Biomedical Commons^™

Role Of Estrogen In Regulating Diet-Induced Obesity In Females, Ahmed Aladhami

Theses and Dissertations

Menopause puts a female at risk for several chronic diseases, including an increased risk of obesity. Estrogens are major sex hormones of females that dramatically decrease during menopause. Several murine studies have established the crucial role of estrogen and estrogen receptor alpha (ERα) on energy homeostasis, glucose metabolism, and insulin action. However, previous works have produced contradicting findings, hence, further work is needed to optimize better outcomes. Therefore, my dissertation focuses on optimizing and characterizing different estrogen-deficient models, as well as using novel double transgenic inducible and tissue-specific models that overexpress aromatase (estrogen producing enzyme) and estrogen receptor isomers alpha …

Study Of The Effect Of B-Cell-Intrinsic Mhcii Antigen Presentation On Germinal Center B Cell Evolution Using The Brainbow Mouse Model, Nia Hall

Theses and Dissertations

Major histocompatibility complex class II (MHCII) are molecules that are essential for B cell activation, as well as clonal competition among activated B cell clones during germinal center (GC) reactions. However, it is unknown to what extent MHCII drives the selection of some clones over others. This is of particular importance since MHCII is highly polymorphic with the ability to indirectly alter gutmicrobiome composition by altering the immunoglobulin A (IgA) repertoire. To study this, we utilized a novel triple-transgenic mouse model to assess how B-cellintrinsic MHCII influences GC responses and GC clonal diversity, with an eyeforward to understanding the relevance …

Impaired Metabolic Flexibility In A Mouse Model Of Leigh Syndrome, Richard Sterling Mccain Jr

Theses and Dissertations

Metabolic dysfunction burdens tissues with high energy demands, particularly the brain. Leigh syndrome is a mitochondrial encephalopathy stemming from genetic defects in the electron transport chain. Leigh syndrome patients develop lactic acidosis, ataxia, bilateral necrotizing lesions in the brainstem and basal ganglia, lesion microgliosis, and eventually death due to respiratory failure. The NADH dehydrogenase [ubiquinone] iron-sulfur protein 4 (NDUFS4) knockout mouse is an established model of Leigh syndrome due to impaired assembly of mitochondrial Complex I that develops motoric deficits and necrotizing lesions in the brainstem vestibular nuclei and olfactory bulb. In addition to the Complex I-derived bioenergetics defect, altered …

The Effect Of Low Dose Penicillin On Tumor Development In ApcMin/+ Mice, Kinsey Ann Sierra Meggett

Theses and Dissertations

Antibiotics have been our most effective weapon against bacterial infections since their discovery in the early 1900s. Their use has been critical in reducing mortality rate from infectious diseases. However, in the last few decades, the overuse of antibiotics, beginning at an early age and into adulthood, has become a growing concern globally. Penicillin is one of many extensively used antibiotics in early childhood that has been used to treat childhood infections. Recent studies showed that exposure to low dose penicillin can have adverse effects leading to chronic illness such as diabetes, allergies, inflammation, and susceptibility to obesity, with the …

Computer-Aided Diagnosis Of Low Grade Endometrial Stromal Sarcoma (Lgess), Xinxin Yang, Mark Stamp

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Low grade endometrial stromal sarcoma (LGESS) accounts for about 0.2% of all uterine cancer cases. Approximately 75% of LGESS patients are initially misdiagnosed with leiomyoma, which is a type of benign tumor, also known as fibroids. In this research, uterine tissue biopsy images of potential LGESS patients are preprocessed using segmentation and stain normalization algorithms. We then apply a variety of classic machine learning and advanced deep learning models to classify tissue images as either benign or cancerous. For the classic techniques considered, the highest classification accuracy we attain is about 0.85, while our best deep learning model achieves an …

Oral Minimal Model For Gestational Diabetes, Sarah Peters

Symposium of Student Scholars

Gestational diabetes is one of the most common issues that a pregnant woman encounters that could result in harm to both the woman and child. Due to this issue, the woman’s glucose and insulin levels should be carefully monitored throughout her pregnancy to assess the need for prescribed diabetic medication to help regulate those levels. In this research, the objectives is to develop a MATLAB computer program of the Oral Minimal Model, which is a model that can be used to estimate a person’s insulin sensitivity from an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) where plasma glucose and insulin levels are …

Scatter Estimation And Correction For Experimental And Simulated Data In Multi-Slice Computed Tomography Using Machine Learning And Minimum Least Squares Methods, Cornelia Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Current research aims to reduce the stopping power ratio prediction error in the inputs to the proton therapy planning process to less than 1%, which allows for improved radiation therapy planning. Our present study on reducing SPR error neglects the effect of scattering, which can increase SPR error by as much as 1-1.5%. The idea is that for each source-to-detector pair, 24 mm collimation data is close to 3 mm collimation data but with increased signal due to scattering. The goal is to estimate 3 mm collimation data from 24 mm collimation data. Pairs of sinograms, both experimental data and …

Non-Invasive In-Vitro Glucose Monitoring Using Optical Sensor And Machine Learning Techniques For Diabetes Applications, Maryamsadat Shokrekhodaei

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Diabetes is a major public health challenge affecting more than 451 million people. Physiological and experimental factors influence the accuracy of non-invasive glucose monitoring, and these need to be addressed before replacing the finger prick method with a non-invasive glucose measurement technique. Also, the suitable employment of machine learning techniques on experimental data can significantly improve the accuracy of glucose predictions.

This work includes the design, development, testing and data analysis of an optical based sensor for glucose measurements. The feasibility of non-invasive measurement of glucose within aqueous solutions that assimilate the composition of human blood plasma is investigated. The …

Review Of Data Mining Techniques For Detecting Churners In The Telecommunication Industry, Mahmoud Ewieda, Mohamed Ismail Roushdy, Essam Shaaban

Future Computing and Informatics Journal

The telecommunication sector has been developed rapidly and with large amounts of data obtained as a result of increasing in the number of subscribers, modern techniques, data-based applications, and services. As well as better awareness of customer requirements and excellent quality that meets their satisfaction. This satisfaction raises rivalry between firms to maintain the quality of their services and upgrade them. These data can be helpfully extracted for analysis and used for predicting churners. Researchers around the world have conducted important research to understand the uses of Data mining (DM) that can be used to predict customers' churn. This …

Nanoparticles For Targeted Drug Delivery To Cancer Stem Cells: A Review Of Recent Advances, Yavuz Nuri Ertas, Keyvan Abedu Dorcheh, Ali Akbari, Esmaiel Jabbari

Faculty Publications

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are a subpopulation of cells that can initiate, self-renew, and sustain tumor growth. CSCs are responsible for tumor metastasis, recurrence, and drug resistance in cancer therapy. CSCs reside within a niche maintained by multiple unique factors in the microenvironment. These factors include hypoxia, excessive levels of angiogenesis, a change of mitochondrial activity from aerobic aspiration to aerobic glycolysis, an upregulated expression of CSC biomarkers and stem cell signaling, and an elevated synthesis of the cytochromes P450 family of enzymes responsible for drug clearance. Antibodies and ligands targeting the unique factors that maintain the niche are utilized …

Investigation Of Membrane Based Processes For Biomedical Applications, Efecan Pakkaner

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As substantial developments were achieved in nanotechnology and polymer engineering, especially in the last few decades, the use of membranes and membrane-based procedures was found to be expanding into more and more research and development areas; including biological engineering, life sciences and biomedical engineering. Not only have they been the main focus of meaningful research, but they have also been the main pieces of the solutions to very thorny problems encountered within a wide range of applications from microfluidics to water treatment, thanks to their versatility, cost-effectiveness and biocompatibility, when compared to conventional separation techniques. To celebrate and embrace these …

Experimental And Analysis Of Electromagnetic Characterization Of Biological And Non-Biological Materials In Microwave, Millimeter-Wave, And Terahertz Frequency Bands, Nagma Vohra

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this research is to characterize the electromagnetic properties of biological and non-biological materials at terahertz (THz), millimeter-wave, and microwave frequency bands. The biological specimens are measured using the THz imaging and spectroscopy system, whereas the non-biological materials are measured using the microwave and millimeter-wave free-space system. These facilities are located in the Engineering Research Center at the University of Arkansas. The THz imaging system (TPS 3000) uses a Ti-Sapphire laser directed on the photoconductive antennas to generate a THz time domain pulse. Upon using the Fourier Transform, the spectrum of the pulsed THz signal includes frequencies from …

Comparative Study Of Nano-Rod And Nano-Sphere Based Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance Refractive Index Biosensors, Mariam M. Moussilli M. M. Moussilli, Abdul Rahman El Falou

BAU Journal - Science and Technology

Localized Surface Plasmon Resonance (LSPR) waves generated by the interaction of light with noble metal nanoparticles has been of great interest in recent years due to the high sensitivity of the extinction spectra of these nanoparticles to the medium's surrounding refractive index up to the atomic level.

In this article, we simulate the extinction spectra of noble metal sphere and rod nanoparticles in order to study the effect of the geometrical shape and size of the nanoparticle on the sensitivity and detection accuracy performance parameters of the extinction spectra. We also simulated the response of the sphere and rod nanoparticle's …

Graphene As A Shielding Material For Sar Reduction In Human Head Using Rectangular And Circular Patch Antenna, Alka Singla Er., Anupma Marwaha Dr., Sanjay Marwaha Dr.

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Nanomaterials pave the way for better performance in wireless applications due to their unique properties. Nowadays, these have been used as shield material in dipole antennas for a solution of reduction in SAR value. This work proposes the use of emerging graphene nanomaterial by comparing the performance for two different shapes of patch antenna namely rectangular and circular patch. With the growth in technology, the protection of human health is also mandatory so the work is planned to use graphene as a shielding material for SAR reduction in the human brain and it is proved that for rectangular and circular …

Portable Ventilator, Bradley C. Weeks, Jack W. Brewer, Sanders Sanabria

Electrical Engineering

The current COVID-19 pandemic has heavily impacted the healthcare system in the United States and elsewhere. The need for patients to have access to a hospital with a ventilator along with a shortage of ventilators for recovery and at-home care as a result of minimal hospital vacancy for patients has been greatly stressed. The presented problem is both an unmet demand and supply of portable and effective ventilators. Existing ventilators have many shortcomings that should be addressed: size, weight, cost, and complexity of current ventilators confines users to stay in a medical facility whilst being monitored by professionals. This both …

Multilayer Perceptron With Auto Encoder Enabled Deep Learning Model For Recommender Systems, Subhashini Narayan

Future Computing and Informatics Journal

In this modern world of ever-increasing one-click purchases, movie bookings, music, health- care, fashion, the need for recommendations have increased the more. Google, Netflix, Spotify, Amazon and other tech giants use recommendations to customize and tailor their search engines to suit the user’s interests. Many of the existing systems are based on older algorithms which although have decent accuracies, require large training and testing datasets and with the emergence of deep learning, the accuracy of algorithms has further improved, and error rates have reduced due to the use of multiple layers. The need for large datasets has declined as well. …

Pepblock Builder Vr – An Open-Source Tool For Gaming-Based Bio-Edutainment In Interactive Protein Design, Venkata V. B. Yallapragada, Tianshu Xu, Sidney P. Walker, Sabin Tabirca, Mark Tangney

Cappa Publications

Proteins mediate and perform various fundamental functions of life. This versatility of protein function is an attribute of its 3D structure. In recent years, our understanding of protein 3D structure has been complemented with advances in computational and mathematical tools for protein modelling and protein design. 3D molecular visualisation is an essential part in every protein design and protein modelling workflow. Over the years, stand-alone and web-based molecular visualisation tools have been used to emulate three-dimensional view on computers. The advent of virtual reality provided the scope for immersive control of molecular visualisation. While these technologies have significantly improved our …

Error Prevention In Sensors And Sensor Systems, Pedro J. Chacon Dominguez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Achievements in all fields of engineering and fabrication methods have led towards optimization and integration of multiple sensing devices into a concise system. These advances have caused significant innovation in various commercial, industrial, and research efforts. Integrations of subsystems have important applications for sensor systems in particular. The need for reporting and real time awareness of a device’s condition and surroundings have led to sensor systems being implemented in a wide variety of fields. From environmental sensors for agriculture, to object characterization and biomedical sensing, the application for sensor systems has impacted all modern facets of innovation. With these innovations, …

New Force Transducer For Mitral Valve Chordae Tendinea, Joseph Berryman

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

In order to inform the future of mitral valve repair and replacement, more investigation into the mechanics of the sub-valvular structure is needed. Understanding the roles of each chord during valve closure requires a sensor capable of detecting these small forces with enough sensitivity to determine the characteristics of each of the chordal types. The focus of the cantilever force transducer is to maximize this sensitivity while also minimizing the invasiveness of the sensor on the overall function of the chord. The design utilizes flexible yet strong 3D printed resin and cantilever arms to improve the strain exerted on a …

The Linear And Non-Linear Relationships Between Peripheral Venous Pressure, Arterial Circulation, And Patient Factors, Lauren Crimmins

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Peripheral venous pressure (PVP) can be used to measure blood volume status with a minimally invasive procedure. The pediatric cohort undergoing surgery for pyloric stenosis was studied to determine how arterial circulation and patient factors linearly impact PVP. The relationship between PVP and these confounding factors can provide valuable information for future PVP researchers.

To investigate the linear relationship between PVP and electrocardiogram (ECG) the waveforms were transformed into the frequency domain. A power spectral density was plotted, and the Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated for both preoperative and intraoperative settings. Linear regression models were computed for PVP and varying …