Phylogeography of Two Species of Marine Sculpins

Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity (URSA) Spring Project Awar

The Efficacy of Tele-practice on Expressive Language Outcomes for Adults with Aphasia

Access to skilled speech and language intervention can be difficult for individuals residing in rural areas as well as for individuals with complex health and mobility issues. Telehealth (including therapy and rehabilitation) can provide effective services in the context of one’s home, allowing clinicians to reach a wider population of individuals. Purpose: To determine whether tele-practice service delivery produces positive expressive language outcomes that are comparable to direct service delivery for adults with aphasia. Method: A variety of databases were searched utilizing systematic inclusionary and exclusionary criteria. Research focused on adults over the age of 18 with a formal diagnosis of aphasia who engaged in telehealth intervention. Various research designs were identified and analyzed. Identified articles included a total of 235 participants. Results: The identified studies supported the implementation of tele-practice as a means of providing individuals with aphasia access to services that produce positive expressive language outcomes. Several studies indicated that tele-practice produces similar outcomes when compared to traditional direct therapy. Several studies also included qualitative data regarding patient satisfaction and quality of life, much of which produced positive outcomes. Conclusion: The chosen studies were found to largely support the inclusion of tele-practice as an effective option for producing positive expressive language outcomes for individuals with aphasia. Potential limitations include variability in treatment times and programs, assessment tools used, clinical training of individuals providing treatment, small sample sizes, and variable patient characteristics. Future research should focus on implementing research designs using larger numbers of individuals to increase generalizability.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/csdms/1003/thumbnail.jp

Examining Role of Impulsive Action in BXD Mice to Understand Heritability in Drug Addiction

Drug addiction susceptibility results from many individual factors, one of which is genetic variation. Impulsivity, defined as rash or uncontrolled reward pursuit and consumption, is itself a genetically influenced trait that positively correlates with an individual’s likelihood of developing a substance use disorder. The BXD recombinant inbred mouse panel is a powerful tool that allows for assessments of genetic correlations between phenotypes and the heritability of such behaviors. Six strains of BXD mice have been selected based on low or high impulsive action in a previous reversal learning study. Male and female mice underwent reversal learning testing. Total trials to criteria (impulsive action), premature responding, trial initiation time, trial omissions, and reward retrieval time was recorded. That data showed a main effect of strain and impulsivity level for impulsive action, trial omissions, and reward retrieval time and heritability estimates were derived, while no effect of sex was observed. The different behavioral measures will have correlations conducted to understand heritable impulsive behavior in mice. This will contribute to future analysis of underlying neural influences on the behavior, including dopamine transmission within the orbitofrontal cortex and nucleus accumbens, in these animals.https://orb.binghamton.edu/research_days_posters_2022/1090/thumbnail.jp

Heritable Variation in Reward Sensitivity and Impulsive Action and Choice in a Genetically Diverse Inbred Mouse Panel

Research in animal models and human subjects points towards reward sensitivity and impulsivity as being characteristics that predict greater positive subjective responses to stimulant drugs. The Collaborative Cross (CC) recombinant inbred mouse strains and their inbred founders are a powerful genetic reference panel that has potential as a tool for revealing genetic correlations. The CC/DO founder strains were used to examine the heritability of reward sensitivity and impulsivity traits. Founder strains were tested for activity in an open field, reward sensitivity, and reversal learning (impulsive action) or delay discounting (impulsive choice). Significant heritability for anticipatory responding within the reversal task, k-value within delay discounting, locomotor activity, and reward sensitivity was found. Reversal total trials to criteria was positively correlated with ethanol intake in females. This research was conducted with the Center for Systems Neurogenetics of Addiction’s (CSNA) effort to characterize CC and DO mice for multiple, cocaine abuse related traits

Assessing Dialogic Communication Elements in Online Emergency Communication

Social media have been identified as powerful tools for two-way crisis communication, allowing officials to reach, inform, and motivate at-risk publics during emergencies. However, government use of social media during emergencies is a relatively new area of study and is thus understudied and undertheorized, with little evidence-based guidance for online messaging strategies during emergencies. Dialogic communication theory has recently been used as a framework to investigate the utility of social media as channels for facilitating two-way, cocreational communication. This study assesses the use and impact of dialogic communication elements at each stage of the crisis and emergency risk communication model (CERC) using a content analysis of tweets from 10 state emergency management agencies (EMAs) over a 12-month period, expanding upon W. Liu et al.\u27s (2020) multi-level framework for dialogic communication in social media-mediated disaster communication. There were statistically significant differences in the means or frequencies of use for all dialogic communication elements and in engagement between CERC stages. Results highlight opportunities for state EMAs to increase use of message attributes such as information specificity, themes of community, and explicit invitations to engage or interact with content or resources. There were few significant associations between dialogic communication elements and engagement metrics when control variables (e.g., hazard topic, tweet type, and CERC stage) were included in a negative binomial regression model, emphasizing the importance of message form and context in online emergency communication

Animal Rights within the Textile Industry

Why do the majority of consumers have little to no issues with wearing leather but cannot fathom the thought of wearing fur? This research is an examination of how consumers’ perceptions change their decision making with respect to animal cruelty in the fabric production process. It is common knowledge that cows, pigs and sheep are used for leather, however, looking further into which animal made the most luxurious fabrics, we found that most designer brands use other exotic animals, such as crocodiles for their products (PETA, 2020). There is a wide variety of facts and opinions with reference to the fur and leather industry, by both global animals rights activists and consumers. Peta explains that, “after a lifetime of torment, [animals are] violently slaughtered via the cheapest means possible, including bludgeoning, anal electrocution, and gassing” (PETA, 2020). Rules and regulations were made for fur years ago, however, animals are still being gruesomely abused for their skin. Given that the apparel industry is growing, many companies want the cheapest process that does the most or they want the most expensive process that sells the best, often disregarding the animals rights in the production process. This research further invests consumer’s perceptions of animal rights in the textile industry and how it affects their decision making in regards to buying products made of animal by-product

How should you manage children born to hepatitis C-positive women?

for starters, don't be overly concerned with the mode of delivery; it doesn't influence the rate of transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV), except in women who are also infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (strength of recommendation [SOR]: B, consistent retrospective cohort studies)

Field Drawing of Plan View of Unit E From Penny (8BR158)

This document is a field map drawing of the plan view of Unit E. It is a scan of original paper documents generated in the field