Digital Commons Network^™

A Snapshot Of Sars-Cov-2 In Wastewater Treatment Plants In Northwest Arkansas, Katie Loethen

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Because SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus, is released in the fecal shedding of covid-positive patients, the virus enters the municipal waste stream and flows to wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The goal of this research is to quantify the effectiveness of wastewater treatment processes at removing SARS-CoV-2 from wastewater and preventing its release into the environment. Sampling at Paul R. Noland and West Side WWTPs in Fayetteville, Arkansas, took place from August 2020 to May 2021, and samples were tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 using N1 and N2 primers via RT-qPCR. Sampling days which returned positive detection of one or both of …

Effects Of Surface Topography On Macrophages And Bacterial Cells, Joseph Carnicelli

Theses - ALL

An association has been found between the texture of breast implants and anaplastic large cell lymphoma, which led to some textured implants to be withdrawn from the market in 2019. There is evidence that these cancers are associated with the harboring of bacteria on the surfaces of the textured implants. It is possible that specific topographic features hinder the removal of attached bacteria by inhibiting macrophage phagocytosis or promoting biofilm formation. Here we examine how bacteria and macrophages interact with recessive surface topographies as analogs to the surfaces seen on textured breast implants. Changes in bacteria morphology were observed among …

The Effect Of Resampling On Classifier Performance: Anempirical Study, Utomo Pujianto, Muhammad Iqbal Akbar, Niendhitta Tamia Lassela, Deni Sutaji

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

An imbalanced class on a dataset is a common classification problem. The effect of using imbalanced class datasets can cause a decrease in the performance of the classifier. Resampling is one of the solutions to this problem. This study used 100 datasets from 3 websites: UCI Machine Learning, Kaggle, and OpenML. Each dataset will go through 3 processing stages: the resampling process, the classification process, and the significance testing process between performance evaluation values of the combination of classifier and the resampling using paired t-test. The resampling used in the process is Random Undersampling, Random Oversampling, and SMOTE. The classifier …

The New Normal In The "Worship" Industry: Living The Life Of Victory In The Post-Pandemic World, King Harold A. Recto

Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Role Of Epigenome In Regulation Of Inflammation By Ahr Ligands 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-P-Dioxin And 6-Formylindolo[3,2-B] Carbazole, Alkeiver Cannon

Theses and Dissertations

Autoimmune Hepatitis (AIH) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the liver mediated by immune cells and characterized by a variety of parameters including circulating autoantigens, elevated immunoglobulin G (IgG) and aminotransferases, and interface hepatitis. Unfortunately, despite treatment with broadly immunosuppressive drugs, the disease progresses to cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease in several cases. In order to develop a more specific treatment, the mechanisms governing the liver injury resulting from inflammation and autoimmunity need to be elucidated.

For decades, activation of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor (AhR) was excluded from consideration as a therapeutic approach due to the potential toxic effects of AhR …

Improved Guidelines Of Indoor Airborne Transmission Taking Into Account Departure From The Well-Mixed Assumption, Jorge S. Salinas, K. A. Krishnaprasad, ‪Nadim Zgheib, S. Balachandar

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The well-mixed assumption has been widely used in predicting the spread of infectious diseases in indoor spaces. It is to be expected that a perfect well-mixed state will not be achieved in an indoor space at any reasonable level of ventilation. This work evaluates the well-mixed assumption by comparing the theory with results from large eddy simulations. The robustness of the well-mixed theory is established by comparing at four different levels. The comparison also points out systematic departures in pathogen concentration which can be accurately accounted for with an easily implementable correction factor to quantities such as cumulative exposure time. …

Biomimetic Strategies To Control Therapeutic Release From Novel Dna Nanoparticles, Robert J. Mosley

Theses and Dissertations

The inherent chemical, mechanical, and structural properties of nucleic acids make them ideal candidates for the formulation of tunable, personalized drug nanocarriers. However, none so far have exploited these properties for the controlled release of therapeutic drugs. In this dissertation, a biomimetic approach to controlling drug release is exhibited by specifically manipulating the architecture of novel, DNA nanoparticles to take advantage of drug binding mechanisms of action. Rationally designed DNA strands were immobilized on gold surfaces via a terminal thiol modification. Immobilized monomers can be manipulated to form distinct monolayer architectures including flat, folded, coiled, or stretched structures. Increasing the …

Unconventional Water Resources: Global Opportunities And Challenges, Zahra Karimidastenaei, Tamara Avellán, Mojtaba Sadegh, Bjørn Kløve, Ali Torabi Haghighi

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water is of central importance for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. With predictions of dire global water scarcity, attention is turning to resources that are considered to be unconventional, and hence called Unconventional Water Resources (UWRs). These are considered as supplementary water resources that need specialized processes to be used as water supply. The literature encompasses a vast number of studies on various UWRs and their usefulness in certain environmental and/or socio-economic contexts. However, a recent, all-encompassing article that brings the collective knowledge on UWRs together is missing. Considering the increasing importance of UWRs in …

توصيف المجتمعات البكتيرية في لحم الضأن الفلسطيني بواسطة التنميط الظاهري و تحليل جين 16s Rrna, Wafa Masoud, Mahmoud Hamdan

Palestine Technical University Research Journal

The main purpose of the present study was to isolate, identify and quantify bacteria in Palestinian fresh lamb meat. Phenotyping and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis was used to identify bacteria present in lamb meat samples. Thirty-four bacterial isolates were obtained from 20 samples of fresh lamb meat collected from 4 meat shops in Tulkarem city in Palestine. Bacterial counts were in a range of 3 x 103 -1.5 x 105 cfu / g with Staphylococcus aureus being the highest in numbers among other bacteria. Enterobacteriaceae and Staphylococ-caceae were the predominant bacterial families detected in fresh lamb meat samples. Two …

Antimicrobial Mechanisms Of Biomaterials: From Macro To Nano, Shounak Roy, Sanchita Sarkhel, Deepali Bisht, Samerender Nagam Hanumantharao, Smitha Rao, Amit Jaiswal

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Overcoming the global concern of antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest challenge faced by scientists today and the key to tackle this issue of emerging infectious diseases is the development of next-generation antimicrobials. The rapid emergence of multi-drug resistant microbes, superbugs and mutated strains of viruses have fueled the search for new and alternate antimicrobial agents with broad-spectrum biocidal activity. Biomaterials, ranging from macroscopic polymers, proteins, and peptides to nanoscale materials such as nanoparticles, nanotubes and nanosheets have emerged as effective antimicrobials. An extensive body of research has established the antibacterial and antiviral efficiencies of different types of biomaterials. …

Immuno-Anti-Infective Drug Design Using Bioai, Cathy Chen, Vivian Zhang

Bioengineering Senior Theses

According to the World Health Organization, antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today. A growing number of infections, like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective. As a result, the primary concern for infections in the hospital setting is due to the S. aureus’s growing resistance to antibiotics. Therefore, in response to this global health threat, our project focuses on furthering the research in developing a drug that S. aureus will not develop resistance to. In this paper, we assess …

Targeting Occupant Feedback Using Digital Twins: Adaptive Spatial-Temporal Thermal Preference Sampling To Optimize Personal Comfort Models, Mahmoud M. Abdelrahman, Clayton Miller

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Collecting intensive longitudinal thermal preference data from building occupants is emerging as an innovative means of characterizing the performance of buildings and the people who use them. These techniques have occupants giving subjective feedback using smartphones or smartwatches frequently over the course of days or weeks. The intention is that the data will be collected with high spatial and temporal diversity to best characterize a building and the occupant’s preferences. But in reality, leaving the occupant to respond in an ad-hoc or fixed interval way creates unneeded survey fatigue and redundant data. This paper outlines a scenario-based (virtual experiment) method …

Virucidal N95 Respirator Face Masks Via Ultrathin Surface-Grafted Quaternary Ammonium Polymer Coatings, Mirco Sorci, Tanner D. Fink, Vaishali Sharma, Sneha Singh, Ruiwen Chen, Brigitte L. Arduini, Katharine Dovidenko, Caryn L. Heldt, Edmund F. Palermo, R Helen Zha

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

N95 respirator face masks serve as effective physical barriers against airborne virus transmission, especially in a hospital setting. However, conventional filtration materials, such as nonwoven polypropylene fibers, have no inherent virucidal activity, and thus, the risk of surface contamination increases with wear time. The ability of face masks to protect against infection can be likely improved by incorporating components that deactivate viruses on contact. We present a facile method for covalently attaching antiviral quaternary ammonium polymers to the fiber surfaces of nonwoven polypropylene fabrics that are commonly used as filtration materials in N95 respirators via ultraviolet (UV)-initiated grafting of biocidal …

Anti-Amyloid Chimeric Antigen Receptor Macrophages For Alzheimer's Disease Immunotherapy, Qiuyun Pan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. None of the available drugs can cure the disease. Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) macrophages, because of their phagocytic activity, have potential as a cellular treatment for amyloid aggregation. In this study, we generated an anti-amyloid CAR hematopoietic progenitor cell line. By inducing the progenitor cell line to differentiate into macrophages, we show that the anti-amyloid CAR-Macrophage has enhanced specific phagocytic activity towards amyloid in in vitro experiments. In addition, in ex vivo experiments, anti-amyloid CAR significantly reduces the plaque load on brain slice from APP/PS1 mice when compared to a non-targeted …

Contributions Of Vibrational Spectroscopy To Virology: A Review, Iqra Chaudhary, Naomi Jackson, Denise Denning, Luke O'Neill, Hugh Byrne

Articles

Vibrational spectroscopic techniques, both infrared absorption and Raman scattering, are high precision, label free analytical techniques which have found applications in fields as diverse as analytical chemistry, pharmacology, forensics and archeometrics and, in recent times, have attracted increasing attention for biomedical applications. As analytical techniques, they have been applied to the characterisation of viruses as early as the 1970s, and, in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, have been explored in response to the World Health Organisation as novel methodologies to aid in the global efforts to implement and improve rapid screening of viral infection. This review …

Ailbot: A Respiratory-Focused Symptom Checker Chatbot For Children, Gabrielle Mae V. Arco, Ken Ivan T. Cheng, Pamela S. Chong, Chico Andre G. Olaguer

DLSU Senior High School Research Congress

Inadequate access to healthcare, accompanied by the spread of COVID-19 has significantly affected most Filipinos. The prolonged quarantine period in the Philippines due to this virus restricts the movement and lifestyle of people. Thus, it makes medical appointments difficult to arrange. The ever-growing number of healthcare chatbots can provide access to healthcare check-ups quickly. These systems are still in their infancy stages, with the majority focusing on the mental and emotional well-being of people and catering to the general public. This study aims to develop a chatbot geared toward the respiratory health of Filipino children. Through the use of Chatfuel, …

Th1, Th2, And Th17 Inflammatory Pathways Predict Cardiometabolic Protein Expression In Serum Of Covid-19 Patients, James Richard Michels

Honors Theses

A predominant source of complications in SARS-CoV-2 patients arises from severe systemic inflammation contributed to by Helper T-cell associated cytokines, potentially leading to tissue damage and organ failure. The high inflammatory burden of this viral infection often results in cardiovascular comorbidities. A better understanding of the interaction between the cytokine storm and cardiovascular proteins might inform medical decisions and therapeutic approaches. We hypothesized that all major helper T-cell inflammatory pathways (Helper T 1, Helper T 2 and Helper T 17) synergistically contribute to cardiometabolic pathways in serum of COVID-19 patients, and that both of these factors correlate to COVID-19 severity. …

Developing A Semester-Long Project In A Biomechanical Engineering Course To Instill The Entrepreneurial Mindset In The Next-Generation Biomedical Engineering Students, Loren Hedgecock

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Entrepreneurial-Minded Learning (EML) is an emerging pedagogy progressively gaining popularity in the engineering education community. Coincided with project-based learning (PBL), EML illustrates an essential dimension to the instruction of next-generation engineers, equipping them with various perspectives and approaches to relate societal challenges with technical concepts. Nationwide initiatives, such as the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN), have developed a learning framework specifically designed to create engineers such as these. The implementation of EML aims to stimulate connections, create value, and ignite curiosity. This study introduced a semester-long project based on these EML skillsets in a sophomore-level biomechanical engineering course. To evaluate …

Novel Nanocomposites For The Treatment Of Lung Infections, Uday Kumar Chintapula

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Lung infections, especially lower respiratory tract infections and their associated pneumonias, are one of the leading causes of death, accounting for more than 4 million fatalities every year worldwide. Bacterial pathogens are involved in many lower respiratory tract infections including emerging antibiotic resistant respiratory pathogens such as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Current interventions for MRSA lung infections include systemic antibiotic treatments for an extended period leading to various side effects such as acute kidney injury, nephrotoxicity, and so on. To overcome these limitations, the goal of this dissertation research is to develop a drug delivery system, which includes pathogen-specific drug-loaded …

Leveraging Ai And Supply Chain Technologies With Thermal Imaging And Telemedicine For Early Detection And Prevention Of Covid-19 And Respiratory Infections In Urm Communities, Gohar Azeem

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The underserved population could be at risk during the times of crisis, unless there is strong involvement from government agencies such as local and state Health departments and federal Center for Disease Control (CDC). The COVID-19 pandemic was a crisis of different proportion, creating a different type of burden on government agencies. Vulnerable communities including the elderly populations and communities of color have been especially hard hit by this pandemic. This forced these agencies to change their strategies and supply chains to support all populations receiving therapeutics. The National Science Foundation (NSF Award # 2028612) funded this research to help …

Optimizing Virus Prefiltration For Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing, Solomon Isu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Virus filters are single-use devices that use a size-based separation process. In virus filters, contaminating virus particles are retained while the therapeutic molecules pass through the membrane pores. Virus filters are an essential component of the overall virus clearance strategy. Sections 1 and 2 of this dissertation provide an introduction and extensive review of monoclonal antibody (mAb) process development, where virus filtration is pivotal. In section 3, prefiltration studies were performed with an industrially relevant IgG1 type mAb using adsorptive and size-exclusion-based prefilters with different mechanisms of action. This mAb has an isoelectric point range of 7.1 to 8.0 and …

Diffusive Dynamics Of Biological Macromolecules In The Cytoplasm Of Live Bacteria, Asmaa Ali Sadoon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bacteria are small organisms that play important roles in our bodies and in maintaining our surrounding environment. However, bacterial infections are considered as one of the health diseases that threatens the lives of humans. Resistance of bacteria to antibiotics has made treating bacterial infections more challenging. With the emergence of many developed optical techniques, it has become possible to study various biological mechanisms of molecules inside these small organisms with high resolution and precise localization. In this research, single particle tracking photoactivation localization microscopy (sptPALM) technique was used to investigate the dynamics of fluorescent histonelike nucleoid-structuring proteins (H-NS) in live …

Characterization Of Fundamental Parameters That Modulate Acoustofluidic-Mediated Molecular Delivery To Cells., Connor Sterling Centner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cell-based therapies represent the latest biotechnological revolution in medicine, but significant limitations exist in non-viral intracellular delivery techniques during manufacturing of cell therapies. To address these limitations, a novel acoustofluidic device was developed to deliver ultrasound waves into a flow chamber for rapid molecular delivery to human cells. Our acoustofluidic device delivers biomolecules by inducing expansion and collapse of exogenous gas-filled microbubbles (“cavitation”), which enhances molecular delivery to nearby cells. Experimental studies were conducted to characterize key parameters that influence acoustofluidic-mediated molecular delivery to human cells. A clinical ultrasound transducer was generally utilized with varying cationic microbubble concentrations. Intracellular delivery …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Lactobacillus Crispatus Containing Bioprints For Bacterial Vaginosis Application., Anthony J. Kyser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a condition in which healthy lactobacilli are replaced by an overabundance of pathogenic bacteria in the female reproductive tract. Current antibiotic treatments often fail to “cure” infection, resulting in recurrence in more than 50% of women, 6 months post-treatment. Recently, probiotics have demonstrated promise to restore vaginal health; however, as with other active agents, delivery requires once-to-twice daily administration. Recently, three-dimensional (3D)-bioprinting has enabled the fabrication of well-defined cell-laden architectures with tunable agent release, thereby presenting a novel approach with which to deliver probiotics. One promising bioink, gelatin alginate, was selected for study, due to its …

Non-Negative Discriminative Data Analytics, Md Imrul Kaish

Theses and Dissertations

Due to advancements in data acquisition techniques, collecting datasets representing samples from multi-views has become more common recently (Jia et al. 2019). For instance, in genomics, a lymphoma patient’s dataset may include data on gene expression, single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), and array Comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) measurements. Learning from multiple views about the same objective, in general, obtains a better understanding of the hidden patterns of the data compared to learning from a single view data. Most of the existing multi-view learning techniques such as canonical correlation analysis (Hotelling et al. 1936) and multi-view support vector machine (Farquhar et …

Nanoparticles For Biomedical Applications, Joseph Kim

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

This thesis presents development and evaluation of the potential of three new nanoparticles for biomedical applications. With the rapid growth of the field of nanoscience, researchers have explored developing nanoparticles for various biomedical applications, including imaging, therapy, and drug delivery. This thesis demonstrates the development of two C­₆₀ fullerene based nanoparticles and one boron based nanoparticle to answer key questions related to their biological potential.

In the first part of the thesis, we describe synthesis and characterization of a pure boron nanoparticle containing asolectin phospholipid-based liposome construct prepared using a water-in-oil emulsion method, as a novel alternative agent for …

Diffusive Dynamics Of Biological Macromolecules In The Cytoplasm Of Live Bacteria, Asmaa Sadoon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bacteria are small organisms that play important roles in our bodies and in maintaining our surrounding environment. However, bacterial infections are considered as one of the health diseases that threatens the lives of humans. Resistance of bacteria to antibiotics has made treating bacterial infections more challenging. With the emergence of many developed optical techniques, it has become possible to study various biological mechanisms of molecules inside these small organisms with high resolution and precise localization. In this research, single particle tracking photoactivation localization microscopy (sptPALM) technique was used to investigate the dynamics of fluorescent histonelike nucleoid-structuring proteins (H-NS) in live …

Factors Affecting Hotel Recommendation: Before The Covid-19 Pandemic And After The Reopening, Boran Kim

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

During the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous people lost their lives, and a lot of industries were affected. The hospitality industry was especially affected due to social distancing, travel restrictions, and safety issues. During that time, not only did customers' expectations change but their recommendation of hotels to friends and colleagues also changed. The current study used five factors (i.e., cleanliness, location, room, service, and value) to discover which factors were affecting hotel recommendation before the COVID-19 pandemic and after the reopening. This study used secondary data (online surveys) from one of the well-known integrated resorts located in the western United States. …

Assessing The Influence Of Health Policy And Population Mobility On Covid-19 Spread In Arkansas, Tayden Barretto

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The outbreak of COVID-19 has created a major crisis across the world since its start in 2019, and its influence on every realm of society is undeniable. Globally, more than 500 million cases have been recorded since March 2020, with almost 6 million deaths. In the wake of this crisis, many governments and health organizations have taken steps and precautions to mitigate its spread. These steps involve public mandates of information, reducing frequency of personal contact, and use of masks to minimize the risk of transmission. Current access to mobility data released from Google detailing population movements has provided a …

A Descriptive Pilot Study On Travel Nurses' Risk Of Burnout During The Covid- 19 Pandemic, Lashanda Head

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that results from long-term involvement in work situations that are difficult (Schaufeli & Greenglass, 2001). Burnout leads to a significant occupational problem in various professions that involve people who work with others, including nurses who work with COVID- 19 patients. This pilot study aims to determine if travel nurses who have worked or are currently working during the COVID-19 pandemic in acute care hospitals are at increased risk for nurse burnout. A convenience sample (N=9) of travel nurses working at CHRISTUS St Michael Health System were asked to …