Lack of biodiversity data is a major impediment to prioritizing sites for species representation. Because comprehensive species data are not available in any planning area, planners often use surrogates (such as vegetation communities, or mapped occurrences of a well-inventoried taxon) to prioritize sites. We propose and demonstrate the effectiveness of predicted rarity-weighted richness (PRWR) as a surrogate in situations where species inventories may be available for a portion of the planning area. Use of PRWR as a surrogate involves several steps. First, rarity-weighted richness (RWR) is calculated from species inventories for a q% subset of sites. Then random forest models are used to model RWR as a function of freely available environmental variables for that q% subset. This function is then used to calculate PRWR for all sites (including those for which no species inventories are available), and PRWR is used to prioritize all sites. We tested PRWR on plant and bird datasets, using the species accumulation index to measure efficiency of PRWR. Sites with the highest PRWR represented species with median efficiency of 56% (range 32%–77% across six datasets) when q = 20%, and with median efficiency of 39% (range 20%–63%) when q = 10%. An efficiency of 56% means that selecting sites in order of PRWR rank was 56% as effective as having full knowledge of species distributions in PRWR's ability to improve on the number of species represented in the same number of randomly selected sites. Our results suggest that PRWR may be able to help prioritize sites to represent species if a planner has species inventories for 10%–20% of the sites in the planning area.

Intercellular interactions play a central role at the tissue and whole organism level modulating key cellular functions in normal and disease states. Studies of cell-cell communications are challenging due to ensemble averaging effects brought about by intrinsic heterogeneity in cellular function which requires such studies to be conducted with small populations of cells. Most of the current methods for producing and studying such small cell populations are complex to implement and require skilled personnel limiting their widespread utility in biomedical research labs. We present a simple and rapid method to produce small populations with varying size of epithelial cells (10–50 cells/population) with high-throughput (~1 population/second) on flat surfaces via patterning of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins and random seeding of cells. We demonstrate that despite inherent limitations of non-contact, drop-on-demand piezoelectric inkjet printing for protein patterning, varying mixtures of ECM proteins can be deposited with high reproducibility and level of control on glass substrates using a set of dynamically adjustable optimized deposition parameters. We demonstrate high consistency for the number of cells per population (~1 cell standard error of mean), the population’s size (~0.2 coefficient of variation) and shape, as well as accurate spatial placement of and distance between colonies of a panel of metaplastic and dysplastic esophageal epithelial cells with differing adhesion and motility characteristics. The number of cells per colony, colony size and shape can be varied by dynamically varying the amount of ECM proteins deposited per spatial location and the number of spatial locations on the substrate. The method is applicable to a broad range of biological and biomedical studies including cell-cell communications, cellular microenvironment, migration, and stimulus response.

Through the mathematical study of two models we quantify some of the theories of co-development and co-existence of focused groups in the social sciences. This work attempts to develop the mathematical framework behind the social sciences of community formation. By using well developed theories and concepts from ecology and epidemiology we hope to extend the theoretical framework of organizing and self-organizing social groups and communities, including terrorist groups. The main goal of our work is to gain insight into the role of recruitment and retention in the formation and survival of social organizations. Understanding the underlining mechanisms of the spread of ideologies under competition is a fundamental component of this work. Here contacts between core and non-core individuals extend beyond its physical meaning to include indirect interaction and spread of ideas through phone conversations, emails, media sources and other similar mean.

This work focuses on the dynamics of formation of interest groups, either ideological, economical or ecological and thus we explore the questions such as, how do interest groups initiate and co-develop by interacting within a common environment and how do they sustain themselves? Our results show that building and maintaining the core group is essential for the existence and survival of an extreme ideology. Our research also indicates that in the absence of competitive ability (i.e., ability to take from the other core group or share prospective members) the social organization or group that is more committed to its group ideology and manages to strike the right balance between investment in recruitment and retention will prevail. Thus under no cross interaction between two social groups a single trade-off (of these efforts) can support only a single organization. The more efforts that an organization implements to recruit and retain its members the more effective it will be in transmitting the ideology to other vulnerable individuals and thus converting them to believers.

This paper describes a novel method for displaying data obtained by three-dimensional medical imaging, by which the position and orientation of a freely movable screen are optically tracked and used in real time to select the current slice from the data set for presentation. With this method, which we call a “freely moving in-situ medical image”, the screen and imaged data are registered to a common coordinate system in space external to the user, at adjustable scale, and are available for free exploration. The three-dimensional image data occupy empty space, as if an invisible patient is being sliced by the moving screen. A behavioral study using real computed tomography lung vessel data established the superiority of the in situ display over a control condition with the same free exploration, but displaying data on a fixed screen (ex situ), with respect to accuracy in the task of tracing along a vessel and reporting spatial relations between vessel structures. A “freely moving in-situ medical image” display appears from these measures to promote spatial navigation and understanding of medical data.

Essential or enduring understandings are often defined as the underlying core concepts or “big ideas” we’d like our students to remember when much of the course content has been forgotten. The central dogma of molecular biology and how cellular information is stored, used, and conveyed is one of the essential understandings students should retain after a course or unit in molecular biology or genetics. An additional enduring understanding is the relationships between DNA sequence, RNA sequence, mRNA production and processing, and the resulting polypeptide/protein product. A final big idea in molecular biology is the relationship between DNA mutation and polypeptide change. To engage students in these essential understandings in a Genetics course, I have developed a hands-on activity to simulate VDJ recombination. Students use a foldable type activity to splice out regions of a mock kappa light chain gene to generate a DNA sequence for transcription and translation. Students fold the activity several different times in multiple ways to “recombine” and generate several different DNA sequences. They then are asked to construct the corresponding mRNA and polypeptide sequence of each “recombined” DNA sequence and reflect on the products in a write-to-learn activity.

The elongases of very long chain fatty acid (ELOVL or ELO) are essential in the biosynthesis of fatty acids longer than C14. Here, two ELO full-length cDNAs (TmELO1, TmELO2) from the yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor L.) were isolated and the functions were characterized. The open reading frame (ORF) lengths of TmELO1 and TmELO2 were 1005 bp and 972 bp, respectively and the corresponding peptide sequences each contained several conserved motifs including the histidine-box motif HXXHH. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated high similarity with the ELO of Tribolium castaneum and Drosophila melanogaster. Both TmELO genes were expressed at various levels in eggs, 1st and 2nd instar larvae, mature larvae, pupae, male and female adults. Injection of dsTmELO1 but not dsTmELO2 RNA into mature larvae significantly increased mortality although RNAi did not produce any obvious changes in the fatty acid composition in the survivors. Heterologous expression of TmELO genes in yeast revealed that TmELO1 and TmELO2 function to synthesize long chain and very long chain fatty acids.

Precise spatial positioning and isolation of mammalian cells is a critical component of many single cell experimental methods and biological engineering applications. Although a variety of cell patterning methods have been demonstrated, many of these methods subject cells to high stress environments, discriminate against certain phenotypes, or are a challenge to implement. Here, we demonstrate a rapid, simple, indiscriminate, and minimally perturbing cell patterning method using a laser fabricated polymer stencil. The stencil fabrication process requires no stencil-substrate alignment, and is readily adaptable to various substrate geometries and experiments.

To investigate dual-process persuasion theories in the context of group decision making, we studied low and high need-for-cognition (NFC) participants within a mock trial study. Participants considered plaintiff and defense expert scientific testimony that varied in argument strength. All participants heard a cross-examination of the experts focusing on peripheral information (e.g., credentials) about the expert, but half were randomly assigned to also hear central information highlighting flaws in the expert’s message (e.g., quality of the research presented by the expert). Participants rendered pre- and post-group-deliberation verdicts, which were considered “scientifically accurate” if the verdicts reflected the strong (versus weak) expert message, and “scientifically inaccurate” if they reflected the weak (versus strong) expert message. For individual participants, we replicated studies testing classic persuasion theories: Factors promoting reliance on central information (i.e., central cross-examination, high NFC) improved verdict accuracy because they sensitized individual participants to the quality discrepancy between the experts’ messages. Interestingly, however, at the group level, the more that scientifically accurate mock jurors discussed peripheral (versus central) information about the experts, the more likely their group was to reach the scientifically accurate verdict. When participants were arguing for the scientifically accurate verdict consistent with the strong expert message, peripheral comments increased their persuasiveness, which made the group more likely to reach the more scientifically accurate verdict.

Specification of PM_2.5 transmission characteristics is important for pollution control and policymaking. We apply higher-order organization of complex networks to identify major potential PM_2.5 contributors and PM_2.5 transport pathways of a network of 189 cities in China. The network we create in this paper consists of major cities in China and contains information on meteorological conditions of wind speed and wind direction, data on geographic distance, mountains, and PM_2.5 concentrations. We aim to reveal PM_2.5 mobility between cities in China. Two major conclusions are revealed through motif analysis of complex networks. First, major potential PM_2.5 pollution contributors are identified for each cluster by one motif, which reflects movements from source to target. Second, transport pathways of PM_2.5 are revealed by another motif, which reflects transmission routes. To our knowledge, this is the first work to apply higher-order network analysis to study PM_2.5 transport.

Quantitative three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography (CT) imaging of living single cells enables orientation-independent morphometric analysis of the intricacies of cellular physiology. Since its invention, x-ray CT has become indispensable in the clinic for diagnostic and prognostic purposes due to its quantitative absorption-based imaging in true 3D that allows objects of interest to be viewed and measured from any orientation. However, x-ray CT has not been useful at the level of single cells because there is insufficient contrast to form an image. Recently, optical CT has been developed successfully for fixed cells, but this technology called Cell-CT is incompatible with live-cell imaging due to the use of stains, such as hematoxylin, that are not compatible with cell viability. We present a novel development of optical CT for quantitative, multispectral functional 4D (three spatial + one spectral dimension) imaging of living single cells. The method applied to immune system cells offers truly isotropic 3D spatial resolution and enables time-resolved imaging studies of cells suspended in aqueous medium. Using live-cell optical CT, we found a heterogeneous response to mitochondrial fission inhibition in mouse macrophages and differential basal remodeling of small (0.1 to 1 fl) and large (1 to 20 fl) nuclear and mitochondrial structures on a 20- to 30-s time scale in human myelogenous leukemia cells. Because of its robust 3D measurement capabilities, live-cell optical CT represents a powerful new tool in the biomedical research field.