Teaching Ethics in the Basic Survey Speech Communication Course

The teaching of ethics in speech communication courses is not new to most communication curricula. Emphasis upon teaching ethics in speech communication courses, however, appears to be growing. Attention on the teaching of ethics appears to be growing as well as in many basic speech communication classes. This paper, then, provides general suggestions on teaching ethics in a basic speech communication course

Responsibility, Freedom of Speech and Campus Speech Codes

This article argues that speech codes are not the answer to curbing offensive communication. The typical response to curbing verbal aggression on campuses throughout the U.S. has come in the form of speech codes--designed to prevent offensive communication. Speech codes, however, are not new phenomena to the U.S. landscape. Landmark Supreme Court decisions have provided numerous types of speech codes for identifying messages falling within and outside the boundaries of legally protected speech. All members, then, in the communication process engage in the creation of meaning. And more, they must take responsibility for not only the formation of meaning in a message but the responsibility for their reaction it. To deny this responsibility simultaneously denies the process of communication itself. On the issue of freedom of speech, a college or university serves its constituency effectively if it perceives the act of communication from the broader view offered by a transactional perspective

ICPD-A New Peak Detection Algorithm for LC/MS

BACKGROUND: The identification and quantification of proteins using label-free Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS) play crucial roles in biological and biomedical research. Increasing evidence has shown that biomarkers are often low abundance proteins. However, LC/MS systems are subject to considerable noise and sample variability, whose statistical characteristics are still elusive, making computational identification of low abundance proteins extremely challenging. As a result, the inability of identifying low abundance proteins in a proteomic study is the main bottleneck in protein biomarker discovery. RESULTS: In this paper, we propose a new peak detection method called Information Combining Peak Detection (ICPD ) for high resolution LC/MS. In LC/MS, peptides elute during a certain time period and as a result, peptide isotope patterns are registered in multiple MS scans. The key feature of the new algorithm is that the observed isotope patterns registered in multiple scans are combined together for estimating the likelihood of the peptide existence. An isotope pattern matching score based on the likelihood probability is provided and utilized for peak detection. CONCLUSIONS: The performance of the new algorithm is evaluated based on protein standards with 48 known proteins. The evaluation shows better peak detection accuracy for low abundance proteins than other LC/MS peak detection methods

Did racial representation change at our outpatient sports medicine clinic during the COVID-19 Pandemic?

Introduction/Objective • COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) • Increased infection, hospitalization, and death rates1,2 • Black Americans unequal access to outpatient care vs. White Americans 3 • Inequity worsened during the COVID-19 Pandemic 4 • Maine population: 94.25% “White;” 1.42% “Black” 5 • July 2020 COVID cases: 66.8% “White;” 22% “Black” 6 • Did this disparity reflect in in our sports medicine clinic?https://knowledgeconnection.mainehealth.org/lambrew-retreat-2021/1006/thumbnail.jp

MRCQuant- an accurate LC-MS relative isotopic quantification algorithm on TOF instruments

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Relative isotope abundance quantification, which can be used for peptide identification and differential peptide quantification, plays an important role in liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based proteomics. However, several major issues exist in the relative isotopic quantification of peptides on time-of-flight (TOF) instruments: LC peak boundary detection, thermal noise suppression, interference removal and mass drift correction. We propose to use the Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) method to extract MS signal templates for interference detection/removal and LC peak boundary detection. In our method, MRCQuant, MS templates are extracted directly from experimental values, and the mass drift in each LC-MS run is automatically captured and compensated. We compared the quantification accuracy of MRCQuant to that of another representative LC-MS quantification algorithm (msInspect) using datasets downloaded from a public data repository.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>MRCQuant showed significant improvement in the number of accurately quantified peptides.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>MRCQuant effectively addresses major issues in the relative quantification of LC-MS-based proteomics data, and it provides improved performance in the quantification of low abundance peptides.</p

Review of Peak Detection Algorithms in Liquid-Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

In this review, we will discuss peak detection in Liquid-Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS) from a signal processing perspective. A brief introduction to LC/MS is followed by a description of the major processing steps in LC/MS. Specifically, the problem of peak detection is formulated and various peak detection algorithms are described and compared

Vesiculation from Pseudomonas aeruginosa under SOS

Bacterial infections can be aggravated by antibiotic treatment that induces SOS response and vesiculation. This leads to a hypothesis concerning association of SOS with vesiculation. To test it, we conducted multiple analyses of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) produced from the Pseudomonas aeruginosa wild type in which SOS is induced by ciprofloxacin and from the LexA noncleavable (lexAN) strain in which SOS is repressed. The levels of OMV proteins, lipids, and cytotoxicity increased for both the treated strains, demonstrating vesiculation stimulation by the antibiotic treatment. However, the further increase was suppressed in the lexAN strains, suggesting the SOS involvement. Obviously, the stimulated vesiculation is attributed by both SOS-related and unrelated factors. OMV subproteomic analysis was performed to examine these factors, which reflected the OMV-mediated cytotoxicity and the physiology of the vesiculating cells under treatment and SOS. Thus, SOS plays a role in the vesiculation stimulation that contributes to cytotoxicity

Cytotoxicity and Genotoxicity Assessment of Sandalwood Essential Oil in Human Breast Cell Lines MCF-7 and MCF-10A

Sandalwood essential oil (SEO) is extracted from Santalum trees. Although α-santalol, a main constituent of SEO, has been studied as a chemopreventive agent, the genotoxic activity of the whole oil in human breast cell lines is still unknown. The main objective of this study was to assess the cytotoxic and genotoxic effects of SEO in breast adenocarcinoma (MCF-7) and nontumorigenic breast epithelial (MCF-10A) cells. Proteins associated with SEO genotoxicity were identified using a proteomics approach. Commercially available, high-purity, GC/MS characterized SEO was used to perform the experiments. The main constituents reported in the oil were (Z)-α-santalol (25.34%), (Z)-nuciferol (18.34%), (E)-β-santalol (10.97%), and (E)-nuciferol (10.46%). Upon exposure to SEO (2–8 μg/mL) for 24 hours, cell proliferation was determined by the MTT assay. Alkaline and neutral comet assays were used to assess genotoxicity. SEO exposure induced single- and double-strand breaks selectively in the DNA of MCF-7 cells. Quantitative LC/MS-based proteomics allowed identification of candidate proteins involved in this response: Ku70 (p=1.37E-2), Ku80 (p=5.8E-3), EPHX1 (p=3.3E-3), and 14-3-3ζ (p=4.0E-4). These results provide the first evidence that SEO is genotoxic and capable of inducing DNA single- and double-strand breaks in MCF-7 cells

Investigation of Structure and Transport in Li-Doped Ionic Liquid Electrolytes: [pyr14][TFSI], [pyr13][FSI] and [EMIM][BF4]

Ionic liquid electrolytes have been proposed as a means of improving the safety and cycling behavior of advanced lithium batteries; however, the properties of these electrolytes under high lithium doping are poorly understood. Here, we employ both polarizable molecular dynamics simulation and experiment to investigate the structure, thermodynamics and transport of three potential electrolytes, N-methyl-Nbutylpyrrolidinium bis(trifluoromethylsufonyl)imide ([pyr14][TFSI]), N- methyl-Npropylpyrrolidinium bis(fluorosufonyl)imide ([pyr13][FSI]), and 1-ethyl-3-- methylimidazolium boron tetrafluoride ([EMIM][BF4]), as a function of Li-salt concentration and temperature. Structurally, Li(+) is shown to be solvated by three anion neighbors in [pyr14][TFSI] and four anion neighbors in both [pyr13][FSI] and [EMIM][BF4], and at all levels of x(sub Li) we find the presence of lithium aggregates. Furthermore, the computed density, diffusion, viscosity, and ionic conductivity show excellent agreement with experimental data. While the diffusion and viscosity exhibit a systematic decrease and increase, respectively, with increasing x(sub Li), the contribution of Li(+) to ionic conductivity increases until reaching a saturation doping level of x(sub Li) is approximately 0.10. Comparatively, the Li(+) conductivity of [pyr14][TFSI] is an order of magnitude lower than that of the other liquids, which range between 0.1 - 0.3 mS/cm. The differences in Li(+) transport are reflected in the residence times of Li(+) with the anions, which are revealed to be much larger for [pyr14][TFSI] (up to 100 ns at the highest doping levels) than in either [EMIM][BF4] or [pyr13][FSI]. Finally, we comment on the relative kinetics of Li(+) transport in each liquid and we present strong evidence for transport through anion exchange (hopping) as opposed to the net motion of Li(+) with its solvation shell (vehicular)