Digital Commons Network^™

The Federal Circuit's Decision In Myriad: Isolated Dna Molecules Are Patentable Subject Matter, Seth R. Ogden

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ppaca And Public Health: Creating A Framework To Focus On Prevention And Wellness And Improve The Public's Health, Gwendolyn R. Majette

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), a major piece of health care reform legislation.This comprehensive legislation includes provisions that focus on prevention, wellness, and public health. Some, including authors in this symposium, question whether Congress considered public health, prevention, and wellness issues as mere afterthoughts in the creation of PPACA. As this article amply demonstrates, they did not.This article documents the extent of congressional consideration on public health issues based on personal experience working on the framework for health care reform--specifically, my experience as a Fellow for a member of the …

Long Term, Continuous Temperature Monitoring Of A Simple Anaerobic Digester And Open Manure Storage Pond In Eastern South Dakota, J. Darrington, E. Cortus

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

A two-cell manure storage system with a cover on the first cell was constructed in the late summer of 2009 in Eastern South Dakota. The covered cell acts as a simple anaerobic digester. Continuous temperature monitoring for 8 months shows the winter effluent temperature equilibrated to around 6°C, and that the effluent temperature trend lagged the ambient temperature trend by a month. Manure composition was also analyzed and was found to be relatively steady throughout the system. Volatile solids were the only component that dropped appreciably across the treatment cell, with an observed maximum of 50% reduction.

“Born Again Hard”: Sexualized Violence In The Creation Of American Warriors, Katherine Highfill

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

Cultures are built upon myths that reinforce and glorify the way citizens wish to view themselves as part of a larger, stronger whole. These myths are central to the strength of a culture due to the shared sense of greatness, responsibility, and cohesion mutual belief instills. Globally, examples of cultural myth include French elegance, Arabic divine religious sanction, and British diplomatic proficiency. Specifically American mythology includes the pioneer mentality, equality for all citizens, and global caretaker. These myths, as with those of other countries, were born of historic actuality or ideology. The basis for each of these American myths, however, …

Biosolar Conversion Of N2 And H2o To Ammonia By Engineered N2-Fixing Cyanobacteria, Seth T. Harris

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

The cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 is capable of using solar energy to produce ammonia through conversion of atmospheric dinitrogen in differentiated cells called heterocysts. Harnessing this system could enable cyanobacteria to be used in ammoniafertilizer production, creating a renewable alternative to the current Haber-Bosch process. The genes patA and alr3304 in the Anabaena 7120 genome are important in heterocyst formation; an increase in heterocyst formation is seen with over-expression of patA or inactivation of alr3304. This research aims to create a novel mutant that forms more heterocysts by simultaneously over-expressing patA and inactivating alr3304, producing higher amounts of ammonia. …

Trpa1 In Airway Inflammation, Maxwell Dominic Elia

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Asthma results from exposure to allergens and other airway irritants. While clinical treatment of the disease has recently expanded beyond simply β-agonists and inhaled steroids, recent strategies seeking to modulate the immune mechanisms of the disease have offered incomplete control of the disease. This study demonstrates a mechanistically novel component in the development of asthmatic inflammation mediated by sensory neurons within the lung parenchyma. Sensory neurons are rich in the transient receptor potential channel A1 (TRPA1), an ion channel activated by strong triggers of asthma, including cigarette smoke, chlorine, and hypochlorite. This project examines the role of TRPA1 in the …

Determining The Fate Of Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells In Tissue Engineered Vascular Grafts Using Mri, Jamie Keiko Nicole Harrington

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

The most widely used method of creating tissue engineered vascular grafts (TEVGs) for in vivo implantation consists of seeding autologous bone marrow cells (BMCs) onto biodegradable scaffolds. In this model of TEVG development it has traditionally been thought that stem cells and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) within the seeded bone marrow population gave rise to the cells of the neovessel. Recent work in our lab indicates that the seeded BMCs are not incorporated into the neovessel and are actually rapidly lost from the implanted scaffold. Here we show the feasibility of noninvasively monitoring this process by tracking ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron …

Bystander Attenuation Of Neuronal And Astrocyte Intercellular Communication By Murine Cytomegalovirus Infection Of Glia, Sze Chun Winson Ho

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Astrocytes are the first cells infected by murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) in primary cultures of brain. These cells play key roles in intercellular signaling and neuronal development, and they modulate synaptic activity within the nervous system. Using ratiometric fura-2 digital calcium imaging of >8,000 neurons and glia, we found that MCMV-infected astrocytes showed an increase in intracellular basal calcium levels and an enhanced response to neuroactive substances, including glutamate and ATP, and to high potassium levels. Cultured neurons with no sign of MCMV infection showed attenuated synaptic signaling after infection of the underlying astrocyte substrate, and intercellular communication between astrocytes with …

Psychopathology In Adolescents With A History Of Foster Care, Scott Ronald Hunter

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Despite the enormous cost of the foster care system, high rates of psychopathology and homelessness among young-adult foster care alumni provide a stark reminder of the challenges faced by this vulnerable population. This study characterizes the effect of a history of foster care on psychopathology in a group of 39 adolescents that had exited foster care and were reunified with their biological mothers. A history of foster care was defined as out-of-home placement by child welfare for at least one month; median foster stay was 1.5 years and median age at placement was 8.5 years. A control group of 78 …

A 3'Utr Kras-Variant As A Biomarker Of Poor Outcome And Platinum Chemotherapy Resistance In Ovarian Cancer, Florence Keane

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Purpose: Ovarian cancer has a poor prognosis, yet pathologic and clinical data do not accurately predict which patients will ultimately succumb to their disease. We previously reported an association between rs61764370, a germline functional variant in the 3'UTR of the KRAS oncogene, and epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) risk. Here we evaluate this variant as a biomarker of clinical outcome and chemotherapy resistance in EOC.

Patients and Methods: Four groups of EOC patients with complete clinical data were genotyped for the KRAS-variant and analyzed: Sporadic EOC patients (n=451); BRCA mutant EOC patients (n=79); EOC patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (n=122), and; …

Comparing Antipsychotic Treatments For Schizophrenia: A Health State Approach, Lewei Lin

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

HYPOTHESIS/AIMS: Apply health state analysis to a large clinical trial dataset of patients with schizophrenia to provide added insights into clinical and quality of life characteristics. We also evaluated the hypothesis that there is no difference in the distribution of health states of patients across several antipsychotic medications. METHODS: This study was a secondary analysis of data from the CATIE trial, a multi-site double blind clinical trial of antipsychotic treatments for schizophrenia. We applied K-means clustering to the CATIE data, creating discrete clusters with symptom and side effect characteristics that were then validated using a panel of quality of life …

Role Of The Innate Immune Response In Tissue Engineered Vascular Graft Stenosis, Dane Mejias

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Tissue Engineered Vascular Grafts (TEVGs) hold great promise in advancing the field of pediatric cardiac surgery and other applications in which a vascular conduit is required. The first human clinical trial of these grafts indicated that stenosis was the primary mode of graft failure. Here, we investigate the role of the immune response in stenosis through a CB17 murine inferior vena cava interposition model. We demonstrate that this mouse model undergoes a dramatic stenotic response, and that this is nearly completely abolished in a SCID/bg immunodeficient variant (average luminal diameter (LD) WT: 0.071+/-0.035mm, SCID/bg: 0.804+/-0.039mm; P<0.001). SCID-only mice, which lack T- cells and B-cells, undergo stenosis with luminal diameters approaching those of wild type mice. The bg mutation is characterized by defects in natural killer (NK) cell and platelet dysfunction, and treatment of wild-type mice with either anti-platelet therapy (aspirin/clopidogrel) or an anti- natural killer cell antibody (NK 1.1) results in patency that is half of that achieved in the SCID/bg mouse (WT: 0.071+/-0.035mm, SCID/bg: 0.804+/-0.039mm, SCID: 0.137+/-0.032mm, Asp/Pla: 0.452+/-0.130mm, NKab: 0.356+/-0.151mm; P<0.001). We additionally show that SCID/bg mice show a blunted immune response to scaffold implantation, wheras wild-type mice show a dramatic initial burst of activity as demonstrated by macrophage number, mRNA, and cytokine levels. Implicating the initial innate immune response to the scaffold as a critical contributing factor in graft stenosis may provide a strategy for prognosis and therapy of future TEVGs.

Differences In Disease-Free Survival And Acute Toxcity Between African-American And Non-Latino White Men With Localized Prostate Cancer Treated With Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, Steven Oh

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Purpose

To determine whether differences exist in biochemical disease-free survival (BDFS) and acute toxicity between African-American (AA) and non-Latino white (NLW) men with prostate cancer treated with intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT).

Methods and Materials

Between January 2000 and January 2008, 129 AA and 591 NLW men with clinically localized prostate cancer were treated with IMRT. Median follow up was 26.6 months for both groups. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to compute rates of biochemical disease free survival. Chi-square analysis was used to compute rates of acute toxicity.

Results

No difference was found in three year biochemical disease free survival (BDFS) …

Improving Prognostic Models In Breast Cancer With Biostatistical Analysis Of The Phosphatidyl Inositol 3-Kinase Pathway, Elliot Rapp

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

IMPROVING PROGNOSTIC MODELS IN BREAST CANCER WITH BIOSTATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PI3-KINASE PATHWAY.

Elliot James Rapp, Jena P. Giltnane, David L. Rimm, Annette Molinaro. Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT.

Our hypothesis was that prognostic models for breast cancer that incorporate both clinical variables and biomarkers in the PI3 Kinase molecular pathway will improve upon the clinical models of TNM staging and the Nottingham Prognostic Index (NPI). Our specific aim was to develop models that misclassify fewer patients than TNM and NPI with the outcome of dead of disease at …

Optimal Tumor Sampling For Immunostaining Of Biomarkers In Breast Carcinoma, Juliana Tolles

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

OPTIMAL TUMOR SAMPLING FOR IMMUNOSTAINING OF BIOMARKERS IN BREAST CARCINOMA. Juliana Tolles, Yalai Bai, Maria Baquero, Lyndsay N. Harris, David L. Rimm, Annette M. Molinaro. Division of Biostatistics, Yale University School of Public Health, New Haven, CT.

Biomarkers, such as estrogen receptor, are used to determine therapy and prognosis in breast carcinoma. Immunostaining assays of biomarker expression have a high rate of inaccuracy, for example estimates are as high as 20% for estrogen receptor. Biomarkers have been shown to be heterogeneously expressed in breast tumors and this heterogeneity may contribute to the inaccuracy of immunostaining assays. Currently, no evidence-based standards …

Prognostic Implications Of Patients With Mammographically Occult, Early Stage Breast Cancer, Tzu-I Jonathan Yang

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Purpose: To compare mammographically occult (MamOcc) and mammographically positive (MamPos) early-stage breast cancer patients treated with breast-conservation therapy (BCT), to analyze differences between the two cohorts.

Methods: The 2 cohorts were comprised of 214 MamOcc and 2168 MamPos patients treated with BCT. Chart reviews were conducted to assess mammogram reports and method of detection. All clinical-pathologic and outcome parameters were analyzed to detect differences between the two cohorts.

Results: Median follow-up was 7 years. There were no differences in final margins, T stage, nodal status, estrogen/progesterone receptor status, or "triple-negative" status. Significant differences included age at diagnosis (p < 0.0001), more positive family history (p = 0.0033), less HER-2+ disease (p = 0.0294), and 1° histology (p < 0.0001). At 10 years, the differences in overall survival, cause-specific survival, and distant relapse between the two groups did not differ significantly. The MamOcc cohort had more breast relapses (15% vs. 8%; p = 0.0357), but on multivariate analysis this difference was not significant (hazard ratio 1.0, 95% confidence interval 0.993-1.007, p = 0.9296). Breast relapses were more commonly not picked up on mammography in the MamOcc cohort (32% 12% p = 0.0136).

Conclusions: Our …

Simulated Death: The Perceived Stress And Its Impact On Undergraduate Medical Education, Benjamin Zabar

Yale Medicine Thesis Digital Library

Simulated Death: The Perceived Stress And Its Impact On Undergraduate Medical Education

Benjamin Zabar, Kelly L Dodge, Basmah Safdar, Sanziana Roman, John Sather, Christopher Moore, Brian Biroscak, & Leigh V Evans. Yale Department of Emergency Medicine, Yale University School Of Medicine, New Haven CT.

Objectives: To determine perceived stress of medical students during simulated patient death, the impact of assigned role, and the effects on learning.

Methods: This was a prospective, single blinded, randomized cross over study of third year medical students who participated in a 12 week simulation course using a high fidelity mannequin (Laerdal SimMan®) during a required …

Skeletal Muscle Gender Dimorphism From Proteomics, Kalina Dimova, Lauren Ann Metskas, Mohini Kulp, Stylianos P. Scordilis

Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Gross contraction in skeletal muscle is primarily determined by a relatively small number of contractile proteins, however this tissue is also remarkably adaptable to environmental factors such as hypertrophy by resistance exercise and atrophy by disuse. It thereby exhibits remodeling and adaptations to stressors (heat, ischemia, heavy metals, etc.). Damage can occur to muscle by a muscle exerting force while lengthening, the so-called eccentric contraction. The contractile proteins can be damaged in such exertions and need to be repaired, degraded and/or resynthesized; these functions are not part of the contractile proteins, but of other much less abundant proteins in the …

Teacher Expectations Of Children With Mental Illness In The Schools, Jamie Lee Satterly Roig

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Within an experimental vignette design, 224 certified teachers participated in this online study by completing a researcher created rating scale that assessed expectations for a child described in a randomly assigned vignette; a child without mental illness, a child identified with an emotional behavioral disorder, and a child identified as returning from acute psychiatric care. Results from the current study revealed reliable scales; learning, cooperation, self-control, and teacher self-efficacy. Findings indicated teachers reported significantly different expectations for children identified with mental illness in comparison to typical children in the areas of self-control and cooperation; specifically, teachers reported lower expectations for …

A Computational Framework For Proteome-Wide Pursuit And Prediction Of Metalloproteins Using Icp-Ms And Ms/Ms Data, W. Andrew Lancaster, Jeremy L. Praissman, Farris L. Poole, Aleksandar Cvetkovic, Angeli Lal Menon, Joseph W. Scott, Francis E. Jenney, Michael P. Thorgersen, Ewa Kalisiak, Junefredo V. Apon, Sunia A. Trauger, Gary Siuzdak, John A. Tainer, Michael W. W. Adams

PCOM Scholarly Works

BACKGROUND: Metal-containing proteins comprise a diverse and sizable category within the proteomes of organisms, ranging from proteins that use metals to catalyze reactions to proteins in which metals play key structural roles. Unfortunately, reliably predicting that a protein will contain a specific metal from its amino acid sequence is not currently possible. We recently developed a generally-applicable experimental technique for finding metalloproteins on a genome-wide scale. Applying this metal-directed protein purification approach (ICP-MS and MS/MS based) to the prototypical microbe Pyrococcus furiosus conclusively demonstrated the extent and diversity of the uncharacterized portion of microbial metalloproteomes since a majority of the …

A Bee Line In The Wrong Direction: Science, Teenagers, And The Sting To "The Age Of Consent", Jennifer Ann Drobac

Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Education Is Life Itself: Biological Evolution As A Model For Human Learning, Paul Grobstein, Alice Lesnick

Education Program Faculty Research and Scholarship

Schooling often rests uneasily on presumed dichotomies between coverage and inquiry, skill development, and creativity. By drawing on the often under-recognized parallels between biological evolution and human learning, this essay argues that formal education needs and ought not to forego the unconscious exploratory processes of informal learning. Rather than posit as natural the cultural story that formal schooling must prepare students to integrate with given cultures and foreknowable futures, the evolutionary perspective shows that education is better thought of as preparing students to create cultures and to change, and foster change, in relation to unknown futures. The properties that distinguish …

Predictive And Reactive Distribution Of Vaccines And Antivirals During Cross-Regional Pandemic Outbreaks, Andrés Uribe-Sánchez, Alex Savachkin

Industrial and Management Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

As recently pointed out by the Institute of Medicine, the existing pandemic mitigation models lack the dynamic decision support capability. We develop a large-scale simulation-driven optimization model for generating dynamic predictive distribution of vaccines and antivirals over a network of regional pandemic outbreaks. The model incorporates measures of morbidity, mortality, and social distancing, translated into the cost of lost productivity and medical expenses. The performance of the strategy is compared to that of the reactive myopic policy, using a sample outbreak in Fla, USA, with an affected population of over four millions. The comparison is implemented at different levels of …

Survival, Habitat Selection, And Body Condition Of The Woodchuck (Marmota Monax) Across An Urban-Rural Gradient, Eric C. Hellgren, Timothy J. Polnaszek

Publications

Urban-adapter species facultatively exploit human-subsidized resources in the urban and suburban matrix. We used the woodchuck (Marmota monax) to study how aspects of autecology in an urban-adapter can vary across a gradient of urbanization. We captured and monitored woodchucks by radiotelemetry in southern Illinois from summer 2007 to spring 2009. We captured 47 woodchucks (19 adults, 19 yearlings, 8 young-of-the-year) during the active seasons, and implanted radiotransmitters in 17 adults and 3 yearlings (13 F, 7 M). Overall annual survival was estimated to be 0.76 ± 0.12, with three confirmed mortalities during the study period. Survival and home-range …

Sampling Assemblages Of Turtles In Central Illinois: A Case Study Of Capture Efficiency And Species Coverage, Robert D. Bluett, Eric M. Schauber, Craig K. Bloomquist, Douglas A. Brown

Publications

Low and variable rates of capture are chronic problems in chelonian studies. We conducted a pilot study to evaluate protocols for future inventories of turtles in Illinois by comparing capture efficiency and species coverage for 2 devices (hoop net and cage trap), baits (fresh and day-old fish), habitats (lentic and lotic) and time periods . We accrued 402 captures of 378 individuals representing 7 species. At Sanganois State Fish and Wildlife Area (Sanganois), hoop nets produced more captures of more species (n = 231; 6 species) than cage traps (n = 119; 4 species). Statistical tests were equivocal for a …

Effect Of The Secondary Electrode Configuration In Removing Metal Contaminants From Soils By The Cehixm Process, M. A. Karim, Lutful I. Khan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The effect of the secondary electrode configuration in removal of metal contaminants from soils under coupled electric hydraulic gradient assisted by ion exchange medium (CEHIXM) process was investigated. Soil samples using a blend of spent foundry sand and millpond sludge were used to investigate the contribution and cost-effectiveness of the secondary electrode configuration in removal of primarily four heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Zn, and Mn). A number of tests were conducted at an optimum constant DC electric voltage of 50 V and an optimum constant flow velocity of 0.00713 cm/sec for a period of 200 hours. The experimental results demonstrated …

Liquid Radioactive Wastes Treatment: A Review, R.O. Abdel Rahman, H. A. Ibrahium, Yung Tse Hung

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Radioactive wastes are generated during nuclear fuel cycle operation, production and application of radioisotope in medicine, industry, research, and agriculture, and as a byproduct of natural resource exploitation, which includes mining and processing of ores, combustion of fossil fuels, or production of natural gas and oil. To ensure the protection of human health and the environment from the hazard of these wastes, a planned integrated radioactive waste management practice should be applied. This work is directed to review recent published researches that are concerned with testing and application of different treatment options as a part of the integrated radioactive waste …

2011-2012 Southern Illinois University Bulletin Carbondale Campus (Undergraduate Catalog), Southern Illinois University Carbondale

SIU Bulletins and Course Catalogs Archives

No abstract provided.

2011-2012 Southern Illinois University Bulletin Carbondale Campus (Graduate Catalog), Southern Illinois University Carbondale

SIU Bulletins and Course Catalogs Archives

No abstract provided.

Activated Sludge And Other Aerobic Suspended Culture Processes, Charles J. Moretti, Dipesh Das, Brian T. Kistner, Harvey Gullicks, Yung Tse Hung

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

© 2011 by the authors. A review of the literature published in 2008, 2009 and 2010 relating to activated sludge treatment of wastewater is presented. The review considers information on the topics of modeling and kinetics; process microbiology; nitrogen and phosphorus removal; treatment and effects of xenobiotics; oxygen transfer; and solids separation.