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Effect Of A Mindfulness Intervention On Stress And Coping Strategies In Physician Assistant Students, Mark Volpe

Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program Theses

Physician assistant students represent a stressed population, often with poor coping skills. Prior research amongst undergraduate and graduate students has shown that mindfulness interventions are often effective in reducing stress in the short-term. This has not been studied in physician assistant students or for long-term outcomes. We propose a randomized controlled trial to study the effects of a mindfulness intervention on short-term and long-term physician assistant student stress and coping skills. Students from three sites in Connecticut will be provided an eight week mindfulness intervention or be placed in a control group. Stress and coping skills will be measured at …

Probiotic Therapy For The Prevention Of Recurrent Spontaneous Preterm Birth, Kali O’Dell

Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program Theses

Preterm birth is the national leading cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Nearly 500,000 infants are born prematurely each year in the United States and the annual cost of prematurity averages over $26 billion dollars. Despite multiple interventions to reduce infection related prematurity many spontaneous preterm births remain attributed infection and inflammation. We hypothesize that prevention of infection and inflammation related spontaneous preterm birth is possible through enrichment, stabilization, and normalization of the vaginal microbiome. To test this hypothesis we will perform a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled trial of intravaginal Lactobacillus probiotic in women at high-risk for spontaneous preterm birth. …

Acupuncture And Assisted Reproductive Technology: The Effect On Clinical Pregnancy Rates, Hannah K. Holland

Yale School of Medicine Physician Associate Program Theses

Acupuncture has become an increasingly common concurrent therapy for women undergoing assisted reproductive technology. The effect of acupuncture on clinical pregnancy rates, however, remains unclear due to inconclusive study results and a lack of proper comparisons to all possible controls. In this three arm, single-blinded, randomized controlled trial, we propose to compare clinical pregnancy rates of women under age 35 undergoing in vitro fertilization with or without intracytoplasmic sperm injection in combination with either true acupuncture, sham acupuncture, or standard medical care. We hypothesize there will be a statistically significant difference in clinical pregnancy rates six to eight weeks following …

The Girl With The Peanut Necklace: Experiences Of Infertility And In Vitro Fertilization In China, Ruoxi Yu

Student Work

A 2014-2015 William Prize for best essay in East Asian Studies was awarded to Ruoxi Yu (Berkeley College '15) for her essay submitted to the Department of Anthropology, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China.” (Marcia Inhorn, William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology, advisor; Susan Brownell, Professor of Anthropology at USML, secondary reader.)

Ruoxi Yu’s essay, “The Girl with the Peanut Necklace: Experiences of Infertility and in vitro Fertilization in China,” situates original research within the history of the one-child birth control policy and the tension between the …

Yale Medicine : Alumni Bulletin Of The School Of Medicine, Spring 2015, Yale University. School Of Medicine

Yale Medicine Magazine - alumni bulletin and magazine

This is the Spring 2015 issue of Yale Medicine: alumni bulletin of the School of Medicine, v. 49, no. 2. Prepared in cooperation with the alumni and development offices at the School of Medicine. Earlier volumes are called Yale School of Medicine alumni bulletins, dating from v.1 (1953) through v.13 (1965).

Estimating The Production Function For Human Capital: Results From A Randomized Control Trial In Colombia, Orazio P. Attanasio, Sarah Cattan, Emla Fitzsimons, Costas Meghir, Marta Rubio-Codina

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We examine the channels through which a randomized early childhood intervention in Colombia led to significant gains in cognitive and socio-emotional skills among a sample of disadvantaged children aged 12 to 24 months at baseline. We estimate the determinants of parents’ material and time investments in these children and evaluate the impact of the treatment on such investments. We then estimate the production functions for cognitive and socio-emotional skills. The effects of the program can be explained by increases in parental investments, emphasizing the importance of parenting interventions at an early age.

Estimating The Production Function For Human Capital: Results From A Randomized Control Trial In Colombia, Orazio P. Attanasio, Sarah Cattan, Emla Fitzsimons, Costas Meghir, Marta Rubio-Codina

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

We examine the channels through which a randomized early childhood intervention in Colombia led to significant gains in cognitive and socio-emotional skills among a sample of disadvantaged children aged 12 to 24 months at baseline. We estimate the determinants of parents’ material and time investments in these children and evaluate the impact of the treatment on such investments. We then estimate the production functions for cognitive and socio-emotional skills. The effects of the program can be explained by increases in parental investments, emphasizing the importance of parenting interventions at an early age.

Skin Cancer Outcomes As A Function Of Referral Reason In Solid Organ Transplant Recipients, Sakil Chundydyal

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

SKIN CANCER OUTCOMES AS A FUNCTION OF REFERRAL REASON IN SOLID ORGAN TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS. Sakil Chundydyal, Fang-Yong Li, Oscar R. Colegio, Department of Dermatology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.

Purpose of study: The purpose of this study is to examine the reason for referral of Organ Transplant Recipients (OTR) to a specialized dermatology clinic as a predictor of Non Melanoma Skin Cancer outcomes in those patients.

Methods: A retrospective chart study was conducted using the records for current OTR patients referred to a specialized transplant dermatology clinic from 1991 to 2012. The data reasons for referral as well …

A Composite Vertical Current Spectrum For Strongly And Weakly Stratified Seas And Oceans, Hans Van Haren

Journal of Marine Research

An overall frequency (σ) spectrum φ_w(σ, N, f_h) is composed for vertical current (w) observations from ocean areas with different stratifications represented by large, 100 m scale buoyancy frequency N. The horizontal Coriolis parameter is denoted by f_h. In the open Atlantic Ocean, the relatively strong horizontal layering in density supports the φ_w that is found in semiequilibrium under the degradation of the lowest internal wave mode. This φ_w is not constant with frequency; however, its variance increases between σ = f and its peak near σ = (0.5 …

Species Diversity Patterns Of Marine Plankton And Benthos In Chinese Bays: Baseline Prior To Large-Scale Development, Weiwei Yu, Bin Chen, Paolo F. Ricci, Luoping Zhang, Jianguo Du, Zhiyuan Ma

Journal of Marine Research

More than 28,000 marine species have been recorded in China, which accounts for approximately 10% of all marine organisms in the world and plays a potentially important role in protecting global marine biodiversity. However, knowledge of marine biodiversity patterns in China is limited, and in particular, no comparative diversity analysis has been carried out for Chinese bays. In this study, national-scale species diversity patterns of coastal bays were examined on the basis of investigations for approximately 81 bays throughout the entire Chinese coastline in the 1980s and the early 1990s, revealing the baseline of diversity patterns prior to large-scale development. …

Intertidal Percolation Through Beach Sands As A Source Of 224,223 Ra To Long Island Sound, New York, And Connecticut, United States, Henry Bokuniewicz, J. Kirk Cochran, Jordi Garcia-Orellana, Valenti Rodellas, John Wallace Daniel, Christina Heilbrun

Journal of Marine Research

Along tidal coasts, seawater circulated through the intertidal beach contributes to submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) and its associated geochemical signature. The short-lived radium isotopes, ²²³Ra (half-life = 11.4 d) and ²²⁴Ra (half-life = 3.66 d), were used to quantify this component of SGD in a large estuary, Long Island Sound (LIS), New York, United States. The tide is semidiurnal with a range of approximately 2 m. Concentrations in beach pore waters ranged from 97 to 678 disintegrations per minute (dpm) ²²⁴Ra 100 L^–1, whereas concentrations in open coastal waters ranged from approximately 12 to 69 …

Nitrogen Substrate–Dependent Nitrous Oxide Cycling In Salt Marsh Sediments, Qixing Ji, Andrew R. Babbin, Xuefeng Peng, Jennifer L. Bowen, Bess B. Ward

Journal of Marine Research

Nitrous oxide (N₂O) is important to Earth's climate because it is a strong absorber of radiation and an important ozone depletion agent. Increasing anthropogenic nitrogen input into the marine environment, especially to coastal waters, has led to increasing N₂O emissions. Identifying the nitrogen compounds that serve as substrates for N₂O production in coastal waters reveals important pathways and helps us understand their control by environmental factors. In this study, sediments were collected from a long-term fertilization site in Great Sippewissett Marsh, Falmouth, Massachusetts. The ¹⁵N tracer incubation time course experiments were conducted and …

Distinguishing Turbulent Overturns In High-Sampling-Rate Moored Thermistor String Observations, Hans Van Haren, Louis Gostiaux

Journal of Marine Research

Turbulent overturns are distinguished from salinity-compensated intrusions in high-resolution moored thermistor string observations. The buoyancy frequency N is used to make the time dimensionless, "t*." This results in a primary, visual means to easily compare the duration of overturns with N, the natural frequency that separates internal waves from turbulent overturns. As a secondary means, the shapes of overturns are investigated. Above various sloping topography between 500 and 1,000 m water depth where the buoyancy period varies between ∼1,300 and 2,600 s, vertical overturns of ∼40 m last Δt* =0.2–0.4. This corresponds with the timescale …

Optimizing The Melanoma Tropism Of Mouse Parvovirus 1a For Use As A Viral Immunotherapy Vector, Matthew Marr

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Melanoma is a prevalent, deadly disease with poor outcomes following metastasis. It is an immunogenic cancer with many unique tumor antigens, but the tumor microenvironment inhibits the immune system. Current monoclonal antibody treatment has been shown to be beneficial in metastatic melanoma by blocking inhibitory immune signals such as PD-1 or CTLA-4. The expression of immunostimulatory proteins such as B7.1 by tumor cells could provide additional immune targeting. Viral vectors based on the parvovirus genome could efficiently and selectively express B7.1 in melanoma cells, such that they become competent to directly activate cognate T cells. Once activated, T cells will …

T Cell Calcium Flux And Clonal Proliferation Report On Antigen-Specific Myeloid Cell Encounters, Nour Kibbi

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Despite its clinical success, the mechanism underlying extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is not well understood, however, the plate-passage (PP) step appears integral to generating activated monocytes. In the first part of the project, we developed a functional assay to evaluate the efficacy of plate-passed myeloid cells (PPM) compared with freshly isolated, unstimulated monocytes (UM) and conventional dendritic cells derived from blood monocytes cultured with GM-CSF/IL4 (DC). Each of these three antigen presenting cell (APC) was co-cultured with purified, autologous CD8 cells, with or without CD4 cells. Cultures were carried out using melanoma antigen MART-1 "long peptide (LP)," a 25-amino acid peptide …

Isolation Of Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells For Fabrication Of Tissue-Engineered Vascular Grafts: Evaluation Of Two Methods, Paul S. Bagi

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Objective: Tissue engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) are useful in the surgical treatment of congenital heart defects. The development of TEVGs requires seeding of scaffolds composed of biodegradable polymers with bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (BM-MNCs). The most common method used to isolate BM-MNCs involves density centrifugation in Ficoll. This process requires an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) class 7 clean room, is labor intensive, time intensive, and susceptible to operator variability. A recently developed filtration-based method for BM-MNC isolation uses a closed, sterile, and disposable system that removes the need for a clean room, decreases processing time, and is operator-independent. This …

Smarcb1-Mutant Intracranial Meningiomas: A Distinct Subtype Of Nf2-Mutant Tumors, Jacob Francis Baranoski

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Meningiomas are the most common central nervous system primary tumors. Mutations in the tumor suppressor gene Neurofibromin 2 (NF2), located on chromosome 22 (Chr22), are present in 40-50% of sporadic meningiomas. In a subset of non-NF2-mutant meningiomas, recent studies have identified tumorigenesis driver mutations in the genes TRAF7, AKT1, KLF4, and SMO. However, the genetic basis for the marked clinical and histological heterogeneity that exists among NF2-mutant/Chr22-loss meningiomas remains to be established. In this study, we utilized next-generation sequencing techniques to identify and screen a large cohort of NF2-mutant/Chr22-loss meningiomas for concurrent co-driver mutations in novel genes that may contribute …

Reporting Of Results In Clinicaltrials.Gov And High-Impact Journals: A Cross-Sectional Study, Jessica Elizabeth Becker

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

In 2007, the FDA Amendments Act expanded requirements for ClinicalTrials.gov, a public clinical trial registry maintained by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, mandating results reporting within 12 months of trial completion for all FDA regulated drugs. We compared clinical trial results reported on ClinicalTrials.gov with corresponding published articles. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of clinical trials published from July 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011 in high impact journals (impact factor 10 or higher) that were registered and reported results on ClinicalTrials.gov. We compared trial results reported on ClinicalTrials.gov and within published articles for the following: cohort characteristics, trial …

Gender And Depression Among Veterans Of Operation Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, And New Dawn, Nkemka Esiobu

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

The Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND) Veterans utilizing Veterans Affairs (VA) services are medically and psychosocially complex, diverse, and rapidly growing. A significant portion of women Veterans seek out mental health services and they are more likely to be diagnosed with major depression than men, however the majority of prior studies informing Veteran mental health services have been done with predominantly male study populations (16,18,19). Our objectives were 1) to identify characteristics associated with a major depression diagnosis among OEF/OIF/OND men and women Veterans after stratifying by gender and 2) to identify gender differences in the nature …

Effects Of Degradation On Mechanical Properties Of Tissue-Engineering Poly(Glycolic Acid) Scaffolds, Yushane Celestine Shih

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Tissue-engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) offer tremendous therapeutic potential for congenital cardiovascular malformations, and our computational model of growth and remodeling may help expedite TEVG design by identifying optimal scaffold parameters. To evaluate our model’s assumptions about scaffold physical properties, we measured the effects of in vitro hydrolytic degradation on the compressibility and mechanical behavior of poly(glycolic acid) (PGA) scaffolds. Degradation in neutral PBS at 37°C passed through two stages of first-order decay: the first 50 percent of PGA mass was lost from 5 to 40 days (~1 to 6 weeks) at a rate constant of 0.175/wk, after which the mass …

Spiciness, Trevor J. Mcdougall, Oliver A. Krzysik

Journal of Marine Research

We define and present algorithms for spiciness, which is an oceanographic variable whose isopycnal variations reflect isopycnal water-mass contrasts in density units. Discussion of spiciness in the oceanographic literature has often concentrated on its supposed orthogonality to isopycnals on the salinity-temperature diagram and how this orthogonal nature means that spiciness is a “passive” thermodynamic variable. Here we show that this “orthogonal” property is devoid of physical meaning. Moreover, it is emphasized that the notion of “orthogonality” on the salinity-temperature diagram does not give rise to a passive thermodynamic variable. Rather, the passive nature of variations of any thermodynamic variable is …

The Influence Of Anoxia And Substrate Availability On N2o Cycling By Denitrification In The Upper Boundary Of The Oxygen Minimum Zone Off Northern Chile, Maribeb Castro-González, Laura Farías

Journal of Marine Research

Strong accumulations of N₂O at oxyclines are some of the most conspicuous features of the world's oceans. However, the origin of these maxima, and the relative contribution of nitrification and denitrification in N₂O cycling, remains unclear. In order to gain insight into the importance of denitrification and factors regulating N₂O cycling at upper oxyclines in the eastern South Pacific, the production and consumption of N₂O by denitrification were measured using a classical acetylene method under induced anoxia with the addition of an electron acceptor (nitrite) and donors (sodium acetate and glucose). The …

Low-Frequency Variability Of The Separated Western Boundary Current In Response To A Seasonal Wind Stress In A 2.5-Layer Model With Outcropping, Jérôme Sirven, Sabine Férvrier, Christophe Herbaut

Journal of Marine Research

The response of the separated western boundary current to a seasonally varying wind stress is studied in a 2.5-layer model where the second layer outcrops. The model is eddy permitting with a resolution of one-sixth of a degree, and the geometry of the basin is idealized. The response is studied for two mean states: the first one is only wind driven, whereas the second one takes into account the existence of a meridional overturning circulation. The separation latitude and the mean path followed by the separated western boundary current are shifted northward of approximately 2° when the overturning circulation is …

The Wall-Layer Dynamics In A Weakly Stratified Tidal Bottom Boundary Layer, I. Lozovatsky, S. U. P. Jinadasa, H. J. S. Fernando, J.-H. Lee, Chang Su Hong

Journal of Marine Research

The application of the classical logarithmic layer model for wall-bounded shear flows to marine bottom boundary layer (BBL) usually leads to an overestimation of the friction velocity u_* due possibly to the influence of form drag, stratification, and rotation of the flow vector. To gain insights on the BBL velocity scaling, acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements taken in the East China Sea were analyzed (a total of 270 sixteen-minute averaged velocity profiles). Single and double log-layer models, a log-wake model, and a modified log-layer (MLL) model that accounts for stratification in the upper part of the BBL (Perlin, …

Effects Of A Relationship Strengthening Intervention On Quality Of Life Of Young Low-Income, Minority Parents, Rongrong Wang

Public Health Theses

Partners in LIFE (PIL) is a 15-session relationship-based intervention delivered to young low-income minority parents (age 14-25). Fourty-nine parenting couples were recruited from urban pediatric clinics and randomized into PIL or a control group. PIL activities consisted of relationship strengthening (e.g., intimacy, empathy, communication, conflict resolution), parent education, and sexual health. The control group received only parent education. Participants were assessed at baselines and immediately after the intervention (4 months from baseline). Using within-groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) to account for the dependence of the data from time and dyad, we evaluated the effects of this intervention on physical and …

Neurocircuitry Of Suicidal Behavior In Adolescents And Young Adults With Bipolar And Major Depressive Disorder, Amanda Rose Wallace

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in the adolescent and young adult population. Furthermore, it is estimated that for every completed suicide there are many more attempters. The majority of suicide attempters have a mood disorder and neuroimaging research on the neural circuitry of suicidal behavior has primarily focused on these individuals. However, few studies have been designed to compare suicidal behavior across diagnoses. We used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to investigate white matter (WM) integrity in Bipolar Disorder (BD) and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in adolescents and young adults with a history of suicide attempt. Participants …

Medicine@Yale June 2015 Volume 11, Issue 1, Yale School Of Medicine Office Of Communications

Medicine@Yale - development newsletter

Medicine@Yale : advancing biomedical science, education and health care was a print and online newsletter which published news about academics, research and philanthropy for alumni, donors, faculty, students and the general public. It was initially published 6 times a year and then changed to a quarterly schedule. The first issue came out June/Jul. 2005. The final issue was published in May/June 2022, vol. 17, issue 1. Published by Yale School of Medicine, Office of Communications.

Real-Time Rt-Pcr Assays To Detect West Nile Virus In Mosquito Pools, Nicole Marie Herman

Public Health Theses

Introduction: West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus that was first reported in North America in 1999. Human infections with West Nile are often mild or asymptomatic, but some infections progress to life-threatening encephalitis. The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station performs viral cell culture screening on mosquito pools collected throughout the state each summer to detect viruses circulating in mosquito populations. Three different real-time RT-PCR assays are used to identify WNV in positive cell cultures. Many surveillance programs do not use cell culture and only use real-time PCR to screen pools. Although this can provide for faster analyses, some positive …

Pirna Sequence Variants Associated With Prostate Cancer In African Americans And Caucasians, Michael Cameron Lerro

Public Health Theses

Background: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men, and the incidence is 1.65 times higher in African Americans than Caucasians. The newly discovered PIWI/piRNA pathway, which regulates transposon and gene expression via small non-coding RNAs, has been implicated in certain aspects of cancer etiology. We hypothesize a novel involvement of the pathway via aberrant gene regulation due to sequence variants within piRNAs and test this hypothesis in relation to prostate cancer in both an African American and Caucasian sample. Methods: To interrogate SNPs embedded in piRNA sequences, we utilized genome-wide genotype data to impute 1,000 Genomes SNPs falling …