Cardiorespiratory Fitness Is Inversely Associated With Clustering of Metabolic Syndrome Risk Factors: The Ball State Adult Fitness Program Longitudinal Lifestyle Study

Objective: The focus of this study was the association between the metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) defined as maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max). Although previous research has shown a relationship between MetSyn and CRF, most studies are based on less objective measures of CRF and different cardiometabolic risk factor thresholds from earlier guidelines

Evaluation of Sediment Toxicity Using a Suite of Assessment Tools

Accurate characterization of risk of adverse ecological effects related to contaminated sediment presents a particularly difficult challenge. A series of studies has been conducted to investigate the utility of various tools for assessment of sediment toxicity. The goal of this research was to provide information which could help increase the accuracy with which predictions of toxicity could be made at hazardous sites. A calibration study was conducted using model PAHs, PCBs, a binary PAH mixture and a coal-tar mixture. This study was a collaborative effort among five university-based Superfund Research Programs (SRPs). Each program, with the help of funding through the NIEHS Superfund Research Program, has developed a chemical-class specific assay to estimate toxicity of contaminants in sediment. This suite of bioassays expands the range of data typically obtained through the use of standard aquatic toxicity assays. A series of caged in situ exposure studies has been conducted using juvenile Chinook salmon and Pacific staghorn sculpin in the Lower Duwamish Waterway. The study aimed to investigate the utility of selected biomarkers in evaluating the relationship between contaminants present in environmental samples and response in receptors following an in situ caged exposure. Results found that DNA adducts detected in exposed fish were significantly higher than controls in 2004 and 2006, and DNA adducts appear to be a reliable indicator of exposure, although no dose-response relationship was present. Western blot analysis of CYP1A1 was not indicative of exposure levels. The final study conducted was concerned with evaluating the utility of using solid phase microextraction (SPME) fibers in situ to evaluate contaminated sediment. Levels of PAHs and PCBs in sediment often exceeded sediment quality guidelines; however, results from aquatic toxicity bioassays using Hyalella azteca were mostly negative, thus levels of contaminants detected on SPME fibers could not be associated with adverse effects in Hyalella. However, regression analysis of total PAHs present in sediment and levels of PAHs detected in porewater SPME fiber samplers, which were placed 5 cm into the sediment for 30 days, revealed a strongly correlated linear relationship (R2 = .779). Normalization of the sediment data to total organic carbon was performed to determine if the trend would remain present, and the linear relationship was again confirmed (R2 =.709)

Neutrinos with Lorentz-violating operators of arbitrary dimension

The behavior of fermions in the presence of Lorentz and CPT violation is studied. Allowing for operators of any mass dimension, we classify all Lorentz-violating terms in the quadratic Lagrange density for free fermions. The result is adapted to obtain the effective hamiltonian describing the propagation and mixing of three flavors of left-handed neutrinos in the presence of Lorentz violation involving operators of arbitrary mass dimension. A characterization of the neutrino coefficients for Lorentz violation is provided via a decomposition using spin-weighted spherical harmonics. The restriction of the general theory to various special cases is discussed, including among others the renormalizable limit, the massless scenario, flavor-blind and oscillation-free models, the diagonalizable case, and several isotropic limits. The formalism is combined with existing data on neutrino oscillations and kinematics to extract a variety of measures of coefficients for Lorentz and CPT violation. For oscillations, we use results from the short-baseline experiments LSND and MiniBooNE to obtain explicit sensitivities to effects from flavor-mixing Lorentz-violating operators up to mass dimension 10, and we present methods to analyze data from long-baseline experiments. For propagation, we use time-of-flight measurements from the supernova SN1987A and from a variety of experiments including MINOS and OPERA to constrain oscillation-free Lorentz-violating operators up to mass dimension 10, and we discuss constraints from threshold effects in meson decays and Cherenkov emission.Comment: 35 pages two-column REVTe

Unequal Playing Time

Unequal Playing Time In his book The American College Town, Blake Gumprecht claims one of the defining features of college towns is that they are more progressive, liberal-minded, and socially-blended spaces. However, this is not the type of college town that appears in Marshall University’s collection of archives. Throughout the years, many groups of students were often overlooked due to minority population status. This presentation examines the lack of recognition for one such group, in particular, women’s athletics during the 1920’s. Student yearbooks published between 1920 and 1930 were analyzed for content featuring men versus women’s athletics. At the start of the decade in 1920, female athletes were given a one-page segment placed at the end of the athletics section which discussed the athletic classes offered to women. During that same year, there happened to be nine women and seven men on the yearbook’s editorial board. In the following years, the number of women on the editorial board decreased and despite the girl’s athletic association being the largest student organization on campus, so did the amount of recognition for the association. One could easily surmise that the men on the yearbook staff often overlooked women when it came to athletics. However, when men were the bulk of the yearbook editors, women were often most noted for their beauty and popularity, rather than their athletic achievements. Such inconsistencies directly contrast with Gumprecht’s definition of a college town being broadminded and socially incorporated

The Radio Evolution of SN 2001gd

We present the results of observations of the radio emission from Supernova 2001gd in NGC 5033 from 2002 February 8 through 2006 September 25. The data were obtained using the Very Large Array at wavelengths of 1.3 cm (22.4 GHz), 2 cm (14.9 GHz), 3.6 cm (8.4 GHz), 6 cm (4.9 GHz), and 20 cm (1.5 GHz), with one upper limit at 90 cm (0.3 GHz). In addition, one detection has been provided by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope at 21 cm (1.4 GHz). SN 2001gd was discovered in the optical well past maximum light, so that it was not possible to obtain many of the early radio "turn-on" measurements which are important for estimating the local circumstellar medium (CSM) properties. Only at 20 cm were turn-on data available. However, our analysis and fitting of the radio light curves, and the assumption that the Type IIb SN 2001gd resembles the much better studied Type IIb SN 1993J, enables us to describe the radio evolution as being very regular through day ~550 and consistent with a nonthermal-emitting model with a thermal absorbing CSM. The presence of synchrotron-self absorption (SSA) at early times is implied by the data, but determination of the exact relationship between the SSA component from the emitting region and the free-free absorption component from the CSM is not possible as there are insufficient early measurements to distinguish between models. After day ~550, the radio emission exhibits a dramatically steeper decline rate which, assuming similarity to SN 1993J, can be described as an exponential decrease with an e-folding time of 500 days. We interpret this abrupt change in the radio flux density decline rate as implying a transition of the shock front into a more tenuous region of circumstellar material. A similar change in radio evolution has been seen earlier in other SNe such as SN 1988Z, SN 1980K, and SN 1993J.Comment: 3 tables, 2 figures, To appear in the Astrophysical Journa

One gene versus two: A regional study on the efficacy of single gene versus pyramided resistance for soybean aphid management

Citation: McCarville, M. T., M. E. O’Neal, B. D. Potter, K. J. Tilmon, E. M. Cullen, B. P. McCornack, J. F. Tooker, and D. A. Prischmann-Voldseth. 2014. “One Gene Versus Two: A Regional Study on the Efficacy of Single Gene Versus Pyramided Resistance for Soybean Aphid Management.” Journal of Economic Entomology 107 (4): 1680–87. https://doi.org/10.1603/EC14047.The soybean aphid (Aphis glycines Matsumura) is a threat to soybean production in the Midwestern United States. Varieties containing the Rag1 soybean aphid resistance gene have been released with limited success in reducing aphid populations. Furthermore, virulent biotypes occur within North America and challenge the durability of single-gene resistance. Pyramiding resistance genes has the potential to improve aphid population suppression and increase resistance gene durability. Our goal was to determine if a pyramid could provide improved aphid population suppression across a wide range of environments.Weconducted a small-plot Þeld experiment across seven states and three years. We compared soybean near-isolines for the Rag1 or Rag2 gene, and a pyramid line containing both genes for their ability to decrease aphid pressure and protect yield compared with a susceptible line. These lines were evaluated both with and without a neonicitinoid seed treatment. All aphid-resistant lines signiÞcantly decreased aphid pressure at all locations but one. The pyramid line experienced lower aphid pressure than both single-gene lines at eight of 23 location-years. Soybean aphids signiÞcantly reduced soybean yield for the susceptible line by 14% and for both single-gene lines by 5%; however, no signiÞcant yield decrease was observed for the pyramid line. The neonicitinoid seed treatment reduced plant exposure to aphids across all soybean lines, but did not provide signiÞcant yield protection for any of the lines. These results demonstrate that pyramiding resistance genes can provide sufÞcient and consistent yield protection from soybean aphid in North America

A decade-spanning high-resolution asynchronous optical sampling terahertz time-domain and frequency comb spectrometer

We present the design and capabilities of a high-resolution, decade-spanning ASynchronous OPtical Sampling (ASOPS)-based TeraHertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy (THz-TDS) instrument. Our system employs dual mode-locked femtosecond Ti:Sapphire oscillators with repetition rates offset locked at 100 Hz via a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) operating at the 60th harmonic of the ∼80 MHz oscillator repetition rates. The respective time delays of the individual laser pulses are scanned across a 12.5 ns window in a laboratory scan time of 10 ms, supporting a time delay resolution as fine as 15.6 fs. The repetition rate of the pump oscillator is synchronized to a Rb frequency standard via a PLL operating at the 12th harmonic of the oscillator repetition rate, achieving milliHertz (mHz) stability. We characterize the timing jitter of the system using an air-spaced etalon, an optical cross correlator, and the phase noise spectrum of the PLL. Spectroscopic applications of ASOPS-THz-TDS are demonstrated by measuring water vapor absorption lines from 0.55 to 3.35 THz and acetonitrile absorption lines from 0.13 to 1.39 THz in a short pathlength gas cell. With 70 min of data acquisition, a 50 dB signal-to-noise ratio is achieved. The achieved root-mean-square deviation is 14.6 MHz, with a mean deviation of 11.6 MHz, for the measured water line center frequencies as compared to the JPL molecular spectroscopy database. Further, with the same instrument and data acquisition hardware, we use the ability to control the repetition rate of the pump oscillator to enable THz frequency comb spectroscopy (THz-FCS). Here, a frequency comb with a tooth width of 5 MHz is generated and used to fully resolve the pure rotational spectrum of acetonitrile with Doppler-limited precision. The oscillator repetition rate stability achieved by our PLL lock circuits enables sub-MHz tooth width generation, if desired. This instrument provides unprecedented decade-spanning, tunable resolution, from 80 MHz down to sub-MHz, and heralds a new generation of gas-phase spectroscopic tools in the THz region

Alcohol Use and Trauma Exposure Among Male and Female Veterans Before, During, and After Military Service

Background: The present study examined lifespan and combat-related trauma exposure as predictors of alcohol use among male and female veterans. Posttraumatic stress and depressive symptoms were examined as mediators of the effects of trauma exposure on alcohol use. Methods: Data were examined from 1825 (1450 male, 375 female) veterans and active duty service members who took part in a multi-site research study conducted through the Department of Veterans Affairs Mid-Atlantic Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (VISN 6 MIRECC). Results: For both men and women, depressive symptoms significantly mediated the effects of non-combat trauma exposure experienced before, during and after the military, as well as combat-exposure, on alcohol use. With posttraumatic stress symptoms, the models for men and women differed. For men, the effects of non-combat trauma exposure during and after military service, and combat exposure, on alcohol use were mediated by PTSD symptoms; however, for women, PTSD symptoms did not mediate these relationships. Conclusion: Findings are discussed in the context of potential gender differences in response to trauma such as use of alcohol to cope with traumatic events

The Viability of Using Rapid Judgments as a Method of Deception Detection

Rapid Judgments (RJs) are quick assessments based on indirect verbal and nonverbal cues that are known to be associated with deception. RJs are advantageous because they eliminate the need for expensive detection equipment and only require minimal training for coders with relatively accurate judgments. Results of testing on two different datasets showed that trained coders were reliably making RJs after watching both long and short interaction segments but their judgments were not more accurate than the expert interviewers. The RJs did not discriminate between truth and deception as hypothesized. This raises more questions about the conditions under which making RJs from verbal and nonverbal cues achieves accurate detection of veracity.18 month embargo; published online: 25 January 2017This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]