Digital Commons Network^™

Cardiovascular Risk In Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Role Of Cholesterylester Transfer Protein, Ali M. Mursi, Emad M. Elshebiny, Lobna Y. Ebrahim, Sahar H. Quashwa, Sherry K. Abdelrahman, Taghreed F. Mohammed Mostafa

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Aim To detect serum level of cholesterylester transfer protein (CETP) (the enzyme involved in reverse cholesterol transport) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to evaluate its relation to various clinical parameters of the disease, lipid profile, and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) as a marker of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease risk. Patients and methods This study involved a total of 80 participants, comprising 50 patients with RA and 30 age-matched and sex-matched healthy controls. Detailed medical history and thorough clinical examination (general and musculoskeletal) as well as laboratory investigations including lipid profile were performed for all patients with RA. Serum …

The Promise And Peril Of Using Disability Law As A Tool For School Reform, Claire Raj

Washington Law Review

Advocates have recently devised a radical litigation approach to force broad systemic changes in public schools using the most unlikely of tools: disability law. If they succeed, disability law stands to eclipse any other cause of action as the most effective means of school reform. This novel approach relies on groundbreaking research demonstrating a correlation between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) that children encounter outside school and the learning challenges they face in school. Focusing on this link, advocates claim that children from impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhoods, by virtue of where they live, have disabilities that entitle them to system-wide school …

The Design Of Tiny Homes And Their Significance To Simplistic Living, Monica Garcia-Guzman

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research examines the design of tiny homes and the importance they play in the lives of those that would usually have not been able to afford a house. The research will also focus on designing a tiny home with the use of design software to fully understand the extent of the characteristics of a tiny home. The design of these small dwellings, usually about 400-500 square feet, allows for a minimalist lifestyle that can be very low cost. The same materials that are used in traditional constructed homes are used for tiny homes because it makes them more durable …

Mayan Languages Education And Technology: A Case Study Of Kaqchikel And K’Iche’ Educators In Guatemala, Hector Palala

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe and analyze how Mayan language instructors in the Faculty of Humanities at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala use technology in their classrooms. In this research, indigenous professors shared their experiences as Kaqchikel and K’iche’ language instructors at the higher education level. A narrative qualitative case study was applied to discover the practices and insights of two Kaqchikel Mayan language instructor and one K’iche’ Mayan language instructor by addressing the following questions: (1) How do the professors use technology while teaching IDI3 Mayan Language in the Faculty of Humanities at …

The Functional Outcome Of Direct Lateral Approach For Fixation Of Proximal Humeral Fractures: A Case Series From A Tertiary Care Hospital, Mujahid Jamil, Irfan Anwer, Muhammed Tabish Saleem, Ahmed Abdul Habib Khan, Mohammad Zohaib Nawaz Khan

Section of Orthopaedic Surgery

Displaced proximal humeral fractures warrant surgical fixation for early rehabilitation and better functional outcome. These fractures are traditionally fixed by delto pectoral surgical approach. Direct lateral approach has recently gained interest as it involves less soft tissue dissection and is particularly helpful in certain fracture patterns. However, there have been concerns of axillary nerve damage with this approach. We report a case series of proximal humerus fractures fixed by direct lateral approach from our institution. All displaced Type 2 and 3 fractures were included in our study. Pathological and comminuted Type 4 fractures and fractures with ipsilateral clavicle or elbow …

Creche Herald Vol. 23, No. 4, Rita B. Bocher

Creche Herald

The Winter 2019 publication features nativity sets and personal reflections from members in the organization; information about nativities and nativity exhibits; and information about the Friends of the Creche annual meeting.

Responding To Crisis: Farmer Mental Health Programs In The Extension North Central Region, Shoshanah Inwood, Florence Becot, Andrea Bjornestad, Carrie Henning-Smith, Andrew Alberth

Counseling and Human Development Faculty Publications

A number of current events are exacerbating farm stress. Extension and farm organizations have mobilizedresponses to an emerging mental health crisis among farmers. To evaluate these responses, we conducted anonline scan of resources to present a baseline typology of current mental health programs and response effortsin the 12-state Extension North Central Region. We classified responses by type of program, target audience,and delivery format. We identified the need to train mental health counselors and state suicide hotlineresponders on farm issues and farm culture.

Comprehensive Study Of Generative Methods On Drug Discovery, Siyu Xiu

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Observing the recent success of the deep learning (DL) technology in multiple life-changing application areas, e.g., autonomous driving, image/video search and discovery, natural language processing, etc., many new opportunities have presented themselves. One of the biggest ones lies in applying DL in accelerating the drug discovery, where millions of human lives could potentially be saved. However, applying DL into the drug discovery task turns out to be non-trivial. The most successful DL methods take fix-sized tensors/matrices, e.g., images, or sequences of tokens, e.g., sentences with variant numbers of words, as their inputs. However, none of these registers with the inputs …

Use Of Word Embedding To Generate Similar Words And Misspellings For Training Purpose In Chatbot Development, Sanjay Thapa

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

The advancement in the field of Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning has played a significant role in the huge improvement of conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI). The use of text-based conversation AI such as chatbots have increased significantly for the everyday purpose to communicate with real people for a variety of tasks. Chatbots are deployed in almost all popular messaging platforms and channels. The rise of chatbot development frameworks based on machine learning is helping to deploy chatbot easily and promptly. These chatbot development frameworks use machine learning and natural language understanding (NLU) to understand users' messages and intents and …

The Impact Of Toxic Replies On Twitter Conversations, Nazanin Salehabadi

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Social media has become an empowering agent for individual voices and freedom of expression. Yet, it can also serve as a breeding ground for hate speech. According to a Pew Research Center study, 41% of Americans have been personally subjected to harassing behavior online, 66% have witnessed these behaviors directed at others, and 18% have been subjected to particularly severe forms of harassment online, such as physical threats, harassment over a sustained period, sexual harassment, or stalking. Recently, many research studies have tried to understand online hate speech and its implications, focusing on detecting and characterizing hate speech. One limitation …

Assessing The Impact Of Principal Component Analysis On Accurately Predicting Melanoma Diagnosis Applied On Different Classification Models, Juan Cristobal Olmedo Rivera

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Theses - Archive

With huge amounts of data at our disposal in the medical field, mathematical models are built to diagnose diseases. This study focuses on melanoma because it’s the type of skin cancer that accounts for most deaths, up to 7,230 in 2019 according to the American Cancer Society. The study focuses on the effectiveness on diagnosing melanoma and how Principal Component Analysis (PCA) impacts the performance of four models being assessed, which are: K Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machines (SVM), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). Each model evaluates the melanoma dataset before and after performing the PCA …

Budgeting In Times Of Fiscal Stress: An Analysis Of The Budget Process And Resource Allocation Of Social Programs In A Large Urban County From 2006-2017, Ronica L. Watkins Babers

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Grusky, et al. (2011) refer to the Great Recession as a transformative event that spiraled into as systemic crisis affecting both the public and private sector. Although the origin of the Great Recession was in the collapse of the housing market, it, in turn, created and sustained a crisis in both the financial sector as well as the labor market (Fligstein and Goldstein, 2012). The downturn would eventually lead to the most significant labor market dislocation in the post- Depression era, driving up high and long-term unemployment as well as involuntarily working part-time individuals (Grusky et al. 2011). Each level …

Exploring The Relationship Of Sound With The Urban Environment: A Strategic Inquiry On The Impacts Of And Design And Planning Responses To Sound In Transit-Oriented Developments (Tods), Yalcin Yildirim

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Over the last decades, Transit-Oriented Developments (TODs) have stimulated heated debates. Researchers have fully explored the TODs' quality-of-life characteristics; however, sound/noise impacts are under-explored in the field. This dissertation explores the planning and design implications of sounds in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area TODs. TODs include potentials to cover a broad range of sounds that improve the quality-of-life (QoL). Since sound studies should not only rely on in-situ sound measurements and it should also examine the subjective aspects of the sound as the dissertation examines the perception of the individuals on sounds in TODs, the project required a certain number …

Planning Practices For The Public Mental Health, Kaitlin A. Mcbride

Planning Theses - Archive

The rapid urbanization taking place in the 21st century poses its own unique set of public health concerns. In addition to changing lifestyles around the world, mental illness rates are higher in our cities. While the conversations surrounding public health usually focus on the physical, mental health has an equal impact on the overall wellbeing of individuals and populations. Just as the planning profession finds it crucial to be involved in efforts to improve the physical public health in cities, we must do the same for the public mental health. Like most professions, planning is guided by our theories. These …

Pathway To Adopting Learning Analytics: Reconceptualizing The Decision-Making Process Of K-12 Leaders In North Texas, Justin T. Dellinger

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Dissertations - Archive

Learning analytics has emerged as a data-driven way to improve learner outcomes over the past decade. However, as the adoption and implementation of learning analytics continues to surge, there are some significant barriers to this process, such as stakeholder buy-in, training, and support, concerns over privacy and ethical issues, the quality of tools provided by third-party vendors, and institutional capacity to collect and meaningfully analyze and interpret data. Poor implementation can increase inequities, squander public funding, foster stakeholder resistance around future initiatives, and ultimately lead to abandonment. Another challenge stems from the need for educators to not only understand a …

Development Of Medical Devices For Osteoarthritis Diagnosis, Antimicrobial, Wound Closure, And Wound Ph Milieu Monitoring, Shuxin Li

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Nanotechnology has been widely used in the field of biomedical engineering. For example, nanoparticles have been employed for targeted drug delivery due to their retention effect, increased permeability, site-specific targeting, and avoiding phagocytosis as foreign materials. Moreover, nanotools, such as liposomes, Q-dots, dendrimers, micelles, and carbon nanotubes, have been developed for disease diagnosis and treatment. Generally, the application of nanotechnology can be categorized as follows: nanomedicine, tissue regeneration, biomarker/biosensors, nanorobots, and gene therapy. In the past four years, I have been focusing on developing nanotechnology for diagnosis and treatment of many diseases such as osteoarthritis, open wound, and infection. Based …

Effect Of Sewage Sludge And Wastewater Recirculation On The Degradation Of Municipal Solid Waste In Bioreactors, Afroza Ayub

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management is the major environmental and economical concern for the world. Among all the MSW management alternatives, sustainable Bioreactor has potential to solve environmental and economic concerns related to organic waste. This potential of Sustainable Bioreactor can be enhanced by accelerated decomposition of waste. Accelerated decomposition of organic fraction of MSW can be achieved by the addition of nitrogen rich, macro and micro nutrients such as sludge and manures. Several studies have been conducted by using sludge as inoculum for degrading organic fraction of MSW in the anaerobic digester. However, this study is to compare the …

Can Cmws Sustain Quality Services And High Coverage As Private Providers In Chitral? A Three-Year Prospective Qualitative Study, Rafat Jan, Arusa Lakhani, Salma Rattani, Laila Lalji, Kiran Mubeen, Mehtab Q. Jaffer

Journal of Asian Midwives (JAM)

Background: The maternal and neonatal mortality ratesof Chitral district of Pakistan are among the highest in the country. One of the factors that found to havepositive impact on maternal and newborn health indicators is the availability ofquality skill birth attendance because the majority of the poor women cannot access facility-based maternity care. Therefore, in 2006, the Government of Pakistan (GOP) has initiated a program to train and deploy Community Midwives (CMWs) to support safe pregnancies and births. The Aga Khan Health Service’ Pakistan, initiated the Chitral Child Survival Program (CCSP) in partnership with the National Maternal Neonatal and Child Health …

Development And Evaluation Of A One-Step Multiplex Real-Time Taqman® Rt-Qpcr Assay For The Detection And Genotyping Of Equine G3 And G14 Rotaviruses In Fecal Samples, Mariano Carossino, Maria E. Barrandeguy, Erdal Erol, Yanqiu Li, Udeni B. R. Balasuriya

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

December 2019 School Of Graduate Studies Newsletter, Dothang Truong, Don Metscher, Mark Friend, Katie Esguerra, Jan G. Neal, Susie Sprowl

School of Graduate Studies Newsletters

• Remarks from the Associate Dean
• SGS Announcements
• Recognition & Awards
• Research Activity
• Ph.D. in Aviation News
• MSA News
• MSOSM News
• Brown Bags & Presentations
• Alumni News

Diversification, Paternalism, And The Transnational Threads Of Cotton In Southern New Mexico The Industrial Ideal At Work At Stahmann Farms, 1926–1970, William Carleton

New Mexico Historical Review

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Fatigue Protocols On Upper Extremity Neuromuscular Function And Implications For Ulnar Collateral Ligament Injury Prevention, Toufic R. Jildeh, Kelechi R. Okoroha, Joseph S. Tramer, Jorge Chahla, Benedict U. Nwachukwu, Shawn Annin, Vasilios Moutzouros, Charles Bush-Joseph, Nikhil Verma

Orthopedics Articles

Background: As the incidence of overuse injuries to the medial elbow in overhead athletes continues to rise, recent evidence suggests a link between these injuries and alterations in biomechanics produced by athlete fatigue. Previous studies have evaluated the effect of fatigue on elbow injuries using a wide array of fatigue protocols/athletic tasks, and, as a consequence, the results have been heterogeneous.

Purpose: To determine whether there is a uniform alteration in neuromuscular function or biomechanics as the overhead athlete fatigues. Furthermore, this study sought to determine whether player fatigue should be accounted for in ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) injury prevention …

The Banner - V. 154, No. 11 - (December 2019), Christian Reformed Church In North America

The Banner

No abstract provided.

Uis Commission On Volcanic Caves Newsletter, No. 75, December 2019, Ed Waters

KIP Articles

Contents: Editorial - Message from the Chairman - 19th International Symposium on Volcanic Caves, Catania, August/September 2020 - European Space Agency Appeal for Innovative Ideas for Exploring Lunar Caves - STOP PRESS! 19th International Symposium on Volcanic Caves Registration Now Open

Hiv-Related Discriminatlon And Cervical Cancer Screening In Zambia, Crystal J. Cazier

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Background: The Republic of Zambia has the third-highest incidence of cervical cancer in the world, where approximately 700,000 women over age 15 are living with HIV. Women living with HIV (WLHIV) are at increased risk for cervical cancer. While literature suggests that discrimination is a barrier to HIV care, no studies have explored if discrimination experienced in HIV clinics is related to cervical cancer screening using nationally representative datasets. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to examine whether perceived discrimination by healthcare workers due to HIV status is related to having been screened for cervical cancer among WLHIV. …

La Priorización De Comportamientos Para Mejorar Programas De Cambio Social Y De Comportamiento Durante Una Emergencia De Salud Pública: Un Llamado A La Acción, Breakthrough Research

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

A medida que los especialistas en desarrollo internacional continúan trabajando en los desafíos de la salud pública y nuevas enfermedades emergentes, es de suma importancia la priorización de comportamientos. Este breve informe tiene como objetivo argumentar por qué es importante la priorización de comportamientos para fortalecer los programas de cambio social y de comportamiento (CSC). El documento finaliza con un llamado a la acción a que diferentes actores interesados aboguen por y participen en procesos que prioricen comportamientos como parte del diseño, planificación y adaptación de programas de cambio social y de comportamiento.

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As the international development community continues …

Rethinking Elementary Physical Education: Creating Time For Physical Activity, Adam B. Hanson

Leadership Education Capstones

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of K-5 elementary principals in scheduling curricular time for physical education programs. This exploration examined the potential curricular scheduling impact upon physical education delivery systems, as reported by elementary school administrators.

Effect Of Education About Pediatric Immunization Schedule And Vaccine Administration On Family Medicine Clinic Providers And Clinical Staff Knowledge And Confidence, John Matthew Derfelt

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Project

Significance: In this original research, the purpose of this project is to compare and promote increased pediatric immunization knowledge among healthcare providers and clinic staff of a family medicine clinic. In turn, there is greater compliance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommended immunization schedule and adherence to vaccinations against the 17 vaccine-preventable diseases.

Methods: This exploratory pilot case study surveyed 34 individuals by using an educational tool with information regarding the current CDC-recommended pediatric vaccination schedule. Prior to reviewing the educational material, the participant tested their baseline knowledge about vaccination scheduling and immunization administration. …

Effect Of Substrate To Inoculum Ratio On Bioenergy Recovery From Food Waste, Yard Waste, And Biosolids By High Solids Anaerobic Digestion, Phillip J. Dixon, Sarina J. Ergas, James R. Mihelcic, Shakira R. Hobbs

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Residual biosolids from wastewater treatment facilities and the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW), such as food and yard wastes (FW and YW), are difficult to manage due to increased waste generation and recent stringent regulations. This study investigated the effect of substrate to inoculum ratio (S/I) on biochemical transformation mechanisms and biomethane production during high solids anaerobic digestion of FW, YW, and biosolids. Biochemical methane potential (BMP) assays were set up under mesophilic conditions at S/I of 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0 g OFMSW total solids (TS)/g inoculum TS. BMP with the lowest S/I (1.0) produced the highest cumulative …

Western Corporate Fiscal Citizenship In The 21st Century, Alex Freund

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

For the Western world, the challenges of the 21st Century are numerous, from climate change’s effects on food production and coastal cities to underfunded social safety nets to automation’s impact on the middle class. To handle such costly problems, government intervention will be required. Government intervention, however, always comes at a cost to either individuals or corporations. To determine who should bear these costs, scholars and experts should turn to notions of fiscal citizenship – the social contract between the state and private parties through taxation and the provision of goods and services. By applying principles of individual fiscal citizenship …