Digital Commons Network^™

Modeling Ewing Sarcoma Lung Metastasis, Atreyi Dasgupta, Lyazat Kurenbekova, Tajhal D Patel, Kimal Rajapakshe, Gargi Ghosal, Bikesh Nirala, Cristian Coarfa, Jason Yustein

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Ewing Sarcoma (EwS) is the second most common malignant bone tumor in adolescents and young adults. The single-most powerful predictor of outcome in EwS is presence of metastatic burden at the time of diagnosis. Patients with metastatic Ewing Sarcoma have an abysmal 5-year survival rate of 10–25%, which has not changed over the past 30–40 years. Thus, unraveling underlying mechanisms of EwS metastasis are imperative for developing effective therapeutic measures. Investigations towards this goal are limited by the lack of reliable genetically engineered mouse models and specialized metastatic models. Using two established cell lines, A673 and TC71, we generated lung …

Disparities In Mortality Among Acute Myeloid Leukemia-Related Hospitalizations, Sara Taveras Alam, Deepa Dongarwar, Elyse Lopez, Sarvari Yellapragada, Gustavo Rivero, Quillan Huang, Courtney Miler-Chism, Martha Mims, Hamisu M Salihu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Racial and socioeconomic disparities have become apparent in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) outcomes. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of hospitalizations for adults with a diagnosis of AML from 2009 to 2018 in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS). We categorized patients' ages in groups of≥60 years and stratified them by reported race/ethnicity. Exposures of interest were patient sociodemographics, hospital characteristics, and Elixhauser-comorbidity Index. Outcome of interest was in-hospital death. Statistical analyses included survey logistic regression to generate adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to quantify the independent associations between patient characteristics and mortality. Of 622,417 AML-related hospitalizations, …

Circadian Clock And Temporal Meal Pattern, Xin Li, Zheng Sun

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The central circadian clock in the brain controls the time-of-the-day variations in acute meal responses, with a low glycemic response but a high satiety/thermogenic response to meals consumed at waking compared to other time points. Consistently, studies show that consuming a significant proportion of calories, particularly carbohydrates, in breakfast is beneficial for the chronic management of obesity and its associated metabolic syndrome, compared to consuming identical meals at dinner. Conversely, breakfast skipping or/and late dinner can have unfavorable metabolic outcomes. It remains controversial how meal frequency affects metabolic health. In contrast, irregular meals, especially irregular breakfasts, show consistent adverse metabolic …

Fibrinogen-Like Protein 2: Its Biological Function Across Cell Types And The Potential To Serve As An Immunotherapy Target For Brain Tumors, Sheng Zhang, Ganesh Rao, Amy Heimberger, Shulin Li

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Brain tumors are among the 10 leading causes of cancer-related death and present unique treatment challenges due to their critical location, genetic heterogeneity, and the blood-brain barrier. Recent advances in targeted immunotherapy and immune checkpoint blocking therapy provide alternative therapeutic strategies for brain tumors. Fibrinogen-like protein 2 (FGL2), which induces transformation from low-grade glioma to high-grade glioblastoma, is a type II membrane protein that is highly expressed in both host immune cells and tumor cells. Studies have uncovered multiple forms of FGL2 proteins with a broad range of roles in inducing immune tolerance and avoiding immune surveillance in tumor cells. …

Serial Recombineering Cloning To Build Selectable And Tagged Genomic P[Acman] Bac Clones For Selection Transgenesis And Functional Gene Analysis Using Drosophila Melanogaster, Koen J T Venken, Nick Matinyan, Yezabel Gonzalez, Herman A Dierick

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Transgenes with genomic DNA fragments that encompass genes of interest are the gold standard for complementing null alleles in rescue experiments in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Of particular interest are genomic DNA clones available as bacterial artificial chromosomes (BACs) or fosmids from publicly available genomic DNA libraries. Genes contained within BAC and fosmid clones can be easily modified by recombineering cloning to insert peptide or protein tags to localize, visualize, or manipulate gene products, and to create point mutations or deletions for structure-function analysis of the inserted genes. However, since transgenesis efficiency is inversely correlated with transgene size, obtaining …

Multiplexed Transgenic Selection And Counterselection Strategies To Expedite Genetic Manipulation Workflows Using Drosophila Melanogaster, Koen J T Venken, Nick Matinyan, Yezabel Gonzalez, Herman A Dierick

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

We recently described a set of four selectable and two counterselectable markers that provide resistance and sensitivity, respectively, against their corresponding drugs using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. The four selectable markers provide animal resistance against G418 sulfate, Puromycin HCl, Blasticidin S, or Hygromycin B, while the two counterselection markers make animals sensitive to Ganciclovir/Acyclovir, or 5-Fluorocytosine. Unlike classical phenotypic markers, visual or fluorescent, which require extensive screening progeny of a genetic cross for desired genotypes, resistance and sensitivity markers eliminate this laborious procedure by directly selecting for, or counterselecting against, the desired genotypes. We demonstrated the usefulness of …

A Next-Generation Approach To Mental Health Outcomes: Treatment, Time, And Trajectories, Mario Montelongo, Jaehoon Lee, Edward Poa, Robert Boland, Katrina A Rufino, Michelle Patriquin, Hyuntaek Oh

Staff and Researcher Publications

Over the last several decades, inpatient psychiatric length of stay (LOS) has been greatly reduced to the detriment of patients. Latent variable mixture modeling, can be used to improve the quality of care for patients by identifying unobserved subgroups and optimize treatment variables, including LOS. This study had three objectives (1) to replicate the findings made by Oh et al. in a distinct sample, (2) to examine demographic differences related to inpatient treatment trajectories, and (3) to relate additional variables to each trajectory. We collected data on six key mental illness factors and information on felonies, misdemeanors, history of stopping …

Pediatric Rhabdomyosarcoma Incidence And Survival In The United States: An Assessment Of 5656 Cases, 2001–2017, Matthew T Mcevoy, David A Siegel, Shifan Dai, Mehmet Fatih Okcu, Mark Zobeck, Rajkumar Venkatramani, Philip J Lupo

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: While rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children and adolescents, past epidemiology studies of this malignancy used data that covered

METHODS: Incidence and survival were assessed for pediatric patients diagnosed with RMS during 2003-2017 and 2001-2016, respectively. Both demographic and clinical variables were evaluated. Age-adjusted incidence rates, average annual percent change (AAPC), and 5-year relative survival (RS) were calculated, all with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Cox regression models were used to evaluate the impact of demographic and clinical variables on survival.

RESULTS: We identified 5656 primary RMS cases in USCS during 2003-2017. The age-adjusted …

Molecular Mechanisms Regulating Wound Repair: Evidence For Paracrine Signaling From Corneal Epithelial Cells To Fibroblasts And Immune Cells Following Transient Epithelial Cell Treatment With Mitomycin C, Sonali Pal-Ghosh, Beverly A Karpinski, Himani Datta Majumdar, Trisha Ghosh, Julie Thomasian, Stephen R Brooks, Andrew P Sawaya, Maria I Morasso, Kaitlin K Scholand, Cintia S De Paiva, Jeremias G Galletti, Mary Ann Stepp

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

In this paper, we use RNAseq to identify senescence and phagocytosis as key factors to understanding how mitomyin C (MMC) stimulates regenerative wound repair. We use conditioned media (CM) from untreated (CMC) and MMC treated (CMM) human and mouse corneal epithelial cells to show that corneal epithelial cells indirectly exposed to MMC secrete elevated levels of immunomodulatory proteins including IL-1α and TGFβ1 compared to cells exposed to CMC. These factors increase epithelial and macrophage phagocytosis and promote ECM turnover. IL-1α supplementation can increase phagocytosis in control epithelial cells and attenuate TGFβ1 induced αSMA expression by corneal fibroblasts. Yet, we show …

Factors Affecting Adherence To Intranasal Treatment For Allergic Rhinitis: A Qualitative Study, Meha G Fox, Lauren M Cass, Kevin J Sykes, Emily L Cummings, Scott N Fassas, Rohit Nallani, Josh B Smith, Alexander G Chiu, Jennifer A Villwock

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

OBJECTIVE: To determine the facilitators of and barriers to adherence to use of intranasal pharmacotherapy (daily intranasal corticosteroids and/or antihistamine, and nasal saline irrigation [NSI]), for allergic rhinitis (AR).

METHODS: Patients were recruited from an academic tertiary care rhinology and allergy clinic. Semi-structured interviews were conducted after the initial visit and/or 4-6 weeks following treatment. Transcribed interviews were analyzed using a grounded theory, inductive approach to elucidate themes regarding patient adherence to AR treatment.

RESULTS: A total of 32 patients (12 male, 20 female; age 22-78) participated (seven at initial visit, seven at follow-up visit, and 18 at both). Memory …

Confucius, Wisdom, And Political Participation: Benevolence And Timeliness In The Analects, Sydney Morrow, Shane Ryan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper aims to address when the wise person should participate in politics. The question is addressed through engagement with the Analects. Rather than provide interpretations of key terms in the Analects, we provide an account of wisdom that draws from themes in the Analects. The case is made that the wise person is committed to participating in politics primarily because of the connection between wisdom and benevolence (ren 仁 in the Analects). We address challenges to the Confucian approach from the Zhuangzi concerning the potential harms of political participation. General political disengagement is not considered exemplary on the Confucian …

Disentangling The Effects Of Smartphone Screen Time, Checking Frequency, And Problematic Use On Executive Function: A Structural Equation Modelling Analysis, Wei Xing Toh, Wee Qin Ng, Hwajin Yang, Sujin Yang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The pervasiveness of smartphone engagement among young adults has attracted growing interest regarding its impact on cognitive processes. However, research on the relation between smartphone use and executive function (EF)—a set of adaptive, goal-directed control processes—remains inconclusive due to imprecise estimation of EF dimensions and inconsistent operationalisation of smartphone use in past studies. Therefore, we examined how two indices of smartphone use—screen time and checking frequency—would predict EF (common EF, shifting-specific-, and working-memory-specific components), using a latent-variable approach based on a comprehensive battery of EF tasks. We also examined the moderating role of problematic smartphone use in the link between …

Effects Of Positive Reappraisal And Self-Distancing On The Meaningfulness Of Everyday Negative Events, Clement Yong Hao Lau, William Tov

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Current work on meaning-making has primarily focused on major negative life events such as trauma and loss, leaving common daily adversities unexplored. This study aimed to examine how utilizing meaning-making strategies such as positive reappraisal and self-distancing (in isolation or in combination) can facilitate an adaptive processing of these daily negative experiences. Overall meaning and facets of meaning (coherence, purpose, and significance/mattering) were assessed at both global and situational levels. Results suggested that positive reappraisal was generally effective for enhancing situational meaning but not under all conditions. Specifically, when negative experiences were high on emotional intensity, reflecting on the experience …

The City Never Sleeps: But When Will Investment Banks Wake Up To The Climate Crisis?, Theodor Florian Cojoianu, Andrea G. F. Hoepner, Fabiola I. Schneider, Michael Urban, Anh Vu, Dariusz Wojcik

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Using a global dataset of over 840,000 equity, bond and syndicated loan investment banking deals, we build the fossil fuel investment brokerage profile of financial centres worldwide between 2000 and 2018. We also study whether city-level fossil fuel divestment commitments and country-level green banking policies impact the profile of fossil fuel financial centres over our study timeframe. We find that several financial centres shift their fossil fuel investment brokerage profiles substantially, including the asset classes in which they are active. However, we do not find any evidence that this is driven by city-level divestment commitments. In contrast, we find that …

What Are The Relationships Between Public Transit And Gentrification Progress? An Empirical Study In The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island Areas, Yefu Chen, Hao Xi, Junfeng Jiao

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Transit-oriented development has been a widely accepted tool among transportation planning practitioners; however, there are concerns about the risk of increasing residential property values leading to gentrification or displacements. Therefore, it is critical to provide precise investigations of the relationships between public transit and gentrification. Although numerous studies have explored this topic, few have discussed these relationships based on detailed measurements of gentrification from a regional perspective. This study aims to fill the research gap by measuring the gentrification subcategories through a hierarchical definition based on data in the New York–Northern New Jersey–Long Island areas and applying the transit desert …

Toxin Induced Parkinsonism And Hospitalization Related Adverse Outcome Mitigation For Parkinson’S Disease: A Comprehensive Review, Kenneth R. Dalton, Charles J. Kidd, Nawaz Hack

School of Medicine Publications

Patients with Parkinson’s disease admitted to the hospital have unique presentations. This unique subset of patients requires a multidisciplinary approach with a knowledge-based care team that can demonstrate awareness of complications specific to Parkinson’s disease to reduce critical care admissions, morbidity, and mortality. Early recognition of toxic exposures, medication withdrawals, or medication-induced symptoms can reduce morbidity and mortality. This review can assist in the critical assessment of new or exacerbating Parkinson’s disease symptoms.

Ash Aerosol Particle Size Distribution, Composition, And Deposition Behavior While Co-Firing Coal And Steam-Exploded Biomass In A 1.5 Mwth Combustor, Rajarshi Roy, Brian Schooff, Xiaolong Li, Scott Montgomery, Jacob Tuttle, Jost O.L. Wendt, Kingsley Dickson, Brian Iverson, Andrew R. Fry

Faculty Publications

Five different blends of Utah bituminous coal and steam-exploded pine (100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, 0/100 by mass) were fired in a 1.5 MWth combustor. Primary objectives were to understand mineral matter behavior by analyzing aerosol size distribution, aerosol size-segregated composition, ash deposition mass, and ash composition. For particle size < 0.1 μm, pure coal had the lowest aerosol concentration and pure biomass showed the highest (higher nucleation of potassium salts), a trend which reversed for particles >0.1 μm. During pure biomass combustion, aerosol particles >15 μm contained higher mass fractions of potassium (+126%), calcium (+132%), and iron (+115%) and lower fractions of aluminum (−49%) and silicon (−29%) than pure coal. Ash deposition mass decreased with increasing biomass blends. …

Forgotten Brother Reuben Lewis: Missouri River Fur Trader And Indian Agent For The Arkansas Cherokees, Jay H. Buckley, Deveney Reber

Faculty Publications

Reuben Lewis was born in 1777, the fourth and youngest child of William Lewis and Lucy Meriwether. Their oldest child, Jane, married and lived out her days at Locust Hill, the family estate in Virginia. The Lewis’ second child, baby Lucinda, died in infancy. Their third child, Meriwether – the closest in age and friendship to Reuben – became the famous first half of the Lewis and Clark Expedition which explored the uncharted West before he met his tragic and mysterious death on the Natchez Trace in Tennessee. While Reuben’s life has been rightly overshadowed by his older brother Meriwether’s …

Examination Of Korean Feminism From The Intersections Of Colonialism, Modernity, And Nationalism In Colonial Korea (1910–1945), Yae Hee Choi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis aims to investigate the politics of Korean feminism during the time of Japanese colonization (1910-1945) from the perspectives of colonialism, modernity, and nationalism. The study illustrates how Korean women perceived themselves in terms of individuals, colonial subjects, and Korean nationals during a period of significant societal changes. It also intends to broaden the boundaries of gender inquiries in colonial Korea, which often focus on binary constructions of Japanese repression versus national resistance. This study argues that a nationalist paradigm oversimplifies the intricate dynamics and varied experiences of colonized subjects, specifically women. The logic of nationalism places all forms …

Police Academy Attrition Rates: A Long-Term Analysis Of Female Candidates In California, Texas, Wisconsin, Arizona, And New Jersey, Shamus W. Smith

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Police agencies throughout the country still have an underrepresentation of women police officers. Research has shown that the benefits of hiring women police officers are many, as they have proven to be as competent as their male counterparts, less likely to use excessive force, can implement community-oriented policing, respond to calls for domestic violence effectively, bring about beneficial changes in policy for all agencies, and reduce the problems of sexual discrimination and harassment within an agency. Yet, the obstacles encountered for women are significantly different from their male counterparts. As such, this research uses secondary, non-identifiable data obtained from police …

Analysis Of Electrophysiological Markers And Correlated Components Of Neural Responses To Discourse Coherence, Kurt M. Masiello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Constructing meaning from spoken language is invaluable for learning, social interaction, and communication. In clinical populations with developmental disorders of speech comprehension, the severity of disruption can persist and vary from limiting occupational opportunities to lower performance outcomes. Previous research has reported an event-related potential (ERP) neural positivity over right hemisphere lateral anterior sites in response to semantic and discourse processing. Although useful as a marker for clinical populations of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and developmental language disorder (DLD), little is understood about the dynamics and neural sources of this biological marker. In addition to traditional methods of ERP analysis, …

Storytelling In Modernist Fiction: A “Method Of Presence”, Laura Malhotra

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the relationship between narrative modes in cinema and literature and adopts the lineage laid out by Lukács that connects the oral tradition and epic poetry to the novel. I attach art cinema to this lineage and seek to justify its position as an equally significant medium representative of the age in which it is produced. This study aims to correct one established view of film, put forth by the Frankfurt School, of its low value as an art form and as a site of meaning. I compare the birth of literary modernism in Britain to the emergence …

Indigenous Performances In Contemporary Indian Urban Public Theatres: Coloniality, Globalization, And The State, Mayurakshi Sen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Indigenous Performances in Contemporary Indian Urban Public Theatres: Coloniality, Globalization, and the State examines the aesthetic and political dimensions of contemporary public theatres in the major Indian cities of Kolkata, Mumbai, and Delhi, with a special focus on the utilization of India’s indigenous precolonial (or extra-colonial) classical, regional, and folk performance forms, elements, and repertoires in such urban practice. Through dramaturgical, ethnographic, and archival analyses, this dissertation studies significant contemporary productions from representative urban Indian theatre groups, including Nandikar, Rangakarmee, and Padatik in Kolkata; the Indian People’s Theatre Association, Mumbai, Ekjute, and Rangshila in Mumbai; and Circle Theatre Company and …

Origin And Evolution Of Marsupial-Specific Imprinting Clusters Through Lineage-Specific Gene Duplications And Acquisition Of Promoter Differential Methylation, Wenqi Cao, Kory C. Douglas, Paul B. Samollow, John Vandeberg, Xu Wang, Andrew G. Clark

School of Medicine Publications

Genomic imprinting is a parent-of-origin-specific expression phenomenon that plays fundamental roles in many biological processes. In animals, imprinting is only observed in therian mammals, with ∼200 imprinted genes known in humans and mice. The imprinting pattern in marsupials has been minimally investigated by examining orthologs to known eutherian imprinted genes. To identify marsupial-specific imprinting in an unbiased way, we performed RNA-seq studies on samples of fetal brain and placenta from the reciprocal cross progeny of two laboratory opossum stocks. We inferred allele-specific expression for >3,000 expressed genes and discovered/validated 13 imprinted genes, including three previously known imprinted genes, Igf2r, Peg10, …

Multi-Ancestry Transcriptome-Wide Association Analyses Yield Insights Into Tobacco Use Biology And Drug Repurposing, Fang Cheng, Xingyan Wang, Seon-Kyeong Jang, Bryan C. Quach, J. Dylan Weissenkampen, Chachrit Khunsriraksakul, Lina Yang, John Blangero, Joanne E. Curran, Ravindranath Duggirala, Juan M. Peralta

School of Medicine Publications

Most transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs) so far focus on European ancestry and lack diversity. To overcome this limitation, we aggregated genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics, whole-genome sequences and expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) data from diverse ancestries. We developed a new approach, TESLA (multi-ancestry integrative study using an optimal linear combination of association statistics), to integrate an eQTL dataset with a multi-ancestry GWAS. By exploiting shared phenotypic effects between ancestries and accommodating potential effect heterogeneities, TESLA improves power over other TWAS methods. When applied to tobacco use phenotypes, TESLA identified 273 new genes, up to 55% more compared with …

The Effect Of An American Heart Association–Approved Exercise Regimen On Burnout In Nurse Practitioners And Physician Assistants Working In Emergency Departments, Michelle Lee Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Burnout is a widely known state of physical and emotional fatigue previously noted to affect as many as 60% of healthcare providers, but one that is understudied in nurse practitioners and physician assistants working in emergency departments. It is imperative that the providers of healthcare recognize in themselves signs of burnout and have resources available to mitigate the condition. A pretest–posttest, quasi-experimental, nonequivalent control group, descriptive research design with descriptive statistics analysis was used to analyze answers to an email-based survey sent to nurse practitioners and physician assistants working for one large emergency medicine staffing company. The intent of this …

The Perceptions Of Faculty And Instructional Designers Regarding The Impact Of Professional Development To Teach Online Courses, Scott Mitchell January

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Leadership at a mid-sized 4-year university in the western region of Texas asserted a problem with the low amount of faculty training impacting online courses’ creation and quality. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to investigate the elements needed to design quality online courses, determine how faculty and instructional designers perceived professional development provided by the university to develop online courses, and find out how faculty and instructional designers perceived professional development impacted faculty skills as an online instructor. Three research questions were created which generated two interview protocols. The following research questions were used and were …

Examining Leadership Experiences And Practices Of African American Women In Higher Education Settings To Overcome Barriers, Tanya Stubbs White

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: This qualitative case study described the steps 11 African American women have practiced in growing and continuing their path to notable success in higher education leadership. No one size will fit all, but the methods used by African American women may guide other African American or culturally diverse women on how to transcend into and ascertain the well-deserved leadership roles in higher education administration or faculty careers. This study provided narratives of the women leaders to explain their journey to a leadership role. The purpose of the study was to describe the path, barriers, and supports that African American …

The Present And Future Status Of Heavy Neutral Leptons, Asli M. Abdullahi, Pablo Barham Alzás, Brian Batell, James Beacham, Alexey Boyarsky, Saneli Carbajal, Animesh Chatterjee, José I. Crespo-Anadón, Frank F. Deppisch, Albert De Roeck, Marco Drewes, Alberto Martin Gago, Rebeca Gonzalez Suarez, Evgueni Goudzovski, Athanasios Hatzikoutelis, Josu Hernandez-Garcia, Matheus Hostert, Marco Hufnagel, Philip Ilten

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

The existence of nonzero neutrino masses points to the likely existence of multiple Standard Model neutral fermions. When such states are heavy enough that they cannot be produced in oscillations, they are referred to as heavy neutral leptons (HNLs). In this white paper, we discuss the present experimental status of HNLs including colliders, beta decay, accelerators, as well as astrophysical and cosmological impacts. We discuss the importance of continuing to search for HNLs, and its potential impact on our understanding of key fundamental questions, and additionally we outline the future prospects for next-generation future experiments or upcoming accelerator run scenarios.

Student Awareness Of Models In First-Year Engineering Courses, Farshid Marbouti, Kelsey J. Rodgers, Angela K. Thompson, Matthew Verleger, Nicholas Hawkins

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Contribution: This study assesses more than 800 students' awareness of engineering model types before and after taking two first-year engineering courses across two semesters and evaluates the effect of each course. Background: All engineers must be able to apply and create models to be effective problem solvers, critical thinkers, and innovative designers. To help them develop these skills, as a first step, it is essential to assess how to increase students' awareness of engineering models. According to Bloom's taxonomy, the lower remember and understand levels, which encompass awareness, are necessary for achieving the higher levels, such as apply, analyze, evaluate, …