Photobiomodulation Of Bovine Oocytes During Maturation Increases Atp Content And Enhances Subsequent Embryonic Development, Kendall Richey

All Theses

Bovine in-vitro production(IVP) of embryos is a growing field for producing offspring with desirable genetics in the cattle industries. While IVP is effective, oocyte cytoplasmic maturation is compromised, and bovine oocytes matured in-vitro have reduced metabolic activity than those matured in-vivo. Mitochondria are the central unit of oocyte metabolism, producing ATP through OXPHOS. Photobiomodulation is a light treatment reported to improve metabolic activity. In five experiments, we measured the effects of photobiomodulation treatment with red LED at 16-(L-16) and 20 h(L-20) of bovine oocyte in-vitro maturation on subsequent embryonic development, mitochondrial activity and nuclear progression. Bovine COCs were aspirated …

Effect Of Source Of Trace Minerals On Nutrient Digestibility And Rumen Fermentation Of Dairy Cows, Cesar Velasquez Rios

All Theses

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Analysis Of The Right Sizing Approach To Healthcare Space Planning, Johnathan Anspach

All Theses

Achieving optimal spatial design in healthcare facilities is crucial for efficient operations and high-quality patient care. This study investigates the application of the right-sizing approach to healthcare conceptual design, with a specific focus on the Medical-Surgical Unit (MSU) and Intensive Care Unit (ICU) departments within inpatient wards. Utilizing a robust methodology, foundational parameters and constraints were established to align with the functional requirements of a 100-bed hospital case study. Through a systematic process, industry practitioners contributed valuable insights via surveys, facilitating the quantification of parameter rankings essential for spatial decision-making.

Analysis of the data revealed significant correlations between parameters, emphasizing …

Photodynamic Therapy To Treat Triple Negative Breast Cancer In Vitro, Hunter S. Warren

All Theses

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most resilient form of breast cancer, being one of the leading causes of death for women and making up 7% of all cancer deaths. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) offers a minimally invasive solution to TNBC as a passive-targeting treatment that reduces the need for other well established yet harsh treatments that can be taxing on the patient. PDT involves the use of a high-energy red light on the area of a tumor injected with photosensitizers (PS) that generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the tumor, triggering cell death. The PS tetra(hydroxyphenyl)chlorin (m-THPC) was used …

Household Environments And Functional Decline Among Middle-Aged And Older Adults In China, Dandan Zhao

All Theses

This thesis investigates the associations between household social, economic, and physical environment conditions and the trajectory of self-reported functional limitations over time among middle-aged and older adults in China. Despite the increasing interest in the impact of household environments on functional decline, most existing studies are cross-sectional or concern changes in functioning observed in two waves of surveys, and they primarily focus on the influence of one condition. This thesis explores how the trajectory of functional decline is influenced jointly by multiple household factors, including living arrangement, annual living expenditure per capita, indoor air pollution resulting from solid fuels, and …

An In Vivo Biocompatibility Analysis Of A Novel Tissue Regeneration Matrix Using A Pig Model, Shamar Thomas

All Theses

The goal of this project is to develop an injectable bead scaffold to promote tissue regeneration in the void created by lumpectomy and to alleviate post lumpectomy problems by preventing local recurrence and minimizing surgical-related infections. Microbeads were synthesized from collagen type I and crosslinked with tannic acid to form the basis for this injectable therapeutic. Tannic acid acts as a therapeutic anticancer agent. The action mechanisms of tannins in breast cancer cells have been studied with studies showing tannins to be cytotoxic to cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. Tannic acid induces apoptosis in breast cancer cells via caspase …

Rated T For Therapy: How Video Games Portray Mental Illness And Their Effects On Social Stigmas, Christine Wendell

All Theses

Mental illness has always been a tricky subject for us to tackle as a society due to the social stigmas surrounding it. Historically, people with mental illness were seen as violent and unstable and would often need to be committed for public safety; however, a large majority of people with mental illness do not fit that bracket and often don’t reach out for help due to that fear of being “othered” by society. As time went on, these tropes faded to purely entertainment mediums but the stigmas still remain. Many video games specifically hold onto these tropes for shock value …

Trauma, Found Family, And Their Influence On The Creation Of A Pitch Bible, David Scheele

All Theses

Trauma is a very common theme in works of fiction, as it is something that all of us
experience in our lives and as a result is emphasized in art. Whether it is injuries, abuse, the loss of loved ones, and much more, trauma is ubiquitous within the human experience. Sometimes trauma can have lasting impacts on an individual’s mental health, often taking the form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD as it is more commonly known. We see this form of mental illness portrayed quite often in the media that we consume. Examples across various artistic mediums include Sarah …

A Systematic Review Of Research On Treatment & Prevention Of The Neglected Tropical Disease Leishmaniasis, Aryn Akerberg

All Theses

Leishmaniasis is a life-threatening neglected tropical disease that is caused by the protozoa parasite, Leishmania. Over one million new human leishmaniasis cases occur each all over the world, affecting most the deeply impoverished regions of the world. The disease presents in three different forms: cutaneous leishmaniasis, mucocutaneous (mucosal) leishmaniasis, and visceral leishmaniasis. Symptoms can range from self-limiting lesion to more life-threatening conditions such as fever, kidney disease, and anemia. The Leishmania parasite is transmitted via the bite of the female phlebotomine sandfly and can infect many other mammals such as canines, rodents, bats, etc. The canine leishmaniasis epidemic is also …

Serious Leisure, Job Task Load, & Satisfaction, Carson Matsick

All Theses

The study examined the relationship between degree of leisure seriousness and leisure, job, and life satisfaction, as moderated by perceived job mental workload. Serious leisure has largely been studied in reference to general life satisfaction and health outcomes, and less research exists to examine whether serious leisure participation may influence work. This study tested the following hypothesis: the relationship between serious leisure participation and employee well-being is moderated by mental workload on the job, such that a) as mental workload increases, then serious leisure participation and satisfaction will be less strongly positively correlated, and b) as mental workload decreases, then …

Barriers And Facilitators In Implementing Multiplatform Remote Patient Monitoring Of Heart Failure Patients In Clinical Settings, Zachary Andrew Reilly

All Theses

Remote patient monitoring (RPM), which provides continuous monitoring of vital signs, has become increasingly utilized in patients with heart failure (HF). As this condition impacts more than 26 million Americans each year, it is important to determine the barriers and facilitators of RPM to both improve patient care and help medical professionals make more informed medical decisions. To determine these barriers and facilitators, our research team partnered with Prisma Health-Upstate to interview healthcare professionals working at Carolina Cardiology Consultants--Greenville, which uses multiple RPM systems to monitor heart failure patients.

The twelve interviews conducted support that healthcare professionals would benefit from …

Development Of A New Affinity Membrane For Rapidly Purifying Non-Antibody Proteins, Friendship Edioma

All Theses

This thesis project describes the modification and evaluation of a new affinity membrane for rapid chromatographic purification of non-antibody proteins. The affinity membrane utilizes Im7/CL7 coupling technology developed by Dr. Vassylyev's lab at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB), licensed by TriAltus Bioscience. The behavior of the membrane was evaluated using purified CL7-tagged Cas9 as my model protein for static and dynamic binding capacity analysis.

Chapter one provides an overview on biopharmaceutical drug production process development. I discuss how protein drugs are produced, isolated, and purified from the cell supernatant after upstream phases are completed. Despite increasing demands for biologics, …

A Digital Healthcare Application For Patient Monitoring And Assessment, Brandon Shumin

All Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic strained our healthcare resources and exacerbated the existing issues of primary care shortages and burnout rates for healthcare professionals. Due in part to these factors, telehealth has seen more wide-spread use during this time. However, current asynchronous telehealth applications require stable Internet to function fully. Since many medically underserved populations in the United States lack Internet access in their homes, an application that offers patient monitoring and assessment could extend their access to medical resources. This work proposes such a digital healthcare application for iOS devices and evaluates it based on the system requirements of availability, data …

Variations In Surgeon-Applied Loads During Passive Range Of Motion Following Total Knee Replacement With Relevance To Computational Modeling, Cj Bakle Ii

All Theses

Total knee replacement (TKR) is generally considered a successful treatment for musculoskeletal disorders of the knee. However, as many as 20% of patients report some dissatisfaction in their physical function after TKR. And approximately 50% of early revisions needed to address conditions related to component alignment and soft tissue tension to stabilize the knee. During TKR, surgeons manually perform passive range of motion (ROM) assessments to gain feedback perceived as tension in ligaments and other soft tissues. Such assessments are highly subjective and rely on the surgeon's perception of soft tissue tension rather than quantitative objective means. The variability in …

Investigations Of External Resources And The Impact Of Imaging On Patient Flow In The Emergency Department, Marisa Shehan

All Theses

The problems associated with Emergency Department (ED) crowding are numerous, varied, and complex. Though overcrowded Emergency Departments are frequently attributed to overcrowded hospitals, crowding is also impacted by bottlenecks in patient flow. While discrete-event simulation (DES) is commonly used to model ED flow, external resources are typically excluded from these models due to their complexity and the limited amount of known information for these processes. Instead, external resources such as consults, labs, and imaging are modeled using estimation and/or educated guesswork. In this study, the impact of imaging on patient flow was assessed through data analysis of specific imaging factors, …

U.S. Army Medical Command’S Medical Treatment Facilities’ Response To Sars-Cov-2 (Covid-19), Seyedmohammad Ahmadshahi

All Theses

Starting in December 2019 to the current time in May 2022, COVID-19 was a devastating pandemic with approximately 440 million cases and 6 million deaths worldwide (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021). The United States (US) with roughly 90 million cases and 1 million deaths (CDC, 2021) was one of the epicenters of the outbreak since the beginning. The pandemic has significantly impacted the health systems across the US with unpredictable surges of highly infectious patients with uncertain symptomology and acuity levels, requiring isolation and critical level of care (Brambilla et al., 2021).

Based on the findings from …

Body Appreciation, Gender, Motivation, And Competitive Success In Competition Climbing, Marissa Frost

All Theses

The focus of this study was to examine the relation between the constructs of body appreciation, gender, motivation, and competitive success in competition climbers. To gather data for this study, a Qualtrics survey was created and distributed amongst the competition climbing community through USA Climbing’s Facebook page and member email list. Data was then collected from competition climbers between the ages of thirteen and sixty over 45 days in the winter of 2017. A total of 236 competition climbers participated in the survey and 202 of those responses were used in this study. Body appreciation in this study was analyzed …

Determining States Of Movement In Humans Using Minimally Processed Eeg Signals And Various Classification Methods, Maurice Barnett

All Theses

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive technique used in both clinical and research settings to record neuronal signaling in the brain. The location of an EEG signal as well as the frequencies at which its neuronal constituents fire correlate with behavioral tasks, including discrete states of motor activity. Due to the number of channels and fine temporal resolution of EEG, a dense, high-dimensional dataset is collected. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a treatment that has been suggested to improve motor functions of Parkinson’s disease and chronic stroke patients when stimulation occurs during a motor task. tDCS is commonly administered without …

Designing And Evaluating An Intervention To Target Functional Movement, Flexibility, And Strength In Paddle Whitewater Raft Guides, Leah Irwin

All Theses

According to the Outdoor Industry Association (2020), about 3.4 million people across the United States went whitewater-rafting in 2019. The majority of the research on whitewater rafting has focused on guest injuries, with less attention on the whitewater raft guides, who have an arduous job and are at risk for shoulder, back, and hip injuries. In addition to these injuries, rafting guides also experience bilateral imbalances from utilizing a dominant guiding side. One way to prevent these types of injuries and imbalances is to improve functional movement, strength, and range of motion (ROM). The goal of this study was to …

Arsenic Targets Neural Plate Border Specifier Cells In P19 Cells, Christopher Mccoy

All Theses

Epidemiological studies have shown that arsenic exposure during early embryogenesis can cause reduced weight gain and neurological deficits later on in life. In addition, in vitro and in vivo studies have indicated that arsenic suppresses neurogenesis and myogenesis. The exact mechanism of how arsenic causes these undesired developmental outcomes is poorly understood, however both skeletal muscle and sensory neuron development require the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway to initiate the specific differentiation of precursor cells. We were interested in determining the target cell population of arsenic and its metabolites. Arsenic's metabolites were of interest because they have been shown to be more …

The Effects Of Reminder Distinctiveness And Anticipatory Interval On Prospective Memory, Natalee Baldwin

All Theses

Prospective memory failures (or failures to remember a future intention) can result in a wide range of negative consequences. The use of reminders has been shown to improve the rate of PM successes. The aim of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of reminders based on their type (text or picture) and their timing. We hypothesized that successful PM performance would be successfully maintained over longer anticipatory intervals when paired with picture reminders rather than with simple text reminders because of the inherent distinctiveness of pictures. We also expected that performance for younger adults would be better than …

Does Health Insurance Have Influence On Obesity?, Wenyao Zhou

All Theses

Obesity in the United States has been continuing increasing and cited as a major health issue in recent decades. Many researchers have studied its socio-economic cause, but very few studies center on the potential influence that health insurance has on obesity. In our common sense, health insurance reduces the money that we pay for health care and makes many treatments' cost affordable which we may choose to give up originally due to our financial situation. However, everything has two sides. The benefits from insurance also can lead people to change their choices and behaviors. As an insured, people may take …

The Effects Of Conjugated Linoleic Acid Supplementation On Lipopolysaccharide-Challenged Synoviocytes, Allison Millican

All Theses

Osteoarthritis is one of the leading causes of lameness in the athletic horse. Cases of equine osteoarthritis typically present with synovitis, or inflammation of the synovium. This inflammation in the synovium leads to the production of inflammatory cytokines and eicosanoids. Although these downstream products can be beneficial, overproduction can lead to degradation of cartilage and joint disease. Opportunities to help mitigate or decrease inflammation within the joint are of current interest to the equine industry. One method being investigated is nutritional supplementation. The anti-inflammatory effects demonstrated by CLA supplementation make it a potential prospect for utilization in mitigating joint inflammation. …

Responses Of Target And Non-Target Species To Algaecide Exposures, Alyssa Calomeni

All Theses

Laboratory experiments are often used to predict the responses of target and non-target species to chemical exposures in the field. In the first two experiments of this thesis, a rigorous evaluation of six algal viability measures was conducted. A definitive evaluation of the algal response measures was conducted using heat treatment to create known live: dead cell suspensions. Results from the response measures were compared to the known viability of the cell suspensions to determine their variance and accuracy. Copper-based algaecides were then used as a more realistic exposure to test the algal viability measures. When algal viability measures had …

Cooking Healthy, Eating Smart (Ches): Evaluating The Feasibility Of Using Volunteers To Deliver Nutrition And Food Safety Education To Rural Older Adults, Morgan Getty

All Theses

Due to their limited resources, rural, older adults in the United States are at risk for poor diet-related health outcomes. Nutrition education is a key component in improving health outcomes in older adults. Cooking Healthy, Eating Smart (CHES) is a nine-lesson curriculum designed to teach rural, older adults culturally appropriate nutrition and food safety information. Funding to hire health professionals to deliver such a curriculum is limited, presenting the need to explore a less expensive mode of dissemination. In this community-based, participatory research study, a formative evaluation and feasibility study were conducted to examine the use of volunteers to deliver …

Pharmacists' And Patients' Perceptions Of Role Of Pharmacist In Discharge Process, Ravi Teja Vempati

All Theses

The objective of this study was to identify the perceptions of both patients and pharmacists about the pharmacist's role in the hospital discharge process. In order to do this, observations were conducted with the patients and interviews were conducted with both patients and pharmacists. During the interviews, both the patients and pharmacists were asked about the pharmacist's role in the hospital discharge process. The interviews were qualitatively analyzed using the in vivo technique. Four high-level themes emerged from this study: Current role of a pharmacist in the hospital, Ideal role of a pharmacist in the discharge process, Pharmacists' perceptions of …

Mobile Interactive Fitness Technologies And The Recreational Experience Of Bicycling: A Phenomenological Exploration Of The Strava Community, William Smith

All Theses

Technology is now embedded in many aspects of daily life. Over the past few years, fitness related smartphone applications have steadily grown in popularity. Despite the prevalence of technology in recreation and leisure experiences, the topic remains to be thoroughly examined from a qualitative interpretive viewpoint. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and describe how cyclists use and experience Strava--a GPS enabled smartphone application that tracks bicycle rides and uploads the data to an online community of other users. Particular attention was given to user motivations, affordances of the technology, and notions of community. After participant observation …

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 …

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 …

Beyond Health: The Meaning Of Recreation Participation For Injured Service Members, Catherine Munroe

All Theses

The Global War on Terrorism and the ongoing contingency operations have resulted in a large number of service members returning home with life changing traumatic injuries. As a result, there has been a surge of programs designed to facilitate transition into life with a disability and promote recovery from injury, including programs providing recreation and sports. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the effects of recreation and sport participation on injured service members' recovery and enhancement of health. Health is investigated using the World Health Organization's definition which includes physical, mental, and social well-being. Interviews were conducted …