Binghamton University

Human activities have released a large amount of nitric oxides (NOx) into the atmosphere, leading to elevated regional atmospheric NOx concentration and nitrogen (N) deposition. Several studies have observed a downward NOx or NOy (NOx and its oxidation products) flux to the forest canopy, but attributed it to the photochemical reactions and conversion from gaseous N to particulate N. Here, we focus on the possibility of NOx sink by forest canopy based on an observed downward NOx flux of 0.28 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in a temperate forest of northeastern China, using hourly monitoring of NOx fluxes. In combination with results from previous studies, we find that the downward NOx or NOy fluxes ranged from 0.2 to 1.4 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in temperate forests and from 5.3 to 8.5 kg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ in subtropical forests and they were positively related to atmospheric NOx concentration, mean annual air temperature and annual precipitation across eight forest sites from around the world. If assuming 50% of downward NOx or NOy was directly taken up by the canopy, we estimate a NOx or NOy sink of 0.2 and 1.1 Tg N yr⁻¹ by global respective temperate and subtropical forests, representing an effective scavenger of atmospheric NOx and a considerable N source to forests. We suggest that interception of NOx or NOy by forest canopy should be considered in global NOx budgets and their contribution to the global forest N pool in global Earth System's models.

Sign language is a natural language widely used by Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) individuals. Advanced wearables are developed to recognize sign language automatically. However, they are limited by the lack of labeled data, which leads to a small vocabulary and unsatisfactory performance even though laborious efforts are put into data collection. Here we propose SignRing, an IMU-based system that breaks through the traditional data augmentation method, makes use of online videos to generate the virtual IMU (v-IMU) data, and pushes the boundary of wearable-based systems by reaching the vocabulary size of 934 with sentences up to 16 glosses. The v-IMU data is generated by reconstructing 3D hand movements from two-view videos and calculating 3-axis acceleration data, by which we are able to achieve a word error rate (WER) of 6.3% with a mix of half v-IMU and half IMU training data (2339 samples for each), and a WER of 14.7% with 100% v-IMU training data (6048 samples), compared with the baseline performance of the 8.3% WER (trained with 2339 samples of IMU data). We have conducted comparisons between v-IMU and IMU data to demonstrate the reliability and generalizability of the v-IMU data. This interdisciplinary work covers various areas such as wearable sensor development, computer vision techniques, deep learning, and linguistics, which can provide valuable insights to researchers with similar research objectives.

The ninth American Society for Microbiology Conference on Biofilms was convened in-person on 13–17 November 2022 in Charlotte, NC. As the first of these conferences since prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy among the participants of the conference was clear, and the meeting was a tremendous success. The mixture of >330 oral and poster presentations resoundingly embodied the vitality of biofilm research across a wide range of topics and multiple scientific disciplines. Special activities, including a pre-conference symposium for early career researchers, further enhanced the attendee experience. As a general theme, the conference was deliberately structured to provide high levels of participation and engagement among early career scientists.

This chapter introduces readers to Moath al-Alwi, held without charge or trial at Guantanamo since January 2002, and to his artwork and the artistic processes he has developed during his imprisonment. Before detailing the range of essays in the volume, the chapter presents the circumstances of Moath’s indefinite detention, including his experiences of solitary confinement, torture, and force feeding. Through the lenses of carceral and evidentiary aesthetics, it also contextualizes Moath’s artistic production in the broader landscape of representations of and from Guantánamo, including changing policies regarding the ownership of detainee art. Finally, the authors posit Moath’s art as self-representation and expression, as witness to the material conditions of confinement, and as evidence of egregious, ongoing human rights violations.

It is a common characteristic of prison protest that incarcerated people must make use of what they have materially available at hand to engage in acts of resistance, whether their own bodies or ordinary objects around them. In this chapter, I compare hunger-striking and prison art as different but related forms of material practice and political resistance associated with incarceration. While hunger striking and prison art are therefore connected in general, these themes emerge even more starkly in the context of wrongful and inhumane imprisonment at Guantánamo Bay. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s ideas about worldliness and transcendence, as well as the art and activism of Moath al-Alwi, I specifically relate wasting away, through hunger striking, as continuous with having a way with waste, or reusing discarded materials as prison art.

Chronic infections are a heavy burden on healthcare systems worldwide. Persister cells are thought to be largely responsible for chronic infection due to their tolerance to antimicrobials and recalcitrance to innate immunity factors. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common and clinically relevant pathogen that contains stereotypical persister cells. Despite their importance in chronic infection, there have been limited efforts to study persister cell infections in vivo. Drosophila melanogaster has a well-described innate immune response similar to that of vertebrates and is a good candidate for the development of an in vivo model of infection for persister cells. Similar to what is observed in other bacterial strains, in this work we found that infection with P. aeruginosa persister cells resulted in a delayed mortality phenotype in Caenorhabditis elegans , Arabidopsis thaliana , and D. melanogaster compared to infection with regular cells. An in-depth characterization of infected D. melanogaster found that bacterial loads differed between persister and regular cells’ infections during the early stages. Furthermore, hemocyte activation and antimicrobial peptide expression were delayed/reduced in persister infections over the same time course, indicating an initial suppression of, or inability to elicit, the fly immune response. Overall, our findings support the use of D. melanogaster as a model in which to study persister cells in vivo, where this bacterial subpopulation exhibits delayed virulence and an attenuated immune response.

Informal empire is less a settled concept than a vexing category. Scholars disagree on the complicity of individuals, the extent of government oversight, and even whether informal empire is in fact imperial. I argue that informal empire is best approached through the lens of paradox. It is a system with no centralized authority yet which gave Britain a powerful role in the formation of Latin America. It relied on the continuing independence of Latin American nations and yet compromised their sovereignty. It often fostered the economic progress of the new nations and yet strangled their development. It grew out of the labor of thousands of individual migrants and travelers, and yet many of these people had no sense that they were involved in something called empire. What informal empire means is still very much up for debate. However, what it does for scholars of the nineteenth century is quite clear: it calls us to the study of imperialism in new ways, asking us to expand our gaze beyond the usual sites, to more openly conceptualize power relations, and—using all the particular powers of literary study we possess—to be attuned to the strangeness and paradox of imperialism.

Objectives Human milk content varies across mother–child dyads, environments, and populations. Among the hormones in milk is cortisol, a glucocorticoid; its impact on the breastfeeding child is unknown. Milk cortisol may constitute a signal to the child's developing physiology which can shape characteristics (e.g., growth, temperament) to prevailing environmental conditions. This exploratory study evaluated the maternal, breastfeeding, and infant characteristics associated with milk cortisol. Methods We evaluated archived milk specimens for cortisol using enzyme immunoassay and employed an information‐theoretic approach to assess associations between milk cortisol and participant characteristics with linear regression modeling. Because we employed secondary data, information for some variables likely to impact milk cortisol variation (e.g., time of day, socioeconomic status, maternal or infant body mass index, milk energy density) was unavailable. Results Participants were 48 lactating mothers from upstate New York, aged 21–40 years. Milk cortisol ranged from 0.098 to 1.007 μg/dL. Child age ranged from 1 to 26 months. In linear regression employing best fit modeling criteria, milk cortisol increased with child age (B: 0.069; p : .000; a 7.1% increase in milk cortisol for each month of child age), while child symptoms of illness (B: −0.398; p : .057; a 33% decrease) and consumption of complementary foods (B: −.525; p : .020; a 41% decrease) were associated with lower milk cortisol. Conclusions We speculate that increasing milk cortisol with child age plays a role in signaling development (e.g., as increasing independence increases risk for injury and other negative health outcomes), independent of the maternal stressors we could capture.

Macromolecular scaffolds are rapidly emerging in catalysis owing to the ability to control catalyst placement at precise locations in the framework. This often allows for cooperation in multi-catalytic reactions that may not be observed using small molecules, enabling high levels of reactivity. Herein, we describe a triphenylpyrylium (TPT)-based visible-light active single-chain polymer nanoparticle (SCNP) scaffold that facilitates the radical cation [4+2]-cycloaddition. In our studies, we find that the catalytic activity is highly dependent on the identity of the crosslinking group – incorporated in 5-10% overall – owing to its ability to act as a redox mediator in the Diels-Alder reaction. Mechanistic studies indicate that the vast majority of the TPT excited states are quenched by the acene, with the resultant radical cation formed from either naphthalene- or phenanthrene-based SCNPs able to proceed in oxidizing the dienophile in the elementary step of the reaction, leading to near quantitative yields of the cycloadduct. The TPT-SCNP demonstrates enhanced reactivity with low catalyst loadings when compared to small molecule TPT, and is also able to be recycled and reused in three iterations of the reaction prior to substantial drops in yield observed from photobleaching. Our results overall suggest that SCNPs feature multiple subtle design elements that can use as catalysts in diffusion-limited reactions.

Contemporary TV shows, characterized by their complex narrative form, are designed to reveal the simple. They enable characters and viewers alike to discover the ordinary by coupling the everyday to an underworld populated by criminals, demons, vampires, and other kinds of “lowlifes.” I will argue here that the structure of the Möbius strip, or Escher twist, draws a particular aesthetic appeal at the intersection of these worlds. I call these twists uncanny in the Cavellian sense that the underworld, looking strangely familiar, has the capacity of making the ordinary look unfamiliar, inherently strange, and unstable. Rather than allowing us to judge the demonic or illegal, they disclose what is normally inaccessible to us precisely because it is so ordinary and simple, so familiar and in plain sight. I will support this idea of Escher-twisting from one world to another by analyzing examples from Twin Peaks (ABC 1990-2, Showtime 2017), The Sopranos (HBO 1999-2007), Awake (NBC 2012), and Ozark (Netflix 2017–2022).

Luckin Coffee has dedicated to becoming a leading coffee brand in China but has kept a negative profitability growth rate for years before it was delisted and has lost stockholders faith in it. There are corporate governance issues within the company. Through the variable interest entity or VIE structures, Luckin obtained billions of dollars from US investors, but giving no equity shares in actual operation. However, two years after the delisting, Luckin Coffee obtained a new boom in national profitability inland. This paper aims to analyze what the organizational issue is for Luckin Coffee and how it should solve the problem within a corporate governance context. Both quantitative method and comparative analysis are used to compare Luckin Coffee with other competitor such as Starbucks. The research conclusion is that an improved VIE structure is needed for both Luckin Coffee and other Chinese companies that go listing overseas, and more attention needs to be paid to the method of corporate governance instead of financial performance.

Analyze the influencing factors of second-hand housing and build the relevant model using the data on second-hand housing prices in 2017-2018. The R-code analysis is used to construct a prediction model of house prices, and the main factors affecting their changes are obtained. According to the significance test, the model meets the expectation and is feasible. Finally, it is concluded that the most noticeable impact on housing prices is room distribution and ladder ratio, and the least obvious is trade time.

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are devastating conditions of the gastrointestinal tract with limited treatments, and dietary intervention may be effective and affordable for managing symptoms. Glucosinolate compounds are highly concentrated in broccoli sprouts, especially glucoraphanin (GLR), and can be metabolized by certain mammalian gut bacteria into anti-inflammatory isothiocyanates, such as sulforaphane. Gut microbiota exhibit biogeographic patterns, but it is unknown if colitis alters these or whether the location of glucoraphanin-metabolizing bacteria affects anti-inflammatory benefits. We fed specific pathogen-free C57BL/6 mice either a control diet or a 10% steamed broccoli sprout diet and gave a three-cycle regimen of 2.5% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) in drinking water over a 34-day experiment to simulate chronic, relapsing ulcerative colitis (UC). We monitored body weight, fecal characteristics, lipocalin, serum cytokines, and bacterial communities from the luminal- and mucosal-associated populations in the jejunum, cecum, and colon. Mice fed the broccoli sprout diet with DSS treatment performed better than mice fed the control diet with DSS, and had significantly more weight gain, lower Disease Activity Index scores, lower plasma lipocalin and proinflammatory cytokines, and higher bacterial richness in all gut locations. Bacterial communities were assorted by gut location but were more homogenous across locations in the control diet + DSS mice. Importantly, our results showed that broccoli sprout feeding abrogated the effects of DSS on gut microbiota, as bacterial richness and biogeography were similar between mice receiving broccoli sprouts with and without DSS. Collectively, these results support the protective effect of steamed broccoli sprouts against dysbiosis and colitis induced by DSS. IMPORTANCE Evaluating bacterial communities across different locations in the gut provides a greater insight than fecal samples alone and provides an additional metric by which to evaluate beneficial host-microbe interactions. Here, we show that 10% steamed broccoli sprouts in the diet protects mice from the negative effects of dextran sodium sulfate-induced colitis, that colitis erases biogeographic patterns of bacterial communities in the gut, and that the cecum is not likely to be a significant contributor to colonic bacteria of interest in the DSS mouse model of ulcerative colitis. Mice fed the broccoli sprout diet during colitis performed better than mice fed the control diet while receiving DSS. The identification of accessible dietary components and concentrations that help maintain and correct the gut microbiome may provide universal and equitable approaches to IBD prevention and recovery, and broccoli sprouts represent a promising strategy.

In Syracuse, New York more than 10% of children are lead poisoned each year, a toxic exposure that lowers the children's ability to learn and increases risky behaviors in adolescence. African American children are affected at nearly twice the rate of White children. We describe a community‐university collaboration to reduce childhood lead poisoning in Syracuse, and the effects these efforts have had on public policy to date. This paper documents the effectiveness of the Community Action, Research, and Education model to deliver community‐based prevention strategies on child lead poisoning in Syracuse, New York. The community‐based strategies were successful for promoting legal and policy change, increasing the public awareness of this tragic problem, holding elected and appointed officials to their commitments in addressing this toxic injustice, and obtaining needed intervention and disability accommodations for lead‐poisoned children in the community and educational institutions.