Digital Commons Network^™

Predicting Malignant Nodules From Screening Ct Scans, Samuel Hawkins, Hua Wang, Ying Liu, Alberto Garcia, Olya Stringfield, Henry Krewer, Qiang Li, Dmitry Cherezov, Matthew Schabath, Lawrence O. Hall, Robert J. Gillies

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Objectives

The aim of this study was to determine whether quantitative analyses (“radiomics”) of low-dose computed tomography lung cancer screening images at baseline can predict subsequent emergence of cancer.

Methods

Public data from the National Lung Screening Trial (ACRIN 6684) were assembled into two cohorts of 104 and 92 patients with screen-detected lung cancer and then matched with cohorts of 208 and 196 screening subjects with benign pulmonary nodules. Image features were extracted from each nodule and used to predict the subsequent emergence of cancer.

Results

The best models used 23 stable features in a random forests classifier and could …

Pre-Competition, Jorge L. Contreras, Liza S. Vertinsky

North Carolina Law Review

As the costs of pharmaceutical research and development rise and concerns grow about the pace of innovation, both federal agencies and industry participants have turned to new forms of collaboration to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of biomedical research. Industry participants, many of them competitors, come together to define joint research and development objectives and to share project results in what are widely known as “pre-competitive” collaborations. There is a prevailing understanding among both industry and governmental actors that these pre-competitive endeavors are not only permissible, but encouraged. While the term “pre-competitive” is prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry, it is …

Creativity And The Golden Years: Biopsychosocial And Cultural Influences For Living A Successful Life, Karen V. Duhamel

Health Sciences Faculty Publications

Living successfully into older adulthood is becoming the new social norm. As one ages, the older adult may experience doubt and insecurity about one’s ongoing purpose in life, leading to feelings of failure and stagnation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of creativity as a requisite to living a successful life into older adulthood. By examining creativity from a variety of perspectives, social scientists and healthcare professionals can better understand the importance of empowering older adults to tap into their inner resources to promote creative expression leading to self-transformation and personal satisfaction. This paper will discuss …

Peg3 Binds To H19-Icr As A Transcriptional Repressor, An Ye, Hongzhi He, Joomyeong Kim

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. Paternally expressed gene 3 (Peg3) encodes a DNA-binding protein with 12 C2H2 zinc finger motifs. In the current study, we performed ChIP-seq using mouse embryonic fibroblast (MEF) cells. This experiment identified a set of 16 PEG3 genomic targets, the majority of which overlapped with the promoter regions of genes with oocyte expression. These potential downstream genes were upregulated in MEF cells lacking PEG3 protein, suggesting a potential repressor role for PEG3. Our study also identified the imprinting control region (ICR) of H19 as a genomic target. According to the results, PEG3 binds to …

Crapemyrtle Bark Scale: A New Threat For Crapemyrtles, A Popular Landscape Plant In The U.S, Zinan Wang, Yan Chen, Mengmeng Gu, Erfan Vafaie, Michael Merchant, Rodrigo Diaz

Faculty Publications

© 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Crapemyrtle bark scale, Acanthococcus (=Eriococcus) lagerstroemiae (Kuwana) (Hemiptera: Eriococcidae), is a newly introduced insect pest on crapemyrtles, Lagerstroemia spp. (Myrtales: Lythraceae), one of the most popular flowering shrubs in the U.S. Since first detected in Texas in 2004, this pest has spread to twelve states causing losses to stakeholders. To develop a management plan, we reviewed current knowledge about the pest’s biology and ecology, and suggested research approaches including studying its thermal tolerance, host range, plant resistance and biological control. Parasitoids and predators have been reared from A. lagerstroemiae in the …

Prison Stories: A Qualitative Study Of Women’S Experiences In Prison, Lizeth Chapa

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study to provide a meaningful profile of women offenders that will deliver a comprehensive understanding on the problems women face while in prison so that treatment can address these issues. Qualitative methodology, specifically the use of an open-ended questionnaire is used to examine the lives and issues that women in prison face. The sample consists of females who have previously been incarcerated in the state of Texas. They completed a semi-structured open-ended questionnaire in order to assess their perceptions of: (a) factors that contributed to their criminal behaviors, (b) how being incarcerated has positively or negatively …

Sustainable Management Of Lithium-Ion Batteries After Use In Electric Vehicles, Kirti Richa

Theses

In recent years, many forecasts have predicted a large scale adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), which would predominantly be powered by lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), owing to their high energy and power density and long cycle life. While use of EVs could reduce dependence on fossil based transportation fuels, there is a need to understand the end-of-life (EOL) implications of retired EV LIBs entering the waste stream in future in the battery-driven vehicle regime. To proactively address impending waste management issues and inform related policy, this dissertation explored the sustainable management of LIBs after use in EVs and the challenges and …

Navigating Institutional Complexity In The Health Sector: Lessons From Tobacco Control In Kenya, Raphael Lencucha, Peter Magati, Jeffrey Drope

Political Science Faculty Research and Publications

Introduction  This research examines the institutional dynamics of tobacco control following the establishment of Kenya’s 2007 landmark tobacco control legislation. Our analysis focuses specifically on coordination challenges within the health sector.

Methods  We conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants ( n  = 17) involved in tobacco regulation and control in Kenya. We recruited participants from different offices and sectors of government and non-governmental organizations.

Results  We find that the main challenges toward successful implementation of tobacco control are a lack of coordination and clarity of mandate of the principal institutions involved in tobacco control efforts. In a related development, the …

Enabling Marker Assisted Breeding (Mab) For Phytochemical Compounds In Peach [Prunus Persica (L.) Batsch], Asma Abdelghafar

All Dissertations

Genetic control and location of QTLs associated with phytochemical compounds in peach were evaluated using bi-parental mapping and genome wide association (GWAS). The bi-parental mapping was conducted in an F2 population (ZC2) derived from cross between ‘Zin Dai’ x ‘Crimson Lady’. GWAS was performed on an association panel representing modern peach cultivars available and/or produced for the U.S. market. Antioxidant capacity and phenolic compound accumulation (total phenolics, flavonoids and anthocyanins) were evaluated for two years on all materials. The ZC2 progeny were genotyped using IPSC 9K peach SNP array v1., and the association panel was genotyped using genotyping-by-sequencing. The genetic …

Investigation Into The Ecological And Toxicological Constraints On A Population Of Lesser Flamingos (Phoeniconaias Minor) At Kamfers Dam In Kimberley, South Africa, Lindsay Hill

All Dissertations

This study investigates the threats to a breeding population of lesser flamingos (Phoeniconaias minor) at Kamfers Dam in Kimberley, South Africa. The main threats include water quality/quantity, algal food source abundance and exposure to contaminants accumulating in the dam. Water quality testing and analysis of historical water quality reports were used to analyze the effects of the physical and chemical parameters on the algal assemblage at Kamfers Dam and determine if changes in the water quality could predict changes in the algal assemblage. Arthrospira fusiformis, the flamingos preferred food, was positively correlated with conductivity, total dissolved salts …

A Probabilistic-Based Approach To Monitoring Tool Wear State And Assessing Its Effect On Workpiece Quality In Nickel-Based Alloys, Farbod Akhavan Niaki

All Dissertations

The objective of this research is first to investigate the applicability and advantage of statistical state estimation methods for predicting tool wear in machining nickel-based superalloys over deterministic methods, and second to study the effects of cutting tool wear on the quality of the part. Nickel-based superalloys are among those classes of materials that are known as hard-to-machine alloys. These materials exhibit a unique combination of maintaining their strength at high temperature and have high resistance to corrosion and creep. These unique characteristics make them an ideal candidate for harsh environments like combustion chambers of gas turbines. However, the same …

Selected Characteristics For Nebraska Legislative Districts From The 2011-2015 American Community Survey, Center For Public Affairs Research (Cpar)

Past Publications

On December 8, 2016 the U.S. Census Bureau released five‐year American Community Survey (ACS) estimates for the combined years of 2011 through 2015, making available social, economic, housing and demographic statistics for Nebraska’s Legislative Districts. Also available are estimates for every community and county in Nebraska and the nation.

The charts and tables in this report are based on the Legislative District boundaries for the 103^rd Legislature that were approved by the Legislature in 2011 and were based on data from the 2010 Census. Because of changes in Legislative District boundaries, the charts and tables in this report are …

Rethinking The Jurisdiction Of The National Industrial Court In Human Rights Enforcement In Nigeria: Lessons From South Africa, Abdullahi Saliu Ishola, Adekumbi Adeleye, Dauda Momodu

The Transnational Human Rights Review

In 2009, the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules, 2009were introduced to improve administration of justice in human rights cases in Nigerian courts. The Rules established that all human rights cases could be filed in any High Court in the State where the violation occurred. Depending on the parties involved and the place of the violation, this gives wide opportunity for victims to file a case either at the Federal, State, or the Federal Capital Territory High Court. However, in 2011, the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria was altered and thereby vested with exclusive jurisdiction over human rights cases arising from …

The International Dimension Of The Right To Development: Where Is The Gapping Crack Of Accountability For Non-State Actors, Maxwel Miyawa

The Transnational Human Rights Review

Mainstream legal scholarship has paid much attention to clarifying the meaning of the right to development by placing a great deal of scrutiny primarily on obligations of states to the neglect of non-state actors, as if states are the only integral players in the global economy necessary for realizing the right to development. This entrepreneurship steered clear of assessing viability of the right’s founding vision of redressing institutional imbalances and unfairness of the global economic order. If the discourse took a global order reform trajectory, it would have injected thoughts on how accountability of international economic institutions and transnational corporations …

Livd: Issue 15.2: "Letting Go", Portland State University. School Of Art + Design

LIVD

Layout, imagery, and editing: Meredith James

LIVD is a semi/annual publication produced in the Pacific Northwest, dedicated to the intersection of art, design, culture and how these influence lived experience.

LIVD pays hommage to the inspiring and idealistic efforts of the early twentieth century avant-garde, balancing the academic with the personal and experimental.

Issue 15.2 includes contributions responding to the following prompt: screwing up, messing up, vulnerability, shame... that sort of thing. Why isn't the prompt simply: failure? Because something strange happens when you ask people to talk about failure, they start talking about something else entirely.

Contributions by: Roz …

Psychological Contract Violation And Affective Commitment: The Mediating Effect Of Cynicism And The Moderating Effect Of Employees’ Expectations, Sahar Mohamed Badawy, Mohamad Saad Mohamad Pro

Business Administration

This research is building on the previous research by examining both the mediating effect of cynicism and the moderating effect of employees’ expectations on the psychological contract violations–affective commitment relationship among academic staff in private universities in Egypt. A sample of 395 academic members responded to a four-part questionnaire measuring research variables (psychological contract violation, affective commitment, cynicism, and employees’ expectations). Cynicism was found to partially mediate the violation – affective commitment relationship. Further, employees’ expectations were found to moderate the violation – cynicism relationship. These results were discussed in light of extant literature. Research limitations and implications were reported

Principles Of Incorporating Spirituality Into Professional Clinical Practice, Thomas G. Plante

Psychology

Incorporating spirituality into contemporary professional clinical practice has become more common in recent years most notably with the popular interest of mindfulness meditation, mindfulness based stress reduction, and yoga in particular. However, many other spiritual and religiously based assessment and treatment approaches have also been successfully utilized with a great deal of evidence-based research to support their use and effectiveness. The purpose of this brief article is to outline several guiding principles for those professionals interested in integrating spiritual and religious wisdom and approaches into their professional clinical practices in the spirit of diversity and multiculturalism sensitivity and respect. Psychology …

Free To Be: One Charter School's Approach To Supporting Gender And Sexual Minority Students, Katherine Sieger

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation presents three and a half years of ethnographic data from an “LGBT” charter school. It explores how gender and sexuality appear within educational spaces and how providing students an anti-heteronormative inclusive education impacts a student’s sense of self. I show how critical pedagogy is deployed as an anti-heteronormative approach to supporting all students. The term anti-heteronormative is used to express an explicit rejection of heterosexism and genderism, acknowledging the complex oppressive factors that develop given the normative expectations of gender and sexuality and the impact such expectations have on all bodies and all students. Findings reveal how the …

Vitamin D Supplementation To Prevent Acute Respiratory Tract Infections: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Individual Participant Data, Adrian R. Martineau, David A. Jolliffe, Richard L. Hooper, Lauren Greenberg, John F. Aloia, Peter Bergman, Gal Dubnov-Raz, Susanna Esposito, Davaasambuu Ganmaa, Adit A. Ginde, Emma C. Goodall, Cameron C. Grant, Christopher J. Griffiths, Wim Janssens, Ilkka Laaksi, Semira Manaseki-Holland, David Mauger, David R. Murdoch, Rachel Neale, Judy R. Rees

Dartmouth Scholarship

OBJECTIVES To assess the overall effect of vitamin D supplementation on risk of acute respiratory tract infection, and to identify factors modifying this effect. DESIGN Systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data (IPD) from randomised controlled trials. DATA SOURCES Medline, Embase, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the International Standard Randomised Controlled Trials Number registry from inception to December 2015. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR STUDY SELECTION Randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trials of supplementation with vitamin D3 or vitamin D2 of any duration were eligible for inclusion if they had been approved by a …

Bulletin, Dmacc Marketing

Bulletin

No abstract provided.

Behind The Curtain: Fetishism And The Production Of Virtual Reality Treatment For Ptsd, Janice Haaken, Mariel Stadick

Psychology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Virtual Iraq/Afghanistan, a virtual reality (VR) exposure therapy designed for the treatment of combat-related PTSD, has generated wide public interest in the wake of growing concerns over mental health problems among service members. Enlisting concepts from the fields of cultural studies and psychoanalytic film criticism, the paper interprets the VR therapy program as a form of technology fetishism within the expanding apparatus of military mental health operations. Even as the program seeks to expose the “invisible wounds of war,” the stories produced through this use of visual culture conform closely to hegemonic military accounts of the psychological effects of combat.

Does The Rti Process Really Help Teachers Reach Struggling Students More Effectively? The Effects Of Rti On Two Kindergarten Classrooms, Callie Hirschler

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

The purpose of this paper is to share the results of an action research project relating to the effects of using Response to Intervention (RTI) in the kindergarten classroom. At a rural Iowa school, the process RTI was implemented in two kindergarten classrooms. One classroom had access to a researched based reliable universal screener, interventions and progress monitoring system. The other classroom used teacher created assessments and interventions. The paper will share the findings of the study that looked at the effects of implementing RTI with integrity in the Kindergarten classroom.

Capsular Polysaccharide Production And Serum Survival Of Vibrio Vulnificus Are Dependent On Antitermination Control By Rfah, Shana B. Garrett, Katherine L. Garrison-Schilling, Jeffrey T. Cooke, Gregg S. Pettis

Faculty Publications

© 2016 Federation of European Biochemical Societies The human pathogen Vibrio vulnificus undergoes phase variation among colonial morphotypes, including a virulent opaque form which produces capsular polysaccharide (CPS) and a translucent phenotype that produces little or no CPS and is attenuated. Here, we found that a V. vulnificus mutant defective for RfaH antitermination control showed a diminished capacity to undergo phase variation and displayed significantly reduced distal gene expression within the Group I CPS operon. Moreover, the rfaH mutant produced negligible CPS and was highly sensitive to killing by normal human serum, results which indicate that RfaH is likely essential …

Entomopathogenic Nematodes Combined With Adjuvants Presents A New Potential Biological Control Method For Managing The Wheat Stem Sawfly, Cephus Cinctus (Hymenoptera: Cephidae), Scott L. Portman, Sindhu M. Krishnankutty, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

The wheat stem sawfly, (Cephus cinctus Norton) Hymenoptera: Cephidae, has been a major pest of winter wheat and barley in the northern Great Plains for more than 100 years. The insect's cryptic nature and lack of safe chemical control options make the wheat stem sawfly (WSS) difficult to manage; thus, biological control offers the best hope for sustainable management of WSS. Entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) have been used successfully against other above-ground insect pests, and adding adjuvants to sprays containing EPNs has been shown to improve their effectiveness. We tested the hypothesis that adding chemical adjuvants to sprays containing EPNs will …

Priming Of Narrative Language In Young Adults, Rachel M. Crowder

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

A Preliminary Study Of Movement Intensity During A Go/No-Go Task And Its Association With Adhd Outcomes And Symptom Severity, Fenghua Li, Yi Zheng, Stephanie D. Smith, Frederick Shic, Christina C. Moore, Xixi Sheng, Yanjie Qi, Zhengkui Liu, James F. Leckman

Faculty Publications

Objective

At present, there are no well-validated biomarkers for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The present study used an infrared motion tracking system to monitor and record the movement intensity of children and to determine its diagnostic precision for ADHD and its possible associations with ratings of ADHD symptom severity.

Methods

A Microsoft motion sensing camera recorded the movement of children during a modified Go/No-Go Task. Movement intensity measures extracted from these data included a composite measure of total movement intensity (TMI measure) and a movement intensity distribution (MID measure) measure across 15 frequency bands (FB measures). In phase 1 of the …

Sequence Capture And Next-Generation Sequencing Of Ultraconserved Elements In A Large-Genome Salamander, Catherine E. Newman, Christopher C. Austin

Faculty Publications

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Amidst the rapid advancement in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology over the last few years, salamanders have been left behind. Salamanders have enormous genomes—up to 40 times the size of the human genome—and this poses challenges to generating NGS data sets of quality and quantity similar to those of other vertebrates. However, optimization of laboratory protocols is time-consuming and often cost prohibitive, and continued omission of salamanders from novel phylogeographic research is detrimental to species facing decline. Here, we use a salamander endemic to the southeastern United States, Plethodon serratus, to test the utility …

Tlr8 Couples Socs-1 And Restrains Tlr7-Mediated Antiviral Immunity, Exacerbating West Nile Virus Infection In Mice, Amber M. Paul, Dhiraj Acharya, Linda Le, Penghua Wang, Dobrivoje S. Stokic, A. Arturo Leis, Lena Alexopoulou, Terrence Town, Richard A. Flavell, Erol Fikrig, Fengwei Bai

Faculty Publications

West Nile virus (WNV) is a neurotropic ssRNA flavivirus that can cause encephalitis, meningitis, and death in humans and mice. Human TLR7 and TLR8 and mouse TLR7 recognize viral ssRNA motifs and induce antiviral immunity. However, the role of mouse TLR8 in antiviral immunity is poorly understood. In this article, we report that TLR8-deficient (Tlr8−/−) mice were resistant to WNV infection compared with wild-type controls. Efficient WNV clearance and moderate susceptibility to WNV-mediated neuronal death in Tlr8−/− mice were attributed to overexpression of Tlr7and IFN-stimulated gene-56 expression, whereas reduced expression of the proapoptotic gene coding Bcl2-associated X protein was observed. …

Flipping The Classroom In Business And Education One-Shot Sessions: A Research Study, Madeline Cohen, Jennifer Poggiali, Alison Lehner-Quam, Robin Wright, Rebecca K. West

Publications and Research

In response to the challenge of maximising the effectiveness of one-shot information literacy (IL) sessions, library faculty at Lehman College experimented with the flipped classroom model. This research paper reports the results of a multi-semester quantitative study of the flipped classroom in business management and education one-shot sessions. Researchers explored two research questions: Do students in a flipped session demonstrate greater knowledge before their session than students in a control session? and Do flipped and control students demonstrate significant, positive improvement in knowledge after their session? The researchers used pre- and post-tests to evaluate two crucial aspects of the flipped …

Labrad : Vol 42, Issue 3 - December 2016, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi

LABRAD - Departments of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine and Radiology Archives

• Provocative Testing for Growth Hormone Disorders
• Serum Procalcitonin for Early Sepsis Diagnosis
• Monoclonal Gammopathy of Undetermined Significance (MGUS)
• Understanding Six Sigma Methodology
• Blood Collection for Culture
• Molecular Analysis of Alpha Thalassaemia by Multiple Ligation Probe Assay
• Prognostification of Acute Myeloid Leukemia with FLT 3 Mutation
• Interferon Gamma Release Assay (IGRA) for Detection of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Infection in the Host
• An Analysis of Needle Stick Injury in the Department of Radiology