Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 9 No. 5, John Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

There are a multitude of lessons learned from the last 3 years of the Covid-19 pandemic. But one truly stands out ...the total lack of understanding of the basic chemistry associated with the nitrogen cycle, which in Suffolk County, NY, continues to be declared as the “evil-nitrogen”. The major source of nitrogen into the water body comes from the atmosphere which is the predominate constituent of the air we breathe79% nitrogen. Nitrogen compounds contribution to eutrophication in freshwater (ponds & lakes) systems is legendary and, the concentration of nitrogen in marine waters has always been known as a limiting agent …

Characterization Of Pyrrolidinyl-Hexahydro-Pyranopiperazines As A Novel Kappa Opioid Receptor Agonist Scaffold, Brian Reed, Michael Miller, Mayako Michino, Eduardo R. Butelman, Ariel Ben-Ezra, Philip Pikus, Michelle Morochnik, Yuli Kim, Amy Ripka, Joseph Vacca, Mary Jeanne Kreek

Faculty Works: Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Studies

The kappa agonist structure–activity relationship around the novel, pyrrolidinyl substituted pyranopiperazine scaffold was developed. More specifically, the dichloroPhenylAcetamide-Pyrrolidinyl-PyranoPiperazine (PAPPP) core A was the focus of our work. The modulation of kappa receptor potency/G-protein activation and arrestin recruitment with respect to changes of the piperazine R group in A was demonstrated. Reduced β2-arrestin recruitment and differential G-protein bias were observed for select analogues. To better understand the subtlety in receptor signaling, analogues were profiled as the resolved enantiomers. To determine in vivo target engagement, a subset of compounds was tested in mice for stimulation of serum prolactin, a neuroendocrine biomarker of …

Changes In Breast Cancer Care In New York During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alexandra Fiderlein, Cheyenne Rosado, Noelle L. Cutter Ph.D.

Faculty Works: Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Studies

Breast cancer is the second most common malignancy among women in the United States. As such, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused medical facilities to change their methods of operation since March of 2020, including changes in diagnosis and treatment plans. New York (NY) has an unusually high incidence of breast cancer. This study analyzed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on breast cancer care (BCC) in NY. Women in NY that were diagnosed with or in remission for breast cancer were asked to take an online, anonymous survey regarding their BCC experience. For patients in treatment, 26% of women wished …

The Coastal Monitor: Vol. 8 No. 4, John Tanacredi Ph.D.

The Coastal Monitor

The original five acre of land portion of the historic Blue Points Oyster Company is located at the southern end of Atlantic Ave in West Sayville, Islip Town, Suffolk County, New York on the shore of Great South Bay. The Center for Environmental Research and Coastal Oceans Monitoring (CERCOM) is the science field station serving Molloy College’s BCES programs in Earth & Environmental Sciences and Biology. Our mission is to provide unique hands-on educational opportunities in the physical and life sciences, in collaboration with a host of Federal, State, and local and NGO groups, to bolster students’ career path. Great …

Eukaryotic Parasites Are Integral To A Productive Microbial Food Web In Oxygen-Depleted Waters, Elizabeth A. Suter, Maria Pachladaki, Gordon T. Taylor, Virginia P. Edgcomb

Faculty Works: Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Studies

Oxygen-depleted water columns (ODWCs) host a diverse community of eukaryotic protists that change dramatically in composition over the oxic-anoxic gradient. In the permanently anoxic Cariaco Basin, peaks in eukaryotic diversity occurred in layers where dark microbial activity (chemoautotrophy and heterotrophy) were highest, suggesting a link between prokaryotic activity and trophic associations with protists. Using 18S rRNA gene sequencing, parasites and especially the obligate parasitic clade, Syndiniales, appear to be particularly abundant, suggesting parasitism is an important, but overlooked interaction in ODWC food webs. Syndiniales were also associated with certain prokaryotic groups that are often found in ODWCs, including Marinimicrobia and …

Lung_Paynet: A Pyramidal Attention Based Deep Learning Network For Lung Nodule Segmentation, P. Malin Bruntha, S. Immanuel Alex Pandian, K. Martin Sagayam, Shivargha Bandopadhyay, Marc Pomplun, Helen Dang

Faculty Works: MCS (1984-2023)

Accurate and reliable lung nodule segmentation in computed tomography (CT) images is required for early diagnosis of lung cancer. Some of the difficulties in detecting lung nodules include the various types and shapes of lung nodules, lung nodules near other lung structures, and similar visual aspects. This study proposes a new model named Lung_PAYNet, a pyramidal attention-based architecture, for improved lung nodule segmentation in low-dose CT images. In this architecture, the encoder and decoder are designed using an inverted residual block and swish activation function. It also employs a feature pyramid attention network between the encoder and decoder to extract …

An Effective Model For The Iris Regional Characteristics Andclassification Using Deep Learning Alex Network, Thiyaneswaran Balashanmugam, Kumarganesh Sengottaiyan, Martin Sagayam Kulandairaj, Helen Dang

Faculty Works: MCS (1984-2023)

Iris biometrics is one of the fastest-growing technologies, and it has received a lot ofattention from the community. Iris-biometric-based human recognition does not requirecontact with the human body. Iris is a combination of crypts, wolflin nodules, concen-trated furrows, and pigment spots. The existing methods feed the eye image into deeplearning network which result in improper iris features and certainly reduce the accuracy.This research study proposes a model to feed preprocessed accurate iris boundary intoAlexnet deep learning neural network-based system for classification. The pupil centre andboundary are initially recorded and identified from the given eye images. The iris boundaryand the centre …

Privacy Preserving Attribute-Focused Anonymization Scheme For Healthcare Data Publishing, J. Andrew Onesimu, Karthikeyan J, Jennifer Eunice, Marc Pomplun, Helen Dang

Faculty Works: MCS (1984-2023)

Advancements in Industry 4.0 brought tremendous improvements in the healthcare sector, such as better quality of treatment, enhanced communication, remote monitoring, and reduced cost. Sharing healthcare data with healthcare providers is crucial for harnessing the benefits of such improvements. In general, healthcare data holds sensitive information about individuals. Hence, sharing such data is challenging because of various security and privacy issues. According to privacy regulations and ethical requirements, it is essential to preserve the privacy of patients before sharing data for medical research. State-of-the-art literature on privacy preserving studies either uses cryptographic approaches to protect the privacy or uses anonymizing …

Long Island Horseshoe Crab Network Annual Inventory Report, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

CERCOM monitors 115 beach locations from Brooklyn – Montauk during the optimal Limulus Polyphemus breeding season. These beach surveys take place for approximately 15 weeks, ranging from May - August. These beach locations are marked specifically using GPS coordinates, to assure the same location is visited each year. Students and volunteers are required to attend a HSC Survey training orientation led by CERCOM’s research assistant, Mr. Kyle Maurelli. Surveying is done around tide and moon cycles (New/Full Moon). Each site takes about 1-2 hours and data is recorded along an approximate 1 mile distance. Walking along the water’s edge the …

Daily Meteorological Report, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

Meteorological data is collected daily at CERCOM and is submitted to the National Weather Service (NWS), in Upton NY at the Brookhaven National Laboratories. Air Temperature, wind speed and direction, pH of precipitation, rain gauge, barometer pressure, cloud cover and estimated altitude by type, are data sets compiled and submitted to the NWS daily. CERCOM’s Co-Op site is the only continuous operating facility on Great South Bay.

Great South Bay, Long Island, New York Summer Phytoplankton Identification & Monitoring Program, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

Phytoplankton Collection Methodologies: 80 micron Plankton Tow Net with sample bottle attachment

Phytoplankton Protocol: 1.Gather Samples 2.Make one slide per sample 3.View slides using microscope connected with computer 4. Record findings using “ Row # “ and “ Column letter “ 5. Record using “ Tallies “ per species found within sample 6. Capture anything interesting “ Take Picture “ 7.Duplicate pictures taken 8.Make sure measurement of species found is taken 9. Email Jennifer Maucher at Jennifer.maucher@noaa.gov , include pictures, questions and names of the species you “guess” you found.

Great South Bay, Long Island, New York Summer Water Quality Monitoring Program, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

The Center for Environmental Research and Coastal Oceans Monitoring (CERCOM) visits 11 locations in the Great South Bay from Memorial Day – Labor Day to monitor dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, salinity, clarity and temperature. Students are trained to assist in CERCOM’s water quality data collection by research assistant Mr. Kyle Maurelli. This monitoring program has been conducted for the past 17 years. These parameters are critical in determining long term water quality conditions in Long Island estuaries