Digital Commons Network^™

Cocoa Polyphenols Modulate The Mouse Gut Microbiome In A Site-Specific Manner, Marcus Hayden, Eliza C. Stewart, Mohammed F. Almatani, Jeremy Case, Samuel Rice, Giovanni Rompato, Korry J. Hintze, Abby D. Benninghoff

Animal, Dairy, and Veterinary Science Student Research

Background/Objectives: The dietary modulation of the gut microbiome is a promising strategy for mitigating gastrointestinal diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CAC). Cocoa powder is rich in polyphenols, including (−)-epicatechin and (+)-catechin, which have been associated with beneficial effects on gut health and microbiome modulation. Importantly, changes in the bacterial populations associated with the gut mucosal layer may have different health impacts compared to changes in cecal or fecal microbiomes. This study investigated the effects of cocoa polyphenol supplementation on microbiome composition across the cecal, fecal, and mucosal compartments in a mouse model of colitis. …

Analysis Of Antibody Affinity Maturation And Thermal Stability Of Proteins Using Photophysical Approaches, Claire Baxter

Dissertations

Engineered antibodies (Abs) have found applications in disparate fields such as enzyme catalysis and medicinal therapeutics because of their exquisite binding affinity and specificity. To engineer antibodies for these purposes, a firm understanding of the underlying mechanisms that control Ab affinity and specificity is needed, so these properties can be tightly controlled and adapted to the application at hand. My research characterized the binding site of the anti-fluorescein Ab 4-4-20 using an array of biophysical techniques and gives insight into the binding site interactions that give rise to both affinity and specificity. We utilized Fab fragments of the anti-fluorescein Ab …

The Bison, September, 05, 2025

The Bison Newspapers

No abstract provided.

Strategies For Addressing The School Vaping Problem In The United States, Shanika Cole

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Vaping has become a pressing health concern among students, providing easy access to nicotine and other harmful chemicals. In schools, this issue threatened student well-being, discipline, and policy enforcement, underscoring the need for effective prevention. The purpose of this mixed-method study was to examine of the U.S. school practices and policies addressing vaping and (b) the development of a strategic prevention and intervention plan informed by the American Stop Smoking Intervention Study Framework (ASSIST Model). The study focused on one public school system and sought to answer practice-based research questions: How can the Board of Education effectively decrease vaping incidence …

State Of Nevada Cannabis Testing, University Of Mississippi – National Center For Cannabis Research And Education, Yasha Kahn, Mcr Labs

Nevada

No abstract provided.

Philosophical Purification As Liberation And Transformation, Lachanda C. Davis

Dissertations

This study utilizes Plato’s conception of purification as a diagnostic tool to examine contemporary issues of police brutality and political violence. Within this context, I aim to treat the multiple tensions that arise with the question of living a good life. What does it mean to live and what does it mean to live a good life within constraints that magnify fear, anxiety, and despair? I argue that philosophical purification involves ‘aporia’ (perplexity; difficulty; confusion; loss; or puzzlement) in both a literal and generative sense. Moreover, the multiple aporias that arise cannot be reconciled by merely performing a religious rite …

Youth And Parent Knowledge And Perceptions Of Spina Bifida: Associations With Neurocognitive Factors, Self-Management, And Quality Of Life, Olivia Emery Clark

Dissertations

Spina bifida (SB) is a common congenital birth defect with multiple and varied medical, physical, and psychological impacts. The objective of these studies is to examine youth and parent condition-related knowledge in the context of SB and associations with executive function, quality of life, and medical self-management. Collectively, these studies examine both qualitative and quantitative multi-informant data from youth with SB, their parents, and their teachers. The first study used growth analyses to examine changes in condition-related knowledge over time, predicted by executive dysfunction and inattention, and predictive of medical self-management skills. The second study used qualitative coding methods to …

Dynamical Regulation Of Blood Pressure And Cognitive Function, Joshua Sweigert, Tara Gruenewald, Margie Lachman, Teresa Seeman, Maxine Weinstein, Tse-Hwei Choo, Martina Pavlicova, Ramakrishna Mukkamala, Richard P. Sloan

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

BACKGROUND

Blood pressure (BP) is not steady. It varies over intervals from months to consecutive cardiac cycles, and this variation contains meaningful information beyond mean BP. Variability over multiple clinic visits (VVV-BP) and during 24-h ambulatory monitoring (ABPV) is positively related to risk of stroke and coronary artery disease and negatively associated with cognitive performance. Beat-to-beat BP variation, often quantified as low frequency variability (0.04–0.15 Hz, LF-BPV), is less well-studied. Here, we examine the relationship between LF-BPV and cognitive outcomes in 1953 participants from the Midlife in the US study.

METHODS

Participants completed the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by …

Establishing Best Practices Guidelines For Collaborative Research In Global Surgery: Developing A Delphi Survey, Ramitha Eshan Ruwanpathirana, Swati Deshpande, Sophia Abdulhai, Mathilde Djeneba Billau, Sumeja Catic, Theresa L Chin, Julia N Harrison, Pratyush Kumar, Maria Cecilia T Leyson, Helen W Li, Katayoun S Madani, Arthur Serumaga, Margaret Tarpley, Grayson Wright, Nia N Zalamea, Joshua S Ng-Kamstra

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Collaborative research in global surgery has resulted in the rapid development of the field via knowledge creation and dissemination, research capacity building, and direct improvements in the delivery of clinical care. Yet the establishment and maintenance of trans-boundary collaborations carries significant risk to health systems, clinicians, patients, and researchers, particularly if such collaborations are not developed thoughtfully and with appropriate guardrails. In recent years, there has been significant growth in the literature on the pervasiveness and impact of neocolonialism on global health research.

Methods: To harness the benefits of global surgery research collaboration while mitigating these risks, we reviewed …

Wholehearted And Finite: Teaching Effectively Within A Theology Of Limits And Calling, Leah A. Zuidema

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

No abstract provided.

Post-Translational Modification Of H2b C-Terminal Helix Regulates Nucleosome Interactions And Chromatin Signaling, Yani Zhao, Anh Nguyen, Eyla C Arteaga, Aleksandra Skrajna, Krzysztof Krajewski, Dennis Goldfarb, Robert K Mcginty

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Histone H2B contains a highly conserved C-terminal (H2B αC) helix that has been implicated in chromatin interactions and dynamics. The H2B αC helix comprising residues 105-125 is positioned adjacent to a major site of nucleosome interactions called the acidic patch. Despite individual structural studies highlighting interactions between chromatin proteins and the H2B αC helix, the general role of the helix in mediating nucleosome recognition has not been explored. Moreover, many post-translational modifications (PTMs) have been identified within the H2B αC helix, but significant gaps exist in our understanding of their regulatory potential. In this study, we employed nucleosome affinity proteomics …

Reflections On The “Pore Space Estate”, Joseph A. Schremmer

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

Opportunities In Emergency Preparedness Through Community Partnerships, Katie Hooven

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

The two-part project was primarily focused on expanding disaster management and emergency preparedness learning experiences in our nursing courses by partnering with our local community agencies.

To diversify our student experience and work within our local community we established a mutually beneficial partnership to create an opportunity to expose students to emergency management and disaster preparedness. We asked the local County Medical Reserve Corporation Coordinator to partner with us to offer their eight required training courses which would allow interested sophomore students to become MRC members. The national MRC organization developed the MRC Core Competencies as a guide for training …

The Métis And The Manifest Destiny Of The Canadian Northwest, Donald Holler

The Ozark Historical Review

As the United States, hoping to pursue “Manifest Destiny,” attempted to expand until North America truly was the “American” continent, the newly formed Dominion of Canada, ever fearful of its expanding neighbor to the south, tried to cobble together a trans-continental nation and forge its own unique identity and destiny. These two competing impulses came to a head in the long neglected Métis Red River Rebellion of 1869–1870 which sealed the future of the North American continent.

An Assessment Of Transformations In American And Canadian Women Homesteaders In The Mid-Nineteenth To Early Twentieth Century Wests, Rachel Albinson

The Ozark Historical Review

Every woman’s western experience was not the same, regardless of whether they were from the United States or Canada. Therefore, the various physical, social and psychological transformations of each woman who made the journey west cannot be grouped into one generalization. Yet a great deal can be said for the amount of women who did and did not experience such significant changes during the rough journey westward, changes that are determined by the differences in each woman’s attitude and behavior prior to and after their arrival in the western regions of North America.

Camera-Based Virtual Input, Weichung Chang

Defensive Publications Series

Conventional input methods for compact electronic devices, such as on-screen virtual keyboards, suffer from limitations including cramped layouts, a lack of tactile feedback, and unsuitability for touchless environments like augmented reality. These issues often lead to frequent typing errors and reduced usability for complex tasks. To address these and other challenges, a camera-based virtual input method is described. Using the camera of a device, images of a user's hand and finger movements may be captured as they tap on any surface or imitate typing in the air. A prediction model analyzes these movements, not as absolute positions, but as relative …

Intercept & Solve For Printer Offline, Hp Inc

Defensive Publications Series

This disclosure pertains to the domain of network connectivity, with a focus on methods for identifying the causes of printer offline issues and assisting customers by delivering troubleshooting support through a chat-bot.

A System For Disambiguating Code-Switched Speech Using Visual Context, Mithun Kumar S R

Defensive Publications Series

Natural Language Understanding systems can encounter challenges when resolving lexical ambiguity in code-switched speech, particularly with inter-language homonyms that may be phonetically similar or identical but have different meanings. These challenges can be compounded by a reliance on audio-only input, which may not capture environmental context that can be beneficial for disambiguation. The disclosed method addresses this by concurrently processing an audio stream containing a user's utterance and a video stream capturing the user's visual context. The system can be configured to identify potential homonyms in the transcribed speech and to extract semantic tags, such as for objects or scenes, …

Issue 471: September 4-18, 2025, The Local Voice

The Local Voice

No abstract provided.

The Indiana Statesman, September 4, 2025, Indiana State University

Student Newspaper

Family Weekend: Q&A with Katelynn Duby; Volunteer Opportunity: Reading Boot Camp; Vigo County Public Library hosting book sale

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda September 4, 2025, Utah State University

Educational Policies Committee

• Approval of Minutes - April 3, 2025
• Program Proposals
• Semester Course Approval Reviews
• Other Business
• Adjourn: 3:00 pm

Dairy And Food Science Student Newsletter, September 4, 2025, Department Of Dairy And Food Science

Dairy and Food Science Student Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Climate Change-Related Threats To Railroads: Implications For Threat, Hazard And Risk Assessment, Frances L. Edwards, Daniel C. Goodrich

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Climate change has created new challenges for railroads around the world. The rail systems operate in open environments, subjecting them to increased heat, changing locations of heavy rains, developing sea level rise and storm surge, and a longer and stronger wildfire season. This research investigates how an updated threat and hazard identification and risk assessment (THIRA) can lead to the development of climate adaptation strategies that limit damage and disruption to the railroad enterprise. The THIRA analyzes which threats are of most concern in a specific rail segment, and which climate change adaptation strategies give a beneficial return on investment.

Incidence And Risk Factors Of Developing A Dysrhythmia After Blunt Thoracic Trauma., Jessica Jowers, Kevin Van Derveer, Katherine Moore, Nathaniel Harshaw, Julie M Reichert, Hannah Karr, Urhum Khaliq, David J Cziperle, Lindsey L Perea

General Surgery Resident Research

Background/Objectives: The incidence of dysrhythmia after blunt thoracic trauma varies in the literature from 8-75%, and the complication rate from these dysrhythmias is not well studied. The aims of this study are to (1) identify the incidence of dysrhythmia following blunt thoracic trauma, (2) identify risk factors associated with developing a dysrhythmia, and (3) identify the incidence of cardiac intervention after developing a dysrhythmia. We hypothesize that blunt thoracic trauma may result in post-injury dysrhythmias. Methods: This is a retrospective review of trauma patients ≥ 18 years with a blunt mechanism of injury at a Level 1 Trauma …

Preconditioning With Low-Dose Radiation Improves Antitumor Immunity And Survival In Dc-Vaccinated Mice, Eric Kwon, Shelby Namen, Colin J Willoughby, Solomon Kang, Gaurav Pandey, Alexander B Kim, Carl J Deselm

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Preconditioning regimens are essential for the immunologic success of cell therapies like CAR T cells. Nevertheless, their effect on cancer vaccines is underexplored, and preconditioning regimens are generally absent from cancer vaccine clinical trials. To address this knowledge gap, we evaluated the impact of various preconditioning strategies on dendritic cell (DC) vaccine efficacy in a murine tumor model. Mice bearing syngeneic tumors received preconditioning with 2 Gy low-dose radiation therapy (LD RT; whole-body or tumor-only), cyclophosphamide, paclitaxel, LD RT plus cyclophosphamide, or no preconditioning, followed by administration of antigen-loaded DCs. Whether whole-body or tumor-directed, LD RT preconditioning significantly enhanced vaccine-induced …

Temporal Variability In Grassland Leaf Water Content Is Strongly And Similarly Dependent On Soil Moisture Among Dominant Grasses, Henry K. Joniak, Andrew Felton

RURALS: Review of Undergraduate Research in Agricultural and Life Sciences

Vegetation in semi-arid rangeland ecosystems is typically characterized by the presence of a few dominant grass species that control ecosystem processes and, by extension, ecosystem services such as forage production. Thus, understanding and comparing the responses of dominant forage species to climatic variability can lend insight into how functioning and services in these ecosystems will respond to climate change. Here, we designed a transect-based study to assess and compare the temporal relationship between soil moisture (volumetric water content, VWC) and a key functional trait (leaf water content, LWC) among two of the dominant forage grass species in Southwestern Montana. Sampling …

The Development Of The Assessment Of Self-Care (Asc), Ashley R. Righetti

Clinical Psychology Dissertations

Self-care is a topic that has piqued the interest of researchers in recent years with much of the focus being on specific subsets of the population such as helping professions and those with chronic conditions. This trend has been consistent when it comes to the development of measures intended to evaluate people’s self-care practices. Designed with Butler and colleagues’ (2019) self-care model in mind, the Assessment of Self-Care (ASC) was developed to broadly assess self-care practices in the general U.S. adult population. This study discusses the development and initial validation of the ASC. After the item generation phase, exploratory factor …

Kenyon Collegian - September 4, 2025

The Kenyon Collegian

No abstract provided.

Spartan Daily, September 4, 2025, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily, 2025

Volume 165, Issue 6

Human Papillomavirus Integration Induces Oncogenic Host Gene Fusions In Oropharyngeal Cancers, Nusrat Khan, Keiko Akagi, Shiming Jiang, Joe Dan Dunn, Bo Jiang, Weihong Xiao, Madison P O'Hara, Li Shen, Qi Wang, Vakul Mohanty, Jing Wang, Sara Goodwin, Jamie L Hutchins, Kevin R Coombes, Jagannadha K Sastry, David E Symer, Maura L Gillison

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

HPV integration disrupts host genomic structure and expression, but whether these alterations promote cancer development remains unclear. Multiple genomic analyses of oropharyngeal cancers identified several host fusion genes, including recurrent FGFR3-TACC3 fusions, expressed from rearranged genomic loci adjacent to HPV integration sites. Evolutionary modeling implicated integration of virus concatemers into the host genome as a common initiating event in fusion formation. Co-expression of HPV16 E6/E7 and FGFR3-TACC3, but neither alone, was sufficient for tumor development in both xenograft and syngeneic mouse models and led to unique transcriptional programs implicated in carcinogenesis. FGFR3-TACC3 expression decreased the ubiquitination and degradation of …