Digital Commons Network^™

Human-Animal Chimeras: An Omen For Disaster Or An Answer To Our Prayers?, Catherine A. Zimmermann

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note discusses the purpose of chimera research, various ethical arguments, and the current perception of chimera research in the United States to address aspects of the proposed legislation. Chimeras are unique in that they have both human and animal cells. Taking this into account, I also discuss the current regulatory structure and legal protections which provide a framework for the regulation of chimera research. I explain and analyze the law regarding the NIH moratorium and explore factors that have led the United States to consider lifting the moratorium while examining different legal perspectives which explain …

“Don’T Say Gay”: Florida’S Suppression Of Lgbtq+ Identities Under The Guise Of Parental Empowerment, Alex J. Snow

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note first discusses the legislative and judicial history of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) and Title IX. Primary attention is directed toward the interplay between the statutes, their similarities, and the theories pursuant to which discrimination may be established under each. Next, this Part discusses the historical debate over the scope of “sex” discrimination under Title VII and Title IX. Then, this Part examines the landmark Supreme Court case Bostock v. Clayton County’s substantial impact on the judicial interpretation of “sex” under Title VII and Title IX. Lastly, …

Commonwealth Times 2025-03-19

Commonwealth Times, 1969-

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of "Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir", Robert Bruce Scott

C2C Digital Magazine

Robb Scott, a co-editor of C2C Digital Magazine, studied and read closely Lamya H's new book, "Hijab Butch Blues, a Memoir," and has reviewed what he considers the key aspects of the author's autobiographical account of growing up and developing as a non-traditional female while conserving her religious heritage and practices within her Islamic faith community.

March 19, 2025, Faculty, Illinois Wesleyan University

2024-2025

No abstract provided.

An Alternative To Biliverdin, Mesobiliverdin Ixα And Mesobiliverdin-Enriched Microalgae: A Review On The Production And Applications Of Mesobiliverdin-Related Products, Naveena Poudyal, Jon Y. Takemoto, Yuan-Yu Lin, Cheng-Wei T. Chang

Chemistry and Biochemistry Student Research

Despite attracting interest for decades due to its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant capabilities, the use of biliverdin IXα (BV) in medicine and agriculture is hampered by uncertain purity and limited availability. A significant amount of effort has been devoted to the production and application of BV, but with limited success. Mesobiliverdin IXα (MBV), a natural BV analog derived from microalgae, offers a path to overcome the limitations of BV. MBV production is scalable, and it can be obtained at high purity. MBV and BV share important structural features (e.g., bridging propionate groups) and both are substrates of biliverdin reductase A (BVRA), …

The Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor Ric-8a Regulates The Sensitivity Of Constitutively Active Gαq To The Inhibitor Ym-254890, Morgan Dwyer, Jiansong Luo, Tyson Todd, Kendall Blumer, Gregory Tall, Philip Wedegaertner

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Faculty Papers

Heterotrimeric G proteins are stimulated under normal circumstances by G protein-coupled receptors to promote downstream intracellular signaling. Mutations can occur in αq at glutamine 209 (Q209) that cause constitutive, G protein-coupled receptor independent signaling due to disruption of GTPase activity. Specifically, Q209L/P mutations are oncogenic drivers of uveal melanoma. YM-254890 (YM) has been shown to selectively inhibit both WT and constitutively active (CA) αqQ209L/P by preventing the release of GDP and exchange for GTP, thereby halting downstream signaling. Because αqQL/P are thought to be primarily GTP-bound and GTPase deficient, the current mechanistic understanding of YM inhibition needs further investigation to …

Dr. Doris Banner, Founding Editor And Researcher For The First Gardner-Webb Faculty Emeriti Publication, Passed Away On March 19, Office Of University Communications

Gardner-Webb NewsCenter Archive

Dr. Doris Banner, an educator for over four decades, including more than 30 years at Gardner-Webb University, passed away March 19, 2025 in Rising Star, Texas. Banner was the founding editor and research director for the inaugural GWU Faculty Emeriti publication. She was also named to the University’s Gallery of Distinguished Alumni in 2003.

Nature Is Good To Think With: How Biomimicry Creates A “Sustainabling Resource”, Nica Davidov

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar Presentations

Dr. Nica Davidov presents slides from the 3/19 presentation on: Nature Is Good To Think With: How Biomimicry Creates a “Sustainabling Resource”

2025 Academic & Creative Excellence Reception Program, Lynn University

Academic and Creative Excellence (ACE) Reception Programs

The program for the 2025 Academic and Creative Excellence (ACE) Reception - the 17th annual - organized by the Lynn Library, working in conjunction with the Office of Academic Affairs. The reception is held on Wednesday, March 19, 2025 in the Salon at the Keith C. and Elaine Johnson Wold Performing Arts Center.

The Faculty Scholarship and Creative Activities Award is presented to Dr. Nava Dushi.

Gardner-Webb Awards Full-Tuition Ignite Scholarship To Eight Students, Office Of University Communications

Gardner-Webb NewsCenter Archive

Gardner-Webb University recently presented its full-tuition eightsemester Ignite Scholarship to eight students from North Carolina, South Carolina and California. They rose to the top among the 293 qualified applicants who interviewed for the scholarship. The finalists had an average unweighted GPA of 3.79, and were from 18 states, including California, Maine, Texas and Wisconsin. Everyone who interviewed is eligible to receive $2,000 per year at GWU.

Erratum: Correction: Soil Contamination By Environmentally Persistent Free Radicals And Dioxins Following Train Derailment In East Palestine, Oh (Environmental Science. Processes & Impacts (2025) 27 3 Doi: 10.1039/D4em00609g.), Myron L. Lard, Sarah E. Eichler, Peng Gao, Kuldeep Singh, Joseph D. Ortiz, Robert L. Cook, Slawomir Lomnicki, Stephania A. Cormier, Jennifer Richmond-Bryant

Division of Basic Science Faculty Publications

Correction for 'Soil contamination by environmentally persistent free radicals and dioxins following train derailment in East Palestine, OH' by Myron L. Lard et al., Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1039/d4em00609g.

Abiotic Variables Drive Different Aspects Of Fish Community Trait Variation And Species Richness Across The Continental United States, Alicia Mcgrew, Crysta Gantz, Brigid Wills, Benjamin Baiser, Sydne Record, Phoebe L. Zarnetske, Angela L. Strecker

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Intraspecific trait variation (ITV) is an increasingly important aspect of biodiversity and can provide a more complete perspective on how abiotic and biotic processes affect individuals, species' niches and ultimately community-level structure than traditional uses of trait means. Body size serves as a proxy for a suite of traits that govern species' niches. Distributions of co-occurring species body sizes can inform niche overlap, relate to species richness and uncover mechanistic drivers of diversity. We leveraged individual-level body size (length) in freshwater fishes and environmental data from the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) for 17 lakes and streams in the contiguous …

Special Delivery Of Proteinaceous Matter To Deep-Sea Microbes, Yuan Shen, Ronald Benner, Taylor A.B. Broek, Brett D. Walker, Matthew D. Mccarthy

Faculty Publications

Earth’s deep ocean holds a vast reservoir of dissolved organic carbon, traditionally considered old and resistant to microbial degradation. Radiocarbon analyses indicate the hidden occurrence of younger dissolved organic carbon components, assumed to be accessible to deep-sea microorganisms but not yet demonstrated. Using compound-class radiocarbon analysis, molecular characterization, and bioassay experiments, we provide direct evidence for rapid microbial utilization of young, labile, high–molecular weight proteinaceous material in bathypelagic waters. The abundance of labile proteinaceous material diminishes from epipelagic to mesopelagic waters but notably increases in bathypelagic waters, where it exhibits a short turnover time (days) and resembles surface plankton in …

Atlantic Sharpnose (Rhizoprionodon Terraenovae) Jaw, Rileigh Gonzalez, David Kerstetter

All Scans: Kerstetter Fisheries and Avian Ecology 3D Scan Series

No abstract provided.

The Moving Mandala: Exploring The Pro-Social Effects Of Musical And Non-Musical Synchrony In Children In A Virtual World, Liam Cross, Narcis Pares, Olga Gali, Sena Beste Ercan, Batuhan Sayis, Pamela Heaton, Gray Atherton

School of Psychology

Synchronous movement between individuals has been shown to increase pro-sociality, such as closeness and generosity. To date, synchrony research tests these effects using a variety of movement tasks, including musical and non-musical coordination. However, musical versus non-musical synchrony may have separable pro-social effects. To test this, we had 60 children immersed in an augmented reality space called the 'Moving Mandala' where they moved asynchronously with only visual cues, synchronously with only visual cues or synchronously with musical and visual cues. We then tested for differences in pro-social effects using sharing and proxemics tasks. Results showed that while the synchrony version …

Long Lashes, Mixed Signals: Investigating The Effect Of Eyelash Length On Perceived Health, Attractiveness, And Sexual Receptivity, Farid Pazhoohi

School of Psychology

Eyelashes have evolved as a protective feature for the eyes, offering defense against external dangers such as contamination, excessive evaporation, and shear stress from airflow. They may also serve as indicators of an individual’s health, since various diseases, both congenital and non-congenital, can influence eyelash length. Building on the argument of evolutionary functionality, recent research into human preferences for eyelash length, from an evolutionary perspective, has identified an inverted-U preference pattern across all ethnic groups. However, this research primarily focused on the attractiveness of eyelash length, leaving questions about the alignment of health perceptions and attractiveness and how eyelash length …

The Bg News March 19, 2025, Bowling Green State University

BG News (Student Newspaper)

The BGSU campus student newspaper. March 19, 2025. Volume 104-Issue 21.

Adverse Childhood Experiences And The Impact Of Resiliency On Child Behavior: A Quality Improvement Project, Macy Kraft

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Capstones

Background: Adverse Childhood Experiences can have a significant impact on a person’s future health and wellness. Therefore, it is necessary for healthcare professionals to increase their understanding of possible mediating factors to lessen the impact of these experiences should they occur.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of an evidence-based quality improvement initiative designed to enhance the formal behavioral assessments of pre-school children following the participation of their caregivers in an ACEs and resiliency educational intervention.

Methods: Implementation of a two-armed intervention; a brief educational session aimed at providing an introduction to ACEs and a …

Intermittent Pneumatic Compression And Heart Rate Variability, Bethany Elisabeth Hartwell

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Intermittent Pneumatic Compression (IPC) technology has historic use in promoting fluid movement throughout the body, specifically the legs following surgery. When used in athletics and sports performance training, IPC boots help athletes recover faster and reduce soreness in the lower legs. Research has demonstrated that these boots can significantly shorten recovery times after use. However, the specific mechanisms through which these boots promote recovery remain unclear. One possibility is that IPC boots enhance parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity, which may reduce physiological stress; however, this hypothesis has not yet been formally tested. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a measure of …

The Relationship Between Sexual Orientation, Anxiety, And Mental Health Access With Suicidal Ideation Among Veterans, Winsome R. Ashley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prior studies have examined the connection between minority sexual orientation (MSO) and mental health; however, very little is known about the effect among veterans. The objective of this cross-sectional quantitative study aimed to determine the relationship between veteran status, sexual orientation, anxiety levels, access to mental health services, and suicidal ideation among veterans. More specifically, it addressed if veteran status modifies the association between anxiety and suicidal ideation, if marital status modifies the association between mental health care access and suicidal ideation, and if veteran status modifies the association between sexual orientation and suicidal ideation after controlling for age, gender, …

Effective Strategies To Increase Workplace Inclusivity In The Oil And Gas Industry, Patricia Lindsey Isaac

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some oil and gas industry leaders face challenges in implementing effective strategies to increase workplace inclusivity, which can result in lower profits, decreased employee engagement, and reduced productivity. Executive leaders and managers, responsible for organizational performance and workforce retention, are particularly concerned about addressing these challenges to sustain business success and competitiveness. Grounded in the leader-member exchange theory, the purpose of this qualitative pragmatic inquiry was to explore strategies executive leaders use to enhance inclusivity in the oil and gas industry. The participants were nine executives, leaders, and managers from the oil and gas sector who had previously implemented effective …

Utility Of 3-Dimensional Echocardiography In Patients With Complex Intracardiac Connections And Ventricular Septal Defects, Aura Andrea Sanchez Mejia, Tam T Doan, Christian Lilje, Minh B Nguyen, Ricardo H Pignatelli, Shagun Sachdeva, Anitha Parthiban

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The surgical management of patients with complex intracardiac connections, ventricular septal defect (VSD), and 2 adequately sized ventricles is challenging. Understanding the VSD anatomy and its spatial relationships with the outflow tracts is critical to determining the suitability for biventricular repair. Transthoracic 2-dimensional echocardiography (2D-echo) is the primary cardiac imaging tool in congenital heart disease. Transthoracic 3-dimensional echocardiography (3D-echo) has an additive role over 2D-echo in the definition of the potential baffle pathway from the VSD to the semilunar valves, the anatomical characteristics of the VSD, and any substrate for systemic outflow tract obstruction postrepair. In this paper, we describe …

Eco-Microbiology: Discovering Biochemical Enhancers Of Pet Biodegradation By Piscinibacter Sakaiensis, Felipe-Andrés Piedra, Miguel A Salazar, Sara Abouelniaj, Raayed Rahman, Justin C Clark, Yimo Han, Zhao Wang, Anthony Maresso

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The scale of plastic pollution boggles the mind. Nearly 400 megatons of virgin plastics are produced annually, with an environmental release rate of 80%, and plastic waste, including microplastics and nanoplastics, is associated with a plethora of problems. The naturally evolved abilities of plastic-degrading microbes offer a starting point for generating sustainable and eco-centric solutions to plastic pollution-a field of endeavor we term eco-microbiology. Here, we developed an iterative discovery procedure coupling faster polyethylene terephthalate (PET)-dependent bioactivity screens with longer-term PET biodegradation assays to find biochemical boosters of PET consumption by the bacterium Piscinibacter sakaiensis. We discovered multiple hits …

Enthesis Size And Hand Preference: Asymmetry In Humans Contrasts With Symmetry In Nonhuman Primates, Lucyna A. Bowland, Lesley H. Eason, Lukas Kyle Delezene, Michael J. Plavcan

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

ObjectivesHumans display species-wide right-hand preference across tasks, but this pattern has not been observed at comparable levels in nonhuman primates, suggesting the behavior arose after the panin-hominin split. Muscle attachment sites (entheses) are used to infer soft tissue anatomy and reconstruct behaviors within skeletal populations, but whether entheseal size asymmetry can reflect hand preference remains unclear. If entheseal asymmetry is linked to hand preference, we expect to see greater asymmetry in human hands, where hand preference is more pronounced, compared to nonhuman primates. We tested for bilateral asymmetry in the size of the opponens pollicis muscle flange using a sample …

Editorial: Old Drugs: Confronting Recent Advancements And Challenges, Anna Wiktorowska-Owczarek, Diego Iacono, Magdalena Jasińska-Stroschein

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

No abstract provided.

The Present And Future Of Robotic Surgery In Breast Cancer And Breast Reconstruction, Brett Allen, Alexis Knutson, Noama Iftekhar, Casey Giles, Jarrell Patterson, Joshua Macdavid, Richard Baynosa

Department of Plastic Surgery Faculty Research

Background: Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in women with an improving mortality rate and a growing need for reconstruction following oncologic resection. Advancements in robotic surgery and minimally invasive techniques have offered refinement to traditional open techniques of flap harvest for reconstruction, particularly regarding improved donor site morbidity. Methods: The literature review was based on a PubMed database search using the keyword “Robotic breast reconstruction” in conjunction with the Boolean operators “Flap”, “Latissimus”, and “DIEP” to specify the search. In total, 106 results were generated, which were then manually reviewed and condensed for a comprehensive stance on …

An Investigation Of The Acute Effects Of Dance On Heart Rate Variability In People With Parkinson’S, Mirza M F Subhan, Jaspreet Kaur, Sophia Hulbert, Ruth Way

School of Biomedical Sciences

Background: There is limited research investigating heart rate variability (HRV) in Parkinson’s during dance. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of dance on HRV in people with Parkinson’s (PwP). Methods: Ten PwP were recruited from a Parkinson’s dance class and completed six sessions; the first half was danced sitting down, while the latter half was standing up. Breathing rate, skin temperature and HRV data were collected and analysed by repeated measures analysis of variance. Results: Analysing all six sections together showed skin temperature (p < 0.001), heart rate (HR; p = 0.029), short-term HRV (SD1; p = 0.025), normalised standard deviation of all the R-R intervals (nSDRR; p = 0.028), and breathing rate (BR; p = 0.001) were significantly different. Conclusions: Significant changes in HR, SD1, nSDRR, BR and skin temperature of PwP occurred during all sections, showing dance improved autonomic function. Further work examining the long-term effects of HRV in a community setting is needed to understand the potential benefits of dance for PwP.

Dynamic Mean-Field Theory For Continuous Random Networks, Wilson A. Zuniga-Galindo

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This article studies the dynamics of the mean-field approximation of continuous random networks. These networks are stochastic integrodifferential equations driven by Gaussian noise. The kernels in the integral operators are realizations of generalized Gaussian random variables. The equation controls the time evolution of a macroscopic state interpreted as neural activity, which depends on position and time. Such a network corresponds to a statistical field theory (SFT) given by a momenta-generating functional. Discrete versions of the mentioned networks appeared in spin glasses and as models of artificial neural networks. Each of these discrete networks corresponds to a lattice SFT, where the …

A Brief Commentary On Human-Ai Attachment And Possible Impacts On Family Dynamics, Brandon T. Mcdaniel Phd, Amanda Coupe, Allison Weston, Jessica A. Pater

Health Services and Informatics Research

Objective: In this brief commentary article, we outline an emerging idea that it may be possible that as Conversational Artificial Intelligence (CAI) becomes a part of an individual’s environment and interacts with them their attachment system may become activated, potentially leading to behaviors—such as seeking out the CAI to feel safe in times of stress—that have typically been reserved for human-to-human attachment relationships. We term this attachmentlike behavior, but future work must determine if these behaviors are driven by a Human-AI attachment or something else entirely. Background: CAI is an emerging technical advancement that is the cornerstone of many everyday …