Digital Commons Network^™

Mechanistic Insights Into The Structure-Based Design Of A Cspz-Targeting Lyme Disease Vaccine, Alan Wang, Yi-Lin Chen, Jungsoon Lee, Zhuyun Liu, Xiuli Yang, Ulrich Strych, Dagnija Tupina, Inara Akopjana, Maria-Elena Bottazzi, Utpal Pal, Ching-Lin Hsieh, Wen-Hsiang Chen, Yi-Pin Lin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) causes Lyme disease (LD), one of the most common vector-borne diseases in the Northern Hemisphere. Here, we solve the crystal structure of a mutated Bb vaccine antigen, CspZ-YA that lacks the ability to bind to host complement factor H (FH). We generate point mutants of CspZ-YA and identify CspZ-YAI183Y and CspZ-YAC187S to trigger more robust bactericidal responses. Compared to CspZ-YA, these CspZ-YA mutants require a lower immunization frequency to protect mice from LD-associated inflammation and bacterial colonization. Antigenicity of wild-type and mutant CspZ-YA proteins are similar, as measured using sera from infected people or immunized …

Students Present Wide Range Of Research At John Wesley Powell Conference April 12, Jeffery Woodard

Press Releases 2020-2029

No abstract provided.

Pediatric And Congenital Cardiac Services: An Innovative And Empowering Approach To Global Training And Equitable Care, Wyman W. Lai, Dominique Vervoort, David Bradley, Antonio G. Cabrera, Casey Culbertson, Alejandro Floh, Saurabh K. Gupta, Babar S. Hasan, Adrian Holloway, Jeffrey P. Jacobs, Kathy J. Jenkins, R. K. Kumar, L.A. Larrazabal, Colin J. Mcmahon, Daniel J. Penny, Alistair Phillips, Emilio Quezada, Craig A. Sable, Shubhika Srivastava, Sandra L. Staveski, Patcharapong Suntharos, David F. Teitel, Betsy Tirado, Brian C. Tran, Bistra Zheleva, Liesl Zuhkle, Anthony C. Chang

Division of Cardiology Faculty Papers

Congenital heart disease is a leading cause of preventable death in children, with a disproportionate impact on low- and middle-income countries. Despite progress in treating congenital heart disease globally, significant challenges remain in accessing specialized cardiovascular care, particularly cardiac surgery, in low- and middle-income countries. This review examines current models of assistance and proposes a novel global training program to address these inequities. Key challenges identified include building program infrastructure, training health care providers, ensuring financial sustainability, and promoting local engagement. The proposed program, structured under a new international organization, will leverage emerging technologies to deliver accessible and rigorously assessed …

Chimes: April 7, 2025, Calvin University

Chimes

CPI celebrates 10 years by James Chelekis & Robert Hine

Faculty respond to Calvin's official report to CRC Synod 2025 by McKenna Wilkinson, Clare Rybicki & Graham Kort

Funding for library services cut nationwide by Grace Buller

Faculty Gender Divide at Calvin by Elisabeth Stevens

Calvin Disc Gold competes at National -- and brings the sport back to campus by Zach Kern

On This Year's Graduation Speaker by Elisabeth Stevens

Letter from the editor: Diversity at Chimes by Ethan Meyers

Interlibrary Loan And Document Delivery Services: Evidence-Based Practice Council Monthly Meeting, Evelyn Wang, Ingrid Hendrix, Kristin Proctor

HSLIC Faculty and Staff Instructional Resources

This presentation provides an overview of interlibrary loan (ILL) and document delivery services offered by the UNM Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center (HSLIC). It includes detailed information on service types, eligibility criteria, costs, processing times, restrictions, and how to request materials. The presentation aims to guide UNM Health Sciences affiliates in accessing resources efficiently to support research, education, and clinical practice.

Evaluating The Performance Of Bayesian Removal Models For Estimating Population Density And Detecting Trends With Variable Detection Probability, David R. Stewart

Mathematics & Statistics ETDs

Removal models have long been used to estimate population abundance by progressively capturing and removing individuals from a closed population. These models provide a valuable tool for ecological monitoring, but their accuracy depends heavily on assumptions about detection probability, which may decline over successive sampling passes. Traditional removal models assume constant detection probabilities, an assumption that is often violated in real-world applications. This thesis aims to advance hierarchical Bayesian models by accounting for variable detection probabilities, improving the reliability of abundance estimates and trend detection. By integrating simulation-based analyses with empirical data from Lahontan Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkia henshawi …

Effect Of Heat Stress On Ileal Epithelial Barrier Integrity In Broilers Divergently Selected For High- And Low-Water Efficiency, Elizabeth S. Greene, Brooklee Roach, Maria Fernandez Cuadrado, Sara Orlowski, Sami Dridi

Poultry Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water scarcity and rising global temperatures are two of the greatest current and future threats to poultry sustainability. Therefore, selection for water efficiency (WE) and heat resilience are of vital importance. Additionally, intestinal integrity is of critical importance under challenging conditions to maintain nutrient absorption and therefore, growth and performance of broilers. Here, we examined the effect of chronic cyclic heat stress (HS) on the ileal expression profile of tight-junction, gap-junction, adherens, and desmosome genes in the fourth generation of divergently selected low (LWE)- and high water efficient (HWE)-chicken lines. LWE birds exhibited higher levels of gut permeability, regardless of …

Mri-Based Digital Twins To Improve Treatment Response Of Breast Cancer By Optimizing Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Regimens, Chengyue Wu, Ernesto A B F Lima, Casey E Stowers, Zhan Xu, Clinton Yam, Jingfei Ma, Thomas E Yankeelov

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

We developed a practical framework to construct digital twins for predicting and optimizing triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). This study employed 105 TNBC patients from the ARTEMIS trial (NCT02276443, registered on 10/21/2014) who received Adriamycin/Cytoxan (A/C)-Taxol (T). Digital twins were established by calibrating a biology-based mathematical model to patient-specific MRI data, which accurately predicted pathological complete response (pCR) with an AUC of 0.82. We then used each patient's twin to theoretically optimize outcome by identifying their optimal A/C-T schedule from 128 options. The patient-specifically optimized treatment yielded a significant improvement in pCR rate of 20.95-24.76%. Retrospective …

Exploring The Impact Of Reduction In Methamphetamine Use On Sexual Risk Behaviors Among Men Who Have Sex With Men And Women: Findings From The Adapt- 2 Trial, Chukwuemeka N Okafor, Jin H Yoon, Ducel Jean-Berluche, Taryn L Mayes, Steve Shoptaw, Madhukar H Trivedi, Jennifer S Potter, Joy Schmitz

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Methamphetamine (MA) use has been linked to engaging in sexual risk behaviors (SRBs) that are associated with HIV/STIs, particularly among men who have sex with men (MSM) and men who have sex with men and women (MSMW; hereafter MSM/W). The objectives of this analysis were to determine whether reduced MA is associated with decreases in SRBs in a sample of MSM/W.

Method: Data came from the ADAPT- 2 trial, a randomized, double-blind, two-stage sequential parallel design trial evaluating extended-release injectable naltrexone (NTX) and oral bupropion (BUP) vs. placebo for MA use disorder. In the first 6 weeks of the …

Association Of Age, Sex And Education With Access To The Intravenous Thrombolysis For Acute Ischemic Stroke, Kyusik Kang, Kyungbok Lee, Jun Lee, Keun-Sik Hong, Byung-Chul Lee, Kyung-Ho Yu, Dong-Eog Kim, Joon-Tae Kim, Jay Chol Choi, Jee Hyun Kwon, Wook-Joo Kim, Kyu Sun Yum, Sung-Il Sohn, Hyungjong Park, Sang-Hwa Lee, Kwang-Yeol Park, Chi Kyung Kim, Sung Hyuk Heo, Moon-Ku Han, Anjail Z Sharrief, Sunil A Sheth, Hee-Joon Bae

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Barriers to treatment with intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) for patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) in South Korea remain incompletely characterized. We analyze a nationwide prospective cohort to determine patient-level features associated with delayed presentation and non-treatment of potential IVT-eligible patients.

Methods: We identified consecutive patients with AIS from 01/2011 to 08/2023 from a multicenter and prospective acute stroke registry in Korea. Patients were defined as IVT candidates if they presented within 4.5 hours from the last known well, had no lab evidence of coagulopathy, and had National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) ≥ 4. Multivariable generalized linear mixed …

A Scoping Review Of Omop Cdm Adoption For Cancer Research Using Real World Data, Ming Huang, Rui Li, Qiuhao Lu, Heather Lyu, Andrew E Williams, Hongfang Liu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) common data model (CDM) supports large-scale research by enabling distributed network analyses. However, the breadth of its adoption in cancer research is not well understood. We conducted a scoping review to describe the adoption of the OMOP CDM in cancer research. A total of 49 unique articles were included in the review, with 30 on the data analysis theme, and 20 on the infrastructure theme. This review highlighted that while the OMOP CDM ecosystem has enabled successful data support for cancer research, particularly for collaborative studies, ongoing model development and iterative improvement remain needed …

A Folding-Docking-Affinity Framework For Protein-Ligand Binding Affinity Prediction

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Accurate protein-ligand binding affinity prediction is crucial in drug discovery. Existing methods are predominately docking-free, without explicitly considering atom-level interaction between proteins and ligands in scenarios where crystallized protein-ligand binding conformations are unavailable. Now, with breakthroughs in deep learning AI-based protein folding and binding conformation prediction, can we improve binding affinity prediction? This study introduces a framework, Folding-Docking-Affinity (FDA), which folds proteins, determines protein-ligand binding conformations, and predicts binding affinities from three-dimensional protein-ligand binding structures. Our experimental results indicate that FDA performs comparably to state-of-the-art docking-free methods. We anticipate that our proposed framework serves as a starting point for integrating …

Sheila Grace Adams

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Rodney Clements

African American Funeral Programs

Rodney Clements

No. 38: Informal Female Food Vendors, Covid-19, And Post-Pandemic Recovery In Kisumu, Kenya, Silvia A. Odhiambo, Patrick Mbullo Owuor, Doreen Obondo, Janet Anyango Onyango, Joyce Kiplagat, Elizabeth Onyango

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

While there is substantial literature on the effects of COVID-19 on formal businesses, limited evidence exists on the impacts of the pandemic on informal female-owned enterprises. Additionally, no studies have explored the role of post-pandemic recovery strategies in meeting the unique challenges experienced by the informal food vendors in secondary cities in the Global South. In this paper, we explore the impacts of COVID-19 and the post-pandemic recovery strategies on female informal food vendors in Kisumu, the third largest city in the western region of Kenya. The study adopted qualitative methods – in-depth and key informant interviews and focus group …

35. Protest 2025. Hands Off! Protest [Article & Images], Holly Hudson Hill, Chris Zoeller

LGBTQIA+ Archive Class Projects

Citation: Hill, H. and Zoeller, C. (2025, April 8). Hands Off Protest. Courier, A1 & A4.

Preventing Errors With Two-Component Pediatric Vaccines, Angela C. Clarke

MSN Student Capstones

No abstract provided.

Massive Transfusion Done Right In The Emergency Room, Angela Sams

MSN Student Capstones

No abstract provided.

Ethics Of End-Of-Life Care: Alzheimer's And Assisted Dying, Callan Plant '25

Honor Scholar Theses

Assisted dying and euthanasia are hotly contested end-of-life care options that present pressing dilemmas concerning patient autonomy, relief of suffering, and the misapplication of these delicate medical procedures. Access to and prohibition of these options is predicated on years of legal history, including continuous adjustment, and is actively contested in many places. Each country where at least one of these options is accessible, such as the United States, Canada, and the Netherlands, possesses largely similar restrictions and guidelines, with notable exceptions. Through the examination of data in countries that allow access to assisted dying, euthanasia, or both, it is possible …

Simplifying 3d Printing Using Natural Language Processing, Jared E. Rosenberger

Undergraduate Theses

3D printing is a crucial technology with many applications in different fields. To be able to use this technology to its full extent, expertise in computer aided design (CAD) technology and 3D modeling is required. Many people interested in 3D printing do not have this expertise and thus cannot build custom models, and are consequently forced to buy them instead. Natural language processing (NLP) is one tool that can vastly simplify 3D modeling for those lacking CAD experience. Using NLP, someone can simply dictate what they want to be able to print, and a computer can then build a 3D …

No Vaccine? Why Not: Causes Of Vaccine Hesitancy And How Governments Can Stop It, Alexander (Alec) Mccarty '25

Honor Scholar Theses

Vaccine hesitancy is a term that has entered the spotlight since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. With concerns about efficacy, safety, and individual choice, many people have developed a hesitancy toward receiving any vaccine, creating concerns for public and global health. Through responses from local and state health departments about their actions during the COVID-19 pandemic, and through analysis of state vaccine rates based on political affiliation, this study suggests that vaccine hesitancy is a current issue that is likely politically motivated. States that are Republican affiliated have lower rates of vaccine uptake, and in turn they have higher …

Genocide Education: What Is It, And Why Is It Important?, Allison Weiner '25

Honor Scholar Theses

This paper explores the critical importance of implementing genocide education in public school curricula across the United States. It argues that while Holocaust education has seen gradual inclusion in educational mandates, broader genocide education remains insufficient and inconsistently applied. Drawing from historical developments, legislative trends, and pedagogical strategies, the study emphasizes how comprehensive genocide education fosters civic awareness, combats ignorance, and equips students with tools to recognize and resist systemic discrimination and mass atrocities. The author highlights the urgency of this educational reform through personal narrative, legislative analysis, and advocacy frameworks, proposing a model that integrates historical case studies, survivor …

Racial Trauma, Psychosis, And Double Consciousness, Brianna A. Baker

Publications and Research

Key Points

• Black distress is often misdiagnosed as psychosis instead of recognized as a response to racial trauma.
• Double consciousness may explain how racism causes cognitive and emotional strain in Black individuals.
• Racial discrimination is linked to paranoia, dissociation, and hallucinations in Black communities.

The Effectiveness Of Gad-7 Screening In High School Students, Tamara L. Smith, Allison Darnell, Margaret Harvey, Phd, Acnp-Bc, Chfn, Jacqueline Sharp Dnp, Aprn, Pmhp-Bc

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

Purpose/Background

Adolescent mental health is a growing concern, with anxiety disorders being particularly prevalent among high school students. Left untreated, anxiety can significantly impact academic performance, social functioning, and long-term mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges, highlighting the critical need for effective screening and intervention strategies. The Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item scale (GAD-7) is a validated tool for identifying anxiety disorders, yet its application in high school settings is limited. This scoping review explores the effectiveness of GAD-7 in increasing mental health referrals and improving anxiety outcomes in high school students.

Methods

A comprehensive search was conducted across …

Benchmarking Large Language Models For Biomedical Natural Language Processing Applications And Recommendations, Qiao Jin, Aidan Gilson, Maxwell B Singer, Xuguang Ai, Po-Ting Lai, Zhizheng Wang, Vipina K Keloth, Kalpana Raja, Jimin Huang, Huan He, Fongci Lin, Jingcheng Du, Rui Zhang, W Jim Zheng, Ron A Adelman, Zhiyong Lu, Hua Xu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The rapid growth of biomedical literature poses challenges for manual knowledge curation and synthesis. Biomedical Natural Language Processing (BioNLP) automates the process. While Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown promise in general domains, their effectiveness in BioNLP tasks remains unclear due to limited benchmarks and practical guidelines. We perform a systematic evaluation of four LLMs-GPT and LLaMA representatives-on 12 BioNLP benchmarks across six applications. We compare their zero-shot, few-shot, and fine-tuning performance with the traditional fine-tuning of BERT or BART models. We examine inconsistencies, missing information, hallucinations, and perform cost analysis. Here, we show that traditional fine-tuning outperforms zero- or …

Life On The Dry Side: A Roadmap To Understanding Desiccation Tolerance And Accelerating Translational Applications, R A Marks, J T B Ekwealor, M A S Artur, L Bondi, T C Boothby, O M S Carmo, D C Centeno, K K Coe, H J W Dace, S Field, A Hutt, S Porembski, A Thalhammer, L Van Der Pas, A J Wood, P Alpert, D Bartels, S Boeynaems, M N Datar, T Giese, W I Seidou, S M Kirchner, J Köhler, U G V S S Kumara, J Kyung, R Lyall, B D Mishler, J B V T Ndongmo, M S Otegui, V Reddy, J Rexroth, S M Tebele, R Vanburen, J Verdier, U C Vothknecht, M F Wittenberg, E Zokov, M J Oliver, S Y Rhee

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

To thrive in extreme conditions, organisms have evolved a diverse arsenal of adaptations that confer resilience. These species, their traits, and the mechanisms underlying them comprise a valuable resource that can be mined for numerous conceptual insights and applied objectives. One of the most dramatic adaptations to water limitation is desiccation tolerance. Understanding the mechanisms underlying desiccation tolerance has important potential implications for medicine, biotechnology, agriculture, and conservation. However, progress has been hindered by a lack of standardization across sub-disciplines, complicating the integration of data and slowing the translation of basic discoveries into practical applications. Here, we synthesize current knowledge …

Registration Of R19-42848 As A Drought-Tolerant, High-Yielding Soybean Germplasm Line, Chengjun Wu, Derrick Harrison, Liliana Florez-Palacios, Andrea Acuna, Daniel Rogers, Rafael Marmo, John Carlin, Ben Fallen, Leandro Mozzoni, Caio Cenella Vieira

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

R19-42848 (Reg. no. GP-532, PI 706865) is a high-yielding soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] germplasm with drought tolerance released by the University of Arkansas System - Division of Agriculture Research & Extension Center in 2024. It is an F4-derived selection from the cross R12-2237 (drought-tolerant) x R12-519 (high-yielding). R19-42848 is a conventional (non-genetically modified) soybean with a relative maturity of 5.2. Plants have determinate growth habit with purple flower color, gray pubescence, and tan pod wall at maturity. Seed of R19-42848 has buff hilum color, 100-seed weight of 13.8 g, and contains on average 404.5 and 211.5 g kg-1 of …

Referrals And Repeat Screening For Social Determinants Of Health In Pediatric Primary Care, Ashley Gibson, Rachel Eisenhauer

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: While healthcare screening for social determinants of health (SDOH) is increasing, not every patient who screens positive receives a referral to care coordination (community health workers, social workers, or case managers). Additionally, the impact of referral on patients' repeat screening is unknown.

Objective: The study aims to identify specific domains of SDOH that are associated with referrals to care coordination and assess the outcome of patients re–screened for SDOH at routine pediatric visits within 1 year. Additionally, this study aims to compare the SDOH needs identified on the initial and repeat screen.

Methods: The population includes patients who screened …

Deconstructing Ideological Habits: An Analysis Of An Antiracist Place-Based Education Course, Terry John Stockton

Mid-Western Educational Researcher

White teachers enter culturally and racially diverse urban classrooms ill-prepared to teach. The resulting cultural mismatch contributes to educational disparities, including academic gaps and punitive imparities. Teacher education programs' attempts to address the gaps intend to immunize young teachers to the effects of implicit bias. However, the efforts do little to help teachers recognize how their implicit bias, in the form of ideological habits, created the need for a culturally responsive curriculum in the first place.

As part of a larger project, this study deconstructed three reflective essays assigned during an introductory place-based education course. The post-structural analysis used a …

Scoping Review Of Socio-Ecological Factors Contributing To Sleep Health Disparities In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Megan L. Wenzell, Carolyn E. Ievers-Landis, Sehyun Kim, Samantha Desimio, Siobhan Aaron, Meng Miao

Faculty Scholarship

Given the high prevalence of sleep problems in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), there is a critical need to examine how sleep problems may be exacerbated for children exposed to social and environmental adversity. Guided by the socio-ecological model, this review aimed to evaluate factors linked to sleep health disparities (SHDs) in children with ASD, determine possible gaps/limitations in existing literature, and identify possible solutions. A scoping review was selected to ascertain what is known about SHDs in ASD. Four databases identified articles from 2004 to 2023. Included articles were those conducted in children with ASD that focused on …