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University Of San Diego Magazine Fall 2025, Publications Department

University of San Diego Magazine (1992- )

Beauty, Goodness and Truth; Dear Toreros; Around Alcalá Park; At The Edge of It All; Faith In Action; Torero Spotlight; Torero Athletics; Toreros Making Waves; In Memoriam; Leading With Love

Professor Perspectives: Inclusion Of Students With An Intellectual Disability In Transition Programming On A College Campus, Melissa Jane Massey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students with intellectual disabilities (ID) are often unemployed or underemployed compared to students who do not have ID. Transition or postsecondary programming for students with ID has increased in recent years in response to the U.S. federal requirement for special education professionals to complete transition plans before students turn 16. The requirement for transition planning in Texas is age 14, and the ARD committee including the student and parent come together to develop goals for future planning. Transition plans include information on future employment, future independent living skills, and agency connections that students with ID may need to access to …

African American Female College Students’ Experiences At Predominately White Institutions, Sh'nita Louise Mitchell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

African American women who attend predominantly White institutions (PWIs) have historically encountered systemic challenges that include racial isolation, microaggressions, a lack of cultural understanding, and insufficient institutional support. These barriers often impact their sense of belonging, academic persistence, and overall success. I aimed to explore the lived experiences of African American women who graduated from PWIs to understand how these women navigate institutional structures and sustain their academic journeys. I aimed to examine the unique challenges and supports experienced by African American women, and to identify factors that contribute to or hinder their persistence and success at their PWI. The …

Dipl 2120 International Conflict And Security, Brendan J. Balestrieri Ph.D.

Diplomacy Syllabi

The first part of this course serves as a general introduction to the study of international security, a field primarily concerned with the threat and use of force by state and non-state actors. Topics examined include the origins of major power wars, regional conflicts, terrorism, military intervention, and alliances. The second part of this course will use alliances as a lens through which to better understanding international conflict and security and will focus predominantly on the US system of Alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

Closing The Graduation Gap: Factors That Impact The Graduation And Enrollment Rates Of First Generation African American Male Students At Predominantly White Christian Universities, Byron C. Johnson Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

First-generation African American male students encounter unique challenges on their journey through higher education. These challenges include inadequate academic preparation, limited family support, financial hardships, and difficulties in finding a sense of belonging. Additionally, factors such as race and religion present significant barriers that hinder their ability to persist in and graduate from colleges and universities without institutional support. Strategic initiatives, programs, and services that address the specific needs of these students are crucial for promoting their academic and social integration, ultimately influencing their success in higher education. This study focused on the experiences of successful first-generation African American students …

Cross-Subject Mind Decoding From Inaccurate Representations, Yangyang Xu, Bangzhen Liu, Wenqi Shao, Yong Du, Shengfeng He, Tingting Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Decoding stimulus images from fMRI signals has advanced with pre-trained generative models. However, existing methods struggle with cross-subject mappings due to cognitive variability and subject-specific differences. This challenge arises from sequential errors, where unidirectional mappings generate partially inaccurate representations that, when fed into diffusion models, accumulate errors and degrade reconstruction fidelity. To address this, we propose the Bidirectional Autoencoder Intertwining framework for accurate decoded representation prediction. Our approach unifies multiple subjects through a Subject Bias Modulation Module while leveraging bidirectional mapping to better capture data distributions for precise representation prediction. To further enhance fidelity when decoding representations into stimulus images, …

Qisas: The Incremental Formation Of Jihad Amidst The Islamic Mujahideen Across The Middle And Near East, Jenny N. Liang

Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History

Since its inception in seventh-century Arabia, Islamic thought and the concept of jihad have been present among Islamic scholars. Nevertheless, despite a history of conflict with Western nations through religious wars in the Near and Middle East, the rapid transformation of Islamic extremism by means of global terrorism in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first century ultimately traces to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of the Mujahideen. Islamic yearning for retribution through strategic retaliation began after December 1979, when Soviet Red Army troops invaded Afghanistan. Following the resolution of World War II and the emergence of a …

Machine Learning For Dissolved Oxygen Prediction In The Manawatu River Catchment, New Zealand, Imokhai T. Tenebe, Eunice O. Babatunde, Nkpa M. Ogarekpe, Egbe Etu Etu, Joshua Emakhu, Kindness E. Etu, Obiora B. Ezeudu, Oluwarotimi S. Oladele

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Uncontrolled anthropogenic activities have increased river pollution, resulting in poor water quality and a growing need for continuous monitoring, which is time-consuming and costly. This study evaluated the accuracy of machine learning (ML) models in predicting dissolved oxygen (DO) levels, aiming to reduce field monitoring efforts and minimize the number of measured parameters. Regression models (Huber, Linear, Ridge), Bagging methods (Extra Trees, Random Forest, Decision Trees), and Boosting techniques (Gradient Boosting, Light Gradient Boosting, AdaBoost) were tested using data from three sites in the Manawatu Catchment, New Zealand. Data spanning 1989–2014 included 12 water quality variables and was split into …

Hyaluronidase-1 Mediates Postprandial Suppression Of Hepatic Gluconeogenesis, Xi Chen, Sophie Dogné, Yanru Deng, Huiqiao Li, Jieyi Meng, Charlise Giang, Jan-Bernd Funcke, Leon G Straub, Michelle Dias, Sundararajah Thevananther, Qiang Tong, Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal, Chandra Shekar R Ambati, Yu'e Liu, Nagireddy Putluri, Xia Gao, Miao-Hsueh Chen, Dongyin Guan, Hari Krishna Yalamanchili, Shangang Zhao, Nathalie Caron, Yi Zhu

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Hepatic gluconeogenesis is a critical process that generates glucose from non-carbohydrate precursors during fasting to support vital organs like the brain and red blood cells. Postprandially, this process is rapidly suppressed to allow for glucose storage as glycogen and lipids in the liver. Failure to suppress gluconeogenesis after meals leads to elevated postprandial glucose levels, a key feature of type 2 diabetes. This dynamic switch is regulated by insulin and glucagon, but insulin resistance impairs this regulation. In this study, we identified a novel mechanism involving postprandial circulating hyaluronan (HA) and lysosomal hyaluronidase-1 (HYAL1) that suppresses hepatic gluconeogenesis by rewiring …

Complementary, But Not Equivalent: Clarifying The Role Of Rwe And Rct In Migraine Research, Mario F. P. Peres, Hsiangkuo Yuan, Cristina Tassorelli

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

No abstract provided.

High Prevalence Of Abnormal Baseline Lung Function In Pediatric And Young Adult Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients: A Report From The Transpire Study, Jane Koo, Richard Cooper, Stephanie L Edwards, Adam Lane, Sara Katherine Loveless, Lauren Strecker, Kelly E Lake, Kasiani C Myers, Christopher Towe, Jessica Patti, Laura L Walkup, Kathryn A Wikenheiser-Brokamp, Margaret L Macmillan, Philip Lacher, Tamara Griffin, Merve Tekman, Gabriel Salinas Cisneros, Kevin Wu, Matthew S Zinter, Fernando A Urrego, K Scott Baker, Matthew F Abts, Sheri Ballard, Jason L Freedman, Alexander Caraballo, Lisa R Young, Maureen B Josephson, Julian L Allen, Devaney M Camburn, Erin E Doherty, Mashid Sababi Azamian, Martha Arredondo, Manuel Silva-Carmona, Leslie E Lehmann, Wai Wong, Jonathan M Gaffin, William Mcalpine, Mona Li, Samuel B Goldfarb, Jason C Woods, Stella M Davies

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Pulmonary complications are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric and young adult hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients. The impact of preexisting lung dysfunction on posttransplant outcomes remains understudied.

Methods: In a multi-institutional prospective cohort of 444 patients (≤24 years) undergoing allogeneic HSCT at eight centers, baseline lung function was categorized as normal or abnormal using clinical history, imaging, pulmonary function tests (PFTs), and pulmonologist review. Spirometry and diffusion capacity were assessed at baseline, Day 100, 1 year, and 2 years post-HSCT.

Results: Baseline pulmonary dysfunction was present in 224 patients (50.4%), including impaired spirometry (46.4%), …

Molecular Dynamics Of The Host Response To Streptococcus Pneumoniae Pneumonia In Baboons, Bryan D Kraft, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Bacterial pneumonia remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide despite the widespread availability of antibiotics. Novel pneumonia therapies and biomarkers are urgently needed to improve outcomes and advance personalized therapy. Using an established baboon model of S. pneumoniae pneumonia, we sought to characterize the temporal dynamics of pneumonia host responses to identify novel potential diagnostic and therapeutic molecular targets.

METHODS: We performed whole blood transcriptomics, unbiased proteomics, and peripheral cytokine measurements serially in baboons inoculated with S. pneumoniae (n = 23) or saline (n = 10) and modeled the peripheral blood host response using principal components analysis …

Aging And The Spectral Properties Of Brain Hemodynamics, Ki Yun Park, Abraham Z Snyder, Manu S Goyal, Timothy O Laumann, John J Lee, Babatunde Adeyemo, Nicholas Metcalf, Andrei G Vlassenko, Joshua S Shimony, Eric C Leuthardt

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Cerebral glucose metabolism (CMRGlc) systematically decreases with advancing age. We sought to identify correlates of decreased CMRGlc in the spectral properties of fMRI signals imaged in the task-free state. Lifespan resting-state fMRI data acquired in 455 healthy adults (ages 18-87 years) and cerebral metabolic data acquired in a separate cohort of 94 healthy adults (ages 25-45 years, 65-85 years) were analyzed. The spectral properties of the fMRI data were characterized in terms of the relative predominance of slow versus fast activity using the spectral slope (SS) measure. We found that the relative proportion of fast activity increases with advancing age …

Recent Advances In The Identification And Quantification Of Xylazine And Medetomidine In Biological Specimens, Bridgit O Crews

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Xylazine is a veterinary sedative that is frequently detected in the illicit drug supply, often found mixed with illicitly manufactured fentanyl (IMF). It has been detected in the blood of overdose victims and patients who use illicit drugs. Xylazine is not approved for use in humans. It is an alpha-2-adrenergic receptor agonist that causes deep sedation that is non-responsive to naloxone, the antidote for opioid overdose. Chronic exposure to xylazine has been linked to severe wounds that can progress to amputation. Medetomidine is another related veterinary sedative that has more recently emerged as an adulterant in IMF. Medetomidine is also …

Chimeric Antigen Receptor Natural Killer (Car-Nk) Cells: From Preclinical Promise To Clinical Reality In Cancer Immunotherapy, Hunter Cassidy Cochran, Kevin Ashkan Ghobadi, Armin Ghobadi

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) natural killer (NK) cell therapy represents an emerging frontier in cancer immunotherapy. CAR-NK cells offer the potential for "off-the-shelf" treatments with a favorable safety profile, due in part to their innate capacity for HLA-unrestricted tumor targeting and an absence of graft-versus-host disease. Landmark clinical studies using cord blood - derived CAR-NK cells and another employing iPSC-derived CAR-NK cells have reported impressive response rates, durable remissions, and minimal toxicity. Furthermore, a growing landscape of ongoing clinical trials is exploring innovative strategies to enhance persistence, overcome solid tumor challenges, and prevent antigen escape. These advances collectively underscore the …

Microglia Regulate Gabaergic Neurogenesis In Prenatal Human Brain Through Igf1, Diankun Yu, Samhita Jain, Andi Wangzhou, Beika Zhu, Wenyuan Shao, Elena J Coley-O'Rourke, Stacy De Florencio, Jaeyeon Kim, Jennifer Ja-Yoon Choi, Mercedes F Paredes, Tomasz J Nowakowski, Eric J Huang, Xianhua Piao

2020-Current year OA Pubs

GABAergic neurons are essential cellular components of neural circuits. Their abundance and diversity have increased significantly in the human brain, contributing to the expanded cognitive capacity of humans

Family Income And Polygenic Scores Are Independently But Not Interactively Associated With Cognitive Performance Among Youth Genetically Similar To European Reference Populations, S E Paul, N M Elsayed, S M C Colbert, R Bogdan, A S Hatoum, D M Barch

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Cognitive abilities are heritable and influenced by socioeconomic status (SES). It is critical to understand the association between SES and cognition beyond genetic propensity to inform potential benefits of SES-based interventions and to determine if such associations vary across (i) cognitive domains, (ii) facets of SES, and/or (iii) genetic propensity for different aspects of cognition. We examined the contributions of neighborhood socioeconomic advantage, family income, and polygenic scores (PGS) for domains of cognition (i.e., general cognitive ability, executive function, learning and memory, fluid reasoning) in a sample of children (ages 9-10;

Mitochondrial Dysfunction And Lipid Dysregulation In Yeast Lacking Phosphatidylserine, Alaumy Joshi, Zakery N Baker, Rachel A Stanfield, Dimitris T Kalafatis, David J Pagliarini, Vishal M Gohil

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Mitochondrial membrane phospholipids impact mitochondrial structure and function by influencing the assembly and activity of membrane proteins. Although the specific roles of the three most abundant mitochondrial phospholipids, phosphatidylcholine (PC), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), and cardiolipin (CL), have been extensively studied, the precise function of less abundant phosphatidylserine (PS) is not yet determined. Here, we used genetic and nutritional manipulation to engineer a set of yeast mutants, including a mutant completely devoid of PS, to assess its role in mitochondrial bioenergetics and lipid homeostasis. To circumvent the confounding effect of downstream PS products, PE and PC, we exogenously supplied ethanolamine that allows …

Succinate Dehydrogenase B (Sdhb) Overexpression With Enzymatic Dysfunction Defines A Distinct Subtype Of Undifferentiated Pleomorphic Sarcoma, Miguel Esperança-Martins, Brian A Van Tine, Alliny C S Bastos, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

UNLABELLED: Undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) remains one of the most clinically aggressive and poorly characterized soft-tissue sarcoma subtypes. To uncover distinctive molecular traits for UPS, a multiomics analysis of UPS compared with leiomyosarcoma (LMS) and liposarcoma (LPS) was performed. Transcriptomic profiling revealed that UPS exhibits overexpression of genes encoding succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) subunits, particularly SDHB, SDHC, and SDHD, distinguishing it from LMS and dedifferentiated LPS. This finding was validated using The Cancer Genome Atlas Sarcoma dataset. High SDHB expression in UPS was significantly associated with shorter overall survival, shorter recurrence-free survival, and shorter overall survival from the date of first …

Ibrutinib Added To Standard Conditioning And As Maintenance Therapy Following Autologous Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation For Relapsed Or Refractory Activated-B-Cell Type Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma: Primary Analysis Of The Us Intergroup Double-Blind Randomized Phase Iii Study Alliance A051301/Bmt-Ctn 1201, Charalambos Andreadis, Brad S Kahl, Nancy L Bartlett, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

To improve outcomes in relapsed or refractory activated B-cell type Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma (ABC-DLBCL), we launched a randomized phase 3 trial evaluating 2-year progression free survival (2yPFS) with the addition of ibrutinib to autologous transplant. Patients received ibrutinib 560 mg or placebo with conditioning and for 12 additional cycles. Accrual was adversely affected by implementation of the ABC classifier in this setting and the changing treatment landscape of DLBCL. In all, 39 patients on ibrutinib and 38 on placebo were evaluable. 2yPFS was 57.6% on ibrutinib versus 40.8% on placebo (

A Randomised Controlled Trial Of Verbal Guidance Versus Verbal Guidance Supplemented By A Photographic Aid For Bystander Identification Of Intramuscular Tranexamic Acid Injection Sites In A Simulated Road Injury Scenario, Tim Nutbeam, Emily Foote, Lauren R. Rodgers, Jessica Thomas-Mourne, Rob Fenwick

Peninsula Medical School

Background: Non-compressible haemorrhage is a leading cause of preventable death following road injury. Tranexamic acid (TXA), when administered early, improves survival. Intramuscular (IM) administration offers a feasible route for early administration by lay bystanders. However, the ability of bystanders to correctly identify safe IM injection sites remains unclear. This study aimed to evaluate whether verbal guidance supplemented by a photographic aid improves the accuracy of site identification in a simulated road injury scenario. Methods: In this randomised controlled trial, 64 lay participants were recruited on a university campus and randomised to receive either (1) verbal guidance alone or (2) verbal …

Spatial Multiomics Of Acute Myocardial Infarction Reveals Immune Cell Infiltration Through The Endocardium, Florian Wünnemann, Junedh M Amrute, Kory J Lavine, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Myocardial infarction (MI) continues to be a leading cause of death worldwide. Even though it is well established that the complex interplay between different cell types determines the overall healing response after MI, the precise changes in the tissue architecture are still poorly understood. In this study, we generated an integrative cellular map of the acute phase after murine MI using a combination of imaging-based transcriptomics (Molecular Cartography) and antibody-based highly multiplexed imaging (Sequential Immunofluorescence). This enabled us to evaluate cell type compositions and changes at subcellular resolution over time. We observed the recruitment of leukocytes to the infarcted heart …

Accelerating Precision Exercise Medicine In Cancer Patients Using Pooled Individual Patient Data: Polaris Experience, Laurien M. Buffart, Marlou Floor Kenkhuis, Robert U. Newton, Anne M. May, Daniel A. Galvão, Kerry S. Courneya

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Numerous exercise oncology trials have been completed, greatly informing exercise recommendations for patients with cancer. Exercise medicine can be administered in various types, doses, and schedules at various time points. Advancing precision exercise medicine requires understanding of how the effects of different exercise interventions vary by characteristics of individual patients. The Predicting OptimaL cAncer RehabIlitation and Supportive care (POLARIS) study provides an international infrastructure and shared database to perform pooled analyses of individual patient data (IPD) from multiple randomized controlled trials. This commentary aims to highlight the value of pooled IPD analyses, summarize key findings from published pooled IPD analyses …

Design Of A Robust Adaptive Cascade Fractional-Order Proportional–Integral–Derivative Controller Enhanced By Reinforcement Learning Algorithm For Speed Regulation Of Brushless Dc Motor In Electric Vehicles, Seyyed Morteza Ghamari, Mehrdad Ghahramani, Daryoush Habibi, Asma Aziz

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Brushless DC (BLDC) motors are commonly used in electric vehicles (EVs) because of their efficiency, small size and great torque-speed performance. These motors have a few benefits such as low maintenance, increased reliability and power density. Nevertheless, BLDC motors are highly nonlinear and their dynamics are very complicated, in particular, under changing load and supply conditions. The above features require the design of strong and adaptable control methods that can ensure performance over a broad spectrum of disturbances and uncertainties. In order to overcome these issues, this paper uses a Fractional-Order Proportional-Integral-Derivative (FOPID) controller that offers better control precision, better …

Biomass Materials And Their Application In 4d Printing, Zhongda Yang, Jian Li, Yanling Guo, Yangwei Wang, Wen Zhao, Wei Zhao, Yanju Liu, Laichang Zhang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Four-dimensional (4D) printing technology is a revolutionary development that produces structures that can adapt in response to external stimuli. However, the responsiveness and printability of smart materials with shape memory properties, which are necessary for 4D printing, remain limited. Biomass materials derived from nature have offered an effective solution due to their various excellent and unique properties. Biomass materials have been abundant in resources and low in carbon content, contributing to the then-current global green energy-saving goals, including carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. This review focused on different sources of biomass materials used in 4D printing, including plant-based, animal-based, and …

Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Microrna-7-5p Expression And Biological Significance In Head And Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma, Rikki A.M. Brown, Michael Phillips, Andrew J. Woo, Omar Kujan, Stephanie Flukes, Louise N. Winteringham, Larissa C. Dymond, Fiona Wheeler, Brianna Pollock, Dianne J. Beveridge, Elena Denisenko, Peter J. Leedman

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is a prevalent malignancy with poor clinical outcomes. microRNA-7-5p (miR-7-5p) has been described as both a tumour suppressor and an oncomiR depending on the tissue context, but its role in HNSCC remains unclear. This study aimed to clarify the clinical significance and biological function of miR-7-5p in HNSCC by integrating data from multiple sources. Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted to identify studies analysing miRNA expression in human head and neck tissues. A meta-analysis of individual patient data from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), ArrayExpress, and The Cancer Genome Atlas …

The Consequences Of Habitual Rumination, Expressive Suppression, And Perceived Stress On Mental And Physical Health Among Older Adults, Eyal Gringart, Rodrigo Becerra, Andrea Smith

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background/Objectives: The current study aimed to investigate whether habitual rumination, suppression, and perceived stress predict poor mental and physical health as well as well-being in a group of older adults (aged 50 to 80 years) from a non-clinical community sample. Methods: The current study comprised a cross-sectional survey design with online self-report measures. It was predicted that higher levels of rumination, suppression, and perceived stress would predict lower levels of general health as well as well-being, and heightened levels of depression and anxiety. Results: Findings from the study indicated that both rumination and perceived stress significantly predicted heightened anxiety, heightened …

Validation Of A Mind Diet Screener In Older Adults, Desarae A. Dempsey, Puja Agarwal, Shane Fernandez, Jared R. Brosch, Sujuan Gao, Daniel O. Clark, Frederick W. Unverzagt, Liana G. Apostolova, David G. Clark, Martin R. Farlow, Sunu Mathew, Sophia Wang, Michelle Quirke, Yolanda Graham-Dotson, Colette Blach, Leyla Schimmel, Rima Kaddurah-Daouk, Andrew J. Saykin, Shannon L. Risacher

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Introduction: Higher adherence to the Mediterranean-DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay (MIND) diet has been associated with reduced Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk. This study assessed the validity of a brief 15-item MIND diet screener compared to a comprehensive food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Methods: The validity of an adapted MIND diet screener relative to the VioScreen FFQ was evaluated in 92 older adults from the Indiana Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (IADRC). Correlation coefficients and tertile-based classification statistics were used, and FFQ nutrient profiles were examined across screener-based MIND diet tertiles. Results: MIND diet scores from the screener …

Using Some Artificial Intelligence Algorithms To Estimate The Parametric Regression Function For Spatially Dependent Data Of Water Pollution Of The Euphrates River, Ons Edin Musa, Sabah Manfi Redha

Journal of Economics and Administrative Sciences

These models account for the spatial effects resulting from the proximity of events. A compromise exists in the mathematical accuracy of model parameters when spatial correlations are present in the data of the phenomenon. Data reliant on spatial correlations are crucial in statistical modelling, especially in environmental science, economics, epidemiology, and various other disciplines. This study employs and compares three artificial intelligence approaches—the genetic algorithm (GA), the TABU search algorithm (TSA), and the binary firefly algorithm (Binary FFA)—to determine which is the most efficient for estimating the parametric regression function for spatially dependent data. The Mean Absolute Percentage Error numbers …

Functional Importance Of Bile Acid-Fxr Signaling In Neonatal Immunity And Disease, Douglas G Burrin, Greg Guthrie, Caitlin Vonderohe

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.