Master of Science

thesisThe research presented in this thesis investigates the effect of the organic modifier, acetonitrile (ACN), as an additive to an aqueous mobile phase on the electrosorption of aromatic sulfonates onto porous graphitic carbon (PGC), as probed by electrochemically modulated liquid chromatography (EMLC). EMLC is a technique that employs a conductive material such as PGC as both the stationary phase and the working electrode. This dual functionality enables the manipulation of chromatographic retention by changing the potential applied to the stationary phase. This change alters the electrosorption process at the solid-liquid interfaces. Previous works have investigated these changes by applying the Gibbs adsorption equation to determine the interfacial excess (?), surface tension (d?), and surface charge (qM). This thesis incorporates the Gibbs adsorption equation to evaluate the effect ACN has on the electrosorption of aromatic sulfonates. This study is then followed up by using attenuated total reflection FTIR spectroscopy (ATR-FTIRS) to study the interactions in the mobile phase of this system, which consisted of mixed water:acetonitrile solutions with benzene as the solute and lithium perchlorate (LiClO4) as the supporting electrolyte

Environmentally-induced parental or developmental conditioning influences coral offspring ecological performance

The persistence of reef building corals is threatened by human-induced environmental change. Maintaining coral reefs into the future requires not only the survival of adults, but also the influx of recruits to promote genetic diversity and retain cover following adult mortality. Few studies examine the linkages among multiple life stages of corals, despite a growing knowledge of carryover effects in other systems. We provide a novel test of coral parental conditioning to ocean acidification (OA) and tracking of offspring for 6 months post-release to better understand parental or developmental priming impacts on the processes of offspring recruitment and growth. Coral planulation was tracked for 3 months following adult exposure to high pCO2 and offspring from the second month were reciprocally exposed to ambient and high pCO2 for an additional 6 months. Offspring of parents exposed to high pCO2 had greater settlement and survivorship immediately following release, retained survivorship benefits during 1 and 6 months of continued exposure, and further displayed growth benefits to at least 1 month post release. Enhanced performance of offspring from parents exposed to high conditions was maintained despite the survivorship in both treatments declining in continued exposure to OA. Conditioning of the adults while they brood their larvae, or developmental acclimation of the larvae inside the adult polyps, may provide a form of hormetic conditioning, or environmental priming that elicits stimulatory effects. Defining mechanisms of positive acclimatization, with potential implications for carry over effects, cross-generational plasticity, and multi-generational plasticity, is critical to better understanding ecological and evolutionary dynamics of corals under regimes of increasing environmental disturbance. Considering environmentally-induced parental or developmental legacies in ecological and evolutionary projections may better account for coral reef response to the chronic stress regimes characteristic of climate change

The Mouse Action Recognition System (MARS): a software pipeline for automated analysis of social behaviors in mice

The study of social behavior requires scoring the animals' interactions. This is generally done by hand-- a time consuming, subjective, and expensive process. Recent advances in computer vision enable tracking the pose (posture) of freely-behaving laboratory animals automatically. However, classifying complex social behaviors such as mounting and attack remains technically challenging. Furthermore, the extent to which expert annotators, possibly from different labs, agree on the definitions of these behaviors varies. There is a shortage in the neuroscience community of benchmark datasets that can be used to evaluate the performance and reliability of both pose estimation tools and manual and automated behavior scoring. We introduce the Mouse Action Recognition System (MARS), an automated pipeline for pose estimation and behavior quantification in pairs of freely behaving mice. We compare MARS's annotations to human annotations and find that MARS's pose estimation and behavior classification achieve human-level performance. As a by-product we characterize the inter-expert variability in behavior scoring. The two novel datasets used to train MARS were collected from ongoing experiments in social behavior, and identify the main sources of disagreement between annotators. They comprise 30,000 frames of manual annotated mouse poses and over 14 hours of manually annotated behavioral recordings in a variety of experimental preparations. We are releasing this dataset alongside MARS to serve as community benchmarks for pose and behavior systems. Finally, we introduce the Behavior Ensemble and Neural Trajectory Observatory (Bento), a graphical interface that allows users to quickly browse, annotate, and analyze datasets including behavior videos, pose estimates, behavior annotations, audio, and neural recording data. We demonstrate the utility of MARS and Bento in two use cases: a high-throughput behavioral phenotyping study, and exploration of a novel imaging dataset. Together, MARS and Bento provide an end-to-end pipeline for behavior data extraction and analysis, in a package that is user-friendly and easily modifiable

The Mouse Action Recognition System (MARS): a software pipeline for automated analysis of social behaviors in mice

The study of social behavior requires scoring the animals' interactions. This is generally done by hand-- a time consuming, subjective, and expensive process. Recent advances in computer vision enable tracking the pose (posture) of freely-behaving laboratory animals automatically. However, classifying complex social behaviors such as mounting and attack remains technically challenging. Furthermore, the extent to which expert annotators, possibly from different labs, agree on the definitions of these behaviors varies. There is a shortage in the neuroscience community of benchmark datasets that can be used to evaluate the performance and reliability of both pose estimation tools and manual and automated behavior scoring. We introduce the Mouse Action Recognition System (MARS), an automated pipeline for pose estimation and behavior quantification in pairs of freely behaving mice. We compare MARS's annotations to human annotations and find that MARS's pose estimation and behavior classification achieve human-level performance. As a by-product we characterize the inter-expert variability in behavior scoring. The two novel datasets used to train MARS were collected from ongoing experiments in social behavior, and identify the main sources of disagreement between annotators. They comprise 30,000 frames of manual annotated mouse poses and over 14 hours of manually annotated behavioral recordings in a variety of experimental preparations. We are releasing this dataset alongside MARS to serve as community benchmarks for pose and behavior systems. Finally, we introduce the Behavior Ensemble and Neural Trajectory Observatory (Bento), a graphical interface that allows users to quickly browse, annotate, and analyze datasets including behavior videos, pose estimates, behavior annotations, audio, and neural recording data. We demonstrate the utility of MARS and Bento in two use cases: a high-throughput behavioral phenotyping study, and exploration of a novel imaging dataset. Together, MARS and Bento provide an end-to-end pipeline for behavior data extraction and analysis, in a package that is user-friendly and easily modifiable

McDonough, GA

Prepared by the Spring 2014 Preservation Planning class. These Design Guidelines explain and interpret general design criteria in the local preservation ordinance for the McDonough, serves as a tool to guide preliminary design decisions, preserves historic character of the area, protects and stabilizes property values, makes suggestions for design appropriateness and provides neighborhood continuity, stability and predictability in assessing future change. The purpose of this report is to provide recommendations that aid in the preservation of the unique architectural and historic character of the city.https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_heritagepreservation/1028/thumbnail.jp

Autolysosomal β-catenin degradation regulates Wnt-autophagy-p62 crosstalk

The Wnt/β-catenin signalling and autophagy pathways each play important roles during development, adult tissue homeostasis and tumorigenesis. Here we identify the Wnt/β-catenin signalling pathway as a negative regulator of both basal and stress-induced autophagy. Manipulation of β-catenin expression levels in vitro and in vivo revealed that β-catenin suppresses autophagosome formation and directly represses p62/SQSTM1 (encoding the autophagy adaptor p62) via TCF4. Furthermore, we show that during nutrient deprivation β-catenin is selectively degraded via the formation of a β-catenin-LC3 complex, attenuating β-catenin/TCF-driven transcription and proliferation to favour adaptation during metabolic stress. Formation of the β-catenin-LC3 complex is mediated by a W/YXXI/L motif and LC3-interacting region (LIR) in β-catenin, which is required for interaction with LC3 and non-proteasomal degradation of β-catenin. Thus, Wnt/β-catenin represses autophagy and p62 expression, while β-catenin is itself targeted for autophagic clearance in autolysosomes upon autophagy induction. These findings reveal a regulatory feedback mechanism that place β-catenin at a key cellular integration point coordinating proliferation with autophagy, with implications for targeting these pathways for cancer therapy. © 2013 European Molecular Biology Organization

Enhancing diversity of clinical trial populations in multiple sclerosis

BACKGROUND: Demographic characteristics, social determinants of health (SDoH), health inequities, and health disparities substantially influence the general and disease-specific health outcomes of people with multiple sclerosis (MS). Participants in clinical trials do not represent all people with MS treated in practice. Objective: To provide recommendations for enhancing diversity and inclusion in clinical trials in MS. METHODS: We held an international workshop under the Auspices of the International Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials in MS (the “Committee”) to develop recommendations regarding diversity and inclusivity of participants of clinical trials in MS. Workshop attendees included members of the Committee as well as external participants. External participants were selected based on expertise in trials, SDoH, health equity and regulatory science, and diversity with respect to gender, race, ethnicity, and geography. RESULTS: Recommendations include use of diversity plans, community engagement and education, cultural competency training, biologically justified rather than templated eligibility criteria, adaptive designs that allow broadening of eligibility criteria over the course of a trial, and logistical and practical adjustments to reduce study participant burden. Investigators should report demographic and SDoH characteristics of participants. CONCLUSION: These recommendations provide sponsors and investigators with methods of improving diversity and inclusivity of clinical trial populations in MS

Stress and coping – Perceptions of final year nursing students returning to clinical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa

The novel nature of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic places challenges on nursing students as they try to complete the clinical requirement of their training. Nursing faculties need to understand these challenges to support and equip nursing students to enter the workforce. To explore and describe the anticipated and subsequent perceptions of final year Bachelor of Nursing students returning to clinical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa.The study was conducted at two universities in the Western Cape and KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. Both universities offer 4-year Bachelor of Nursing programmes accredited by the South African Nursing Council and were in ‘hot spot areas’ for SARS-CoV-2

Loss of life at sea from shipping British coal since 1890

There was continuing public and political concern about the loss of life at sea during the second half of the nineteenth century in Britain. New regulatory requirements, introduced to examine the competence of officers, prevent overloading and reduce the risks from hazardous cargoes such as coal, were in place by 1890. However, the effectiveness of these measures was not systematically monitored at the time. This retrospective evaluation reviews subsequent loss of life in the coal trade, the largest sector of British exports by weight. Loss of life remained high; it was more dangerous to export a ton of coal than it was to mine it. Some routes, such as those around Cape Horn and to Scandinavia, carried the highest risk, and losses on European voyages were more common in winter. Over time, the risks reduced as sail gave way to steam and diesel propulsion, and as maritime communications improved

SPIRITS 15c and SPIRITS 14buu: Two Obscured Supernovae in the Nearby Star-Forming Galaxy IC 2163

SPIRITS---SPitzer InfraRed Intensive Transients Survey---is an ongoing survey of nearby galaxies searching for infrared (IR) transients with Spitzer/IRAC. We present the discovery and follow-up observations of one of our most luminous ($M_{[4.5]} = -17.1\pm0.4$ mag, Vega) and red ($[3.6] - [4.5] = 3.0 \pm 0.2$ mag) transients, SPIRITS 15c. The transient was detected in a dusty spiral arm of IC 2163 ($D\approx35.5$ Mpc). Pre-discovery ground-based imaging revealed an associated, shorter-duration transient in the optical and near-IR (NIR). NIR spectroscopy showed a broad ($\approx 8400$ km s$^{-1}$), double-peaked emission line of He I at $1.083 \mu$m, indicating an explosive origin. The NIR spectrum of SPIRITS 15c is similar to that of the Type IIb SN 2011dh at a phase of $\approx 200$ days. Assuming $A_V = 2.2$ mag of extinction in SPIRITS 15c provides a good match between their optical light curves. The IR light curves and the extreme $[3.6]-[4.5]$ color cannot be explained using only a standard extinction law. Another luminous ($M_{4.5} = -16.1\pm0.4$ mag) event, SPIRITS 14buu, was serendipitously discovered in the same galaxy. The source displays an optical plateau lasting $\gtrsim 80$ days, and we suggest a scenario similar to the low-luminosity Type IIP SN 2005cs obscured by $A_V \approx 1.5$ mag. Other classes of IR-luminous transients can likely be ruled out in both cases. If both events are indeed SNe, this may suggest $\gtrsim 18\%$ of nearby core-collapse SNe are missed by currently operating optical surveys.Comment: 19 pages, 7 Figures, 4 Table