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No Way Never Sisters
No full text"Two girls refuse to be related and try and keep their parents apart, only to find acceptance in the end"-- Provided by publisher
Соматичні мутації сортів інтродукованих садових троянд у колекції Національного ботанічного саду імені М.М. Гришка
No full textThe article analyzes the manifestations of somatic (bud) mutational variability of traits in garden roses (Rosa L.) under the conditions of the collection of the M.M. Gryshko National Botanical Garden of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The study is based on the results of long-term phenotypic observations of cultivars of different origin and garden groups. It was established that mutational variability in roses is not random but follows regular and largely predictable patterns determined by the genotype, origin, and breeding history of the initial cultivars. A relationship between the direction of mutational changes and the affinity of cultivars with particular garden groups was revealed: forms closer in origin to wild rose species more frequently produce mutants with enhanced expression of decorative traits, whereas cultivars of modern, evolutionarily advanced groups predominantly give rise to mutants with reduced expression of these traits. Both stable somatic mutants and cases of partial or complete reversion to the phenotype of the original cultivar were recorded. The practical significance of somatic mutations for cultivar assessment, cultivar identification, trait stability assessment, and mutation breeding in ornamental plants is substantiated.У статті проаналізовано прояви соматичної (брунькової) мутаційної мінливості ознак у сортів садових троянд (Rosa L.) в умовах колекції Національного ботанічного саду імені М.М. Гришка НАН України. Дослідження ґрунтується на результатах багаторічних фенотипових спостережень за сортами різного походження та належності до садових груп. Встановлено, що мутаційна мінливість троянд має закономірний, а не випадковий характер і значною мірою визначається генотипом, походженням і селекційною історією вихідних сортів. Показано залежність спрямованості мутаційних змін від належності сортів до певних садових груп: у форм, ближчих за походженням до диких видів, частіше виникають мутанти з підвищеним рівнем прояву декоративних ознак, тоді як у сортів сучасних еволюційно просунутих груп переважають мутації зі зниженням інтенсивності їх прояву. Виявлено випадки як стабільного збереження мутантних ознак, так і часткової або повної реверсії до фенотипу вихідного сорту. Обґрунтовано практичне значення соматичних мутацій для сортовивчення, ідентифікації сортів, оцінки їх стабільності та використання в мутаційній селекції декоративних культур
Design and Development of a Biopsy Hemostatic Plug Delivery Device
No full textThis thesis introduces the development of a biopsy hemostatic plug delivery device fabricated from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) using the QIDI Tech X Plus 3 fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer. The device's production cost, at $1.58 per unit, is derived from the consumption of 63.08g of ABS filament, with a manufacturing time of 2 hours and 28 minutes. Leveraging the printer's capabilities, including a print speed of 600mm/s and a volumetric build envelope of 11*11*10.6 inches, enabled efficient production. ABS emerged as the preferred material over cured photopolymer resin, despite the cured resin’s higher maximum stress of 71.59 MPa, owing to ABS's superior toughness and suitability for medical applications. Notably, the device's single-use design addresses sanitation concerns in medical settings. Future iterations aim to integrate plug insertion during biopsy extraction to enhance procedural efficiency. This research underscores the potential of additive manufacturing in medical device development, emphasizing material selection and functionality optimization.</p
Reckoning with Philanthropy: Governance, Justice, and a Radical Future for Environmental Giving
No full textPhilanthropy faces a reckoning. The current pace and scale of conservation philanthropy, specifically, is unprecedented. There are basic questions about the practice, including who is giving, what they are giving to, and with what consequences and impacts, that remain elusive. In this dissertation, I tease out the contradictions of conservation philanthropy to move beyond binary discussions of philanthropic foundations as “good” or “bad” and towards more deliberative discussions about why they exist, what they do, and what they must do to pursue environmental justice. I draw three main conclusions. In Chapter 2, I show that philanthropic foundations perform at least six governance roles in marine conservation beyond their role as funders, firmly situating them as governance agents in environmental politics. In Chapter 3, I show how a funding intermediary, the Micronesia Conservation Trust, plays a vital role in operationalizing principles of justice. Yet, intermediaries like MCT cannot be used as a silver bullet to solve the injustices that are inherent to funding dynamics. Instead, there is a need to think critically about what funding intermediaries’ roles and responsibilities should be to address injustices. Finally, in Chapter 4, I engage social science fiction to explore the dominant critiques of philanthropy in a new way and respond to these critiques via a short story about a radically just future for environmental philanthropy. This story focuses on turning towards rather than away from the contradictions of solidarity in environmental justice work. Overall, my dissertation moves towards the possibilities of ethical reform for the practice of philanthropy. A radically just future for philanthropy, I argue, ends not with an end to philanthropy as such, but a deeper investment in philanthropy’s desire to pursue a love of others. Indeed, we need this now more than ever. My dissertation argues that the institution of philanthropy has untapped potential for pursuing effective and just environmental governance. </p
Sleep Duration and Variability, Nondiabetic Insulin Resistance, and Sequential 14-Hour Assessments of Pre- and Post-Prandial Ghrelin over Two Days
No full textObjectives: Experimentally induced sleep dysfunction has been consistently linked with ghrelin dysregulation, which may play a role in T2D pathophysiology. This study examined whether a) one-week, at-home, objective measures of sleep duration and sleep duration variability were associated with pre- and post-prandial ghrelin regulation throughout the day; and b) whether these relationships were moderated by insulin sensitivity and meal administration time.Methods: The study assessed 103 adults (72% men, 18-55 years) with no diagnosed conditions. Measures included insulin sensitivity via hyperinsulinemia clamp, sleep function using at-home actigraphy data over one week, and ghrelin via blood samples collected across two in-patient laboratory days, wherein 4 meals per day were provided. Participants received, in randomized order, a standard U.S. caloric load on one day and a high caloric load on the other. Hierarchical linear modeling examined whether the interactions among sleep measures (duration and variability), insulin sensitivity, and meal administration time were associated with pre- and post-prandial ghrelin levels on the standard and high calorie days.Results: No significant effects of sleep duration were found. However, with lower insulin sensitivity, elevated sleep variability was associated with higher pre- and post-prandial ghrelin levels, and with greater net incremental post-prandial ghrelin suppression on both caloric load days (meals 1 – 4). In contrast, with higher insulin sensitivity, elevated sleep variability was not associated with pre-prandial ghrelin levels, but was associated with lower post-prandial ghrelin levels and greater net incremental post-prandial ghrelin suppression at the evening meal (meal 4).Conclusions: The study revealed novel linkages of habitual sleep variability with ghrelin regulation that differed by extent of insulin sensitivity and meal administration time. Further research is needed to examine whether these associations continue to be altered as a function of T2D progression
Tree-Based Methods for Causal Matching and Distorted Variable Analysis
No full textMatching is a method to estimate Average Treatment Effect (ATE) in observational studies. In order to reduce bias due to confounding, an optimal matching algorithm pairs treated and control units with similar characteristics across the covariates. Traditionally, matching methods were developed using distance-based measures, such as propensity scores or Mahalanobis distances. We propose a new method, called Balancing Recursive Partitioning (BRP) which directly optimizes for local regions of covariate balance using a recursive partitioning strategy that uses a multidimensional splitting criterion aimed at balancing the distribution of covariates between the two groups. From the resulting balancing tree, a proximity matrix can be used to weight observations and to identify a common support for treated and control units, resulting in a new estimator of ATE. In the case of the famous Lalonde datasets from causal inference world, we show that BRP has prominent advantages over other methods in estimating Average Treatment Effect. Health disparity has been a crucial problem in the society. There are many literatures to reveal the health disparity. Yet very little research is to address and reduce the disparity. We develop a method called Distorted Variable Analysis (DVA). Which is a tree-based method to identify the race disparity in different social levels. We are able to detect different amounts of disparity and distort the modifiable risk factors to move the individual from the high disparity group to the low disparity group. We apply the DVA to the cardiovascular disease patients and achieve a significant reduction in racial disparity.</p
Exploring Relationship Quality and Psychological Adjustment Among Individuals Undergoing Breast or Prostate Biopsy and Their Romantic Partners
No full textIntroduction: Breast and prostate cancer have a high survival rate but the stress of undergoing a cancer biopsy for both the patient and their romantic partner (i.e., a dyad) can put individuals at risk for persistent adverse psychological outcomes and influence the relationship. Little is known about how these processes are influenced throughout the cancer continuum for each dyad member.Methods: This study aimed to conduct a secondary analysis of previously collected data in couples who received a malignant biopsy result for breast or prostate cancer compared to those who received a benign result. Dyads completed self-report measures of relationship quality, sexual interest, and psychological adjustment (satisfaction with life, depression) at the time of biopsy, 1-, 6-, and 9-months post-biopsy. The present study examined changes over time of these constructs from biopsy over 9-months using Hierarchical Linear Modeling. Using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, we also tested for actor and partner effects in patients and their partners among the same constructs.Results: Aim 1 results indicated that dyads in which the patient underwent a breast biopsy experienced worse psychological adjustment compared to dyads in which the patient underwent a prostate biopsy. Findings also revealed that dyads did not significantly differ in any of the outcome variables over time based on biopsy result. Aim 2 analyses revealed significant actor effects for both dyad members at each timepoint. Among all dyads, partner effects were significant for relationship quality and sexual interest at some of the timepoints but not for psychological adjustment.Discussion: The study provides insight into how relationship quality, sexual interest, and psychological adjustment evolve over time in patient-partner dyads, from time of cancer biopsy to 9-months post-biopsy. These findings contribute to the ways in which we understand the cancer continuum, by focusing on the time of biopsy and the period following disclosure of results, from the vantage point of patients and their partners.</p
Impact of a Digital Relationship Intervention for Jailed Individuals
No full textNot surprisingly, incarceration’s extreme separation and stress has significant negative effects on romantic relationships. Unfortunately, few programs have been developed to improve jailed individuals’ romantic relationship with their non- incarcerated partner. The present study investigated the effectiveness of the individual version of the digital OurRelationship program for incarcerated individuals. The current study is a program evaluation of services provided by PayTel Inc. (a provider of eLearning and communication devices in US jails) between June 2020 and November 2021. Of the 5,411 individuals in a romantic relationship who started the program, 3,034 completed it. Following completion of the program, 78% reported feeling “Mostly” or “Very Satisfied” with the program, and 77% reported “Slight” to “Strong” agreement that their relationship benefited from the program (α = .94). Individuals’ relationship confidence and relationship knowledge significantly improved during the program. Women and Latino/Hispanic and Asian/PI individuals experienced the largest pre-post gains in relationship functioning; however, racial/ethnic minority groups also tended to report lower satisfaction with the program. Overall, the high rates of program satisfaction and significant pre-post changes – combined with their reduced barriers to dissemination – support the delivery of digital relationship programs for jailed individuals interested in strengthening their relationship.</p
Computational Approaches for Predicting DNA Methylation and Constructing Whole-Genome Structures Based on Hi-C Data
No full textRecently, a biochemistry experiment named methyl-3C was developed to simultaneously capture the chromosomal conformations and DNA methylation levels on individual single cells. However, the number of data sets generated from this experiment is still small in the scientific community compared with the greater amount of single-cell Hi-C data generated from separate single cells. Therefore, a computational tool is needed to predict single-cell methylation levels based on single-cell Hi-C data on the same individual cells. We developed a graph transformer named scHiMe to accurately predict the base-pair-specific (bp-specific) methylation levels based on single-cell Hi-C data and DNA nucleotide sequences. We benchmarked scHiMe for predicting the bp-specific methylation levels on all of the promoters of the human genome, all of the promoter regions together with the corresponding first exon and intron regions, and random regions on the whole genome. Our evaluation showed a high consistency between the predicted and methyl-3C-detected methylation levels. Moreover, the predicted DNA methylation levels resulted in accurate classifications of cells into different cell types, which indicated that our algorithm successfully captured the cell-to-cell variability in the single-cell Hi-C data. scHiMe is freely available at http://dna.cs.miami.edu/scHiMe/. </p
Forgotten Players in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Phagocytes, Pathobionts, and Stromal Cells
No full textThe pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), is incompletely understood, and patients have variable responses to available medications. IBD is thought to arise from aberrant host-microbial interactions that lead to a cascade of innate and adaptive immune activation, followed by fibrosis. In my dissertation project, I aimed to provide insight into the role of some of the “forgotten players” in this complex disease process: phagocytes, pathobionts, and stromal cells.My colleagues and I have identified key innate immune pathways involved in IBD pathogenesis and uncovered potential disease biomarkers and targets for therapeutic intervention. We highlighted distinct pathways in ileal and colonic phagocytes that may underpin the differences between ileal and colonic CD and revealed targetable pathways that are upregulated in anti-TNF refractory patients. We also used innovative methods to identify plausible pathobionts in CD and suggested both microbial and host targets based on their upregulation in CD patients. Finally, we identified a new population of circulating stromal-like cells that may be a biomarker of IBD. Taken together, these findings advance our understanding of IBD and may help us to achieve better outcomes for IBD patients.</p