Medical Biomathematics and Biometrics Commons^™

Transient Dynamics Of Infection Transmission In An Intensive Care Unit, Christopher Short, Matthew S. Mietchen, Eric T. Lofgren

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Not Just Either/Or: Discrete And Continuous Models Play Nicely Together In A Model Of Hospital Infection, Lester Caudill, Barry Lawson

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Rajasthan Public Health System’S Response To The 2019 Dengue Insurgence, Luke Bryan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Dengue virus is in a pandemic status and is a major public health issue in the modern world. The mosquito-borne disease is largely prevalent in Asia and specifically India, where more than half of the states are considered to have complete presence of the dengue virus. The intricate infrastructure of the Indian public health system looks for dengue cases at all levels and reports to the integrated disease surveillance programme (IDSP).

Analyses of the IDSP and trends of dengue cases was done in response to dengue outbreaks throughout the state. Geographic information system (GIS) maps were created to evaluate a …

Seeing Eye To Eye: A Machine Learning Approach To Automated Saccade Analysis, Maigh Attre

Honors Scholar Theses

Abnormal ocular motility is a common manifestation of many underlying pathologies particularly those that are neurological. Dynamics of saccades, when the eye rapidly changes its point of fixation, have been characterized for many neurological disorders including concussions, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and Parkinson’s disease. However, widespread saccade analysis for diagnostic and research purposes requires the recognition of certain eye movement parameters. Key information such as velocity and duration must be determined from data based on a wide set of patients’ characteristics that may range in eye shapes and iris, hair and skin pigmentation [36]. Previous work on saccade analysis has …

Parameter Estimation And Optimal Design Techniques To Analyze A Mathematical Model In Wound Healing, Nigar Karimli

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For this project, we use a modified version of a previously developed mathematical model, which describes the relationships among matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), their tissue inhibitors (TIMPs), and extracellular matrix (ECM). Our ultimate goal is to quantify and understand differences in parameter estimates between patients in order to predict future responses and individualize treatment for each patient. By analyzing parameter confidence intervals and confidence and prediction intervals for the state variables, we develop a parameter space reduction algorithm that results in better future response predictions for each individual patient. Moreover, use of another subset selection method, namely Structured Covariance Analysis, that …

Supervised Dimension Reduction For Large-Scale "Omics" Data With Censored Survival Outcomes Under Possible Non-Proportional Hazards, Lauren Spirko-Burns, Karthik Devarajan

COBRA Preprint Series

The past two decades have witnessed significant advances in high-throughput ``omics" technologies such as genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, transcriptomics and radiomics. These technologies have enabled simultaneous measurement of the expression levels of tens of thousands of features from individual patient samples and have generated enormous amounts of data that require analysis and interpretation. One specific area of interest has been in studying the relationship between these features and patient outcomes, such as overall and recurrence-free survival, with the goal of developing a predictive ``omics" profile. Large-scale studies often suffer from the presence of a large fraction of censored observations and potential …

Breaking The Paradigm: Dr Insight Empowers Signature-Free, Enhanced Drug Repurposing, Jinyan Chan, Xuan Wang, Jacob A. Turner, Nicole E. Baldwin, Jinghua Gu

Faculty Publications

Motivation: Transcriptome-based computational drug repurposing has attracted considerable interest by bringing about faster and more cost-effective drug discovery. Nevertheless, key limitations of the current drug connectivity-mapping paradigm have been long overlooked, including the lack of effective means to determine optimal query gene signatures. Results: The novel approach Dr Insight implements a frame-breaking statistical model for the ‘hand-shake’ between disease and drug data. The genome-wide screening of concordantly expressed genes (CEGs) eliminates the need for subjective selection of query signatures, added to eliciting better proxy for potential disease-specific drug targets. Extensive comparisons on simulated and real cancer datasets have validated the …

A Mathematical Model Of The Inflammatory Response To Pathogen Challenge, Lester Caudill, Fiona Lynch

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Introducing The Fractional Differentiation For Clinical Data-Justified Prostate Cancer Modelling Under Iad Therapy, Ozlem Ozturk Mizrak

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Vaccination Strategies And Herd Immunity Thresholds In Small World Models, Emily Mcclung, Sam Rivas, Emma Soriano, Caelan Thomas, Hannah Highlander

Mathematics Undergraduate Publications, Presentations and Projects

Infectious diseases pose a serious threat to humans, plants, and animals. Though vaccines can help control outbreaks of infectious diseases, there is typically not enough vaccine available for the entire population. In this case, certain vaccination strategies can be employed to maximize the benefits for the entire population. Using results from graph theory and the simulation tool lONTW (Infections On NeTWorks), we investigated various vaccination strategies on certain types of so-called contact networks that model the patterns of interactions within a population. In particular, we focused on a certain class of contact networks known as small world models, where individuals …

The Epidemiology Of Infective Endocarditis Among People Who Inject Drugs In London, Ontario., Brian Hallam

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Infective endocarditis is an infectious disease that affects the valves of the heart. Injection drug use is currently a leading risk factor among patients with endocarditis. We conducted a prospective study using data from hospital chart records among patients with endocarditis in London, Ontario, which has a relatively high prevalence of people who inject drugs to assess the severity of the issue and the major risk factors of mortality pertaining to this population. This study had a sample size of 353 and included a review of the incidence of admissions of endocarditis, as well as a survival analysis, using both …

Bayesian Analytical Approaches For Metabolomics : A Novel Method For Molecular Structure-Informed Metabolite Interaction Modeling, A Novel Diagnostic Model For Differentiating Myocardial Infarction Type, And Approaches For Compound Identification Given Mass Spectrometry Data., Patrick J. Trainor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metabolomics, the study of small molecules in biological systems, has enjoyed great success in enabling researchers to examine disease-associated metabolic dysregulation and has been utilized for the discovery biomarkers of disease and phenotypic states. In spite of recent technological advances in the analytical platforms utilized in metabolomics and the proliferation of tools for the analysis of metabolomics data, significant challenges in metabolomics data analyses remain. In this dissertation, we present three of these challenges and Bayesian methodological solutions for each. In the first part we develop a new methodology to serve a basis for making higher order inferences in metabolomics, …

Flexor Dysfunction Following Unilateral Transient Ischemic Brain Injury Is Associated With Impaired Locomotor Rhythmicity, Kiril Tuntevski

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Functional motor deficits in hemiplegia after stroke are predominately associated with flexor muscle impairments in animal models of ischemic brain injury, as well as in clinical findings. Rehabilitative interventions often employ various means of retraining a maladapted central pattern generator for locomotion. Yet, holistic modeling of the central pattern generator, as well as applications of such studies, are currently scarce. Most modeling studies rely on cellular neural models of the intrinsic spinal connectivity governing ipsilateral flexor-extensor, as well as contralateral coupling inherent in the spinal cord. Models that attempt to capture the general behavior of motor neuronal populations, as well …

Cheating The Cheaters: Spatial Dynamics In The Evolutionary Stability Of Antibiotic Resistance, Devin Akman

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Uncertainty Of 1-D Fluid Models In Patients With Pulmonary Hypertension, Mitchel J. Colebank

Biology and Medicine Through Mathematics Conference

No abstract provided.

Detecting And Evaluating Therapy Induced Changes In Radiomics Features Measured From Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer To Predict Patient Outcomes, Xenia J. Fave

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether radiomics features measured from weekly 4-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) images of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) change during treatment and if those changes are prognostic for patient outcomes or dependent on treatment modality. Radiomics features are quantitative metrics designed to evaluate tumor heterogeneity from routine medical imaging. Features that are prognostic for patient outcome could be used to monitor tumor response and identify high-risk patients for adaptive treatment. This would be especially valuable for NSCLC due to the high prevalence and mortality of this disease.

A novel process was designed to …

Modeling The Spread Of The Zika Virus At The 2016 Olympics, Triona Matheson, Brian Satterthwaite, Hannah Callender Highlander

Mathematics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Zika Virus is an arbovirus that is spread by mosquitoes of the Aedes genus and causes mild fever-like symptoms. It is strongly associated with microcephaly, a condition that affects development of fetal brains. With the recent emergence of Zika in Brazil, we develop an agent-based model to track mosquitoes and humans throughout the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro to investigate how the Olympics might affect the spread of the virus. There are many unknowns regarding the spread and prevalence of Zika, with approximately 80% of infected individuals unaware of their infectious status. We therefore discuss results of experiments …

Mathematical Models Of The Inflammatory Response In The Lungs, Sarah B. Minucci

Theses and Dissertations

Inflammation in the lungs can occur for many reasons, from bacterial infections to stretch by mechanical ventilation. In this work we compare and contrast various mathematical models for lung injuries in the categories of acute infection, latent versus active infection, and particulate inhalation. We focus on systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs), agent-based models (ABMs), and Boolean networks. Each type of model provides different insight into the immune response to damage in the lungs. This knowledge includes a better understanding of the complex dynamics of immune cells, proteins, and cytokines, recommendations for treatment with antibiotics, and a foundation for more …

Assessing The Potential Clinical Impact Of Variable Biological Effectiveness In Proton Radiotherapy, Christopher R. Peeler Ph.D.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

It has long been known that proton radiotherapy has an increased biological effectiveness compared to traditional x-ray radiotherapy. This arises from the clustered nature of DNA damage produced by the energy deposition of protons along their tracks in medium. This effect is currently quantified in clinical settings by assigning protons a relative biological effectiveness (RBE) value of 1.1 corresponding to 10% increased effectiveness compared to photon radiation. Numerous studies have shown, however, that the RBE value of protons is variable and can deviate substantially from 1.1, but experimental data on RBE and clinical evidence of its variability remains limited.

The …

A Comparison Of Stride Length And Lower Extremity Kinematics During Barefoot And Shod Running In Well Trained Distance Runners, Peter Francis, James Ledingham, Sarah B. Clarke Phd, Dj Collins, Philip Jakeman

Journal Articles

Stride length, hip, knee and ankle angles were compared during barefoot and shod running on a treadmill at two speeds. Nine well-trained (1500m time: 3min:59.80s ± 14.7 s) male (22 ±3 years; 73 ±9 kg; 1.79 ±0.4 m) middle distance (800 m – 5,000 m) runners performed 2 minutes of running at 3.05 m·s^-1 and 4.72 m·s^-1 on an treadmill. This approach allowed continuous measurement of lower extremity kinematic data and calculation of stride length. Statistical analysis using a 2X2 factorial ANOVA revealed speed to have a main effect on stride length and hip angle and footwear to …