University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Evidence of parental care as a newly identified reproductive isolating barrier

). In the typical "common" stickleback ecotype, males provide care to their offspring by fanning with their pectoral fins and defending their nest. In contrast, a divergent "white" stickleback ecotype has evolutionarily lost care and disperses embryos into the surrounding environ...

Bandwidth of Linear Classically Damped Systems with Application to Experimental Model Aircraft

Bandwidth is a widely known concept and tool used in structural dynamics to measure an oscillator’s capacity to dissipate energy over time, for example, when used in half-power damping estimation of structural modes. RMS bandwidth is a generalization of bandwidth that overcomes s...

Genetically Predicted Circulating Lipid Traits and Risk of Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma: A Mendelian Randomization Study

Background: Observational studies examining the relationship between serum lipids and primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) have yielded inconsistent findings, limiting causal inference. Mendelian randomization (MR) offers a robust approach to evaluate causality by leveraging geneti...

Minimizing cutting costs in 1D rod cutting

Abstract We study a one‐dimensional rod‐cutting problem arising from an industrial setting where cutting itself carries cost . Each order specifies a length interval, and the task is to assign orders to warehouse rods so that all orders are satisfied while the number of cuts is m...

Protein Thioether Crosslinks Installed by a SPASM-Containing Radical SAM Enzyme from Methanogenic Archaea

Abstract Cysteine is a vital amino acid with wide biological utility, serving functions in catalysis, ligand binding, and maintenance of protein structures. In a subset of natural products, termed ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs), multipl...

Shifting Spaces: The Impact of Instructional Continuity Disruptions and Emergency Remote Learning on Writing Instruction in Secondary Classrooms

The teaching of writing required many shifts during a period of instructional disruption and emergency remote and hybrid instructional approaches as teachers abruptly transformed their instructional practices. In this study, three high school special education and seven English l...

Influence of ice-bonded ballast on rail break gap size: A laboratory and finite element model investigation

Sub-freezing temperatures result in ice formation within the ballast layer of railroad track. Given the proper moisture and fouling conditions, the retained moisture bonds ballast particles together changing the mechanical properties. In temperatures above freezing, longitudinal...

Metascience, Research Software, and the Case for RS Metascience: Extended Preprint

Metascience is the study of science itself, including how scientific research is conducted, evaluated, and improved. Rather than asking questions about the natural or social world, metascience asks questions about scientific research -- its methods, objects of study, participants...

Metascience, Research Software, and the Case for RS Metascience: Extended Preprint

Metascience is the study of science itself, including how scientific research is conducted, evaluated, and improved. Rather than asking questions about the natural or social world, metascience asks questions about scientific research -- its methods, objects of study, participants...

Who Benefits From Compressed Workweeks? The Role of Job Autonomy and Task Interdependence in Shaping Longitudinal Changes

ABSTRACT Compressed workweeks (CWW)—compressing the regular 5‐day workweek into fewer workdays—are gaining global popularity as an alternative work arrangement for jobs that are not suitable for remote work. Yet research on CWW has stagnated over the last decade, leaving us with...

Virtual sensing to enable real-time monitoring of inaccessible locations & unmeasurable parameters

Abstract Real-time monitoring of safety-critical interior states remains an open problem across energy, environmental, and industrial systems where direct instrumentation is infeasible. Existing approaches based on governing equations, discrete state vectors, or fixed sensor loca...

A U-Net Transformer for magnetic resonance elastography

Abstract Purpose Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is a critical non-invasive modality for quantifying tissue stiffness, but its clinical utility is limited by the high computational cost and noise sensitivity of traditional inversion techniques, such as algebraic Helmholtz i...

Grounds for comparison: linking Arabica cup scores to soil fertility and plant nutrition in rust-resistant cultivars and traditional American coffees

Abstract The cup quality of rust-resistant Arabica ( Coffea arabica L.) × Robusta ( C. canephora Pierre ex Froehner) cultivars is thought to be inferior to traditional Arabicas, but few studies have examined the extent to which coffee cup scores are affected by local variation in...

Sealed flexible containment strategy for long-term storage and low-outgassing to fuel in-space manufacturing of frontally polymerizable composite

Despite having better processibility, durability, and thermomechanical performances, thermoset composites raise concerns of limited storage life, resin volatility, and property consistency when considered for in-space manufacturing. The large costs in time, energy, and equipment...

Several multiple sequence alignment-perturbing methods enhance AlphaFold3 sampling of alternative protein states

Abstract Protein function often involves multiple conformational states. Several multiple sequence alignment-perturbing strategies, including stochastic subsampling, clustering, and column masking, have been shown to enhance AlphaFold2 (AF2) sampling of alternative protein states...

Dry Eye Disease Therapies at a Crossroads—A Call for Reform

This Viewpoint discusses current approval pathways for dry eye disease medications and the need to advance the standard of evidence for these medications.

Regulation of Membrane Association and Downstream Effector Interaction of K-Ras by Its Hypervariable Region

The small GTPase Ras, a central switch in signal transduction of cell growth, is a crucial element in the development of many forms of cancer. Recent studies have shown that membrane association of Ras is essential to its downstream effector recruitment and signal transduction. H...

Axial dispersion in dilute solutions of linear and branched polymers in parallel-plate and expansion–contraction microchannels

The axial dispersion of polymers in microchannels depends on the interplay between microchannel geometry, polymer architecture, and hydrodynamics. Here, we investigate the axial dispersion of linear, comb, and star polymers in parallel-plate and sinusoidal expansion-contraction m...

UAV-based YOLOv11 system for automated detection and counting of male hemp plants bearing staminate flowers

Abstract The flowering stage is a crucial phenological phase in hemp production, determining the maturity group of grain and fiber varieties, yield potential, and optimal harvest timing. Enabling early-stage detection of flowering male plants and distinguishing them from non-flow...

Raven: From Scientific Data to Trustworthy Autonomous Discovery

Transformational AI for science will depend less on isolated model capability than on the quality of the scientific data interfaces surrounding each model. Raven is a state-aware agentic architecture for turning heterogeneous data, simulations, literature, and experiments into au...