The title “Regents’ Professor” is the highest faculty honor awarded at Arizona State University. It is conferred on ASU faculty who have made pioneering contributions in their areas of expertise, who have achieved a sustained level of distinction, and who enjoy national and international recognition for these accomplishments. This collection contains primarily open access works by ASU Regents' Professors.

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Description
Zoonotic pathogens that cause leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae) and tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, MTBC) continue to impact modern human populations. Therefore, methods able to survey mycobacterial infection in potential animal hosts are necessary for proper evaluation of human exposure threats. Here we tested for mycobacterial-specific single- and multi-copy loci using qPCR.

Zoonotic pathogens that cause leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae) and tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, MTBC) continue to impact modern human populations. Therefore, methods able to survey mycobacterial infection in potential animal hosts are necessary for proper evaluation of human exposure threats. Here we tested for mycobacterial-specific single- and multi-copy loci using qPCR. In a trial study in which armadillos were artificially infected with M. leprae, these techniques were specific and sensitive to pathogen detection, while more traditional ELISAs were only specific. These assays were then employed in a case study to detect M. leprae as well as MTBC in wild marmosets. All marmosets were negative for M. leprae DNA, but 14 were positive for the mycobacterial rpoB gene assay. Targeted capture and sequencing of rpoB and other MTBC genes validated the presence of mycobacterial DNA in these samples and revealed that qPCR is useful for identifying mycobacterial-infected animal hosts.
Created2015-11-16
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Description

Background
In 2015, the Zika arbovirus (ZIKV) began circulating in the Americas, rapidly expanding its global geographic range in explosive outbreaks. Unusual among mosquito-borne diseases, ZIKV has been shown to also be sexually transmitted, although sustained autochthonous transmission due to sexual transmission alone has not been observed, indicating the reproduction number

Background
In 2015, the Zika arbovirus (ZIKV) began circulating in the Americas, rapidly expanding its global geographic range in explosive outbreaks. Unusual among mosquito-borne diseases, ZIKV has been shown to also be sexually transmitted, although sustained autochthonous transmission due to sexual transmission alone has not been observed, indicating the reproduction number (R0) for sexual transmission alone is less than 1. Critical to the assessment of outbreak risk, estimation of the potential attack rates, and assessment of control measures, are estimates of the basic reproduction number, R0.
Methods
We estimated the R0 of the 2015 ZIKV outbreak in Barranquilla, Colombia, through an analysis of the exponential rise in clinically identified ZIKV cases (n = 359 to the end of November, 2015).
Findings
The rate of exponential rise in cases was ρ = 0.076 days[superscript −1], with 95% CI [0.066,0.087] days[superscript −1]. We used a vector-borne disease model with additional direct transmission to estimate the R0; assuming the R0 of sexual transmission alone is less than 1, we estimated the total R0 = 3.8 [2.4,5.6], and that the fraction of cases due to sexual transmission was 0.23 [0.01,0.47] with 95% confidence.
Interpretation
This is among the first estimates of R0 for a ZIKV outbreak in the Americas, and also among the first quantifications of the relative impact of sexual transmission.

Created2016-10-17
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Description
A two-patch mathematical model of Dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) that accounts for vectors’ vertical transmission and between patches human dispersal is introduced. Dispersal is modelled via a Lagrangian approach. A host-patch residence-times basic reproduction number is derived and conditions under which the disease dies out or persists are established.

A two-patch mathematical model of Dengue virus type 2 (DENV-2) that accounts for vectors’ vertical transmission and between patches human dispersal is introduced. Dispersal is modelled via a Lagrangian approach. A host-patch residence-times basic reproduction number is derived and conditions under which the disease dies out or persists are established. Analytical and numerical results highlight the role of hosts’ dispersal in mitigating or exacerbating disease dynamics. The framework is used to explore dengue dynamics using, as a starting point, the 2002 outbreak in the state of Colima, Mexico.
Created2016-08-05
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Description
Recent efforts have attempted to describe the population structure of common chimpanzee, focusing on four subspecies: Pan troglodytes verus, P. t. ellioti, P. t. troglodytes, and P. t. schweinfurthii. However, few studies have pursued the effects of natural selection in shaping their response to pathogens and reproduction. Whey acidic protein

Recent efforts have attempted to describe the population structure of common chimpanzee, focusing on four subspecies: Pan troglodytes verus, P. t. ellioti, P. t. troglodytes, and P. t. schweinfurthii. However, few studies have pursued the effects of natural selection in shaping their response to pathogens and reproduction. Whey acidic protein (WAP) four-disulfide core domain (WFDC) genes and neighboring semenogelin (SEMG) genes encode proteins with combined roles in immunity and fertility. They display a strikingly high rate of amino acid replacement (dN/dS), indicative of adaptive pressures during primate evolution. In human populations, three signals of selection at the WFDC locus were described, possibly influencing the proteolytic profile and antimicrobial activities of the male reproductive tract. To evaluate the patterns of genomic variation and selection at the WFDC locus in chimpanzees, we sequenced 17 WFDC genes and 47 autosomal pseudogenes in 68 chimpanzees (15 P. t. troglodytes, 22 P. t. verus, and 31 P. t. ellioti). We found a clear differentiation of P. t. verus and estimated the divergence of P. t. troglodytes and P. t. ellioti subspecies in 0.173 Myr; further, at the WFDC locus we identified a signature of strong selective constraints common to the three subspecies in WFDC6—a recent paralog of the epididymal protease inhibitor EPPIN. Overall, chimpanzees and humans do not display similar footprints of selection across the WFDC locus, possibly due to different selective pressures between the two species related to immune response and reproductive biology.
Created2013-12-19
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Description
Electricity plays a special role in our lives and life. The dynamics of electrons allow light to flow through a vacuum. The equations of electron dynamics are nearly exact and apply from nuclear particles to stars. These Maxwell equations include a special term, the displacement current (of a vacuum). The

Electricity plays a special role in our lives and life. The dynamics of electrons allow light to flow through a vacuum. The equations of electron dynamics are nearly exact and apply from nuclear particles to stars. These Maxwell equations include a special term, the displacement current (of a vacuum). The displacement current allows electrical signals to propagate through space. Displacement current guarantees that current is exactly conserved from inside atoms to between stars, as long as current is defined as the entire source of the curl of the magnetic field, as Maxwell did.We show that the Bohm formulation of quantum mechanics allows the easy definition of the total current, and its conservation, without the dificulties implicit in the orthodox quantum theory. The orthodox theory neglects the reality of magnitudes, like the currents, during times that they are not being explicitly measured.We show how conservation of current can be derived without mention of the polarization or dielectric properties of matter. We point out that displacement current is handled correctly in electrical engineering by ‘stray capacitances’, although it is rarely discussed explicitly. Matter does not behave as physicists of the 1800’s thought it did. They could only measure on a time scale of seconds and tried to explain dielectric properties and polarization with a single dielectric constant, a real positive number independent of everything. Matter and thus charge moves in enormously complicated ways that cannot be described by a single dielectric constant,when studied on time scales important today for electronic technology and molecular biology. When classical theories could not explain complex charge movements, constants in equations were allowed to vary in solutions of those equations, in a way not justified by mathematics, with predictable consequences. Life occurs in ionic solutions where charge is moved by forces not mentioned or described in the Maxwell equations, like convection and diffusion. These movements and forces produce crucial currents that cannot be described as classical conduction or classical polarization. Derivations of conservation of current involve oversimplified treatments of dielectrics and polarization in nearly every textbook. Because real dielectrics do not behave in that simple way-not even approximately-classical derivations of conservation of current are often distrusted or even ignored. We show that current is conserved inside atoms. We show that current is conserved exactly in any material no matter how complex are the properties of dielectric, polarization, or conduction currents. Electricity has a special role because conservation of current is a universal law.Most models of chemical reactions do not conserve current and need to be changed to do so. On the macroscopic scale of life, conservation of current necessarily links far spread boundaries to each other, correlating inputs and outputs, and thereby creating devices.We suspect that correlations created by displacement current link all scales and allow atoms to control the machines and organisms of life. Conservation of current has a special role in our lives and life, as well as in physics. We believe models, simulations, and computations should conserve current on all scales, as accurately as possible, because physics conserves current that way. We believe models will be much more successful if they conserve current at every level of resolution, the way physics does.We surely need successful models as we try to control macroscopic functions by atomic interventions, in technology, life, and medicine. Maxwell’s displacement current lets us see stars. We hope it will help us see how atoms control life.
Created2017-10-28
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Description
Background
Several past studies have found that media reports of suicides and homicides appear to subsequently increase the incidence of similar events in the community, apparently due to the coverage planting the seeds of ideation in at-risk individuals to commit similar acts.
Methods
Here we explore whether or not contagion is evident in

Background
Several past studies have found that media reports of suicides and homicides appear to subsequently increase the incidence of similar events in the community, apparently due to the coverage planting the seeds of ideation in at-risk individuals to commit similar acts.
Methods
Here we explore whether or not contagion is evident in more high-profile incidents, such as school shootings and mass killings (incidents with four or more people killed). We fit a contagion model to recent data sets related to such incidents in the US, with terms that take into account the fact that a school shooting or mass murder may temporarily increase the probability of a similar event in the immediate future, by assuming an exponential decay in contagiousness after an event.
Conclusions
We find significant evidence that mass killings involving firearms are incented by similar events in the immediate past. On average, this temporary increase in probability lasts 13 days, and each incident incites at least 0.30 new incidents (p = 0.0015). We also find significant evidence of contagion in school shootings, for which an incident is contagious for an average of 13 days, and incites an average of at least 0.22 new incidents (p = 0.0001). All p-values are assessed based on a likelihood ratio test comparing the likelihood of a contagion model to that of a null model with no contagion. On average, mass killings involving firearms occur approximately every two weeks in the US, while school shootings occur on average monthly. We find that state prevalence of firearm ownership is significantly associated with the state incidence of mass killings with firearms, school shootings, and mass shootings.
Created2015-07-02
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Description
Background
Seroepidemiological studies before and after the epidemic wave of H1N1-2009 are useful for estimating population attack rates with a potential to validate early estimates of the reproduction number, R, in modeling studies.
Methodology/Principal Findings
Since the final epidemic size, the proportion of individuals in a population who become infected during an epidemic,

Background
Seroepidemiological studies before and after the epidemic wave of H1N1-2009 are useful for estimating population attack rates with a potential to validate early estimates of the reproduction number, R, in modeling studies.
Methodology/Principal Findings
Since the final epidemic size, the proportion of individuals in a population who become infected during an epidemic, is not the result of a binomial sampling process because infection events are not independent of each other, we propose the use of an asymptotic distribution of the final size to compute approximate 95% confidence intervals of the observed final size. This allows the comparison of the observed final sizes against predictions based on the modeling study (R = 1.15, 1.40 and 1.90), which also yields simple formulae for determining sample sizes for future seroepidemiological studies. We examine a total of eleven published seroepidemiological studies of H1N1-2009 that took place after observing the peak incidence in a number of countries. Observed seropositive proportions in six studies appear to be smaller than that predicted from R = 1.40; four of the six studies sampled serum less than one month after the reported peak incidence. The comparison of the observed final sizes against R = 1.15 and 1.90 reveals that all eleven studies appear not to be significantly deviating from the prediction with R = 1.15, but final sizes in nine studies indicate overestimation if the value R = 1.90 is used.
Conclusions
Sample sizes of published seroepidemiological studies were too small to assess the validity of model predictions except when R = 1.90 was used. We recommend the use of the proposed approach in determining the sample size of post-epidemic seroepidemiological studies, calculating the 95% confidence interval of observed final size, and conducting relevant hypothesis testing instead of the use of methods that rely on a binomial proportion.
Created2011-03-24
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Description
Background
In the weeks following the first imported case of Ebola in the U. S. on September 29, 2014, coverage of the very limited outbreak dominated the news media, in a manner quite disproportionate to the actual threat to national public health; by the end of October, 2014, there were only

Background
In the weeks following the first imported case of Ebola in the U. S. on September 29, 2014, coverage of the very limited outbreak dominated the news media, in a manner quite disproportionate to the actual threat to national public health; by the end of October, 2014, there were only four laboratory confirmed cases of Ebola in the entire nation. Public interest in these events was high, as reflected in the millions of Ebola-related Internet searches and tweets performed in the month following the first confirmed case. Use of trending Internet searches and tweets has been proposed in the past for real-time prediction of outbreaks (a field referred to as “digital epidemiology”), but accounting for the biases of public panic has been problematic. In the case of the limited U. S. Ebola outbreak, we know that the Ebola-related searches and tweets originating the U. S. during the outbreak were due only to public interest or panic, providing an unprecedented means to determine how these dynamics affect such data, and how news media may be driving these trends.
Methodology
We examine daily Ebola-related Internet search and Twitter data in the U. S. during the six week period ending Oct 31, 2014. TV news coverage data were obtained from the daily number of Ebola-related news videos appearing on two major news networks. We fit the parameters of a mathematical contagion model to the data to determine if the news coverage was a significant factor in the temporal patterns in Ebola-related Internet and Twitter data.
Conclusions
We find significant evidence of contagion, with each Ebola-related news video inspiring tens of thousands of Ebola-related tweets and Internet searches. Between 65% to 76% of the variance in all samples is described by the news media contagion model.
Created2015-06-11
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Description
Despite their low cost and high nutrient density, the contribution of eggs to nutrient intake and dietary quality among Mexican-American postpartum women has not been evaluated. Nutrient intake and dietary quality, as assessed by the Healthy Eating Index 2010 (HEI-2010), were measured in habitually sedentary overweight/obese (body mass index (BMI)

Despite their low cost and high nutrient density, the contribution of eggs to nutrient intake and dietary quality among Mexican-American postpartum women has not been evaluated. Nutrient intake and dietary quality, as assessed by the Healthy Eating Index 2010 (HEI-2010), were measured in habitually sedentary overweight/obese (body mass index (BMI) = 29.7 ± 3.5 kg/m[superscript 2]) Mexican-American postpartum women (28 ± 6 years) and compared between egg consumers (n = 82; any egg intake reported in at least one of three 24-h dietary recalls) and non-consumers (n = 57). Egg consumers had greater intake of energy (+808 kJ (193 kcal) or 14%; p = 0.033), protein (+9 g or 17%; p = 0.031), total fat (+9 g or 19%; p = 0.039), monounsaturated fat (+4 g or 24%; p = 0.020), and several micronutrients than non-consumers. Regarding HEI-2010 scores, egg consumers had a greater total protein foods score than non-consumers (4.7 ± 0.7 vs. 4.3 ± 1.0; p = 0.004), and trends for greater total fruit (2.4 ± 1.8 vs. 1.9 ± 1.7; p = 0.070) and the total composite HEI-2010 score (56.4 ± 12.6 vs. 52.3 ± 14.4; p = 0.082). Findings suggest that egg intake could contribute to greater nutrient intake and improved dietary quality among postpartum Mexican-American women. Because of greater energy intake among egg consumers, recommendations for overweight/obese individuals should include avoiding excessive energy intake and incorporating eggs to a nutrient-dense, fiber-rich dietary pattern.
Created2015-10-02
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Description
Background
Obese Latino adolescents are disproportionately impacted by insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes is an intermediate stage in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and represents a critical opportunity for intervention. However, to date, no diabetes prevention studies have been conducted in obese Latino youth with prediabetes, a highly

Background
Obese Latino adolescents are disproportionately impacted by insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes is an intermediate stage in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes and represents a critical opportunity for intervention. However, to date, no diabetes prevention studies have been conducted in obese Latino youth with prediabetes, a highly vulnerable and underserved group. Therefore, we propose a randomized-controlled trial to test the short-term (6-month) and long-term (12-month) efficacy of a culturally-grounded, lifestyle intervention, as compared to usual care, for improving glucose tolerance and reducing diabetes risk in 120 obese Latino adolescents with prediabetes.
Methods
Participants will be randomized to a lifestyle intervention or usual care group. Participants in the intervention group will attend weekly nutrition and wellness sessions and physical activity sessions twice a week for six months, followed by three months of booster sessions. The overall approach of the intervention is framed within a multilevel Ecodevelopmental model that leverages community, family, peer, and individual factors during the critical transition period of adolescence. The intervention is also guided by Social Cognitive Theory and employs key behavioral modification strategies to enhance self-efficacy and foster social support for making and sustaining healthy behavior changes. We will test intervention effects on quality of life, explore the potential mediating effects of changes in body composition, total, regional, and organ fat on improving glucose tolerance and increasing insulin sensitivity, and estimate the initial incremental cost effectiveness of the intervention as compared with usual care for improving glucose tolerance.
Discussion
The proposed trial builds upon extant collaborations of a transdisciplinary team of investigators working in concert with local community agencies to address critical gaps in how diabetes prevention interventions for obese Latino youth are developed, implemented and evaluated. This innovative approach is an essential step in the development of scalable, cost-effective, solution oriented programs to prevent type 2 diabetes in this and other populations of high-risk youth.
Created2017-03-16