This study investigates the presence of dynamical patterns of interpersonal coordination in extended deceptive conversations across multimodal channels of behavior. Using a novel "devil’s advocate" paradigm, we experimentally elicited deception and truth across topics in which conversational partners either agreed or disagreed, and where one partner was surreptitiously asked to argue an opinion opposite of what he or she really believed. We focus on interpersonal coordination as an emergent behavioral signal that captures interdependencies between conversational partners, both as the coupling of head movements over the span of milliseconds, measured via a windowed lagged cross correlation (WLCC) technique, and more global temporal dependencies across speech rate, using cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Moreover, we considered how interpersonal coordination might be shaped by strategic, adaptive conversational goals associated with deception. We found that deceptive conversations displayed more structured speech rate and higher head movement coordination, the latter with a peak in deceptive disagreement conversations. Together the results allow us to posit an adaptive account, whereby interpersonal coordination is not beholden to any single functional explanation, but can strategically adapt to diverse conversational demands.

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.

Given species inventories of all sites in a planning area, integer programming or heuristic algorithms can prioritize sites in terms of the site's complementary value, that is, the ability of the site to complement (add unrepresented species to) other sites prioritized for conservation. The utility of these procedures is limited because distributions of species are typically available only as coarse atlases or range maps, whereas conservation planners need to prioritize relatively small sites. If such coarse-resolution information can be used to identify small sites that efficiently represent species (i.e., downscaled), then such data can be useful for conservation planning. We develop and test a new type of surrogate for biodiversity, which we call downscaled complementarity. In this approach, complementarity values from large cells are downscaled to small cells, using statistical methods or simple map overlays. We illustrate our approach for birds in Spain by building models at coarse scale (50 × 50 km atlas of European birds, and global range maps of birds interpreted at the same 50 × 50 km grid size), using this model to predict complementary value for 10 × 10 km cells in Spain, and testing how well-prioritized cells represented bird distributions in an independent bird atlas of those 10 × 10 km cells. Downscaled complementarity was about 63–77% as effective as having full knowledge of the 10-km atlas data in its ability to improve on random selection of sites. Downscaled complementarity has relatively low data acquisition cost and meets representation goals well compared with other surrogates currently in use. Our study justifies additional tests to determine whether downscaled complementarity is an effective surrogate for other regions and taxa, and at spatial resolution finer than 10 × 10 km cells. Until such tests have been completed, we caution against assuming that any surrogate can reliably prioritize sites for species representation.

In order to determine the feasibility of utilizing novel rexinoids for chemotherapeutics and as potential treatments for neurological conditions, we undertook an assessment of the side effect profile of select rexinoid X receptor (RXR) analogs that we reported previously. We assessed pharmacokinetic profiles, lipid and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels in rats, and cell culture activity of rexinoids in sterol regulatory element-binding protein (SREBP) induction and thyroid hormone inhibition assays. We also performed RNA sequencing of the brain tissues of rats that had been dosed with the compounds. We show here for the first time that potent rexinoid activity can be uncoupled from drastic lipid changes and thyroid axis variations, and we propose that rexinoids can be developed with improved side effect profiles than the parent compound, bexarotene (1).

We used the Affymetrix® Genome-Wide Human SNP Array 6.0 to identify heterospecific markers and compare copy number and structural genomic variation between humans and rhesus macaques. Over 200,000 human copy number variation (CNV) probes were mapped to a Chinese and an Indian rhesus macaque sample. Observed genomic rearrangements and synteny were in agreement with the results of a previously published genomic comparison between humans and rhesus macaques. Comparisons between each of the two rhesus macaques and humans yielded 206 regions with copy numbers that differed by at least two fold in the Indian rhesus macaque and human, 32 in the Chinese rhesus macaque and human, and 147 in both rhesus macaques. The detailed genomic map and preliminary CNV data are useful for better understanding genetic variation in rhesus macaques, identifying derived changes in human CNVs that may have evolved by selection, and determining the suitability of rhesus macaques as human models for particular biomedical studies.

I teach an upper-level writing course, Genes, Race, Gender, and Society, designed for Life Science majors, in which I utilize a case study to expose students to ethical ways of thinking. Students first work through the topical case study and then are challenged to rethink their responses through the lenses of ethics, taking into account different ethical frameworks. Students then develop their own case study, integrating ethical components. I want to expose my students to this way of thinking because I see technology being driven by the Jurassic Park phenomenon, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should,” and want future physicians grounded in a sense of how their actions relate to the greater good.

Students often self-identify as visual learners and prefer to engage with a topic in an active, hands-on way. Indeed, much research has shown that students who actively engage with the material and are engrossed in the topics retain concepts better than students who are passive receivers of information. However, much of learning life science concepts is still driven by books and static pictures. One concept students have a hard time grasping is how a linear chain of amino acids folds to becomes a 3D protein structure. Adding three dimensional activities to the topic of protein structure and function should allow for a deeper understanding of the primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary structure of proteins and how proteins function in a cell. Here, I review protein folding activities and describe using Apps and 3D visualization to enhance student understanding of protein structure.

Panama disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense infection on banana is devastating banana plantations worldwide. Biological control has been proposed to suppress Panama disease, though the stability and survival of bio-control microorganisms in field setting is largely unknown. In order to develop a bio-control strategy for this disease, 16S rRNA gene sequencing was used to assess the microbial community of a disease-suppressive soil. Bacillus was identified as the dominant bacterial group in the suppressive soil. For this reason, B. amyloliquefaciens NJN-6 isolated from the suppressive soil was selected as a potential bio-control agent. A bioorganic fertilizer (BIO), formulated by combining this isolate with compost, was applied in nursery pots to assess the bio-control of Panama disease. Results showed that BIO significantly decreased disease incidence by 68.5%, resulting in a doubled yield. Moreover, bacterial community structure was significantly correlated to disease incidence and yield and Bacillus colonization was negatively correlated with pathogen abundance and disease incidence, but positively correlated to yield. In total, the application of BIO altered the rhizo-bacterial community by establishing beneficial strains that dominated the microbial community and decreased pathogen colonization in the banana rhizosphere, which plays an important role in the management of Panama disease.

MALDI-TOF MS profiling has been shown to be a rapid and reliable method to characterize pure cultures of bacteria. Currently, there is keen interest in using this technique to identify bacteria in mixtures. Promising results have been reported with two- or three-isolate model systems using biomarker-based approaches. In this work, we applied MALDI-TOF MS-based methods to a more complex model mixture containing six bacteria. We employed: 1) a biomarker-based approach that has previously been shown to be useful in identification of individual bacteria in pure cultures and simple mixtures and 2) a similarity coefficient-based approach that is routinely and nearly exclusively applied to identification of individual bacteria in pure cultures. Both strategies were developed and evaluated using blind-coded mixtures. With regard to the biomarker-based approach, results showed that most peaks in mixture spectra could be assigned to those found in spectra of each component bacterium; however, peaks shared by two isolates as well as peaks that could not be assigned to any individual component isolate were observed. For two-isolate blind-coded samples, bacteria were correctly identified using both similarity coefficient- and biomarker-based strategies, while for blind-coded samples containing more than two isolates, bacteria were more effectively identified using a biomarker-based strategy.

MALDI-TOF MS has been utilized as a reliable and rapid tool for microbial fingerprinting at the genus and species levels. Recently, there has been keen interest in using MALDI-TOF MS beyond the genus and species levels to rapidly identify antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. The purpose of this study was to enhance strain level resolution for Campylobacter jejuni through the optimization of spectrum processing parameters using a series of designed experiments. A collection of 172 strains of C. jejuni were collected from Luxembourg, New Zealand, North America, and South Africa, consisting of four groups of antibiotic resistant isolates. The groups included: (1) 65 strains resistant to cefoperazone (2) 26 resistant to cefoperazone and beta-lactams (3) 5 strains resistant to cefoperazone, beta-lactams, and tetracycline, and (4) 76 strains resistant to cefoperazone, teicoplanin, amphotericin, B and cephalothin.

Initially, a model set of 16 strains (three biological replicates and three technical replicates per isolate, yielding a total of 144 spectra) of C. jejuni was subjected to each designed experiment to enhance detection of antibiotic resistance. The most optimal parameters were applied to the larger collection of 172 isolates (two biological replicates and three technical replicates per isolate, yielding a total of 1,031 spectra). We observed an increase in antibiotic resistance detection whenever either a curve based similarity coefficient (Pearson or ranked Pearson) was applied rather than a peak based (Dice) and/or the optimized preprocessing parameters were applied. Increases in antimicrobial resistance detection were scored using the jackknife maximum similarity technique following cluster analysis. From the first four groups of antibiotic resistant isolates, the optimized preprocessing parameters increased detection respective to the aforementioned groups by: (1) 5% (2) 9% (3) 10%, and (4) 2%. An additional second categorization was created from the collection consisting of 31 strains resistant to beta-lactams and 141 strains sensitive to beta-lactams. Applying optimal preprocessing parameters, beta-lactam resistance detection was increased by 34%. These results suggest that spectrum processing parameters, which are rarely optimized or adjusted, affect the performance of MALDI-TOF MS-based detection of antibiotic resistance and can be fine-tuned to enhance screening performance.