Dating, dining, and ducks: Continued recovery of campus lakes after dredging

Proposed by Hannah Cohen, GS Student, and Drs. Emily Kane and Christian Cox , Department of Biology. ($19,000.00

Aligned Across Difference: Structural Injustice, Sex Work, and Human Trafficking

Feminist scholars and activists engage in meaningful, contentious debates about the relationships among sex, gender, power, and society. One of the most recent iterations of these arguments reinscribes the pleasure of sex positivity and danger of patriarchal exploitation onto new subjects: sex work and human trafficking. This paper brings together two separate empirically based research projects, one working with sex workers and the other working with members of the anti-trafficking community. As scholars working across these topics, we provide new normative propositions that may bridge these different approaches to resilience, survival, danger, and risk. We find that the real threat identified by our participants was the wide reach of the carceral state onto migrating, working, and trafficked bodies. Our projects find unexpected commonality in shared perceptions of pleasure, agency, and danger among sex workers, human trafficking survivors, and service providers working with trafficked persons. Current debates ignore the lived experiences of our participants, who attempt to find pleasure in context-specific agency and survival, and who locate danger in the looming forces of the security state, criminality, and structural inequalities

The Effects of Slow Deep Breathing on Measures of Microvascular and Autonomic Function in an Irritable Bowel Syndrome Population

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is a functional disorder linked to disruptions in autonomic nervous system regulation, which could impair vascular homeostasis. Studies have shown that slow, deep breathing reduces muscle sympathetic nerve activity and arterial stiffness; however, its effects on autonomic regulation in adults with IBS have not been previously investigated. Moreover, the effects of breathing on microvascular endothelium function are unknown. PURPOSE: To investigate the effects of slow, deep breathing on measures of autonomic function and microvascular endothelial function in adults with IBS. METHODS: Adults (ages 18-65 years) with a formal diagnosis of IBS were enrolled and randomized to 4-week controlled breathing or time-control conditions. The experimental group followed a 20-minute slow, deep breathing video 4 to 6 days per week while the control group maintained their regular activity. To assess autonomic function, heart rate variability (HRV) and exercise heart rate recovery (HRR) were measured at baseline and week 4. The HRV test was accompanied by respiration rate measurements to ensure no significant deviations in respiration occurred between assessments as this could impact HRV. Exercise HRR was assessed 30, 60, and 120 seconds following a Balke treadmill VO2 max test. Laser Doppler flowmetry was assessed at baseline (33°C) and in response to local heating up to 43.5°C while blood pressure was measured throughout for the calculation of cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC). RESULTS: Of the 14 participants enrolled, 12 (n=6 for control and experimental groups) completed the study. At baseline, age (p = 0.47) and body mass index (p=0.14) were similar between groups. Respiration rate was similar between HRV assessments in both groups. In the experimental group, %CVC max significantly increased (p = 0.027) at week 4 while HRR was unchanged. A tendency toward a time by group interaction was observed for HRV low frequency to high frequency (LF/HF) ratio (p = 0.066) with slight reductions in the breathing group and increases in the control group. In the control group, %CVC max and HRR were unaltered, though HRR at 120 seconds tended to improve (p=0.08). CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary results from this ongoing study suggest that microvascular endothelial function can improve with 4 weeks of slow, deep breathing exercises in adults with IBS. These alterations in vascular function were unaccompanied by significant changes in autonomic function though trends were observed in HRV. Results show that slow, deep breathing is a viable alternative to physical exercise for improving microvascular function. Findings also suggest that this intervention could result in improved sympathovagal balance in adults with IBS and potentially other individuals with functional disorders

Psychological Distress Across Adulthood: Equating Scales in Three British Birth Cohorts

Valid and reliable life-course and cross-cohort comparisons of psychological distress are limited by differences in measures used. We aimed to examine adulthood distribution of symptoms and cross-cohort trends by equating the scales of psychological-distress measures administered in the 1946, 1958, and 1970 British birth cohorts. We used data from these three birth cohorts (N = 32,242) and an independently recruited calibration sample (n = 5,800) to inform the equating of scales. We used two approaches to equating scales (equipercentile linking and multiple imputation) and two index measures (General Health Questionnaire-12 and Malaise-9) to compare means, distributions, and prevalence of distress across adulthood. Although we consistently observed an inverse U shape of distress across adulthood, we also observed measure and method differences in point estimates, particularly for cross-cohort comparisons. Sensitivity analysis suggested that multiple imputation yielded more accurate estimates than equipercentile linking. Although we observed an inverse-U-shaped trajectory of psychological distress across adulthood, differences in point estimates between measures and methods did not allow for clear conclusions regarding between-cohorts trends

Application of Automatic Speech Recognition Technology for Dysphonic Speech Assessment

Dysphonia is a communication disorder secondary to a problem with voice production. Speakers with dysphonia often report decreased intelligibility, particularly in a noisy communication environment. Intelligibility is the primary measure of a speaker’s communicative ability; however, it is not routinely assessed in clinical settings today. This lack of intelligibility assessment can be partly attributed to the time-consuming, labor-intensive nature of manually transcribing a speaker’s utterance. Recent advances in automatic speech recognition technology have significantly increased the ease and accuracy of speech-to-text transcription, and incorporation of this technology may dramatically increase efficiency in clinical intelligibility assessment. Therefore, this project examined the feasibility of an automatic speech-to-text transcription program for describing speech production abnormalities among speakers with dysphonia. Audio recordings of the Rainbow Passage from 30 adult female speakers with normal voice and 23 adult female speakers with dysphonic voice were transcribed using IBM Watson speech-to-text transcription service. Differences between the groups were evaluated based on three measures: 1) error rate in transcribed words, 2) confidence level of transcribed words, and 3) number of possible alternatives for transcribed words. The results indicated that the confidence level was significantly lower, and the number of possible alternatives was significantly higher in the dysphonic group. Interestingly, there was no significant between-group difference in the error rate. Clinical implications of these findings and future direction will be discussed.Ope

Osteocytic connexin 43 is not required for the increase in bone mass induced by intermittent PTH administration in male mice

Objective: To investigate whether osteocytic connexin 43 (Cx43) is required for the bone response to intermittent PTH administration, and whether the connexin is involved in maintaining the bone matrix. Methods: Human PTH(1-34) was injected to adult male mice expressing (Cx43fl/fl) or not osteocytic Cx43 (Cx43fl/fl;DMP1-8kb-Cre) daily (100 μg/kg/d) for 14 days. Results: Cx43fl/fl;DMP1-8kb-Cre mice have no difference in body weight and BMD from 1 to 4 months of age. Intermittent PTH administration increased BMD and BV/TV and induced a similar increase in type I collagen, alkaline phosphatase, runx2, osteocalcin, and bone sialoprotein expression in mice from both genotypes. On the other hand, osteocytic deletion of Cx43 did not alter mRNA levels of glycosaminoglycans, proteoglycans, collagens and osteoblast-related genes. In addition, expression of collagens assessed by immunohistochemistry was not affected by deleting osteocytic Cx43. However, PTH administration increased type II collagen only in Cx43fl/fl control mice, whereas hormone increased type I collagen expression only in Cx43fl/fl;DMP1-8kb-Cre mice. Furthermore, PTH increased maturity of collagen fibers in control, but not in Cx43-deficient mice. Conclusion: Expression of Cx43 in osteocytes is dispensable for bone anabolism induced by intermittent PTH administration; but it can modulate, at least in part, the effect of PTH on the bone matrix environment

Multiplex giant magnetoresistive biosensor microarrays identify interferon-associated autoantibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus.

High titer, class-switched autoantibodies are a hallmark of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Dysregulation of the interferon (IFN) pathway is observed in individuals with active SLE, although the association of specific autoantibodies with chemokine score, a combined measurement of three IFN-regulated chemokines, is not known. To identify autoantibodies associated with chemokine score, we developed giant magnetoresistive (GMR) biosensor microarrays, which allow the parallel measurement of multiple serum antibodies to autoantigens and peptides. We used the microarrays to analyze serum samples from SLE patients and found individuals with high chemokine scores had significantly greater reactivity to 13 autoantigens than individuals with low chemokine scores. Our findings demonstrate that multiple autoantibodies, including antibodies to U1-70K and modified histone H2B tails, are associated with IFN dysregulation in SLE. Further, they show the microarrays are capable of identifying autoantibodies associated with relevant clinical manifestations of SLE, with potential for use as biomarkers in clinical practice

The impact of obesity and timely antiviral administration on severe influenza outcomes among hospitalized adults

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141541/1/jmv24946.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141541/2/jmv24946_am.pd