Design of Experiments and Sample Surveys Commons^™

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Drug Ideologies Of The United States, Macy Montgomery

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

The United States has been increasingly creating lenient drug policies. Seventeen states and Washington, the District of Columbia, legalized marijuana, and Oregon decriminalized certain drugs, including methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine. The medical community has proven that drugs, including marijuana, have myriad adverse health side effects. This leads to two questions: Why does the United States government continue to create lenient drug policies, and what reasons do citizens give for legalizing drugs when the medical community has proven them harmful? The paper hypothesizes that the disadvantages of drug legalization outweigh its benefits because of the numerous harms it causes, such as …

Improving The Accuracy Of Interactive Voice Response (Ivr) Technology For Pediatric Experience Scores, Elizabeth Spaargaren Ms, Mph, Cpxp, Abigail Kozak Mba, Cpxp, Cara Herbener Cpxp, Barbara Lawlor Burke Ma, Cpxp

Patient Experience Journal

The increased use of interactive voice response (IVR) in assessing patient and family experience should be paired with evidence-based practices on how to obtain the most accurate information via this survey mode. We added a brief clarification sentence of the survey scale at the start of the IVR call to improve our experience data both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our setting was an urban pediatric hospital. We gathered lived experiences from our patients, families, and providers to understand and design a change to the IVR survey mode that would reduce survey inaccuracies. Outcome measures were assessed by baseline measurement and post-intervention …

Perception Of Health Care Access In Rural Georgia: Findings From A Community Health Needs Assessment Survey, Elisa M. Childs, Tiffany R. Washington

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Background: Limited access to health care services has been cited as a barrier to care for individuals who live in rural areas, contributing to significant health disparities in this population. While perception of services has been cited as a determinant of utilization of health services, it is unknown how perception of services influences health care access in rural areas. The paucity of studies specific to areas in the United States that are medically underserved, necessitated this study and its quantification of the issues that are relevant to individuals living in rural Georgia.

Methods: This study examined the perception of health …

A Participatory Group Process To Collect And Disseminate Covid-19 Needs Assessment Data, Areebah Ahmed

Undergraduate Research Posters

The Richmond, VA COVID-19 Needs Assessment Survey (RVA CoNA) was created in March 2020 to identify behaviors and needs related to COVID-19 in Richmond area adults ages 18 and over. Results are being used to inform support, strategic efforts, and educational outreach of local community organizations. The purpose of this study is to (1) summarize the process used to develop the RVA CoNA, (2) summarize preliminary survey results from a second phase of data collection as well as initial feedback from community partners, and (3) summarize initial conclusions and results dissemination strategies.Community partners and researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University jointly …

Carbon Dioxide And Particulate Matter Concentration On Hampton Roads Air Quality, Gregory Hubbard

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

Hampton Roads has been a maritime crossroads for the last 400 years. Industrialization has impacted the coastal region for the last 250 years. The expansion of the Port of Virginia in 2019 has created dense traffic in the region resulting in impacts to air quality. Two waste products that affect humans are particulate matter and carbon dioxide. Both respective emissions can cause adverse effects on humans, such as asthma, some lung cancers, and other respiratory distress. Scientists and health practitioners are studying the effects of particulate matter on human health. Hampton Roads, in particular, because of its unique location on …

Protocol For A National Probability Survey Using Home Specimen Collection Methods To Assess Prevalence And Incidence Of Sars-Cov-2 Infection And Antibody Response, Aaron J. Siegler, Patrick S. Sullivan, Travis Sanchez, Ben Lopman, Mansour Fahimi, Charles Sailey, Martin Frankel, Richard Rothenberg, Colleen F. Kelley, Heather Bradley

Publications and Research

Purpose: The U.S. response to the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic has been hampered by early and ongoing delays in testing for infection; without data on where infections were occurring and the magnitude of the epidemic, early public health responses were not data-driven. Understanding the prevalence of SARSCoV- 2 infections and immune response is critical to developing and implementing effective public health responses. Most serological surveys have been limited to localities that opted to conduct them and/or were based on convenience samples. Moreover, results of antibody testing might be subject to high false positive rates in the setting of low prevalence of immune …

Trends And Disparities In Self-Reported And Measured Osteoporosis Among Us Adults, 2007-2014., Qing Wu, Yingke Xu, Ge Lin

Environmental & Occupational Health Faculty Publications

(1) Background: Studies examining osteoporosis trends among US adults by different socioeconomic status (SES) are limited. The prevalence of self-reported osteoporosis in the US is rarely reported. (2) Methods: Data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2007–2008 and 2013–2014 cycles were analyzed. Age-adjusted prevalence of self-reported and that of measured osteoporosis were calculated overall and by sex, race/ethnicity, education attainment, and SES. (3) Results: The prevalence of self-reported osteoporosis was higher than that of measured osteoporosis in all three survey cycles for women, and in 2007–2008 and 2009–2010 for men. Participants with high school/GED or higher …

I Spy With My Little Eye … A Knee About To Go 'Pop'? Can Coaches And Sports Medicine Professionals Predict Who Is At Greater Risk Of Acl Rupture?, Anne Inger Mørtvedt, Tron Krosshaug, Roald Bahr, Erich Petushek

Michigan Tech Publications

BACKGROUND: The vertical drop jump (VDJ) test is widely used for clinical assessment of ACL injury risk, but it is not clear whether such assessments are valid.

AIM: To examine if sports medicine professionals and coaches are able to identify players at risk of sustaining an ACL injury by visually assessing player performance during a VDJ test.

METHODS: 102 video clips of elite female handball and football players performing a baseline VDJ test were randomly extracted from a 738-person prospective cohort study that tracked ACL injuries. Of the sample, 20 of 102 went on to suffer an ACL injury. These …

An Animal-Assisted Intervention Study In The Nursing Home: Lessons Learned, Lonneke G. J. A. Schuurmans, Inge Noback, Jos M. G. A. Schols, Marie-Jose Enders-Slegers

People and Animals: The International Journal of Research and Practice

AAI studies in the nursing home pose a specific set of challenges. In this article the practical and ethical issues encountered during a Dutch psychogeriatric nursing home AAI study are addressed with the aim of sharing our experiences for future researchers as well as AAI practitioners in general.

In our study we compared three groups of clients with dementia who participated in group sessions of either visiting dog teams, visiting FurReal Friend robot animals, or visiting students (control group) and monitored the effect on social interaction and neuropsychiatric symptoms through video analysis and questionnaires. We encountered the following four categories …

Acute Toxicity Testing Without Animals: More Scientific And Less Of A Gamble, Gillian R. Langley

Gill Langley, PhD

In this report, we argue specifically that acute toxicity data should not be sought from animal tests. The underlying principle of such tests on rats and mice is that the results can be effectively extrapolated to humans. In fact, after nearly 80 years of use of these tests, the predictivity of rodent data for human acute toxic effects has been disputed but never proven.

Interpreting Patient Reported Outcomes In Orthopaedic Surgery: A Systematic Review, Shgufta Docter, Zina Fathalla, Michael Lukacs, Michaela Khan, Morgan Jennings, Shu-Hsuan Liu, Dong Zi, Dianne Bryant

Western Research Forum

Background: Reporting methods of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) vary in orthopaedic surgery literature. While most studies report statistical significance, the interpretation of results would be improved if authors reported confidence intervals (CIs), the minimally clinically important difference (MCID), and number needed to treat (NNT).

Objective: To assess the quality and interpretability of reporting the results of PROMs. To evaluate reporting, we will assess the proportion of studies that reported (1) 95% CIs, (2) MCID, and (3) NNT. To evaluate interpretation, we will assess the proportion of studies that discussed results using the MCID or the effect sizes and how …

Recent Developments In Alternatives To Animal Testing, Katy Taylor

Application of Alternative Methods Collection

Methods that replace techniques that use live animals, or methods of testing substances without live animal use, are known as alternatives, replacements or non-animal methods. Some prefer the term advanced technologies given the fact that they often rely on more sophisticated technology and are more human- relevant than the animal test they replace (see Langley et al., 2015). There have been efforts to replace animal tests since the 1960s. Significant progress initially came in replacing animals used to diagnose human disease; to produce biological drugs (such as vaccines); and to safety test batches of these drugs as they were produced. …

The Changing Paradigm In Preclinical Toxicology: In Vitro And In Silico Methods In Liver Toxicity Evaluations, Fozia Noor

Application of Alternative Methods Collection

In vitro methods, based on human primary cells, cell lines, and genetically modified reporter cell lines, have greatly expanded the scope of in vitro toxicology. Other significant progress in the area of human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) (Asgari et al., 2010; Schwartz et al., 2014; Shinde et al., 2016; Shtrichman, Germanguz and Itskovitz-Eldor, 2013) is allowing the application of patient and disease-specific hiPSCs (Ghodsizadeh et al., 2010; McCracken et al., 2014; Siller et al., 2013). Moreover, the tools of precise genome editing with engineered nucleases, such as the zinc finger nucleases (zfns), the transcription activator-like effecter nucleases (talens) and, more …

How To Evaluate The Science Of Non-Human Animal Use In Biomedical Research And Testing: A Proposed Format For Debate, Ray Greek, Lisa A. Kramer

Validation of Alternative Methods Collection

Over time, the interpretation of science has occasionally been corrupted by vested interest groups, be they financially motivated or ego driven. Scientific consensus and widespread public beliefs usually catch up with the evidence, but this can take a very long time and often costs lives. The use of non-human animals in biomedical research and testing is a scientific endeavor and, as such, can and should be evaluated in light of the best science currently available. But facts that have been accepted in all areas of science are routinely ignored or called into question by well-funded, vested interest groups, compromising the …

How Can The Final Goal Of Completely Replacing Animal Procedures Successfully Be Achieved?, Christiane Baumgartl-Simons, Christiane Hohense

Validation of Alternative Methods Collection

Article 23 of European Union (EU) Directive 86/609/EEC required that Member States promote the development and validation of alternative technologies and stated that the European Commission (EC) “shall report before the end of 1987 on the possibility of modifying tests and guidelines” (European Parliament, 1986, Article 23). This Directive was replaced by Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes, which now requires that Member States develop and validate alternative approaches much more precisely and specifies that the ultimate objective is the “full replacement of procedures on live animals for scientific and educational purposes, as soon as …

Safety Constraint Optimization Of Combination Drug Therapy In Hypertension Clinical Trials, Victor Chukwu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Clinical Practice, combination drug therapy has become common in treating many disease conditions. The purpose of these combinations is often to ensure optimal efficacy and to reduce adverse effects that may arise from monotherapy. Clinical trials have also been conducted to ensure efficacy and safety of these combinations before they are introduced into the market. However, adverse effects still occur with combination therapies. The objective of this study is to (1) To determine a region of optimum doses of Drug A and Drug B in combination while focusing on efficacy alone (2) To determine a region of optimum doses …

Replacing Animal Tests To Improve Safety For Humans, Kathy Archibald, Robert Coleman, Tamara Drake

Application of Alternative Methods Collection

In this chapter, we propose a new, pragmatic approach that could accelerate the replacement of most, if not all, regulatory animal tests with superior tests based on human biology. We also propose that changes to the requirements for safety testing, issued by the us Food and Drug Administration (fda), must be made in order to enable the use of superior new tests, which are currently disadvantaged by the outdated language of the regulations. But first, it is imperative to establish some level of understanding of the efficacy of existing animal-based methods in order to know whether any possible replacement is …

Designing A Calibration Set In Spectral Space For Efficient Development Of An Nir Method For Tablet Analysis, Md Anik Alam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Designing a calibration set is the first step in developing a spectroscopic calibration method for quantitative analysis of pharmaceutical tablets. This step is critical because successful model development depends on the suitability of the calibration data. For spectroscopic-based methods, traditional concentration based techniques for designing calibration sets are prone to have redundant information while simultaneously lacking necessary information for a successful calibration model. The traditional method also follows the same design approach for different spectroscopic techniques and different formulations, thereby lacks the optimizing capability to be technique and formulation specific.

A method for designing a calibration set in the Near …

Developing, Piloting, And Factor Analysis Of A Brief Survey Tool For Evaluating Food And Composting Behaviors: The Short Composting Survey, Jennie Norton

All Master's Theses

Composting on a university campus may take a variety of forms. Sustainable approaches to waste management can be taught and supported through educational programs, peer-to-peer behavior modeling, and composting program interventions. Although peer-reviewed research on composting interventions is somewhat lacking, student interest in the topic is demonstrated by a range of exploratory senior projects and pilot interventions conducted at colleges across the United States and abroad. The purpose of this study was twofold: conduct an educational compost intervention pilot study and develop a survey tool to measure participant attitudes surrounding food behaviors and composting. The Compost Project pilot study focused …

Further Advances For The Sequential Multiple Assignment Randomized Trial (Smart), Tianjiao Dai

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

ABSTRACT

FURTHER ADVANCES FOR THE SEQUENTIAL MULTIPLE ASSIGNMENT RANDOMIZED TRIAL (SMART)

Tianjiao Dai, M.S.

Advisory Professor: Sanjay Shete, Ph.D.

Sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) designs have been developed these years for studying adaptive interventions. In my Ph.D. study, I mainly investigate how to further improve SMART designs and optimize the interventions for each individual in the trial. My dissertation has focused on two topics of SMART designs.

1) Developing a novel SMART design that can reduce the cost and side effects associated with the interventions and proposing the corresponding analytic methods. I have developed a time-varying SMART design in …

A Comparison Of The Quality Of Informed Consent For Clinical Trials Of An Experimental Hookworm Vaccine Conducted In Developed And Developing Countries., David J. Diemert, Lucas Lobato, Ashley Styczynski, Maria Zumer, Amanda Soares, Maria Flávia Gazzinelli

Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine Faculty Publications

Informed consent is one of the principal ethical requirements of conducting clinical research, regardless of the study setting. Breaches in the quality of the informed consent process are frequently described in reference to clinical trials conducted in developing countries, due to low levels of formal education, a lack of familiarity with biomedical research, and limited access to health services in these countries. However, few studies have directly compared the quality of the informed consent process in developed and developing countries using the same tool and in similar clinical trials. This study was conducted to compare the quality of the informed …

When Is A Randomised Controlled Trial Health Equity Relevant? Development And Validation Of A Conceptual Framework, J. Jull, M. Whitehead, M. Petticrew, E. Kristjansson, D. Gough, Sarah Baird, +Several Additional Authors

Global Health Faculty Publications

Background Randomised controlled trials can provide evidence relevant to assessing the equity impact of an intervention, but such information is often poorly reported. We describe a conceptual framework to identify health equity-relevant randomised trials with the aim of improving the design and reporting of such trials.

Methods An interdisciplinary and international research team engaged in an iterative consensus building process to develop and refine the conceptual framework via face-to-face meetings, teleconferences and email correspondence, including findings from a validation exercise whereby two independent reviewers used the emerging framework to classify a sample of randomised trials.

Results A randomised trial can …

"It Makes You Feel Like Someone Cares" Acceptability Of A Financial Incentive Intervention For Hiv Viral Suppression In The Hptn 065 (Tlc-Plus) Study., Elizabeth Greene, Allison Pack, Jill Stanton, Victoria Shelus, Elizabeth E Tolley, Jamilah Taylor, Wafaa M El Sadr, Bernard M Branson, Jason Leider, Natella Rakhmanina, Theresa Gamble

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: HPTN 065 (TLC-Plus) evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of providing quarterly $70 gift card financial incentives to HIV-infected patients on antiretroviral therapy (ART) to encourage ART adherence and viral suppression, and represents the largest study to-date of a financial incentive intervention for HIV viral suppression. A post-trial qualitative substudy was undertaken to examine acceptability of the financial incentives among those receiving and implementing the intervention.

METHODS: Between July and October 2013, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 72 patients and 12 investigators from 14 sites; three focus groups were conducted with 12 staff from 10 sites. Qualitative data collection elicited …

Non-Human Primates In Neuroscience Research: The Case Against Its Scientific Necessity, Jarrod Bailey, Katy Taylor

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Public opposition to non-human primate (NHP) experiments is significant, yet those who defend them cite minimal harm to NHPs and substantial human benefit. Here we review these claims of benefit, specifically in neuroscience, and show that: a) there is a default assumption of their human relevance and benefit, rather than robust evidence; b) their human relevance and essential contribution and necessity are wholly overstated; c) the contribution and capacity of non-animal investigative methods are greatly understated; and d) confounding issues, such as species differences and the effects of stress and anaesthesia, are usually overlooked. This is the case in NHP …

An Assessment Of The Role Of Chimpanzees In Aids Vaccine Research, Jarrod Bailey

Jarrod Bailey, PhD

Prior to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV)-infected macaques becoming the ‘model of choice’ in the 1990s, chimpanzees were widely used in AIDS vaccine research and testing. Faced with the continued failure to develop an effective human vaccine, some scientists are calling for a return to their widespread use. To assess the past and potential future contribution of chimpanzees to AIDS vaccine development, databases and published literature were systematically searched to compare the results of AIDS vaccine trials in chimpanzees with those of human clinical trials, and to determine whether the chimpanzee trials were predictive of the human response. Protective and/or therapeutic …

Institutional Animal Care And Use Committees: A Flawed Paradigm Or Work In Progress?, John P. Gluck, F. Barbara Orlans

John P. Gluck, PhD

In his challenging article, Steneck (1997) criticized the creation of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) system established by the 1985 amendments to the Animal Welfare Act. He saw the IACUC review and approval of biomedical and behavioral research with animals as an unnecessary "reassignment" of duties from existing animal care programs to IACUC committees. He argued that the committees are unable to do the work expected of them for basically three reasons: (a) the membership lacks the expertise in matters relevant to animal research and care, (b) there exists an inherent and disabling conflict of interest, and …

Food For Thought … Mechanistic Validation, Thomas Hartung, Sebastian Hoffman, Martin Stephens

Martin Stephens, PhD

Validation of new approaches in regulatory toxicology is commonly defined as the independent assessment of the reproducibility and relevance (the scientific basis and predictive capacity) of a test for a particular purpose. In large ring trials, the emphasis to date has been mainly on reproducibility and predictive capacity (comparison to the traditional test) with less attention given to the scientific or mechanistic basis. Assessing predictive capacity is difficult for novel approaches (which are based on mechanism), such as pathways of toxicity or the complex networks within the organism (systems toxicology). This is highly relevant for implementing Toxicology for the 21st …

Noncompliance With Public Health Service (Phs) Policy On Humane Care And Use Of Laboratory Animals: An Exploratory Analysis, Leah M. Gomez, Kathleen Conlee, Martin Stephens

Martin Stephens, PhD

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a major biomedical research-funding body in the United States. Approximately 40% of NIH-funded research involves experimentation on nonhuman animals (Monastersky, 2008). Institutions that conduct animal research with NIH funds must adhere to the Public Health Service (PHS) care and use standards of the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW, 2002a). Institutions deviating significantly from the PHS’s animal care and use standards must report these incidents to the NIH’s OLAW. This study is an exploratory analysis of all the significant deviations reported by animal-research facilities to OLAW during a 3-month period. The study identifies …

Addressing Distress And Pain In Animal Research: The Veterinary, Research, Societal, Regulatory And Ethical Contexts For Moving Forward, Kathleen Conlee, Martin Stephens, Andrew N. Rowan

Martin Stephens, PhD

While most people recognize that biomedical scientists are searching for knowledge that will improve the health of humans and animals, the image of someone deliberately causing harm to an animal in order to produce data that may lead to some future benefit has always prompted an uncomfortable reaction outside the laboratory. However, proponents of animal research have usually justified the practice by reference to greater benefits (new knowledge and medical treatments) over lesser costs (in animal suffering and death). Given that one of the costs of animal research is the suffering experienced by the animals, the goal of eliminating distress …