Digital Commons Network^™

Prioritization Of Research On Drought Assessment In A Changing Climate, Joel Lisonbee, Britt Parker, Erica Fleischman, Trent W. Ford, Kyle R. Bocinsky, Gretel Follingstad, Abby Frazier, Zachary H. Hoylman, Amy R. Hudson, John W. Nielsen-Gammon, Natalie A. Umphlett, Elliot Wickham, Aparna Bamzai-Dodson, Royce Fontenot, Brian Fuchs, John Hammond, Jeffrey E. Herrick, Mike Hobbins, Andrew Hoell, Jacob Jones, Erin Lane, Zachary Leasor, Yongqiang Liu, Jason A. Otkin, Dennis Todey, Roger Pulwarty

Geography

Drought is a period of abnormally dry weather that leads to hydrological imbalance. Drought assessments determine the characteristics, severity, and impacts of a drought. Climate change adds conceptual and quantitative challenges to traditional drought assessments. This paper highlights the challenges of assessing drought in a climate made non-stationary by human activities or natural variability. To address these challenges, we then identify 10 key research priorities for advancing drought science and improving assessments in a changing climate. The priorities focus on improving drought indicators to account for non-stationarity, evaluating drought impacts and their trends, addressing regional differences in non-stationarity, determining the …

Hypersoft Semi-Connected Spaces, Florentin Smarandache, V. Inthumathi, M. Amsaveni

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Neutrosophic sets are an important field of topology that deals with inconsistent, indeterminate, and uncertain circumstances in real life. Hypersoft sets have grown in popularity due to their ability to represent data as a collection of trait-valued disjoint sets that combine various attributes. Motivated by this concept, we introduce a new hyper-approach known as hypersoft semi-separated, which employs hypersoft semi-open sets [HSO]. This article presents several local properties of HSO sets, such as hypersoft semi-neighborhoods of hypersoft points and hypersoft semi-first countable spaces. Additionally, definitions of hypersoft semi-connected [HSCO] spaces, hypersoft locally semi-connected [HLSCO] spaces, and associated properties are provided. …

A Concise Introduction To Hyperfuzzy, Hyperneutrosophic, Hyperplithogenic, Hypersoft, And Hyperrough Sets With Practical Examples, Takaaki Fujita, Florentin Smarandache

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Various set concepts are widely recognized for effectively addressing u ncertainty, including fuzzy sets, neutrosophic sets, plithogenic sets, rough sets, and soft sets. These concepts have been further extended through hyperstructures (based on powersets) and superhyperstructures (based on n-th powersets, which are sets with repeated power set structures) [5,12–14,32]. These extensions are commonly referred to as HyperUncertain, SuperUncertain, and SuperHyperUncertain Sets/Logics/Probabilities/Statistics, and they were introduced by Smarandache in 2016-2017 [32] as parts of HyperStructures, SuperStructures, and SuperHyperStructures respectively. This paper recalls these concepts along with concrete examples.

Icu Admission Prediction For Patients With Kawasaki Disease Or Mis-C Using Machine Learning., Jiwon Woo, Rebecca Mosier, Rishima Mukherjee, Ashraf S. Harahsheh, Supriya S. Jain, Geetha Raghuveer, Balasubramanian Sundaram, Simon Lee, Michael A. Portman, Nagib Dahdah, Marianna Fabi, Todd T. Nowlen, Audrey Dionne, Mona El Ganzoury, Tyler H. Harris, Benjamin T. Barnes, Frederic Dallaire, Paul Dancey, Kambiz Norozi, Mahmoud Alsalehi, Elif Seda Selamet Tierney, Jacqueline R. Szmuszkovicz, Pei-Ni Jone, Deepa Prasad, Anji T. Yetman, Nilanjana Misra, Mark D. Hicar, Deepika Thacker, Nadine F. Choueiter, Elisa Fernandez Cooke, Daniel Mauriello, Tapas Mondal, Matthew D. Elias, Kimberly E. Mchugh, Shae A. Merves, Luis Martin Garrido-Garcia, Michael Khoury, Guillermo Larios, Bhargava Chinni, Kaashvi Pruthi, Wenyu Yang, Joseph Greenstein, Casey Taylor, Pedrom Farid, Brian W. Mccrindle, Cedric Manlhiot, International Kawasaki Disease Registry

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and Kawasaki disease (KD) show a broad spectrum of clinical severity, from a relatively benign clinical course to requiring admission to the intensive care unit (ICU). With either, clinical deterioration may be rapid and unexpected.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to develop a machine learning (ML) model to predict future ICU admission for patients with KD or MIS-C to augment clinical decision-making.

METHODS: We developed a prediction model for ICU admission using 2,539 patientsfeatures, we developed predictive snapshot and window ML models with logistic regression, XGBoost, and random forest. Performance was …

Imageinthat: Manipulating Images To Convey User Instructions To Robots, Karthik Mahadevan, Blaine Lewis, Jiannan Li, Bilge Mutlu, Anthony Tang, Tovi Grossman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Foundation models are rapidly improving the capability of robots in performing everyday tasks autonomously such as meal preparation, yet robots will still need to be instructed by humans due to model performance, the difficulty of capturing user preferences, and the need for user agency. Robots can be instructed using various methods---natural language conveys immediate instructions but can be abstract or ambiguous, whereas end-user programming supports longer-horizon tasks but interfaces face difficulties in capturing user intent. In this work, we propose using direct manipulation of images as an alternative paradigm to instruct robots, and introduce a specific instantiation called ImageInThat which …

Improving Multimodal Human Pose Estimation By Adversarial Modality Enhancement, Jiangnan Xia, Qilong Wu, Yanyin Guo, Yi Li, Jianghan Cheng, Junwei Li, Zhiyuan Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Human pose estimation in computer vision predominantly focuses on the visible modality, with limited research on the infrared modality. No existing methods demonstrate robust performance across both modalities, missing their complementary strengths. This gap arises from the lack of a multimodal benchmark and the difficulty of developing robust multimodal capabilities. To address this, we introduce MMPD, a novel visible-infrared multimodal pose benchmark with high-quality annotations for both modalities. Leveraging MMPD, we expose the limitations of state-of-the-art methods due to modality variance. To overcome this challenge, we propose a novel method-agnostic scheme called AMMPE. By employing the Modality Adversarial Enhancement Stage …

Learning To Identify Seen, Unseen And Unknown In The Open World: A Practical Setting For Zero-Shot Learning, Sethupathy Parameswaran, Yuan Fang, Chandan Gautam, Savitha Ramasamy, Xiaoli Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As vision-language models advance, addressing the Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL) problem in the open world becomes increasingly crucial. Specifically, a robust model must handle three types of samples during inference: seen classes with visual and semantic information provided in training, unseen classes with only the semantic information in training, and unknown samples with no prior information from training. Existing methods either handle seen and unseen classes together (ZSL) or seen and unknown classes (known as Open-Set Recognition, OSR). However, none addresses the simultaneous handling of all three, which we term Open-Set Zero-Shot Learning (OZSL). To address this problem, we propose a …

The Influence Of Historical Climate Cycles On The Diversification And Demography Of Species From The Neotropical Lizard Group Anolis Chrysolepis, Tony Gamble

Biological Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

Historical shifts in climate have significantly influenced the establishment of ecosystems and the evolution of species. Phylogeographical studies integrated with niche modelling can provide insights into divergence events and demography. This study explores the evolutionary history, demographic patterns, and spatiotemporal dynamics of seven South American lizard species of the Anolis chrysolepis species group, which has been proposed to be strongly impacted by Pleistocene climatic fluctuations under the Refugia Hypothesis. We utilized mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences to delineate lineages, estimate divergence times, and examine demographic dynamics. Ecological niche models were employed to assess historical range shifts and identify climatic stability …

Behavioural Realism And Its Impact On Virtual Reality Social Interactions Involving Self-Disclosure, Alan Fraser, Ross Hollett, Craig Speelman, Shane L. Rogers

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This study investigates how the behavioural realism of avatars can enhance virtual reality (VR) social interactions involving self-disclosure. First, we review how factors such as trust, enjoyment, and nonverbal communication could be influenced by motion capture technology by enhancing behavioural realism. We also address a gap in the prior literature by comparing different motion capture systems and how these differences affect perceptions of realism, enjoyment, and eye contact. Specifically, this study compared two types of avatars: an iClone UNREAL avatar with full-body and facial motion capture and a Vive Sync avatar with limited motion capture for self-disclosure. Our participants rated …

House Flies (Musca Domestica) In Abu Dhabi Emirate: Assessing Deltamethrin Insecticide Resistance And Associated Microbial Communities, Mohamad Abdelrahim Hamdan

Theses

This study investigates the common house fly (Musca domestica), a globally important insect that serves as both a decomposer and a mechanical vector for pathogens. The emergence of insecticide resistance, particularly knockdown resistance (kdr) mutations, has been reported in house fly populations, raising concerns for pest control. Additionally, house flies exhibit diverse bacterial communities, influencing pathogen transmission and environmental microbial dynamics. The primary objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of kdr mutations associated with insecticide resistance in house flies collected from the Abu Dhabi Emirate and to analyze their microbial composition using metagenomic approaches. House flies were …

Diversities Within Diversities, Sor-Hoon Tan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This chapter adds to the perspectives from Chinese philosophical traditions on the issues of ecological and economic inequalities by drawing attention to recent works on Daoism offering views on ecological problems that differ from Tongdong Bai’s chapter. It also highlights a common theme that is found in several chapters in this volume: the importance of relationship. Starting from Confucian relational ethics, it offers a different perspective from Bai and others who defend Confucian hierarchy by questioning the opposition between egalitarianism and hierarchy. It argues that Confucianism strongly objects to certain kinds of inequalities, which would put it in sympathy with …

Microbial Communities Associated With Endangered West Texas Springsnails And Their Potential Roles In Conservation, Russell L. Minton, Kathryn E. Perez

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences Faculty Publications

Desert springs are one of the most threatened ecosystems globally. Those in Southwestern North America support high numbers of threatened and endemic species. Human activities present the greatest threats to springs and the organisms they support. Freshwater snails in the genera Pyrgulopsis and Tryonia are two groups of such organisms, representing diverse and threatened groups of springsnails in the Southwestern United States. Desert springs also harbour unique microbial diversity that faces similar threats from water usage and freshwater habitat degradation. Understanding springsnails and the bacteria they host represent potential exemplars for interdisciplinary conservation efforts. We studied the bacterial communities associated …

Stylezine: The Intersection Of Tech And Fashion, Saiyushi Kumar

Graphic Communication

Using my passion for web development, branding and fashion, I created a website that functions as a fashion resale platform tailored towards college students. My goal was to create a community where like-minded individuals can connect, while reducing fashion’s footprint on the planet. Currently, fast fashion is responsible for 10% of all carbon emissions, and garment workers often earn as little as $200 a week (Hardy, 2024). As younger generations become more aware of these impacts, the demand for slow fashion and second-hand shopping continues to grow. Through this project, I raised awareness about sustainable fashion, reduced the industry’s environmental …

Releaf By Design: Eco Conscious Cannabis Packaging, Abigail Jane Fleishman

Graphic Communication

ReLeaf is an innovative project that explores the dynamic intersection of sustainability and functionality in cannabis packaging. This project explores the urgent need for environmentally responsible solutions in an industry often reliant on single-use plastic. This project uses an innovative lens to research current eco-friendly packaging using kraft paperboard tubes, ultraviolet glass jars, and post-consumer recycled (PCR) plastics. This project aims to create a packaging solution that meets industry safety standards while appealing to eco-conscious consumers by prioritizing recyclability, biodegradability, aesthetic design, and compliance with safety regulations. The branding strategy, embodied in the name “ReLeaf,” emphasizes the therapeutic benefits of …

Evermarket:The App For Fresh Finds And Hidden Treasures, Kira M. Sugihara

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this project is to discover a new way of bringing communities together when it comes to buying, selling and trading goods locally. Many smaller vendors struggle to connect with their communities while buyers often become frustrated with the lack of marketing and advertising for these markets and sales. With the help of a mobile app, sellers will be able to list their markets and sales to buyers who will be able to easily locate these local events. This concept eliminates the frustration of trying to find second-hand and fresh goods by putting them all in one place, …

Experiences Among Parents Caring For Children With Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis At A Tertiary Referral Hospital In Kenya, Hassan Silim, Susan Wamithi, Roselyter Riang’A, Angela Migowa

Paediatrics and Child Health, East Africa

Background: Juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is the most common rheumatic disease in childhood. Despite the availability of effective treatment strategies such as disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), JIA is reported to have a negative impact on the quality of life of the patients and their caregivers. Ascertaining the perceptions of the parents will help facilitate more effective management strategies and improve outcomes for these patients. This study aimed to ascertain parental experiences and perceptions of caring for children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA).

Methods: This was a single-center facility-based qualitative study. An in-depth interview guide was used to collect …

A Wave-Optics Bsdf For Correlated Scatterers, Ruomai Yang

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

In this project, we present a wave optics bidirectional scattering distribution function(BSDF) for the material with a collection of scatterers, such as certain fabrics with pores or foggy glass, where the corona effect can be observed under strong light sources. This effect arises from the diffraction of individual scatterers and the interference between them. To describe this effect, we treat each scatterer as an aperture to calculate diffraction, while using a pair correlation function to represent their spatial relationships and calculate the interference. This two-level decomposition allows us to derive a BSDF that can control both the individual diffraction function …

Functional Investigation Of A Putative Calcium-Binding Site Involved In The Inhibition Of Inositol 1,4, 5-Trisphosphate Receptor Activity, Vikas Arige, Larry E Wagner, Sundeep Malik, Mariah R Baker, Guizhen Fan, Irina I Serysheva, David I Yule

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The regulation of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3) receptor (IP3R) activity is thought to define the spatiotemporal patterns of Ca2+ signals necessary for the appropriate activation of downstream effectors. The binding of both IP3 and Ca2+ is obligatory for IP3R channel opening. Ca2+ however regulates IP3R activity in a biphasic manner. Ca2+ binding to a high-affinity pocket formed by the third armadillo repeat domain and linker domain promotes IP3R channel opening without altering the Ca2+ dependency for channel inactivation. These data suggest that a distinct low-affinity Ca2+-binding site is responsible for the reduction in IP3R activity at higher [Ca2+]. We mutated a …

Disrupting Tymp-Mediated Pathways To Block Lymph Node Metastasis In Ovarian Cancer, Emine Bayraktar

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Historically, ovarian cancer (OC) was thought to metastasize by surface-to-surface spread, but recent developments have yielded a new understanding of the paths of metastatic spread. In epithelial ovarian cancer, the mechanisms driving lymph node (LN) metastasis are poorly understood, and it remains unclear whether omental metastasis occurs in parallel with LN metastasis. Utilizing comparative transcriptomic and proteomic profiling of primary tumors, LN metastases, and omental metastases, we identified significant upregulation of thymidine phosphorylase (TYMP) in LN metastases compared to primary and omental tumor sites. Functional studies in murine models demonstrated that TYMP silencing significantly suppressed LN metastasis, underscoring TYMP as …

Race, The Academy, And The Constitution Of The War On Drugs, Jeffrey Bellin, Bennett Capers

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The war on drugs is widely viewed as a policy failure. Despite massive government intrusions on personal liberty, drug addiction, overdoses, and drug-related violence have only in- creased since the war was declared in 1971. David Pozen's new book, The Constitution of the War on Drugs, reveals a constitutional failure as well. Pozen chronicles a host of constitutional arguments that American litigants deployed to protect a "right" to use drugs with surprising, if fleeting, suc- cess. Pozen asks what might have been, exploring why the courts backtracked and effectively re- moved the Constitution as a meaningful obstacle to drug prohibitions. …

Policing’S Free-Speech Problem, G. Alex Sinha

Utah Law Review

The central claim of this Article is that a significant share of typical policing activity is wildly and egregiously unconstitutional. More precisely, police regularly, predictably, and systematically violate the hardest, most settled core of free-speech law under the First Amendment. We have grown to tolerate these violations—we have not even noticed them!—because they are difficult to litigate. But they are inescapable. Having seen them, we cannot abide these violations without entirely overturning the modern understanding of free-speech rights under the First Amendment.

It is well-settled that, under the First Amendment, the government generally may not discriminate against (or in favor …

Race, The Academy, And The Constitution Of The War On Drugs, Bennett Capers, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

The war on drugs is widely viewed as a policy failure. Despite massive government intrusions on personal liberty, drug addiction, overdoses, and drug-related violence have only increased since the war was declared in 1971. David Pozen’s new book, The Constitution of the War on Drugs, reveals a constitutional failure as well. Pozen chronicles a host of constitutional arguments that American litigants deployed to protect a “right” to use drugs with surprising, if fleeting, success. Pozen asks what might have been, exploring why the courts backtracked and effectively removed the Constitution as a meaningful obstacle to drug prohibitions.

This Review …

Safety And Efficacy Of Dtx401, An Aav8-Mediated Liver-Directed Gene Therapy, In Adults With Glycogen Storage Disease Type I A (Gsdia), David A Weinstein, Terry G Derks, David F Rodriguez-Buritica, Ayesha Ahmad, María-Luz Couce, John J Mitchell, Rebecca Riba-Wolman, Malaya Mount, Julieta Bonvin Sallago, Katalin M Ross, Melanie M Van Der Klauw, Foekje De Boer, Caroline Van Der Schaaf, Heather Saavedra, Miguel Martínez-Olmos, Elvis Atanga, Asad Hosseini, Deepali Mitragotri, Eric Crombez

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Glycogen storage disease type Ia (GSDIa) is a rare, life‐threatening, inherited carbohydrate metabolism disorder caused by glucose‐6‐phosphatase (G6Pase) deficiency, which is essential for glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis. GSDIa management includes a strict medically prescribed diet that typically includes daily uncooked cornstarch doses, including overnight, to maintain euglycemia. DTX401 is an investigational adeno‐associated virus serotype 8 vector expressing the human G6PC1 gene that encodes G6Pase. This open‐label, phase 1/2, dose‐escalation, 52‐week gene therapy trial evaluated the safety and efficacy of a single DTX401 infusion in 12 adults with GSDIa (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03517085). Three participants in Cohort 1 received DTX401 2.0 × …

Caloric Restriction And Telomere Preservation In Tert Knockout Adipocyte Progenitors Does Not Rescue Mice From Metabolic Dysfunction Due To A Tert Function In Adipocyte Mitochondria, Zhanguo Gao, Yongmei Yu, Kristin Eckel-Mahan, Mikhail G Kolonin

The Brown Foundation: Institute of Molecular Medicine

Inactivation of telomerase (TERT) in adipocyte progenitor cells (APC) expedites telomere attrition, and the onset of diabetes in mice fed high-fat diet (HFD), which promotes APC over-proliferation and replicative senescence. Here, we show that time-restricted feeding or caloric restriction in the postnatal development of mice subsequently subjected to HFD prevents telomere attrition but not glucose intolerance. This metabolic effect of dietary intervention was not observed for mice with TERT KO in endothelial or myeloid cells. To characterize the telomere-independent effects of TERT in the APC lineage, we analyzed mice with TERT knockout in mature adipocytes (AD-TERT-KO), which do not proliferate …

2025 March, Morehead State University. Office Of Communications & Marketing.

Morehead State Press Release Archive, 1961 to the Present

Press releases for March of 2025.

The Efficacy Of The Minimally Invasive Lumbar Decompression (Mild®) Procedure: A Prisma-Compliant Systemic Review And Meta-Analysis, Xin-Yu Zhang, Jian-Li Zhao, Ya-Jing Wang, Jie Luan, Hong-Qi Lin, Dajie Wang

Department of Anesthesiology Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Lumbar spinal stenosis is the most common cause for spinal surgery of older adults. It is associated with pain in the legs and back as well as impaired ambulation. Minimally Invasive Lumbar Decompression (MILD®, Vertos Medical) is a percutaneous, image-guided lumbar decompression technique for central canal stenosis secondary to a hypertrophied ligamentum flavum. However, whether MILD can achieve adequate beneficial results in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis remains undetermined.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the efficacy and complications of MILD for lumbar spinal stenosis.

STUDY DESIGN: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

METHODS: Electronic databases were searched to identify all clinical trials …

Food Self-Sufficiency And Building-Integrated Urban Agriculture: Lessons From Singapore, Tomoki Fujii, Christoph Waibel, Xinyi Du, Zhongming Shi

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore aims to achieve 30 percent food self-sufficiency by 2030, known as the 30-by-30 target, and this paper reviews Singapore’s changing landscape for urban agriculture and its recent progress towards the 30-by-30 goal, highlighting key challenges such as land constraints, high production costs, and resource limitations. Building-integrated agriculture (BIA), which utilizes building surfaces such as rooftops, façades, and balconies for food production within urban environments, is examined as a potential way to increase self-sufficiency through a simulation. Despite the BIA’s potential, practical issues—including regulatory concerns and infrastructure limitations—must be addressed before it can be implemented at scale. Insights from Singapore’s …

Ecology Of Ixodes Scapularis Say: Experimental And Observational Studies With Social Perspectives On Ticks And Tick-Borne Diseases, Kaitlin M. Mcdonald

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Tick-borne diseases are a growing concern globally. Understanding the factors that influence tick ecology and people’s understanding of that ecology is crucial for developing effective tick management and disease prevention strategies. In this work, I investigated fundamental questions about the ecology of a primary vector of medically important pathogens in the United States, the blacklegged tick Ixodes scapularis Say, and identified common misconceptions about ticks and tick-borne diseases on social media. First, I examined the effects of temperature and moisture stress on the movement of adult female I. scapularis in laboratory experiments. Using a Drosophila Activity Monitor, ticks were exposed …

Examining Children's Verb Learning In The United States And Japan: Do Comparisons Help?, Jane B. Childers, Mutsumi Imai, Masato Ohba, Faith Perry, Leah Marsh

Psychology Faculty Research

Learning verbs is an important part of learning one's native language. Prior studies have shown that children younger than 5 years can have difficulty in learning and extending new verbs. The current study extended these studies by showing children multiple events that can be compared during learning, including Japanese- and English-speaking children. In the study, 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds saw two similar events and then one varied (progressive alignment) or three varied (low alignable) events in a learning phase before test, and this was repeated for four sets. Children were asked to extend these novel verbs in easy (non-cross-mapping) and …

Research Newsletter Faculty Of Arts & Sciences: Issue Iii, Faculty Of Arts And Sciences

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Archives

• Cutting-edge research
• Academic engagement
• Interdisciplinary research
• Public health
• Water-related conflicts
• Salinity tolerance
• Seed priming
• Thatta
• Phonology workshop
• Creative talks