Digital Commons Network^™

Beth Levine's Legacy: From The Discovery Of Becn1 To Therapies A Mentees' Perspective, Zhenyi An, Wei-Chung Chiang, Álvaro F Fernández, Luis H Franco, Congcong He, Shu-Yi Huang, Eunmyong Lee, Yang Liu, Salwa Sebti, Sanae Shoji-Kawata, Shyam Sirasanagandla, Richard C Wang, Yongjie Wei, Yuting Zhao, Silvia Vega-Rubin-De-Celis

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

With great sadness, the scientific community received the news of the loss of Beth Levine on 15 June 2020. Dr. Levine was a pioneer in the autophagy field and work in her lab led not only to a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms regulating the pathway, but also its implications in multiple physiological and pathological conditions, including its role in development, host defense, tumorigenesis, aging or metabolism. This review does not aim to provide a comprehensive view of autophagy, but rather an outline of some of the discoveries made by the group of Beth Levine, from the perspective of …

Neurovascular Disease: 2022 Update, Louise D Mccullough

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In this update we present a series of papers focused on topics that have emerged in vascular disease over the prior year. The first two papers focus on the pathogenesis of vascular malformations, the first on brain arteriovenous malformations, and the second on cerebral cavernous malformations. These disorders can lead to significant brain injuries from intracerebral hemorrhage (if they rupture) or other neurological complications, including seizures. The next set of papers reflects work that has advanced our understanding of how the brain and the immune system "communicate" after brain injury, including stroke (papers 3-6). The first of these shows that …

Antimicrobial Efficacy Of Gaseous Chlorine Dioxide For Inactivation Of Salmonella And Enterococcus Faecium Nrrl B-2354 On Dried Basil Leaves, Tushar Verma, Xinyao Wei, Byron D. Chaves, Terry Howell Jr., Jeyamkondan Subbiah

Food Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research aims to investigate the efficacy of chlorine dioxide gas on the inactivation of Salmonella on dried basil leaves and evaluate the suitability of E. faecium as a surrogate for Salmonella. Dried basil leaves (2.0 ± 0.1 g) inoculated with a 5-strain Salmonella cocktail or E. faecium were packed in a paper bag, heat-sealed, and placed inside a chlorine dioxide treatment chamber. The samples were exposed to different levels of gas concentration (5, 10, and 15 mg/L) and relative humidity (60, 70, 80%) for various exposure times. The treated samples were diluted with neutralizing buffer and plated onto …

Immunotherapy Approaches For The Treatment Of Diffuse Midline Gliomas, Joshua D Bernstock, Samantha E Hoffman, Ari D Kappel, Pablo A Valdes, Walid Ibn Essayed, Neil V Klinger, Kyung-Don Kang, Stacie K Totsch, Hannah E Olsen, Charles W Schlappi, Katharina Filipski, Florian A Gessler, Lissa Baird, Mariella G Filbin, Rintaro Hashizume, Oren J Becher, Gregory K Friedman

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Diffuse midline gliomas (DMG) are a highly aggressive and universally fatal subgroup of pediatric tumors responsible for the majority of childhood brain tumor deaths. Median overall survival is less than 12 months with a 90% mortality rate at 2 years from diagnosis. Research into the underlying tumor biology and numerous clinical trials have done little to change the invariably poor prognosis. Continued development of novel, efficacious therapeutic options for DMGs remains a critically important area of active investigation. Given that DMGs are not amenable to surgical resection, have only limited response to radiation, and are refractory to traditional chemotherapy, immunotherapy …

Oscillations Of The Circadian Clock Protein, Bmal-1, Align To Daily Cycles Of Mechanical Stimuli: A Novel Means To Integrate Biological Time Within Predictive In Vitro Model Systems, Hannah K Heywood, Laurence Gardner, Martin M Knight, David A Lee

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: In vivo, the circadian clock drives 24-h rhythms in human physiology. Isolated cells in vitro retain a functional clockwork but lack necessary timing cues resulting in the rapid loss of tissue-level circadian rhythms. This study tests the hypothesis that repeated daily mechanical stimulation acts as a timing cue for the circadian clockwork. The delineation and integration of circadian timing cues into predictive in vitro model systems, including organ-on-a-chip (OOAC) devices, represent a novel concept that introduces a key component of in vivo physiology into predictive in vitro model systems.

METHODS: Quiescent bovine chondrocytes were entrained for 3 days by …

Patient-Reported Outcomes Of Primary Total Ankle Arthroplasty In Patients Aged <50 Years, M Pierce Ebaugh, Travis Alford, Kamen Kutzarov, Elizabeth Davis, Michael Greaser, William C Mcgarvey

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background:

Compared to more prevalent arthritic conditions, ankle arthritis is complicated by an earlier age of onset. Recently published data demonstrates excellent survivorship and complication rates in short-/midterm follow-up of younger patients who received a primary total ankle arthroplasty (TAA). Additionally, older TAA patients display comparable reported outcomes relative to hip/knee arthroplasty. However, there remains a paucity of literature surrounding the reported outcomes of younger patients undergoing TAA. Thus, our aim was to assess the reported outcomes of individuals aged <50 years receiving a primary TAA.

Methods:

A retrospective cohort analysis of adult patients <50 years who received a primary total ankle replacement was conducted. Patient demographics, diagnosis, treatment, and outcome characteristics were recorded from a chart review of 41 patients with at least 1 year of postoperative clinical follow-up. Postoperative reported outcomes were obtained via telephone interviews. Primary outcomes that were measured included emotional and physical health, activity limitation, ambulation, and global health. Measures used included the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36), Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Global Health, and Sickness Impact Profile Ambulation. The functional outcomes in our study sample were compared with age- and gender-matched norms from a general US population, and 95% CIs were calculated for each functional outcome mean. Student t test was used for continuous variables, and χ2 analysis was used …

Diagnostic Accuracy Of Calculated Tumor Volumes And Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Values In Predicting Endometrial Cancer Grade, Chandan Kakkar, Kamini Gupta, Kunal Jain, Vikram Narang, Aminder Singh, Kavita Saggar, Namita Bansal, Dania Cioni, Emanuele Neri

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been shown to be an accurate imaging technique for the preoperative assessment of local staging of endometrial cancer and for evaluating the depth of myometrial invasion.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a single-center retrospective study performed on patients with histopathologically proven endometrial carcinoma who underwent an MRI examination of the pelvis between October 2017 and May 2020.

RESULTS: In the present analysis, mean apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values for each histologic grade were 0.72 ± 0.13 × 10

CONCLUSION: Preoperative noninvasive radiological assessment for tumor volume, TV/ UV or tumor volume/uterine volume is important …

Evaluation Of Contemporary Echocardiographic And Histomorphology Parameters In Predicting Mortality In Patients With Endomyocardial Biopsy-Proven Cardiac Al Amyloidosis, Efstratios Koutroumpakis, Adam Niku, Christopher K Black, Abdelrahman Ali, Humaira Sadaf, Juhee Song, Nicolas Palaskas, Cezar Iliescu, Jean-Bernard Durand, Syed Wamique Yusuf, Hans C Lee, L Maximilian Buja, Anita Deswal, Jose Banchs

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

INTRODUCTION: This study examined the role of echocardiographic and cardiac histomorphology parameters in predicting mortality in patients with cardiac AL amyloidosis.

METHODS: Patients with endomyocardial biopsy-proven cardiac AL amyloidosis treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center between 6/2011 and 6/2020 were identified. Stored echocardiographic images and endomyocardial biopsy samples were processed for myocardial strain analysis and a detailed histomorphology characterization.

RESULTS: Of 43 patients; 44% were women and 63% white. Median age was 65 years; 51% underwent stem cell transplantation (SCT). Thirty patients (70%) died during follow up (median follow up: 4.1 years). Lower LA strain (

CONCLUSION: Lower LA strain …

Cytokines And Chemokines Profile In Encephalitis Patients: A Meta-Analysis, Alireza Soltani Khaboushan, Mohammad-Taha Pahlevan-Fallahy, Parnian Shobeiri, Antônio L Teixeira, Nima Rezaei

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Encephalitis is caused by autoimmune or infectious agents marked by brain inflammation. Investigations have reported altered concentrations of the cytokines in encephalitis. This study was conducted to determine the relationship between encephalitis and alterations of cytokine levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum.

Methods: We found possibly suitable studies by searching PubMed, Embase, Scopus, and Web of Science, systematically from inception to August 2021. 23 articles were included in the meta-analysis. To investigate sources of heterogeneity, subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis were conducted. The protocol of the study has been registered in PROSPERO with a registration ID of CRD42021289298. …

Editor's Note (Volume 22), Jim Baird

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

The Gilded Edge: Two Audacious Women And The Cyanide Love Triangle That Shook America, By Cynthia Prendergast & Bohemians West: Free Love, Family, And Radicals In Twentieth-Century America, By Sherry L. Smith, Geneva Gano

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

The Point Alma Venus Manuscripts: Preliminary Versions Of The Women At Point Sur, By Robinson Jeffers, Jim Baird

Jeffers Studies

No abstract provided.

Control-Core: A Framework For Simulation And Design Of Closed-Loop Peripheral Neuromodulation Control Systems, Pradeeban Kathiravelu, Mark Arnold, Jake Fleischer, Yuyu Yao, Shubham Awasthi, Aviral Kumar Goel, Andrew Branen, Parisa Sarikhani, Gautam Kumar, Mayuresh V. Kothare, Babak Mahmoudi

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Closed-loop Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) based on physiological feedback signals is a promising approach to regulate organ functions and develop therapeutic devices. Designing closed-loop neurostimulation systems requires simulation environments and computing infrastructures that support i) modeling the physiological responses of organs under neuromodulation, also known as physiological models, and ii) the interaction between the physiological models and the neuromodulation control algorithms. However, existing simulation platforms do not support closed-loop VNS control systems modeling without extensive rewriting of computer code and manual deployment and configuration of programs. The CONTROL-CORE project aims to develop a flexible software platform for designing and implementing …

Presence 5 For Racial Justice Workshop: Fostering Dialogue Across Medical Education To Disrupt Anti-Black Racism In Clinical Encounters, Megha Shankar, Kelsey Henderson, Raquel Garcia, Gabrielle Li, Ke Andrea Titer, Rhonda Graves Acholonu, Utibe R. Essien, Cati Brown-Johnson, Joy Cox, Jonathan G. Shaw, Marie Christine Haverfield, Kenji Taylor, Sonoo Thadaney Israni, Donna Zulman

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Introduction: Anti-Black racism has strong roots in American health care and medical education. While curricula on social determinants of health are increasingly common in medical training, curricula directly addressing anti-Black racism are limited. Existing frameworks like the Presence 5 framework for humanism in medicine can be adapted to develop a novel workshop that promotes anti-racism communication. Methods: We performed a literature review of anti-racism collections and categorized anti-racism communication practices using the Presence 5 framework to develop the Presence 5 for Racial Justice Workshop. Implementation included an introductory didactic, a small-group discussion, and a large-group debrief. Participants evaluated the workshop …

Emerging Technologies And Approaches For In Situ, Autonomous Observing In The Arctic, Craig M. Lee, Michael Degrandpre, John Guthrie, Victoria Hill, Ron Kwok, James Morison, Christopher J. Cox, Hanumant Singh, Timothy P. Stanton, Jeremy Wilkinson

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Understanding and predicting Arctic change and its impacts on global climate requires broad, sustained observations of the atmosphere-ice-ocean system, yet technological and logistical challenges severely restrict the temporal and spatial scope of observing efforts. Satellite remote sensing provides unprecedented, pan-Arctic measurements of the surface, but complementary in situ observations are required to complete the picture. Over the past few decades, a diverse range of autonomous platforms have been developed to make broad, sustained observations of the ice-free ocean, often with near-real-time data delivery. Though these technologies are well suited to the difficult environmental conditions and remote logistics that complicate Arctic …

Lightweight And Expressive Fine-Grained Access Control For Healthcare Internet-Of-Things, Shengmin Xu, Yingjiu Li, Robert H. Deng, Yinghui Zhang, Xiangyang Luo, Ximeng Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Healthcare Internet-of-Things (IoT) is an emerging paradigm that enables embedded devices to monitor patients vital signals and allows these data to be aggregated and outsourced to the cloud. The cloud enables authorized users to store and share data to enjoy on-demand services. Nevertheless, it also causes many security concerns because of the untrusted network environment, dishonest cloud service providers and resource-limited devices. To preserve patients' privacy, existing solutions usually apply cryptographic tools to offer access controls. However, fine-grained access control among authorized users is still a challenge, especially for lightweight and resource-limited end-devices. In this paper, we propose a novel …

Secure Cloud Data Deduplication With Efficient Re-Encryption, Haoran Yuan, Xiaofeng Chen, Jin Li, Tao Jiang, Jianfeng Wang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Data deduplication technique has been widely adopted by commercial cloud storage providers, which is both important and necessary in coping with the explosive growth of data. To further protect the security of users' sensitive data in the outsourced storage mode, many secure data deduplication schemes have been designed and applied in various scenarios. Among these schemes, secure and efficient re-encryption for encrypted data deduplication attracted the attention of many scholars, and many solutions have been designed to support dynamic ownership management. In this paper, we focus on the re-encryption deduplication storage system and show that the recently designed lightweight rekeying-aware …

Fundamental Data Analysis Tools And Concepts For Bioacoustical Research, Chandra Salgado Kent, Tiago A. Marques, Danielle Harris

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Bioacoustics is a growing field of research in which sound is measured to gain knowledge about species’ natural history and their environments. For example, bioacousticians have been able to create phylogenies, identify populations, and estimate abundance using sound. Moreover, today, many animals are exposed to human-generated noise, which can impact animals’ behavior, ability to communicate, physiology, hearing, and, in some instances, survival. Bioacoustics, thus, is commonly used to assess and predict the impacts of anthropogenic noise on animals and their populations. The use of bioacoustics to address such research questions, however, is only effective provided the quantitative and statistical analysis …

Power Of Place, Courses And Events, Illinois Wesleyan University

Annual Intellectual Theme

No abstract provided.

2022 Power Of Place Annual Theme, Illinois Wesleyan University

Annual Intellectual Theme

No abstract provided.

Implementing The National Quality Standard In Schools: Leadership That Motivates Improvement Initiatives Through Psychological Ownership, Gillian Kirk, Lennie Barblett

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

From 2016, all Western Australian schools were mandated to implement the National Quality Standard (NQS) in Kindergarten through to Year 2. Over the first year of implementation, this mandate had varying degrees of success in adoption. This study examined four schools which were identified as having implemented the NQS. A qualitative methodology was employed to examine those factors that supported implementation. A key finding was the integral role played by distributed leadership in adopting new initiatives. Using Activity Theory to conceptualise the data, it was found that psychological ownership was a key factor in enabling distributed leadership. Ownership was enabled …

Mixed-Ability Grouping In Physical Education: Investigating Ability And Inclusivity In Pedagogic Practice, Shaun D. Wilkinson, Dawn Penney

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In the United Kingdom (UK) particularly, grouping strategies in secondary education have attracted considerable political attention. While setting students by ability is frequently adopted in mathematics, English and science, mixed-ability grouping is common in other subjects, including physical education (PE). Educational research exploring grouping has highlighted the need for research to extend understanding of the pedagogical assumptions, challenges and/or opportunities associated with the use of mixed-ability grouping in various subject and school settings. This case study research sought to examine mixed-ability grouping with a particular focus on how this grouping strategy was enacted in Key Stage 3 (Years 7, 8 …

Power, Passion And Politics: A Grounded Theory Study Of Academic Experiences In Policy Development And Implementation In Higher Education, Marie Brennan

Doctoral

This research study is designed to investigate the lived experiences and perspectives of the academic community on policy development in Irish higher education. A review of the current policy landscape in Ireland and Europe and in particular empirical studies concerning policy implementation provided the focus of the study. The initial study focused on contemporary literature on policy development practices affected by globalisation and subsequently the issues at a national level. Where the gaps in knowledge were identified were in terms of policy implementation at the local level and where the study is aligned. The participants in the study are academics …

Identification Of Biomarkers For The Prediction Of Radiation Toxicity In Prostate Cancer Patients, Daniel Cullen

Doctoral

The success of radiotherapy in tumour control depends on the total dose given. However, the tolerance of the normal tissues surrounding the tumour limits this dose. It is not known why some patients develop radiation toxicity and, currently, it is not possible to predict before treatment which patients will experience adverse effects. Thus, there is an unmet clinical need for a new test to identify patients at risk of radiation toxicity. The aim of this study was to determine if spectral variations in blood lymphocytes from PCa patients may suggest Raman spectral bands that could be used in future research …

To Investigate The Foveal Avascular Zone In A Young Healthy Population Using Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography, Susan O'Shea

Masters

Introduction/Aims Inflammatory diseases such as diabetes, glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) can alter the size and shape of the foveal avascular zone (FAZ). Macular pigment (MP), a powerful antioxidant, located at the macula can protect the eye from oxidative stress damage. This study aims to investigate possible factors affecting the FAZ, such as vessel perfusion and overweight/obesity, in association with MP status in a young, healthy population. Normative values for FAZ size/shape and vascularity will also be proposed.

Methods One hundred and fifty-four subjects aged 18-35 years old were recruited. Superficial FAZ area, diameter, ganglion cell layer, central macular …

The Impact Of Nutrition And Gastrointestinal Symptoms On Health-Related Quality Of Life In Survivorship After Oesophageal Cancer Surgery, Sarah Bennett, Conor F. Murphy, Michelle Fanning, John V. Reynolds, Suzanne Doyle, Claire L. Donohoe

Articles

Summary

Background and Aims Oesophagectomy is the primary curative treatment for oesophageal cancer but is associated with considerable postoperative morbidity and mortality. To better understand the aetiology of impaired health-related quality of life (HRQL) in oesophageal cancer survivors (OCS), this study sought to determine the longitudinal changes in nutritional status, nutrition-impact symptoms (NIS), and HRQL in this cohort, and to determine which variables have the greatest impact on postoperative HRQL decline.

Methods Data, derived from St. James' Hospital, Dublin, included patients who underwent oesophagectomy from October 2017 to May 2019 and attended clinic preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively. A subset …

Potential Interactions Between Metal-Based Phenanthroline Drugs And The Unfolded Protein Response Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Pathway, Tadhg O'Leary, Pauraic Mccarron, Michael Devereux, Steve Meaney

Articles

The unfolded protein response has recently been implicated as a mechanism by which 1,10-phenanthrolinecontaining coordination compounds trigger cell death. We explored the interaction of two such compounds —one containing copper and one containing manganese—with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Pretreatment with anisomycin significantly enhanced the cytotoxic activity of both metal-based compounds in A2780, but only the copper-based compound in A549 cells. The effects of pretreatment with tunicamycin were dependent on the nature of the metal center in the compounds. In A2780 cells, the cytotoxic action of the copper compound was reduced by tunicamycin only at high concentration. In contrast, in A549 …

An Audio Processing Pipeline For Acquiring Diagnostic Quality Heart Sounds Via Mobile Phone, Davoud Shariat Panah, Andrew Hines, Joseph Mckeever, Susan Mckeever

Articles

Recently, heart sound signals captured using mobile phones have been employed to develop data-driven heart disease detection systems. Such signals are generally captured in person by trained clinicians who can determine if the recorded heart sounds are of diagnosable quality. However, mobile phones have the potential to support heart health diagnostics, even where access to trained medical professionals is limited. To adopt mobile phones as self-diagnostic tools for the masses, we would need to have a mechanism to automatically establish that heart sounds recorded by non-expert users in uncontrolled conditions have the required quality for diagnostic purposes. This paper proposes …

An Improved Wild Horse Optimization Algorithm For Reliability Based Optimal Dg Planning Of Radial Distribution Networks, Mohammed Hamouda Ali, Salah Kamel, Mohamed H. Hassan, Marcos Tostado-Véliz, Hossam Zawbaa

Articles

This paper introduces a novel technique for optimal distribution system (DS) planning with distributed generation (DG) systems. It is being done to see how active and reactive power injections affect the system’s voltage profile and energy losses. DG penetration in the power systems is one approach that has several advantages such as peak savings, loss lessening, voltage profile amelioration. It also intends to increase system reliability, stability, and security. The main goal of optimal distributed generation (ODG) is a guarantee to achieve the benefits mentioned previously to increase the overall system efficiency. For extremely vast and complicated systems, analytical approaches …

Examining The Size Of The Latent Space Of Convolutional Variational Autoencoders Trained With Spectral Topographic Maps Of Eeg Frequency Bands, Taufique Ahmed, Luca Longo

Articles

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique of recording brain electrical potentials using electrodes placed on the scalp [1]. It is well known that EEG signals contain essential information in the frequency, temporal and spatial domains. For example, some studies have converted EEG signals into topographic power head maps to preserve spatial information [2]. Others have produced spectral topographic head maps of different EEG bands to both preserve information in The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Ludovico Minati . the spatial domain and take advantage of the information in the frequency domain [3]. …