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Tag: University of Missouri

  • Missing Student Riley Strain’s Last Text Message Revealed as Parents Express Frustration with Search

    Missing Student Riley Strain’s Last Text Message Revealed as Parents Express Frustration with Search

    The missing 22-year-old University of Missouri student sent his last text to a woman, who apparently had a difficult time deciphering the message

    <p>Christopher Whiteid</p> Riley Strain, the missing student from the University of Missouri

    Christopher Whiteid

    Riley Strain, the missing student from the University of Missouri

    • Riley Strain’s last text message was apparently sent to a woman, who was checking in on him the night he disappeared, according to loved ones

    • Body camera footage released Monday showed a Nashville police officer briefly encountering Strain on Gay Street shortly before the 22-year-old went missing

    • Strain’s family is becoming increasingly frustrated with authorities as the investigation nears the two week mark

    The last text message Riley Strain sent before he went missing has been revealed as the search for the University of Missouri student continues.

    The 22-year-old student sent his last text message to a woman he was seeing, who had asked Strain how he was doing the night he disappeared, family friend Chris Dingman told NewsNation on Monday.

    In response, Strain wrote back, “Good lops,” according to Dingman.

    The family friend mentioned that the woman had a difficult time deciphering the message, and even went to the internet to seek clarification.

    In a separate interview, Michelle Whiteid, Strain’s mother, told NewsNation she was “not sure” who the woman is. “He’s got several friends that are female, male. I don’t know the individual he talked to at that time,” she added.

    Related: Missing Student Riley Strain Seen Stumbling on Surveillance Video Night He Went Missing

    <p>Christopher Whiteid</p> Riley Strain, the missing college student who disappeared in Nashville on March 8<p>Christopher Whiteid</p> Riley Strain, the missing college student who disappeared in Nashville on March 8

    Christopher Whiteid

    Riley Strain, the missing college student who disappeared in Nashville on March 8

    It has been a week-and-a-half since Strain’s disappearance on March 8. The Delta Chi fraternity member was last seen on surveillance footage just before 10 p.m. that evening, a short time after Strain was asked to leave country music star Luke Bryan’s bar in Nashville.

    Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

    New body camera footage was released Monday of a Nashville police officer briefly encountering Strain on Gay Street shortly before his disappearance. It is unclear why it took over a week for authorities to release the footage.

    Both Dingman and Strain’s parents told NewsNation they have become frustrated with the investigation, including the delays in releasing certain footage.

    <p>Christopher Whiteid</p> Riley Strain, the Delta Chi fraternity member who disappeared in Nashville on March 8<p>Christopher Whiteid</p> Riley Strain, the Delta Chi fraternity member who disappeared in Nashville on March 8

    Christopher Whiteid

    Riley Strain, the Delta Chi fraternity member who disappeared in Nashville on March 8

    Chris Whiteid, Strain’s stepfather, said they only got to see the footage after requesting a meeting on Friday afternoon.

    “We had not seen anything or really heard from them too much throughout the week the previous week. So we were getting frustrated, we wanted to see what they had,” he added.

    Related: Luke Bryan ‘Praying for Safe Return’ of Missing Man Last Seen at His Bar in Nashville

    The family was particularly upset after Strain’s bank card was found by two women on an embankment near the Cumberland River, an area that was extensively searched by volunteers in the days prior to the discovery.

    “We’ve heard multiple people that have tried to call crime-stoppers and leave tips and been told they don’t know anything about a Riley Strain case,” Chris said. “So, lots of confusion. We’re struggling. We’re 10 days in, you know? It’s disheartening.”

    <p>Christopher Whiteid</p> Riley Strain, the 22-year-old college student who went missing in Nashville on March 8<p>Christopher Whiteid</p> Riley Strain, the 22-year-old college student who went missing in Nashville on March 8

    Christopher Whiteid

    Riley Strain, the 22-year-old college student who went missing in Nashville on March 8

    In addition to police’s search for Strain, the Tennessee Alcoholic Beverage Commission is investigating if the Missouri college student was overserved before he disappeared. In a statement shared with PEOPLE on Friday, the TC Restaurant Group, which oversees Bryan’s establishment, said they are in communication with the Commission and providing “any records needed to aid the investigation.” The statement added that their records show that, while at the bar, “he purchased and was served one alcoholic drink and two waters.”

    His family previously told PEOPLE they’re “not leaving” until they find Strain.

    “We’re looking for you,” Chris said in an interview last week. “We know you’re out there.

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  • Mapping COVID-19 spike protein could improve vaccine design

    Mapping COVID-19 spike protein could improve vaccine design

    Newswise — Although the COVID-19 pandemic was the first time most of humanity learned of the now infamous disease, the family of coronaviruses was first identified in the mid-1960s. In a new study, molecular biologist Steven Van Doren, a scientist in the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, has uncovered unexpected actions of a key player in how the coronavirus infects its target — a discovery that could guide further vaccine development.

    Funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, Van Doren and his team studied the fusion peptide, an important feature of the spike protein that serves to bind the virus with the human cell, an essential step in the course of infection. In this study, they found that the fusion peptide plays a more invasive role in fusing the virus to the cell than previously thought, which is significant in understanding how infection occurs.

    “The fusion peptide is the most preserved part of the whole viral spike,” said Van Doren, a professor of biochemistry. “Throughout the evolution of this virus, the fusion peptide endured despite all the mutations and variants that we kept on hearing about in the news. The fusion peptide never changed much and stayed a constant feature on the virus spike because it’s too critically important for infection for it to be modified.”

     

    The fusion peptide on the SARS-CoV-2 spike (pictured here) plays a key role in virus/cell attachment.

    This research is interesting to compare to a recent study that surveyed asymptomatic patients who were infected by the coronavirus because they had developed a defense mechanism known as broadly neutralizing antibodies. Van Doren’s research on the functionality of the fusion peptide’s ability to puncture a cell membrane could further inform why the fusion peptide may be an important target for vaccine development capable of fighting all types of coronavirus infections.

    Another potential application of this research could be to create a novel strategy to penetrate cells.

    “There may be many strategies for crossing membranes, but it’s conceivable that the fusion peptide work could help further development of more ways to cross cellular membranes, which could be useful to deliver therapeutics through cell membranes,” Van Doren said.

    Further, this research broadens understanding of protein insertion in membranes, which has broader relevance to the scientific community.

    “I love what protein molecules look like and what they can do,” Van Doren said. “I got fascinated by the science when I was still a teenager, and it’s intriguing to me the things they can do, so studying how proteins work has been something that has stuck with me for decades now — I’d say going on almost 40 years.”

    The study “SARS-CoV-2 Fusion Peptide Sculpting of a Membrane with Insertion of Charged and Polar Groups” was published in Structure. Co-investigators include Benjamin S. Scott and Rama K. Koppisetti.

    University of Missouri, Columbia

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  • COVID-19 narratives through public health humanities

    COVID-19 narratives through public health humanities

    Newswise — COLUMBIA, Mo. — A new health humanities essay from the University of Missouri highlights how the narrative of many news stories detailing the challenges of health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic often emphasized individual experiences. However, many of these news stories often left out broader public health, socioeconomic and environmental contexts that are critical to how consumers of news shape their thoughts about the pandemic and how to respond.

    By introducing a storytelling framework that emphasizes the core tenets of public health, the authors hope to help journalists, policymakers and public health humanities experts reframe not just how they view and tell stories about the COVID-19 pandemic, but also how scientific information gets disseminated, absorbed or rejected, and what emotions that data conjures up in consumers of news.

    Lise Saffran, an associate teaching professor in the MU College of Health Sciences and lead researcher on the essay, analyzed how health care workers were characterized during the COVID-19 pandemic in the narrative storytelling of American newspapers and television news stories. She then categorized the stories into three common themes related to clinicians as vulnerable front-line workers, clinician frustration with vaccine and masking resistance, and the clinician as a hero.

    Clinicians as vulnerable front-line workers

    While countless news stories highlighted the risk to individual health care workers assisting infected patients in the hospital, stories about the nearly 7 million essential low-wage workers, such as housekeepers and personal care aides, who are disproportionately women and people of color, were much rarer, even though they were being exposed to COVID-19 at a higher rate than the general public.  

    “It’s not that the stories being told are inaccurate, they are just often incomplete or fail to incorporate the broader contexts that give a more holistic view of the situation,” Saffran said. “For example, there were plenty of stories detailing bosses requesting their employees to return to in-person work instead of remote work, but a more wholistic story could be also mentioning at-risk populations, such as grocery store workers, who had no option to work remotely in the first place. Broadening the story not only can help increase feelings of empathy and compassion, but it could also spark discussions for how policymakers can potentially address the structural and systematic inequities at play.”

    Clinician frustration with vaccine and masking resistance

    Some news stories detailed clinicians who originally stated they had no sympathy toward people who chose not to get vaccinated and then suddenly gained compassion toward an unvaccinated patient once they realized the patient had been potentially misled or misinformed.

    “Instead of only telling the story about these specific individuals, how do we broaden the conversation to think about unvaccinated individuals who have not gotten sick yet. How do we think about vaccine hesitancy in general rather than only thinking about it when someone gets sick,” Saffran said. “Broadening the story helps us reframe the way we think about ideas of blame, responsibility, empathy and compassion. This is where a public health framework comes into play, by thinking about the upstream causes and broader contexts that impact overall populations, rather than just looking at the choices of an individual.”

    Clinicians as heroes

    News stories often highlighted the heroics of clinicians in hospitals without the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) or adequate staffing levels who put their own health at risk to help patients.

    “While these workers certainly are heroes, how do we frame the narrative around possible solutions to the structural and systematic failures, whether it be a lack of PPE or staffing shortages, that are forcing the clinicians to be heroes in the first place,” Saffran said. “We also tend to tell stories through the American lens, but in less developed, less industrialized countries, these gaps in health care, gaps in adequate PPE or gaps in staff are often larger. So how we frame these stories informs how we react. Do we ask clinicians to be heroes, or do we try to change the system to fill the gaps?”

    Implications going forward

    Saffran’s ultimate goal is to help storytellers broaden their narrative through a more holistic public health humanities framework, which has implications for both increasing feelings of empathy and compassion, as well as influencing policy decisions to address societal inequities and help improve the health outcomes of underserved populations.

    “Whether we realize it or not, when we consume news stories, this is how we develop our ideas of what policy should look like, we ask questions like ‘why is this happening?’ and ‘what should we do about it?’,” said Saffran, who teaches public health storytelling and earned a master’s degree in fine arts and creative writing from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. “Humans don’t approach science and data strictly through an analytical lens, we engage with material through our values, identity and fears, which incorporate the humanities as well.”

    “‘You just emotionally break’: understanding COVID-19 narratives through public health humanities,” was recently published in Medical Humanities. Ashti Doobay-Persaud was a coauthor on the study.

     

    University of Missouri, Columbia

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  • A Groundbreaking Addition to the Chemist’s Arsenal of Tools

    A Groundbreaking Addition to the Chemist’s Arsenal of Tools

    Newswise — Microscopic materials made of clay designed by researchers at the University of Missouri could be key to the future of synthetic materials chemistry. By enabling scientists to produce chemical layers tailor-made to deliver specific tasks based on the goals of the individual researcher, these materials called nanoclays can be used in a wide variety of applications, including the medical field or environmental science. 

    A fundamental part of the material is its electrically charged surface, said Gary Baker, co-principal investigator on the project and an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry.      

    “Imagine a koosh ball where the thousands of rubber strands radiating from the ball’s core each sport an electrically charged bead on the end,” Baker said. “It’s analogous to a magnet — positively charged things will stick to negatively charged things. For instance, positively charged nanoclays could attract a group of harmful fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS, or “forever chemicals” which are negatively charged. Or, by making the nanoclay negatively charged, it can stick to things such as heavy metal ions like cadmium, which are positively charged, and help remove them from a contaminated body of water.”

    In addition to the electrical charge, each nanoclay can be customized with different chemical components, like mixing and matching different parts. This makes them usable in the design of diagnostic sensors for biomedical imaging or explosive and ordnance detection. 

    “Essentially, these nanoclays represent chemical building blocks designed with specific functions which are assembled into extremely thin, two-dimensional microscopic sheets — thinner than a strand of human DNA and 100,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper,” Baker said. “We can customize the function and shape of the chemical components presented at the surface of the nanoclay to make whatever we want to build. We’ve just exposed the tip of the iceberg for what these materials can do.”  

    Two-dimensional materials are highly sought after because they can superficially coat the outside of a bulky object in a thin, conformal layer and introduce completely different surface properties than the object underneath.

    “By mixing and matching a few things like different ions or gold nanoparticles, we can quickly design chemistry that’s never existed before, and the more we tailor it, the more it opens a wider range of applications,” Baker said.   

    “Surface programmable polycationic nanoclay supports yielding 100,000 per hour turnover frequencies for a nanocatalyzed canonical nitroarene reduction,” was published in ACS Applied Engineering Materials, a journal of the American Chemical Society. Co-authors are Nathaniel Larm at the United States Naval Academy, Durgesh Wagle at Florida Gulf Coast University and Piyuni Ishtaweera and Angira Roy at MU. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not represent the official views of the U.S. government. 

    University of Missouri, Columbia

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  • 11 ways to improve airlines for customers

    11 ways to improve airlines for customers

    Newswise — COLUMBIA, Mo— The name of the game is customer satisfaction, especially in the airline industry where companies are constantly jockeying for business by promising better service than their competitors. Now a professor at the University of Missouri has used artificial intelligence to sort through thousands of customer reviews and identify where airlines are falling short.

    Sharan Srinivas, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Department of Marketing, used AI to analyze nearly 400,000 unique, publicly available customer reviews of six airline companies throughout the United States. After sorting through the information, he developed algorithms that identified the most common themes discussed in the reviews and then determined the customer’s sentiment (positive or negative) toward each of the identified themes, allowing airlines to potentially gain a better understanding of their customers’ perspective and experience.

    The results showed most of the negative feedback involved lost luggage, uncomfortable seating and flight cancellations; while customers felt most positively about in-flight entertainment, ground and cabin staff service and service in first- and business-class seating.  

    Based on this feedback, Srinivas posited 11 recommendations to improve the customer experience:

    1. Implement more flexible seating arrangements to improve comfort.
    2. Automate the disinfecting process for bathrooms in the plane.
    3. Redesign overhead baggage bins.
    4. Implement a more personalized cabin environment through seat height and temperature adjustments capabilities.
    5. Use analytical models to optimize flight schedules and time buffer between flights.
    6. Use an artificial intelligence-based approach to monitor equipment health.
    7. Introduce a more flexible booking policy (i.e., no cancellation charge, no change fee, upfront information about costs).
    8. Provide ticketing agents with better task clarifications, performance-based feedback and social praise to better improve morale and interactions with customers.
    9. Install more accurate luggage tracking systems by using RFID tags in lieu of regular barcode tags.
    10. Provide more frequent and automated baggage related updates to passengers’ phones.
    11. Use biometrics and blockchain technology to remove the need to present several identification documents at multiple checkpoints. This would eliminate the need for passengers to show a boarding pass, passport and ID.

    Srinivas said airlines can use this information to determine their next steps as a company.

    “The ultimate goal is to help inform these airlines about what the customer is actually thinking,” Srinivas said. “It’s impossible to hear every customer and potential customer’s voice, especially for bigger airlines, but our software and recommendations will significantly assist the airlines in thinking about things from a consumer perspective.”

    Srinivas was inspired to pursue this research by an incident in 2017, in which a United Airlines security representative dragged a passenger off a plane when he refused to leave because the flight was overbooked. United Airlines officials said they chose the passenger at random, yet the amount of outrage that poured in via customer review and on social media was staggering. Consequently, it was challenging for United Airlines to sift through all the customer feedback. Srinivas said this study’s AI software would allow companies like United Airlines to sort through customer feedback and more quickly respond to issues when they arise.

    “Using our proposed approach could allow companies to digest textual information in a much more automated and streamlined manner,” Srinivas said. “Without an automated process, it would be much more challenging and time consuming to look at each individual review and come away with something that airlines can use to improve their business.”

    While stakeholders and employees may have a better understanding of how the business works, Srinivas said that when it comes to the product — air travel in this case — knowing your customers is key.

    “The users of a product are the ones that can give you the best insight on what needs to be improved,” Srinivas said. “They are the target audience. They are the ones using the product with limited bias and there’s a lot of untapped insight in what they are saying.”

    Srinivas has used different versions of artificial intelligence to track customer approval in many different industries, including insurance, adaptive clothing and colleges. Srinivas said it can be used to interpret doctor’s notes and patient reviews as well.

    “Passenger intelligence as a competitive opportunity: unsupervised text analytics for discovering airline-specific insights from online reviews” contains more details on all 11 recommendations and was published in Annals of Operation Research.

    Editor’s note: Sharan Srinivas has a joint appointment in the MU College of Engineering and the Trulaske College of Business.

    University of Missouri, Columbia

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  • Logo Brands Catches a New Strategic Partnership With University of Missouri

    Logo Brands Catches a New Strategic Partnership With University of Missouri

    This contract includes the rights to exclusively produce tailgating equipment, inflatable sports balls, soft-sided coolers, and more.

    Press Release
    –

    Aug 26, 2022


    FRANKLIN, Tenn., August 26, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Logo Brands, Inc. has announced the signing of a five-year strategic licensing agreement with the University of Missouri, beginning ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Jan. 1, 2023, making Missouri the company’s 29th strategic collegiate licensing agreement. 

    While Logo Brands had a previous strategic partnership with this university, the new agreement grants Logo Brands exclusive rights to manufacture, produce, and distribute tents, chairs, stadium seating, soft-sided coolers, tables and inflatable sports balls for the university. Logo Brands will continue to offer additional products for the university, including tote bags, blankets, pillows, drinkware, and inflatables.

    “We are so excited about this extended partnership with Missouri that will grow and impact their retail presence. Our goal is to consistently service our university partners, customers, and retailers at the highest level,” said Kris Talley, SVP of Sales and Marketing at Logo Brands.

    This agreement also allows Logo Brands to further partner with Missouri in custom marketing activations, innovative products, and priority on-campus inventory availability. Officially licensed Missouri lifestyle and outdoors merchandise will be available to fans both in-venue and on various e-commerce channels in the United States. 

    Logo Brands will continue to produce and distribute Missouri Tigers products through Rally House, Cracker Barrel, Walmart, Academy Sports & Outdoors, Sam’s Club, and other major retail outlets in addition to Missouri’s on campus bookstore, The MIZZOU Store, and the Logo Brands e-commerce site.

    After being established in 1839 as the first public university west of the Mississippi River, the University of Missouri became home to the world’s first journalism school and also started the tradition of homecoming. Mizzou is known for its 20 D1 athletics programs, diverse student opportunities, and campus-wide sustainability efforts while being home to the oldest college rivalry west of the Mississippi River, with Kansas.

    Missouri will be the 29th university, 10th from the SEC, to enter into a strategic licensing agreement with Logo Brands.

    About Missouri

    Founded in 1839 in Columbia, the University of Missouri is a public research university that belongs to the people of Missouri. The first public university west of the Mississippi River, Mizzou is a member of the competitive SEC conference, a committed flagship and land-grant institution — and a proud member of the prestigious AAU which features the top research universities in the country. With an enrollment of over 30,000 students, Mizzou is a $2.2 billion global enterprise, with areas of strength including media, agriculture and plant science, human and animal health, sustainable energy and more. A pioneer of experiential learning and the famed Missouri Method, Mizzou is a place where hands-on learning leads to world-class research and unparalleled student success. Visit missouri.edu to learn more.

    About Logo Brands

    Logo Brands is a leading manufacturer of officially licensed products for more than 450 teams and organizations including collegiate, NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, MLS, and NASCAR. The company’s assortment spans the categories of outdoor lifestyle, indoor living and on-the-go with more than 900 different product lines in the company’s history. Logo Brands began as a family business in 2000 by shipping tailgate chairs from a garage just outside of Memphis, Tennessee. Its headquarters are now in Franklin, Tennessee.

    MEDIA CONTACT: Natalie Hill, 615-716-4901, natalie@logobrands.com

    Follow on Instagram: @logobrandsinc

    Source: Logo Brands

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