St. Matthew's University

Cortically induced blindness (CB) resulting from stroke damage to the early visual cortex leads to extensive, typically extrafoveal visual deficits and is known to alter large-scale oculomotor behavior. Here, we show that even with preserved foveal acuity, fixational oculomotor behavior is subtly altered in CB patients. Using high-precision eye tracking, we observed a small but consistent gaze offset toward the blind field during passive fixation, which disappeared during a high-acuity central task. Despite this offset, fixation precision in both tasks was comparable, and it was similar between CB patients and age-matched controls. Curiously, the underlying oculomotor dynamics were also similar across the two task conditions: Microsaccades exhibited nonsignificant directional tendencies, while ocular drift was biased away from the blind field. Our findings indicate that the adult oculomotor system dynamically adapts to asymmetric visual injury and/or input. We speculate that the small fixational offsets observed in CB may reflect an attentional pointer toward the blind field and/or a compensatory oculomotor rebalancing that counteracts an asymmetric visual drive following cortical damage. Together, these results reveal a surprising preservation of context-dependent fixation control following early visual cortex damage in adulthood.

Abnormalities in the synthesis or structure of globin chains are known as hemoglobinopathies, and they produce a wide range of clinical phenotypes. When both alleles of the same gene carry different hemoglobin variants, this results in compound heterozygosity. The condition described in this case report (hemoglobin C (HbC)/beta-zero (β⁰)-thalassemia) is one such example. On their own, neither HbC nor β⁰-thalassemia is typically associated with acute vaso-occlusive crises, and the combination of HbC/β⁰-thalassemia has not been well characterized. Limited reports indicate that this genotype is not known to cause pain episodes resembling those seen in HbSC disease. Here, we describe a 32-year-old woman with DNA-confirmed HbC/β⁰-thalassemia. She has chronic transfusion dependence, marrow expansion, and anemia, with a baseline hemoglobin of about 8 g/dL. Despite treatment with hydroxyurea and opioid therapy, she has persistent diffuse bone pain. During the current admission, she presented with worsening pain, nausea, and vomiting. Laboratory findings showed stable hemoglobin compared to her baseline, without leukocytosis or sickling, and imaging revealed no acute pathology. Her pain was managed with intravenous hydromorphone, with plans to transition to oral methadone and oxycodone as needed before discharge. This case illustrates the difficulty of managing severe pain in HbC/β⁰-thalassemia, particularly when symptoms occur with high intensity but without evidence of vaso-occlusion or acute hemolysis. While extramedullary hematopoiesis is a leading explanation for her pain, the degree of pain she experienced is unusual in the absence of acute sickling. Given the rarity of this genotype and the limited amount of published data, management remains challenging. Further research is needed to clarify the mechanisms of pain in HbC/β⁰-thalassemia and to distinguish organic causes from central sensitization in patients with chronic opioid use.

SummaryDeep decarbonization of the US power system would require rapid deployment of variable renewable energy (VRE) resources, which are projected to provide a substantial share of electricity generation at the time of net-zero emissions. However, the exact share of generation met by VRE and the roles of other technologies in supplying key electricity services—energy and firm capacity—remain uncertain. This study employs a detailed model of the US power sector to decompose the provision and value of electricity services, including negative emissions, by technology across a range of deep decarbonization scenarios. Results indicate that while technology deployment and the share of services provided by each technology vary significantly depending on future technological and market conditions, the value composition and future roles of individual technologies remain consistent. These findings offer guidance for research and development priorities and provide insights to inform electricity policy and planning.

ABSTRACTIn iteroparous species, reproductive skipping is generally considered an adaptive strategy. Non‐breeding individuals should have a greater annual survival probability and retain greater future reproductive potential. Yet, the role of age on changes in breeding probability remains untested in many long‐lived testudines. To bridge this knowledge gap, we leveraged a 52‐year dataset on captive green turtles, an ancient lineage of marine ectotherms. Sea turtles serve as an interesting model system because they exhibit a reproductive strategy characterized by delayed maturity followed by intense reproductive bursts. Using a multi‐event capture‐mark‐recapture framework, our results reveal that individual quality and age were the primary drivers of reproductive patterns. High‐quality turtles were more likely to remain breeders in consecutive years, and low‐quality turtles were more likely to remain non‐breeders, an effect that became more dramatic at older ages. Furthermore, there was an antagonistic relationship between age and breeding experience on the waiting time between breeding seasons. At the population level, we found evidence of actuarial [survival] senescence but negligible reproductive senescence, with females maintaining a high residual reproductive value into old age. Collectively, our findings demonstrate the role of lifelong individual differences in shaping life histories, a fact that has been historically overlooked in long‐lived marine vertebrates like sea turtles, largely due to the immense logistical challenge of monitoring individuals over timespans that may equal a single academic career.

The disruptive nature of technology in higher education is not a new phenomenon, but the progressive drumbeats grow louder and louder amidst several chaos-inducing influences. A provocative piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Clay Shirky (2025) laments the decline of student success and engagement, which the writer sees as a vexing trend tied to generative artificial intelligence (AI). According to Shirky, “The fact that AI might help students learn is no guarantee it will help them learn.” In fact, the phenomenon may do the opposite. It may create the kind of maladaptive academic shortcutting and technology dependency that chips away at the ethical and practice criticality that nurses need to operate in today’s extraordinarily complex health care environments. Can the rising tides of negative and disruptive impacts of generative AI be held back? Electronic calculators in the 1970s threatened the learning of mathematics in higher education and beyond. Online learning grew in earnest in the 1990s and early 2000s, heralding the end of brick-and-mortar universities. Massive open online courses brought renewed warnings that they were the true harbinger of the end of higher education. Even the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to threaten the notion that we need campuses. Now enter AI, notably its generative flavor, into the fray. Barely recovered from the impacts of the pandemic, we reel in the transformative power AI brings, both positive and negative. In the span of one hour, I could conceivably scan textbooks, articles, or original essays, turning them from proprietary knowledge into digital fuel. I could feed these knowledge sources into any of a number of free AI applications that could convert them in seconds into infinite variations of presentations, infographics, podcasts, or graphic novels. To retain the appearance of authenticity, I could take a few minutes to train an AI avatar to use my face and voice to be the educational presence in all of that output. That voice-over presentation could even feature me mouthing the words, my voice almost perfectly matched but entirely fabricated by another set of applications that create a convincing educational avatar of me. But the rising tide does not need to wipe away everything we have built and believe in. In fact, the rising tide can lift all boats equally. To presume such a yes-or-no proposition is perhaps equally pollyannish, but as Shirky points out, the use of AI is not an all or nothing proposition in which students use it consistently for every assignment in every class. Rather, it is the option of default when stress, time, or other pressures drive one to a path of least resistance — just like any cheating strategy employed for just about any assignment since the dawn of naming “cheating” in education. It may seem impossible, insurmountable, to imagine that there is a path to engagement and motivation, and Shirky’s piece is definitely a dark warning about the decline of cognitive effort and increased dependence on technology in learning. The rising tides of generative AI threaten to wash away educational value like a tsunami of student learning malaise and further faculty frustration and discontent. The rising tides might also wipe away outdated and low-value learning experiences while lifting all boats, notably lifting learning options for all learners who may have been alienated by traditional lecture and poorly served by the cycle of cram, memorize, regurgitate, and forget. Radical technologies like generative AI require a radical rethinking of the how and why for nursing education. We have to want it. We have to work for it. We have to recognize what it brings in order to think deeper and be creative with technology and without it.

Since the citrus greening disease (aka Huanglongbing, HLB) was detected in 2005, orange (Citrus sinensis) juice production has decreased by more than 80% in Florida. Over the years, some mandarins (C. reticulata) and mandarin-like hybrids with Poncirus trifoliata in their pedigree have shown tolerance to the disease and have the potential to make up the deficit in the volume of oranges. However, current FDA rules allow for only 10% mandarin juice in orange juice. If citrus, other than C. sinensis, could be added to orange juice in amounts greater than 10%, it would give more flexibility to processors under the current production environment where oranges are declining due to citrus greening. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of blending mandarins and other citrus hybrids with orange juice on overall orange flavor. In the first year, a 9-member panel was trained to distinguish orange from mandarin flavor using reference standards, rate sweetness, sourness and bitterness, and to describe potential off flavors. Fruits were washed, sanitized, and manually juiced. Blends were made with 60:30 ‘Valencia’:‘Hamlin’ juice, and 10% mandarin juice including ‘Superna’, FF-5-51-2, and a Poncirus introgressed mandarin hybrid, FF-1-89-11. These blends were compared with the standard 60:40 ‘Valencia’:‘Hamlin’ juice. Panelists found no differences in orange flavor among samples. Mandarin flavor was slightly higher in blends containing FF-5-51-2, and sweetness and sourness were higher in blends containing FF-1-89-11, in comparison with the reference 60:40 ‘Valencia’:‘Hamlin’ juice. A similar comparison was performed between 60:40 ‘Valencia’:‘Hamlin’ juice and 60:20:20 ‘Valencia’:‘Hamlin’:mandarin juice, the mandarin being FF-5-51-2, ‘Superna’ or Sugar Belle®. The trained panelists could perceive the mandarin flavor in those blends, but the orange flavor remained unchanged. In the following year, blends were prepared with juice that had been commercially processed and pasteurized and presented to untrained panelists in a difference test (Tetrad). Most panelists could not detect differences between control base juice (60:40 ‘Valencia’:‘Hamlin’) and base juice to which 10%, 15% or 20% of FF-5-51-2 had been added. The test was also performed with commercial juice, and again, untrained panelists could not detect differences between blends and control. From these results, it is unlikely that untrained consumers would perceive mandarin or other hybrid added to orange juice at a level up to 20%.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is a common non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate that usually occurs in aging men and some higher mammals. Many studies have been conducted to explore different treatment strategies for managing BPH. However, a suitable animal model for studying BPH is necessary. So far, only a few animal models, such as rat and dog models, have been used for this purpose. This study aimed to compare the assessment of the BPH model induced in rabbits through the administration of exogenous testosterone and estrogen post-bilateral orchidectomy. Fifteen (N=15) indigenous Nigerian rabbits were used for this experiment. The rabbits were orchiectomized and randomly divided into 3 groups: the testosterone, estrogen, and control groups. Seven days after bilateral orchidectomy, BPH was induced using exogenous subcutaneous administration of testosterone (15 mg kg-1), estrogen (0.75 mg kg-1), and normal saline (1 mL) for 4 weeks. After completion of the treatments, prostates were removed. The weight, volume, prostate index, and histologic scoring were determined. There were significant changes (p<0.05) in prostate weight, volume, and index. Testosterone and estrogen-treated groups differed significantly from the control groups. There were no significant differences in all the parameters between the testosterone and the estrogen groups. Histological evaluation revealed hyperplasia of the epithelium of the prostate gland and increased stromal connective tissues with a corresponding increase in the number of glandular units with secretory-filled fluid within the lumens of the glands. The benign prostate hyperplasia rabbit model was developed successfully using exogenous treatment with testosterone propionate. Testosterone appeared to have significant roles in the development of prostate hyperplasia when compared to estrogen.

Academic self-efficacy refers to the student's beliefs and attitudes toward their capabilities to achieve academic success, as well as belief in their ability to fulfil academic tasks and the successful learning of the materials. The influence of dyslexia on academic self-efficacy and psychological distress among Nigerian students is underresearched in this study. This study investigated the relationship between dyslexia, psychological distress, and academic self-efficacy. A total of 460 undergraduates purposively drawn from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, of over 10,000 undergraduate population, with a mean age of 26 ± 5 years, responded to the Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, the dyslexia adult checklist, the 12-item General Health Questionnaire, and Adult Reading History Questionnaire. Data were analyzed descriptively, and the regression analysis and T-tests were used for statistical analysis, with a significance threshold of P < 0.05. The results showed that dyslexia is a significant predictor of academic self-efficacy (β = 0.34, t = 7.31, P < 0.01). Dyslexia strongly predicted performance in examination [β = 0.32, F = 48.18, P = 0.00], comprehension [β = 0.32, F = 33.54, P = 0.00], school adjustment [β = 0.32, F = 35.86, P = 0.00], reading skill [β = 0.21, F = 18.65, P = 0.00], working memory [β = 0.26, F = 28.5, P = 0.00], and time management [β = 0.21, F = 19.8, P = 0.00] among the undergraduates. In addition, dyslexia significantly predicted psychological distress [t 41) = 1.40, P = 0.65]. Gender had no significant influence on academic self-efficacy and psychological distress among the participants [t 41) = 1.33, P = 0.19]. Dyslexia is a strong predictor of academic self-efficacy and psychological distress. Male and female Nigerian undergraduates have similar academic self-efficacy and psychological distress.

The Medicare Care Choices Model (MCCM) tested a new option for eligible Medicare beneficiaries to receive conventional treatment for terminal conditions along with supportive and palliative care from participating hospice providers. Using claims data, we estimated differences in average outcomes from enrollment to death between deceased MCCM enrollees and matched comparison beneficiaries who received usual services covered by original Medicare. Enrollees were 15percentage points less likely to receive an aggressive life-prolonging treatment at the end of life and spent more than five more days at home. MCCM also reduced net Medicare expenditures by 13percent, decreased inpatient admissions by 26percent, reduced outpatient emergency department visits by 12percent, and increased hospice use by 18percentage points. Although the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services did not expand the model, given concerns about generalizability, these results provide evidence that MCCM is a promising approach to transforming care delivery at the end of life.