Title
Topic
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Memory and culture at Queens College Colloquium
Associate Dean Christie Chung gave a talk at Queens College, New York, on October 31, 2022, entitled, “A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Age-related Positivity Effect in Memory.” The talk was based on her research, published in the International Journal of Aging and Human Development.
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How young people think about AI, and how to help them understand it
Youth often claim that they don’t “trust” artificial intelligence, but the authors of this research studied actual youth understanding of how AI works, and instantiated a program that “deepened their understanding of AI” and “empowered them to creatively express their understandings and apprehensions about AI.” Participants in the study were primarily BIPOC and from underprivileged backgrounds, with lessened access to STEM fields. See the full list of authors and read their research paper, “In the Black Mirror: Youth Investigations into Artificial Intelligence,” in ACM Transactions on Computing Education.
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‘De Novo Asymmetric Achmatowicz Approach to Oligosaccharide Natural Products’
“The development and application of the asymmetric synthesis of oligosaccharides from achiral starting materials is reviewed. This de novo asymmetric approach centers around the use of asymmetric catalysis for the synthesis of optically pure furan alcohols in conjunction with Achmatowicz oxidative rearrangement for the synthesis of various pyranones.” Find the paper and the full list of authors at Chemical Communications.
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Measuring how early-life trauma affects anxiety
This studies deepens our understanding of the connection between “Early life adversity” and “the incidence of later-life anxiety disorders.” By measuring the ultrasonic vocalizations of rats separated from their mothers at early stages, they identify the effects this separation can have later in life. The paper also measures the differing responses between male and female rats. Read “Age- and sex-specific effects of maternal separation on the acoustic startle reflex in rats: early baseline enhancement in females and blunted response to ambiguous threat” and find the full list of authors in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
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Collecting the microbiomes of ‘blue carbon’ ecosystems
So-called “blue carbon” ecosystems are marine environments that serve as valuable carbon sinks, and are thus vital aids against climate change. Their effectivity, however, “is strongly influenced by the metabolism of soil-associated microbes.” As genetic sequencing technologies continue to improve, scientists can collect “tremendous amounts of data on what taxa comprise belowground microbial assemblages.” This paper provides a “toolbox… for the acquisition, management, and integration of Blue Carbon-associated sequencing data and metadata to potentially elucidate novel mechanisms behind Blue Carbon dynamics.” Read “Pathways for Understanding Blue Carbon Microbiomes with Amplicon Sequencing,” and see the full list of authors in Microorganisms.
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How to handle your frogs: An introduction to eggs and embryos
This topic introduction by Dean of the College of Science Hazel Sive, along with Richard Harland (University of California, Berkeley), describes the process for obtaining Xenopus laevis and tropicalis, varieties of clawed frogs. The article covers everything from how to handle the frogs, how to obtain healthy eggs, in vitro fertilization of the eggs, and how to raise tadpoles. Read this introduction, titled “Obtaining Xenopus Eggs and Embryos,” at CSH Protocols.
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‘Deformation Spaces, Rescaled Bundles and the Kirillov Character Formula’
Written by professor of mathematics Maxim Braverman and Zelevinsky postdoctoral fellow Ahmad Reza Haj Saeedi Sadegh. “In this paper, we construct a smooth vector bundle over the deformation to the normal cone DNC(V,M) through a rescaling of a vector bundle E→V, which generalizes the construction of the spinor rescaled bundle over the tangent groupoid by Nigel Higson and Zelin Yi. We also provide an equivariant version of their construction. As the main application, we recover the Kirillov character formula for the equivariant index of Dirac-type operators.” Find their paper and the full list of authors at ArXiv.
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‘A Lemma of Lazarsfeld and the Jacobian Blow Up’
“For a complex analytic function f, the exceptional divisor of the jacobian blow-up is of great importance. In this paper, we show what a lemma from the thesis of Lazarsfeld tells one about the structure of this exceptional divisor.” Find the paper at ArXiv.
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How financial assistance affects entrepreneurial decision making
In addressing the crises facing modern society—like climate change, or income inequality—”economic development plays a key role.” This research “seeks to understand how different types of aid affect the strategic choices local firms and entrepreneurs make in the assisted markets, as well as the resulting outcomes. ” Read the article and see the full list of authors at the Insights @ Center for Emerging Markets.
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Watching hot metal cool: Patterns in materials science
Material design, as it moves into the world of microstructures, relies on understanding “solid-liquid interface patterns.” Previous studies have identified “dendritic patterns” as metal alloys cool, and this paper offers a new mode of capturing these patterns through “several image analysis methods to achieve this goal reliably despite varying contrast and noise levels.” See the full list of authors and read their research paper, “Dynamics of solidification microstructure formation in DECLIC-DSI onboard ISS: dendritic patterns data treatment,” at HAL Open Science.
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‘Time-Reversal Quantum Spin Hall Phase is Distinct From the Z₂ Topological Insulator’
“For a time-reversal symmetric system, the quantum spin Hall phase is assumed to be the same as the Z2 topological insulator phase in the existing literature. The spin Chern number Cs is supposed to yield the same topological classification as the Z2 invariant. Here, by investigating the topological electronic structures of monolayer α-phase group V elements, we uncover the presence of a topological phase in α-Sb, which can be characterized by a spin Chern number Cs=2, even though it is Z2 trivial.” See the full list of authors and read the pre-print at Research Square.
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Advances in imaging amphibian regeneration
This book chapter (from “Salamanders: Methods and Protocols”) provides an alternative protocol to the in situ hybridization of amphibians. While this protocol “has been utilized for decades in axolotls, it has been challenging to implement consistently across tissues.” The authors here present an approach combining a hybridized chain reaction (HCR) with fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), providing a method with “a considerably higher signal to background” noise ratio. See the full list of authors and read this book chapter, “Hybridization Chain Reaction Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (HCR-FISH) in Ambystoma mexicanum Tissue,” at the publisher’s page.
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Raising (regenerative) axolotls for experimental uses
Mexican axolotls are capable of regenerating “amputated limbs and injured body parts,” and their study is valuable to both stem cell and regeneration research. From “Salamanders: Methods and Protocols”, this book chapter by professor James Monaghan and PhD. Anastasia Yandulskaya presents the conditions for raising lab-healthy axolotls, how to breed them, and how to maintain their environment. Read this book chapter, “Establishing a New Research Axolotl Colony,” at the publisher’s page.
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‘Plasmon-Induced Enhanced Light Emission and Ultrafast Carrier Dynamics in a Tunable Molybdenum Disulfide-Gallium Nitride Heterostructure’
“The effect of localized plasmon on the photoemission and absorption in hybrid molybdenum disulfide-Gallium nitride (MoS2-GaN) heterostructure has been studied. Localized plasmon induced by platinum nanoparticles was resonantly coupled to the bandedge states of GaN to enhance the UV emission from the hybrid semiconductor system. The presence of the platinum nanoparticles also increases the effective absorption and the transient gain of the excitonic absorption in MoS2.” Find the paper and the full list of authors in Materials.
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Handling x-rays at high speed
As x-ray lasers gain the ability to fire at ever-increasing speeds, current data systems need to increase their effectiveness to handle “these type[s] of facilities, especially for high throughput applications.” In this paper, the authors propose “a machine-learning algorithm to automatically extract” relevant data. The paper also covers “the feasibility of using this framework at high data volume.” See the full list of authors and read their research paper, “Testing the data framework for an AI algorithm in preparation for high data rate X-ray facilities,” at ArXiv.
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In emerging markets, social investments matter most
New research published in Insights @ Center for Emerging Markets demonstrates “that in emerging markets, social investments have a larger impact on financial performance than governance or environmental initiatives because they help create capabilities that more directly compensate for government failures in the provision of public goods and services.” Read the article and see the full list of authors at the Insights @ Center for Emerging Markets.
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How blockchain can solve the crises of global supply chains
Ravi Sarathy, professor of international business and strategy, writes that many of the problems facing modern global supply chains can be overcome through blockchain technology. Blockchains “enhance reliability and efficiency by providing transparent and secure tracking of goods and related digital documentation.” Find the article at the Insights @ Center for Emerging Markets.
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Balloon-powered telescope SuperBIT looks at the ‘wrong’ end of the spectrum
In studying dark matter, cosmologists and astronomers rely on observations of galaxies seen through or around the material. Traditionally, these observations have been made of “red-shifted” galaxies, those moving away from the Earth. This paper provides an explanation for why the Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) will instead observe blue-shifted galaxies, those moving toward the earth. See the full list of authors and read their paper, “Weak lensing in the blue: a counter-intuitive strategy for stratospheric observations,” at ArXiv.
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Non-invasive brain stimulation: Acting on the cerebellum
A “Significant knowledge gap exists in our functional understanding of cerebellar systems,” write the authors of this perspective piece. Using non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, the authors “highlight the possibility to target specific functional territories within the cerebellum… leading to the refinement of cerebellar-based therapeutics for precision psychiatry.” Read “Big contributions of the little brain for precision psychiatry” and find the full list of authors at Frontiers in Psychiatry.
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‘Electric-Magnetic Duality in a Class of G₂-Compactifications of M-theory’
“We study electric-magnetic duality in compactifications of M-theory on twisted connected sum (TCS) G2 manifolds via duality with F-theory. Specifically, we study the physics of the D3-branes in F-theory compactified on a Calabi-Yau fourfold Y, dual to a compactification of M-theory on a TCS G2 manifold X. N=2 supersymmetry is restored in an appropriate geometric limit.” See the full list of authors and read the paper at ArXiv.
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Resilient science, resilient communities in the face of climate change
The Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities project seeks to “build community resilience to climate hazards” by relying on community data collection and public discussions about both the risks of climate change to local communities and for divising potential responses. The organizers hope that this project, and others like it, will increase resilience and connect policymakers with diverse perspectives and solutions to the climate crisis. See the full list of authors and read their case study, “Citizen Science, Civics, and Resilient Communities: Informing Community Resilience Policies Through Local Knowledge, Community Values, and Community-Generated Data,” in Citizen Science: Theory and Practice.
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Cognitive science paper explores how visual context affects eye movement
Researchers used eye-tracking to monitor how observers responded to natural scenes, after being presented with different previous “context” scenes. Their “results indicate that without relevant knowledge about past events, oculomotor behavior is more exploratory.” See the full list of authors and read “Knowledge about the recent past affects human gaze patterns” at HAL Open Science.
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‘Neuronal temperature perception induces specific defenses that enable C. elegans to cope with… hydrogen peroxide’
“Hydrogen peroxide is the most common reactive chemical that organisms face on the microbial battlefield. The rate with which hydrogen peroxide damages biomolecules required for life increases with temperature, yet little is known about how organisms cope with this temperature-dependent threat. Here, we show that Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes use temperature information perceived by sensory neurons to cope with the temperature-dependent threat of hydrogen peroxide. … This is the first example of a multicellular organism inducing their defenses to a chemical when they sense an inherent enhancer of the reactivity of that chemical.” Find the paper and the full list of authors at ELife…
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For nonprofit hospitals, customers expect more than core services
When corporations increase “social responsibility” activities, customers should show increased appreciation for those companies—but this isn’t always the case. The authors of “The Value of Core and Noncore Activity Fit for Corporate Social Responsibility: An Expectation-Based Study of Nonprofit Hospitals” argue that corporate social responsibility can be understood along the axes of “core”—activities directly related to the business—and “noncore” functions—activities outside the business’s regular operations. Find the paper and the full list of authors in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing.
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Paper presents novel method for understanding scattering of electromagnetic fields
In this pre-print, Feiguin et al. present an alternative solution to understanding the “scattering cross-section” of electromagnetic fields, using a “time-dependent momentum-resolved” approach. This method “does not require a full set” of quantum states to solve. The authors argue that “this powerful formulation overcomes all the hurdles imposed by previous methods.” See the full list of authors and read “A time-dependent momentum-resolved scattering approach to core-level spectroscopies” at Research Square.
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Associate Dean for Research Erin Cram has published “Worm Development: Push Not Pull in Gonad Morphogenesis,” identifying a new method through which tissue elongates in a specific form of nematode, through “pressure from proliferating germ cells confined within a tube.”
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Paving the way to stronger nanowires
Multiple fragmentation patterns are possible in nanowires. Alain Karma and PhD. candidate Nan Wang used “phase-field simulations [to] show that fragmentation of faceted nanowires with cubic crystal symmetry may occur by a finite-amplitude nonlinear instability.” These results “provide the theoretical foundation to predict nanowire stability as a function of length and surface energy in diverse applications,” including future technologies. Read their research paper “Fragmentation of faceted crystalline wires” at Physical Review Materials.