cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Tobacco to Tap: Determination of Tobacco Waste in Groundwater, A Major Drinking Water Resource
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Few studies have determined the amount of environmental microplastic pollution originating from tobacco product waste. Rarer still are studies which have experimentally determined the amount of microplastics originating from tobacco product waste in groundwater, even in areas where groundwater underlies soils and sediments that receive microplastics from significant vectors of conveyance like treated sewage and untreated stormwater runoff. The term microplastics broadly refers to solid plastic particles less than 5 mm in size, and represents compounds of various shapes and chemical identities. Assessing the environmental risk of microplastics requires accurate measurements of the amount of these diverse contaminants across different matrices like water, soil, and sewage. Due to the varied properties of microplastics, current methods for experimentally determining the differential composition of microplastics in matrices of interest have resulted in underestimations of the proportion of microplastic pollution originating from tobacco product waste. Specifically, cigarette filters contain plastic in the form of cellulose acetate fibers, which break into fibrous microplastics, namely microfibers, as a result of environmental exposure. Littered cigarette filters have been identified as a significant source of microplastic pollution globally, releasing an estimated 4 million trillion cellulose acetate microfibers into the environment each year. The overall aim of this project is to experimentally determine the amount of cellulose acetate microfibers, relative to the amount of other microplastics, in groundwater likely receiving microplastic inputs. The differential composition of cellulose acetate microfibers relative to other microplastics will also be determined for various key matrices across this understudied source-pathway-receptor chain using novel methods for cellulose acetate microfiber recovery. The goal of this project is to provide data that can be used in the development of California’s precautionary risk assessment framework for microplastic pollution, with an emphasis on environmental contamination caused by tobacco product waste. Collecting this data is critical as groundwater is a precious resource that satisfies up to 100% of the water supply needs for municipalities, the agricultural sector, and disadvantaged communities across California.
Otothyropsis marapoama Ribeiro, Carvalho & Melo 2005
Creators: name: Langeani, Francisco
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Actinopterygii
Siluriformes
Loricariidae
Otothyropsis
Otothyropsis marapoama

description: Otothyropsis marapoama Ribeiro, Carvalho & Melo (2005).
Paratypes: 1 lot, 8 specimens; DZSJRP 7887, 19.3–21.9 mm SL, córrego Cubatão, rio Tietê basin, sítio Cubatão, Catanduva, São Paulo, Brazil, 21°14’53.4”S, 49°1’18.8”W, cols. A.L.A. Melo, A.C. Ribeiro, M. Carvalho & A.K. Takako, 14 July 2004.
description: Published as part of Langeani, Francisco, 2017, Annotated catalog of the type specimens deposited at the fish collection of the " Universidade Estadual Paulista, Câmpus de São José do Rio Preto ", São Paulo, Brazil (DZSJRP), pp. 435-460 in Zootaxa 4319 (3) on page 455, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4319.3.2, http://zenodo.org/record/890303
Engineered Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Natural Killer Cellular Therapy for Non-small Cell Lung Cancer
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: One of the most exciting emerging technologies in cancer treatment are targeted cellular immunotherapies. To date, most of the focus in the field has been on “CAR-T” therapies, where a patient’s own white blood cells are collected, a specific type of immune cell called “killer T cells” are isolated and engineered to attack the cancer, and then re-introduced into the patient’s bloodstream. Despite the early promise of this approach, limitations on cost, scalability, safety and efficacy have prevented the large-scale application of CAR-T therapy. We have begun to develop a next-generation cellular therapy platform based on natural killer (NK) cell to address these limitations. Many early efforts have demonstrated that NK-based cell therapies have the potential to be safer and more efficacious while significantly less expensive and complicated to produce. Our proposed technology further improves on the promise of NK-based cellular therapies. We have identified a lung cancer target (DLK1) that demonstrate exquisite tumor-specificity, in that they are not present on normal lung tissue nor any other critical tissue in the body. We plan to use DLK1 to target our NK cell therapy specifically to lung tumors expressing these targets, creating “CAR-NK” cells. The high specificity should minimize the risk of the toxicity to other tissues seen with less-discriminating cellular therapy targets. To our knowledge, we will be the first group to design NK cell therapy targeted to DLK1. We will also engineer these cells to express an immune-stimulating cytokine called “CCL21” to induce longer, more durable responses. We have previously run phase 1 clinical trials where we injected dendritic cells overexpressing CCL21 (CCL21-DC) directly into the tumor. We showed that the engineered CCL21-DC attracted patient’s own T cells and DCs into the tumor, promoting tumor-specific T cell activation and creating a systemic anti-tumor response. By combining the direct tumor targeting and killing by NK cells with the systemic immune response activated by CCL21, we believe we can achieve both immediate tumor reduction as well as the priming of patient’s own immune system to recognize and attack tumor cells for long term tumor control. If successful, this therapy could benefit tens of thousands of patients with tobacco related lung cancers every year.
Duocrassana longula Pinedo-Escatel, Zahniser & Dietrich, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Pinedo-Escatel, J. A.
name: Dietrich, C. H.
name: Moya-Raygoza, G.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Cicadellidae
Duocrassana
Duocrassana longula

description: Duocrassana longula Pinedo-Escatel, Zahniser & Dietrich, sp. nov.
Description. Body length, ♂ 4.6 mm, ♀ 5.1 mm (Figs. 16, 18). Coloration on dorsal structures light brown with minute markings of pale brown, and ventrally black brown. Head, crown with a brown pair of lines close to middle line; posterior crown sides close to eyes with a brown spots in each side. Between ocelli with interrupted weakly brown band at middle, above each ocelli a brown dot with twice its size. Face, frontoclypeus at tip has a transversal broad curve, connected with a medial vertical line, intermediately extended along the frontoclypeus with faint black-brown arcuate lines; clypellus and lora entire black-brown; gena with some marks of black, also on base of lora, clypellus, below eyes, and lateral sides of clypellus. Pronotum and scutellum pale-brown (Fig. 15). Ventral sclerites of thorax pale brown-black. Abdomen entire black unto genital capsule. Genital sclerites brown with black setae. Female same color pattern as male but more intense, except on vertex and ventral sclerites of thorax.
Male genitalia: segment X sclerotized laterally with basal process bow shaped and extended nearly to ventral margin of pygofer (Fig. 8). Pygofer ventral appendage curved dorsad near base but straight through most of length in lateral view (Fig. 7).
Female genitalia: seventh sternite as long as two times the sixth sternite, sides moderately excavated, medially with a bilobed projection (Fig. 11).
Material examined. Holotype ♂ (CZUG), Mexico: Oaxaca, rt. 190 km # 180 \ La Reforma 800 m \ 16°23’56” N, 95°46’56” W \ 7–Nov–2001 \ C. H. Dietrich \ sweeping \ 01–056–03; Paratypes 1 ♀ (CZUG), same locality data as holotype; 2 ♀ (INHS), Mexico: Oaxaca, rt. 190 km # 180 \ La Reforma 800 m \ 16°23’56” N, 95°46’29” W \ 6–Nov–2001 \ R. Rakitov \ sweeping \ 01–056–02.
Etymology. The species epithet refers to the long processes of the male pygofer.
description: Published as part of Pinedo-Escatel, J. A., Dietrich, C. H. & Moya-Raygoza, G., 2016, Duocrassana longula, new genus and species of leafhopper (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Deltocephalinae) from southern Mexico and its relationship to other genera in Athysanini, pp. 579-588 in Zootaxa 4196 (4) on pages 586-587, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4196.4.7, http://zenodo.org/record/168334
Optimizing Equitable Community Tobacco Policy Promotion for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: California enjoys one of the lowest rates of smoking in the U.S., but the rapidly changing landscape of tobacco use raises red flags. For instance, from 2017-2018 e-cigarette use among young adults (age 18-25 years old) climbed 48% with Asian Americans in aggregate having the second-highest prevalence (16%) compared to Whites (19%) and Latinx (10.4%) (Meng & Ponce, 2020). California’s Tobacco Control Program (CTCP) prioritizes the funding of community interventions focused on policy, systems and environmental change, such as the promotion of smoke-free policies covering multi-unit housing and outdoor areas. Community-based programs comprise an essential strategy to increase local policies for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (Tanjasiri et al., 2013; Palmer et al., 2013). Unfortunately, there exists a significant disconnect between the adoption of such policies, with low income communities less likely to adopt, and more likely to have higher densities of tobacco retailers and marketing (Hafez et al., 2019). Potentially exacerbating the challenges of policy promotion is the misalignment of CTCP resources away from the most socially-vulnerable communities; Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement (APIFM) in Los Angeles proposed to work in lower socioeconomic and Asian-dense communities of Alhambra and Monterey Park, but were selected by the CTCP Local Lead Agency to instead work in the higher income communities of Diamond Bar and San Marino. We propose to apply the Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center’s health equity framework (Douglas et al., 2019) to understand the extent to which community-based tobacco control programs: 1) are experiencing a misalignment of considering communities with the greatest needs, and 2) can be spatially optimized for the greatest risk reductions. The long-term goal of Optimizing Equitable Community Tobacco Policy Promotion for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI-timize) is the elimination of tobacco disparities, and short-term goal is to inform the allocation of funding and services by community tobacco control organizations and local lead agencies in Los Angeles and Orange counties, which have the largest numbers of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the state. Ultimately, the strength of this study stems from real-world observations, application of essential data disaggregation, and spatial analyses.
Genome-wide intergenic repression by polycomb group proteins
Creators: name: Lee, Hungoo
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2014

description: Polycomb group (PcG) proteins have been studied as epigenetic regulators of diverse developmental regulatory genes in various organisms. PcG proteins form two major complexes: the Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) which includes Enhancer of zeste (E(Z)) that methylates the lysine 2& residue of histone H3 (H3K2&) and the Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) which preferentially binds to tri-methylated H3K2& (H3K2&me3). Recent genome-wide analysis revealed that the PcG proteins stably bind to hundreds of genomic loci with strong H3K2&me3 enrichment.  Unlike the focused enrichment of H3K2&me3, di-methylation of H3K2& (H3 K2&me2) is found on more than half of all nucleosomal H3, raising the interesting possibility that H3K2&me2 might have a potential repressive role across the genome.  To address the possibility, we generated an E(z) temperature sensitive mutant cell line and examined the effects of E(Z) inactivation. Upon E(Z) inactivation, we observed a strong transcriptional increase from the H3K2&me2-enriched intergenic regions along with significant increases of H3K2&ac and H3K4me1. The intergenic de-repression was dependent on two dUTX-containing H3K2& de-methylase complexes that are associated with the increased active marks. Genome-wide analysis revealed that these effects are prevailing all over the genome, suggesting an antagonistic relationship between PRC2 and the dUTX complexes for regulating chromatin states genome-wide.    In addition, PRC1 involvement in the intergenic repression was indicated by increased intergenic transcription by knock-downs or a mutation of PRC1 components. Moreover, a significant level of H2Aub1, a repressive mark produced by PRC1, was found in silent intergenic regions.   These results extend the roles of PcG proteins by showing that PcG complexes not only function as master regulators of several hundred developmental regulators but also set a high inhibitory threshold to suppress the pervasive intergenic transcription all over the genome.
Pareiorhina pelicicei Azevedo-Santos & Roxo 2015
Creators: name: Langeani, Francisco
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Actinopterygii
Siluriformes
Loricariidae
Pareiorhina
Pareiorhina pelicicei

description: Pareiorhina pelicicei Azevedo-Santos & Roxo (2015).
Paratypes: 1 lot, 3 specimens; DZSJRP 20156, 31.3–38.7 mm SL, córrego Tamborete, rio Grande drainage, upper rio Paraná basin, Capitólio, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 20°38’38”S, 46°10’13”W, col. V.M. Azevedo-Santos, 16 June 2014.
description: Published as part of Langeani, Francisco, 2017, Annotated catalog of the type specimens deposited at the fish collection of the " Universidade Estadual Paulista, Câmpus de São José do Rio Preto ", São Paulo, Brazil (DZSJRP), pp. 435-460 in Zootaxa 4319 (3) on page 455, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4319.3.2, http://zenodo.org/record/890303
Genome-wide association analyses of nicotine behaviors in over 4 million individuals
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Genetic factors modulate an individual’s susceptibility to smoking and other forms of nicotine abuse and tobacco use disorders (TUD). These genetic influences are important at multiple stages, including the decision to smoke for the first time, sensitivity to the rewarding and aversive effects of nicotine, the development of tolerance and dependence, the severity of nicotine withdrawal, the inclination and the ability to quit, and the risk of relapse after quitting. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been powerful tools for elucidating the genetic basis of psychiatric and somatic disorders. Hundreds of associations between specific loci and various substance use and abuse traits have been discovered. However, the greatest progress has been made for one aspect of nicotine use – the number of cigarettes smoked per day among smokers. In contrast, GWAS that explore who is more susceptible to develop TUD have not yet reached the sample sizes needed to produce more than a handful of associations. These GWAS have also been mainly restricted to individuals of European ancestry, threatening to exacerbate existing health disparities. In this project, we will leverage the largest available GWAS of nicotine behaviors to begin to dissect the genetic basis of nicotine abuse and boost power for genomic discovery across multiple ancestries. We will apply pioneering multivariate techniques, such as genomic structural equation modeling, and use novel datasets, some of which we are already collecting, to capitalize on the genetic correlations of smoking phenotypes, from cigarettes per day to TUD and therapeutic response to nicotine medication to smoking cessation, to reach a sample of unprecedented size. This work will allow us to parse the genetic liability that is common across all smoking behaviors, from that that is specific for each stage, which will be invaluable for improving prevention, treatment, and the development of new pharmacotherapies. We will use multiple existing datasets, including population-based cohorts and hospital-based populations. The anticipated sample size will also include multiple ancestries, addressing the urgent need of increasing genomic diversity in studies of TUD. This work will accelerate nicotine genetic research and provide new biological clues that will impact multiple arenas, from neuroscience to clinical research.
The world as emergent from pure entropy
Creators: name: Harvey-Tremblay, Alexandre
Publisher: name: Figshare
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: 20304 Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics
subject: FOS: Mechanical engineering
subject: Thermodynamics

description: We propose a framework to understand the universe as an ensemble of theorems rather than as a set of axioms. We prove meta-logically that the theorems of the ensemble must have *feasible* proofs and must recover *universality*. The ensemble is axiomatized when it is constructed as a partition function, in which case its axioms are, up to an error rate, the bits of Omega (the halting probability of a prefix-free universal Turing machine).
As a consequence of the axiomatization, the ensemble adopts the mathematical structure of an ensemble of statistical physics. It is from this context that the laws of physics are derived. It is shown that the Lagrange multipliers of the partition function are the fundamental Planck units and that the background, a thermal spacetime, emerges as a consequence of the limits applicable to the conjugate pairs. The background obeys the relations of special and general relativity, dark energy, the arrow of time, the Schrödinger equation, the Dirac equation and it embeds the holographic principle. The laws of physics are emergent from the computational connection between axioms and theorems.
The framework is so fundamental that informational-equivalents to length, time and mass (assumed as axioms in most physical theories) are here formally derivable. It can prove that no alternative framework can contain less bits of axioms than it contains (hence it is necessarily the simplest theory). Furthermore, it can prove that, for all worlds amenable to this framework, the laws of physics will be the same (hence there can be no alternatives).
 The framework is, by all accounts, a candidate for a final theory.
Ceroxys Macquart 1835
Creators: name: El-Hawagry, Magdi S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Ulidiidae
Ceroxys

description: Genus CEROXYS Macquart
Meckelia Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830: 714. Type species: Oscinis elegans Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 (= Musca hyalinata Panzer, 1798), by subsequent designation (Coquillett 1910: 564). Preoccupied by Leuckart (1828). See Evenhuis (1989) and Al Dhafer & El-Hawagry (2016).
Ceroxys Macquart, 1835b: 437. Type species: Musca urticae Linnaeus, 1758. by subsequent designation (Westwood 1840: 149).
Ceratoxys Rondani, 1861: 10. Type species: Oscinis elegans Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830 (automatically assigned). New name for Meckelia.
Anacampta Loew, 1868a: 7. Type species: Musca urticae Linnaeus, 1758, by subsequent designation (Loew 1873a: 58).
description: Published as part of El-Hawagry, Magdi S., 2017, Catalogue of Egyptian Tephritoidea (Diptera: Schizophora: Acalyptratae), pp. 151-190 in Zootaxa 4299 (2) on page 178, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4299.2.1, http://zenodo.org/record/843233
Pseudotothyris ignota Martins, Britski & Langeani 2014
Creators: name: Langeani, Francisco
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Actinopterygii
Siluriformes
Loricariidae
Pseudotothyris
Pseudotothyris ignota

description: Pseudotothyris ignota Martins, Britski & Langeani (2014).
Paratypes: 2 lots, 11 specimens; DZSJRP 15881 (1 c&s), 28.1 mm SL, tributary to rio Palha, 3 km from SC- 406 road, São João do Rio Vermelho, Santa Catarina, Brazil, 27°28’59”S, 48°26’14”W, col. A. Bertaco, 28 February 2005; and DZSJRP 15882, 10 (1 c&s), 14.3–32.0 mm SL, stream tributary to lago Acaraí, São Francisco do Sul, Santa Catarina, Brazil, 26°17’33”S, 48°35’21”W, cols. L.R. Malabarba, R. Quevedo & V. Bertaco, 26 January 2007.
description: Published as part of Langeani, Francisco, 2017, Annotated catalog of the type specimens deposited at the fish collection of the " Universidade Estadual Paulista, Câmpus de São José do Rio Preto ", São Paulo, Brazil (DZSJRP), pp. 435-460 in Zootaxa 4319 (3) on page 455, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4319.3.2, http://zenodo.org/record/890303
Mechanisms of COPD sustained muscle inflammation impeded myofiber repair and function
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Smokers show a high incidence of muscle injuries with a prolonged recovery time, indicative of poor muscle repair. To study the mechanisms of this deficient repair, our lab exposes mice to cigarette smoke (CS). These mice show impaired force recovery after injury, atrophy in regenerating muscle fibers (myofibers), a change in the profile of muscle stem cells (i.e., satellite cells; MuSC) and a significant increase in pro-inflammatory signaling in regenerating muscles. However, it is not known the role of smoke-induced peripheral sustained inflammation on MuSC function regulating muscle repair. We hypothesize that CS exposure leads to a sustained pro-inflammatory signaling in peripheral muscles that activates a premature differentiation of MuSC. This in turn, impairs MuSC function during muscle repair, preventing the gain-of-function in regenerating myofibers. This hypothesis will be tested with the following aims: 1) Determine the effects of CS exposure and excessive pulmonary TNF-α overexpression in vivo on MuSC fate and myofiber gain-of-function in regenerating skeletal muscle; 2) Determine the role of anti-inflammatory interventions in modulating MuSC fate in vitro in CS-exposed mice; and. 3) Test the efficacy of blocking excessive pulmonary inflammation in vivo to alleviate poor muscle repair following injury in CS exposed mice. These aims will be completed by using mice with fluorescently labeled MuSC and exposed to CS or Air for 4 months, or mice overexpressing pulmonary TNF-α with fluorescently labeled MuSC. The locomotor muscles present in the legs of these mice will be injured by lengthening contractions. During recovery, intact muscles, single myofibers, and MuSC cultures will be obtained to study contractility, intracellular calcium signaling, myofiber maturation, and MuSC fate and fusion in regenerating myofibers. Direct effects of CS compounds on MuSC fate and fusion will be tested by treating MuSC with CS extract. In addition, in vitro and in vivo treatments for excessive pulmonary inflammation will be tested to mitigate the harmful effects of CS-induced muscle regeneration impairment. These experiments will lead to a more mechanistic understanding of the severe muscle dysfunction in smokers and set the stage for potential therapies to alleviate muscle atrophy and accelerate recovery.
Krameragallia Gonçalves & Nielson, 2011, gen. nov.
Creators: name: Gonçalves, Ana Clara
name: Nielson, Mervin William
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hemiptera
Cicadellidae
Krameragallia

description: Krameragallia gen. nov.
Type-species: Agalliopsis rex Kramer, 1960
Very large, slender species. Posterior margin of crown slightly sinuate behind eyes. General color black; forewings red with distinct black maculae distally.
Crown in dorsal view shorter medially than next to eyes; distance between ocelli greater than distance of each ocellus and adjacent eye; pronotum in lateral view humped, surface finely transversely striate. Profemur without any prominent setae. Pro-, meso- and metathoracic tibiae quadrangular in transverse section; prothoracic tibiae with ten setae; metathoracic femur with setal formula 2:1:0. First tarsomere terminated by row of setae and platellae in following sequence from lateral to medial surface: one regular seta, one elongate platellae, and one short, one elongate and one short setae.
Subgenital plates very elongate, fused to valve. Aedeagus very elongate, shaft almost ribbon-like; apex with one pair of elongate lateral processes on each side. Segment X bearing well developed hook-like processes. Female genitalia unique, unlike any other known Agalliini, with first valvifer very well developed, hook-shaped and bearing several scattered spiniform processes.
Etymology. The genus is named in honor of Dr. James P. Kramer, retired, former U. S. D. A. Research Entomologist affiliated with the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D. C. whose outstanding contributions have immeasurably advanced our knowledge of leafhopper systematics.
description: Published as part of Gonçalves, Ana Clara & Nielson, Mervin William, 2011, A new genus, Krameragallia, a segregate from the Neogeic genus Agalliopsis (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae: Megophthalminae), pp. 29-37 in Zootaxa 2748 on page 30, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.276663
Integrating Genetics and Epigenetics to the Study of Smoking's Effect on Children's Vision
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Vision disorders (e.g., crossed eye, lazy eye, and farsightedness) can significantly impair the development of visual, motor, and cognitive functions. Maternal smoking during pregnancy has been consistently associated with these disorders. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying these associations remain unknown. Recent studies have found that maternal smoking can lead to changes in DNA methylation at particular genomic loci. We are currently investigating whether DNA methylation mediates the effect of maternal smoking on vision among children enrolled in the Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease. However, accumulating evidence suggests that genetic variation can substantially affect DNA methylation. Thus, incorporating genetics is essential to separate the smoking-induced alterations in DNA methylation from those resulting from genetic variations. This will be particularly important for studies of populations such as African Americans, who are affected differently by smoking-related diseases and have distinct DNA methylation patterns. However, to our knowledge, no study has investigated genetic variations for maternal smoking-related DNA methylation among African American children. Questions also remain over the effects of maternal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) during pregnancy, which is much more common than active maternal smoking. Current evidence, albeit very limited, suggests that ETS during pregnancy may alter DNA methylation, possibly in sites distinct from those related to active smoking. We propose an independent but cooperative investigation to fill these knowledge gaps, leveraging our ongoing study's existing DNA samples and data (e.g., cotinine level, genome-wide DNA methylation). This study will generate data on DNA methylation sites associated with maternal exposure to ETS, the genetic architecture of CpG sites associated with intrauterine exposure to smoking, and genetic/epigenetic biomarkers of children with high susceptibility to vision disorders. This study targets a critical aspect of children’s health, i.e., vision, that is affected by smoking but has not been well studied. Such knowledge will provide insights into the molecular pathways linking intrauterine exposure to smoking and vision disorders in children, enable potential inventions to reduce the impact of tobacco smoke, and reduce visual impairment in children.
Automatic meshing and rigging for the creation and deformation of 3D shapes
Creators: name: Borosán, Péter
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2014

description: In this dissertation I present methods for interactive creation and deformation of 3D shapes. For high-quality free-form deformation of polygonal meshes I introduce a hybrid approach that combines cage-based and surface-based shape editing paradigms. The continuum between purely surface-based and purely cage-based methods is explored by applying as-rigid-as-possible surface modeling to an automatically simplified version of an input mesh. The original shape is updated using precomputed weights based on mean value coordinates on this simplified mesh. This allows to exploit the speed of the cage-based approaches and retain the ease of use of surface-based methods while requiring no extra footwork from the user.    Thereafter I present algorithms for creating ready-to-animate rigged 3D models from 2D sketches.  The input user sketch is treated as the silhouette of the desired shape, and the system generates a surface composed of smoothly joined generalized cylinders, a bone skeleton, and skin weights attaching the surface to the skeleton. For the skeleton creation I introduce a generalized version of the Douglas-Peucker line simplification algorithm. This unified approach to modeling and rigging, when augmented with merging and cutting operations, greatly simplifies the traditionally sequential 3D character animation pipeline and removes friction from incremental and iterative character modeling and animation.    Finally I extend this approach to models with flexible parts by introducing a spline based skeletal deformation technique. The curve skeleton of the shape is represented by series of cubic splines, whose end points serve as the joints of the bone skeleton. When the bone skeleton is manipulated, the end points follow the joints, and tangents and twists at the end points are computed from the transformations of the adjacent bones and respecting the nature of coupling between the corresponding parts of the shape. Similarly to traditional skinning the deformed surface is given by a weighted blending, but combining transforms of curve points instead of those of bones. Users can pose their models using a sparse bone skeleton, without the need for manually constructing higher level controls.    The presented methods bring 3D modeling closer to non-professional users and enable them to express themselves creatively. At the same time they can help artists quickly try out ideas and speed up prototyping.
Nicotine use in bipolar disorder: Interplay between neurophysiology, neurocognition and genomics
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: The prevalence of smoking is disproportionally higher in those with mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (BD) compared to the general population, but there has been less investigation of the biology of this association in BD than in schizophrenia. Those with BD tend to have two to three times higher rates of smoking. Studies have proposed potentially causative relationships between smoking and BD, one where smoking is a plausible risk factor for BD and psychosis, and an alternative where having BD will lead to commencing or increasing consumption of nicotine. Genome-wide association studies have implicated positive correlations between BD and smoking initiation and cigarettes per day; however, these associations need further study. Identification of biomarkers can increase our understanding of nicotine addiction and lead to the advancement of cessation therapies. Sensory gating, a trait measure of the brain’s ability to inhibit irrelevant or redundant incoming information is impaired in BD and is an established biomarker for both BD and BD with psychosis. We found, in preliminary results from BD smokers (BD-S) and BD non-smokers (BD-NS) tested thus far in our TRDRP pilot research award, that BD-S reported more depressive symptoms than BD-NS, as well as more general psychiatric symptoms, e.g, anxiety, especially females. Smokers had normal sensory gating, larger brain responses to the sensory gating task auditory stimuli than BD-NS, and similar performance on neurocognitive tests. We also piloted a 3-condition auditory target detection task, with subjects pressing a button on hearing rare target tones but not rare higher pitch deviant ones, both presented in a background of frequent tones. We found, only for BD-S, the magnitude of brain responses to the targets was the same as for deviants, suggesting that BD-S lacked inhibitory ability; rather than giving full attention to the targets requiring a response, BD-S devoted equal attention to both. Six BD vapers differed from both BD-S and BD-NS. The potential for nicotine to mediate sensory gating and cognition and its interplay with the underlying molecular basis of BD needs further study. This study will provide information about the neuroscience of tobacco addiction in BD and also identify biomarkers, thus implicating possible treatments for smoking cessation in this high-risk group.
Interaction of Stress and Nicotine Receptors in Preventing Drug Relapse
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Although nicotine withdrawal symptoms subside, smokers attempting to quit remain at risk to relapse. Thus, it is essential to increase our understanding of neurobiological mechanisms underlying nicotine relapse related behaviors to identify novel targets for drug therapies and support individuals who aim to quit. Lynx2, a protein acting on the nicotinic receptor, significantly alters molecular, cellular, and behavioral outcomes. However, the effect of lynx2 in nicotine relapse related behaviors, remains unknown. While it is important to understand how internal factors contribute to nicotine relapse, external environmental factors are unavoidable and may also contribute to an individual’s risk for nicotine relapse. Taken together, I aim to understand the effect of lynx2 on cue-induced nicotine relapse, in the presence and absence of stress. In sum, findings from these studies will provide the foundation to understand neurobiological mechanisms of multiple factors leading to relapse during nicotine cessation, which may be ultimately applied to therapeutic interventions. Moreover, embarking on this project will significantly develop my professional and experimental skills, providing me an enriching opportunity to achieve my aspirations to become a highly productive faculty and effective science communicator in the field of nicotine addiction in California.
Ceroxys urticae
Creators: name: El-Hawagry, Magdi S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Ulidiidae
Ceroxys
Ceroxys urticae

description: Ceroxys urticae (Linnaeus, 1758)
Musca urticae Linnaeus, 1758: 600. Unspecified type. Sweden (LSL).
Ceroxys euzonus Steyskal, 1968: 123. Holotype. Egypt (Alexandria: Nuzha) (EFC).
Distribution. PA: China, Egypt, eastern Siberia, and the Far East, Europe, Iran, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan.
Egyptian localities. Coastal Strip: Alexandria, Cleopatra, Mahmoudiya, Mariout, Nuzha, Eastern Desert: Geneifa, Ghoubbet El-Bous, Ismailia, Ogret El-Sheikh, Port Said. Fayoum: Qaroun, Sennouris, Wadi El-Raiyan. Lower Nile Valley and Delta: Giza, Helwan, Kerdassa, Qubba. Western Desert: Farafra Oasis, Wadi El-Natroun. Biology. Larvae of this species and all Ulidiid species, are thought to be saprophagous found in rotten plants or in dung and associated with wet meadow habitats. Sources: MacGowan & Freidberg (2008); Kameneva & Korneyev (2016).
Plants from which flies were swept. Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.), the true grasses (Poaceae), Egyptian clover (Trifolium alexandrinum L.) and wild sugarcane (Saccharum spontaneum L.). Dates of collection. March to December.
description: Published as part of El-Hawagry, Magdi S., 2017, Catalogue of Egyptian Tephritoidea (Diptera: Schizophora: Acalyptratae), pp. 151-190 in Zootaxa 4299 (2) on pages 178-179, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4299.2.1, http://zenodo.org/record/843233
Effects of Socio-Demographic And Neighborhood Characteristics on Vaping Trends among Teenagers in CA
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Vaping among teenagers has become a growing issue, especially with the growth of stores that sell e-cigarette products. Approximately 3.02 million high school students and 550,000 middle school students have reported currently using e-cigarettes, with roughly a third of them have reported using marijuana in the device. This project aims to look at what factors may be playing a role in any disparities when it comes to e-cigarette use, such as neighborhood or socio-demographic characteristics (income, unemployment, etc.). This study will let us look at the trends of these risk factors along with the trends of e-cigarette use in teenagers to see which characteristics may be influencing vaping. Another factor that is being looked at is the number of e-cigarette vendors in close distance to high schools, to see if easy access to sources of e-cigarettes have a influence on a teenager's risk of vaping. A previous analysis looked at data just for Orange County, California, for the years 2019-2020, and found that the risk of vaping was associated with factors such as race, ethnicity, gender, parent's education and free or reduced lunch program eligibility. We hope to add on to those results but instead we will be looking at the years 2010 to 2020, since California started their campaign to warn about the dangers of e-cigarettes in 2015. By looking at the five years before and after these efforts, we can get a better idea of the effects of these efforts. This project will use its findings to present to community groups, leaders, and conferences, in hopes of informing the public on the widespread disparities of teenage vaping.
Impact of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Devices on clonal hematopoiesis and hematologic malignancies
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: About 15% of adults >65 carry mutations in blood stem cells without a blood cancer, known as clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) and this is strongly linked to smoking. Having CHIP increases the risk of developing blood cancer and heart disease. Electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) are very popular and usage has grown dramatically but the long-term health effects are unknown. In this project we will determine how abnormal CHIP blood stem cells respond differently to e-cig aerosols than healthy blood stem cells and how this may eventually lead to an overgrowth of the abnormal CHIP cells relative to normal cells. We predict that e-cigs create a stressful environment that harms healthy cells but supports the growth of abnormal cells. Thus, it gives the abnormal cells an unfair advantage and so they expand at the expense of the normal cells.
 We will test our predictions on both the stem cells which reside in the bone marrow as well mature blood cells circulating in the blood using genetically engineered mice that carry mutations commonly found in CHIP. We can create mice carrying a mixture of mutant and normal blood cells and track how these cells compete over time with exposure to e-cig aerosols. These experiments will enable us to determine which mutation(s) expands under the stress of e-cigs and identify strategies to protect normal stem cells.
 Inflammatory mature mutant blood cells are causal to the clinical consequences of CHIP including development of blood cancer and atherosclerosis (hardened arteries). We predict that e-cig aerosols augment the inflammatory nature of mutant mature cells. To test this, we will analyze functional changes in the mutant and normal mature blood cells following e-cig exposure.
 Another question that we will answer is whether e-cigs are a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes in the context of clonal hematopoiesis. For this, mice will be exposed to cigarette smoke and e-cig aerosols sequentially and the percentage of circulating mutant cells will be quantified.
 Our studies span the fields of hematology (the study of blood), inhalation toxicology, and preventive medicine by dissecting the roles of inhaled tobacco products in promoting the growth of abnormal blood cells and in the long-term reveal strategies to combat blood cancer and reduce the negative health consequences of CHIP.
Assessing the disease-causing potential of vaping in youth
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: This proposal will address a pressing public health concern, namely, the ongoing epidemic of ‘youth’ vaping. The studies described in this proposal will investigate the largely unknown health consequences of youth vaping by measuring molecular changes linked to risk of disease in non-invasively obtainable cells from healthy youth who are regular users of electronic cigarettes (e-cigs). The findings of this project are expected to be of immediate use for the regulatory agencies, which are in urgent need of scientific evidence informing the regulation of the manufacture, distribution, and marketing of e-cigs in order to protect the youth and promote public health.
 This application is responsive to the following TRDRP research priorities: (I) “Tobacco related diseases”; (II) “Environmental Exposure and Toxicology”. This application will also inform the ‘Endgame Policy Platform’ by generating scientific evidence on the health consequences of youth vaping. A critical component of the campaign to end the commercial tobacco epidemic is its focus on youth. Thus, the data generated by the culmination of this project will help the campaign to devise evidence-based strategies to eradicate the tobacco industry’s influence and the harm caused by tobacco products to the health and well-being of California’s youth.
Differential Characteristics of Active and Passive Vaping Aerosols
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: The overall goal of this project is to characterize the vaping-associated differential exposure and health risks for e-cigarette users and bystanders by examining changes in physical and chemical properties of e-cigarette aerosols produced under active and passive vaping conditions. According to the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) in 2018, an estimate of 8.1 million adults in the United States were current users of e-cigarette products (i.e., active vapers). Given the rising prevalence of e-cigarette use and the lack of regulations to control its emissions, passive exposure to vaping-emitted aerosols may pose a substantial health risk to bystanders (i.e., passive vapers), particularly vulnerable populations. However, little information is available about the exposure profiles for passive vaping. E-cigarette aerosols are a complex mixture of gases and particles with dynamic chemical composition and size distribution. Aerosols with varying sizes can deposit in different sections of the human respiratory tract that determine the dose to regional lung tissues, while the chemical composition of aerosols is a crucial factor in determining the aerosol toxicity; both properties combined provide an adequate index for assessing the vaping aerosol-associated health risks. In this study, we aim to (1) characterize the dynamic changes in size distribution and size-fractionated chemical composition of e-cigarette aerosol under active and passive vaping conditions; (2) estimate the vapor pressure of e-cigarette aerosol constituents; and (3) evaluate the toxicological responses in human airway epithelial cells to e-cigarette aerosols via active and passive exposures. Through the proposed community engagement and outreach activities, we aim to engage communities of teenagers and middle school students who are most influenced by the use of emerging tobacco and vaping products. The results from this study will provide an improved understanding of exposure profiles for both active vapers and bystanders. Identification of emerging vaping emission products, as well as their transformation and evolution in the surrounding environments, is a crucial first step towards developing guidelines to protect bystanders from involuntary exposures, and ultimately to prevent adverse health outcomes that result from vaping emissions.
MPEC 2024-Y243 : 2024 YN9
Creators: name: Minor Planet Center Staff
Publisher: name: The Minor Planet Center
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Small Solar System bodies
valueUri: http://astrothesaurus.org/uat/1469
subject: 2024 YN9

description: The Minor Planet Electronic Circulars contain information on unusual minor planets, routine data on comets and natural satellites, and occasional editorial announcements.  They are published on behalf of Division F of the International Astronomical Union by the Minor Planet Center, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Herina Robineau-Desvoidy 1830
Creators: name: El-Hawagry, Magdi S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Diptera
Ulidiidae
Herina

description: Genus HERINA Robineau-Desvoidy
Herina Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830: 724. Type species: Herina liturata Robineau-Desvoidy, 1830, by subsequent designation (Rondani 1856: 109).
Loxodesma Loew, 1868a: 5. Type species: Ortalis lacustris Meigen, 1826, monotypy.
Pteropaectria Loew, 1868a: 5. Type species: Ortalis afflicta Meigen, 1830 (= Ortalis lugubris Meigen, 1826), by subsequent designation (Hennig 1939: 46).
Rhadinomyia Schiner, 1868: 290. Type species: Rhadinomyia orientalis Schiner, 1868, original designation.
Thryophila Loew, 1868a: 6. Type species: Musca frondescentiae Linnaeus, 1758, monotypy.
Tephronota Loew, 1868a: 6. Type species: Ortalis gyrans Loew, 1864 (= Ortalis tristis Meigen, 1826), by subsequent designation (Loew 1873a: 57).
Hypsomyia McAlpine, 1965: 218. Type species: Hypsomyia goilala McAlpine, 1965, original designation.
Herina paludum (Fallén, 1820)
Ortalis paludum Fallén, 1820a: 20. Types unknown. Sweden (Ostrogoth: Lasketorp) (?). Egyptian localities. Eastern Desert: Wadies south east to Cairo. Dates of collection. Unknown.
description: Published as part of El-Hawagry, Magdi S., 2017, Catalogue of Egyptian Tephritoidea (Diptera: Schizophora: Acalyptratae), pp. 151-190 in Zootaxa 4299 (2) on page 179, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4299.2.1, http://zenodo.org/record/843233