Perception of Infection: Behavioral and Physiological Responses to Illness-Related Social Cues

Individuals vary in how they respond to and transmit infection. Both pre- and post-infection shifts in behavior, diet, and physiology can contribute to variation in disease susceptibility and disease transmission potential. However, little is known about how social information about infection risk shapes individual-level characteristics that contribute to the spread of disease through vertebrate populations. Animals can detect and respond to sick individuals, most commonly through avoidance behaviors that reduce the risk of infection. While the social effects of infection are rarely explored outside the context of avoidance behaviors, social information about disease could have prominent effects on reproductive and social behaviors, as organisms must weigh the benefit of engaging in social interactions with the risk of becoming sick. Work in humans and insects suggests that organisms are also capable of mounting immune responses to visual cues indicative of heightened infection risk, however, the effects of visual social cues on immune responses are not well understood. My dissertation work was focused on understanding the strategies that social vertebrates use to respond to and prepare for infection by investigating how infection and visual cues of disease alter behavioral, nutritional, and physiological responses relevant to disease susceptibility and transmission in songbirds. Birds make an excellent model for addressing questions about visual cues of disease because they are social animals that rely primarily on vision for detecting immune threats and carry diseases relevant to wildlife, domestic animal, and human health. The work in this dissertation emphasizes that social context and social cues indicative of heightened infection risk can influence behavioral and physiological responses relevant to disease susceptibility and transmission. In addition, my work indicates that birds have diverse, and likely integrative, behavioral, physiological, and nutritional strategies to respond to and prevent infection

Model All-Payer Claims Database Legislation

With support from the Gary and Mary West Health Policy Center, the APCD Council has developed model legislation guidance for states to develop all-payer claims database legislation

All-Payer Claims Database Development Manual: Establishing a Foundation for Health Care Transparency and Informed Decision Making

With support from the Gary and Mary West Health Policy Center, the APCD Council has developed a manual for states to develop all-payer claims databases. Titled All-Payer Claims Database Development Manual: Establishing a Foundation for Health Care Transparency and Informed Decision Making, the manual is a first-of its-kind resource that provides states with detailed guidance on common data standards, collection, aggregation and analysis involved with establishing these databases

Low Caloric Intake Among Mexican – American High School Students May Suggest Food Insecurity and/or Insufficiency in the Household

In the United States, health concerns such as food insecurity and obesity continue to rise among American households (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003). Poor dietary intake can result in poor health outcomes as well as negatively impact student academic performance (Sigman-Grant, 2003). Despite the growing health concerns among the youth, limited studies have examined the dietary patterns of the Mexican-American adolescent population. This study aims to fill that void by describing the dietary intake of predominantly Mexican-American adolescents 13-18 years of age (n=532). The study design was cross-sectional and randomly selected high school participants based on their enrollment in physical education classes. Results of a one day 24-hour dietary recall showed both males and females in this study were below the national recommendations for total calories per day and reported poor eating behaviors. Further research is needed to investigate food insufficiency in this population who has high prevalence of overweight

Spectroscopic studies of the critical phenomena and composition of confined fluids

Vibrational spectroscopy has been used to study fluids within nanopores to provide an insight into the unique phase characteristics of pore confined fluids. In particular the depression in the critical temperature of carbon dioxide, difluoromethane and ethane has been studied and the relationship between pore size and the extent of this depression has also been established. Finally, the change in composition has been assessed for two pore confined binary mixtures. These mixtures were carbon dioxide/acetonitrile and difluoromethane/tetrabutylammonium tetrafluoroborate. This has been studied in a range of pore sizes and at a range of mixture compositions. It was found that as the pore size decreased, the composition of the mixture shifted further away from that of the bulk

Controlled Release Characteristics of Aqueous PEO‐PPO‐PEO Micelles With Added Malachite Green, Erythrosin, and Cisplatin Determined by UV–Visible Spectroscopy

Dynamic diffusion experiments were performed on aqueous polymeric micelles mixed with malachite green (0.05% mass v−1), erythrosin (0.1% mass v−1), and cisplatin (0.1% mass v−1) to gauge release from sequestered structures using ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy. The additives were formulated with 20% mass v−1 aqueous solutions of polyethylene oxide‐polypropylene oxide‐polyethylene oxide, PEO‐PPO‐PEO (F127). Each additive was tested neat at room temperature, neat at 40 °C, and formulated with F127 at room temperature, and 40 °C. After constructing calibration curves, the dynamic release for each ternary additive and corresponding diffusion coefficients were calculated. Results show that F127 retards permeation at room temperature. In general, the neat additives at 40 °C showed the highest permeability for both malachite green and erythrosin. Malachite green released almost 90% of the dye by 60 min of permeation. When formulated with F127 at 40 °C, sizeable release was still noted, but with an induction period of 10–30 min to register release. The behavior with cisplatin was more complicated as the first 5 h of permeation resulted in a burst delivery with cisplatin (6% total release with cisplatin‐F127‐RT compared to 4% total release cisplatin‐RT) but with overall lower release. The higher fluence at elevated temperature is attributed to reducing the blocking effect of the amphiphiles on the walls of the dialysis tubing as they are directed to form colloidal gels. There is also likely a correlation between higher temperature and higher overall permeability if the membrane pores also expand with temperature.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142528/1/jsde12001.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142528/2/jsde12001_am.pd

TEI Pedagogy and TAPAS Classroom

This paper focuses on recent work by the TEI Archiving, Preservation, and Access Service (TAPAS) on pedagogy with TEI, and specifically on a recent initiative called “TAPAS Classroom” focused on exploring pedagogical uses of TEI. We provide some background on TAPAS, describe several case studies involving pedagogical partners who used TAPAS in teaching, and finally describe the TAPAS Classroom initiative and its outcomes

Covington, GA

Prepared by the Spring 2015 Preservation Planning Class. These Design Guidelines were created to guide property owners and the Historic Preservation Commission during the review process. The Guidelines ensure the continued historic integrity of properties within the district. The Covington Historic District and the North Covington Historic District are outlined within this document.https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_heritagepreservation/1012/thumbnail.jp

High-Productivity Single-Pass Electrochemical Birch Reduction of Naphthalenes in a Continuous Flow Electrochemical Taylor Vortex Reactor

We report the development of a single-pass electrochemical Birch reduction carried out in a small footprint electrochemical Taylor vortex reactor with projected productivities of >80 g day-1 (based on 32.2 mmol h-1), using a modified version of our previously reported reactor [Org. Process Res. Dev. 2021, 25, 7, 1619-1627], consisting of a static outer electrode and a rapidly rotating cylindrical inner electrode. In this study, we used an aluminum tube as the sacrificial outer electrode and stainless steel as the rotating inner electrode. We have established the viability of using a sacrificial aluminum anode for the electrochemical reduction of naphthalene, and by varying the current, we can switch between high selectivity (>90%) for either the single ring reduction or double ring reduction with >80 g day-1 projected productivity for either product. The concentration of LiBr in solution changes the fluid dynamics of the reaction mixture investigated by computational fluid dynamics, and this affects equilibration time, monitored using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. We show that the concentrations of electrolyte (LiBr) and proton source (dimethylurea) can be reduced while maintaining high reaction efficiency. We also report the reduction of 1-aminonaphthalene, which has been used as a precursor to the API Ropinirole. We find that our methodology produces the corresponding dihydronaphthalene with excellent selectivity and 88% isolated yield in an uninterrupted run of >8 h with a projected productivity of >100 g day-1

Applying Factor Analysis Combined with Kriging and Information Entropy Theory for Mapping and Evaluating the Stability of Groundwater Quality Variation in Taiwan

In Taiwan many factors, whether geological parent materials, human activities, and climate change, can affect the groundwater quality and its stability. This work combines factor analysis and kriging with information entropy theory to interpret the stability of groundwater quality variation in Taiwan between 2005 and 2007. Groundwater quality demonstrated apparent differences between the northern and southern areas of Taiwan when divided by the Wu River. Approximately 52% of the monitoring wells in southern Taiwan suffered from progressing seawater intrusion, causing unstable groundwater quality. Industrial and livestock wastewaters also polluted 59.6% of the monitoring wells, resulting in elevated EC and TOC concentrations in the groundwater. In northern Taiwan, domestic wastewaters polluted city groundwater, resulting in higher NH3-N concentration and groundwater quality instability was apparent among 10.3% of the monitoring wells. The method proposed in this study for analyzing groundwater quality inspects common stability factors, identifies potential areas influenced by common factors, and assists in elevating and reinforcing information in support of an overall groundwater management strategy