Digital Commons Network^™

1912 - Report Of The Commissioner Of Indian Affairs For 1912

US and Indian Relations

Detailed report on the efforts by the US government to manage Indian affairs, educate the Indians, and legislation regarding the Indians. In part, issues covered relate to employees, farming, health, schools, specific tribes, irrigation, forestry, minerals, supplies, finances, and statistics.

Chlamydia Hijacks Arf Gtpases To Coordinate Microtubule Posttranslational Modifications And Golgi Complex Positioning., Jordan Wesolowski, Mary M. Weber, Agata Nawrotek, Cheryl A. Dooley, Mike Calderon, Claudette M. St Croix, Ted Hackstadt, Jacqueline Cherfils, Fabienne Paumet

Department of Microbiology and Immunology Faculty Papers

The intracellular bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis develops in a parasitic compartment called the inclusion. Posttranslationally modified microtubules encase the inclusion, controlling the positioning of Golgi complex fragments around the inclusion. The molecular mechanisms by which Chlamydia coopts the host cytoskeleton and the Golgi complex to sustain its infectious compartment are unknown. Here, using a genetically modified Chlamydia strain, we discovered that both posttranslationally modified microtubules and Golgi complex positioning around the inclusion are controlled by the chlamydial inclusion protein CT813/CTL0184/InaC and host ARF GTPases. CT813 recruits ARF1 and ARF4 to the inclusion membrane, where they induce posttranslationally modified microtubules. Similarly, both …

Reasonable Response: The Achilles' Heel Of The Seventh Circuit's "Deliberate Indifference" Analysis, Meaghan A. Sweeney

Seventh Circuit Review

Prisoners who believe their constitutional rights were violated through deficient medical care can pursue a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. To prevail on this claim, the prisoner must show that a medical provider acted with deliberate indifference towards a serious medical condition. Ordinary medical negligence is not a constitutional claim simply because the victim is a prisoner. Yet, circuits are split on exactly what physician behavior constitutes deliberate indifference. Courts have given varying degrees of deference to a physician's case-specific medical determination. Courts debate whether palliative care—relieving pain without an effort to cure—is enough; and whether constitutionalizing …

Application Of Backstep Control In Diseased Prey-Predator System, V. Madhusudanan, B. R. Tapas Bapu, V. Nagaraju, S. Pradeep

Applied Mathematics & Information Sciences

In this paper,backstep control is employed to a three species diseased biological system having two prey viz. susceptible and infected prey and a predator. Using the back stepping control design, the controllability conditions are framed. The non-linear feedback control approach is implemented to derive the global asymptotic stability conditions for the biological system. Diverse set of parametric value are used and the corresponding chaotic behavior of the system is obtained. Finally numerical simulations by Matlab are executed to explore the effect of back stepping control in the system.

Public Health Applications Of Gis: A Spatial Analysis Of Tobacco Sales And Violations For The Worcester Division Of Public Health, Thomas M. Caywood

Sustainability and Social Justice

Performed as part of an internship with the Worcester Division of Public Health in the summer of 2016, this spatial analysis examines the proximity of tobacco retailers to the city’s public schools and finds that those in low-income neighborhoods tend to have greater numbers of tobacco sales outlets in the immediate area than do schools in more-affluent neighborhoods. The analysis also finds that the racial composition of student bodies at individual schools is moderately correlated with the number of tobacco points of purchase located near those schools. Because proximity to tobacco sales outlets is known to be a factor in …

Reentry Experiences Of Elderly Ex-Offenders: Wasted Lives, Charmaine Clarke

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Abstract of the Dissertation Reentry Experiences of Elderly Ex-Offenders: Wasted Lives by Charmaine Clarke Doctor of Philosophy in Social Welfare Stony Brook University 2017 In the last two decades, the growth in the number of elderly offenders age 50 and older has been significant. Between 1994 and 2011, those falling within this category increased by 330%; they are currently the fastest growing age group in the federal correctional system. A successful transition from prison to community is a formidable undertaking for elderly ex-offenders. Despite their growing numbers, there is a paucity of studies on their reentry experiences. The available literature …

21st Century Education: The Importance Of The Humanities In Primary Education In The Age Of Stem, Christine M. Reiter

Senior Theses

Taking into consideration the global shift towards innovation and technological development, the rapid changes in the global economy, and the United States Department of Education’s attempts to find a one-size-fits-all solution for America's education woes, our national focus has shifted towards the STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This shift to STEM-focused education has challenged the role of the Humanities in American education, introducing concerns that the overwhelming emphasis on STEM disciplines has pushed the arts, Humanities and human sciences off to the side or even completely out of the picture in American classrooms. In our everchanging technology-focused world, …

Simulating Foodborne Pathogens In Poultry Production And Processing To Defend Against Intentional Contamination, Silas B. Lankford

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

There is a lack of data in recent history of food terrorism attacks, and as such, it is difficult to predict its impact. The food supply industry is one of the most vulnerable industries for terrorist threats while the poultry industry is one of the largest food industries in the United States. A small food terrorism attack against just a single poultry processing center has the potential to affect a much larger population than its immediate consumers. In this work, the spread of foodborne pathogens is simulated in a poultry production and processing system to defend against intentional contamination. An …

Bridgewater Review, Vol. 36, No. 1, May 2017

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Moliere: Automatic Biomedical Hypothesis Generation System, Justin Sybrandt, Michael Shtutman, Ilya Safro

Publications

Hypothesis generation is becoming a crucial time-saving technique which allows biomedical researchers to quickly discover implicit connections between important concepts. Typically, these systems operate on domain-specific fractions of public medical data. MOLIERE, in contrast, utilizes information from over 24.5 million documents. At the heart of our approach lies a multi-modal and multi-relational network of biomedical objects extracted from several heterogeneous datasets from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). These objects include but are not limited to scientific papers, keywords, genes, proteins, diseases, and diagnoses. We model hypotheses using Latent Dirichlet Allocation applied on abstracts found near shortest paths discovered …

Lymphoid Hematopoiesis And The Role Of B-Cells In Transgenic Mouse Model Of Sickle Cell Disease, Christina Cotte

University Scholar Projects

Sickle cell disease (SCD) has been shown to be associated with decreased baseline immunity and thus increased susceptibility to infection. I sought to discern possible causes of this by looking into the correlations between SCD and hematopoiesis, the immune system and the neuroendocrine system, and ultimately by conducting experiments surrounding the impaired immune system of SCD. These experiments focused on the potential causes and effects of the diminution of B-1a cells in the SCD spleen. Adoptive transfers, infections with Streptococcus pneumoniae, and histologic imaging were conducted to establish if the diminution of the B-1a cells in the SCD spleen …

Chat Expression In Chlamydia Muridarum-Infected Female Murine Genital Tract, Hallie Sartain

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Chlamydia trachomatis is the most prevalent agent of bacterial sexually transmitted infections in the world. However, a profuse number of cases are unreported, as the infection is often asymptomatic. Sequelae such as pelvic inflammatory disease, an increased risk of cervical cancer, premature birth, and perinatal infections in pregnant women can occur. Inflammation occurs in the body in response to infection or injury. Although inflammation can lead to some unwanted secondary effects, such as pain, it serves to return the body to homeostasis by restoring injured tissues and eliminating pathogens. One recently identified connection between the central nervous system and the …

Regioselective Synthesis Of Biologically Active Pyrazolone Nucleosides And Their Benzoyl Analogues, Heba Ahmed Ghanim Aboukhousa

Philosophy Dissertations

Increasing incidence of anticancer and antimicrobial resistance are the most common concerns in the medical field. Cancer is a serious disease that can affect almost every tissue lineage in the human body and poses great challenges to medicinal science. In addition, many antibiotics have a tendency to becoming resistant and are prone to severe adverse effects after long term use. Hence, there is an urgent need to discover and develop novel antitumor drug molecules which could effectively inhibit proliferative pathways with fewer side effects. Also, increasing demand to synthesize novel antimicrobial agents that are active against resistant strains.

This research …

The Economic, Health, And Psychological Effects Of The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Ilana Siegal

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper analyzes the economic, health, and psychological impacts of conflict and the effectiveness of United Nations agencies and organizations in addressing these issues. I use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a case study, representing intractable conflicts due to disagreements regarding land, religion, politics, and ethnicity. Focusing on the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), I argue that the effectiveness of WHO and UNRWA programs depends on the economic wellbeing, conflict status, and the level of funding at the time. However, the largest factor impacting the economy, health, and psyche of the Palestinians is …

Please Forget To Floss: Developing An Assay For Identifying Tuberculosis In Dental Calculus From The Smithsonian’S Huntington Collection (1893-1921), Soleil Young

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Tuberculosis is one of the most ubiquitous diseases in human history. Despite the long history of human interactions with the disease, tracking it retroactively is difficult because of its low rate of associated, diagnostic bony changes. Ancient DNA, also called aDNA, is a novel method for examining the presence of disease in the past. Currently, the only way to isolate tuberculosis aDNA is to drill and section bone, a method that is both invasive and expensive, limiting its use in the archaeological record. This capstone examines new ways of tracking and understanding tuberculosis in the past, utilizing the DNA trapped …

The Impact Of Obesity On Bone Marrow Hematopoietic Stem Cell Function And Acute Immune Response, Divya Krishnamoorthy

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Obesity is associated with immune dysfunction due to impaired wound healing and response to infection. In obesity the accumulation of adiposity extends beyond the visceral depots and into the bone marrow (BM) niche where the immune system is regulated by hematopoietic stem cells (HSC). In this dissertation we evaluate how excess adiposity and changes to the bone marrow microenvironment impact hematopoiesis and HSC function. Using a mouse model of diet-induced obesity (DIO), we found that engraftment and repopulating capabilities of healthy HSCs is not hindered when they are introduced into an obese condition with excess fat following bone marrow transplantation …

Manufacturing And Characterization Of A 3d-Printable, Antibacterial, Magnesium Oxide Nanoparticles Reinforced Abs Filament, Saket Thapliyal

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

This research work consists of two phases. In phase one it is intended to manufacture an antibacterial 3D printable filament by extruding a solid state mixture of (MgO) nanoparticles (NPs) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) pellets. A single screw extruder was used to extrude ABS pellets containing 0, 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 wt. % MgO NP. This phase deals with manufacturing and testing the filament for mechanical properties, antibacterial properties and 3D printability. On one hand tensile strength, ductility and 3D-printabiliy were observed to decrease with increasing concentrations of MgO NP in ABS matrix, on the other hand the …

Pilot Program To Provide Hiv Pep To Sexual Assault Survivors, Ellen Stahlman

Senior Theses

Currently, South Carolina has no standardized guidelines for the prescription and financial obligations for HIV prophylactic treatment post sexual assault. With South Carolina’s high rates of sexual assault and HIV/AIDS, there should be implementation of a program to address these issues. In 2014, South Carolina Office of Victim Assistance (SOVA) contacted the USC Immunology Clinic along with Palmetto Health Richland hospital in order to implement a pilot program in order to provide funding for sexual assault survivors’ treatment preventing HIV. Much communication had to take place in order for all aspects of the process to work efficiently. Emergency departments first …

Zika And The Failure To Act Under The Police Power, Jacqueline Fox

Faculty Publications

Zika is a mosquito-borne and sexually transmitted disease that is a dangerous threat to pregnant women, causing catastrophic birth defects in a large percentage of fetuses when their mothers become infected while pregnant. It raises numerous issues related to abortion, birth control, poverty, and women’s control over their procreative choices. While the United States received ample warning from January 2016 onward that it was at risk of local transmission of this virus and public health officials at all levels generally behaved properly, the state and federal legislative responses in the summer of 2016 were entirely inadequate. For example, no state …

Combining Inferred Regulatory And Reconstructed Metabolic Networks Enhances Phenotype Prediction In Yeast., Zhuo Wang, Samuel A Danziger, Benjamin D Heavner, Shuyi Ma, Jennifer J Smith, Song Li, Thurston Herricks, Evangelos Simeonidis, Nitin Baliga, John D Aitchison, Nathan D Price

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Gene regulatory and metabolic network models have been used successfully in many organisms, but inherent differences between them make networks difficult to integrate. Probabilistic Regulation Of Metabolism (PROM) provides a partial solution, but it does not incorporate network inference and underperforms in eukaryotes. We present an Integrated Deduced And Metabolism (IDREAM) method that combines statistically inferred Environment and Gene Regulatory Influence Network (EGRIN) models with the PROM framework to create enhanced metabolic-regulatory network models. We used IDREAM to predict phenotypes and genetic interactions between transcription factors and genes encoding metabolic activities in the eukaryote, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. IDREAM models contain many …

Adoption Dissolution From The Perspective Of Adoptive Parents From The Usa Who Adopted Children Internationally, Olga Vladimirovna Verbovaya

Social Work Dissertations - Archive

The goal of this qualitative dissertation is to explore why some international adoptions result in dissolution. I attempt to answer this question through the experiences of American parents who adopted children internationally and experienced dissolution of an adoption. The objective of the research is to expand existing knowledge concerning international adoption disruption because the topic is extremely understudied. Factors examined are: aspects contributing to adoption dissolution as described in existing literature; historical perspectives on adoption, including international adoption; effectiveness of adoption services as ways to enhance adoption outcome; proposed methodological approaches for adoption dissolution research; and results of the study. …

The Experience Of Illness In The Daily Lives Of Persons Living With Being Chronically Homeless, William Henderson

Nursing Dissertations - Archive

Individuals from all segments of society are affected by homelessness – the old and young, men and women, single individuals and families. The majority of individuals will experience homelessness only on a short-termed basis. However, about 10-20% will experience homelessness for years. Although, the chronically homeless represent only a fraction of the total homeless population, they utilize the majority of resources available. Current literature has focused primarily on other groups within the homeless community, leaving little to be known about the chronic homeless. Without a better understanding of this unique group, interventions can only be based upon assumptions. The purpose …

Serious Infectious Events Following Cesarean Section, Janet Burton Glowicz

Nursing Dissertations - Archive

The purpose of this study was to evaluate trends in the incidence of serious infectious events (SIE), defined as organ space infection, sepsis, and Cesarean Section (CS) wound disruption, during the birth admission or resulting in between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2014 in the State of Texas. A retrospective analysis of the Public Use Data File, maintained by the Texas Health Care Information Collection was conducted. Records of 627,555 women who had CS and 1,023 women readmitted for CS wound disruption, were included. During the study period, there was a large decrease in the rate at which SIE …

What’S New With The Flu?, Boriana Marintcheva

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Predicting Cryptic Links In Host-Parasite Networks, Tad Dallas, Andrew W. Park, John M. Drake

Faculty Publications

© 2017 Dallas et al. Networks are a way to represent interactions among one (e.g., social networks) or more (e.g., plant-pollinator networks) classes of nodes. The ability to predict likely, but unobserved, interactions has generated a great deal of interest, and is sometimes referred to as the link prediction problem. However, most studies of link prediction have focused on social networks, and have assumed a completely censused network. In biological networks, it is unlikely that all interactions are censused, and ignoring incomplete detection of interactions may lead to biased or incorrect conclusions. Previous attempts to predict network interactions have relied …

Application Of Fluoroquinolone Resistance Score In Management Of Complicated Urinary Tract Infections, Ansal Shah, Julie Ann Justo, P Brandon Bookstaver, Joseph Kohn, Helmut Albrecht, Majdi N. Al-Hasan

Faculty Publications

The fluoroquinolone resistance score (FQRS) predicts the probability of fluoroquinolone resistance with good discrimination. The score has been derived from patients with bloodstream infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria and is based on fluoroquinolone use within the past 6 months, among other clinical and health care exposure criteria. This study aims to examine the utility of the FQRS in patients with complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI) and determine whether extension of prior fluoroquinolone use to 12 months improves model discrimination. Adults with cUTI at Palmetto Health in central South Carolina, USA, from 1 April 2015 through 31 July 2015 were prospectively …

Population Genetic Inferences Using Immune Gene Snps Mirror Patterns Inferred By Microsatellites, Jean P. Elbers, Rachel W. Clostio, Sabrina S. Taylor

Faculty Publications

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are replacing microsatellites for population genetic analyses, but it is not apparent how many SNPs are needed or how well SNPs correlate with microsatellites. We used data from the gopher tortoise, Gopherus polyphemus—a species with small populations, to compare SNPs and microsatellites to estimate population genetic parameters. Specifically, we compared one SNP data set (16 tortoises from four populations sequenced at 17 901 SNPs) to two microsatellite data sets, a full data set of 101 tortoises and a partial data set of 16 tortoises previously genotyped at 10 microsatellites. For the full microsatellite data set, observed …

Are Cdi Systems Multicolored, Facultative, Helping Greenbeards?, Elizabeth S. Danka, Erin C. Garcia, Peggy A. Cotter

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Competitive and cooperative interactions between organisms, including bacteria, can significantly impact the composition of a community and the fitness of its members, as well as the fitness of their hosts when communities are living on or within other organisms. Understanding the underlying mechanisms is critical to the development of strategies to control microbiological communities that impact animal and plant health and also for understanding the evolution of social behaviors, which has been challenging for evolutionary biologists. Contact-dependent growth inhibition (CDI) is a phenomenon defined by the delivery of a protein toxin to the cytoplasm of neighboring bacteria upon cell–cell contact, …

Vaccine Implementation: Alaska 2017, Amanda Hulstine

Student Projects for Graduate Degrees

Bacterial meningitis is a serious disease that causes permanent dysfunction or death; adolescents and young adults carry the greatest risk. The national Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has released vaccine recommendations that include incorporation of meningitis vaccine in to the mandatory school vaccine schedule. Throughout the nation, much of legislative policy has made meningitis vaccination a requirement for public school attendance. Alaska does not have such policy; the purpose of the project was to address this policy need. A secondary project goal was to increase community awareness of bacterial meningitis. Project actions were divided into policy advocacy and community …

Hiv In New York City: An Overview Of Cultural And Social Factors Contributing To An Individual's Decision To Disclose Their Disease Status, Lindsey Riback

Public Health Undergraduate Program

will examine what effect cultural norms surrounding race and sexual orientation, as well as four specific social factors (alcohol use during sex, injection drug use, social support and the importance of religion) have on whether an HIV positive individual, specifically an urban homosexual male, chooses to disclose their disease status. This paper will discuss those cultural norms and social factors through the AIDS Risk Reduction Model, available literature, and the data collected by the National Institute of Mental Health for the Positive Connections intervention trial. The data for this paper were pulled from the larger study, and only the 171 …