Digital Commons Network^™

Oman Thoracic Conference 2013 The Oman Respiratory Society And Sultan Qaboos University Sultan Qaboos University, 29–31 October 2013, Sultan Qaboos University

Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal

No abstract provided.

Global Burden Of Disease Study 2010: Interpretation And Implications For The Neglected Tropical Diseases, Peter J. Hotez, Miriam Alvarado, Maria Gloria Basanez, Ian Bolliger, Et Al.

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Economic And Social Conditions On The Use Of Clinical Preventive Services, Bisma Ali Sayed

Open Access Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between economic conditions and individuals’ use of clinical preventive (CP) services. CP services form the cornerstone of the national healthcare agenda, and are key in the fight to reduce morbidity and mortality in the United States. Despite this, low utilization rates remain concerning, with recent statistics indicating that rates of CP service use fall well below the targets outlined in Healthy People 2020. In the present study, I focus on individuals’ use of three CP services, influenza vaccinations, blood cholesterol screening, and endoscopic colorectal cancer screening. Broadly, I examine the effect of state-level unemployment and …

A Simple Regression-Based Approach To Account For Survival Bias In Birth Outcomes Research, Eric J. Tchetgen Tchetgen, Kelesitse Phiri, Roger Shapiro

Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series

No abstract provided.

Hunter-Gatherer Inter-Band Interaction Rates: Implications For Cumulative Culture, Kim R. Hill, Brian M. Wood, Jacopo A. Baggio, A. Magdalena Hurtado, Robert T. Boyd

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Our species exhibits spectacular success due to cumulative culture. While cognitive evolution of social learning mechanisms may be partially responsible for adaptive human culture, features of early human social structure may also play a role by increasing the number potential models from which to learn innovations. We present interview data on interactions between same-sex adult dyads of Ache and Hadza hunter-gatherers living in multiple distinct residential bands (20 Ache bands; 42 Hadza bands; 1201 dyads) throughout a tribal home range. Results show high probabilities (5%–29% per year) of cultural and cooperative interactions between randomly chosen adults. Multiple regression suggests that …

Modeling Giardia-Host Interactions: Mechanisms Of Barrier Dysfunction And Immune Suppression, Bridget Sutton Fisher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The protozoan parasite, Giardia lamblia (syn. G. intestinalis, G. duodenalis), is a leading cause of pathogen-induced gastrointestinal disease throughout the world. Upon Giardia colonization of the proximal small intestine, epithelial barrier dysfunction is induced through enterocyte apoptosis and disruption of the tight-junction protein complexes. Intestinal barrier disruption promotes the translocation of luminal contents, including commensal bacteria and Giardia-derived excretory-secretory products (ESPs), into the mucosal tissue. In an attempt to elucidate the cellular mechanisms of giardiasis, we constructed a novel in vitro co-culture model of epithelial cells (Caco-2 cells) and macrophages (IC-21 cells) for evaluating long-term host-parasite interactions. We show that …

Oroya Fever And Verruga Peruana: Bartonelloses Unique To South America, Michael F. Minnick, Burt E. Anderson, Amorce Lima, James M. Battisti, Phillip G. Lawyer, Richard J. Birtles

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Bartonella bacilliformis is the bacterial agent of Carrión's disease and is presumed to be transmitted between humans by phlebotomine sand flies. Carrión's disease is endemic to high-altitude valleys of the South American Andes, and the first reported outbreak (1871) resulted in over 4,000 casualties. Since then, numerous outbreaks have been documented in endemic regions, and over the last two decades, outbreaks have occurred at atypical elevations, strongly suggesting that the area of endemicity is expanding. Approximately 1.7 million South Americans are estimated to be at risk in an area covering roughly 145,000 km2 of Ecuador, Colombia, and Peru. Although disease …

The Comparability Of Men Who Have Sex With Men Recruited From Venue-Time-Space Sampling And Facebook: A Cohort Study, Alfonso C. Hernandez-Romieu, Patrick S. Sullivan, Travis H. Sanchez, Colleen F. Kelley, John L. Peterson, Carlos Del Rio, Laura F. Salazar, Paula M. Frew, Eli S. Rosenberg

Environmental & Global Health Faculty Research

Background: Recruiting valid samples of men who have sex with men (MSM) is a key component of the US human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) surveillance and of research studies seeking to improve HIV prevention for MSM. Social media, such as Facebook, may present an opportunity to reach broad samples of MSM, but the extent to which those samples are comparable with men recruited from venue-based, time-space sampling (VBTS) is unknown. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the comparability of MSM recruited via VBTS and Facebook. Methods: HIV-negative and HIV-positive black and white MSM were recruited from June 2010 …

Animals And Law In The American City, Irus Braverman

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 6 in Environmental Law and Contrasting Ideas of Nature: a Constructivist Approach, Keith H. Hirokawa, ed.

Whereas a large and growing scholarly literature is dedicated to studying human populations in the city, not much has been written about nonhuman animals in this space. This essay explores the presence of nonhuman animals in the American city through a legal lens. I begin with a few general contemplations about the legal classification of animals in American cities, and then move to explore specific legal classifications of animals in cities: domestic and companion animals, agriculture or livestock animals, wild animals, …

Preliminary Evaluation Of Near Infrared Spectroscopy As A Method To Detect Plasma Leakage In Children With Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, Babs Soller, Anon Srikiatkachorn, Fengmei Zou, Alan Rothman, In-Kyu Yoon, Robert V. Gibbons, Siripen Kalayanarooj, Stephen J. Thomas, Sharone Green

Institute for Immunology and Informatics Faculty Publications

Background: Dengue viral infections are prevalent in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world, resulting in substantial morbidity and mortality. Clinical manifestations range from a self-limited fever to a potential life-threatening plasma leakage syndrome (dengue hemorrhagic fever). The objective of this study was to assess the utility of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) measurements of muscle oxygen saturation (SmO2) as a possible continuous measure to detect plasma leakage in children with dengue.

Methods: Children ages 6 months to 15 years of age admitted with suspected dengue were enrolled from the dengue ward at Queen Sirikit National Institute for Child Health. …

Sociocultural And Economic Factors Influencing The Use Of Hiv/Aids Information By Women In Ugep, Cross River State, Nigeria, Felicia Ubi Iwara Mrs, Ayodele J.A. Alonge

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The sociocultural and economic factors affecting the utilization of HIV/AIDS among women in Ugep, Yakurr Local Government Area, Cross River State were empirically investigated. Systematic sampling technique was used to administer four hundred copies of structured questionnaire to adults with a mean age of 25.5 years in the four traditional council wards that make up Ugep. Stepwise regression generated two predictive models. The second being the full model being significantly (p<0.01) explained 80.5% in the variability of HIV/AIDS information use (R² = 0.805) with marital status and occupation identified as the most significant socioeconomic variables The study also identified male preference, taboo on contraceptive use and polygamy (polygyny) as …

The Wonderfully Made Design Of The Skin And Its Microbiome, Alan L. Gillen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many microbes live in a mutualistic relationship with the human body, make up the human microbiome, and play a role in our health by modulating the immune system. Man is “covered” inside and outside his body with millions of microbes to maintain normal bodily functions and sustain life in our changing world. The skin is the largest organ in the human body and is colonized by millions of microbes. This external colonization of the integumentary system is termed our skin microbiome. Man cannot see it (except with a microscope), but we need it for normal functioning, certainly in a pathogenic …

Full Issue

Colby Magazine

Colby Magazine vol. 102, no. 4 (Spring 2014): full issue

Colby News

Colby Magazine

Colby Receives $10-Million Gift for Davis Science Center

William D. Adams, Deval Patrick to Be Honored at Commencement

Boylan Named First Transgender Co-chair of GLAAD

Four Professors Awarded Tenure

Grant to Expand Colby Museum of Art’s Teaching Role

$2 Million Given for Financial Aid

From Facebook, FIVE THINGS: Colby Olympians

College Opts to Fund Rugby for Additional Year

Bonnie’s Diner, a Colby Tradition, Closes Its Doors

Multicultural Literacy Jan Plan Makes a Difference

Women Skiers Come Up Big in National Meet

Season Ends in NESCAC Semifinals

Developments In Transnational Research Linkages: Evidence From U.S. Higher-Education Activity, Peter Koehn

Political Science Faculty Publications

In our knowledge-driven era, multiple and mutual benefits accrue from transnational research linkages. The article identifies important directions in transnational research collaborations involving U.S. universities revealed by key dimensions of 369 projects profiled on a U.S. higher-education association’s database. Project initiators, principal research fields, regional and country distributions, and the sources and amounts of funding for different types of transnational research activity are selected for analysis. The balanced total portfolio of reported current research projects by region suggests that U.S. university principal investigators increasingly recognize the value of collaborative knowledge generation in the Global South as well as in other …

Infectious Diseases, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Provides information about the role of infectious diseases in the early years of U.S. History, with particular emphasis on how they impacted injuries sustained in military conflict.

What's Happening: July 14, 2014, Maine Medical Center

What's Happening

No abstract provided.

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. …

Development Of Novel Synthetic Methods For Size-Tunable Synthesis Of Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles, Erika Vreeland

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

The properties of magnetic nanoparticles vary dramatically with size, so reproducibly controlling size is critical for practical applications. This is particularly true when moving into clinical settings, where regulatory approval requires demonstrated reproducibility in efficacy that can only be achieved with excellent size control. A number of methods for the synthesis of magnetic nanoparticles have been published, although the thermal decomposition of iron(III) precursors in organic solvents has been shown to yield high quality particles with low shape and size dispersity. Currents methods lack reproducibility resulting from non-stoichiometric starting materials, and reliance on reaction parameters, such as temperature ramp rate, …

School-Age Children's Perception Of Stress In The Hospital: A Draw And Tell Story, Susan Wechter

Nursing ETDs

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of stress for hospitalized school-age child, seven to nine years of age, through a child-centered draw and tell technique. Over 3 million children are hospitalized every year (NACHRI, 2012). Hospitalization of children is reserved for increasingly complex care. Since the 1960s, it has been well known that hospitalization can be a traumatic experience for children (King & Ziegler, 1981; Thompson, 1986; Vernon, Foley, Simpowicz, & Schulman, 1965; Visintainer & Wolfer, 1975). This experience elicits feelings of fear, uncertainty, pain and discomfort that can affect a child's healing, behavior and health …

The Hot Zone And The Cold War, Peter Nichols

Colby Magazine

It was a time when, in the nation's schools, drills for nuclear war were as frequent as fire drills- when Americans and their Soviet counterparts lived with a constant fear of imminent worldwide destruction. "You had a cultural mindset that was apocalyptic," said Robert S. Weisbrot, Christian A. Johnson Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at Colby, "that believed you could not guarantee that your wonderful suburban home and family and community...would survive ten more seconds."

"It was not simply a matter of two countries that are adversaries building up weapons," said Weisbrot. "Each saw the other as the incarnation of …

Getting Into The Meat Of The Word Of Wisdom, A. Jane Birch

Faculty Publications

Doctrine & Covenants Section 89 is known as the "health code" for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In verse 13 of this scripture, the Lord states, “it is pleasing unto me that they [flesh of beasts and fowls of the air] should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine” (D&C 89:13). Judging from the variety of interpretations this single verse has inspired, it would appear to be deeply enigmatic. Interestingly, most interpretations have been put forward with little supporting evidence. This article is the first comprehensive analysis of the …

Risk Of Compliance: Tracing Safety And Efficacy In Mef-Lariam's Licensure, Julie Marie Gerdes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Walter Reed Institute of Army Research developed the antimalarial drug mefloquine then collaborated with Hoffman-La Roche to produce the drug under its brand name "Lariam," after Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved licensure in 1989. For over twenty years, the Army used this pill as its "drug of choice" for soldiers deployed to endemic regions until 2009, and in 2013 the Food and Drug Administration warned that the drug's neurotoxic effects could be lasting, if not permanent. The sociopolitical exigence of developing a new biochemical antimalarial drug rushed the development and licensure processes, and the modern craving for certainty …

Regulation Of Cd4+ Autoimmune Memory By Ctla4, Priyadharshini Devarajan

Open Access Dissertations

Immunological memory is a hallmark of adaptive immunity, a defense mechanism endowed to vertebrates during evolution. However, an autoimmune pathogenic role of memory lymphocytes is also emerging with accumulating evidence. It is conceivable that autoimmune memory would be particularly harmful since memory cells would “constantly remember” and attack the body’s healthy tissues. It is even more detrimental given the resistance of memory T cells to immunomodulatory therapies. On the other hand, with their long-lasting potency the autoimmune memory cells could also play a critical role in anti-tumor immunity, which may be largely based on their reactivity to self-antigens. In this …

Hiv-Positive Parents, Hiv-Positive Children, And Hiv-Negative Children’S Perspectives On Disclosure Of A Parent’S And Child’S Illness In Kenya, Grace Gachanja, Gary J. Burkholder Jr, Aimee Ferraro

Walden Faculty and Staff Publications

HIV disclosure from parent to child is complex and challenging to HIV-positive parents and healthcare professionals. The purpose of the study was to understand the lived experiences of HIV-positive parents and their children during the disclosure process in Kenya. Sixteen HIV-positive parents, seven HIV-positive children, and five HIV-negative children completed semistructured, in-depth interviews. Data were analyzed using the Van Kaam method; NVivo 8 software was used to assist data analysis. We present data on the process of disclosure based on how participants recommended full disclosure be approached to HIV-positive and negative children. Participants recommended disclosure as a process starting at …

Research Program Has Staying Power, Barbara Lago

University of Mississippi News

UM search for antifungal antibiotics marks 30th year

Healthy Living Needs Global Governance, Lawrence O. Gostin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the same factors that drive the spread of infectious diseases also contribute to the dominance of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the global burden of disease—urbanization, global markets and harmonized cultures. NCDs have overtaken infectious diseases as the leading cause of morbidity and premature mortality worldwide, with deaths concentrated among the poor due to the growing availability and affordability of highly-processed, unhealthy foods, alcohol and tobacco.

The global response to NCDs has been slow and fractured, with the World Health Organization dedicating scant funding and the United Nations waiting until September 2011 to hold a high-level …

Development Of An Efficient Human Hepatocyte Culture Platform For Assessing Novel Therapeutic Efficacy Against Plasmodium Liver Parasites, Steven Patrick Maher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Malaria is a critical and global public health problem, affecting over 200 million people every year, resulting in over 500,000 deaths. A vaccine is not currently available and only one drug, primaquine, is effective against the dormant stages of Plasmodium vivax. Preclinical assessment of novel therapeutic drugs and vaccines is hampered by the lack of an in vitro liver model for P. falciparum and P. vivax. To provide a stable human hepatocyte-based culture platform for parasite development, we engineered a microfluidic bilayer device capable of both simple and complex culture methods, including perfusion and co-culture, to better understand the requirements …

Learning To Practice: A Case Study Of The Experiences Of Public Health Registered Dietitians In Professional Lifelong Learning, Carol Lee Shelly Wallace

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand the experience and perspectives of registered dietitians (RDs) practicing as public health nutrition professionals, in meeting their continuing professional education (CPE) and professional learning needs in their workplace, and the relationship to adult learning theories. Adult learning theories and strategies reviewed include andragogy, self-directed learning, transformational learning, experiential learning, informal and incidental learning, and critical reflective practice. Data was collected during a nine-month period from RDs within a county public health nutrition department. Data collection methods included observation, document elicitation using the participant's professional development portfolio, semi-structured interviews, and artifact …

Modifying Essentialist Beliefs Toward Mental Illness: An Alternative Focus For Anti-Stigma Interventions, Frederick T. Chin

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the College of Science and Technology Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Fredrick T. Chin on July 8, 2014.