Fullerton College

Energy transduction, nutrient acquisition, and cell survival all depend on the exchange of ions across biological membranes. Ion channels are the most effective pathway to rapidly modify ion concentrations in the cells; thus, the proteins that form them are essential in all organisms. While ion channels are validated therapeutic targets in vertebrates and helminths, their potential for development of selective new drugs against protists remains mostly unexplored. In trypanosomatids, our knowledge of the mechanisms by which ion channels regulate vital functions is limited. The main constraints arise from the particular morphology and motility of the parasites that preclude us from applying direct electrophysiological methods to study transport proteins in protists. Here we describe an alternative method to express and purify ion channels from Trypanosoma cruzi, suitable for reconstitution in artificial lipidic matrices and functional electrophysiological studies.

Primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) are significant academic employers of Ph.D. recipients. Even though the focus of PUIs is undergraduate education, many Ph.D. faculty who teach at these institutions are research-active and conduct impactful work. Unfortunately, it has been our experience that many at funding agencies and research-intensive institutions hold the view that this is not the case. In this piece, 16 faculty members share their experiences and approaches to conducting research at PUIs.

The article analyzes the changes that have occurred in the visual language of video production in modern realities caused by information overload. The research is based on a comprehensive analysis of modern works on media and visual communications. The purpose of the work is to identify the existing patterns of transition to conciseness, as well as to substantiate the basic techniques that allow optimizing the presentation of information in conditions of information overload. The results of the study demonstrate that digital minimalism is realized through a limited color palette, active use of negative space, functional typography and simplified motion graphics with an emphasis on informative movements. These techniques are not limited to stylistic experiment, but serve as a pragmatic tool to reduce the cognitive load of the viewer and improve the accuracy of key messages. Minimalism in video production becomes an effective mechanism for optimizing perception in cases of attention deficit and is of practical interest to specialists in media communication, video production, marketing and visual culture researchers. The information presented in the article will be of interest to other researchers of visual culture and media art theorists specializing in the semiotic and pragmatic analysis of the evolution of visual paradigms in the context of digital information overload. In addition, the article’s material will be in demand among practitioners of video production, user interface designers, and cognitive psychology specialists who seek to develop minimalistic principles of composition and editing on an empirical and applied basis that optimize communication in content-overloaded environments.

Infections related to neuromodulation devices such as spinal cord stimulators (SCS) and intrathecal pumps (ITPs) present complex challenges due to potential complications such as localized infections, deep infections, sepsis, and neurological injury. Prompt diagnosis requires patients and providers to be educated on wound management and sepsis symptoms for immediate medical attention. Antibiotic therapy and duration vary based on infection severity, with deep infections often requiring device removal despite recent improvements in salvage rates with aggressive initial intervention. Deep infections necessitate timely diagnosis through imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT), followed by device removal and culture-guided antibiotic therapy, often in collaboration with infectious disease specialists and spine surgeons. ITP infections pose similar challenges along with the risk of meningitis and may require careful management of medication withdrawal symptoms during emergent pump removal. Lab monitoring may aid treatment assessment, although negative cultures can occur due to post-antibiotic exposure. Postoperative recommendations stress standardized guidelines, patient education, and vigilant surveillance, with close follow-up crucial for early infection detection and intervention. Managing device-related infections demands a multi-specialty approach to minimize complications and optimize outcomes. This paper outlines best practices for diagnosing, managing, and treating neuromodulation device infections, focusing on guiding clinical decision-making from the onset of infection through treatment and potential reimplantation.

In this paper, we describe a movement through professional development at California State University, Fullerton, to promote equity-minded active learning within mathematics courses. The META: Mathematics Equity through Teaching Actively project supports faculty by providing a range of professional development opportunities where we take an explicit, rather than implicit, stance on attending to equity-minded instruction while shifting to active learning. Through professional development guided by the student-developed, literature-informed Teaching Equity-minded Active Mathematics Tool (TEAM Tool), we cultivate a supportive learning environment by warmly inviting faculty to participate in our activities, securing time and space for faculty to learn together in a collaborative environment, and frequently communicating with faculty on how best to meet their needs. We believe that sustainable department-level transformation will happen gradually, as increasing numbers of faculty adopt equity-minded active learning within their teaching and continuously reflect on their teaching as a whole.

Painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) is a leading cause of pain and disability globally with a lack of consensus on the appropriate treatment of those suffering from this condition. Recent advancements in both pharmacotherapy and interventional approaches have broadened the treatment options for PDN. There exists a need for a comprehensive guideline for the safe and effective treatment of patients suffering from PDN. The SWEET Guideline was developed to provide clinicians with the most comprehensive guideline for the safe and appropriate treatment of patients suffering from PDN. The American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN) identified an educational need for a comprehensive clinical guideline to provide evidence-based recommendations for PDN. A multidisciplinary group of international experts developed the SWEET guideline. The world literature in English was searched using Medline, EMBASE, Cochrane CENTRAL, BioMed Central, Web of Science, Google Scholar, PubMed, Current Contents Connect, Meeting Abstracts, and Scopus to identify and compile the evidence for diabetic neuropathy pain treatments (per section as listed in the manuscript) for the treatment of pain. Manuscripts from 2000-present were included in the search process. After a comprehensive review and analysis of the available evidence, the ASPN SWEET guideline was able to rate the literature and provide therapy grades for most available treatments for PDN utilizing the United States Preventive Services Task Force criteria. The ASPN SWEET Guideline represents the most comprehensive review of the available treatments for PDN and their appropriate and safe utilization.

IntroductionInterventional treatment options for the lumbar degenerative spine have undergone a significant amount of innovation over the last decade. As new technologies emerge, along with the surgical specialty expansion, there is no manuscript that utilizes a review of surgical treatments with evidence rankings from multiple specialties, namely, the interventional pain and spine communities. Through the Pacific Spine and Pain Society (PSPS), the purpose of this manuscript is to provide a balanced evidence review of available surgical treatments.MethodsThe PSPS Research Committee created a working group that performed a comprehensive literature search on available surgical technologies for the treatment of the degenerative spine, utilizing the ranking assessment based on USPSTF (United States Preventative Services Taskforce) and NASS (North American Spine Society) criteria.ResultsThe surgical treatments were separated based on disease process, including treatments for degenerative disc disease, spondylolisthesis, and spinal stenosis.ConclusionsThere is emerging and significant evidence to support multiple approaches to treat the symptomatic lumbar degenerative spine. As new technologies become available, training, education, credentialing, and peer review are essential for optimizing patient safety and successful outcomes.

The rapid growth of cultural evolutionary science, its expansion into numerous fields, its use of diverse methods, and several conceptual problems have outpaced corollary developments in theory and philosophy of science. This has led to concern, exemplified in results from a recent survey conducted with members of the Cultural Evolution Society, that the field lacks 'knowledge synthesis', is poorly supported by 'theory', has an ambiguous relation to biological evolution and uses key terms (e.g. 'culture', 'social learning', 'cumulative culture') in ways that hamper operationalization in models, experiments and field studies. Although numerous review papers in the field represent and categorize its empirical findings, the field's theoretical challenges receive less critical attention even though challenges of a theoretical or conceptual nature underlie most of the problems identified by Cultural Evolution Society members. Guided by the heterogeneous 'grand challenges' emergent in this survey, this paper restates those challenges and adopts an organizational style requisite to discussion of them. The paper's goal is to contribute to increasing conceptual clarity and theoretical discernment around the most pressing challenges facing the field of cultural evolutionary science. It will be of most interest to cultural evolutionary scientists, theoreticians, philosophers of science and interdisciplinary researchers.

Federal regulations concerning disposal of coal combustion products (CCPs) have prompted action across the United States to cap and close older, unlined coal ash storage ponds that do not meet the new federal, state, and local regulations. During operations, dewatering is performed to increase the strength and stability of the ponded ash, so that heavy construction equipment can work on the ash surface. However, some deposits of fly ash are not easily dewaterable and exhibit significant water retention capacities. This work seeks to identify why coal fly ash has some unusual water retention characteristics. First, particulate mixes of fine sand and highly porous additives were tested for saturated hydraulic conductivity. Results indicated that including activated carbon or diatomaceous earth in the sand matrix decreased the saturated hydraulic conductivity by one to two orders of magnitude. Second, the saturated and unsaturated characteristics of samples of highly water-retentive ponded fly ash (FA) were investigated. The FA samples (treated and untreated) had a soil water characteristic curve of a silt. The high-residual water content of the ash was found to be due to the combination of water-retentive, highly porous diatoms and kaolinite. The main conclusion from this work is that the presence of porous unburned carbons, porous diatoms, and kaolinite contributed to the increased water-retentive capacities of ponded fly ash and ash/granular mixtures.

En las páginas finales de “El futuro de la profesión o la universidad sin condición”, Derrida sugiere que el futuro de las humanidades tendrá que incluir un análisis de la historia de los conceptos que instituyen varias de las disciplinas que componen las humanidades. Dichos análisis históricos, señala, no habrían de ser neutrales. Por el contrario, estarían guiados por un intento de abrir estas disciplinas a modos de alteridad que no han sido pensados cuando se han constituido sus fundamentos. Que este tipo de consideración crítica también ha de ser extendido hasta incluir las problemáticas fundamentales de las humanidades en cuanto tales y en su conjunto (y no sólo de las disciplinas individuales que caen bajo esta rúbrica) es algo que Derrida no elude. De hecho, esta exigencia crítica es el primer tema que él señala cuando intenta delinear un proyecto positivo y cuasi-programático para las humanidades. Sugiere que las humanidades, si han de mantener el espíritu ético a partir del cual se constituyeron, tendrán que girar sus lentes críticos sobre sus propios conceptos fundamentales, esto es, sobre el concepto de “lo humano”.