Forging an Honors Bond

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience. Standing in line at the local fire station, my wife and I were waiting for our COVID-19 inoculations. The firefighters had been commissioned to administer the vaccines. Health department workers were examining paperwork, and volunteers were guiding patrons through the line. Looking around while trying to manage our children, I noticed a volunteer with a familiarlooking face, half-concealed by a mask. I had not seen the instructor of my first honors course in well over a decade, so, to confirm, I greeted her and asked, “What’s your name?” She was indeed my former honors professor, and what followed was a short yet buoyant exchange in which I eagerly shared some updates, such as the major I had settled on in college, my current job, and my family status. I was excited to see her. That first honors course included honors students from a variety of disciplines, and as an engineering major, I was not expecting to build a strong connection with them or with the instructor, a linguistics professor. Yet her concern for each student coupled with her willingness to listen fostered camaraderie and conversation, both in the classroom and personally, and my self-imposed barriers quickly collapsed

Does Job Stability Mediate the Relationship Between Intimate Partner Violence and Mental Health Among Low‐Income Women?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100283/1/ajop12053.pd

Light environment drives evolution of color vision genes in butterflies and moths

Opsins, combined with a chromophore, are the primary light-sensing molecules in animals and are crucial for color vision. Throughout animal evolution, duplications and losses of opsin proteins are common, but it is unclear what is driving these gains and losses. Light availability is implicated, and dim environments are often associated with low opsin diversity and loss. Correlations between high opsin diversity and bright environments, however, are tenuous. To test if increased light availability is associated with opsin diversification, we examined diel niche and identified opsins using transcriptomes and genomes of 175 butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera). We found 14 independent opsin duplications associated with bright environments. Estimating their rates of evolution revealed that opsins from diurnal taxa evolve faster—at least 13 amino acids were identified with higher dN/dS rates, with a subset close enough to the chromophore to tune the opsin. These results demonstrate that high light availability increases opsin diversity and evolution rate in Lepidoptera

Individuals with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis Have Elevated Levels of Biomarkers for Apoptosis but Not Necrosis

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Hepatocyte apoptosis or necrosis from accumulation of bile salts may play an important role in the disease progression of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). The aim of the current study was to measure serum markers of hepatocyte apoptosis (cytokeratin-18 fragments--K18) and necrosis (high-mobility group protein B1--HMGB1) in adults with PSC and examine the relationship with disease severity. METHODS: We measured serum levels of K18 and HMGB1 in well-phenotyped PSC (N = 37) and 39 control subjects (N = 39). Severity of PSC was assessed biochemically, histologically, and PSC Mayo risk score. Quantification of hepatocyte apoptosis was performed using TUNEL assay. RESULTS: The mean age of the study cohort was 49.7 ± 13.3 years and comprised of 67% men and 93% Caucasian. Serum K18 levels were significantly higher in the PSC patients compared to control (217.4 ± 78.1 vs. 157.0 ± 58.2 U/L, p = 0.001). However, HMGB1 levels were not different between the two groups (5.38 ± 2.99 vs. 6.28 ± 2.85 ng/mL, p = 0.15). Within the PSC group, K18 levels significantly correlated with AST (r = 0.5, p = 0.002), alkaline phosphatase (r = 0.5, p = 0.001), total bilirubin (r = 0.61, p ≤ 0.001), and albumin (r = -0.4, p = 0.02). Serum K18 levels also correlated with the level of apoptosis present on the liver biopsy (r = 0.8, p ≤ 0.001) and Mayo risk score (r = 0.4, p = 0.015). CONCLUSION: Serum K18 but not HMGB1 levels were increased in PSC and associated with severity of underlying liver disease and the degree of hepatocyte apoptosis

Managing the Marine Aquarium Trade: Revealing the Data Gaps Using Ornamental Polychaetes

The marine aquarium industry has great potential to generate jobs in low-income coastal communities creating incentives for the maintenance of a healthy coral reef, if effectively managed. In the absence of current monitoring or legislation to govern the trade, baseline information regarding the species, number and source location of animals traded is missing despite being critical for its successful management and sustainability. An industry assessment to establish the number and provenance of species of ornamental polychaetes (sabellids and serpulids) traded was undertaken across UK wholesalers and retailers. Six geographical regions exporting fan worms were identified. Singapore contributed the highest percentage of imports, but of only one worm “type” whereas Bali, the second largest source, supplied five different worm “types”. Over 50% of UK retailers were supplied by one wholesaler while the remainder were stocked by a mixture of one other wholesaler and/or direct imports from the source country. We estimate that up to 18,500 ornamental polychaetes (16,980 sabellids and 1,018 serpulids) are sold annually in the UK revealing a drastic underestimation of currently accepted trade figures. Incorrect identification (based on exporting region or visual characteristics) of traded animals exacerbates the inaccuracy in market quantification, although identification of preserved sabellids using published keys proved just as inconclusive with high within-species variability and the potential for new or cryptic species. A re-description of the polychaete groups traded using a combination of molecular and morphological techniques is necessary for effective identification and market quantification. This study provides the first assessment of ornamental polychaetes but more importantly highlights the issues surrounding the collection of baseline information necessary to manage the aquarium trade. We recommend that future management should be community based and site-specific with financial and educational support from NGOs, local governments and industry members

Utterance Selection Model of Language Change

We present a mathematical formulation of a theory of language change. The theory is evolutionary in nature and has close analogies with theories of population genetics. The mathematical structure we construct similarly has correspondences with the Fisher-Wright model of population genetics, but there are significant differences. The continuous time formulation of the model is expressed in terms of a Fokker-Planck equation. This equation is exactly soluble in the case of a single speaker and can be investigated analytically in the case of multiple speakers who communicate equally with all other speakers and give their utterances equal weight. Whilst the stationary properties of this system have much in common with the single-speaker case, time-dependent properties are richer. In the particular case where linguistic forms can become extinct, we find that the presence of many speakers causes a two-stage relaxation, the first being a common marginal distribution that persists for a long time as a consequence of ultimate extinction being due to rare fluctuations.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figure

Predicting language diversity with complex network

Evolution and propagation of the world's languages is a complex phenomenon, driven, to a large extent, by social interactions. Multilingual society can be seen as a system of interacting agents, where the interaction leads to a modification of the language spoken by the individuals. Two people can reach the state of full linguistic compatibility due to the positive interactions, like transfer of loanwords. But, on the other hand, if they speak entirely different languages, they will separate from each other. These simple observations make the network science the most suitable framework to describe and analyze dynamics of language change. Although many mechanisms have been explained, we lack a qualitative description of the scaling behavior for different sizes of a population. Here we address the issue of the language diversity in societies of different sizes, and we show that local interactions are crucial to capture characteristics of the empirical data. We propose a model of social interactions, extending the idea from, that explains the growth of the language diversity with the size of a population of country or society. We argue that high clustering and network disintegration are the most important characteristics of models properly describing empirical data. Furthermore, we cancel the contradiction between previous models and the Solomon Islands case. Our results demonstrate the importance of the topology of the network, and the rewiring mechanism in the process of language change

Financial Burden and Mental Health Among LGBTQIA+ Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background In the United States, the cost of cancer treatment can lead to severe financial burden for cancer survivors. The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic compound cancer survivors’ financial challenges. Financial burden may be particularly challenging for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual and other sexual and gender minority (LGBTQIA+) survivors. LGBTQIA+ survivors who are adolescent and young adults (AYA) may face elevated financial burden due to multiple, intersecting identities. Methods An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was applied, beginning with a survey of AYA cancer survivors in the Mountain West region of the United States. Survey measures included demographics, COVID-19 impacts, the COmprehensive Score for financial Toxicity (COST), Perceived Stress Scale-4 (PSS-4), and PROMIS anxiety and depression scales. Two-way t-tests were used to analyze differences in outcomes between LGBTQIA+ and non-LGBTQIA+ AYAs. All LGBTQIA+ survey participants were invited to complete an interview, and those who agreed participated in descriptive interviews about financial burden due to cancer, COVID-19, and LGBTQIA+ identity. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Dedoose. Results Survey participants (N=325) were LGBTQIA+ (n=29, 8.9%), primarily female (n= 197, 60.6%), non-Hispanic White (n= 267, 82.2%), and received treatment during COVID-19 (n= 174, 54.0%). LGBTQIA+ interview participants (n=9, 100%) identified as a sexual minority and (n=2, 22.2%) identified as a gender minority. Most were non-Hispanic White (n=6, 66.7%) and had received treatment during COVID-19 (n=7, 77.8%). Statistical analyses revealed that LGBTQIA+ AYAs reported significantly worse COST scores than non-LGBTQIA+ AYAs (p=0.002). LGBTQIA+ AYAs also reported significantly higher PSS-4 (p=0.001), PROMIS anxiety (p=0.002) and depression scores (p<0.001) than non-LGBTQIA+ AYAs, reflecting worse mental health outcomes. High costs of cancer treatment and employment disruptions due to COVID-19 contributed to substantial financial stress, which exacerbated existing mental health challenges and introduced new ones. Conclusions LGBTQIA+ AYA survivors reported substantial financial burden and psychological distress exacerbated by cancer, the COVID-19 pandemic, and LGBTQIA+ stigma. Given their multiple intersecting identities and potential for marginalization, LGBTQIA+ AYA survivors deserve prioritization in research to reduce financial burden and poor mental health

Preverbs: an introduction

The notion ‘preverb’ is a traditional descriptive notion in Indo-European linguistics. It refers to morphemes that appear in front of a verb, and which form a close semantic unit with that verb. In many cases, the morpheme that functions as a preverb can also function without a preverbal context, often as an adverb or an adposition. Most linguists use the notion ‘preverb’ as a cover term for preverbal words and preverbal prefixes. The preverb may be separated from the verb whilst retaining its close cohesion with the verb, which is called ‘tmesis’. It may also develop into a bound morpheme, that is, a prefix inseparable from the verb, with concomitant reduction of phonological form in some cases. If the preverb has become a real prefix, we may use the more specific notion of ‘complex verb’, whereas we take the notion ‘complex predicate’ to refer generally to multi-morphemic expressions with verbal valency. That is, we make a terminological distinction between complex predicates and complex verbs. The latter are multi-morphemic, but behave as single grammatical words