Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

E-85 Vs. Regular Gasoline: Effects On Engine Performance, Fuel Efficiency, And Exhaust Emissions, Jordan W. Steinhaus, Donald M. Johnson, George W. Wardlow

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

This study compared the performance, fuel efficiency, and exhaust emissions of a 2.61 kW engine fueled with regular unleaded gasoline (87 octane) and an 85% ethanol blend (E85) under two load conditions. Four 1-h tests were conducted with each fuel at both governor’s maximum (3400 rpm) and peak torque (2800 rpm) conditions for a total of 16 tests. At governor’s maximum engine speed, there were no significant differences (p>0.05) between fuels for engine torque, power, specific carbon dioxide (sCO2 ), specific carbon monoxide (sCO), specific hydrocarbons (sHC), or specific oxides of nitrogen (sNOX) emissions. However, there was a significant …

Mathematical Aids Epidemic Model: Preferential Anti-Retroviral Therapy Distribution In Resource Constrained Countries, Nadia Abuelezam

HMC Senior Theses

HIV/AIDS is one of the largest health problems the world is currently facing. Even with anti-retroviral therapies (ART), many resource-constrained countries are unable to meet the treatment needs of their infected populations. ART-distribution methods need to be created that prevent the largest number of future HIV infections. We have developed a compartment model that tracks the spread of HIV in multiple two-sex populations over time in the presence of limited treatment. The model has been fit to represent the HIV epidemic in rural and urban areas in Uganda. With the model we examine the spread of HIV among urban and …

The Integrated Biomedical Science Graduate Program At The University Of South Carolina, Richard Hunt

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Temperature Changes Resulting From A Gaalas Laser In The Decontamination Of A Failing Dental Implant, Adam B. Oppenheimer

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Where Do Mouse Embryos Thrive Best? Comparison Of Mammalian Embryo Development Under Varying Laboratory Environments, Yvonne K. Kao, H. Lee Higdon Iii, Ph.D, Jennifer E. Graves-Herring , M.S., William R. Boone Ph.D

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Predicting The Drug Release Kinetics Of Matrix Tablets, Boris Baeumer, Lipika Chatterjee, Peter Hinow, Thomas Rades, Ami E. Radunskaya, Ian Tucker

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this paper we develop two mathematical models to predict the release kinetics of a water soluble drug from a polymer/excipient matrix tablet. The first of our models consists of a random walk on a weighted graph, where the vertices of the graph represent particles of a drug, excipient and polymer, respectively. The graph itself is the contact graph of a multidisperse random sphere packing. The second model describes the dissolution and the subsequent diffusion of the active drug out of a porous matrix using a system of a partial differential equations. The predictions of both models show good qualitative …

When To Spray: A Time-Scale Calculus Approach To Controlling The Impact Of West Nile Virus, Diana Thomas, Marion Weedermann, Lora Billings, Joan Hoffacker, Robert Washington-Allen

Department of Mathematics Facuty Scholarship and Creative Works

West Nile Virus (WNV) made its initial appearance in the New York City (NYC) metropolitan area in 1999 and was implicated in cases of human encephalitis and the extensive mortality in crows (Corvus sp.) and other avian species. Mosquitoes were found to be the primary vectors and NYC’s current policy on control strategies involved an eradication program that depends on the synchronicity of the summer mosquito population’s increases with the occurrence of cases in humans. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this is the most effective control strategy because past mathematical models assumed discrete behavior that …

Parameter Optimization For Image Denoising Based On Block Matching And 3d Collaborative Filtering, Ramu Pedada, Emin Kugu, Jiang Li, Zhanfeng Yue, Yuzhong Shen, Josien P.W. Pluim (Ed.), Benoit M. Dawant (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Clinical MRI images are generally corrupted by random noise during acquisition with blurred subtle structure features. Many denoising methods have been proposed to remove noise from corrupted images at the expense of distorted structure features. Therefore, there is always compromise between removing noise and preserving structure information for denoising methods. For a specific denoising method, it is crucial to tune it so that the best tradeoff can be obtained. In this paper, we define several cost functions to assess the quality of noise removal and that of structure information preserved in the denoised image. Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2) …

Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry For The Determination Of Methylprednisolone In Rat Plasma And Liver After Intravenous Administration Of Its Liver-Targeted Dextran Prodrug, Shuang-Qing Zhang, Helen R. Thorsheim, Suman Penugonda, Venkateswaran C. Pillai, Quentin R. Smith, Reza Mehvar

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

A specific and sensitive liquid chromatography (LC)-tandem mass spectrometric method for quantitative determination of methylprednisolone (MP) in rat plasma and liver was developed and validated using triamcinolone acetonide as an internal standard. Liquid-liquid extraction using tert-butyl methyl ether was used to extract the drug and the internal standard from plasma and liver. The separation of MP was performed on a C(18) column with a mobile phase of acetonitrile:0.5% formic acid aqueous solution (85:15, v/v) over 4 min. The assay was based on the selected reaction monitoring transitions at m/z 375 -> 161 for MP in plasma, 375 -> 357 for …

Dna Sequence Analysis Of Freshwater Eustigmatophyceae, A Potential Source Of Essential Fatty Acids, Sara E. Prior, M. W. Fawley, K. P. Fawley

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Freshwater Eustigmatophyceae are a group of microalgae that are considered rare and of low diversity, with only a few genera and species in a single order. Some Eustigmatophyceae produce fatty acids that are important nutrients for aquaculture, as well as for human food consumption. In addition, some Eustigmatophyceae produce hydrocarbons that may be useful in biofuel production. In our studies of the diversity of coccoid algae from Itasca State Park, Minnesota, we discovered several isolates that we tentatively identified as Eustigmatophyceae. Preliminary molecular characterization indicated that these isolates were highly diverse and probably represented species new to science. In this …

Measurement Of Transient Smoke Emissions From Diesel And Biodiesel Fuel Blends In An Agricultural Tractor, Kristin M. Pennington, Sonia R. Munoz, Donald M. Johnson, George Wardlow

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Transient smoke emissions pose potential hazards to human health and the environment. With the increased popularity of biodiesel, there is a need to determine if these fuels produce different levels of particulate matter in exhaust emissions. This study examined the transient smoke emissions of three fuels: No. 2 petroleum diesel fuel (D2, ASTM D 975), a blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel (B20, ASTM 6751), and a 100% pure biodiesel derived from animal fats (B100, ASTM D 6751). Measurements of smoke emissions were taken using the SAE J1677 snap acceleration test procedure on a John Deere 3203 compact …

An Evaluation Of Lead Hazards In Pre-1978 Residental Housing Within Clark County, Nevada, Usa, Erika Raquel Torres

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lead poisoning remains a public health concern due to leads persistence in the environment from anthropogenic uses. Initial efforts to address the impacts of lead on vulnerable communities have included secondary prevention measures which typically occur after a child has been poisoned. However, in recent years there has been a pragmatic shift toward primary prevention efforts.

This study evaluates lead hazards identified through primary prevention activities in residential housing within Clark County, Nevada, USA. It is the first study to systematically address and evaluate pre-1978 housing in Southern Nevada. Risk assessments were conducted in 81 dwellings built prior to 1979 …

Alamethicin In Lipid Bilayers: Combined Use Of X-Ray Scattering And Md Simulations, Jianjun Pan, D. Peter Tieleman, John F. Nagle, Norbert Kučerka, Prof. Stephanie Tristram-Nagle Ph.D.

Prof. Stephanie Tristram-Nagle Ph.D.

We study fully hydrated bilayers of two di-monounsaturated phospholipids diC18:1PC (DOPC) and diC22:1PC with varying amounts of alamethicin (Alm). We combine the use of X-ray diffuse scattering and molecular dynamics simulations to determine the orientation of alamethicin in model lipids. Comparison of the experimental and simulated form factors shows that Alm helices are inserted transmembrane at high humidity and high concentrations, in agreement with earlier results. The X-ray scattering data and the MD simulations agree that membrane thickness changes very little up to 1/10 Alm/ DOPC. In contrast, the X-ray data indicate that the thicker diC22:1PC membrane thins with added …

Evaluation Of Heterogeneity In Pharmacotherapy Trials For Drug Dependence: A Bayesian Approach, Charles E. Green, F. G. Moeller, J. M. Schmitz, Joseph F. Lucke, S. D. Lane, A. C. Swann, Robert E. Lasky, Joseph P. Carbonari

Joseph Lucke

Difficulty identifying effective pharmacotherapies for cocaine dependence has led to suggestions that subgroup differences may account for some of the heterogeneity in treatment response. Well-attested methodologicalifficulties associated with these analyses recommend the use of Bayesian statistical reasoning for evaluation of salient interaction effects.

Methods: A secondary data analysis of a previously published, double-blind, randomized controlled trial examines the interaction of decision-making, as measured by the Iowa Gambling Task, and citalopram in increasing longest sustained abstinence from cocaine use.

Results: Bayesian analysis indicated that there was a 99% chance that improved decision-making enhances response to citalopram. Given the strong positive nature …

When To Spray: A Time-Scale Calculus Approach To Controlling The Impact Of West Nile Virus, Diana Thomas, Marion Weedermann, Lora Billings, Joan Hoffacker, Robert A. Washington-Allen

Lora Billings

Should Biomarker Estimates Of Hiv Incidence Be Adjusted?, Ron Brookmeyer

Ron Brookmeyer

Objective: To evaluate adjustment procedures that have been proposed to correct HIV incidence rates derived from cross-sectional surveys of biomarkers (BED). These procedures were motivated by some reports that the biomarker BED approach overestimates incidence when compared to cohort studies.

Design: Considered the Hargrove and McDougal adjustment procedures that adjust biomarker estimates of HIV incidence rates for misclassification with respect to the timing of infections.

Methods: Performed mathematical and statistical analysis of the adjustment formulas. Evaluated sources of error in cohort studies of incidence that could also explain discrepancies between cohort and biomarker estimates.

Results: The McDougal adjustment has no …

The Effects Of Herd Immunity On The Power Of Vaccine Trials, Blake Charvat, Ron Brookmeyer, Jay Herson

Ron Brookmeyer

We evaluate the effects of herd immunity on the power of vaccine trials. We consider large-scale trials in which persons are individually randomized to either placebo or vaccine. We evaluate the adequacy of naive power calculations that ignore the effects of herd immunity such as those based on the comparison of two independent binomials. We developed a simulation design to evaluate the quantitative effects of herd immunity on power. The simulation design accounted for nonhomogeneous mixing. We found that naive power calculations that ignore the effects of herd immunity can seriously overestimate power. In fact, we found that as sample …

Genome-Wide Scan Reveals Association Of Psoriasis With Il-23 And Nf-B Pathways, Rajan P. Nair, Kristina C. Duffin, Cynthia Helms, Jun Ding, Philip E. Stuart, David Goldgar, Johann E. Gudjonsson, Yun Li, Trilokraj Tejasvi, Bing-Jiag Feng, Andreas Ruether, Stefan Schreiber, Michael Weichenthal, Dafna Gladman, Proton Rahman, Steven J. Schrodi, Sampath Prahalad, Stephen L. Guthery, Judith Fischer, Wilson Liao, Pui-Yan Kwok, Alan Menter, G Mark Lathrop, Carol A. Wise, Ann B. Begovich, John J. Voorhees, James T. Elder, Gerald G. Krueger, Anne M. Bowcock, Goncalo R. Abecasis

Steven J Schrodi

Psoriasis is a common immune-mediated disorder that affects the skin, nails and joints. To identify psoriasis susceptibility loci, we genotyped 438,670 SNPs in 1,409 psoriasis cases and 1,436 controls of European ancestry. We followed up 21 promising SNPs in 5,048 psoriasis cases and 5,041 controls. Our results provide strong support for the association of at least seven genetic loci and psoriasis (each with combined P < 5 10-8). Loci with confirmed association include HLA-C, three genes involved in IL-23 signaling (IL23A, IL23R, IL12B), two genes that act downstream of TNF- and regulate NF-B signaling (TNIP1, TNFAIP3) and two genes involved in the modulation of Th2 immune responses (IL4, IL13). Although the proteins encoded in these loci are known to interact biologically, we found no evidence for epistasis between associated SNPs. Our results expand the catalog of genetic loci implicated in psoriasis susceptibility and suggest priority targets for study in other auto-immune disorders.

A Fine Mapping Theorem To Refine Results From Association Genetics Studies, Steven J. Schrodi

Steven J Schrodi

No abstract provided.

Bayesian Statistics, Joseph F. Lucke

Joseph Lucke

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Unknown Genetic Modifications Using High Throughput Sequencing And Computational Subtraction, Torstein Tengs

Dr. Torstein Tengs

Background

When generating a genetically modified organism (GMO), the primary goal is to give a target organism one or several novel traits by using biotechnology techniques. A GMO will differ from its parental strain in that its pool of transcripts will be altered. Currently, there are no methods that are reliably able to determine if an organism has been genetically altered if the nature of the modification is unknown.

Results

We show that the concept of computational subtraction can be used to identify transgenic cDNA sequences from genetically modified plants. Our datasets include 454-type sequences from a transgenic line of …

Text Mining In Radiology Reports, Tianxia Gong, Chew Lim Tan, Tze-Yun Leong, Cheng Kiang Lee, Boon Chuan Pang, C. C. Tchoyoson Lim, Qi Tian, Suisheng Tang, Zhuo Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Medical text mining has gained increasing interest in recent years. Radiology reports contain rich information describing radiologist's observations on the patient's medical conditions in the associated medical images. However as most reports are in free text format, the valuable information contained in those reports cannot be easily accessed and used, unless proper text mining has been applied. In this paper we propose a text mining system to extract and use the information in radiology reports. The system consists of three main modules: a medical finding extractor a report and image retriever and a text-assisted image feature extractor In evaluation, the …

A Small Sample Correction For Estimating Attributable Risk In Case-Control Studies, Daniel B. Rubin

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

The attributable risk, often called the population attributable risk, is in many epidemiological contexts a more relevant measure of exposure-disease association than the excess risk, relative risk, or odds ratio. When estimating attributable risk with case-control data and a rare disease, we present a simple correction to the standard approach making it essentially unbiased, and also less noisy. As with analogous corrections given in Jewell (1986) for other measures of association, the adjustment often won't make a substantial difference unless the sample size is very small or point estimates are desired within fine strata, but we discuss the possible utility …

Spatial Misalignment In Time Series Studies Of Air Pollution And Health Data, Roger D. Peng, Michelle L. Bell

Johns Hopkins University, Dept. of Biostatistics Working Papers

Time series studies of environmental exposures often involve comparing daily changes in a toxicant measured at a point in space with daily changes in an aggregate measure of health. Spatial misalignment of the exposure and response variables can bias the estimation of health risk and the magnitude of this bias depends on the spatial variation of the exposure of interest. In air pollution epidemiology, there is an increasing focus on estimating the health effects of the chemical components of particulate matter. One issue that is raised by this new focus is the spatial misalignment error introduced by the lack of …

Threat Perception As A Determinant Of Pro-Environmental Behaviors: Public Involvement In Air Pollution Abatement In Cache Valley, Utah, Joshua D. Marquit

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Threat perception related to environmental issues such as air pollution may be a determinant of pro-environmental behaviors. Among the potential threats of air pollution, include the perceived impacts on the psychological, social, and economic wellbeing of a community. Because of rapid increases in population growth, urbanization, and the mountainous landscapes, the American West is extremely susceptible to the adverse impacts of air pollution.

A secondary data analysis was conducted using data from the Air Quality Perception Survey conducted in Cache County, Utah. The survey focused on the public perception of air pollution in Cache County and perceived impact on personal …

Towards Self-Organizing, Smart Business Networks: Let’S Create ‘Life’ From Inert Information, David Bray, Benn Konsynski

David A. Bray

We review three different theories that can inform how researchers can determine the performance of smart business networks, to include: (1) the Theory of Evolution, (2) the Knowledge-Based Theory of the Firm, and (3) research insights into computers and cognition. We suggest that each of these theories demonstrate that to be generally perceived as smart, an organism needs to be self-organizing, communicative, and tool-making. Consequentially, to determine the performance of a smart business network, we suggest that researchers need to determine the degree to which it is self-organizing, communicative, and tool-making. We then relate these findings to the Internet and …

Fluoranthene, But Not Benzo[A]Pyrene, Interacts With Hypoxia Resulting In Pericardial Effusion And Lordosis In Developing Zebrafish, Cole W. Matson, Alicia R. Timme-Laragy, Richard T. Di Giulio

Alicia R. Timme-Laragy

Previous research has documented several PAHs that interact synergistically, causing severe teratogenicity in developing fish embryos. The coexposure of CYP1A inhibitors (e.g. FL or ANF) with AHR agonists (e.g. BaP or BNF) results in a synergistic increase in toxicity. As with chemical CYP1A inhibitors, it has also been shown that CYP1A morpholinos exacerbate BNF-induced embryotoxicity. We hypothesized that a hypoxia-induced reduction in CYP1A activity in BNF or BaP-exposed zebrafish embryos would similarly enhance pericardial effusion and other developmental abnormalities. BaP, BNF, ANF, and FL exposures, both individually and as BaP+FL or BNF+ANF combinations, were performed under hypoxia and normoxia. CYP1A …

Finding Recurrent Regions Of Copy Number Variation: A Review, Oscar M. Rueda, Ramon Diaz-Uriarte

Ramon Diaz-Uriarte

Copy number alterations (CNA) in genomic DNA are linked to a variety of human diseases. Although many methods have been developed to analyze data from a single subject, disease-critical genes are more likely to be found in regions that are common or recurrent among diseased subjects. Unfortunately, finding recurrent CNA regions remains a challenge. We review existing methods for the identification of recurrent CNA regions. Methods differ in their working definition of ``recurrent region'', the type of input data, the statistical and computational methods used to identify recurrence, and the biological considerations they incorporate (which play a role in the …

Regressing Scalar Outcomes On Image Predictors Via Functional Principal Component Regression, Philip T. Reiss

Philip T. Reiss

No abstract provided.

Inaugural Conference Of The Mosakowski Institute For Public Enterprise- Program, Jim Gomes

Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise

Program for University Research and the American Agenda: Discovering Knowledge, Enabling Leadership. The Inaugural Conference of the Mosakowski Institute for Public Enterprise.