Interview with Shannon Simpson

In her June 12, 2013 interview with Martha Manning, Shannon Simpson detailed her time as an undergraduate student at Winthrop from 1995-1999. Discussed are details of Simpson’s life as a student – residence halls, classes, meals – rules and regulations on campus, and her desire to go back to Winthrop as a graduate student in 2013. Included are Simpson’s thoughts on professors, traditions, and cultural events on campus. Simpson also shares details of her career as a police officer after attending Winthrop to a transition as an employee in Human Resources. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the Louise Pettus Archives and Special Collections Oral History Program.https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/oralhistoryprogram/1009/thumbnail.jp

Rhetoric of the Networking Librarian: What to say to sell IL

Presentation given by Shannon R. Simpson (Student Engagement and Information Fluency Librarian, Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University) at the First National Personal Librarian & First Year Experience Library Conference, April 7, 2014

Repeated exposure reduces the response to impulsive noise in European seabass

This is the final version of the article. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.Human activities have changed the acoustic environment of many terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems around the globe. Mounting evidence indicates that the resulting anthropogenic noise can impact the behaviour and physiology of at least some species in a range of taxa. However, the majority of experimental studies have considered only immediate responses to single, relatively short-term noise events. Repeated exposure to noise could lead to a heightened or lessened response. Here, we conduct two long-term (12 week), laboratory-based exposure experiments with European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax) to examine how an initial impact of different sound types potentially changes over time. Naïve fish showed elevated ventilation rates, indicating heightened stress, in response to impulsive additional noise (playbacks of recordings of pile-driving and seismic surveys), but not to a more continuous additional noise source (playbacks of recordings of ship passes). However, fish exposed to playbacks of pile-driving or seismic noise for 12 weeks no longer responded with an elevated ventilation rate to the same noise type. Fish exposed long-term to playback of pile-driving noise also no longer responded to short-term playback of seismic noise. The lessened response after repeated exposure, likely driven by increased tolerance or a change in hearing threshold, helps explain why fish that experienced 12 weeks of impulsive noise showed no differences in stress, growth or mortality compared to those reared with exposure to ambient-noise playback. Considering how responses to anthropogenic noise change with repeated exposure is important both when assessing likely fitness consequences and the need for mitigation measures.Funding was provided by CGG; SDS held a NERC KE Fellowship (NE/J500616/2). The authors declare no conflict of interest

Tuning of Human Modulation Filters Is Carrier-Frequency Dependent

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License

Comparison of measures of crowding, group size, and diversity

In ecology, diversity is often measured as the mean rarity of species in a community. In behavioral sciences and parasitology, mean crowding is the size of the group to which a typical individual belongs. In this paper, focusing mostly on the mathematical aspect, we demonstrate that diversity and crowding are closely related notions. We show that mean crowding can be transformed into diversity and vice versa. Based on this general equivalence rule, notions, relationships, and methods developed in one field can be adapted to the other one. In relation to crowding,we introduce the notion “effective number of groups” that corresponds to the “effective number of species” used in diversity studies.We define new aggregation indices thatmirror evenness indices known from diversity theory. We also construct aggregation profiles and orderings of populations based on aggregation indices. By uniting the mathematical interpretation of the ecological notion of diversity and the ethological notion of typical group size (or crowding, in parasitology), our insight opens a new avenue of both theoretical andmethodological research. This is exemplified here using real-life abundance data of avian parasites

High cable forces deteriorate pinch force control in voluntary-closing body-powered prostheses

It is generally asserted that reliable and intuitive control of upper-limb prostheses requires adequate feedback of prosthetic finger positions and pinch forces applied to objects. Body-powered prostheses (BPPs) provide the user with direct proprioceptive feedback. Currently available BPPs often require high cable operation forces, which complicates control of the forces at the terminal device. The aim of this study is to quantify the influence of high cable forces on object manipulation with voluntary-closing prostheses. Able-bodied male subjects were fitted with a bypass-prosthesis with low and high cable force settings for the prehensor. Subjects were requested to grasp and transfer a collapsible object as fast as they could without dropping or breaking it. The object had a low and a high breaking force setting. Subjects conducted significantly more successful manipulations with the low cable force setting, both for the low (33 % more) and high (50 %) object’s breaking force. The time to complete the task was not different between settings during successful manipulation trials. In conclusion: high cable forces lead to reduced pinch force control during object manipulation. This implies that low cable operation forces should be a key design requirement for voluntary-closing BPPs

Almond Snacking for 8 wk Increases Alpha-Diversity of the Gastrointestinal Microbiome and Decreases Bacteroides fragilis Abundance Compared with an Isocaloric Snack in College Freshmen.

BackgroundChanges in gut microbiota are associated with cardiometabolic disorders and are influenced by diet. Almonds are a rich source of fiber, unsaturated fats, and polyphenols, all nutrients that can favorably alter the gut microbiome.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to examine the effects of 8 wk of almond snacking on the gut (fecal) microbiome diversity and abundance compared with an isocaloric snack of graham crackers in college freshmen.MethodsA randomized, controlled, parallel-arm, 8-wk intervention in 73 college freshmen (age: 18-19 y; 41 women and 32 men; BMI: 18-41 kg/m2) with no cardiometabolic disorders was conducted. Participants were randomly allocated to either an almond snack group (56.7 g/d; 364 kcal; n = 38) or graham cracker control group (77.5 g/d; 338 kcal/d; n = 35). Stool samples were collected at baseline and 8 wk after the intervention to assess primary microbiome outcomes, that is, gut microbiome diversity and abundance.ResultsAlmond snacking resulted in 3% greater quantitative alpha-diversity (Shannon index) and 8% greater qualitative alpha-diversity (Chao1 index) than the cracker group after the intervention (P < 0.05). Moreover, almond snacking for 8 wk decreased the abundance of the pathogenic bacterium Bacteroides fragilis by 48% (overall relative abundance, P < 0.05). Permutational multivariate ANOVA showed significant time effects for the unweighted UniFrac distance and Bray-Curtis beta-diversity methods (P < 0.05; R 2 ≤ 3.1%). The dietary and clinical variables that best correlated with the underlying bacterial community structure at week 8 of the intervention included dietary carbohydrate (percentage energy), dietary fiber (g), and fasting total and HDL cholesterol (model Spearman rho = 0.16; P = 0.01).ConclusionsAlmond snacking for 8 wk improved alpha-diversity compared with cracker snacking. Incorporating a morning snack in the dietary regimen of predominantly breakfast-skipping college freshmen improved the diversity and composition of the gut microbiome. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03084003

Luzp4 defines a new mRNA export pathway in cancer cells

Cancer testis antigens (CTAs) represented a poorly characterized group of proteins whose expression is normally restricted to testis but are frequently up-regulated in cancer cells. Here we show that one CTA, Luzp4, is an mRNA export adaptor. It associates with the TREX mRNA export complex subunit Uap56 and harbours a Uap56 binding motif, conserved in other mRNA export adaptors. Luzp4 binds the principal mRNA export receptor Nxf1, enhances its RNA binding activity and complements Alyref knockdown in vivo. Whilst Luzp4 is up-regulated in a range of tumours, it appears preferentially expressed in melanoma cells where it is required for growth