Open Research Oklahoma (Oklahoma State Univ.)
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Spatial analysis of cannabis dispensaries and primary care access across Oklahoma's socioeconomic gradient
No full textBackground: Cannabis dispensaries and primary care providers exist within complex spatial and socioeconomic landscapes that influence community health outcomes. Oklahoma's implementation of the nation's least restrictive medical cannabis program in 2018 created an unprecedented market growth, making it an ideal case study to examine how these establishments distribute across neighborhoods with varying levels of socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage.
Methods: This spatial analysis examined 1,846 verified cannabis dispensaries and 3,911 primary care providers across Oklahoma census tracts. Geographic Information Systems were used to analyze dispensary clustering using Getis-Ord Gi* hot spot analysis. The Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area method measured spatial accessibility to primary care. The Index of Concentration at the Extremes quantified socioeconomic polarization. Negative binomial regression and Spatial Durbin models examined relationships between dispensary density, healthcare availability, and neighborhood socioeconomic status.
Results: Cannabis dispensaries demonstrated significant spatial clustering (10% hot spots, 3% cold spots), with hot spots found in areas of lower socioeconomic status. Census tracts in the highest income quintile had 65% fewer dispensaries than those in the lowest quintile. Primary care availability showed significant spatial heterogeneity and was negatively associated with dispensary density. Rural areas had 30% higher dispensary density than urban areas after controlling for other factors.
Conclusion: Oklahoma's cannabis retail establishments concentrate primarily in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas with limited primary care availability, creating a concerning dynamic where communities with the greatest healthcare needs face heightened exposure to cannabis while experiencing restricted accessibility to primary care providers. The rural concentration of dispensaries further complicates this picture. Future research should monitor public health impacts of these spatial relationships on cannabis use patterns, healthcare utilization, and community health outcomes
PtsN regulates the type III secretion system in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
No full textPseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) is an opportunistic pathogen that is responsible for causing a variety of infections and poses a threat to immunocompromised individuals. One of the key mechanisms contributing to the virulence and pathogenicity of PA is the type 3 secretion system (T3SS), which contributes to the establishment and maintenance of the infection. The T3SS is a complex molecular apparatus that functions like a hypodermic needle. This system allows for PA to inject effector proteins directly into the cytoplasm of a host cell, leading to a negative impact in immune response and an enhanced opportunity of survival for the bacterial pathogen. A transcriptomic analysis had revealed that the protein PtsN, the terminal component of the nitrogen-related phosphotransferase system (Nitro-PTS) in PA, plays a regulatory role in T3SS gene expression. In particular, ΔptsN mutants, there was evidence for significant upregulation in the T3SS gene expression. T3SS expression is generally regulated through a well-established network that allows for environmental cues to trigger a partner switching mechanism within the system. This process leads to the release of ExsA, the master activator of T3SS, from an anti-activator which allows for expression to be initiated. To determine the extent of its involvement in T3SS gene expression, we deleted ptsN in strains with either constitutively active or inactive T3SS expression. We discovered that the absence of ptsN did not restore activity in strains containing the constitutively inactive systems, but did find that the ptsN deletion further enhanced the T3SS gene expression in constitutively active systems. We hypothesize that PtsN may interact with ExsA that reduces its ability to activate T3SS genes. We are currently testing the direct interaction between PtsN and ExsA by using co-immunoprecipitation
Evaluating bird-window collision patterns, species vulnerability, and a mitigation approach
No full textBird populations are declining at an unprecedented rate worldwide. In North America, 57% of all bird species have experienced population declines in the last 50 years. Collisions with building windows are one of the top avian mortality sources contributing to these declines, and in North America alone, potentially over one billion birds die annually from window collisions. Despite the importance of window collisions to global bird conservation, many substantial gaps remain in the window collision literature. These gaps include a lack of rigorous field testing of products designed to mitigate collisions, and a scarcity of studies evaluating collision patterns at broad spatiotemporal scales. To address these knowledge gaps, we conducted two separate studies. Firstly, we conducted a before-after control-impact (BACI) study of the effectiveness of a mitigation product at the Oklahoma State University campus—specifically, monitoring of window collisions both before and after a treatment of Feather Friendly® 5x5 cm white dot markers. Secondly, we analyzed continental-scale taxonomic and spatiotemporal patterns of window collisions using bird band recovery data from the North American Bird Banding Program (NABBP) dataset and estimated vulnerability of individual species to window collisions. In relation to the first study, we found a 67.2-71.6% reduction in collisions at glass façades treated with the window markers, in contrast to a 15.7% increase in collisions at untreated façades during the same period. This result emphasizes the promise of window markers as a collision mitigation technique and offers a framework for a rigorous study design that can be used for future studies on similar products. For the second study, we found that the NABBP dataset included collision records for 298 species and 51 families, encompassing the entire continental United States and southern Canada. Many of the most vulnerable species in the dataset were from families currently underrepresented in the window collision literature, including hawks, falcons, owls, and finches. This underscores the need for demographic modeling studies to determine if species in these families are experiencing population-level effects from window collisions. Collectively, we offer valuable insights into the effectiveness of collision mitigation products and broad-scale species vulnerability to window collisions
Nonreplicated factorial experiments assessing print quality in additive manufacturing
No full textAdditive manufacturing techniques such as fused deposition modeling (FDM) are commonly used within engineering for rapid prototyping of designed parts. The Endeavor Lab at Oklahoma State University (OSU) takes advantage of this technology and provides 3D printing services to engineering students. To determine which variables of the Bambu P1P printing process most significantly affect the final print quality, a 25 factorial experiment was designed. Five different process variables were tested at a low and high level. The experimental design included only one replication to simulate time and budget constraints, which are very common in small-scale engineering experiments. The printed specimens were tested according to ASTM D638-14, and the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) for each specimen was recorded. The data were analyzed according to methods presented by Milliken and Johnson (1989). Because the use of a single experimental replication results in a lack of true experimental error, multiple analysis methods were examined to compare results. Techniques including Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and half-normal plot of effects were employed. For this experiment, traditional ANOVA methods concluded that an interaction between print direction and location on the build platform contributed to a marginally significant (p = 0.1025) effect on UTS for the printed specimens. The alternative half-normal plot approach to the analysis also indicated that the same interaction was marginally significant. Additionally, no obvious drift effects were observed for the printing process. Further experimentation into the effect of print direction and location should be pursued to more confidently conclude the effects of these variables on the UTS of the printed specimens
Investigating the rates of change in depressive symptoms for adults in individual, couple, and family therapy
No full textBackground: While individual therapy is a common treatment for depressive symptoms, adults with depressive symptoms also engage in couple and family therapy. To date, no studies have fully compared the effectiveness of these three therapy models in a naturalistic clinical setting. Aims: This study investigates the extent that the rates of changes in depressive symptoms across 16 sessions of treatment differ across individual, couple, and family therapy. Methods: We analyzed clinical data from the Marriage and Family Therapy Practice Research Network (MFT-PRN; Johnson et al., 2016), which is clinical data from clinics across the United States. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). The sample included adults in individual therapy (n = 1,402), couple therapy (n = 672), and family therapy (n = 189). Latent growth models were conducted in Mplus. Results: Adults in individual therapy exhibited higher initial depressive symptoms that had a steeper decline in depressive symptoms compared to those in couple and family therapy. However, adults in all three therapy types had declines in depressive symptoms across the 16 sessions of treatment. Limitations: The use of secondary data from a natural clinical setting limits insight into reasons for attending therapy and treatment modalities used. The sample was predominantly White and middle-class. Conclusions: All three types demonstrated declines in depressive symptoms across 16 sessions. Therapists can use these treatment types to address a variety of concerns related to depressive symptoms. Relatedly, these findings encourage therapists to frequently assess depressive symptoms throughout treatment
Pyric nutritional landscapes: Testing the pattern and process of prey quantity and quality
No full textAnimals frequently consume the most abundant foods of a suitable trophic group. Traditional lines of inquiry posit that animal foods do not vary substantially in nutrient content, but recent work highlights significant variability in nutritional quality among animals. However, spatial variability in heterotrophic nutrient availability and the responses of consumers remain poorly understood. At the largest scale, seasonal variability in productivity occurs latitudinally in relation to the tilt of earth’s axis. Exogenous environmental cues, like photoperiod, initiate physiological and behavioral plasticity to meet life-history demands under changing conditions. At intermediate scales, variability in productivity may relate to other gradients, like elevation, or to patterns of disturbance, like fire. At small scales, however, variation in nutrient availability of heterotrophic communities may relate to the availability or arrangement of primary producers. Much previous work links the energy available in total estimates of food quantity to the abundance of consumer populations, but nutrient composition of a diverse community inherently depends on the inclusion of many constituents. Additionally, classic hypotheses in community ecology provide applicable theory to explain variation in community-level nutritional quality for generalist consumers. My dissertation compared drivers of variability in overall nutrient quantity and quality of invertebrate communities. I measured invertebrate abundance and community composition in a spatially explicit context and used published allometric equations and estimates of nutritional composition to compute nutrient content in terms of total mass and metabolizable protein. This work shows temperature strongly predicts quantity at large scales, but local variability in vegetation cover additionally improves explained variance. Alternatively, local variability in vegetation coverage and time since fire better predicted proxies of protein, CN-ratio and N%. Further, this work shows that arthropod exoskeleton and soft tissue differ in the content and balance of amino acids, and that taxa differ in the content of limiting amino acid for consumers. Additionally, gut emptying and specific nutrient ingestion signal initiation of physiological and behavioral plasticity to conserve or expend endogenous stores. Thus, future work should address how physiological feedback between consumed nutritional content and behavioral energetic demands shape future habitat selection decisions
Multimode input enhanced absorption sensing of greenhouse gases in a hollow bottle microresonator
No full textThis dissertation presents a novel technique for enhanced absorption sensing of greenhouse gases using near infrared lasers and multimode input. Multimode input is achieved via asymmetric tapered fibers that have a nonadiabatic downtaper and an adiabatic uptaper. A new method for designing asymmetric taper geometries that enables controlled excitation of fundamental and higher order modes to achieve efficient multimode coupling is presented and three nonadiabatic taper profiles with varying nonadiabaticities are used for sensing pure and trace greenhouse gases. Near infrared lasers are used to couple light into the whispering gallery modes (WGM) of a hollow bottle resonator (HBR) which interact with the greenhouse gases via evanescent fields. The absorption of light by greenhouse gases changes the depth of the WGM's resonant throughput dip, an effect that is more sensitive by nearly two orders of magnitude than the accompanying change in WGM linewidth. Effective absorption path lengths of several meters have been achieved with a detection limit of a few hundred ppm
Impacts and uptake of environmentally relevant microplastics by Daphnia pulex
No full textAs microplastic toxicology research becomes more common, a gap in knowledge has emerged in how microplastics in environmentally relevant shapes and concentrations affect freshwater indicator organisms such as the genus Daphnia. Most Daphnia microplastic research has been conducted using spherical microplastics that are not indicative of those found in natural environments. Therefore, the goal of this study was to address this gap by examining the biological impacts and uptake of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) microplastics that represented environmentally realistic shapes and concentrations on Daphnia pulex life history. Daphnia were exposed to three different treatments including environmentally relevant (5,000 particles/L), 10x environmentally relevant (50,000 particles/L), and control (0 particles/L) over a 7-day life table experiment. We also conducted a 48-hour exposure study to determine if Daphnia uptake microplastics under these treatments. We found that PVC microplastic exposure did not significantly affect total reproduction or clutch size, and that D. pulex survivorship curves were similar across all treatments. There was also no clear evidence to suggest that microplastic uptake occurred at environmentally relevant or elevated concentrations. Future studies should assess chronic exposure, the role of microplastics as vectors for chemical contaminants, and potential bioaccumulation to higher trophic levels such as fish
Well-being of grandfamilies
No full textThe number of grandfamilies in the U.S. has been increasing and these families often form due to adverse circumstances. Custodial grandparents (CGs) and their grandchildren are vulnerable to mental distress. CGs experience general stress and stress related to parenting, and their grandchildren have an increased risk of externalizing behaviors. In other family structures, caregiver stress is associated with poorer parenting and child distress. However, it is unclear if similar trends occur in grandfamilies and it is largely unknown how CGs parent as grandfamilies are often overlooked in the literature. Additionally, many grandchildren do not experience negative outcomes indicating there are factors that promote resilience in grandfamilies. The current study surveyed 70 CGs of school-aged grandchildren. Surveys were completed online and included measures of parenting behaviors, child externalizing symptoms, CG stress, and resilience. Multiple dimensions of parenting were linked with grandchild behavior. Compared to standardization samples, a higher proportion of CGs had elevated levels of parenting stress and a higher proportion of grandchildren had elevated levels of externalizing behavior. CG resilience did not impact the link between CG stress and grandchild externalizing behavior. However, family resilience was found to buffer the association between parenting stress and child externalizing problems. The current findings indicate grandfamilies would benefit from interventions targeted at reducing stress, increasing family bonds, and further cultivating beneficial parenting behaviors. Additionally, communities can implement programs and policies to address barriers to grandfamilies' well-being and to improve overall resilience
Joint significance test for high-dimensional correlated mediators
No full textMediation analysis examines the mechanism that allows a mediator to affect the outcome of interest. To identify significant mediators in high dimensional mediation analysis, a two-step joint significance test is commonly used. In this approach, variable screening is first applied to select potentially active mediators, followed by a method of high-dimensional inference to assess the significance of these selected mediators. However, when mediators are highly correlated, the existing methods often show undesirable performance due to the misselection of the screening method and the remaining bias in the test statistic. In this study, we suggest an alternative method to improve power using recently developed methods at each stage. In particular, strongly correlated inactive mediators can be screened based on the High Dimensional Ordinary Least Squares Projection (HOLP) method (Wang and Leng, 2016) in the first stage. To further reduce the bias, the test statistics are subsequently constructed by using the Approximate Orthogonalization (AO) method (Battey and Reid, 2023). Extensive simulation studies demonstrate the advantages of combining HOLP with AO over some existing alternatives. We apply the proposed method to RNA-Seq data from the Living Brain Project to detect brain cell-type-specific genes that plausibly mediate the relationship between Parkinson’s disease status and changes in neuronal, astrocytic, oligodendrocytic, and microglial composition, thereby showcasing the method’s practical utility