Monthly Archives: July 2021

KINGSTON, R.I. July 14, 2021 University of Rhode Island Professor Christopher Lane has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to spend six months at the University of Paris-Saclay in France to conduct research on the evolution of parasitism in marine organisms.

Lane is one of three URI professors to be awarded a Fulbright fellowship this year.

A professor of biological sciences, he chose to spend his sabbatical at the University of Paris because he has several research collaborations with scientists there, and it will provide him with access to state-of-the-art scientific instruments that will advance his research objectives.

Ive worked on the evolution of parasitism in seaweeds before, but this project is actually the reverse of that an organism that has gone from being a parasite to being a mutualist that lives within an organism without hurting it, which is pretty rare in nature, Lane said. Its in a group of more than 6,000 parasites, and this one has figured out how to move away from being a parasite.

Beginning in September, Lane will spend his time in France collecting the approximately 20 species of closely-related parasites that live together inside sea squirts in the intertidal zone. Using a connected series of instruments for selecting single-celled organisms and extracting their DNA, he will then isolate each species to learn how they interact with each other.

By the time I return to Rhode Island, I should have a much better understanding of how this community of organisms works as a whole, based on understanding what the individuals are doing, said Lane. They all have to work together because none of them produce all of the metabolites that an organism needs to live by itself.

This work is expected to lead to several research papers and new grant proposals for further research.

Symbioses are very common in nature, allowing organisms to live where they previously could not, Lane said. In this case, these organisms have changed lifestyles by working together. By understanding how symbioses allow for major evolutionary transitions, we can better predict how organisms might adapt to our changing world.

The Fulbright Scholar Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields. Established in 1946, the program operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.

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After a six-year hiatus that ended last year, the music duo Lore City is making music together once again, focused on sending out a message of oneness and putting positivity into the world.

The band is composed of Laura Williams and Eric Bessel, two Syracuse University alumni who graduated in 2005 and 2004, respectively. During the release of their third album last year, Alchemical Task, the band was also working on their latest LP Participation Mystique scheduled to drop on July 23.

The duo spoke with The Daily Orange ahead of the albums release to discuss how astrology and spirituality have influenced them, their musical evolution and advice for SU students hoping to pursue a career in music.

Below is the transcript from The D.O.s interview with Lore City, edited for brevity and clarity:

The D.O.: This is your fourth album together. How do you feel like the songs on Participation Mystique have evolved from the way your music was when you first started out?

Bessel: It was very much more straightforward rock and roll with electric guitars. We did have a drum machine because its just us two, so there was that electronic element, but it was very guitar-based, and the song structures were a bit more traditional.

Now we have just blown the lid off, and anything goes, and its very electronic (and) experimental in the sense that not all of our songs have classic song structures.

Weve most recently settled on something called the mellotron, which is the most wonderful instrument. We use digital mellotrons, and a lot of the sounds that weve brought in with this current album and the previous one, Alchemical Task, were cultivated from it.

Williams: Yeah, this mellotron Eric talks about has totally brought to life all these atmospheres and textures that I always wanted to make in music. The reason the mellotron is so cool is it samples real sounds, and these arent digital sounds that have been made by a computer. Its an actual harpsichord that was recorded, or when you play the four female voice choir, it was actually four voices in a room being recorded. So its just really magical.

The duo said this album, Participation Mystique, was heavily influenced by astrology and spirituality.Courtesy of Lore City Music

The D.O.: Is there a certain feeling that youre trying to provoke from listeners with this album, Participation Mystique?

EB: One of the magic things about the vinyl record in context of limitless playlists and CDs that can go on for 73 minutes, is (that) somewhere between 14 and 22 minutes, you stop, and you flip the record. You could have been lying on the floor listening to the music or hanging out with friends and talking and then the record stops and then you have to flip it over, and theres something kind of magic in that pause, so I appreciate that about the LP.

LW: I think one time I summarized our music as ballads for the soul searchers. Ive always been somebody that really likes music that makes you pensive or emotional or brings you to some realization about life. Music that isnt just something you put on in the background, but you really curate this playlist, and it really makes you feel something, and it makes you become this person that you want to be and do the thing that you want to do. It gives you this power.

The D.O.: You both mentioned how your visual arts studies have helped in a lot of different ways with your music. Is there any part of photography or visual arts that you feel has influenced your music or that youve applied to your creative process?

EB: I studied photography and got my B.F.A. in art photography at Syracuse, so I look at the medium itself as an additive process. Looking at a digital process of image-making, if you separate an image whether its in RGB format, CMYK or various other formats its a layered format, so by layering all of these different color layers together you get a whole.

I look at sound-making in a similar way in that youre layering different sounds together, which on their own can be very strong, but its the sum of their parts that create the whole.

LW: I went to Syracuse for video art, and I just immediately became fascinated by the soundtracks and the sounds I would make to go along with the images. So, when I was at Syracuse, I felt like nurturing that exploration between sound and image, especially with my professor Tom Sherman.

So yes, visual art completely inspired the sounds that I make. I think my biggest takeaway from Syracuse was that it just instilled this confidence in me, being in the art program, that Im just going to figure it out and make it happen.

Lore Citys Laura Williams said her time at SU gave her the confidence to stick through the creative process. Courtesy of Lore City Music

The D.O.: Is there anything that you both learned or experienced while you were at SU that has helped you as you put these albums together as independent artists?

EB: I remember I took a class my senior year, it was Professional Practice in Visual Arts. Basically, it was, youre going to be finishing school, so heres how you can plan out how to continue your artistic practice while juggling a day job, or a part time job or whatever it is as you transition from being a student to being in the working world.

For example, if were going to be doing a release and (its) in physical format, how much lead time do we need to be able to release a record? How does it differ when working with a label and a distributor, as weve done in the past, versus doing it ourselves?

Its just timelining, its planning, its maintaining and building relationships, its forming connections, its seeing that were one part in a larger thing and then also looking for opportunities to collaborate with others and help them along the way too.

The D.O.: Do you have any piece of advice youd like to give to current SU students hoping to also pursue a career in music?

LW: A long time ago, someone said to me when I was feeling stuck and just working a day job and just making songs in my bedroom, the most important thing is that you just keep making your work and no one can ever take your work away from you.

Sometimes things are going to line up and youll make money from (music), sometimes you might not, and you might always have a job in addition to that or maybe youre one of the people where everything aligns and you can just be an artist for a living.

But I say dont measure (your music) purely by financial success. Theres so much more to it, like your expression and connecting with people and other people finding it and putting meaningful messages into it. So just yeah, keep going.

EB: I would also like to add, the concept of success is totally subjective. One person could call success being featured on the radio, they could say success is getting signed to a record label or can also be pushing yourself to learn new instruments.

All these things could be measures of success, and also in the grand scheme of things, I mean there are years and years of music and creative ideas yet to come. Were in our late 30s, and we want to keep making this music for decades. What would Lore City sound like in like 20 years from now? We dont know, but we have some ideas.

Published on July 13, 2021 at 11:53 am

Contact Dakota: dcchambe@syr.edu

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2 SU alumni talk evolution of their band Lore City, bringing new album to life - The Daily Orange

Mounting evidence suggests that the decision among payers to cover diagnostic/screening services is primarily math-based. On one side of the equation, its understandable. The business case for paying up to $1,150 per person to screen individuals in their 40s in medical settings does not exist.

Unfortunately, paying out of pocket is often a nonstarter for most people: A recent Federal Reserve survey found that 40% of American adults lack available cash to cover a $400 emergency. Whats worse is that many lifestyle contributors to colorectal cancer, diabetes and other chronic diseases like alcohol use, smoking and obesity are also associated with poverty.

Cancer is only one example, but there are others that highlight the health insurance industrys sometimes conservative approach to preventive care an approach that isnt always in alignment with guidelines set by groups such as the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association.

This puts the health industry, including payers, in a tricky position: Health plans recognize the benefit of preventive care and want to expand coverage. Yet the financial barriers to doing so are significant. In-person screenings are not cheap to administer for payers or employers, who are seeking new ways to cut benefit costs to offset financial losses of 2020.

There are also nonfinancial barriers to screening for patients. Many Americans dont have the time or resources to take leave from work to focus on preventive care. This became especially clear during the first six to nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a significant number of individuals avoided seeing a doctor out of fear of contracting the coronavirus even as their physical pain or discomfort increased.

The good news, for employers and health plans, is that a better option is emerging. Today, screening technology has advanced considerably, and there is an opportunity to nudge the needle on preventable chronic diseases, which account for the bulk of healthcare expenses.

In 2021, were seeing the expansion of state-of-the-art home testing kits that can gauge risk for multiple conditions, including diabetes, hypertension and multiple cancers. The best part: Screening tools are designed to be used in the comfort of a persons home.

Tests that allow individuals to collect biometric samples in the privacy of their own homes and enable individuals to measure cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood-glucose levels, for example have the potential to make a marked difference in many areas. Whats more, they can offer healthcare providers critical insights into major health changes, much in the same way that advances in home pregnancy tests enabled OB/GYNs to shift much of their focus to prenatal care decades ago.

Some of the benefits include:

Convenience. Consumers are more likely to undergo routine screening when the act of testing is hassle free especially if theyre young and healthy.

Safety. In the event of a widespread viral outbreak, such as COVID-19 or measles, home-based testing makes it possible to stay home.

Cost savings.The cost to administer home testing kits can range from $25 to $200 per person (depending on how comprehensive the kit is), far less expensive than medical facility screening.

Healthcare outcomes. The sooner an individual is aware of a burgeoning health problem, the faster he or she can seek treatment, and improve long-term outcomes.

Satisfaction. When employers and health plans demonstrate a vested interest in an individuals wellbeing, satisfaction and engagement rises. Businesses with highly engaged business units saw 41% reduction in absenteeism, per one 2019 Gallup study.

As organizations begin reopening offices and adapting work environments and benefits to post-pandemic norms, these are important benefits to consider. The more vested employers and health plans are in keeping everyone healthy before an emergency, the better off theyll be financially and the better off patients will be in terms of wellness.

The use of home-based testing solutions can disrupt the negative cycle of pricey screenings, delayed healthcare, and poor outcomes. With the right tools and information at our disposal, its possible for managed healthcare organizations, physicians, and nonphysician providers to work cohesively to narrow the care gaps of 2020, and help more Americans stay healthy, whether they choose to venture out or stay home.

Travis Rush is the CEO and co-founder of Reperio Health, a company that develops and markets home-based testing.

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The Evolution and Promise of Preventive Screenings at Home - Managed Healthcare Executive

DURING DEANDRE AYTON'S one-on-zero pre-draft workout with the Phoenix Suns, Igor Kokoskov, then the Suns' coach, concocted a surprise to test Ayton's reaction time.

Standing 10 or 15 feet from Ayton, and without warning, Kokoskov dropped a ball, and on its bounce back up, kicked it -- soccer-style -- as hard as he could at Ayton. Ayton reached out one of his giant hands and snagged it in midair.

"I just caught the ball and was like, 'What was that about?'" Ayton said, laughing.

Most witnesses remember Kokoskov firing a few more kicks at Ayton -- with the then-teenage big man either catching or saving all of them.

"He looked like Kasper Schmeichel," said Ryan McDonough, then the Suns' GM, referencing the star Danish goalkeeper.

The Suns put Ayton through more drills to test physical skills and endurance: snaring rebounds from above the square on the backboard, and shuttling back-and-forth between each block -- plucking a ball from the ground and dunking it each time.

The Suns' brain trust was aware before then that Ayton had tremendous ability: a rare combination of size, powerful explosion, and the right kind of softness -- magnet hands, a silky touch around the basket, and feet so nimble they seem to press into and then spring from the floor as if it were pliable grass and not hardwood.

Intel coming from the University of Arizona portrayed a positive spirit and willing worker eager to address weaknesses -- including uneven pick-and-roll defense.

For the Suns, Ayton was something of a lump of clay on both ends -- a prospect both exciting and fraught. Should the Suns make him a pick-and-pop center bombing 3s, or a screen-and-dive fiend? Should he facilitate from the elbows like Nikola Jokic? What if he stretched in every direction at once -- becoming decent at everything but great at nothing, failing to develop a foundational identity?

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Ayton has received a ton of deserved credit during this magical playoff run for subsuming any ambitions of all-around offensive stardom and embracing a less glamorous role that works for this roster. He is posting up less, shooting fewer long 2s, screening-and-diving more -- with more force. It is the right fit for a team with two elite pick-and-roll ball handlers -- Devin Booker and Chris Paul -- and four shooters around Ayton.

But the Suns would be nowhere close to the Finals without Ayton undergoing the same transformation on defense -- toggling between schemes, failing and learning, and finding a comfort zone that worked for everyone.

Phoenix has good defensive talent across the roster, and the ability to switch across three or four positions against some lineups. But if the keystone cracks, it all falls apart.

The Suns ranked sixth in points allowed per possession in the regular season. They are No. 3 in the playoffs. They are two wins from the title because of their defense as much as anything, and that is where it is because Ayton has improved more from his rookie season through his third year than almost any big man in recent memory.

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Lowe: How Deandre Ayton's incredible evolution transformed the Suns - ESPN

The transition from unicellular to multicellular life was one of the most momentous events in the evolution of life. Estimated to have first occurred more than 1.5 billion years ago, the shift to multicellularity gave rise to increasingly complex life forms on Earth, from ancient algae-like organisms to dinosaurs to human beings. Still, many of the processes underlying this biological shift have remained unclear.

One theory posits that single-celled organisms evolved multicellularity through a specific series of adaptations. First, cells began adhering to each other, creating cell groups that have a higher survival rate, partly because it's harder for predators to kill a group of cells than a single cell. But this defensive adaptation comes at the price of a lowered reproduction rate; only through adaptations acquired over generations do cell groups become better at reproducing than single cells.

Tougher together

A new study published in Nature Communications put that theory to the test. The researchers divided ten strains of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a unicellular green algae, into two groups. One group was subjected to a microscopic predator called Brachionus calyciflorus, a type of rotifer. The other group evolved without predators.

After six months, all the algae strains that faced the predator had evolved into cell groups. Meanwhile, only four of the 10 algae strains without predators evolved into groups. Surprisingly, this transition toward simple multicellularity occurred relatively quickly, over just 500 generations or six months. (The algae replicated about once every 9 hours.) The videos below show how the predator had a much harder time eating the cells when they grouped together.

RT feeding single cells http://www.youtube.com

RT feeding colony http://www.youtube.com

After cell groups boosted their defenses against predators, they were able to increase their reproductive rates. The researchers noted that these adaptations occurred on the genome level and were heritable, suggesting that with enough exposure to a selection pressure, like predation, the evolution toward multicellularity might be inevitable.

"The evolved cell groups had unique variants involved in keeping cells together after cell division, suggesting a consistent selective response on the genome level," the researchers wrote. "This fairly high degree of repeatability and the small number of generations suggest some degree of determinism for the phenotypic and genomic response in C. reinhardtii to predation pressure."

Division of labor

According to theory, once cell groups are established, cells can begin to serve specialized functions. This occurs through the differentiation of somatic and germ cells, with somatic cells being those that serve non-reproductive functions (predator avoidance, the ability to move and find resources, etc.) and germ cells being those that produce the next generation.

But this specialization process comes at a cost. The team's results showed that the shift toward multicellularity requires cell groups to first boost their survival rate, which lowers the groups' reproductive rates over the short-term. A few reasons for the lowered reproductive rate include lower resource uptake, restricted motility, and reduced photosynthetic rate.

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Expeditions to a remote area of Yukon, Canada, have uncovered a 120-million-year-long geological record of a time when land plants and complex animals first evolved and ocean oxygen levels began to approach those in the modern world.

Hundreds of millions of years ago, in the middle of what would eventually become Canadas Yukon Territory, an ocean swirled with armored trilobites, clam-like brachiopods and soft, squishy creatures akin to slugs and squid.

Along the banks of the Peel River a few hundred miles south of the Arctics Beaufort Sea, scientists have unearthed a trove of fossils and rock layers formed on that ancient ocean floor.

The team hacked through brush with machetes beside Class VI rapids to collect hundreds of fist-sized samples of rock.

The discovery reveals oxygen changes at the seafloor across nearly 120 million years of the early Paleozoic era, a time that fostered the most rapid development and diversification of complex, multi-cellular life in Earths history.

Its unheard of to have that much of Earths history in one place, says Stanford University geological scientist Erik Sperling, lead author of a paper on the findings in Science Advances. Most rock formations from the Paleozoic Era have been broken up by tectonic forces or eroded over time. Theres nowhere else in the world that I know of where you can study that long a record of Earth history, where theres basically no change in things like water depth or basin type.

Oxygen was scarce in the deep water of this and other oceans at the dawn of the Paleozoic, roughly 541 million years ago. It stayed scarce until the Devonian, roughly 405 million years ago, when, in a geological blinkno more than a few million yearsoxygen likely rocketed to levels close to those in modern oceans and the diversity of life on Earth exploded. Big, predatory fish appeared. Primitive ferns and conifers marched across continents previously ruled by bacteria and algae. Dragonflies took flight. And all of this after nearly four billion years of Earths landscapes being virtually barren.

Scientists have long debated what might have caused the dramatic shift from a low oxygen world to a more oxygenated one that could support a diverse web of animal life. But until now, it has been difficult to pin down the timing of global oxygenation or the long-term, background state of the worlds oceans and atmosphere during the era that witnessed both the so-called Cambrian explosion of life and the first of Earths Big Five mass extinctions, about 445 million years ago at the end of the Ordovician.

In order to make comparisons throughout these huge swaths of our history and understand long-term trends, you need a continuous record, says Sperling, an assistant professor of geological sciences at Stanfords School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences.

With permission from the Na Cho Nyak Dun and Tetlit Gwitchin communities in Yukon, Sperlings team, which included researchers from Dartmouth College and the Yukon Geological Survey, spent three summers at the Peel River site. Arriving by helicopter, the research team hacked through brush with machetes beside Class VI rapids to collect hundreds of fist-sized samples of rock from more than a mile of interbedded layers of shale, chert, and lime mudstone.

Back at Sperlings lab, a small army of summer undergraduates and graduate students worked over five summers to help analyze the fossils and chemicals entombed in the rocks. We spent a lot of time splitting open rocks and looking at graptolite fossils, Sperling says. Because graptolites evolved a vast array of recognizable body shapes relatively quickly, the pencil-like markings left by the fossils of these colony-dwelling sea creatures give geologists a way to date the rocks in which theyre found.

Once the researchers had finished identifying and dating graptolite fossils, they ground the rocks in a mill, then measured iron, carbon, phosphorous, and other elements in the resulting powder to assess the ocean conditions at the time and place where the layers formed. They analyzed 837 new samples from the Peel River site, as well as 106 new samples from other parts of Canada, and 178 samples from around the world for comparison.

The data show low oxygen levels, or anoxia, likely persisted in the worlds oceans for millions of years longer than previously thoughtwell into the Phanerozoic, when land plants and early animals began to diversify. The early animals were still living in a low oxygen world, Sperling says. Contrary to long-held assumptions, the scientists found Paleozoic oceans were also surprisingly free of hydrogen sulfide, a respiratory toxin often found in the anoxic regions of modern oceans.

When oxygen eventually did tick upward in marine environments, it came about just as larger, more complex plant life took off. Theres a ton of debate about how plants impacted the Earth system, Sperling says. Our results are consistent with a hypothesis that as plants evolved and covered the Earth, they increased nutrients to the ocean, driving oxygenation. In this hypothesis, the influx of nutrients to the sea would have given a boost to primary productivity, a measure of how quickly plants and algae take carbon dioxide and sunlight, turn them into new biomassand release oxygen in the process.

The change probably killed off graptolites. Although more oxygen is really good for a lot of organisms, graptolites lost the low oxygen habitat that was their refuge, Sperling says. Any environmental change is going to have winners and losers. Graptolites might have been the losers.

Additional coauthors of the study are from Stanford; St. Francis Xavier University; Yukon Geological Survey; Trinity College, Dublin; Georgia Institute of Technology; Virginia Polytechnic University and State University; Western University Canada; the University of Portsmouth; Dartmouth College; the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagez; Vanderbilt University; and Yale University.

Support for this work came from an Ocean Sciences Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the affiliates of the Stanford Program on Deep-water Depositional Systems, the McGee-Levorsen fund at Stanford, the National Science Foundation, the Agouron Institute, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada).

Source: Stanford University

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CalAmp iOn Honored for Exceptional Innovation for Delivering Actionable Intelligence to Fleet Operators

IRVINE, Calif., July 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- CalAmp (Nasdaq: CAMP), a connected intelligence company helping businesses and people track, monitor and recover vital assets with real-time visibility and insights, today announced its CalAmp iOn fleet and asset management solution has won the 2021 IoT Evolution Product of the Year Award by IoT Evolution World. The award recognizes the best and most innovative products and solutions powering the Internet of Things.

CalAmp iOn is a flexible and data-enriched solution for fleet and asset management that delivers timely and critical insights to commercial, government and construction organizations. The software solution leverages a close integration between vehicle telematics, AI and data analytics to deliver contextual insights to fleet managers about vehicles, drivers and assets to improve fleet efficiency, reduce costs and increase safety.

CalAmp iOn's intuitive new user interface, dashboards and reporting empower users with actionable data to help fleet operators make smarter business decisions. Managers can get real-time alerts on harsh driving events, maximize vehicle uptime with the maintenance manager, and identify engine idling to help reduce fuel costs, among many other mission-critical data insights. This award follows CalAmp iOn's inclusion in Equipment Today's 2020 Contractors' Top 50 New Products.

"We are thrilled and honored to receive this award. It validates our extensive customer research to identify key pain points and diligent work on the user interface to streamline workflows that allow users to easily dive into the business-critical data they need to increase fleet efficiency, cost-savings and safety," said Jeff Clark, senior vice president of product management for CalAmp. "All fleet operations' stakeholders now have access to a user-friendly tracking module that empowers fleet managers to make smarter business decisions in real-time."

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"Congratulations to recipients of the 2021 IoT Product of the Year Awards," said Rich Tehrani, CEO, TMC. "It is one of the most rewarding parts of our jobs at IoT Evolution World to recognize the latest innovative products and solutions in the exploding IoT market. With our partners at Crossfire Media, we all look forward to seeing their future successes!"

About CalAmpCalAmp (Nasdaq: CAMP) is a connected intelligence company that helps people and businesses work smarter. We partner with transportation and logistics, industrial equipment, government and automotive industries to deliver insights that enable businesses to make the right decisions. Our applications, platforms and smart devices allow them to track, monitor and recover their vital assets with real-time visibility that reduces costs, maximizes productivity and improves safety. Headquartered in Irvine, California, CalAmp has been publicly traded since 1983. We have 22 million products installed and over 1.3 million software and services subscribers worldwide. For more information, visit calamp.com, or LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or CalAmp Blog.

CalAmp, LoJack, TRACKER, Here Comes The Bus, Bus Guardian, iOn Vision, CrashBoxx and associated logos are among the trademarks of CalAmp and/or its affiliates in the United States, certain other countries and/or the EU. Spireon acquired the LoJack U.S. Stolen Vehicle Recovery (SVR) business from CalAmp and holds an exclusive license to the LoJack mark in the United States and Canada. Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

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