Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Characterizing The Effects Of Repetitive Head Trauma In Female Soccer Athletes For Prevention Of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, Diana Otero Svaldi

Open Access Dissertations

As participation in women’s soccer continues to grow and the longevity of female athletes’ careers continues to increase, prevention of mTBI in women’s soccer has become a major concern for female athletes as the long-term risks associated with a history of mTBI are well documented. Among women’s sports, soccer exhibits the highest concussion rates, on par with those of men’s football at the collegiate level. Head impact monitoring technology has revealed that “concussive hits” occurring directly before symptomatic injury are not predictive of mTBI, suggesting that the cumulative effect of repetitive head impacts experienced by collision sport athletes should be …

Mathematical Analysis Of Feedback Targets Of Bmp Signaling In Drosophila Embryonic Development, Yan Luo

Open Access Theses

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) drive a range of cellular processes especially in the early stages of embryonic development. This family of proteins acts as one of the most important extracellular signals in development pattern formation across the animal kingdom. Cells in embryos differentiate into different cell types in response to the concentration level of BMP. This complex process is regulated by multiple regulators that serve to tune the signal response.

Extensive experimental and computational research has been performed to analyze BMP regulation in Drosophila, a widely studied model organism, and has advanced our understanding of animal development. Because of …

Generalized Partial Directed Coherence And Centrality Measures In Brain Networks For Epileptogenic Focus Localization, Joshua Aaron Adkinson

Doctoral Dissertations

Accurate epileptogenic focus localization is required prior to surgical resection of brain tissue for treatment of patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy, a clinical need that is partially fulfilled to date through a subjective, and at times inconclusive, evaluation of the recorded electroencephalogram (EEG). Using brain connectivity analysis, patterns of causal interactions between brain regions were derived from multichannel EEG of 127 seizures in nine patients with focal, temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The statistically significant directed interactions in the reconstructed brain networks were estimated from three second intracranial multi-electrode EEG segments using the Generalized Partial Directed Coherence (GPDC) and validated …

Mutlifunctional Platforms For Gene And Drug Delivery For Cancer Therapy, Jeffery J. Ambrose Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

The National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society estimate that 1.6 million new cancer incidences and over half a million cancer related deaths occur annually [1][2]. Cancer the second most common cause of death in the United States [1], [2]. Although the causes of cancer can vary depending on cell type, all or almost all instances of cancer arise from a mutation or from an abnormal activation of the cellular genes that control cell growth and mitosis [3].

Treatment of a given cancer type depends on the subtype, stage and progression of the cancer. Varieties of cancer therapy include …