Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Weight-Modification Trials In Older Adults: What Should The Outcome Measure Be?, Paula Diehr

Paula Diehr

BACKGROUND: Overweight older adults are often counseled to lose weight, even though there is little evidence of excess mortality in that age group. Overweight and underweight may be more associated with health status than with mortality, but few clinical trials of any kind have been based on maximizing years of healthy life (YHL), as opposed to years of life (YOL). OBJECTIVE: This paper examines the relationship of body mass index (BMI) to both YHL and YOL. Results were used to determine whether clinical trials of weight-modification based on improving YHL would be more powerful than studies based on survival. DESIGN: …

Estimating Causal Parameters In Marginal Structural Models With Unmeasured Confounders Using Instrumental Variables, Tanya A. Henneman, Mark Johannes Van Der Laan, Alan E. Hubbard

U.C. Berkeley Division of Biostatistics Working Paper Series

For statisticians analyzing medical data, a significant problem in determining the causal effect of a treatment on a particular outcome of interest, is how to control for unmeasured confounders. Techniques using instrumental variables (IV) have been developed to estimate causal parameters in the presence of unmeasured confounders. In this paper we apply IV methods to both linear and non-linear marginal structural models. We study a specific class of generalized estimating equations that is appropriate to these data, and compare the performance of the resulting estimator to the standard IV method, a two-stage least squares procedure. Our results are applied to …

Cognitive Rehab Solutions: A Computer-Assisted Cognitive Training Program, Avani Rajnikant Patel

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project is to offer a functionally comprehensive application, Cognitive Rehab Solutions (CRS), that is designed for neuropsychologists to deliver restorative cognitive training in areas of attention and memory of persons with brain impairment.

Peer Nutrition Education: A Model For Nutrition Education Among Spanish-Language Participants Of The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program For Women, Infants And Children (Wic), Maximino Alfredo Mejía

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Despite the steady improvement in the health status of Americans, Hispanics are a minority in the United States with greater prevalence of several infectious and chronic diseases and less health knowledge than the average citizen. Nearly half of the Hispanics living in this country die of preventable nutrition-related conditions, with heart disease and cancer being the leading causes. Since this minority has limited access to health care and preventive services, there is a need for an inexpensive, viable model of health education for this underserved segment of the population in order to lower the excess of preventable diseases. We trained …

Medtextus: An Ontology-Enhanced Medical Portal, Gondy Leroy, Hsinchun Chen

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

In this paper we describe MedTextus, an online medical search portal with dynamic search and browse tools. To search for information, MedTextus lets users request synonyms and related terms specifically tailored to their query. A mapping algorithm dynamically builds the query context based on the UMLS ontology and then selects thesaurus terms that fit this context. Users can add these terms to their query and meta-search five medical databases. To facilitate browsing, the search results can be reviewed as a list of documents per database, as a set of folders into which all the documents are automatically categorized based on …

Filling Preposition-Based Templates To Capture Information From Medical Abstracts, Gondy Leroy, Hsinchun Chen

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Due to the recent explosion of information in the biomedical field, it is hard for a single researcher to review the complex network involving genes, proteins, and interactions. We are currently building GeneScene, a toolkit that will assist researchers in reviewing existing literature, and report on the first phase in our development effort: extracting the relevant information from medical abstracts. We are developing a medical parser that extracts information, fills basic prepositional-based templates, and combines the templates to capture the underlying sentence logic. We tested our parser on 50 unseen abstracts and found that it extracted 246 templates with a …

Synthesis And Chemistry Of Naphthalene Annulated Trienyl Iron Complexes: Potential Anticancer Dna Alkylation Reagents, Traci Means

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Iron complex chemistry that opens a new door to the medicinal and pharmaceutical worlds is the aim of this research. Specifically, ortho-quinone methide moieties are intermediates in several antitumor drugs and have been identified as bioreductive alkylators of DNA. In our research, a class of iron compounds has been targeted to resemble these quinone methides. It is hoped that these new compounds could be modified to provide a window of opportunity toward the discovery of a selective mode of drug delivery. We have focused our efforts on generating a reactive transition metal complexed 5-membered ring analog of o-quinone methide based …

The Role Of Diet And Physical Activity For Ovarian Cancer Results From The Adventist Health Study, Fatemeh Kiani

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

A few aspects of the epidemiology of ovarian cancer are well understood, such as the inverse relationship with parity and oral contraceptive (OC) use. The role of other factors such as the potential influence of diet or physical activity is far from being established. A few studies, however, have been able to identify dietary risk factors for ovarian cancer. In this dissertation, I have conducted two studies that investigate the relationship between dietary factors and physical activity and the three endpoints: 1) nonfatal ovarian cancer (1976-1982; time to diagnosis), 2) fatal ovarian cancer (1976-1988; time to death), and 3) total …

Development Of Dose Conversion Coefficients For Radionuclides Produced In Spallation Neutron Sources, Phillip W. Patton, Mark Rudin

Transmutation Sciences Physics (TRP)

For the first year of this effort, the UNLV research team set out four objectives. First, the university and laboratory consortium had to be established. This consortium was tasked with helping to determine the methodology for determining the dose coefficients, and to ensure that the resulting DCs will be of use to the national programs developing accelerator-driven nuclear systems (such as the SNS or an accelerator-driven transmutation system) and to the health physics community as a whole. The second goal of this program was to determine a methodology and then prioritize the radionuclides so that the research effort would address …

Development Of Dose Coefficients For Radionulides Produced In Spallation Neutron Sources: Annual Report, Phillip W. Patton, Mark Rudin

Transmutation Sciences Physics (TRP)

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Transmutation Research Program has been tasked to support U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) efforts to assess the health risks associated with the operation of each of their accelerator-driven nuclear facilities for both NEPA and PSAR development. Quantifying the radiological risks to workers will have to be addressed during the design and siting of each of these facilities. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Federal Guidance Report No. 11 “Limiting Values of Intake and Air Concentration and Dose Conversion Factors for Inhalation, Submersion, and Ingestion”, developed two derived guides, Annual Limit on Intake (ALI) and …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 44 Number 3, Winter 2002, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

10 - GLOBALIZATION EMPOWERS GOOD AND EVIL By Rob Elder. Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prizewinning author and international affairs columnist for The New York Times, discusses this complex issue during a visit to campus.

14 - ON THE COLLISION OF WORLDS By Fred White. Corny science fiction movies inspire an SCU English professor to ponder deeply cosmic questions.

18 - THE CAMPAIGN FOR SANTA CLARA By Elizabeth Kelley Gillogly '93. SCU launches the largest campaign in its history, with plans for endowed scholarships, a new library, a new building for the Leavey School of Business, and much more.

Actiononaias Ligamentina As A Biomonitor In The Green River: An Unique Approach For Analysis Of Environmental Impacts, Robert Kirkland

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Biomonitoring has become an important component in bioassessment programs. It is used to maintain high water quality standards, and determine contaminant levels and biological affects in areas that have been heavily disturbed. The objectives of this research were 1) to improve and apply certain modern biomonitoring techniques and 2) to locate possible contaminant sources affecting the flora and fauna of the Green River and of Mammoth Cave. Actinonaias ligamentina (Lamarck, 1819), a freshwater mussel, was used for interpretation of these impacts as well as refinement of biomonitoring techniques. The mussels were collected in the Lawler Bend region of the Green …

Anatomy And Three-Dimensional Reconstructions Of The Brain Of A Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus) From Magnetic Resonance Images, Lori Marino, Keith D. Sudheimer, Timothy L. Murphy, Kristina K. Davis, D. Ann Pabst, William A. Mclellan, James K. Rilling, John I. Johnson

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

Cetacean (dolphin, whale, and porpoise) brains are among the least studied mammalian brains because of the formidability of collecting and histologically preparing such relatively rare and large specimens. Magnetic resonance imaging offers a means of observing the internal structure of the brain when traditional histological procedures are not practical. Furthermore, internal structures can be analyzed in their precise anatomic positions, which is difficult to accomplish after the spatial distortions often accompanying histological processing. In this study, images of the brain of an adult bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus, were scanned in the coronal plane at 148 antero-posterior levels. From these scans …

Meeting Medical Terminology Needs: The Ontology-Enhanced Medical Concept Mapper, Gondy Leroy, Hsinchun Chen

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

This paper describes the development and testing of the Medical Concept Mapper, a tool designed to facilitate access to online medical information sources by providing users with appropriate medical search terms for their personal queries. Our system is valuable for patients whose knowledge of medical vocabularies is inadequate to find the desired information, and for medical experts who search for information outside their field of expertise. The Medical Concept Mapper maps synonyms and semantically related concepts to a user's query. The system is unique because it integrates our natural language processing tool, i.e., the Arizona (AZ) Noun Phraser, with human-created …

Inside Unlv, Diane Russell, Jennifer Vaughan, Richard Jensen, Mae Worthey-Flennoy

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Aging And The Public Health Impact Of Dementia, Ron Brookmeyer, Claudia Kawas

Ron Brookmeyer

No abstract provided.

Modeling Control Of Hiv Infection Through Structured Treatment Interruptions With Recommendations For Experimental Protocol, Shannon Kubiak, Heather Lehr, Rachel Levy, Todd Moeller, Albert Parker, Edward Swim

All HMC Faculty Publications and Research

Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (HAART) of HIV infection has significantly reduced morbidity and mortality in developed countries. However, since these treatments can cause side effects and require strict adherence to treatment protocol, questions about whether or not treatment can be interrupted or discontinued with control of infection maintained by the host immune system remain to be answered. We present sensitivity analysis of a compartmental model for HIV infection that allows for treatment interruptions, including the sensitivity of the compartments themselves to our parameters as well as the sensitivity of the cost function used in parameter estimation. Recommendations are made about …

2001 Scholars And Artists Bibliography, Michael Schwartz Library, Cleveland State University, Friends Of The Michael Schwartz Library

Scholars and Artists Bibliographies

This bibliography was created for the annual Friends of the Michael Schwartz Library Scholars and Artists Reception, recognizing scholarly and creative achievements of Cleveland State University faculty, staff and emeriti

Inside Unlv, Andy Grossman, Mark Wallington, Dave Phillips

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 43 Number 2, Fall 2001, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

4 - A GRAND WEEKEND By Adam Breen. At the Grand Anniversary Weekend in June, thousands of alumni, family, and friends gathered to celebrate 150 years of Santa Clara University.

12 - MUSICAL CHAIRS By Jacqueline Tasch. Peter Minowitz loves an audience, whether it is the students in his political science classes or the jazz lovers in local clubs.

14 - ASK THE EXPERTS By Elizabeth Kelley Gillogly '93. Santa Clara University ambassadors help recruit future Broncos.

16 - LESSONS FROM EL SALVADOR By Douglas Sweet. Faculty and students reflect on a spring break "immersion" trip, which for some was …

The Standardized Fish Bioassay Procedure For Detecting And Culturing Actively Toxic Pfiesteria, Used By Two Reference Laboratories For Atlantic And Gulf Coast States, Joann M. Burkholder, Harold G. Marshall, David W. Seaborn, Nora J. Deamer-Melia

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

In the absence of purified standards of toxins from Pfiesteria species, appropriately conducted fish bioassays are the "gold standard" that must be used to detect toxic strains of Pfiesteria slop. from natural estuarine water or sediment samples and to culture actively toxic Pfiesteria. In this article, we describe the standardized steps of our fish bioassay as an abbreviated term for a procedure that includes two sets of trials with fish, following the Henle-Koch postulates modified for toxic rather than infectious agents. This procedure was developed in 1991, and has been refined over more than 12 years of experience in …

The Distribution Of Airborne Coal Dust In Soil Profiles Of Norfolk, Va And Its Implication For Arsenic Loading To These Soils, William Joseph Bounds

OES Theses and Dissertations

Norfolk, Virginia is home to the Northern Hemisphere's largest coal terminal the Lamberts Point Docks. The coal loading process of this terminal creates large amounts of coal dust, which subsequently is distributed throughout the local region by atmospheric transport and deposition. While the coal dust itself poses only minor health hazards, certain trace elements within the coal, particularly arsenic, may pose environmental as well as significant health hazards. Within coal, arsenic occurs primarily in the mineral pyrite. As pyrite in the coal dust is subsequently oxidized via exposure to the atmosphere and/or meteoric water, arsenic may be released to the …

Parametric And Nonparametric Methods For Understanding The Relationship Between Carcinogen-Induced Dna Adduct Levels In Distal And Proximal Regions Of The Colon., Jeffrey S. Morris, Naisyin Wang, Joanne R. Lupton, Robert S. Chapkin, Nancy D. Turner, Mee-Young Hong, Raymond J. Carroll

Jeffrey S. Morris

An important problem in studying the etiology of colon cancer is understanding the relationship between DNA adduct levels (broadly, DNA damage) in cells within colonic crypts in distal and proximal parts of the colon, following treatment with a carcinogen and different types of diet. In particular, it is important to understand whether rats who have elevated adduct levels in particular positions in distal region crypts also have elevated levels in the same positions of the crypts in proximal regions, and whether this relationship depends on diet. We cast this problem as estimating the correlation function of two responses as a …

Public Reaction To Mandated Language For U.S. Drinking Water Quality Reports, Branden B. Johnson

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

The author discusses results of a survey evaluating the mandated language for United States drinking water quality reports.

Nonparametric Techniques To Extract Fuzzy Rules For Breast Cancer Diagnosis Problem, Manish Sarkar, Tze-Yun Leong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper addresses breast cancer diagnosis problem as a pattern classification problem. Specifically, the problem is studied using Wisconsin-Madison breast cancer data set. Fuzzy rules are generated from the input-output relationship so that the diagnosis becomes easier and transparent for both patients and physicians. For each class, at least one training pattern is chosen as the prototype, provided (a) the maximum membership of the training pattern is in the given class, and (b) among all the training patterns, the neighborhood of this training pattern has the least fuzzy-rough uncertainty in the given class. Using the fuzzy-rough uncertainty, a cluster is …

Role Of Wireless Technology In Meeting Global Health Care Needs., Nat Quansah

Nat Quansah

No abstract provided.

Transforming Self-Rated Health And The Sf-36 Scales To Include Death And Improve Interpretability, Paula Diehr

Paula Diehr

BACKGROUND: Most measures of health-related quality of life are undefined for people who die. Longitudinal analyses are often limited to a healthier cohort (survivors) that cannot be identified prospectively, and that may have had little change in health. OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate methods to transform a single self-rated health item (excellent to poor; EVGGFP) and the physical component score of the SF-36 (PCS) to new variables that include a defensible value for death. METHODS: Using longitudinal data from two large studies of older adults, health variables were transformed to the probability of being healthy in the future, conditional on …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 43 Number 1, Summer 2001, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

2 - 150TH ANNIVERSARY MEMORIES In honor of SCU's sesquicentennial year, alumni reflect on their Bronco experiences.

4 - "SHEN FU" LEARNED THE GRACE OF ANGER By Tennant Wright, S.J. A friend shares his memories of Philip Oliger, S.J., who taught him that "passion is the sign that we are alive."

14 - WINGING IT By Adam Breen. Professor Bill Stover is a volunteer pilot for The Flying Doctors, a humanitarian group that brings free basic health and dental care to underprivileged communities in Mexico.

18 - SAVING GRACE By Elizabeth Kelly Gillogly '93. Santa Clara University's 150 years come …

Minimum Mean Square Error Spectral Peak Envelope Estimation For Automatic Vowel Classification, Jaishree Venugopal

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Spectral feature computations continue to be a very difficult problem for accurate machine recognition of speech. In this work, which focuses on vowels, a new spectral peak envelope method for vowel classification is developed, based on a missing frequency components model of speech recognition. According to the missing frequency components model, vowel recognition depends only on the spectral (harmonic) peaks. Smoothing and interpolation of the spectra, performed in the standard cepstral analysis method commonly used in automatic speech recognition, actually loses valuable information and results in reduced recognition accuracy. The new method for feature extraction presented in this thesis is …

The Differential Impact Of Sexism In Latino Men And Women’S Psychiatric Symptoms, Astrid Magalij Reina-Patton

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The study assessed the reliability of the Spanish and English versions of the Schedule of Sexist Events General Form (SSE-G). The extent to which Spanish and English-speaking men and women differed in their responses on the SSE-G was investigated, as was the degree to which men and women differed in their report of psychiatric symptoms. Further, the extent to which the SSE-G predicted psychiatric symptomology for Spanish and English-speaking men and women was assessed, as was the extent to which sexism (i.e., gender-specific stress) accounted for additional variance in symptoms, above and beyond that accounted for by acculturation, language, and …