Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Santa Clara, 2014-05-01, Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara

No abstract provided.

Adverse Drug Event Detection, Causality Inference, Patient Communication And Translational Research, Balaji Polepalli Ramesh

Theses and Dissertations

Adverse drug events (ADEs) are injuries resulting from a medical intervention related to a drug. ADEs are responsible for nearly 20% of all the adverse events that occur in hospitalized patients. ADEs have been shown to increase the cost of health care and the length of stays in hospital. Therefore, detecting and preventing ADEs for pharmacovigilance is an important task that can improve the quality of health care and reduce the cost in a hospital setting. In this dissertation, we focus on the development of ADEtector, a system that identifies ADEs and medication information from electronic medical records and the …

Metal Stopping Reagents Facilitate Discontinuous Activity Assays Of The De Novo Purine Biosynthesis Enzyme Pure, Kelly L. Sullivan, Loredana C. Huma, Elwood Mullins, Michael E. Johnson, T. Joseph Kappock

Department of Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The conversion of 5-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide (AIR) to 4-carboxy-AIR (CAIR) represents an unusual divergence in purine biosynthesis: microbes and nonmetazoan eukaryotes use class I PurEs while animals use class II PurEs. Class I PurEs are therefore a potential antimicrobial target; however, no enzyme activity assay is suitable for high throughput screening (HTS). Here we report a simple chemical quench that fixes the PurE substrate/product ratio for 24 h, as assessed by the Bratton-Marshall assay (BMA) for diazotizable amines. The ZnSO₄ stopping reagent is proposed to chelate CAIR, enabling delayed analysis of this acid-labile product by BMA or other HTS methods

A Practical Approach For Provenance Transmission In Wireless Sensor Networks, S.M. Iftekharul Alam, Sonia Fahmy

Cyber Center Publications

Assessing the trustworthiness of sensor data and transmitters of this data is critical for quality assurance. Trust evaluation frameworks utilize data provenance along with the sensed data values to compute the trustworthiness of each data item. However, in a sizeable multi-hop sensor network, provenance information requires a large and variable number of bits in each packet, resulting in high energy dissipation due to the extended period of radio communication. In this paper, we design energy-efficient provenance encoding and construction schemes, which we refer to as Probabilistic Provenance Flow (PPF). Our work demonstrates the feasibility of adapting the Probabilistic Packet Marking …

Progression Magazine, 2014 Spring, Coastal Carolina University

Progression Magazine

Magazine of the College of Science at Coastal Carolina University.

Power To The People? An Evaluation Of State-Level Environmental Justice Policies, Angela Michelle Hines

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Communities of color in America lacking economical, educational, and political power have been largely invisible in the process of making major policy decisions. This is lack of access to decision-making venues has been viewed by many as the reason behind marginalized populations bearing the brunt of many societal burdens. The Environmental Justice Movement legitimized the claims of inadequate access to the decision-making process concerning environmental conditions in which African-Americans lived and worked. Through the use of disruptive actions reminiscent of those used throughout the Civil Rights Movement, the plight of communities plagued by the daily presence of hazardous waste gained …

Purple Urine Bag Syndrome: Regulation Of Pyrimidine Enzymes, Ashley N. Broadway

Honors Theses

Purple Urine Bag Syndrome, PUBS, is a unique condition that shows an interesting discoloration of the urine from women who have a chronic catheter. This study focused on the regulation of enzyme activities to determine the effects that may create an environment where PUBS is seen in patients with catheters. In this study, the reductive pyrimidine pathway was used to read out the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 15692. This microorganism expresses a pathway that synthesizes indoxyl from tryptophan. The bacteria strains were grown using various carbon and nitrogen sources. Concentrations of acetonitrile at 2 mM and 10 mM, concentrations of …

Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Model For Ertapenem, Whitney Forbes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ertapenem is a carbapenem used to treat a wide range of bacterial infections. What sets ertapenem apart from other carbapenems is its longer half-life which implies it need only be administered once daily. We developed a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model for the distribution of ertapenem within the body. In the model, parameters such as human body weight and height, age, organ volumes, blood flow rates, and partition coefficients of particular tissues are used to examine the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of ertapenem. The total and free blood concentrations found were then compared to experimental data. We then examined the sensitivity …

Evaluation Of Artifacts In Experimental Cine 4d Ct Acquisition Methods, Sarah Joy

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Four-dimensional computed tomography (4D CT) has increased the accuracy of radiation treatment planning for patients in whom the extent of target motion is large. 4D CT has become a standard of care for radiation treatment simulation, allowing decreased motion artifacts and increased spatiotemporal localization of anatomical structures that move. However, motion artifacts may still remain. These artifacts, or artificial anatomic spatial distributions, add a systematic uncertainty to the treatment process and limit the accuracy of lung function images derived from CT. We proposed to reduce the motion artifacts in cine 4D CT by using three novel investigational 4D CT acquisition …

Forecasting Longitudinal Changes In Oropharyngeal Tumor Volume, Position, And Morphology During Image-Guided Radiation Therapy, Adam D. Yock

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

The purpose of this work was to generate, evaluate, and compare models that predict longitudinal changes in oropharyngeal tumor volume, position, and morphology during radiation therapy.

One volume, one position, and two morphology (size, shape, and position) feature vectors were used to describe 35 oropharyngeal gross tumor volumes (GTVs) during radiation therapy. The two morphology feature vectors comprised the coordinates of the GTV centroids and one of two shape descriptors. One shape descriptor was based on radial distances between the GTV centroid and 614 surface landmarks. The other was based on a spherical harmonic decomposition of these distances. For a …

Performance Evaluation Of Material Decomposition Using Rapid Kvp-Switching Dual-Energy Ct For Assessing Bone Mineral Density, John M. Wait

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Osteoporosis is diagnosed by assessing the bone mineral density (BMD) of the trabecular bone, and has previously been characterized with dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) or single-energy computed tomography (SECT). Dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) is able to create two three-dimensional sets of images representing the densities of two materials in a given basis pair. DECT is theoretically capable of providing a true density measurement of trabecular bone material with the proper material basis pair.

Using the rapid kVp-switching GE HD750 scanner, the concentrations of various solutes were assessed in two-material syringe-phantoms in different experimental conditions with DECT material density images, SECT …

Evaluating The Impact Of A Home-~Based Childhood Asthma Intervention Program In Clark County, Nevada, Mackenzie Suzanne Burns

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Asthma is a chronic, incurable, costly, and potentially life–threatening disease that affects an estimated 7 million children in the United States; further, more than 56,000 Nevada children are currently living with asthma. The literature suggests that a number of factors that contribute to either the development of asthma or the exacerbation of asthma symptoms in sensitive individuals can be traced to the home environment. Given that the majority of Americans spend over 90% of their time indoors, of which two–thirds are spent at home, a home–based childhood asthma intervention program represents a unique primary prevention opportunity. This pre–experimental study evaluated …

Development Of A Molecular Method For Detecting The Causative Agent Of Swimmer's Itch (Trichobilharzia) In Freshwater Ecosystems, Heidi Mcmaster

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cercarial dermatitis, commonly known as swimmer's itch, is caused by penetration of larvae of the schistosome,Trichobilharzia, into the dermis and epidermis layers of the skin. Symptoms are characterized by painful swelling and itching at the site of penetration. The normal hosts for the life cycle of the schistosome are aquatic birds and aquatic snails. The most frequently used method of detection forTrichobilharziais microscopy. With increases in the occurrence of cercarial dermatitis outbreaks in freshwater in the Southwestern United States, it is becoming increasingly important to develop and standardize a molecular method for rapid detection that can assist health professionals and …

Health Hazards In Rental Housing: An Overview Of Clark County, Nevada, Amanda Nicole Sokolowsky

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A wide range of health conditions are associated with housing conditions, including asthma, respiratory infections, injuries, mental health issues, and lead poisoning. People in modern societies spend more than 90% of their time indoors, the vast majority of which is spent at home. Therefore, any new information on housing related health hazards in a population provides an opportunity for a new prevention program. Reports have shown that rental properties have more health related hazards than owner occupied housing, and rental properties are frequently occupied by low-income and minority individuals. This descriptive study intended to provide an overview of housing related …

Effects Of Creosote-Contaminated Sediment Extracts On Mouse Macrophage Physiology And Function, Rayna Silva

All Theses

The southern branch of the Elizabeth River, at Portsmouth Virginia is one of the most polluted systems in North America. This harbor estuary system is also home to the Atlantic Wood Superfund site, which is heavily contaminated with creosote from the Atlantic Wood (AW) preservative company that ceased production in the later 1990s. Creosote is a mixture of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), metals, and numerous aliphatic hydrocarbons, and well known to be carcinogenic. The toxicity of sediments and pore waters from the AW site has been studied extensively using Fundulus heteroclitus, also known as the mummichog, or Atlantic killifish. Most adult …

The Association Between The Il-1 Pathway, Isaac C. Wun

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) is a potentially lethal malignancy that warrants attention and further research, as it is known to that there is an increasing rate of incidence in theUnited States, and it is also known that exposure to UV light is its most crucial risk factor, and family history of melanoma is also an important risk factor. Melanoma is an aggressive and lethal cancer in humans. There are an estimated new 132,000 melanoma cases annually worldwide, and the trend has doubled in the past 20 years. However, attempts to treat melanoma have encountered considerable resistance and remained ineffective. The …

Use Of Positron Emission Tomography For Proton Therapy Verification, Jongmin Cho

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Positron emission tomography (PET), a tool commonly used for cancer staging and response monitoring, has recently been used for proton therapy verification. By imaging tissue activation following proton treatment, attempts have been made to verify proton dose and range. In this dissertation, two novel approaches were developed and tested for the purpose of help improve the proton dose and range estimation as well as verification.

Although there are still some challenges, attempts for proton dose verification using PET has been made by comparing Monte Carlo dose and PET simulations with treatment planned dose and measured PET. In this approach, …

Image-Guided Proton Therapy For Online Dose-Evaluation And Adaptive Planning, Joey P. Cheung

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

The main advantage for using protons in radiotherapy is their finite range in patients, allowing for potential improved sparing of normal tissues. However, this comes at a cost of increased sensitivity to range uncertainties. Density changes along the beam path will affect the proton range and the resultant dose distribution, making it difficult to estimate the impact of visible anatomic changes to the patient dose distribution. In order to better understand the effect of anatomy change on proton dose, some form of treatment-time verification is required and methods to correct for observed changes would be beneficial. Therefore, this project aims …

Syntheses Of Precursors To Fluorine-18 Labeled Pet Imaging Agents, Lindsay B. Boling

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Citefinder: A System To Find And Rank Medical Citations, Seyed Soheil Moosavinasab

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents CiteFinder, a system to find relevant citations for clinicians' written content. Inclusion of citations for clinical information content makes the content more reliable through the provision of scientific articles as references, and enables clinicians to easily update their written content using new information. The proposed approach splits the content into sentences, identifies the sentences that need to be supported with citations by applying classification algorithms, and uses information retrieval and ranking techniques to extract and rank relevant citations from MEDLINE for any given sentence. Additionally, this system extracts snippets from the retrieved articles. We assessed our approach …

Drinking Water In The Developing World: Sources Of Fecal Contamination In Pitcher Pump Systems And Measurement Alternatives, Meghan Wahlstrom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It has been reported that globally we have achieved Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Target 7C, to halve the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water; however, there is a major flaw with this statement. While Target 7C calls for access to `safe' drinking water, what is actually being measured and reported is access to an `improved' water source. The World Health Organization (WHO) maintains that they must use this proxy measure because the methods for water quality testing are too expensive and logistically complicated, but by doing so, they may be over reporting safe water coverage.

This …

Assessing The Impacts Of Unrestricted Pesticide Use In Small-Scale Agriculture On Water Quality And Associated Human Health And Ecological Implications In An Indigenous Village In Rural Panam[Aacute], Sarah Louise Watson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2014, the global pesticide industry's projected worth is $52 billion and by 2020, the developing world will make up one-third of the world's chemical production and consumption. Pesticides can have unintended negative consequences for human health and the environment, especially in the developing world where regulations are loose or nonexistent. One country with unrestricted use of pesticides is Panam[aacute], especially in Santa Rosa de Cucunatí. In this indigenous village, small-scale farmers and ranchers spray paraquat, glyphosate, picloram, and 2,4-D at higher elevations than the spring water source of a gravity-fed water system, the river, and the village. The objective …

Nicotine And What Else?: Hplc Elution Optimization For The Analysis Of Alkaloids Found In Electronic Cigarettes, Jessica L. Murray

Honors Theses

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, have been scrutinized by the Food and Drug Administration and other public health organizations for issues related to quality control and efficacy. Erratic nicotine delivery and numerous toxic compounds in refill solutions have been reported. The ultimate goal of this research is to add to the growing amount of knowledge regarding e-cigarette ingredient content, safety, and quality. Standards of the tobacco alkaloids nicotine, anabasine, cotinine, and myosmine were prepared and quantified using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Various elution schemes were tested and adjusted for optimal analyte resolution, and a final elution scheme was developed to …

Mri Characterization Of Cobalt Dichloride-N-Acetyl Cysteine (C4) Contrast Agent Marker For Prostate Brachytherapy, Tze Yee Lim, R. Jason Stafford, Rajat J. Kudchadker, Madhuri Sankaranarayanapillai, Geoffrey Ibbott, Arvind Rao, Karen S. Martirosyan, Steven J. Frank

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

Brachytherapy, a radiotherapy technique for treating prostate cancer, involves the implantation of numerous radioactive seeds into the prostate. While the implanted seeds can be easily identified on a CT image, distinguishing the prostate and surrounding soft tissues is not as straightforward. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) offers superior anatomical delineation, but the seeds appear as dark voids and are difficult to identify, thus creating a conundrum. Cobalt dichloride-N-acetylcysteine (C4) has previously been shown to be promising as an encapsulated contrast agent marker. We performed spin-lattice relaxation time (T1) and spin-spin relaxation time (T2) measurements of C4 solutions with varying cobalt dichloride …

Functionalization And Modification Of Naphthaquinone Analogs As Her2 Kinase Inhibitors, Divya Jyothi Lella

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

HER2 overexpression in breast cancer tumors predicts lower overall survival. Because of the aggressive nature of HER2 tumors and the association with metastatic disease, the HER2 receptor holds great promise as a therapeutic target in metastatic breast cancer. We are developing small molecule inhibitors that bind to the ATP binding site of the tyrosine kinase domain in order to inhibit tyrosine auto-phosphorylation. This process controls biological pathways that mediate the cell growth. In normal cells this process is highly controlled. We are targeting the modification of the side chain of the hydroxy methyl group of 2-Hydroxy methyl-5,8-dimethoxy-1,4-naphthaquinone. These compounds should …

Characterizing The Chronic Toxicity Of Ion Mixtures To Ceriodaphnia Dubia Using Two Experimental Designs, Katherine Johnson

All Theses

Total Dissolved Solids, commonly referred to as TDS, is a measure of all organic and inorganic substances that pass through a 2-um filter and are naturally found in aquatic environments. Anthropogenic activities such as agricultural irrigation, road salt runoff, hydraulic fracturing, and coal-fired power plant effluents can increase TDS concentrations of freshwater ecosystems ultimately increasing salinity. Aquatic organisms actively manage the ion balance between their external and internal environments. Freshwater organisms use energy to pump sodium in from the environment, while losing it through passive diffusion. If the external ion concentration changes significantly, these organisms must allocate more energy towards …

Analysis Of Ligand Bias In Functional Studies Involving The Allosteric Modulation Of G Protein- Coupled Receptors, Frederick J. Ehlert, Michael T. Griffin

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction

The affinity constants of a ligand for active and inactive states of a receptor ultimately determine its capacity to activate downstream signaling events. In this report, we describe a reverse-engineering strategy for estimating these microscopic constants.

Methods

Our approach involves analyzing responses measured downstream in the signaling pathway of a G protein-coupled receptor under conditions of allosteric modulation and reduced receptor expression or partial receptor inactivation. The analysis also yields estimates of the isomerization constant of the unoccupied receptor, the sensitivity constant of the signaling pathway, and the more empirical parameters of the receptor population including the observed affinities …

Assessing The Impact Of Misclassification When Comparing Prevalence Data: A Novel Sensitivity Analysis Approach, Ninet Sinaii, Sean D. Cleary, Pamela Stratton

Epidemiology Faculty Publications

Background: A simple sensitivity analysis technique was developed to assess the impact of misclassification and verify observed prevalence differences between distinct populations.

Methods: The prevalence of self-reported comorbid diseases in 4,331 women with surgically-diagnosed endometriosis was compared to published clinical and population-based prevalence estimates. Disease prevalence misclassification was assessed by assuming over-reporting in the study sample and under-reporting in the general (comparison) population. Over- and under-reporting by 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 90% was used to create a 5×5 table for each disease. The new prevalences represented by each table cell were compared by p-values, prevalence odds ratios, and 95% …

Use Of Commercial Tests For Aneuploidy Screening Using Cell-Free Fetal Dna In Clinical Practice (Poster), Adetola Louis-Jacques Md, Courtney R. Burans Ms, Cgc, Sarah Robinson, Elizabeth A. Schofield, Joanne Quiñones Md, Msce, John C. Smulian Md, Mph, Meredith Rochon Md

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Commercial Tests For Aneuploidy Screening Using Cell-Free Fetal Dna On Rates Of Invasive Testing In Clinical Practice, Adetola Louis-Jacques Md, Courtney R. Burans Ms, Cgc, Sarah Robinson, Elizabeth A. Schofield, Joanne Quiñones Md, Msce, John C. Smulian Md, Mph, Meredith Rochon Md

Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology

No abstract provided.