Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Healthcare Facilities: Maintaining Accessibility While Implementing Security, Ryan Vilter

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

In the wake of the Tulsa, Oklahoma hospital shooting in the summer of 2022, it was made clear that more security needed to be implemented in healthcare facilities. As a result, I inquired: What is the happy balance for healthcare facilities to maintain their accessibility to the public while also implementing security measures to prevent terrorist attacks? With that base, I give recommendations in the areas of cybersecurity, physical infrastructure, and physical and mental health, based off the existing literature and data gathered from terrorist attacks against hospitals over several decades.

The Effects Of Demographics And Risk Factors On The Morphological Characteristics Of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Majid Jadidi, Alexey Kamenskiy

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Background: Disease of the lower extremity arteries (Peripheral Arterial Disease, PAD) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. During disease development, the arteries adapt by changing their diameter, wall thickness, and residual deformations, but the effects of demographics and risk factors on this process are not clear.

Methods: Superficial femoral arteries from 736 subjects (505 male, 231 female, 12 to 99 years old, average age 51±17.8 years) and the associated demographic and risk factor variables were used to construct machine learning (ML) regression models that predicted morphological characteristics (diameter, wall thickness, and longitudinal opening angle resulting from the …

Design And Development Of Software With A Graphical User Interface To Display And Convert Multiple Microscopic Histology Images, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Majid Jadidi, Alexey Kamenskiy

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Histological images are widely used to assess the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Recent advancements in image analysis allow the identification of structural features on histological sections that can help advance medical device development, brain and cancer research, drug discovery, vascular mechanobiology, and many other fields. Histological slide scanners create images in SVS and TIFF formats that were designed to archive image blocks and high-resolution textual information. Because these formats were primarily intended for storage, they are often not compatible with conventional image analysis software and require conversion before they can be used in research. We have developed a user-friendly …

Team Coordination Dynamics Of Winning Nba Teams, Alli Grunkemeyer, Joel H. Sommerfeld

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Predicting sports games outcomes is an endless pursuit shared by stakeholders ranging from fans to coaches to data scientists. We have begun investigating the value of positional data recorded during basketball gameplay with the goal of predicting outcomes from team dynamics as they emerge. We approached this problem by analyzing the “shape” of team movements on the court and investigated whether team dynamics in NBA games mimicked long-range correlated patterns observed in other team contexts. We analyzed 622 NBA games from an archival data set, including all area time series obtained for each of the four quarters. We fit a …

Ingredient Classification Using Food Ontology, Ricky Flores

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

A food label provides some of the most crucial information for a food product. The food label is a key resource for many health-conscious consumers for understanding ingredients. It is also vital for individuals to avoid food allergens or help patients follow dietary recommendations. While the food labels in the United States are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) many labels contain additional information or statements that are not regulated. Moreover, the food label may be complex or contain terminology that the layperson may not understand. Evidence has indicated that consumers often find nutrition labels confusing, especially when …

Remotely Controlled Enzyme Behavior Using Localized Thermal Gradients, Sarah Brown

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

No existing model describes an identified special case of enzyme behavior when directly stimulated with thermal energy via an RF field.

The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Nano-medicine and biotechnology are the future of medical diagnostics and treatment. The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Direct heating of an enzyme vs bulk heating changes the enzyme activity.

I tested how direct transfer of thermal energy changes rates of enzyme reactions. We created samples of enzymes, attached to ferrous (magnetic) nano-particles, and …

Characterization Of Dimerization Domains On The Mannose-6-Phosphate/Insulin-Like Growth Factor 2 Receptor, Tyler Degener

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The mannose-6-phosphate/insulin-like growth factor 2 (M6P/IGF2) receptor is a transmembrane protein with the ability to sequester growth factors from the extracellular matrix. This behavior links the receptor to tumor suppression. On a structural level, the extracellular portion of the protein is segmented into 15 homologous repeats, which can be divided further into 5 triplet domains, labelled 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, and 13-15. Each triplet receptor displays its own unique ligand binding affinity, including the ability to form dimers with triplets on a second M6P/IGF2 receptor. In fact, previous studies indicate that this protein functions optimally when dimerized. Thus, the purpose …

The Effect Of Arm Swing On Countermovement Vertical Jump Performance, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Vertical jumping is one of the popular ways to evaluate ankle-knee efficiency in athletic population. Arm swing can play a crucial role in enhancing vertical jump performance. This study aimed to address the differences in kinetic and kinematic parameters during countermovement jump motion with arm swing (AS) and no arm swing (NAS). We used OpenSim to examine the efficacy of AS in reducing the impulse applied to the body and changes in range of lower limb joint angles at landing instant. We calculated the maximum vertical peak of the ground reaction force and impulse generated at landing in two different …

Evaluating An Electronic Protocol In A Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Jeanette Rose

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

A team of clinicians at Children’s Hospital and Medical Center (CHMC) developed a standardized protocol in 2018 for the care of patients needing sedation. This protocol is ordered through the EPIC electronic health record system for patients in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). When used, electronic protocols reduce the variation in clinical decision making which can ultimately improve patient outcomes. The goal of this project is to evaluate this technology, how the protocol is being used, and how it may be improved. Actual users of the EPIC sedation protocol were the subjects of this study, including PICU physicians, physician …

Estimating Variations In Metabolic Cost Within The Stride Cycle During Level And Uphill Walking, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Indirect calorimetry provides the average cost of a stride cycle and prevents from identifying which part of the gait cycle causes increased metabolic cost in patients, however, recent simulation methods allow estimating the time profile of metabolic cost within the stride cycle. In this study, we compare the estimations of the time profile of the metabolic cost of two simulation methods for level and uphill walking. We used kinematic, kinetic and electromyography data from level and uphill walking (one participant) to estimate the time profiles of metabolic cost using the muscle-level metabolic model of Umberger using electromyography and kinematic data …

Large Scale Dynamical Model Of Macrophage/Hiv Interactions, Sean T. Bresnahan, Matthew M. Froid

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Properties emerge from the dynamics of large-scale molecular networks that are not discernible at the individual gene or protein level. Mathematical models - such as probabilistic Boolean networks - of molecular systems offer a deeper insight into how these emergent properties arise. Here, we introduce a non-linear, deterministic Boolean model of protein, gene, and chemical interactions in human macrophage cells during HIV infection. Our model is composed of 713 nodes with 1583 interactions between nodes and is responsive to 38 different inputs including signaling molecules, bacteria, viruses, and HIV viral particles. Additionally, the model accurately simulates the dynamics of over …

Synthesis Of A Sulfur Variant For Treatment Of Trypanosomiasis, Carlos Vera-Esquivel

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Previous work in our lab has found diphenyl ether benzylamines showed a successful response with a micromolar concentration of our lead compound to treat the deadly Trypanosamiosis rhodesience. Furthermore, mammalian cell lines saw promising resistance towards damages. The goal of this study was to synthesize a diphenyl thio benzylamine variant. This variant was more active toward T. b. rhodesience but showed more toxicity to both rat 10 (IC₅₀ mM) and human cell lines (HFF, HC-₀₄, U-₂ OS, and HEK₂₉₃). The selectivity index (ratio of toxicity to activity in the same concentration units (SI)) …

Docking Studies Of Isoform-Selectivity Of Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase (Pi3k) Inhibitors, Kaitlin Goettsch

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases (PI3Ks) and their related pathways are reputed targets for drug-based anticancer therapies. Mutations in PI3K genes, expression, and pathways are frequent among multiple cancer types. Four isoforms of PI3Ks exist: α, β, γ, & δ and studies have identified several ligands for each isoform which are capable of serving as inhibitory therapeutic compounds. However, the biochemical efficacy of these molecules varies and the isoform selectivity is not well understood. In this study, we applied in silico docking methods and free energy calculation methods to estimate the binding of reported PI3K ligands against 5 PI3K structures: PI3Kα (PBD ID: …