Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Determining Ground-Level Composition And Concentration Of Particulate Matter Across Regional Areas Using The Himawari-8 Satellite, Miles Sowden

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Speciated ground-level aerosol concentrations are required to understand and mitigate health impacts from dust storms, wildfires and other aerosol emissions. Globally, surface monitoring is limited due to cost and infrastructure demands. While remote sensing can help estimate respirable (i.e. ground level) concentrations, current observations are restricted by inadequate spatiotemporal resolution, uncertainty in aerosol type, particle size, and vertical profile. One key issue with current remote sensing datasets is that they are derived from reflectances observed by polar orbiting imagers, which means that aerosol is only derived during the daytime, and only once or twice per day.

Sub-hourly, infrared (IR), geostationary …

Interpreting Health Events In Big Data Using Qualitative Traditions, Roschelle L. Fritz, Gordana Dermody

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© The Author(s) 2020. The training of artificial intelligence requires integrating real-world context and mathematical computations. To achieve efficacious smart health artificial intelligence, contextual clinical knowledge serving as ground truth is required. Qualitative methods are well-suited to lend consistent and valid ground truth. In this methods article, we illustrate the use of qualitative descriptive methods for providing ground truth when training an intelligent agent to detect Restless Leg Syndrome. We show how one interdisciplinary, inter-methodological research team used both sensor-based data and the participant’s description of their experience with an episode of Restless Leg Syndrome for training the intelligent agent. …

Mitochondria Imaging And Targeted Cancer Treatment, Tinghan Zhao

Dissertations

Mitochondria are essential organelles as the site of respiration in eukaryotic cells and are involved in many crucial functions in cell life. Dysfunction of mitochondrial metabolism and irregular morphology have been frequently found in human cancers. The capability of imaging mitochondria as well as regulating their microenvironment is important both scientifically and clinically. Mitochondria penetrating peptides (MPPs), certain peptides that are composed of cationic and hydrophobic amino acids, are good candidates for mitochondria targeting. Herein, a novel MPP, D-argine-phenylalanine-D-argine-phenylalanine-D-argine-phenylalanine-NH₂ (rFrFrF), is conjugated with a rhodamine-based fluorescent chromophore (TAMRA). The TAMRA-rFrFrF probe exhibits advantageous properties for long-term mitochondria tracking of …

Connectivity Differences Between Gulf War Illness (Gwi) Phenotypes During A Test Of Attention, Tomas Clarke, Jessie Jamieson, Patrick Malone, Rakib U. Rayhan, Stuart Washington, John W. Vanmeter, James N. Baraniuk

Department of Mathematics: Faculty Publications

One quarter of veterans returning from the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War have developed Gulf War Illness (GWI) with chronic pain, fatigue, cognitive and gastrointestinal dysfunction. Exertion leads to characteristic, delayed onset exacerbations that are not relieved by sleep. We have modeled exertional exhaustion by comparing magnetic resonance images from before and after submaximal exercise. One third of the 27 GWI participants had brain stem atrophy and developed postural tachycardia after exercise (START: Stress Test Activated Reversible Tachycardia). The remainder activated basal ganglia and anterior insulae during a cognitive task (STOPP: Stress Test Originated Phantom Perception). Here, the role of attention …

Social Ecological Factors Affecting Substance Abuse In Ghana (West Africa) Using Photovoice, Ahmed Kabore, Evans Afriyie-Gyawu, James Awuah, Andrew R. Hansen, Ashley Walker, Melissa Hester, Moussa Aziz Wonadé Sié, Dhruv Medarametla, Nicolas Meda

Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Environmental Health Sciences Faculty Publications

Introduction: substance abuse is an important public health issue affecting West Africa; however, there is currently a dearth of literature on the actions needed to address it. The aim of this study was to assess the risks and protective factors of substance abuse in Ghana, West Africa, using the photovoice method.

Methods: this study recruited and trained 10 participants in recovery from substance abuse and undergoing treatment in the greater Accra region of Ghana on the photovoice methodology. Each participant received a disposable camera to take pictures that represented the risk and protective factors pertinent to substance abuse …

Computational Studies And Design Of Pparγ And Glut1 Inhibitors, Suliman Almahmoud

Theses & Dissertations

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a ligand-dependent transcription factor of the nuclear receptor superfamily that controls the expression of a variety of genes involved in fatty acid metabolism, adipogenesis, and insulin sensitivity. PPARγ is a target for insulin-sensitizing drugs, and it plays a significant function in prostate cancer. PPARγ antagonists have anti-proliferative effects in a broad range of hematopoietic and epithelial cell lines. The ligand binding domain (LBD) of PPARγ is large and has orthosteric and allosteric binding sites. Several PPARγ-ligand co-crystal structures show two bound molecules, one to the orthosteric pocket and a second to the allosteric …

Impact Of Motor Therapy With Dynamic Body-Weight Support On Functional Independence Measures In Traumatic Brain Injury: An Exploratory Study, Emily F. Anggelis, Elizabeth Salmon Powell, Philip M. Westgate, Amanda C. Glueck, Lumy Sawaki

Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Contemporary goals of rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury (TBI) aim to improve cognitive and motor function by applying concepts of neuroplasticity. This can be challenging to carry out in TBI patients with motor, balance, and cognitive impairments.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether use of dynamic body-weight support (DBWS) would allow safe administration of intensive motor therapy during inpatient rehabilitation and whether its use would yield greater improvement in functional recovery than standard-of-care (SOC) therapy in adults with TBI.

METHODS: Data in this retrospective cohort study was collected from patients with TBI who receive inpatient rehabilitation incorporating DBWS (n = …

A Model For The Prediction Of Antimicrobial Resistance In Escherichia Coli Based On A Comparative Evaluation Of Fatty Acid Profiles, Randal S. Stahl, Bledar Bisha, Sebabrata Mahapatra, Jeffrey C. Chandler

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Antimicrobial resistance is a threat to agricultural production and public health. In this proof-of-concept study, we investigated predicting antimicrobial sensitive/resistant (S/R) phenotypes and host sources of Escherichia coli (n = 128) based on differential fatty acid abundance. Myristic (14:0), pentadecanoic acid (15:0), palmitic (16:0), elaidic (18:19) and steric acid (18:0) were significantly different (α = 0.05) using a two-way ANOVA for predicting nalidixic acid, ciprofloxacin, aztreonam, cefatoxime, and ceftazidime S/R phenotypes. Additionally, analyses of palmitoleic (16:1), palmitic acid (16:0), methyl palmitate (i-17:0), and cis-9,10-methyleneoctadecanoic acid (19:0Δ) showed these markers were significantly different (α = 0.05) between isolates obtained from cattle …

Personalized Detection Of Anxiety Provoking News Events Using Semantic Network Analysis, Jacquelyn Cheun Phd, Luay Dajani, Quentin B. Thomas

SMU Data Science Review

In the age of hyper-connectivity, 24/7 news cycles, and instant news alerts via social media, mental health researchers don't have a way to automatically detect news content which is associated with triggering anxiety or depression in mental health patients. Using the Associated Press news wire, a semantic network was built with 1,056 news articles containing over 500,000 connections across multiple topics to provide a personalized algorithm which detects problematic news content for a given reader. We make use of Semantic Network Analysis to surface the relationship between news article text and anxiety in readers who struggle with mental health disorders. …

Statistical Analysis Of Social Network Change, Teresa Danielle Schmidt

Dissertations and Theses

This project explores two statistical methods that infer social network structures and statistically test those structures for change over time: regression-based differential network analysis (R-DNA) and information theory-based differential analysis (I-DNA). R-DNA is adapted from bioinformatics and I-DNA employs reconstructability analysis.

This project applies both R-DNA and I-DNA to analyze Medicaid claims data from one-year periods before (May 2011- Apr 2012) and after (Jan 2013-Dec 2013) the formation of the Health Share of Oregon Coordinated Care Organization (CCO). The formation of CCOs was legislated by the state of Oregon in 2012 with the triple aim of improving health outcomes, reducing …

Carbon Management And Volatile Fatty Acid Production In Primary Clarifiers At A Wastewater Treatment Plant, Brittany Nicole Radke

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An increasing number of treatment plants are required to remove nutrients from domestic wastewater to lessen the impact of nutrient loading to water bodies. Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (EBPR) is one of the processes commonly used to remove phosphorus from domestic wastewater. The presence of an adequate quantity of volatile fatty acids (VFA) in the wastewater influent to EBPR is important for process efficiency and stability. The objective of this research was to investigate the production of VFAs through fermentation of sludge in primary clarifiers as it related to improving nutrient removal, primarily targeting phosphorus.

The research tested, in full-scale, …

Evaluating Parents Sociodemographic Factors And Childhood Vaccine Decisions, Mehret Girmay

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Vaccination is considered one of the most successful public health achievements of the 20th century. However, with increasing vaccine skepticism emerging over the past decades, there is a threat to the ongoing sustainment of vaccine coverage within all US communities. This study evaluated and compared parents’ sociodemographic factors associated with childhood vaccine decisions. This study is a secondary analysis of 893 parents/guardians, age 18-55 years with child(ren) < 7 years living in the U.S.

Predictive analysis was conducted using multinomial logistic regression modeling was used to examine vaccine decisions (accept, hesitant, and refuse) in relation to parents’ sociodemographic factors. Overall, (66.6%) of parents accepted recommended vaccines, while …

Performance Study Of The Membrane Based Layered Double Hydroxides ‘Znal-Gh’ In The Purification Of Groundwater, Jaouad Zerhouni, Omar Qabaqous, Fouzia Rhazi Filali, Mohammed Naciri Bennani, Najib Tijani

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

The objective of this work is focused on the preparation and characterization of plan microfiltration membrane Zn₃Al-Gh and the study of their efficiency in the treatment of ground water. This membrane was carried by using the support of the clay such as Ghassoul ‘Gh’ prepared by using dry uniaxial compaction method. The layered double hydroxides (LDH) based on Zn₃Al-CO₃with molar ratio (Zn²⁺/Al³⁺=3) was deposited on support by direct co-precipitation method.

The characterizations of the membrane LDH-Gh ‘Zn₃Al-Gh’ and deposited layer Zn₃Al-CO_3, was done by scanning …

Saving Software And Using Emulation To Reproduce Computationally Dependent Research Results, Euan Cochrane, Limor Peer, Ethan Gates, Seth Anderson

Yale Day of Data

Using digital data necessarily involves software. How do institutions think about software in the context of the long-term usability of their data assets? How do they address usability challenges uniquely posed by software such as, license restrictions, legacy software, code rot, and dependencies? These questions are germane to the agenda set forth by the FAIR principles. At Yale University, a team in the Library is looking into the application of a novel approach to emulation as a potential solution. In this presentation, we will outline the work of the Emulation as a Service Infrastructure (EaaSI) program, discuss our plans for …

Image Restoration Using Automatic Damaged Regions Detection And Machine Learning-Based Inpainting Technique, Chloe Martin-King

Computational and Data Sciences (PhD) Dissertations

In this dissertation we propose two novel image restoration schemes. The first pertains to automatic detection of damaged regions in old photographs and digital images of cracked paintings. In cases when inpainting mask generation cannot be completely automatic, our detection algorithm facilitates precise mask creation, particularly useful for images containing damage that is tedious to annotate or difficult to geometrically define. The main contribution of this dissertation is the development and utilization of a new inpainting technique, region hiding, to repair a single image by training a convolutional neural network on various transformations of that image. Region hiding is also …

Evaluation Of Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha In Sleep-Deprived Menopausal- Induced Rats And The Impact On Bone Health, Nicole Ellsworth, Dwight Curry Iii, Cj Deleon, Frank Frisch

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Post-menopausal osteoporosis as a consequence of estrogen depletion is a growing concern for women in the United States. As more women take on executive positions and experience sleep deprivation, there is the potential for up regulation of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor alpha. It follows that the homeostatic imbalance of osteoclastic and osteoblastic activity leads to a greater risk of disease. Bisphosphonates generally, and Zolendronate specifically works by decreasing the number of osteoclasts. This current study investigated the impact of Zolendronate on the concentrations of tumor necrosis factor alpha-type (TNFɑ) in 32 ovariectomized Wistar rats. Throughout a five …

Chronic Muscle Weakness And Mitochondrial Dysfunction In The Absence Of Sustained Atrophy In A Preclinical Sepsis Model, Allison M. Owen, Samir P. Patel, Jeffrey D. Smith, Beverly K. Balasuriya, Stephanie F. Mori, Gregory S. Hawk, Arnold J. Stromberg, Naohide Kuriyama, Masao Kaneki, Alexander G. Rabchevsky, Timothy A. Butterfield, Karyn A. Esser, Charlotte A. Peterson, Marlene E. Starr, Hiroshi Saito

Physiology Faculty Publications

Chronic critical illness is a global clinical issue affecting millions of sepsis survivors annually. Survivors report chronic skeletal muscle weakness and development of new functional limitations that persist for years. To delineate mechanisms of sepsis-induced chronic weakness, we first surpassed a critical barrier by establishing a murine model of sepsis with ICU-like interventions that allows for the study of survivors. We show that sepsis survivors have profound weakness for at least 1 month, even after recovery of muscle mass. Abnormal mitochondrial ultrastructure, impaired respiration and electron transport chain activities, and persistent protein oxidative damage were evident in the muscle of …

Exploring Emotion Recognition For Vr-Ebt Using Deep Learning On A Multimodal Physiological Framework, Nicholas Dass

Faculty of Applied Science and Technology - Exceptional Student Work, Applied Computing Theses

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition that affects a growing number of people. A variety of PTSD treatment methods exist, however current research indicates that virtual reality exposure-based treatment has become more prominent in its use.Yet the treatment method can be costly and time consuming for clinicians and ultimately for the healthcare system. PTSD can be delivered in a more sustainable way using virtual reality. This is accomplished by using machine learning to autonomously adapt virtual reality scene changes. The use of machine learning will also support a more efficient way of inserting positive stimuli in virtual reality …

Production Of Physician Services Under Fee-For-Service And Blended Fee-For-Service: Evidence From Ontario, Canada., Nibene H Somé, Rose Anne Devlin, Nirav Mehta, Greg Zaric, Lihua Li, Salimah Shariff, Bachir Belhadji, Amardeep Thind, Amit Garg, Sisira Sarma

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

We examine family physicians' responses to financial incentives for medical services in Ontario, Canada. We use administrative data covering 2003-2008, a period during which family physicians could choose between the traditional fee for service (FFS) and blended FFS known as the Family Health Group (FHG) model. Under FHG, FFS physicians are incentivized to provide comprehensive care and after-hours services. A two-stage estimation strategy teases out the impact of switching from FFS to FHG on service production. We account for the selection into FHG using a propensity score matching model, and then we use panel-data regression models to account for observed …

Healthcare Utilization Costs Of Emerging Adults With Mood And Anxiety Disorders In An Early Intervention Treatment Program Compared To A Matched Cohort, Ava A. John-Baptiste, Lihua Li, Wanrudee Isaranuwatchai, Elizabeth Osuch, Kelly K. Anderson

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

AIM: The First Episode Mood and Anxiety Disorder Program (FEMAP) provides treatment to emerging adults with mood and anxiety disorders in an accessible, youth-friendly environment. We sought to investigate FEMAP's impact on the costs of care.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective observational study of one-year health service costs using linked administrative datasets to compare emerging adults treated at FEMAP (FEMAP users) to propensity-score matched controls (non-users). Costs from the perspective of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, included drug benefit claims, inpatient, physician and ambulatory care services. We used bootstrapping to perform unadjusted comparisons between FEMAP users and …

Progression Magazine, 2019 Fall/Winter, Coastal Carolina University

Progression Magazine

Magazine of the College of Science at Coastal Carolina University.

Structure Elucidation Of A Pyrrolobenzodiazepine Alkaloid And A Biologically Active Polyketide Produced By Rhodococcus Sp. Mtm3w5.2 Via Two-Dimensional Nmr Spectroscopy, Garrett Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the battle against ever-increasing drug resistence bacteria rages on, novel and sometimes more complex natural products can be used to combat this. In this study, two-dimensional NMR techniques were utilized to collect a complete spectral data set for two natural products. The first structure, a synthesized Pyrrolobenzodiazepine alkaloid natural product was confirmed through these methods. The second, a strain of Rhodococcus, MTM3W5.2, produces a novel antibacterial molecule in broth cultures and the active compound was fractionated using a Sephedex LH-20 column. Chromatographic purification yielded a pure sample at 58.90 minutes, RT.58. HRMS data deduced an exact mass of …

A Signature Enrichment Design With Bayesian Adaptive Randomization For Cancer Clinical Trials, Fang Xia

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Clinical trials in the era of precision medicine demand more flexible and efficient trial designs. Adaptive clinical trial designs allow pre-specified modifications of an on-going clinical trial and could shorten the trial duration. We reviewed five common types of adaptive clinical trials based on adaptation methods. In particular, outcome-randomization becomes more popular as it can assign more patients to the promising treatments based on the accumulated trial data. This data-driven allocation allows more patients to benefit from the trial, which is especially important for cancer patients. We compared different Bayesian outcome-adaptive randomization methods and discussed them from both methodological and …

Examining The Theoretical Mechanisms Underlying Health Information Exchange Impact On Healthcare Outcomes: A Physician Agency Perspective, Fang Zhou, Qiu-Hong Wang, Hock Hai Teo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Health information exchange (HIE) is presumed to reduce medical costs by facilitating information sharing across healthcare providers. Existing studies focused on different medical costs or one set of costs, and resulted in mixed findings. We examine the effects of patient access to HIE on two of the most important medical costs of a hospitalization episode - test costs and medication costs - through a natural experiment and the discharge data of a hospital. Besides the negative direct effect of access to HIT on tests costs, we also find its positive spillover effect on medication costs, such that more patients having …

Objective Sleep Quality As A Predictor Of Mild Cognitive Impairment In Seniors Living Alone, Brian Chen, Hwee-Pink Tan, Irus Rawtaer, Hwee Xian Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Singapore has the fastest ageing population in the Asia Pacific region, with an estimated 82,000 seniors living with dementia. These figures are projected to increase to more than 130,000 by 2030. The challenge is to identify more community dwelling seniors with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), a prodromal state, as it provides an opportunity for evidence-based early intervention to delay the onset of dementia. In this paper, we explore the use of Internet of Things (IoT) systems in detecting MCI symptoms in seniors who are living alone, and accurately grouping them into MCI positive and negative subjects. We present feature extraction …

Evaluation Of Relationship Between Lead-Dust Loading, Lead-Dust Concentration, And Total Dust Loading Metrics Across Multiple Data Sets, Charles Bevington

Capstone Experience

Lead-dust monitoring studies report values as either lead-dust loadings µg/ft² or as lead-dust concentrations µg/g. It is rare for studies to report both metrics. When only lead-dust loading values are present, professionals require an approach to estimate lead-dust concentration values. A literature search identified five studies that contained raw data for both lead-dust loading and lead-dust concentration. An additional thirty-two studies had summary-statistics available for both lead-dust loading and lead-dust concentration. Studies with raw-data were used to develop an empirically-based loading to concentration statistical relationship. Raw data sets were critically evaluated to determine whether elimination or …

Probing Of Carbohydrate-Protein Interactions Using Galactonoamidine Inhibitors, Jessica B. Pickens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Glycoside hydrolases are ubiquitous and one of the most catalytically proficient enzymes known, and thus understanding their mechanisms are crucial. Most research has focused on the interaction of the glycon of substrates and their inhibitors within the active site of glycoside hydrolases. The inhibitors employed to probe these interactions generally had small aglycons (i.e. a hydrogen atom, amidines, small aliphatic groups, or benzyl groups). Here, the interactions of the aglycon with glycoside hydrolases are examined by probing the active sites with a library of 25 galactonoamidines. The studies described in this dissertation aim to increase the understanding of stabilization of …

Feasibility And Acceptability Of A Rural, Pragmatic, Telemedicine‐ Delivered Healthy Lifestyle Programme, John A. Batsis, Auden C. Mcclure, Aaron B. Weintraub, David F. Kotz, Sivan Rotenberg, Summer B. Cook, Diane Gilbert-Diamond, Kevin Curtis, Courtney J. Stevens, Diane Sette, Richard I. Rothstein

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: The public health crisis of obesity leads to increasing morbidity that are even more profound in certain populations such as rural adults. Live, two‐way video‐conferencing is a modality that can potentially surmount geographic barriers and staffing shortages. Methods: Patients from the Dartmouth‐Hitchcock Weight and Wellness Center were recruited into a pragmatic, single‐arm, nonrandomized study of a remotely delivered 16‐week evidence‐based healthy lifestyle programme. Patients were provided hardware and appropriate software allowing for remote participation in all sessions, outside of the clinic setting. Our primary outcomes were feasibility and acceptability of the telemedicine intervention, as well as potential effectiveness on …

Exploring The State-Of-Receptivity For Mhealth Interventions, Florian Künzler, Varun Mishra, Jan-Niklas Kramer, David Kotz, Elgar Fleisch, Tobias Kowatsch

Dartmouth Scholarship

Recent advancements in sensing techniques for mHealth applications have led to successful development and deployments of several mHealth intervention designs, including Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAI). JITAIs show great potential because they aim to provide the right type and amount of support, at the right time. Timing the delivery of a JITAI such as the user is receptive and available to engage with the intervention is crucial for a JITAI to succeed. Although previous research has extensively explored the role of context in users’ responsiveness towards generic phone notiications, it has not been thoroughly explored for actual mHealth interventions. In this …

The Dynamic Impacts Of Online Healthcare Community On Physician Altruism: A Hidden Markov Model, Kai Luo, Qiu-Hong Wang, Hock Hai Teo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Physician altruism is not only a key foundation of modern medical professionalism, but also a critical component in the theoretical health economics study. There is considerable interest in understanding the impacts of contemporary healthcare technology on physician altruism. In this paper, we investigate the dynamic influence of multiple incentive mechanisms developed by an online healthcare community (OHC) on physician altruism. We model physician altruism as the degree of tendency to benefit the patients at the cost of oneself and focus on the incentive mechanisms that give physicians social and economic returns. The dynamics of physician altruism is characterized via a …