Gender and Ethnic Differences in Sound Tolerance

Gender and Ethnic Differences in Sound Tolerance Nicole Concepcion, Depts. of Psychology, Social Work, and Human Resource Management, and Rachel Wallace, M.S., Dept. of Psychology Graduate Student, with Dr. Scott Vrana, Dept. of Psychology Misophonia, hyperacusis, and tinnitus are related to decreased sound tolerance (DST). Misophonia is characterized as strong aversive reactions to specific sounds. Hyperacusis is a heightened sensitivity to certain sounds below the loudness sensitivity levels. Tinnitus is a condition that includes continuous ringing or buzzing in the ears. Current research has shown that misophonia symptoms have many commonalities with psychiatric diagnoses and these symptoms result in substantial functional disability and lower quality of life. In the growing literature, there are some questions that need to be answered. The questions sought to be answered in this study are: what is the prevalence of the DST conditions? Are there any significant ethnic and gender differences for those who endorse misophonia, hyperacusis, or tinnitus? Can these differences be corroborated by current health items, like anxiety? To answer these questions, a large scale survey (n= 1,200) was examined by conducting chi-square, independent samples t-test, and ANOVA analyses. The findings indicate there were significant gender and racial differences among hyperacusis and misophonia. Women reported more negative responses towards misophonia and hyperacusis. This is consistent with the past findings that women report higher anxiety. White participants endorsed all DST conditions more than any other group. These findings promote further research.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1349/thumbnail.jp

Government Intervention in the National Economy of America

In an effort to have an established knowledge about schools of thought around interventionism, there will be a brief overview of recent literatures surrounding the topic. In response to the global pandemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19), the legislative and executive branches of the American government enacted the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES). This research aims to review the nation’s economy and analyze whether the CARES Act was able to foster a stable economy that could thrive, even under unprecedented conditions. Data was collected from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and transferred into Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), which is an efficient and accurate avenue in calculating the Pearson correlation coefficient

Folate Binding Protein as a Therapeutic Natural Nanotechnology

Serum proteins interact with small molecules and nanoparticles in blood, resulting in protein coronas. Protein coronas influence the bioidentity of the molecules and nanoparticles, playing critical roles in biotransport, uptake, and fate. Targeted therapeutics are often “tagged” for removal or sequestration before reaching their intended tissues. The research presented here is focused on characterizing and taking advantage of a particular protein corona – the self-aggregation of serum folate binding protein (FBP). FBP is derived from cellular folate receptors, and both bind strongly to folic acid (FA), as well as the antifolate drug methotrexate (MTX). FA has been explored as a targeting agent because folate receptors are overexpressed on many human cancers. Translation to the clinic of FA-targeted therapeutics has been challenging because the interaction of FBP with these materials has not been fully understood or appreciated: therapies tested in vivo are likely to operate by different mechanisms than those predicted by in vitro experiments in the absence of soluble FBP. Using atomic force microscopy (AFM), we characterized the self-aggregation of FBP on a particle-by-particle basis at physiological concentrations. FBP self-aggregates into nanoparticles (forming FBPNP) at blood serum concentrations. We further explored the effect of concentration and ligand on the aggregation process. The introduction, and subsequent binding to FBP, of FA, MTX, or leucovorin (LEUC, a FA rescue agent) disrupted existing FBPNP, in most cases inducing reaggregation into new FBPNP. Healthy concentrations of FA and therapeutically relevant concentrations of LEUC produced FBPNP distributions that were not statistically different. This provided a new hypothesis for the perplexing phenomenon that LEUC must be used for FA rescue because high-dose FA itself provides no therapeutic benefit. FBPNP with therapeutic levels of FA or MTX had similar distributions, both of which were significantly different from LEUC-FBPNP. We postulated the degree of FBP aggregation acts as a signaling mechanism and dictates uptake of ligated species. We studied FBP aggregation with two FA-poly(amidoamine) (PAMAM) dendrimers and two FA-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) conjugates. Fluorescence spectroscopy experiments showed that FA and FA-conjugates induced conformational changes throughout the protein population, even with an excess of FBP. Using AFM, we demonstrated the PAMAM conjugates produced large aggregates at sub-stoichiometric concentrations. PAMAM-FA-FBPNP and FA-FBPNP have different distributions, suggesting that translation of targeted conjugates has been challenging because FBP does not traffic the conjugates like free FA. PEG should be used with caution because it disrupted healthy FBP aggregation, potentially inducing artificial folate deficiency. Given the challenges associated with conjugated therapies, we sought to leverage FBP itself as a targeted vector. We hypothesized that pre-binding FBP to MTX would decrease toxicity and increase therapeutic efficacy. We tested this hypothesis in a KB xenograft tumor model in mice. Surprisingly, FBP alone inhibited tumor growth as compared to saline control and free MTX. This is the first time this therapeutic effect of FBP has been reported. We postulate the excess unbound FBP resulted in folate starvation of the tumors. The groups treated with MTX and FBP also showed inhibition of tumor growth, but toxicity increased with FBP concentration. It is likely that instead of specifically targeting cancer cells, FBP facilitated widespread uptake of MTX, resulting in systemic toxicity. The substantial reduction observed in tumor volume suggests that FBP alone could be employed as a chemotherapeutic. Future work should be focused on exploring this exciting possibility.PHDChemistryUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143895/1/rlmerzel_1.pd

Differential Identification of Hyperacusis and Misophonia: Implications of Discrete Decreased Sound Tolerance (DST) Condition Subtypes

Hyperacusis and misophonia are two conditions of decreased sound tolerance (DST) studied in the psychological literature due to their association with psychological symptoms and mechanisms. DSTs are differentiated from normal sound sensitivity due to the reported impairment and distress individuals experience. Researchers suggest that DSTs are differentiated by types of sounds and emotional reactions elicited, such that hyperacusis is a fear and pain response to ordinary environmental sounds perceived as uncomfortably loud, and misophonia is an anger and disgust response to human-made sounds, but these distinctions, and associated characteristics, have not been empirically demonstrated. Undergraduate students (N = 1572) completed self-report measures assessing DST symptoms, clinical correlates, and psychological symptoms and mechanisms. Latent class analysis revealed six clusters, including no DST symptoms (28.6%), hyperacusis (10.1%), misophonia (13.7%), comorbid hyperacusis/misophonia (23.9%), and two mixed symptom clusters (13.2 and 10.6%). People with DST symptoms exhibited more symptoms on psychopathology measures than the no symptom cluster, and individuals with comorbid hyperacusis and misophonia reported the greatest number of symptoms. Hyperacusis is associated with more severe psychopathology than misophonia. Hyperacusis and misophonia were not easily differentiated by specific emotions or sounds, and total emotions appeared to be a better indicator of impairment and a better method to differentiate DSTs than a single emotion. On average, participants found human-made/mouth sounds more aversive than loud sounds and examining hyperacusis-specific sounds was a better method to differentiate “pure” hyperacusis and misophonia clusters than misophonia-specific sounds. This study empirically characterizes DSTs and offers insight into their distinctions

Synchrony and concordance: A multilevel analysis of the effects of individual differences during a CO2 challenge

Emotion theories posit that emotion systems (e.g., behavior, self-report, physiology) should be related when an emotion is being elicited because this serves an adaptive purpose and allows the individual to respond appropriately to the present situation. Oftentimes, this coherent relationship is not found, and research has hypothesized that the type of analyses used and lack of examination of individual differences could be affecting this relationship. Most studies examine the relationship between emotion systems between-subjects when within-subjects analyses may be more appropriate. The present study examined the relationship between self-reported distress (SUDS) and heart rate, and whether trait differences of anxiety sensitivity and heart rate variability affect that relationship. Undergraduate students (N = 294) completed an anxiety sensitivity measure and their heart rate variability was calculated prior to undergoing a 7.5% CO2 challenge. SUDS was collected 11 times throughout the challenge and heart rate was collected continuously. Consistent with studies examining both concordance (between-subjects correlation between systems) and synchrony (within-subjects correlation between systems), synchrony was found between heart rate and SUDS, but concordance was not found between the two variables. Contrary to our hypotheses, neither anxiety sensitivity nor heart rate variability predicted synchrony between heart rate and SUDS. Our results suggest that synchrony is a more appropriate measure of adaptive emotional response than concordance because synchrony allows for examination of coordination of emotion systems over time

Use of environmental variables to infer gene flow and population structure in the gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) and predict the seroprevalence of an emerging infectious disease

Understanding worldwide declines in reptiles due to factors such as habitat loss and emerging infectious disease has become an increasingly important focus in conservation biology. Here, I use novel approaches from the field of landscape genetics to combine spatial genetic data with landscape data at both regional and local spatial scales to explore natural and anthropogenic landscape features that shape population structure and gene flow in a federally threatened reptile, Gopherus polyphemus. I also utilize approaches from the field of spatial epidemiology to examine the extent to which environmental variables can be used to predict the seroprevalence of an associated pathogen Mycoplasma agassizzi in gopher tortoise populations. Using mitochondrial data, I find evidence of a historical barrier to gene flow that appears to coincide with the Apalachicola River. I also discover low genetic diversity and evidence of population bottlenecks in the western portion of the range. My evaluation at the regional scale shows that dispersal is limited by geographic distance, areas of low elevation and major roads ways. A finescale study reveals no evidence of spatial genetic structure within a 14 x 35 km area. However, soil type is significantly correlated with pairwise genetic distances between individuals, suggesting that this variable influences fine-scale population structure in the gopher tortoise. In addition to soil, high density canopy cover is an important factor impeding gene flow at the local level for females, while land cover type explains some of the genetic variance between males. Finally, temperature and precipitation appear to be important predictors of the seroprevalence of the pathogen Mycoplasma agassizii in gopher tortoises. The probability of an individual testing seropositive for exposure to this disease increased with high temperature and low precipitation values. The methods presented in this dissertation evaluate novel approaches for assessing the influence of environmental variables on population structure, dispersal and disease occurrence and could be applied in future studies of other threatened and endangered taxa

A new close mammal relative and the origin and evolution of the mammalian central nervous system

Mammals are distinguished by the presences of the cerebral neocortex, and dentary-squamosal jaw joint, among other traits. These traits likely evolved outside of Mammalia, in Mammaliaformes. Recent fossil discoveries from South America elucidate the evolution of the brain in taxa outside of Mammaliaformes. A new skull of a close mammal relative, Pseudotherium argentinus, from the Late Triassic Ischigualasto Formation in Argentina was scanned at The University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) Facility. CT data reveal a unique combination of ancestral and derived characters. Phylogenetic analysis supports a sister-taxon relationship between Pseudotherium and the derived Tritylodontidae. An endocast reconstruction further supports a derived phylogenetic position among cynodonts. A comparison of the Pseudotherium endocast with other cynodont endocasts suggests that the cerebral hemispheres enlarged in probainognathian cynodonts, while the total endocranial volume remained relatively constant until the origin of Mammaliaformes. This expansion is also present in the foramen magnum. Encephalization volume and skull length were compared with foramen magnum size in extinct and extant cynodonts, birds, and lizards. Endocranial volume and foramen magnum size, and foramen magnum size and skull length, are correlated following a 3/2 power law. Therefore, foramen magnum size can be used to predict endocranial volume for fossils. Regression analyses show foramen magnum size is significantly increased in Mammaliaformes. This change reflects an increase in medulla oblongata size and supports a concerted model of brain evolution outside of Mammalia. Because the increase in medullary size coincides with the origin of the neocortex, I hypothesize that the mammalian pyramidal tract originated in Mammaliaformes. The hypotheses from this dissertation are testable given recent fossil discoveries. However, morphological data of those specimens are not readily available. Morphological descriptions in this dissertation are accompanied by detailed figures, and the data will be digitally archived and made publically available on DigiMorph.org. The intent is to model a communication and data-sharing standard to be implemented in all future fossil discoveries.Geological Science

Academic Library-Supported Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-A-Thons

Art+Feminism (A+F) began in 2014 in response to research that documented a widespread gender gap in Wikipedia articles and spoke to a need for increased representation from cis and trans women and people of color. Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world. By supporting Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, Art+Feminism builds a community of activists committed to closing information gaps related to gender, feminism, and the arts. Academic libraries have partnered with A+F to organize and host edit-a-thons at their own institutions and use an online dashboard system provided by Art + Feminism to manage events. We worked with A+F staff to download the raw data from the event dashboard to assess the overarching trends and impacts of academic library-supported edit-a-thons. This poster will present data on academic-library-hosted edit-a-thons, including how many libraries have participated, the number of articles created and edited, the number of references added, article views, the number of editors, the number of new editors per year, the languages used, etc. By presenting this poster we hope to share our own edit-a-thon experience with fellow attendees, illustrate the impact of Wikipedia edit-a-thons toward making Wikipedia a more equitable and robust platform, and gauge which information is most relevant as we plan our approach toward developing a scholarly article about our findings