Digital Commons Network^™

Classification Of Genotype And Age Of Eyes Using Rpe Cell Size And Shape, Jie Yu

Mathematics Theses

Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a principal site of pathogenesis in age-related macular de-generation (AMD). AMD is a main source of vision loss even blindness in the elderly and there is no effective treatment right now. Our aim is to describe the relationship between the morphology of RPE cells and the age and genotype of the eyes. We use principal component analysis (PCA) or functional principal component method (FPCA), support vector machine (SVM), and random forest (RF) methods to analyze the morphological data of RPE cells in mouse eyes to classify their age and genotype. Our analyses show that amongst …

A Comparative Study Between Genotypes And Ages Of Eyes Using Morphometric Measures Of Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells, Micheal Shola Folarinde

Mathematics Theses

Aged-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a common eye condition among people older than 65 years and is a leading cause of vision loss. It gradually destroys the macula, the part of the eye that provides sharp, central vision needed for seeing objects clearly. This study aims to test the hypothesis that the morphology of retina pigment epithelium, a key site of AMD pathology, can reflect the various stresses aging and AMD progression impose. We first identify and separate the young and old age group for mouse eyes. Then we classify, the mouse eyes using two genotypes (C57BL/6L, RD10), and two …

A Novel Method For Automated Cell Image Selection, Shuman Guo

Mathematics Theses

Retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a key site of pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). A key first step toward developing statistical quantifications of RPE morphology is image analysis of RPE flatmount. This thesis work aims to facilitate image analysis by developing a procedure for automated selecting regions with biological information from flatmount images. Our new approach, based on clustering analysis, can extract informative regions from a typical flatmount image of a mouse eye within one minute, a three order magnitude time saving improvement from the current manual procedure. This method is already contributing to the image analysis of RPE …

Destination After Entering Foster Care: Road Toward Stability, Dong Yang

Mathematics Theses

The duration of children stay in a temporary foster care system needs to be minimal in order to ensure a stable and successful life. However, a time-consuming procedure of investigations is usually taken to decide whether they can reunite with their birth parents. Moreover, if the child fails to reunite with their family, another discharge decision needs to be assessed, leading to even longer time without a normal life. Based on the data from Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), this thesis derives a prediction model to discriminate the children with a tendency of unsuccessful reunification from …

Racial Differences In The Prevalence Of Depressive Disorders Among U.S. Adult Population, Fang-Di Yang

Mathematics Theses

Depression is a common but serious illness, which may have significant impact on a person’s daily life. This study examined racial/ethnic disparities on the prevalence of lifetime diagnosis of depression and current depression according to 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data. Logistic regression models were constructed to calculate odds ratios for comparing prevalence rates of depression across racial/ethnic groups. Significant racial/ethnic differences were found in both the prevalence of lifetime diagnosis of depression and current depression. Regional disparities were also found to be significant in the prevalence of depressive disorders across racial/ethnic groups.

The Topology And Algebraic Functions On Affine Algebraic Sets Over An Arbitrary Field, Anthony J. Preslicka

Mathematics Theses

This thesis presents the theory of affine algebraic sets defined over an arbitrary field K. We define basic concepts such as the Zariski topology, coordinate ring of functions, regular functions, and dimension. We are interested in the relationship between the geometry of an affine algebraic set over a field K and its geometry induced by the algebraic closure of K. Various versions of Hilbert-Nullstellensatz are presented, introducing a new variant over finite fields. Examples are provided throughout the paper and a question on the dimension of irreducible affine algebraic sets is formulated.

Geršgorin Discs And Geometric Multiplicity, Rachid Marsli

Mathematics Theses

If A is an nxn complex matrix and λ is an eigenvalue of A with geometric multiplicity k, then λ is in at least k of the Geršgorin discs D_i of A.

Let k, r, t be positive integers with k ≤ r ≤ t. Then there is a txt complex matrix A and an eigenvalue λ of A such that λ has geometric multiplicity k and algebraic multiplicity t, and λ is in precisely r Geršgorin Discs of A. Some examples and related results are also provided.

Self-Reported Medical Conditions And Demographic, Behavioral And Dietary Factors Associated With Serum 25(Oh)-Vitamin D Concentration In The Us Adult Population, William E. Van Fleit Iii

Mathematics Theses

This research uses data from the 2003-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to determine dietary and other factors associated with serum 25(OH)-Vitamin D concentration for 5,474 adults age 20 years and older. After multivariate adjustment, we found that serum 25(OH)-Vitamin D concentration was positively associated with diets high in fruits, vegetables, and lean meats, while diets high in processed foods and high-fat meats were inversely associated with vitamin D level. Serum 25(OH)-Vitamin D concentration was also signifi-cantly associated with age, gender, race/ethnicity, BMI, physical activity, supplementation, and the season of survey administration. Self-reported cardiovascular and kidney disease were …

Effect Of Risk And Prognosis Factors On Breast Cancer Survival: Study Of A Large Dataset With A Long Term Follow-Up, Hongwei Wang

Mathematics Theses

The main goal of this study is to seek the effects of some risk and prognostic factors contributing to survival of female invasive breast cancer in United States. The study presents the survival analysis for the adult female invasive breast cancer based on the datasets chosen from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program of National Cancer Institute (NCI). In this study, the Cox proportional hazard regression model and logistic regression model were employed for statistical analysis. The odds ratios (OR), hazard ratios (HR) and confidence interval (C.I.) were obtained for the risk and prognosis factors. The study results …

Cellular Neural Networks With Switching Connections, Malcom Devoe, Malcom W. Devoe Jr.

Mathematics Theses

Artificial neural networks are widely used for parallel processing of data analysis and visual information. The most prominent example of artificial neural networks is a cellular neural network (CNN), composed from two-dimensional arrays of simple first-order dynamical systems (“cells”) that are interconnected by wires. The information, to be processed by a CNN, represents the initial state of the network, and the parallel information processing is performed by converging to one of the stable spatial equilibrium states of the multi-stable CNN. This thesis studies a specific type of CNNs designed to perform the winner-take-all function of finding the largest among the …

Confidence Interval Estimation For Coefficient Of Variation, Shuang Liu

Mathematics Theses

The coefficient of variation (CV) is a helpful quantity to describe the variation in evaluating results from different populations. There are many papers discussing methods of constructing confidence intervals for a single CV, such as exact method and approximation methods for CV when the underlying distribution is a normal distribution. However, the exact method is computationally cumbersome, and approximation methods can't be applied when the underlying distribution is unknown. In this thesis, we propose the generalized confidence interval for CV when the underlying distribution is normal and three empirical likelihood-based non-parametric intervals for CV when the underlying distribution is unknown. …