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Item A 2.5d Yolo-Based Fusion Algorithm for 3d Localization of Cells(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2019-11-06) Ziabari, Amirkoushyar; Rose, Derek C.; Eicholtz, Matthew R.; Solecki, David J.; Shirinifard, AbbasAdvances in microscopy techniques such as lattice-light-sheet, confocal, two-photon, and electron microscopy have enabled the visualization of 3D image volumes of tightly packed cells, extracellular structures in tissues, organelles, and subcellular components inside cells. These images sampled by 2D projections are often not accurately interpreted even by human experts. As a use case we focus on 3D image volumes of tightly packed nuclei in brain tissue. Due to out-of-plane excitation and low resolution in the z-axis, non-overlapping cells appear as overlapping 3D volumes and make detecting individual cells challenging. On the other hand, running 3D detection algorithms is computationally expensive and infeasible for large datasets. In addition, most existing 3D algorithms are designed to extract 3D objects by identifying the depth in the 2D images. In this work, we propose a YOLO-based 2.5D fusion algorithm for 3D localization of individual cells in densely packed volumes of nuclei. The proposed method fuses 2D detection of nuclei in sagittal, coronal, and axial planes and predicts six coordinates of the 3D bounding cubes around the detected 3D cells. Promising results were obtained on multiple examples of synthetic dense volumes of nuclei imitating confocal microscopy experimental datasets.Item A cnidarian phylogenomic tree fitted with hundreds of 18S leaves(bioRxiv, 2022-10-05) DeBiasse, Melissa; Buckenmeyer, Ariane; Macrander, Jason; Babonis, Leslie S.; Bentlage, Bastian; Cartwright, Paulyn; Prada, Carlos; Reitzel, Adam M.; Stampar, Sergio N.; Collins, Allen G.; Daly, Marymegan; Ryan, Joseph F.Cnidarians are critical members of aquatic communities and have been an experimental system for a diversity of research areas ranging from development to biomechanics to global change biology. Yet we still lack a well-resolved, taxonomically balanced, cnidarian tree of life to place this research in appropriate phylogenetic context. To move towards this goal, we combined data from 26 new anthozoan transcriptomes with 86 previously published cnidarian and outgroup datasets to generate two 748-locus alignments containing 123,051 (trimmed) and 449,935 (untrimmed) amino acids. We estimated maximum likelihood phylogenies for both matrices under partitioned and unpartitioned site-homogeneous and site-heterogenous models of substitution. We used the resulting topology to constrain a phylogenetic analysis of 1,814 small subunit ribosomal (18S) gene sequences from GenBank. Our results confirm the position of Ceriantharia (tube-dwelling anemones), a historically recalcitrant group, as sister to the rest of Hexacorallia across all phylogenies regardless of data matrix or model choice. We also find unanimous support for the sister relationship of Endocnidozoa and Medusozoa and propose the name Operculozoa for the clade uniting these taxa. Our 18S hybrid phylogeny provides insight into relationships of 15% of extant taxa. Together these data are an invaluable resource for comparative cnidarian research and provide perspective to guide future refinement of cnidarian systematics.Item A Misconception Regarding the Einstein Equivalence Principle and a Possible Cure Using the Twin Paradox(Physics Teacher, 2023-02) Pepino, Ron A.; Mabile, Risley W.It has long been suspected by general relativists that physicists who do not specialize in general relativity (GR) believe that special relativity (SR) is incapable of modeling dynamics within accelerated reference frames. Consequently, many physicists may conclude that certain phenomena, such as time dilation due to acceleration, can only be described with GR. The fact of the matter is, as long as spacetime is flat, SR is fully capable of describing the dynamics of accelerated reference frames. In the classic textbook Gravitation, the authors state that "special relativity was developed precisely to predict the physics of accelerated objects." To quote Sean Carroll in his textbook Spacetime and Geometry, "The notion of acceleration in special relativity has a bad reputation, for no good reason." Finally, in a quote that drives the main point of this article home, the late general relativist Alfred Schild once said, "A good many believe that [the twin] paradox can only be resolved by the general theory of relativity. They find great comfort in this because they don't know any general relativity." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Physics Teacher is the property of American Institute of Physics and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)Item Actions speak louder than personality: Effects of facebook content on personality perceptions(North American Journal of Psychology, 2014-03) Goodmon, Leilani B.; Smith, Patrick L.; Ivancevich, Danica; Lundberg, SofieMore employers are using Facebook content to evaluate employee characteristics (such as personality) that might influence job performance (Karl & Peluchette, 2009) believing that personality assessment of Facebook users is actually quite accurate (Kluemper & Rosen, 2009). However, researchers have not examined the impact of specific content on personality perception. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to determine the influence of content (professional, moderately professional, unprofessional) on evaluations of a target Facebook user’s personality. Participants were exposed to three real Facebook profiles that varied in the amount of inappropriate content (e.g., drinking, use of profanity, etc.) and were asked to separately rate levels of the Big Five personality characteristics for each of the Facebook users. Overall, participants were better at assessing the personality of the professional Facebook user (with no inappropriate content) compared to the users who had either moderately-professional or unprofessional content. In addition, there appears to be a 'cost' associated with posting even a small amount of 'negative content,' in that participants exhibited inaccurate personality perceptions of the moderately-professional user. These findings may be particularly important when one considers that employers are using Facebook information to evaluate prospective employees in the hiring process. Given the massive distortions in personality perceptions found in the current study, caution should be taken by those using Facebook to evaluate personality and Facebook users should take caution when posting negative content. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)Item Acute increase of α-synuclein inhibits synaptic vesicle recycling evoked during intense stimulation(Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC), 2014-10) Busch, David J.; Oliphint, Paul A.; Walsh, Rylie B.; Banks, Susan M. L.; Woods, Wendy S.; George, Julia M.; Morgan, Jennifer R.Parkinson's disease is associated with multiplication of the α-synuclein gene and abnormal accumulation of the protein. In animal models, α-synuclein overexpression broadly impairs synaptic vesicle trafficking. However, the exact steps of the vesicle trafficking pathway affected by excess α-synuclein and the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. Therefore we acutely increased synuclein levels at a vertebrate synapse and performed a detailed ultrastructural analysis of the effects on presynaptic membranes. At stimulated synapses (20 Hz), excess synuclein caused a loss of synaptic vesicles and an expansion of the plasma membrane, indicating an impairment of vesicle recycling. The N-terminal domain (NTD) of synuclein, which folds into an α-helix, was sufficient to reproduce these effects. In contrast, α-synuclein mutants with a disrupted N-terminal α-helix (T6K and A30P) had little effect under identical conditions. Further supporting this model, another α-synuclein mutant (A53T) with a properly folded NTD phenocopied the synaptic vesicle recycling defects observed with wild type. Interestingly, the vesicle recycling defects were not observed when the stimulation frequency was reduced (5 Hz). Thus excess α-synuclein impairs synaptic vesicle recycling evoked during intense stimulation via a mechanism that requires a properly folded N-terminal α-helix.Item An adaptive geo-indistinguishability mechanism for continuous LBS queries(Springer US, 2018-11-01) Al-Dhubhani, Raed Saeed; Cazalas, JonathanThe popularity of mobile devices with positioning capability and Internet accessibility in recent years has led to a revolution in the Location-based services (LBSs) market. Unfortunately, without preserving the user’s location privacy, LBS providers can collect and log the accurate location data of the service users and provide them to third parties. Many mechanisms have been proposed to preserve the LBS user’s location privacy. These mechanisms provide a partial disclosure of the user’s location. While said mechanisms have had demonstrable effectiveness with snapshot queries, the shortcoming of supporting continuous queries is their main drawback. Geo-indistinguishability represents a formal notion of obfuscation-based location privacy which protects the user’s accurate location while allowing an adequate amount of information to be released to get the service with an accepted utility level. Despite its effectiveness and simplicity, geo-indistinguishability does not address the potential correlation of the subsequent locations reported within the continuous queries. In this paper, we investigate the effect of exploiting the correlation of the user’s obfuscated locations on the location privacy level. We propose an adaptive location preserving privacy mechanism that adjusts the amount of noise required to obfuscate the user’s location based on the correlation level with its previous obfuscated locations. The experiments show that adapting the noise based on the correlation level leads to a better performance by applying more noise to increase the location privacy level when required or by reducing the noise to improve the utility level.Item Advances in atomtronics(MDPI, 2021) Pepino, Ronald A.Atomtronics is a relatively new subfield of atomic physics that aims to realize the device behavior of electronic components in ultracold atom-optical systems. The fact that these systems are coherent makes them particularly interesting since, in addition to current, one can impart quantum states onto the current carriers themselves or perhaps perform quantum computational operations on them. After reviewing the fundamental ideas of this subfield, we report on the theoretical and experimental progress made towards developing externally-driven and closed loop devices. The functionality and potential applications for these atom analogs to electronic and spintronic systems is also discussed. Comment: Accepted for publication in EntropyItem Advances in the purple-fruited pitanga (Eugenia uniflora) long-term breeding program in Hawai’I, USA(International Society for Horticulture Science, 2018) Griffis Jr., J. L.; McDonald, T. G.; Manners, Malcom M.; Tuncay, Ö.Pitanga is not a newly discovered fruit, although its commercial potential has not been widely developed. European explorers discovered the pitanga in South America several centuries ago and spread red-fruited seedlings throughout the tropics worldwide. However, only in Brazil has this crop seen significant commercialization of the fruits. In Hawai'i, fruits have long been popular in farmers' markets and they are in demand by processors and chefs. Interest in the crop has expanded rather recently because of the availability of purple-fruited, high-antioxidant, better-tasting fruits. Several purple-fruited selections were introduced to growers in Brazil in 2011. In Florida, the tasty 'Zill Dark' purple-fruited cultivar has been available for many years and one plant is the parent plant of the large seedling field of pitanga planted at the Kona Experiment Station in December 2006. Factors that have limited further development of pitanga include considerable variation among seedlings and their fruits, difficulty in clonal propagation, difficulty in harvesting the fruits and lack of recognizably superior cultivars. The planting at Kona, 137 seedlings from a 'Zill Dark' self-pollination and 20 grafted plants of 'Zill Dark' was utilized initially to develop fertilizer recommendations for interested local growers who might replace coffee with another crop. As the planting matured, it was evaluated for pest and disease problems and fruits from individual plants were evaluated for antioxidant content, flavor and postharvest quality. From September 2013 to September 2015, all individual plants were evaluated weekly for presence of flowers and/or fruits in various stages of development. Unlike Florida or Brazil, where both flowering and fruiting in pitanga are highly synchronized, the Kona field has fruits almost continuously year-round (although individual plants do go in and out of production). Analysis of the flower and fruit data collected has allowed comparison of the seedlings with the 'Zill Dark' grafted plants such that selections of early- and late-bearing seedling plants that extend the crop season substantially can be made. Some preliminary fruit yield data will allow us to select seedlings that may have higher yields than the 'Zill Dark' grafted plants. Fruit characteristics of promising seedlings will be evaluated for other important characteristics such as antioxidant content, fruit size and taste.Item Allogrooming in Male-Female Pairs of Captive Owl Monkeys (Aotus nancymaae)(Folia Primatologica (Basel), 2017) Wolovich, Christy K.; Tapanes, Elizabeth; Evans, SianOwl monkeys (Aotus spp.) are socially monogamous, yet allogrooming is reported to be rare. Because Aotus are nocturnal and arboreal, allogrooming is difficult to observe in natural settings. We observed 21 male-female pairs of captive Aotus nancymaae during 2 nonconsecutive study periods in order to describe the details of allogrooming between mates (partner grooming). We found that grooming bouts are brief and consist of tugging the hair or skin with flexed fingers and/or the mouth. Males groomed females most often, and their rates of partner grooming were negatively related to age. Partner grooming occurred regardless of mating behavior. Camera trap data revealed that the rate of partner grooming (1.50 bouts/h) is greater than that recorded from our direct observations in the early evenings (0.51 bouts/h, in 2013; 0.37 bouts/h in 2003) given that most bouts occurred later in the night. A positive relationship between the rates of the parents' partner grooming and those of their offspring later in life suggests intergenerational transmission. This relationship is influenced by the fathers' rates of partner grooming. We conclude that allogrooming in Aotus is a normal part of their behavioral repertoire that likely serves social functions similar to those in other pair-bonded primates.Item Ancient and recent duplications support functional diversity of Daphnia opsins(Springer, 2017-01) Brandon, Christopher S.; Greenwold, Matthew J.; Dudycha, Jeffry L.Daphnia pulex has the largest known family of opsins, genes critical for photoreception and vision in animals. This diversity may be functionally redundant, arising from recent processes, or ancient duplications may have been preserved due to distinct functions and independent contributions to fitness. We analyzed opsins in D. pulex and its distant congener Daphnia magna. We identified [...] Copyright 2017 Gale, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 2017 SpringerItem “As Seen on TV:” The Relationship between Media, Demographics, and Perceptions of Campus Safety(North American Journal of Psychology, 2018) O'Donnell, Cullen T.; Carter, Lisa M.; Goodmon, Leilani B.; Zunic, Destiny; Smith, Caitlin; Parisi, A.Item Aspen(University of South Florida, 2012) Bernheim, EricaItem Asymptotic Translation Length in the Curve Complex(New York Journal of Mathematics, 2013) Valdivia, Aaron D.We show that when the genus and punctures of a surface are directly proportional by some rational number the minimal asymptotic translation length in the curve complex has behavior inverse to the square of the Euler characteristic. We also show that when the genus is fixed and the number of punctures varies the behavior is inverse to the Euler characteristic.Item At War with Congress: War Powers Disputes during the Trump Administration.(Taylor & Francis, 2022) McHugh, Kelly A.During his four years in office, Congress made historic challenges to President Donald Trump's authority as Commander in Chief, twice invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution. The first resolution, passed in 2019, expressed disapproval of the U.S.' logistical and material support for Saudi Arabia's campaign against the Houthi rebel movement in Yemen. The second challenge occurred in 2020 after Trump authorized a drone strike that killed Iranian Major General Qassam Soleimani. In response, Congress passed a WPR that stipulated that any future military action against the regime would require express legislative authorization. Using a case study approach, this essay examines why Congress chose to employ the WPR as a policy tool after decades of dormancy. Ultimately, I argue that a confluence of factors compelled majorities in both chambers of Congress to use the War Powers Resolution to make a powerful rebuke of the administration's policy. Drawing on a wealth of existing literature about the factors that impede or compel Congressional activism in use-of-force debates, I find that in both cases, members of Congress faced strong moral, legal, and strategic incentives to act, with few attendant political risks. As such, while the passage of two wars powers resolutions represented an important milestone in interbranch relations, it likely does not presage a new era of Congressional assertiveness in war powers. Keywords: U.S. foreign policy; Donald Trump; Congress [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Democracy & Security is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)Item Auxilin is essential for Delta signaling(Company Of Biologists Limited, 2008-03) Eun, Suk Ho; Banks, Susan M. L.; Fischer, Janice A.Endocytosis regulates Notch signaling in both signaling and receiving cells. A puzzling observation is that endocytosis of transmembrane ligand by the signaling cells is required for Notch activation in adjacent receiving cells. A key to understanding why signaling depends on ligand endocytosis lies in identifying and understanding the functions of crucial endocytic proteins. One such protein is Epsin, an endocytic factor first identified in vertebrate cells. Here, we show in Drosophila that Auxilin, an endocytic factor that regulates Clathrin dynamics, is also essential for [...]Item Beliefs about secondary confession evidence: a survey of laypeople and defense attorneys(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Key, Kylie N.; Neuschatz, Jeffrey S.; Bornstein, Brian H.; Wetmore, Stacy A.; Luecht, Katie M.; Dellapaolera, Kimberly S.; Quinlivan, Deah S.We surveyed students, community members, and defense attorneys regarding beliefs about secondary confession evidence (i.e. when a third party tells authorities that a person has confessed to him or her) from jailhouse informants and other sources. Results indicated that laypeople perceive secondary confessions as less credible than other types of evidence (e.g. forensics, DNA, eyewitness testimony), and they are knowledgeable about factors that may influence the veracity of secondary confessions, such as incentives or previous testimony. However, they underestimated or were uncertain about how persuasive secondary confessions would be to themselves or other jurors. Compared to laypeople, defense attorneys were more sensitive about issues affecting the reliability of secondary confessions.Item The Birth and Death of Toxins with Distinct Functions: A Case Study in the Sea Anemone Nematostella(Oxford University Press, 2019-09) Sachkova, Maria Y.; Singer, Shir A.; Macrander, Jason; Reitzel, Adam M.; Peigneur, Steve; Tytgat, Jan; Moran, YehuThe cnidarian Nematostella vectensis has become an established lab model, providing unique opportunities for venom evolution research. The Nematostella venom system is multimodal: involving both nematocytes and ectodermal gland cells, which produce a toxin mixture whose composition changes throughout the life cycle. Additionally, their modes of interaction with predators and prey vary between eggs, larvae, and adults, which is likely shaped by the dynamics of the venom system. Nv1 is a major component of adult venom, with activity against arthropods (through specific inhibition of sodium channel inactivation) and fish. Nv1 is encoded by a cluster of at least 12 nearly identical genes that were proposed to be undergoing concerted evolution. Surprisingly, we found that Nematostella venom includes several Nv1 paralogs escaping a pattern of general concerted evolution, despite belonging to the Nv1-like family. Here, we show two of these new toxins, Nv4 and Nv5, are lethal for zebrafish larvae but harmless to arthropods, unlike Nv1. Furthermore, unlike Nv1, the newly identified toxins are expressed in early life stages. Using transgenesis and immunostaining, we demonstrate that Nv4 and Nv5 are localized to ectodermal gland cells in larvae. The evolution of Nv4 and Nv5 can be described either as neofunctionalization or as subfunctionalization. Additionally, the Nv1-like family includes several pseudogenes being an example of nonfunctionalization and venom evolution through birth-and-death mechanism. Our findings reveal the evolutionary history for a toxin radiation and point toward the ecological function of the novel toxins constituting a complex cnidarian venom. (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.)Item BL0T: A novel phase privacy-preserving framework for location-based services(MDPI, 2018) Albelaihy, Abdullah; Cazalas, Jonathan; Thayananthan, VijeyThe inherent challenge within the domain of location-based services is finding a delicate balance between user privacy and the efficiency of answering queries. Inevitably, security issues can and will arise as the server must be informed about the query location in order to provide accurate responses. Despite the many security advancements in wireless communication, servers may become jeopardized or become infected with malicious software. That said, it is possible to ensure queries do not generate fake responses that appear real; in fact, if a fake response is used, mechanisms can be employed for the user to identify the query's authenticity. Towards this end, the paper propose BLoom Filter Oblivious Transfer (BLOT), a novel phase privacy preserving framework for LBS that combines a Bloom filter hash function and the oblivious transfer protocol. These methods are shown to be useful in securing a user's private information. An analysis of the results revealed that BLOT performed markedly better and enhanced entropy when compared to referenced approaches.Item "Books are not absolutely dead things": English literature, material culture and mapping text(Edinburgh University Press, 2018-03) Eskin, Catherine R.John Milton's 1644 declaration that 'Books are not absolutely dead things' makes him a rock star among undergraduate English majors who are covetous of the material, reassuringly physical book. This essay explores that metonymic dichotomy through a project that combined the 'old' technology of the hand-press book and the 'new' technology of GIS story-telling. Using a visiting special collection of rare books for students at a small college, the project approached hand-press era books in three phases: 1) a bibliographic description and transcription; 2) book forensics, and 3) a 'deep map' of a book. With mapping--understood as an expression of spatial thinking-- as a guide, students recognized that the singular text, even the dialogic text, is far less remarkable than locating and articulating the links between history, place, literature, and culture. Students engaged with terminology (descriptive bibliography), recognized the temporal lines of the book as an object (provenance), followed the development of a book as a polyglotous intellectual entity, and reviewed the geographic/historical experiences of the author and of the book (biography, publishing). The spatial turn allowed students to construct (and in some cases, deconstruct) the cultural world in which texts, authors and printers collide.Item Branded: The effects of LGBTQ+ marketing on consumer and appetitive reactions to food(North American Journal Of Psychology, 2020-12) Ready, Emily J.; Smith, Patrick L.; Goodmon, Leilani B.; Welsh, Brianna C.; Pridgen, MiriamSocial awareness of brands is an influential factor in marketing, as personal values can relate to emotionally-driven perceptions of the brand image. Previous research examined effects of companies who use views on the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, plus (LGBTQ+) community in their advertisements, and subsequent impact of consumer responses. In the case of brands that promote food products, behaviors beyond consumer preferences are also influenced by brand advertisements. The purpose of the current study is to investigate relationships between LGBTQ+ attitudes in consumers and their relative ratings (consumer and appetitive) for a food product when it is associated with a pointed opinion about the LGBTQ+ community. Participants (n = 75) were prescreened for attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community (positively or negatively) and were subsequently given an ice cream sample from a fictional company. During this time, participants were exposed to a vignette that depicted pro-LGBTQ+, anti-LGBTQ+, or no reference to LGBTQ+ company values. Results showed that those identified as having pro- or anti- LGBTQ+ attitudes displayed significantly higher consumer ratings towards a brand that aligned with their beliefs. Marketed social issues can impact perceptions of brands, which in turn affects consumer decisions, but not necessarily how sensory features are perceived. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)