecedented clinical responses in hematologic malignancies and are currently under active investigation for solid tumors. Nevertheless, several key challenges continue to limit the durability and breadth of clinical benefit. IL-7 is a pleiotropic cytokine that increases both the number and function of lymphocytes. Although not yet clinically approved, IL-7 has been used in over 620 adult and pediatric patients for a variety of reasons including, for example, to hasten bone marrow recovery after allogenic stem cell transplantation, to reverse lymphopenia due to …

Understanding The Evolution Of The Apical Organ In The Early Branching Metazoan, Nematostella Vectensis, Eleanor Gilbert

School of Biological and Marine Sciences Theses

The apical organ is a key sensory structure in marine invertebrate larvae that is involved in sensory processing and neural coordination, thereby influencing larval locomotion, settlement, and metamorphosis. This thesis explores the evolution, development, and function of the apical organ and wider apical domain in cnidarian larvae, with a particular focus on Nematostella vectensis. As an early-branching metazoan, N. vectensis is a unique model for studying evolution of the apical organ, and subsequently the origins of the nervous system. Through generating tissue-specific transcriptomes and integrating this data with an existing single-cell RNA sequencing dataset, this research identified a distinct neuronal …

Raising Information Literacy Of Biology Pre-Service Teachers: Study On Three Problem Solving Methods, Muhammad Saefi, Hadi Suwono, Rifka Fachrunnisa, Widi Cahya Adi, Herawati Susilo, Ahmad Kamal Sudrajat

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Integrating information literacy teaching methods with subject-content curricula to develop prospective biology teacher students' abilities is still problematic. This quasi-experimental research, with a nonrandomized pretest-posttest control group design, intends to compare the influences of challenge-based learning (CBL), problem-based learning (PBL), and problem-solving through classroom discussion (PCD) – as the control- in improving information literacy. This study involved 183 students from three classes of freshmen and three sophomores in the biology education program. The results showed that CBL significantly improved students' information literacy compared to PBL and PCD across five indicators: 1) identifying the required information, 2) attaining the required information …

Deep Learning For Precise Mri Segmentation Of Lower-Grade Gliomas, Wusat Ullah, Hamza Naveed, Saalam Ali

Sustainable Machine Intelligence Journal

Brain tumors represent a significant public health issue worldwide, affecting individuals across all age groups and leading to severe neurological and cognitive deficits. Lower-grade gliomas (LGGs), classified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as grade II or III, are characterized by more diffuse infiltration into brain tissue compared to high-grade gliomas but exhibit a slower growth rate. Precise evaluation of tumor resection and detection of residual tumor cells are critical, as incomplete resection is associated with an increased risk of disease recurrence. This study reviews an automated, deep learning-based approach for brain tumor segmentation in Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) using …

Advanced Fruit Quality Assessment Using Deep Learning And Transfer Learning Technique, Walid Abdullah

Sustainable Machine Intelligence Journal

Ensuring the quality of fruits is essential for consumer satisfaction and food industry standards. Accurately identifying and classifying high-quality fruits is essential for maintaining good health and nutrition. The subjective and labor-intensive nature of traditional techniques of evaluating quality highlights the need for automated solutions. This study utilized transfer learning with Four pre-trained convolutional neural network (CNN) models—MobileNetV2, ResNet50, VGG16, and EfficientNetB0 —to detect the quality of five fruits: apple, banana, strawberry, orange, and mango. All models were trained and tested with a public labeled fruit images dataset, and their performance was evaluated in terms of accuracy, precision, recall, and …

A Hybridized Cnn-Lstm-Mlp-Knn Model For Short-Term Solar Irradiance Forecasting, Doaa El-Shahat, Ahmed Tolba

Sustainable Machine Intelligence Journal

The accurate prediction of solar irradiance is essential for maximizing renewable energy production. Despite some researchers struggling to achieve sufficient prediction accuracy and model quality, we are working on developing a forecasting model for solar radiation using advanced artificial intelligence techniques. Solar energy offers a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels and has a wide range of applications, making the development of an effective forecasting model crucial. This paper proposes a hybrid model that combines deep learning and machine learning methods, denoted as CNN-LSTM-MLP-KNN. By combining Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) and K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), …

Enhancing Software Effort Estimation In Healthcare Informatics: A Comparative Analysis Of Machine Learning Models With Correlation-Based Feature Selection, Muhammad Abid, Sama Bukhari, Muhammad Saqlain

Sustainable Machine Intelligence Journal

Software effort estimation is one of the most crucial processes in the management of software projects predominantly related to the healthcare industry. It involves the prediction of efforts needed to develop and endorse different software applications. To render clinical projects on time within the budget range, flawless projection with efficient planning is incumbent. This paper discloses the techniques that utilize machine learning models for ameliorating software effort estimation by using biomedical datasets, including Breast Cancer Wisconsin, COVID-19, Sleepy Drivers EEG Brainwave, Heart Disease Prediction and Food Nutrition. All of these datasets are cleaned and prepared by handling missing values, converting …

An Hplc-Ms/Ms Method For The Quantification Of Heat Stress-Related Milk Metabolites In Milk From Holstein-Friesian Cross-Bred Cows In Tanzania, Vincent Habimana, A.S Nguluma, Z.C Nziku, C.C Ekine-Dzivenu, G Morota, R Mrode, S.W Chenyambuga

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

The main objective of this study was to develop and validate a high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method for the determination and quantification of three metabolites in raw milk samples: creatinine, citrate, and β-hydroxybutyrate (3-BHB). The effect of the temperature-humidity index (THI) on the concentrations of these metabolites was also investigated. The study used 29 Holstein-Friesian × Tanzanian Shorthorn Zebu cross-bred cows of two genotypes from the Tanzania Livestock Research Institute in Tanga, Tanzania. The cows were in their second or third parity and their second or third month of lactation. Chromatographic separation of the three metabolites was performed …

Estimation Of Genetic Parameters For Physiological And Milk Production Traits Of Holstein Friesian Crossbreds Reared In Tanzania, Vincent Habimana, Chinyere Charlotte Ekine-Dzivenu, Athumani Shabani Nguluma, Zabron Cuthibert Nziku, Gota Morota, Sebastian Wilson Chenyambuga, Raphael Mrode

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

The main objective of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters for physiological traits, milk yield, and milk composition in Holstein Friesian crossbred cattle raised at the Tanzania Livestock Research Institute’s (TALIRI) Tanga dairy farm. A total of 29 lactating Holstein Friesian × Zebu crossbred cows with 50% (HF50) and 75% (HF75) Holstein Friesian gene levels in their second and third months of lactation were included. Breed composition was determined based on the animal recording system at TALIRI, Tanga. A series of univariate and bivariate repeatability (r) test-day models was used to estimate genetic parameters, genetic (rg) and phenotypic …

Effect Of Malt Barley Cluster Farming On Food Security In Amhara Region, Ethiopia, Betelhem Tsedalu Adane, Irene Susan Egyir, Edward Ebo Onumah, Ama Asantewah Ahene-Codjoe, Taeyoon Kim

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Cluster farming is the practice of merging neighbouring farms into a unified production unit to grow specific crops collaboratively. This is a promising method to enhance food security by improving agricultural productivity through coordinated resource use and enabling access to inputs, technologies, and markets. Despite this benefit, no empirical studies have examined how malt barley cluster farming affects smallholder farmers’ food security. This study adopts descriptive and econometric analysis, including the endogenous switching regression model (ESRM) and control function approach to account for selection bias and endogeneity in estimating the causal effect of malt barley cluster farming. Cross-sectional data were …

Business Risk, Capital Markets, And Sustainable Companies, Christopher Bruner

Scholarly Works

Corporate sustainability is inherently bound up with corporate risk, and particularly with risk-taking incentives of various corporate actors – including directors and officers who manage the business, and shareholders who can exert pressure upon corporate governance in various ways. This article sets out a framework for thinking about corporate risk-taking incentives and how they might be reformed to curb excessive risk and externalization of costs, thereby improving corporate sustainability.

Corporate Personhood, Corporate Rights, And The Contingency Of Corporate Law, Christopher Bruner

Scholarly Works

Corporate personhood and corporate rights are co-constitutive in nature, meaning that they are mutually constructed – there is no singular, one-way causal path between a conception of corporate personhood and a conception of corporate rights. Consequently, modes of reasoning that purport to deduce the substance and extent of corporate rights from the mere fact of corporate personhood are logically circular. Although the relationship between corporate personhood and corporate rights is real and significant, this relationship cannot, in and of itself, comprehensively specify the content of corporate rights; their substance can only be specified by reference to external normative criteria. The …

Food Finding Ability Does Not Predict Annual Survival In Winter Resident Birds, Aidan Hand

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Small non-migratory birds in temperate locations face many challenges to survive the winter. They must be able to find enough food, which is in decreased supply, to fuel the energetic demands of staying warm. Prior work has demonstrated that birds show individual variation in their foraging behaviors that could contribute to the discovery of new foraging patches, such as novel environment exploration. A better ability to discover new food sources could increase a bird’s chance of surviving the winter by increasing its access to new food patches. To test this hypothesis, we used radio frequency identification (RFID)-enabled bird feeders to …

“Take Eight Bits And Call Me In The Morning” Video Games, Well-Being, And The Psychology Of Nostalgia, Nicholas Bowman

Media Studies - All Scholarship

For nearly 60 years, video games have arrested the attention of players, inviting us to interact and interface with on-screen content. More than just short-term entertainment experiences, video games are part of a broader cultural milieu—they are the most profitable media entertainment sector (global revenues nearly $400 billion USD in 2023) with more than 3.5 billion players globally (Clement, 2023). Similar to other entertainment media, some video game intellectual properties have transcended generations and, in many cases, grown beyond the medium itself: common cultural touchstones include Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog, along with seemingly endless subcultures of devoted …

What Lawyers Could Learn From The Corporate Practice Of Medicine, Melissa D. Mortazavi

Faculty Articles

Proponents of the United States’ domestic experiments in non-lawyer ownership (NLO) of legal practice justify them in terms of increasing “access to justice.” But what if opening ownership of legal practice to investment capital only exacerbates market failures (leading to further consolidation and increased costs to clients), while also compromising professional autonomy and fiduciary duty? The legal profession must be clear-eyed about who are the real winners and losers of such a shift and avoid being blinded by wishful thinking. Prominent legal scholars have repeatedly touted NLO as a solution to the access to justice crisis. However, there is scant …

Homelands Not Graveyards, M. Alexander Pearl

Faculty Articles

Within the last five years, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken up several transformative cases affecting Native nations and federal Indian law jurisprudence. The Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. Navajo Nation is no different. This Article examines that decision and situates it within that legal history as well as the realities of present-day water resource availability. While recent decisions have shown the Court’s willingness to confirm fundamental components of federal Indian law, such as the legal tests for determining the persistence of reservation and the authority of Congress to enact the Indian Child Welfare Act, the Court’s examination of …

An Unreliable Reporter, Jon J. Lee

Faculty Articles

As part of the legal profession’s tradition of self-regulation, attorneys have an ethical obligation to ensure that those within it are fit to practice. Given the gravity associated with accusing another lawyer of misconduct, it is not surprising that many are reticent to speak up. But what would happen if attorneys were pressured to vigorously pursue sanctions against their opponents, even if those sanctions may be unwarranted? President Trump’s recently-issued memorandum arguably does just that, mandating the Attorney General to seek court and disciplinary sanctions for lawyers and law firms that appear to violate ethics rules. This Essay explains how …

Zorro: Everyperson's Moral Vigilante, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

Zorro (Amazon 2024) is hundreds of years in the making—from medieval ballads of Robin Hood; to the fiction of Alexandre Dumas, Baroness Orczy, and the legend of Mexican bandits; to the Johnston McCulley 1919 original; to comics like Daredevil and Batman; to scores of Zorro derivatives from the minds of McCulley, Walt Disney, and many others. At this point, it would be impossible to identify and duly credit the countless inspirations that together form this early-California vigilante. But such rich heritage might provide something more than literature and entertainment: if there is an everyperson’s conception of a moral vigilante, Zorro …

Space Resource Development And Property - Clarifying Usufruct, Jeremy A. Kent

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

This article examines competing legal frameworks for governing property rights in outer-space resources through a comparative analysis of two distinct approaches: the rule of capture and the concept of usufruct. The increasing interest in commercial space activities, such as mining the Moon and asteroids, has raised questions about the legal frameworks governing property rights in space resources. The growing challenge is that while the Outer Space Treaty (OST) serves as the foundation for space law, it does not explicitly address property rights in the resources humankind increasingly can extract from the space domain.

The rule of capture is a legal …

Dangers From Regulatory Vacuums In Outer, Inner, And Near Space, Rob Frieden

Journal of Air Law and Commerce

Space, “the final frontier,” has become an attractive but increasingly risky market for both public and private investments. Gold rush enthusiasm anticipates solutions to the digital divide via small low earth orbiting satellites, extraction of valuable minerals from asteroids, a vibrant space launch and tourism industry, and expanding earth observation opportunities. Such entrepreneurial boldness juxtaposes with a severe lag in government oversight, consumer safeguards, and essential operational guardrails. The ambitious plans of Elon Musk and other space entrepreneurs could fail—despite recent market success—as SpaceX’s plans for 148 rocket launches in 2024.

Without substantial refinement of global space treaties and effective …

Strengthening Ecosystem Sustainability And Climate Resilience Through Integrative Nature-Based Solutions In Bontioli Natural Reserve, West African Drylands, Issaka Abdou Razakou Kiribou, Kangbéni Dimobe, Sintayehu W. Dejene

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Natural reserves in the West African drylands play a critical role in sustaining livelihoods and preserving ecological integrity. However, these ecosystems face growing threats from climate variability and anthropogenic pressure. This study assesses the potential of Nature- based Solutions (NbSs) to enhance climate resilience and mitigate human-induced degra- dation in Bontioli Natural Reserve (BNR), one of the region’s key biodiversity hotspots. We employed an integrated approach combining ecological assessments, climate and anthro- pogenic pressures analysis, and participatory governance framework. Generalized additive modeling (GAM) is applied to assess the long-term vegetation response to climate stressors. A conceptual framework that integrates climate …

Spatiotemporal Land Use Changes Dynamics Impacts On Natural Reserves In West African Dryland: Drivers, Carbon Emissions And Climate Change Implications, Issaka Abdou Razakou Kiribou, Kangbéni Dimobe, Charles Lamoussa Sanou, Sintayehu W. Dejene

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Land use change (LUC), primarily driven by anthropogenic pressure, poses a major threat to West African drylands’ vegetation. As critical indicators of ecosystem sustainability, LUC patterns reflect how human activities alter carbon dynamics and climate vulnerability. This systematic review analyzes the spatial and temporal dynamics of LUC impacts on natural reserves. Using targeted keywords, 18 peer-reviewed articles and institutional reports were synthesized to assess LUC patterns, identify key biophysical and socio-economic drivers, and evaluate carbon and climate implications. Findings show substantial losses of natural ecosystems due to land conversion, deforestation, and soil degradation. Between 1975 and 2013, Sahelian savanna, woodland, …

Energy Efficiency In The Building Sector In Burkina Faso: Literature Review, Swot Analysis, And Recommendations, Bazam Amonet Ouoba Nebie, Abdou Lawane, Césaire Hema, Monica Siroux

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

In Burkina Faso, increasing access to electricity requires the optimized management of energy consumption in buildings and the implementation of regional and national regulations. These regulations have been implemented to promote energy efficiency in the building sector. However, they do not yet seem to have produced the expected results. Conducting a study could help identify the shortcomings related to energy efficiency and guide future research toward sustainable solutions. To date, no such study has been carried out. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the causes of these shortcomings, understand the gaps in the literature, and identify prospects for implementing energy …

Assessment Of Bio-Security Knowledge, Attitude And Hygienic Practices Among Smallholder Chicken Farmers In Southern Mozambique, Noémia André Mugabe, Jamal Kussaga, Abdulsudi Issa-Zacharia

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

The production of broiler chickens in intensive systems struggles to maintain hygiene in production, despite contributing to combating malnutrition, generating employment, and increasing family income, especially in developing countries. Using a structured questionnaire survey, a cross-sectional study was carried out among 395 smallholder farmers to evaluate their knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to farm biosecurity in urban and peri-urban areas of Mozambique and determine the factors affecting KAP (knowledge, attitude, and practice) levels. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) (IBM version 27). The findings indicate that education level and training significantly influence (p < 0.001) food safety in terms of biosecurity knowledge, attitudes, and practices. Smallholders who attended food safety training exhibited positive attitudes (95.5%, mean score of 89.71 ± 10.1) in contrast to those who did not participate in training (74.8%, mean score of 79.91 ± 9.68). Additionally, washing hands with soap before and after using the toilet and wearing protective clothing during chicken husbandry were significantly associated with education level (χ² = 15.345, P = 0.018); those with informal education were 34% less likely to have a negative attitude toward food safety compared to those with high education. A significant correlation (p < 0.01) was observed between residence area, training, and biosecurity knowledge, attitude, and practice. Because smallholders lack training, hygiene expertise, and biosecurity practices on their farms, this study concluded that they pose a risk to public health and food safety. To maintain consumer health and guarantee food safety, farmers should properly dispose of waste, including dead chickens, and receive continuous training in excellent biosecurity measures on the farm

Antibiotic Use And Antimicrobial Resistance: Knowledge, Attitudes, And Practices Among Smallholder Chicken Farmers In Southern Mozambique, Noemia Andre Mugabe, Jamal Kussaga, Abdulsudi Issa-Zacharia

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Intensive production systems face challenges in treating individual chickens due to the large number of animals, resulting in the indiscriminate use of antibiotics as the only alternative. The use of antibiotics in poultry production has adverse effects on humans, as prolonged consumption of contaminated meat can lead to the development of antibiotic resistance in intestinal bacteria. A cross-sectional survey involving 395 smallholder farmers was conducted through face-to-face interviews to assess knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) regarding antibiotic use in urban and peri-urban areas of Southern Mozambique. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 27. The findings revealed that 60% of respondents …