Digital Commons Network^™

Comparison Of Α-Glucosyl Hesperidin Of Citrus Fruits And Epigallocatechin Gallate Of Green Tea On The Loss Of Rotavirus Infectivity In Cell Culture, Steven M. Lipson, Fatma S. Ozen, Samantha Louis, Laina Karthikeyan

Publications and Research

A number of secondary plant metabolites (e.g., flavonoids) possess antiviral/antimicrobial activity. Most flavonoids, however, are difficult to study, as they are immiscible in water-based systems. The relatively new semisynthetic α-glucosyl hesperitin (GH), and the natural plant product epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) are unique among most flavonoids, as these flavonoids are highly soluble. The antiviral activity of these plant metabolites were investigated using the rotavirus as a model enteric virus system. Direct loss of virus structural integrity in cell-free suspension and titration of amplified RTV in host cell cultures was measured by a quantitative enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (qEIA). After 30 min. 100 …

Phylogenomic Identification Of Regulatory Sequences In Bacteria: An Analysis Of Statistical Power And An Application To Borrelia Burgdorferi Sensu Lato, Che I. Martin, Tika Y. Sukarna, Saymon Akther, Girish Ramrattan, Pedro Pagan, Lia Di, Emmanuel F. Mongodin, Claire M. Fraser, Steven E. Schutzer, Benjamin J. Luft, Sherwood R. Casjens, Wei-Gang Qiu

Publications and Research

Phylogenomic footprinting is an approach for ab initio identification of genome-wide regulatory elements in bacterial species based on sequence conservation. The statistical power of the phylogenomic approach depends on the degree of sequence conservation, the length of regulatory elements, and the level of phylogenetic divergence among genomes. Building on an earlier model, we propose a binomial model that uses synonymous tree lengths as neutral expectations for determining the statistical significance of conserved intergenic spacer (IGS) sequences. Simulations show that the binomial model is robust to variations in the value of evolutionary parameters, including base frequencies and the transition-to-transversion ratio. We …

Accuracy Of Highly Sexually Active Gay And Bisexual Men’S Predictions Of Their Daily Likelihood Of Anal Sex And Its Relevance For Intermittent Event-Driven Hiv Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, Jeffrey T. Parsons, H. Jonathon Rendina, Christian Grov, Ana Ventuneac, Brian Mustanski

Publications and Research

Objective: We sought to examine highly sexually active gay and bisexual men’s accuracy in predicting their sexual behavior for the purposes of informing future research on intermittent, event-driven HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP).

Design: For 30 days, 92 HIV-negative men completed a daily survey about their sexual behavior (n = 1,688 days of data) and indicated their likelihood of having anal sex with a casual male partner the following day.

Method: We utilized multilevel modeling to analyze the association between self-reported likelihood of and subsequent engagement in anal sex.

Results: We found a linear association between men’s reported likelihood …

A Reproducible Approach To High-Throughput Biological Data Acquisition And Integration, Daniela Börnigen, Yo Sup Moon, Gholamali Rahnavard, Levi Waldron, Lauren Mciver, Afrah Shafquat, Eric A. Franzosa, Larissa Miropolsky, Christopher Sweeney, Xochitl C. Morgan, Wendy S. Garrett, Curtis Huttenhower

Publications and Research

Modern biological research requires rapid, complex, and reproducible integration of multiple experimental results generated both internally and externally (e.g., from public repositories). Although large systematic meta-analyses are among the most effective approaches both for clinical biomarker discovery and for computational inference of biomolecular mechanisms, identifying, acquiring, and integrating relevant experimental results from multiple sources for a given study can be time-consuming and error-prone. To enable efficient and reproducible integration of diverse experimental results, we developed a novel approach for standardized acquisition and analysis of high-throughput and heterogeneous biological data. This allowed, first, novel biomolecular network reconstruction in human prostate cancer, …

Informal Child Care And Adolescent Psychological Well-Being: Hong Kong’S “Children Of 1997” Birth Cohort, Cherry Y. Leung, Gabriel M. Leung, Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Background
Informal child care (child care by untrained family members, relatives or employees in the home) in Western populations is often associated with poorer psychological well-being, which may be confounded by socioeconomic position. We examined the association of informal child care, common in non-Western settings, with adolescent psychological wellbeing, using Hong Kong’s Chinese “Children of 1997” birth cohort.

Methods
Multivariable linear regression was used to examine the adjusted associations of informal child care (at 0.5, 3, 5 and 11 years) with parent-reported Rutter score for child behavior at 11 years, self-reported Culture-Free Self-Esteem Inventories score at 11 years and selfreported …

New Functionally-Enhanced Soy Proteins As Food Ingredients With Anti-Viral Activity, Aizhan Sabirzhanovna Turmagambetova, Nadezhda Sergeevna Sokolova, Andrey Pavlinovich Bogoyavlenskiy, Vladimir Eleazvich Berezin, Mary Ann Lila, Diana M. Cheng, Vyacheslav Dushenkov

Publications and Research

Respiratory viruses are a major public health problem because of their prevalence and high morbidity rate leading to considerable social and economic implications. Cranberry has therapeutic potential attributed to a comprehensive list of phytochemicals including anthocyanins, flavonols, and unique A-type proanthocyanidins. Soy flavonoids, including isoflavones, have demonstrated anti-viral effects in vitro and in vivo. Recently, it was demonstrated that edible proteins can efficiently sorb and concentrate cranberry polyphenols, including anthocyanins and proanthocyanins, providing greatly stabilized matrices suitable for food products. The combination of cranberry and soy phytoactives may be an effective dietary anti-viral resource. Anti-viral properties of both cranberry juice-enriched …

Consuming Poverty: The Unexpected Politics Of Food Aid In An Era Of Austerity, Maggie Dickinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation tracks the remarkable growth of food assistance in the U.S. over the past fifteen years and asks what this expansion of food aid means for poor people living in New York City. Much of the scholarly literature on welfare policy in the U.S argues that social programs have become more stingy and punitive, particularly since the passage of welfare reform in 1996. On the surface, this does not seem to be the case for the food stamp program or for emergency food providers like soup kitchens and food pantries. Since 2001 food stamp rolls have risen 120% in …

Target Zero: Why States Choose To Eradicate Infectious Diseases And How They Succeed, Gifty Abraham

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Realism has remained the dominant paradigm within international relations for most of the modern era, emphasizing the competitive nature of the international arena and the unlikeliness of states to within it to cooperate. The attempts and further still, successes, by states to eradicate infectious diseases--which remain among the most cooperative enterprises--present a number of challenges to realism's assumptions, particularly with respect to the unlikely world historical-times during which the eradication campaigns took place. As such, a two-part puzzle arises. First, why would states, which are natural competitors, cooperate to eradicate infectious diseases given structural and situational incentives not to do …

Tcr Alpha Lcr And Non-Lcr Cis-Elements Contributing To Tissue Specific Expression Of The Tcr Alpha Gene In Thymic And Peripheral T Cells, Martina Kucerova-Levisohn

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Orchestrated expression of multiple genes residing in the complex TCRα/δ/Dad1 locus requires tight control from multiple cis-acting elements. The TCRα locus control region (LCR), is positioned between TCRα and Dad1 gene, and has been implicated in the differential expression of both genes. In this study, we focus our work on the hypersensitive site (HS)1 prime (HS1'), located 3' of the classical Eα enhancer, within the TCRα LCR. We investigated its non- redundant role in TCRα expression in thymic and peripheral T cells as assayed by in vivo and in vitro studies. Furthermore, formation of HS1' in both lymphoid and …

Evolution Of Bat-Trypanosome Associations And The Origins Of Chagas Disease, Christian Miguel Pinto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Trypanosoma cruzi is a genetically diverse parasite that causes Chagas disease, one of the most important zoonoses in the Americas. This generalist parasite of mammals belongs to a clade mostly comprised of bat parasites, the T. cruzi clade. The origins (i.e., biogeographic history and evolution of hosts associations) of this parasite are far from being understood, and the main areas that need further study are: species limits within T. cruzi sensu lato, further studies on the diversity of T. cruzi clade members and their hosts, and research on adaptations of the hosts to trypanosome infections. In this dissertation I explore …

Risk Factors And Costs Influencing Hospitalizations Due To Heat-Related Illnesses: Patterns Of Hospitalization, Michael T. Schmeltz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this dissertation was to identify individual and environmental risk factors, investigate outcomes and hospital resource use, including costs, and document the pattern of heat-related illness hospitalizations in the United States. The main data source for the study population was the 2001-2010 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS). The study population for heat-related illnesses (HRIs) consists of patients in the NIS with at least one diagnosis of a heat-related illness (ICD-9 codes 992.0 - 992.9) from 2001 to 2010. Outcome analysis included a study population of patients who had primary or secondary diagnoses of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory illnesses, nephritic …

Endothelial Surface Glycocalyx Can Regulate Flow-Induced Nitric Oxide Production In Microvessels In Vivo, Wanyi Yen, Bin Cai, Jinlin Yang, Lin Zhang, Min Zeng, John M. Tarbell, Bingmei M. Fu

Publications and Research

Due to its unique location, the endothelial surface glycocalyx (ESG) at the luminal side of the microvessel wall may serve as a mechano-sensor and transducer of blood flow and thus regulate endothelial functions. To examine this role of the ESG, we used fluorescence microscopy to measure nitric oxide (NO) production in post-capillary venules and arterioles of rat mesentery under reduced (low) and normal (high) flow conditions, with and without enzyme pretreatment to remove heparan sulfate (HS) of the ESG and in the presence of an endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) inhibitor, NG-monomethyl-L-arginine (L-NMMA). Rats (SD, 250–300g) were anesthetized. The mesentery …

Development And Maintenance Of Thymic Epithelial Microenvironment, Varan J. Singh

Dissertations and Theses

Thymus is a primary lymphoid organ responsible for proper development and selection Of T-­‐cells. The thymic microenvironment, however, undergoes age related involution, Resulting in a reduction of the repertoire of T-­‐cells that are produced, and a decreased Capacity to respond to new antigen. Even though significant thymic epithelial turnover occurs, it is unclear if postnatal thymic progenitors/stem cell are responsible for the maintenance of the TEC microenvironment. Here we use the K5rtTA:TetO-­‐H2BGFP transgenic model to identify a slow cycling potential stem cells/progenitor population in the postnatal thymus. These cells were isolated, expanded in culture, and successfully differentiated into adipocytes, chondrocytes …

The Future Of Public Health Informatics: Alternative Scenarios And Recommended Strategies, Margo Edmunds, Lorna Thorpe, Martin Sepulveda, Clem Bezold, David A. Ross

Publications and Research

Background: In October 2013, the Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII) and Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) convened a multidisciplinary group of experts to evaluate forces shaping public health informatics (PHI) in the United States, with the aim of identifying upcoming challenges and opportunities. The PHI workshop was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its larger strategic planning process for public health and primary care. Workshop Context: During the two-day workshop, nine experts from the public and private sectors analyzed and discussed the implications of four scenarios regarding the United States economy, health care system, information technology …

Characteristics And Comprehensiveness Of Adult Hiv Care And Treatment Programmes In Asia-Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa And The Americas: Results Of A Site Assessment Conducted By The International Epidemiologic Databases To Evaluate Aids (Iedea) Collaboration, Stephany N. Duda, Amanda M. Farr, Mary Lou Lindegren, Meridith Blevins, C William Wester, Kara Wools-Kaloustian, Didier K. Ekouevi, Matthias Egger, Jennifer Hemingway-Foday, David A. Cooper, Richard D. Moore, Catherine C. Mcgowan, Denis Nash

Publications and Research

Introduction HIV care and treatment programmes worldwide are transforming as they push to deliver universal access to essential prevention, care and treatment services to persons living with HIV and their communities. The characteristics and capacity of these HIV programmes affect patient outcomes and quality of care. Despite the importance of ensuring optimal outcomes, few studies have addressed the capacity of HIV programmes to deliver comprehensive care. We sought to describe such capacity in HIV programmes in seven regions worldwide. Methods Staff from 128 sites in 41 countries participating in the International epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS completed a site survey …

Frequency And Fitness Consequences Of Bacteriophage Φ6 Host Range Mutations, Brian E. Ford, Bruce Sun, James Carpino, Elizabeth S. Chapler, Jane Ching, Yoon Choi, Kevin Jhun, Jung D. Kim, Gregory G. Lallos, Rachelle Morgenstern, Shalini Singh, Sai Theja, John J. Dennehy

Publications and Research

Viruses readily mutate and gain the ability to infect novel hosts, but few data are available regarding the number of possible host range-expanding mutations allowing infection of any given novel host, and the fitness consequences of these mutations on original and novel hosts. To gain insight into the process of host range expansion, we isolated and sequenced 69 independent mutants of the dsRNA bacteriophage Φ6 able to infect the novel host, Pseudomonas pseudoalcaligenes. In total, we found at least 17 unique suites of mutations among these 69 mutants. We assayed fitness for 13 of 17 mutant genotypes on P. pseudoalcaligenes …

Raw Milk, Raw Power: States Of (Mis)Trust, Diana Mincyte

Publications and Research

In recent years, raw milk has emerged as one of the most contentious food commodities, considered a serious health risk by public health officials and a source of healing and nourishment by raw milk proponents. The purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which consumers construct and experience trust in food that is often procured in informal markets. Because the image of an overreaching, exploitative government features prominently in popular narratives surrounding raw milk consumption, this article is explicitly concerned with the role of the state in public food debates. Drawing on two complementary empirical cases of …

The Status Of Neonatal Hearing Screening In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review, David Engelman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Late identification of hearing loss can lead to speech and language delays, as well as social and academic difficulties. Neonatal hearing screening has reduced the age of identification of hearing loss in many developed countries. However, the practice is limited or non-existent in much of the developing world, such as sub-Saharan Africa. This systematic review used currently available literature to determine the status of neonatal hearing screening programs in sub-Saharan Africa and to develop a model program for the region. Results suggested a lack of neonatal hearing screening services in sub-Saharan Africa, stressing the need for more pilot hearing screening …

Underprivileged Children In Port-Au-Prince, Haiti: Hearing And Academic Performance Of Children In Public Schools In Port Au Prince, Talia Meisel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Hearing loss is estimated to affect more than 360 million people worldwide, 32% of whom are children. Children with hearing loss tend to develop compromised communicative abilities and also have been found to perform more poorly academically than their normal hearing peers. Because of the lack of medical care, children in third world countries are expected to have more difficulty hearing and learning in a classroom setting than children in first world countries due to higher incidences of conductive pathology. The purpose of this study is to assess the hearing ability of underprivileged children in kindergarten and primary schools in …

High Local Diversity Of Trypanosoma In A Common Bat Species, And Implications For The Biogeography And Taxonomy Of The T. Cruzi Clade, Veronika M. Cottontail, Elisabeth K. V. Kalko, Iain Cottontail, Nele Wellinghausen, Marco Tschapka, Susan L. Perkins, C. Miguel Pinto

Publications and Research

The Trypanosoma cruzi clade is a group of parasites that comprises T. cruzi sensu lato and its closest relatives. Although several species have been confirmed phylogenetically to belong to this clade, it is uncertain how many more species can be expected to belong into this group. Here, we present the results of a survey of trypanosome parasites of the bat Artibeus jamaicensis from the Panama´ Canal Zone, an important seed disperser. Using a genealogical species delimitation approach, the Poisson tree processes (PTP), we tentatively identified five species of trypanosomes – all belonging to the T. cruzi clade. A small monophyletic …

Improving Mycobacterium Bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guèrin As A Vaccine Delivery Vector For Viral Antigens By Incorporation Of Glycolipid Activators Of Nkt Cells, Manjunatha M. Venkataswamy, Tony W. Ng, Shalu S. Kharkwal, Leandro J. Carreño, Alison J. Johnson, Shajo Kunnath-Velayudhan, Zheng Liu, Robert Bittman, Peter J. Jervis, Liam R. Cox, Gurdyal S. Besra, Xiangshu Wen, Weiming Yuan, Moriya Tsuji, Xiangming Li, David D. Ho, John Chan, Sunhee Lee, Richard Frothingham, Barton F. Haynes

Publications and Research

Recombinant Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guèrin (rBCG) has been explored as a vector for vaccines against HIV because of its ability to induce long lasting humoral and cell mediated immune responses. To maximize the potential for rBCG vaccines to induce effective immunity against HIV, various strategies are being employed to improve its ability to prime CD8+ T cells, which play an important role in the control of HIV infections. In this study we adopted a previously described approach of incorporating glycolipids that activate CD1d-restricted natural killer T (NKT) cells to enhance priming of CD8+ T cells by rBCG strains expressing an …

Angiopoietin-1, Angiopoietin-2 And Bicarbonate As Diagnostic Biomarkers In Children With Severe Sepsis, Kun Wang, Vineet Bhandari, John S. Giuliano, Corey S. O′Hern, Mark D. Shattuck, Michael Kirby

Publications and Research

Severe pediatric sepsis continues to be associated with high mortality rates in children. Thus, an important area of biomedical research is to identify biomarkers that can classify sepsis severity and outcomes. The complex and heterogeneous nature of sepsis makes the prospect of the classification of sepsis severity using a single biomarker less likely. Instead, we employ machine learning techniques to validate the use of a multiple biomarkers scoring system to determine the severity of sepsis in critically ill children. The study was based on clinical data and plasma samples provided by a tertiary care center's Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) …

Dynamically-Expressed Prion-Like Proteins Form A Cuticle In The Pharynx Of Caenorhabditis Elegans, Julia B. George-Raizen, Keith R. Shockley, Nicholas F. Trojanowski, Annesia L. Lamb, David M. Raizen

Publications and Research

In molting animals, a cuticular extracellular matrix forms the first barrier to infection and other environmental insults. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans there are two types of cuticle: a wellstudied collagenous cuticle lines the body, and a poorly-understood chitinous cuticle lines the pharynx. In the posterior end of the pharynx is the grinder, a tooth-like cuticular specialization that crushes food prior to transport to the intestine for digestion. We here show that the grinder increases in size only during the molt. To gain molecular insight into the structure of the grinder and pharyngeal cuticle, we performed a microarray analysis to …

Statistical Signs Of Social Influence On Suicides, Hygor Piaget M. Melo, André A. Moreira, Élcio Batista, Hernán A. Makse, José S. Andrade

Publications and Research

By treating the suicide as a social fact, Durkheim envisaged that suicide rates should be determined by the connections between people and society. Under the same framework, he considered that crime is bound up with the fundamental conditions of all social life. The social effect on the occurrence of homicides has been previously substantiated, and confirmed here, in terms of a superlinear scaling relation: by doubling the population of a Brazilian city results in an average increment of 135% in the number of homicides, rather than the expected isometric increase of 100%, as found, for example, for the mortality due …

Using Smart Grid Technologies To Protect Human Health In Water Distribution Systems, Graham Symmonds

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

Since the introduction of the Safe Drinking Water Act, there has been marked reduction in the number of water-borne disease outbreaks attributed to water treatment systems. Over the same period, however, the percentage of disease outbreaks attributable to defects in the distribution system has increased exponentially. Interestingly, as a result of the continuous aging infrastructure employed by our water utilities, the number of water-borne disease cases has increased in the last decade. The smart grid for water can be used to significantly improve both the utility's understanding of water quality in the distribution system, but can dramatically increase the response …

Comorbidity Of Infectious Diseases And Anxiety Disorders In Adults And Its Association With Quality Of Life: A Community Study, Cornelia Witthauer, Andrew T. Gloster, Andrea Hans Meyer, Renee D. Goodwin, Roselind Lieb

Publications and Research

Objective: Infectious diseases and anxiety disorders are common and both are associated with substantial burden to individual, families, and society. A better understanding of their association may be helpful in explicating possible etiological mechanisms related to both. The goal of the current study was to investigate the relationship between specific infectious diseases and anxiety disorders among adults in the community, and to examine whether the co-occurrence of the two is associated with poorer quality of life compared to subjects with one or neither condition.

Methods: We used data from the 1998 German Mental Health survey with 4181 subjects aged 18–65. …

Searching For Superspreaders Of Information In Real-World Social Media, Sen Pei, Lev Muchnik, José S. Andrade, Jr., Zhiming Zheng, Hernán A. Makse

Publications and Research

A number of predictors have been suggested to detect the most influential spreaders of information in online social media across various domains such as Twitter or Facebook. In particular, degree, PageRank, k-core and other centralities have been adopted to rank the spreading capability of users in information dissemination media. So far, validation of the proposed predictors has been done by simulating the spreading dynamics rather than following real information flow in social networks. Consequently, only model-dependent contradictory results have been achieved so far for the best predictor. Here, we address this issue directly. We search for influential spreaders by following …

Borreliabase: A Phylogeny-Centered Browser Of Borrelia Genomes, Lia Di, Pedro E. Pagan, Daniel Packer, Che L. Martin, Saymon Akther, Girish Ramrattan, Emmanuel F. Mongodin, Claire M. Fraser, Steven E. Schutzer, Benjamin J. Luft, Sherwood R. Casjens, Wei-Gang Qiu

Publications and Research

Background The bacterial genus Borrelia (phylum Spirochaetes) consists of two groups of pathogens represented respectively by B. burgdorferi, the agent of Lyme borreliosis, and B. hermsii, the agent of tick-borne relapsing fever. The number of publicly available Borrelia genomic sequences is growing rapidly with the discovery and sequencing of Borrelia strains worldwide. There is however a lack of dedicated online databases to facilitate comparative analyses of Borrelia genomes. Description We have developed BorreliaBase, an online database for comparative browsing of Borrelia genomes. The database is currently populated with sequences from 35 genomes of eight Lyme-borreliosis (LB) group Borrelia species and …

Hispanic Residential Ethnic Density And Depression In Post-Acute Coronary Syndrome Patients: Re-Thinking The Role Of Social Support, Ellen-Ge Denton, Jonathan A. Shaffer, Carmela Alcantra, Lynn Clemow, Elizabeth Denton

Publications and Research

Background: The ethnic density hypothesis suggests that ethnic density confers greater social support and consequently protects against depressive symptoms in ethnic minority individuals. However, the potential benefits of ethnic density have not been examined in individuals who are facing a specific and salient life stressor.

Aims: We examined the degree to which the effects of Hispanic ethnic density on depressive symptoms are explained by socioeconomic resources and social support.

Methods: Patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS, N = 472) completed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and measures of demographics, ACS clinical factors and perceived social support. Neighborhood characteristics, including median …

Environmental Data Analysis And Remote Sensing For Early Detection Of Dengue And Malaria, Md Zahidur Rahman, Leonid Roytman, Abdelhamid Kadik, Dilara A. Rosy

Publications and Research

Malaria and dengue fever are the two most common mosquito-transmitted diseases, leading to millions of serious illnesses and deaths each year. Because the mosquito vectors are sensitive to environmental conditions such as temperature, precipitation, and humidity, it is possible to map areas currently or imminently at high risk for disease outbreaks using satellite remote sensing. In this paper we propose the development of an operational geospatial system for malaria and dengue fever early warning; this can be done by bringing together geographic information system (GIS) tools, artificial neural networks (ANN) for efficient pattern recognition, the best available ground-based epidemiological and …