Digital Commons Network^™

Impact Of Chronic Sexual Abuse And Depression On Inflammation And Wound Healing In The Female Reproductive Tract Of Hiv-Uninfected And Hiv-Infected Women., Mimi Ghosh, Jason Daniels, Maria Pyra, Monika Juzumaite, Mariel Jais, Kerry Murphy, Tonya N Taylor, Seble Kassaye, Lorie Benning, Mardge Cohen, Kathleen Weber

Epidemiology Faculty Publications

Sexual violence is associated with increased risk of HIV acquisition/transmission in women. Forced sex can result in physical trauma to the reproductive tract as well as severe psychological distress. However, immuno-biological mechanisms linking sexual violence and HIV susceptibility are incompletely understood. Using the Women's Interagency HIV Study repository, a total of 77 women were selected to form 4 groups, stratified by HIV serostatus, in the following categories: 1) no sexual abuse history and low depressive symptom score (below clinically significant cut-off, scores

Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Hiv-Infected Individuals In The District Of Columbia And Estimated Hiv Transmission Risk: Data From The Dc Cohort, Jose Lucar, Rachel Hart, Nabil Rayeed, Arpi Terzian, Amy Weintrob, Amanda D. Castel, Debra A. Benator, Dc Cohort Executive Committee

Epidemiology Faculty Publications

Background

Washington, DC, has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the United States. Sexual intercourse is the leading mode of HIV transmission, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a risk factor for HIV acquisition and transmission.

Methods

We evaluated the incidence and demographic factors associated with chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis among HIV-infected persons enrolled at 13 DC Cohort sites from 2011 to 2015. Using Poisson regression, we assessed covariates of risk for incident STIs. We also examined HIV viral loads (VLs) at the time of STI diagnosis as a proxy for HIV transmission risk.

Results

Six point …

Cluster-Based Network Proximities For Arbitrary Nodal Subsets, Kenneth S. Berenhaut, Peter S. Barr, Alyssa M. Kogel, Ryan L. Melvin

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The concept of a cluster or community in a network context has been of considerable interest in a variety of settings in recent years. In this paper, employing random walks and geodesic distance, we introduce a unified measure of cluster-based proximity between nodes, relative to a given subset of interest. The inherent simplicity and informativeness of the approach could make it of value to researchers in a variety of scientific fields. Applicability is demonstrated via application to clustering for a number of existent data sets (including multipartite networks). We view community detection (i.e. when the full set of network nodes …

Modification Of 4,5- Aminoglycosides To Overcome Drug Resistance Bacteria And Toxic Side Effect, Guanyu Yang

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

MODIFICATION OF 4,5- AMINOGLYCOSIDES TO OVERCOME DRUG RESISTANCE BACTERIA AND TOXIC SIDE EFFECT

by

Guanyu Yang

September 2018

Advisor: Professor David Crich

Major: Chemistry

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Infectious diseases causing by antibiotic resistant pathogen are one of the major threat to human health and society today. Many researchers tried to develop next generation of antibiotics by reinvesting the existing antibacterial drugs. Aminoglycosides have long been used as highly potent and broad-spectrum antibiotics for treating bacterial infections. But their side effect, especially the irreversible ototoxicity, and the fast-growing resistant problem limit their application. The goal of this research was …

Synthesis, Biological Evaluation, And In Silico Study Of Some Unique Multifunctional 1,2,4-Triazole Acetamides, Almas Sattar, Aziz Ur Rehman, Muhammad Athar Abbasi, Sabahat Zahra Saddiqui, Shahid Rasool, Hira Khalid, Muhammad Arif Lodhi, Farman Ali Khan

Turkish Journal of Chemistry

The imperative demand for antibacterial agents and enzyme inhibitors prompted us to synthesize some new compounds, 6a-6k, bearing multifunctional moieties. The target acetamides were derived from 4-phenyl-5-(1-tosylpiperidin-4-yl)-4$H$-1,2,4-triazole-3-thiol (3). The structural analysis was carried out using modern spectroscopic techniques including IR, NMR, and EIMS spectral analysis. The antibacterial activity was screened against five bacterial strains including three gram-negative and two gram-positive ones. Enzyme inhibition was carried out against lipoxygenase enzyme and results were supported by in silico study. The synthesized compounds were proved to be potent antibacterial agents and enzyme inhibitors.

Synthesis Of $E$-Stilbene Azomethines As Potent Antimicrobial And Antioxidant Agents, Ahsan Iqbal, Zulfiqar Ali Khan, Sohail Anjum Shahzad, Muhammad Usman, Shakeel Ahmad Khan, Abdul H. Fauq, Ayesha Bari, Muhammad Aamir Sajid

Turkish Journal of Chemistry

A series of new extensively conjugated $E$-stilbene azomethines (5a-5h) were synthesized and screened for their antioxidant and antimicrobial activity. The compounds were tested against bacterial (Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Bacillus subtilis) and fungal strains (Aspergillus niger, A. flavus, and Trichoderma harzianum) using the agar well diffusion method. Among the tested compounds, $N$'-(4-nitrobenzylidene)-2-(($E)$-styryl)benzohydrazide (5g) was found to possess potent antimicrobial activity higher than some drugs with significant activity reported in the literature, e.g., cefradine and terbinafine hydrochloride. Additionally, compounds 5a-5h were also evaluated for antioxidant potential using DPPH free radical scavenging and ferric thiocyanate (FTC) assays. Among these, …

Climate Change, Cattle, And The Challenge Of Sustainability In A Telecoupled System In Africa, Tara S. Easter, Alexander K. Killion, Neil H. Carter

Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior

Information, energy, and materials are flowing over greater distances than in the past, changing the structure and feedbacks within and across coupled human and natural systems worldwide. The telecoupling framework was recently developed to understand the feedbacks and multidirectional flows characterizing social and environmental interactions between distant systems. We extend the application of the telecoupling framework to illustrate how flows in beef affect and are affected by social-ecological processes occurring between distant systems in Africa, and how those dynamics will likely change over the next few decades because of climate-induced shifts in a major bovine disease, trypanosomosis. The disease is …

Improving Public Health Readiness For Sea Level Rise: A New Initiative In Coastal Virginia, Steven M. Becker

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Sea level has been rising around the world, and in recent decades, the rate has been accelerating. Because rising seas have the potential to directly or indirectly affect the health of vast numbers of coastal communities and inhabitants, public health agencies and professionals—in conjunction with other fields—have a pivotal role to play in helping to protect populations, reduce and prevent health impacts, and foster resilience. This article discusses a novel effort that has been undertaken in Coastal Virginia to help prepare the next generation of public health professionals to grapple with sea level rise issues. The effort grew out of …

Nevada Desert Dust With Heavy Metals Suppresses Igm Antibody Production, Deborah E. Keil, Brenda J. Buck, Dirk Goossens, Brett Mclaurin, Lacey Murphy, Mallory Leetham-Spencer, Yuanxin Teng, James E. Pollard, Russell Gerads, Jamie C. Dewitt

Geoscience Faculty Research

Systemic health effects from exposure to a complex natural dust containing heavy metals from the Nellis Dunes Recreation Area (NDRA) near Las Vegas, NV, were evaluated. Several toxicological parameters were examined following lung exposure to emissive dust from three geologic sediment types heavily used for recreational off-road activities: yellow sand very rich in arsenic (termed CBN 5); a shallow cover of loose dune sand overlying a gravelly subsoil bordering dune fields (termed CBN 6); and brown claystone and siltstone (termed CBN 7). Adult female B6C3F1 mice were exposed by oropharyngeal administration to these three types of geogenic dusts at 0.01–100 …

Fast Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (Firms): A Tandem Mass Spectrometry Technique For The Rapid And Semi-Comprehensive Evaluation Of Isotope Ratios, Fredrick Ochieng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Isotope ratios (IRs) are a measure of the variation in abundance of light isotopes versus heavy isotopes of an element, e.g. ¹H/²H,¹²C/¹³C, and ¹⁴N/¹⁵N. Because IRs change as a molecule undergoes certain chemical and physical processes, they represent unique fingerprints that can be used to trace the source of a chemical compound. Current techniques for determination of IRs each have major limitations, such as loss of structural information, vulnerability to contamination, high cost, large sample size requirements, low precision, limited applicability, and lengthy analysis. Fast Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (FIRMS) …

Disproportionate Realities: The Climate Justice Implications Of Mitigation Policies Across Scales, Tinuviel Carlson

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Global climate change will have disproportionate effects on low-income and minority communities around the world producing important justice challenges. As national governments increasingly rely on local governments, civil society, and private transnational actors to establish and implement climate actions policies, it is important to assess whether and how these newly emergent actors can address these justice challenges. First this thesis examines concepts of justice in relation to climate change across different scales in order to develop a comprehensive conceptual framework of climate justice. This conceptual framework expands the scale of the international climate justice movement address local concerns. Further, the …

Addressing The Threat Of Multidrug Resistant Infectious Diseases By Synthesis Of Novel Aminoglycoside Antibiotics, Girish Chandra Sati

Wayne State University Dissertations

The ever-growing increase in multidrug resistant infectious diseases is one of the major cause of human mortality, and there is an inherent need for the development of new antibiotics. Since the discovery of streptomycin, AGAs have been playing a very important role in human therapy as highly potent broad-spectrum antibiotics and are listed as one of the critically important antimicrobials by WHO. AGAs act by inhibiting the bacterial protein synthesis and by targeting the A-site present in the small subunit of bacterial ribosome. The clinical use of AGAs is somewhat restricted due to their toxic effects (ototoxicity and nephrotoxicity) and …

Presence Of Cofactor Nadph Slows Down The Dissociation Of Methotrexate From Dihydrofolate Reductase From Bacillus Stearothermophilus, Ryan Seamus Foley

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The goal of this project was to study the effect of the presence or absence of the cofactor NADPH on the binding and release of ligand methotrexate (MTX) to/from Bacillus stearothermophilus (Bs) dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR). A previously developed, fluorescently-labeled Bs DHFR (C73A/S131CMDCC DHFR) was used to investigate the kinetics and protein conformational motions associated with the binding of NADPH and the binding of methotrexate to the holoenzyme. This Bs DHFR contains a distal cysteine where the fluorophore, N-[2-(1-maleimidyl)ethyl]-7-(diethylamino)coumarin-3-carboxamide (MDCC) can be covalently attached. This probe is sensitive to the local molecular environment, reporting on changes in the protein conformation associated …

Technology Development For Detection Of Circulating Disease Biomarkers From Liquid Biopsies Using Multifunctional Nanomaterials, Mustafa Balcioglu

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Despite the advance health care, devastating health conditions such as cancer and infectious diseases that affect populations worldwide are too often not diagnosed until morbid symptoms become apparent in the late phase. Obtaining an early and accurate diagnosis that reveal a hidden lethal threat before the disease becomes complicated may dramatically reduce the severity of its impact on the patient’s life and increase the probability of survival. For example, in the case of ovarian cancer, which is the fifth most common malignancy and the fifth leading cause of cancer mortality in women in the US, the 5-year relative survival is …

Clinical Information Extraction From Unstructured Free-Texts, Mingzhe Tao

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Information extraction (IE) is a fundamental component of natural language processing (NLP) that provides a deeper understanding of the texts. In the clinical domain, documents prepared by medical experts (e.g., discharge summaries, drug labels, medical history records) contain a significant amount of clinically-relevant information that is crucial to the overall well-being of patients. Unfortunately, in many cases, clinically-relevant information is presented in an unstructured format, predominantly consisting of free-texts, making it inaccessible to computerized methods. Automatic extraction of this information can improve accessibility. However, the presence of synonymous expressions, medical acronyms, misspellings, negated phrases, and ambiguous terminologies make automatic extraction …

Machine Learning Methods For Flow Cytometry Analysis And Visualization, Emily Sassano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Flow cytometry is a popular analytical cell-biology instrument that uses specific wavelengths of light to profile heterogeneous populations of cells at the individual level. Current cytometers have the capability of analyzing up to 20 parameters on over a million cells, but despite the complexity of these datasets, a typical workflow relies on subjective labor-intensive manual sequential analysis. The research presented in this dissertation provides two machine learning methods to increase the objectivity, efficiency, and discovery in flow cytometry data analysis. The first, a supervised learning method, utilizes previously analyzed data to evaluate new flow cytometry files containing similar parameters. The …

Light Scattering Property Of Gold Nanoparticles With Applications To Biomolecule Detection And Analysis, Tianyu Zheng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have unique optical and chemical properties. Dynamic light scattering (DLS) is an analytical tool used routinely for nanoparticle size measurement. The combined use of AuNPs and DLS has led to a novel analytical assay technology called D2Dx (from diameter to diagnostics). Herein, my dissertation highlights the extended use of D2Dx for biomolecule detection and analysis. Under this general theme, Chapter 1 provides some background information of AuNPs, DLS, the principle of D2Dx technique and its potential applications. Chapter 2 summarizes a study on the effect of AuNP concentrations and laser power on the hydrodynamic size measurement of …

Institutionalizing Resilience In Us Universities: Prospects, Opportunities, And Models, Morris Foster, James O'Donnell, Mark Luckenbach, Elizabeth Andrews, Emily Steinhilber, John Wells, Mark Davis

ODU Articles

[From Introduction]

The United States is taking a largely region-specific approach to addressing challenges posed by climate change, in contrast with national and international approaches in most of the rest of the world. In locations such as Hampton Roads, New Orleans, and coastal Connecticut, the impacts of climate change tend to be addressed as they become locally evident rather than as part of a larger anticipatory national plan. Given that regional focus, universities can play a unique role in how the United States responds to the challenges of a changing climate. Universities can be knowledge brokers positioned outside or across …

Alcoholism: A Mathematical Model With Media Awareness Campaigns, Erik H. Ander, Zeynep Teymuroglu

Undergraduate Mathematics Day: Past Content

In this paper, we study how media awareness campaigns influence the spread and persistence of drinking behavior in a community. Here, we present a compartmental population model with an additional differential equation to describe the dynamics of media awareness campaigns in combating problem drinking ([10], [12], [21]). Our model indicates a basic reproductive number, R0, where there exists an asymptotically stable drinking-free equilibrium if R0 < 1, and a unique endemic state, which appears to be stable when R0 > 1. We found that the following two components affect the basic reproductive number: the strength of peer influence of problem drinkers on susceptibles and the average overall time spent in the problem drinking environment. Furthermore, …

Analysis Of A Vector-Borne Diseases Model With A Two-Lag Delay Differential Equation, Y. Qaddura, Nsoki Mavinga

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Works

We are concerned with the stability analysis of equilibrium solutions for a two-lag delay differential equation which models the spread of vector-borne diseases, where the lags are incubation periods in humans and vectors. We show that there are some values of transmission and recovery rates for which the disease dies out and others for which the disease spreads into an endemic. The proofs of the main stability results are based on the linearization method and the analysis of roots of transcendental equations. We then simulate numerical solutions using MATLAB. We observe that the solution could possess chaotic and sometimes unbounded …

Unprecedented In Vitro Antitubercular Activitiy Of Manganese(Ii) Complexes Containing 1,10- Phenanthroline And Dicarboxylate Ligands: Increased Activity, Superior Selectivity, And Lower Toxicity In Comparison To Their Copper(Ii) Analogs, Pauraic Mccarron, Malachy Mccann, Michael Devereux, Kevin Kavanagh, Ciaran M. Skerry, Petros C. Karakousis, Ana Carolina Aor, Thaís P. Mello, Dos Santos, André Luis Souza Dos Santos, André Luis Souza, Débora Leite Campos, Fernando R. Pavan

Articles

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the etiologic agent of tuberculosis. The demand for new chemotherapeutics with unique mechanisms of action to treat (multi)resistant strains is an urgent need. The objective of this work was to test the effect of manganese(II) and copper(II) phenanthroline/dicarboxylate complexes against M. tuberculosis. The water-soluble Mn(II) complexes, [Mn2(oda)(phen)4(H2O)2][Mn2(oda)(phen)4(oda)2]·4H2O (1) and ([Mn(3,6,9-tdda)(phen)2]·3H2O·EtOH)n (3) (odaH2 = octanedioic acid, phen = 1,10-phenanthroline, tddaH2 = 3,6,9-trioxaundecanedioic acid), and water-insoluble complexes, [Mn(ph)(phen)(H2O)2] (5), [Mn(ph)(phen)2(H2O)]·4H2O (6), [Mn2(isoph)2(phen)3]·4H2O (7), ([Mn(phen)2(H2O)2])2(isoph)2(phen)·12H2O (8) and [Mn(tereph)(phen)2]·5H2O (9) (phH2 = phthalic acid, isophH2 = isophthalic acid, terephH2 = terephthalic acid), robustly inhibited the viability of M. tuberculosis strains, H37Rv …

A Primer On Noise-Induced Transitions In Applied Dynamical Systems, Eric Forgoston, Richard O. Moore

Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Noise plays a fundamental role in a wide variety of physical and biological dynamical systems. It can arise from an external forcing or due to random dynamics internal to the system. It is well established that even weak noise can result in large behavioral changes such as transitions between or escapes from quasi-stable states. These transitions can correspond to critical events such as failures or extinctions that make them essential phenomena to understand and quantify, despite the fact that their occurrence is rare. This article will provide an overview of the theory underlying the dynamics of rare events for stochastic …

Gene Editing: Combating Malaria With Crispr/Cas9, Christine Craddock

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

Risk Assessment And Mapping Of Hand, Foot, And Mouth Disease At The County Level In Mainland China Using Spatiotemporal Zero-Inflated Bayesian Hierarchical Models, Chao Song, Yaqian He, Yanchen Bo, Jinfeng Wang, Zhoupeng Ren, Huibin Yang

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a worldwide infectious disease, prominent in China. China’s HFMD data are sparse with a large number of observed zeros across locations and over time. However, no previous studies have considered such a zero-inflated problem on HFMD’s spatiotemporal risk analysis and mapping, not to mention for the entire Mainland China at county level. Monthly county-level HFMD cases data combined with related climate and socioeconomic variables were collected. We developed four models, including spatiotemporal Poisson, negative binomial, zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP), and zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) models under the Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework to explore disease …

Identification Of Streptococcus Pyogenes Using Raman Spectroscopy, Ehsan Majidi

Wayne State University Dissertations

Despite the attention that Raman Spectroscopy has gained recently in the area of pathogen identification, the spectra analyses techniques are not well developed. In most scenarios, they rely on expert intervention to detect and assign the peaks of the spectra to specific molecular vibration. Although some investigators have used machine-learning techniques to classify pathogens, these studies are usually limited to a specific application, and the generalization of these techniques is not clear. Also, a wide range of algorithms have been developed for classification problems, however, there is less insight to applying such methods on Raman spectra. Furthermore, analyzing the Raman …

A Twitter-Based Study For Understanding Public Reaction On Zika Virus, Roopteja Muppalla

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In recent times, social media platforms like Twitter have become more popular and people have become more interactive and responsive than before. People often react to every news in real-time and within no-time, the information spreads rapidly. Even with viral diseases like Zika, people tend to share their opinions and concerns on social media. This can be leveraged by the health officials to track the disease in real-time thereby reducing the time lag due to traditional surveys. A faster and accurate detection of the disease can allow health officials to understand people's opinion of the disease and take necessary precautions …

Redox-Active Silver N-Heterocyclic Carbene Complexes: A Dual Targeting Antibacterial Drug, Kotiba Malek

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Bacterial resistance to current [beta]-lactam antibiotics necessitates new therapeutic approaches. Silver-based drugs offer a promising alternative because of their antibacterial properties and minimal bacterial resistance. However, many silver-based antibacterial drugs rapidly release silver ions, limiting the bioavailability of silver ions for a longer period of time. Recently, N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHC) containing silver complexes have become a popular subject of research due to their versatility and the slow release of silver ions under biological conditions. To further enhance the efficacy of silver-NHC drugs, we fused redox-active substituents such as naphthoquinone and ferrocenes to NHCs. Both naphthoquinone and ferrocenes have been shown …

Application Of Molecular Pathology Techniques To Understand Mechanisms Of Disease In Smallmouth Bass, Heather Leigh Walsh

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the Chesapeake Bay drainage, smallmouth bass Micropterus dolomieu are used as an indicator species of estrogenic contaminant exposure and have been implicated in fish kills and disease since 2005. In the Potomac River drainage, adult smallmouth bass have experienced mortality and disease and males have a high prevalence of intersex (testicular oocytes). Conversely, in the Susquehanna River drainage mortalities and disease of young-of-the-year smallmouth bass (YOY SMB) have occurred and resulted in a population shift to older and larger fish. The exact cause of these events remains unknown; however, factors such as poor water quality, contaminants, pathogens and parasites, …

Adjusting For Mis-Reporting In Count Data, Gelareh Rahimighazikalayeh

Theses and Dissertations

Any counting system is prone to recording errors including underreporting and overreporting. Ignoring the misreporting pattern in count data can give rise to bias in the estimation of model parameters. Accordingly, Poisson, negative binomial and generalized Poisson regression have been expanded in some instances to capture reporting biases. However, to our knowledge, no program has been developed to allow users to apply all of these models when needed. In the first part of the dissertation, we review the available models for underreported counts and develop a Stata command to estimate Poisson, negative binomial and generalized Poisson regression models for underreported …

Pdms-Silver Nanocomposite For Bendable And Stretchable Conductive Stripes, Porapak Suriya

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

In this research, a simple and low-cost protocol for fabricating PDMS-silver composite as flexible conductive polymer is presented. Rod-shaped silver acetate (RS-AcOAg) was synthesized and fabricated into a solvent-cast RS-AcOAg film. The film was thermally decomposed into porous silver structures at 300ºC. The thermal decomposition of RS-AcOAg film induced the formation of silver microparticles (AgNPs) on the surface of RS-AcOAg with the expense of RS-AcOAg rod. AgNPs sintered into bigger particles and turned RS-AcOAg film into porous silver film consisting of interconnected quasi-sphere silver microparticles (AgMPs). The sintered structures transformed porous silver into rigid structures and affected the electrical resistivity …