Lane College

A checklist of the West Malaysian fauna is provided with information on local and world distribution, host trees, biology and taxonomy. Three hundred seventy-six species are recorded from Malaya, 33 for the first time. Five new species are described: Asiophilus bukiticola Smith, Beaver & Cognato sp. nov., Cyclorhipidion brownei Smith, Beaver & Cognato sp. nov., Euwallacea frimensis Smith, Beaver & Cognato sp. nov., Euwallacea phrixosoma Smith, Beaver & Cognato sp. nov., and Microperus pasohanthus Smith, Beaver & Cognato sp. nov. Three species are removed from synonymy and reinstated as valid species: Euwallacea barbatus (Hagedorn, 1910), Euwallacea pseudobarbatus (Schedl, 1942), Euwallacea rudis (Eggers, 1930). Two new combinations are proposed: Ancipitis scabrior (Schedl) comb. nov. from Leptoxyleborus Wood, 1980; Xylosandrus mascareniformis (Eggers, 1972) comb. nov. from Xyleborus Eichhoff, 1864. Two new synonyms are proposed: Coccotrypes gedeanus (Eggers, 1936) (= Xyleborus despectus Schedl, 1975 syn. nov.) and Arixyleborus scapularis (Schedl, 1942) (=Xyleborus magnus Browne, 1985 syn. nov.).

ABSTRACT We demonstrate the potential of Euclid ’s slitless spectroscopy to discover high-redshift ($z>5$) quasars and their main photometric contaminant, ultracool dwarfs. Sensitive infrared spectroscopy from space is able to efficiently identify both populations, as demonstrated by Euclid Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer Red Grism (NISP ${\rm RG}_{\scriptscriptstyle \rm E}$) spectra of the newly discovered $z=5.404$ quasar EUCL J181530.01$+$652054.0, as well as several ultracool dwarfs in the Euclid Deep Field North and the Euclid Early Release Observation field Abell 2764. The ultracool dwarfs were identified by cross-correlating their spectra with templates. The quasar was identified by its strong and broad ${\rm C \small {III]}}$ and ${\rm Mg {\small II}}$ emission lines in the NISP ${\rm RG}_{\scriptscriptstyle \rm E}$ 1206–1892 nm spectrum, and confirmed through optical spectroscopy from the Large Binocular Telescope. The NISP Blue Grism (NISP ${\rm BG}_{\scriptscriptstyle \rm E}$) 926–1366 nm spectrum confirms ${C {\small IV}}$ and $\rm{C \small {III]}}$ emission. NISP ${\rm RG}_{\scriptscriptstyle \rm E}$ can find bright quasars at $z\approx 5.5$ and $z\gtrsim 7$, redshift ranges that are challenging for photometric selection due to contamination from ultracool dwarfs. EUCL J181530.01$+$652054.0 is a high-excitation, broad absorption line quasar detected at 144 MHz by the LOw-Frequency Array ($L_{\rm 144}=4.0 \times 10^{25}\,$W Hz$^{-1}$). The quasar has a bolometric luminosity of $3\times 10^{12}\, {{\rm L}_{\odot }}{}$ and is powered by a $3.4\times 10^9\, {{\rm M}_{\odot }}$ black hole. The discovery of this bright quasar is noteworthy as fewer than one such object was expected in the $\approx$20 deg$^2$ surveyed. This finding highlights the potential and effectiveness of NISP spectroscopy in identifying rare, luminous high-redshift quasars, previewing the census of these sources that Euclid’s slitless spectroscopy will deliver over about $14\, 000\,$deg$^2$ of the sky.

Brain tumors are one of the most common neurological complications that affect millions each year. Current studies have focused only on either the segmentation of brain tumors or healthy anatomical regions. Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on whole brain segmentation of patients with existing tumors. The segmentation of these regions is cruical for understanding patient pathologies. Due to the distortions in the brain caused by tumors, whole-brain segmentation models trained on healthy brains will not perform accurately on diseased ones. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel unified 3D nnU-Net model for the segmentation of both brain tumor and whole-brain structures for the first time. Training a model on datasets that include both healthy and cancerous brain regions could enhance the generalizability of machine learning (ML) models for performing both whole-brain segmentation and tumor segmentation tasks. Currently, there are no datasets that are publicly available for this purpose. This paper proposes to address this challenge by augmenting data from OASIS-1 and BraTS2023 to train the baseline model. The model successfully achieves a Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) of 0.814 for whole brain structures and 0.874 for tumor segmentation, demonstrating its effectiveness across diverse regions.

The Lane College Science Club, ASBMB Student Chapter, engages in community outreach to serve students at Title I schools in Jackson, TN. The Lane College Science Club students visited Lincoln Elementary School during the fall 2023 semester to host a dynamic science activity involving 77 children, divided into two groups of students. Both groups were divided into three smaller groups, each assigned to one of the stations of intriguing experiments. The first station involved the creation of "Elephant Toothpaste" using a concoction of 3% hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, food coloring, and active yeast. The second station, the "Lava Lamp" station used blend of water, vegetable oil, food coloring, and Alka Seltzer®. Lastly, the "Hand Washing" station involved a blue light source and Glo Germ powder. This experiment included applying glow powder to the students' hands, followed by a hand washing exercise. When they returned, the effectiveness of their hand washing was shown using the blue light. After the rotations and engaging experiments, each group was asked their favorite station. These experiments were not just fun; it also helped them learn about science and how to keep their hands clean. This work is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation EES 2011938.

The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) provides reimbursement for meals and snacks offered in participating centers and issues nutrition standards, including guidelines for feeding infants in childcare settings. Offering training to childcare providers participating in the CACFP is necessary to ensure compliance with nutrition standards in childcare settings. A State Department of Education and University Extension system collaborated to develop an online nutrition training course for childcare providers. Providers (n = 57) participated in the course on CACFP nutrition standards related to feeding infants (0-12months of age). Thirty-two of 57 participants completed both pre- and post-training surveys that were used to assess changes in knowledge and confidence concerning infant feeding standards. Paired t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were conducted to assess differences in survey responses before and after the course. Self-confidence and knowledge of providers related to infant feeding were significantly increased after completion of the training course (p < 0.001). More participants reported their sites were likely to respond to infants showing they were hungry or full than before the course (44.4% vs. 75.7%, respectively). Participant feedback indicated the online asynchronous course was convenient, useful, and topics were relevant to training needs. The online course was feasible and effective for providing training on CACFP guidelines for childcare providers. Feedback from participants can be adapted and used for future training programs to further improve the course and delivery methods and efficiently reach a broad audience of childcare providers.

Yin, Zi-Wei, Song, Xiao-Bin, Chen, Jia-Wei (2023): A second specimen of Colilodion tetramerus Löbl (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae). Zootaxa 5353 (4): 393-394, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5353.4.6, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5353.4.6

The long‐term goal of our research is to advance understanding of the mechanisms involved in hyphal growth, as well as maintenance of cell walls in filamentous fungi. Recently our work has focused on proteins that localize to sites of cell wall synthesis, namely growing cell apices (hyphal tips) and forming septa. This project focusses on Protein kinase C (PkcA). In previous work, we identified a mutation in the gene that encodes an orthologue of protein kinase C in our model organism Aspergillus nidulans, which results in reduced cell wall integrity. We showed that wild type PkcA localizes to growing hyphal apices and the contractile actomyosin ring at forming septa, and we identified amino acid sequences within PkcA that are required for PkcA to localize to these sites of cell wall synthesis. This project seeks to uncover the protein‐protein interactions involving PkcA and determine the PkcA‐complexed proteins it phosphorylates and those that it does not. Previously we reported that PkcA forms a complex with the formin SepA, and that this interaction requires the FH2 domain of SepA. Published results from another group suggested that the Rho‐type GTPase Rho4 plays a role in SepA function and that Bud3 acts as a GEF for Rho4. Here we show that the putative Rho binding domain of PkcA (HR1A) is sufficient for its interaction with SepA. Fluorescence microscopy of a dually labeled A. nidulans strain illustrate that although PkcA‐mRFP and Rho4‐GFP often reside at the contractile actomyosin concurrently, PkcA precedes Rho4 in ring constriction and yeast two‐hybrid assays failed to show an interaction between PkcA and Rho4. Further, neither of 4 other Rho homologues tested interacted with PkcA in yeast two‐hybrid experiments. Sequence analysis of the FH2 domain of SepA revealed a Rho‐like motif encompassing amino acids 377–408 having 43.3% sequence identity with RhoA. This result suggests that the sufficiency of the HR1A domain for PkcA’s interaction with SepA is due to its affinity for the Rho‐like motif within FH2. Co‐immunoprecipitation of GFP‐PkcA followed by tandem mass spectrometry and proteomics analysis of complexed proteins identified chitin synthase B and the glucan synthase FksA within the PkcA complex. Ongoing studies will seek to determine if these proteins are substrates for PkcA.Support or Funding InformationNSF RUI 1615192

Lane College is a historically black college committed to educating underserved minority students. My objective was to give students different pedagogical strategies to meet students where they are and moving away from the lecture based format to improve student success. In General Biology I chose to engage students through forensic sciences. I implemented forensic science in the laboratory in one of my two sections of General Biology I in the Fall 2018 semester. Students determined the items that needed to be analyzed from a mock crime scene after being presented with some basic forensic science techniques in the first week of laboratory. Each additional week the students participated in analysis of hair, fiber, soil, synthetic blood tests, chromatography, and DNA fingerprinting. To assess the intervention, I used the CLASS‐Bio Survey which measures student attitudes and beliefs about learning science (n=32) that was given pre and post to both sections as a way to compare the effect of the intervention. In the section that I gave the Forensic Science intervention the CLASS‐Bio Survey perceptions were higher in all categories Enjoyment, Real World, Problem Solving Synthesis and Application, Problem Solving Effort, Conceptual, Problem Solving Strategies, and Reasoning in the pre survey. The class that received the forensic science intervention had a 19.1% increase in Enjoyment, 18.4 % increase in Problem Solving Strategies and a 15.9 % increase in Problem Solving Effort than compared with the class that did not receive the intervention in the post survey.Support or Funding InformationNational Science Foundation Award HRD # 1623340 to MVS