Behavioral Differences Between Two Recently Sympatric Paper Wasps, the Native \u3ci\u3ePolistes Fuscatus\u3c/i\u3e and the Invasive \u3ci\u3ePolistes Dominulus\u3c/i\u3e

Polistes dominulus (Christ), an old world paper wasp, was introduced into the eastern United States in the 1970s and has been rapidly spreading westward. Recently, it has displaced the native Polistes fuscatus (F.) in at least some areas of Michigan. In order to understand why P. dominulus has been so successful, several behavioral attributes were compared between P. dominulus and P. fuscatus at a Michigan field site that contained colonies of both species nest- ing semi-naturally in plywood nestboxes. Preworker colonies of P. dominulus had a significantly greater tendency to store nectar (and had significantly higher proportions of cells with nectar) than preworker colonies of P. fuscatus. This finding may explain the higher survivorship of P. dominulus foundresses reported in a previous study. P. dominulus also had a significantly greater tendency to build vertical nests and had significantly more pedicels per comb and per cell than P. fuscatus. These findings suggest that compared to P. fuscatus, P. dominulus may have more flexibility in the positioning of its combs and, because of a possibly stronger attachment of the comb to a substrate, may be less susceptible to bird predation. The higher winter survivorship reported for P. fuscatus over P. dominulus in a previous study does not appear to be due to differences in the proportions of gynes stranded on their nests late in the fall. Finally, behavioral evidence from videography was consistent with previous reports that P. dominulus is not replacing P. fuscatus through direct agonistic interactions

A Structured Framework and Resources to Use to Get Your Medical Education Work Published.

IntroductionMedical educators often have great ideas for medical education scholarship but have difficulty converting their educational abstract or project into a published manuscript.MethodsDuring this workshop, participants addressed common challenges in developing an educational manuscript. In small-group case scenarios, participants discovered the importance of the "So what?" in making the case for their project. Incorporating conceptual frameworks, participants chose appropriate outcome metrics, discussed how to frame the discussion section, and ensured appropriate journal fit. After each small-group exercise, large-group discussions allowed the small groups to report back so that facilitators could highlight and reinforce key learning points. At the conclusion of the workshop, participants left with a checklist for creating an educational manuscript and an additional resources document to assist them in avoiding common pitfalls when turning their educational abstract/project into a publishable manuscript.ResultsThis workshop was presented in 2016 and 2017. Presenter evaluations were completed by 33 participants; 11 completed conference evaluations. The mean overall rating on presenter evaluations was 4.55 out of 5, while the conference evaluations mean was 3.73 out of 4. Comments provided on both evaluation tools highlighted the perceived effectiveness of the delivery and content. More than 50% of respondents stated that they planned to incorporate the use of conceptual frameworks in future work.DiscussionThis workshop helped participants address common challenges by providing opportunities for hands-on practice as well as tips and resources for use when submitting a medical education manuscript for publication

Risk Factors for Maternal Chagas Disease and Vertical Transmission to Infants in a Bolivian Hospital

Introduction: Vertical transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi infection accounts for a growing proportion of new cases of Chagas disease. Congenital Chagas disease is curable if treated promptly, but the majority of infected infants do not receive timely diagnosis or treatment. Better risk stratification is needed to predict which women are more likely to have and transmit the infection. Methods: This study enrolled women and their infants at the Percy Boland Women’s Hospital in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Pregnant women were screened for T. cruzi by serological rapid test. Infants of seropositive mothers underwent diagnostic testing with microscopy (“micromethod”) and quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) as newborns and at one- and nine-month follow-up. Results: Among 5,828 enrolled women, 1,271 (21.8%) were seropositive for Chagas disease. Of the 1,325 total infants of seropositive mothers, 113 infants (8.5%) were diagnosed with congenital Chagas disease by microscopy or qPCR. In a multivariate logistic regression, older maternal age, family history of Chagas disease, lack of maternal high school education, and multiple environmental factors were significantly associated with higher odds of maternal Chagas disease. Cesarean delivery was found to be protective against vertical transmission, adjusted for twin delivery (adjusted OR: 0.63, 95% CI: 0.41-0.98, p=0.040). Among infants born to mothers with Chagas disease, congenital infection was more common in twins (adjusted OR: 3.30, 95% CI: 1.97-5.54, p<0.001) and male infants (adjusted OR: 1.50, 95% CI: 1.01-1.22, p=0.045). Discussion: A better understanding of risk factors for maternal and congenital Chagas disease may help improve regional initiatives to reduce disease burden.Master of Public Healt

Differences in glucose control, insulin sensitivity, and body composition between metabolically healthy and unhealthy people with obesity

Poster presented at the 2017 Health Sciences Research Day which was organized and sponsored by the University of Missouri School of Medicine Research Council and held on November 9, 2017.Obesity is a significant risk factor for cardiometabolic complications, including type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. However, approximately 25% of individuals with obesity are seemingly protected from these complications (Wildman et al. Arch Intern Med, 168, 1617-24, 2008). The purpose of this study was to provide a careful characterization of body composition and metabolic function in people who are: (i) lean and metabolically normal (MNL); (ii) obese and metabolically-normal (MN)); and (iii) obese and metabolically-abnormal (MAO). (Introduction & study aims) Although the glycemic responses of MNL individuals demonstrate a "metabolically healthy" state, more rigorous measures of insulin sensitivity show insulin resistance in this population, demonstrating people with MNO are insulin-resistant with respect to glucose metabolism but are able to maintain normal glycemic control by increased insulin secretion. Adipose tissue distribution is a marker of metabolic health in people with obesity, as greater intra-abdominal adipose tissue volume and intrahepatic triglyceride content are associated with metabolic dysfunction

Cherokee Writing Reexamined: A Linguistic Analysis of the Cherokee Syllabary

This thesis applies a novel methodology to analyze the graphic forms of the Cherokee Syllabary to address the questions: Is the Cherokee Syllabary a pure syllabic writing system, and if so, did it start out that way? Calligraphic terminology was borrowed to identify and analyze the anatomical pieces of Cherokee graphemes. Previous scholars have explored the Cherokee Syllabary in-depth, but did not apply a systematic formal and structural analysis to the sign inventory. Through my analysis, I observe that 1) MCS (Modern Cherokee Syllabary) is a syllabic system, 2) OCS (Original Cherokee Syllabary) may have features of a mixed system with abugida-like diacritics, 3) OCS and MCS graphemes are formally related, 4) approximately 50% of the possible diacritics in OCS were maintained into MCS graphemes, and 5) many CS graphemes were borrowed and repurposed from the Roman alphabet, resulting in graphemic divergence through the alterations of rotation, deletion, and substitution.Master of Art

Behavioral Differences Between Two Recently Sympatric Paper Wasps, the Native \u3ci\u3ePolistes Fuscatus\u3c/i\u3e and the Invasive \u3ci\u3ePolistes Dominulus\u3c/i\u3e

Polistes dominulus (Christ), an old world paper wasp, was introduced into the eastern United States in the 1970s and has been rapidly spreading westward. Recently, it has displaced the native Polistes fuscatus (F.) in at least some areas of Michigan. In order to understand why P. dominulus has been so successful, several behavioral attributes were compared between P. dominulus and P. fuscatus at a Michigan field site that contained colonies of both species nest- ing semi-naturally in plywood nestboxes. Preworker colonies of P. dominulus had a significantly greater tendency to store nectar (and had significantly higher proportions of cells with nectar) than preworker colonies of P. fuscatus. This finding may explain the higher survivorship of P. dominulus foundresses reported in a previous study. P. dominulus also had a significantly greater tendency to build vertical nests and had significantly more pedicels per comb and per cell than P. fuscatus. These findings suggest that compared to P. fuscatus, P. dominulus may have more flexibility in the positioning of its combs and, because of a possibly stronger attachment of the comb to a substrate, may be less susceptible to bird predation. The higher winter survivorship reported for P. fuscatus over P. dominulus in a previous study does not appear to be due to differences in the proportions of gynes stranded on their nests late in the fall. Finally, behavioral evidence from videography was consistent with previous reports that P. dominulus is not replacing P. fuscatus through direct agonistic interactions

Use of Calcium Hypochlorite as a Sanitizer for Seeds Used for Sprouting: Task #2; Impact: Improved Alfalfa Decontamination Technologies

Consumption of raw or lightly cooked alfalfa sprouts has been a concern of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in recent years due to connections between sprouts and foodborne illnesses. Researchers have identified, contaminated seeds as the primary source of alfalfa sprouts contamination. Contamination of alfalfa seeds can originate in the field, harvesting, storing, or sprouting. Two pathogens of particular concern on alfalfa seeds are Escherichia coli 0157:H7 (E. coli) and Salmonella. These pathogens are capable of producing biofilms that provide protection for individual cells and allow for survival in otherwise hostile environments, including some disinfectant washes. Other factors that contribute to contamination are the crevices of the seed surface, which provide opportunities for the protection of organisms. Various disinfection options have been evaluated and the use of a 20,000 ppm calcium hypochlorite ( Ca( OCl)2)) solution is the most effective disinfectant for satisfying the requirements of Task 2. Continued outbreaks of food poisoning indicate current disinfecting procedures are inadequate. In an effort to improve disinfection procedures, three bench scale apparatuses were constructed and tested to provide options for the commercial range of seed sanitation rates (from about 75 to 600 lb/week). Experiments were conducted to determine the disinfecting effectiveness of the apparatuses, as well as the current sanitization practices in industry. Experiments included dye removal tests where non-uniform dye removal indicated ineffective contacting. Similar experiments were performed using E. coli inoculating and post-contacting culturing. One bench scale apparatus constructed was a model of the rotary drums widely used in industry. After a 30 minute treatment in the rotary drum, the seeds were found to be free of dye, indicating good contacting. The seeds were also sprouted showing sanitation did not damage the seeds. However, due to the capital expense of $14,000, the drum is not a viable option for small-scale sprout producers. For sprout growers who currently own rotary drums, drum use is recommended for seed sanitation. Another bench scale apparatus was designed to improve the current industry practice of hand dunking seed-filled mesh draw-string bags. Through experimentation, it was determined . the current hand dunking procedure, with little or no agitation, produces inadequate, non-uniform contact of the seeds and sanitizer. Therefore, the hand dunking procedure was modified to include agitation to effectively suspend the seeds throughout the bag to obtain good contact of the sanitizer solution with the seeds. The agitation-in-bag method is recommended for use in small volume sprout facilities, which currently employ the hand dunking procedure for sanitizing. A modest investment of$113 is needed to implement the agitation-in-bag sanitizing method. Since no additional operating costs are accrued in implementation, no incremental costs are required. Finally, an auger system was designed to sanitize one ton per hour of alfalfa seeds. The one ton per hour rate exceeds the demand of any individual sprout producer. Thus, the auger system is applicable to a partnership of sprout growers. Individual sprout growers within the mung bean industry, with much larger production volumes than the alfalfa industry, could economically use the auger system. However, the auger system can be scaled to sanitize any feed rate. A 1 3/8 diameter, 4\u27 long auger bench scale model was constructed and tested at 4.5 lbs/hr rate with a contact time of 15 minutes. Scale-up of this bench scale sanitizer to a 2000 lb/hr rate requires a 16 diameter by 20\u27 auger. The entire full-scale sanitizing system, which includes a vibrating screen washer, will handle 5,000,000 lb/yr of seeds, operating 8 \u27hr/day, with a capital investment of $227,000 and an incremental operating cost (primarily labor) of$214,000/yr

Particle-scale structure in frozen colloidal suspensions from small angle X-ray scattering

During directional solidification of the solvent in a colloidal suspension, the colloidal particles segregate from the growing solid, forming high-particle-density regions with structure on a hierarchy of length scales ranging from that of the particle-scale packing to the large-scale spacing between these regions. Previous work has mostly concentrated on the medium- to large-length scale structure, as it is the most accessible and thought to be more technologically relevant. However, the packing of the colloids at the particle-scale is an important component not only in theoretical descriptions of the segregation process, but also to the utility of freeze-cast materials for new applications. Here we present the results of experiments in which we investigated this structure across a wide range of length scales using a combination of small angle X-ray scattering and direct optical imaging. As expected, during freezing the particles were concentrated into regions between ice dendrites forming a microscopic pattern of high- and low-particle-density regions. X-ray scattering indicates that the particles in the high density regions were so closely packed as to be touching. However, the arrangement of the particles does not conform to that predicted by any standard inter-particle pair potentials, suggesting that the particle packing induced by freezing differs from that formed during equilibrium or steady-state densification processes