Digital Commons Network^™

Fostering Racial And Ethnic Identity For Transracial Adoptees: The Importance Of Culturally Competent Transracial Adoption Training Programs For White Adoptive Parents, Emily J. Moxon

University Honors Theses

Transracial adoption, which is the adoption of a child of a race or ethnicity different from the race or ethnicity of the adoptive parents, is a relatively new practice with the first reported case in the U.S. in 1948 (The Adoption History Project, n.d.). As such, there is a limited amount of academic research that is currently available studying the effects of this practice on the Transracial Adoptee (TRA) in their cultural, ethnic, and racial socialization processes and on how well they adjust to a racialized society outside of their adoptive family unit. Since the 1940s, an estimated one million …

High Rates Of Diabetes And Hypertension Amongst Non-Latinx African-American Women As Risk Factors For Low Birth Weight: Contributing Causes And Potential Solutions, Liliana Barber

University Honors Theses

This study sought to analyze the relationship between diabetes, hypertension, and low birth weight (LBW) amongst non-Latinx African American women. The Oregon Health Assessment Tool (OPHAT) served as a data base for the sample population. The sample population consisted of African American women between the ages of 25-39 that gave birth between 2013-2014. Relative risk ratios were calculated to determine the likelihood of delivering a LBW infant. The exposures for the risk ratios were: Prepregnancy diabetes (DM), gestational diabetes (GM), prepregnancy hypertension (HTN), and gestational hypertension (GHTN). An analysis of conditional factors that impact birth weight was also conducted. The …

So Much To Do, So Little Time, Unh Communications And Public Affairs

UNH Today Archive

No abstract provided.

Maternal Cognitions And The Origins Of Early Sensorimotor Based Play In Infants Born Preterm, Sandra L. Willett

Theses & Dissertations

Maternal cognitions are beliefs, perceptions, and expectations that guide parenting practices. For at-risk infants born prematurely, these maternal constructs may influence the caregiving environment and opportunities for motor experience. The impact of maternal cognitions on motor development in infants born preterm is not well-documented. This three-part dissertation systematically explores: 1) the nature and extent of existing evidence supporting the link between maternal cognitions and motor development of infants born preterm, 2) if maternal perception of infant vulnerability as measured by an adapted Vulnerable Baby Scale (VBS) can be validly and reliably quantified in mothers of infants born preterm and near …

Beta Regression Models For Repeated-Measures Data Analysis, Nicholas A. Hein

Theses & Dissertations

Bounded data often give rise to uncorrectable skew and heteroscedasticity. Bounded data are a relatively frequent occurrence in clinical and research settings. For example, in neuropsychology, most neurocognitive tests are bounded, and subjects are repeatedly measured over time. The statistician needs to choose a model that accounts for the correlated nature of the repeated measures. The Beta distribution is a natural choice for modeling bounded data. Currently, generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) and generalized estimating equations (GEE) are two methods that can be used to model Beta distributed data with repeated measures. However, GLMMs and GEEs have limitations, i.e., GLMMs …

Macromolecular Prodrug For The Treatment Of Ulcerative Colitis, Yuanyuan Sun

Theses & Dissertations

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease affecting the colon. More than 1 million Americans are affected, with the annual economic burden up to 14.9 billion in the United States. By far, ulcerative colitis still lacks the cure and the current treatment strategies are limited due to severe side effects and in-sufficient efficacy. The tofacitinib (Xeljanz) is the only approved oral medication by for adults with moderately-to-severely-active ulcerative colitis. But the related side effects and serious infections still have to be resolved. In the previous study in our lab, the researchers have successfully developed and characterized multiple hy-drophilic prodrug …

Il-17-Cxcr2 Axis Promotes Breast Cancer Metastasis And Therapy Resistance, Lingyun Wu

Theses & Dissertations

Cancer-related fatalities rank as the second leading cause of death in all ages and both genders in the United States. Moreover, breast cancer-related mortality rank as the second leading cause of death in females in the United States in 2019. The main concerns regarding breast cancer management include chemotherapy resistance and metastasis. Thus, the advanced understanding of cancer progression is required to develop improved therapeutic methods for breast cancer patients.

Recent studies demonstrate that neutrophils, as the most abundant leukocytes, play an essential role in breast progression. However, the mechanisms regarding neutrophils recruitment to the tumor sites, and the precise …

Impediments To The Historical Development Of The Clinical Pap Test In The United States: Their Relevance In Optimizing Cervical Cancer Screening In The State Of Qatar, Nikolaos Chantziantoniou

Theses & Dissertations

Three hundred surveys listing 31 questions were distributed amongst women and men at Sidra Medicine, Doha, State of Qatar, to assess knowledge and perceptions of: Cervical cancer (CxCa); preventive Pap test screening; Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccination; and, need for population-based screening. Survey questions captured categorical statistical data through four categories: (1) Socio-demographic; (2) Healthcare Services; (3) Health Literacy; and, (4) Self-efficacy and Perceptions. Hypothesis 1: 12 survey questions pertaining to CxCa and Pap testing revealed 8 statistically-significant dependencies; notably, 70% of respondents were aware of CxCa; however, 31.8% were unaware that CxCa may be curable; 33.7% were unaware …

Characterization Of The Role Of Acetylated Ape1 In Dna Damage Repair And Transcriptional Regulation, Shrabasti Roychoudhury

Theses & Dissertations

Apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites are the most frequently formed DNA lesions in the genome. The primary enzyme to repair AP sites in mammalian cells is the AP endonuclease (APE1), which functions through the base excision repair (BER) pathway. Mammalian APE1 has a unique N-terminal unstructured tail and has both DNA repair and transcriptional regulatory activities. Our lab discovered that APE1 can be regulated via post-translational acetylation of lysine residues 6, 7, 27, 31, and 32. The role of mammalian APE1 in repair has been extensively studied and well characterized. However, the regulatory role of APE1 acetylation (AcAPE1) in the context of …

A Coupled Finite Element-Mathematical Surrogate Modeling Approach To Assess Occupant Head And Neck Injury Risk Due To Vehicular Impacts, Parker Berthelson

Theses and Dissertations

This study presents mathematical surrogate models, derived from finite element kinematic response data, to predict car crash-induced occupant head and neck injury risk for a broad range of impact velocities (10 – 45 mph), impact locations, and angles of impact (-45° to 45°). The development of these models allowed for wide-scale injury prediction while significantly reducing the overall required number of impact test cases. From these, increases in both the impact velocity and the impact’s locational proximity to the occupant were determined to result in the greatest head and neck injury risks. Additionally, strong interactions between the impact orientation variables …

A Machine Learning Approach To Genome Assessment, Charles Adam Thrash

Theses and Dissertations

A key use of high throughput sequencing technology is the sequencing and assembly of full genome sequences. These genome assemblies are commonly assessed using statistics relating to contiguity of the assembly. Measures of contiguity are not strongly correlated with information about the biological completion or correctness of the assembly, and a commonly reported metric, N50, can be misleading. Over the past ten years, multiple research groups have rejected the overuse of N50 and sought to develop more informative metrics. This research seeks to create a ranking method that includes biologically relevant information about the genome, such as completeness and correctness …

A Multiscale Modeling Approach To Investigate Traumatic Brain Injury, Amirhamed Bakhtiarydavijani

Theses and Dissertations

In the current study, mechanoporation-related neuronal injury as a result of mechanical loading has been studied using a multiscale approach. Injurious mechanical loads to the head induce strains in the brain tissue at the macroscale. As each length scale has its own unique morphology and heterogeneities, the strains have been scaled down from the macroscale brain tissue to the nanoscale neuronal components that result in mechanoporation of the neuronal membrane, while relevant neuronal membrane mechanoporation-related damage criteria have been scaled up to the macroscale. To achieve this, first, damage evolution equations has been developed and calibrated to molecular dynamics simulations …

An Examination Of Whether Perceived Stress Mediates The Effects Of Income On Engagement And Weight Loss Loss Outcomes In An Online Behavioral Weight Loss Intervention, Kristen Volz

Master's Theses

Individuals with lower income have higher rates of obesity and are underrepresented in weight loss treatment. Moreover, when individuals with lower income do enroll in face-to-face interventions, their adherence and weight loss outcomes are worse due to known treatment barriers, including unreliable transportation, lack of childcare, and scheduling constraints associated with multiple jobs and unconventional work hours. Because online interventions are asynchronous and can be accessed any time of day, they hold significant promise for reducing treatment barriers and improving adherence and weight loss outcomes in lower income populations. However, one drawback of online interventions is that they are self-directed, …

Post-Treatment Of Nanofiltration Polyamide Membrane Through Alkali-Catalyzed Hydrolysis To Treat Dyes In Model Wastewater, Byung-Moon Jun, Yeomin Yoon, Chang Min Park

Faculty Publications

This research focused on the influence of post-treatment using alkali-catalyzed hydrolysis with a full-aromatic nanofiltration (NF) polyamide membrane and its application to the efficient removal of selected dyes. The post-treated membranes were characterized through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, goniometry, and zeta-potential analysis to analyze the treatment-induced changes in the intrinsic properties of the membrane. Furthermore, the changes in permeability induced by the post-treatment were evaluated via the measurement of water flux, NaCl rejection, and molecular weight cutoff (MWCO) under different pH conditions and post-treatment times. Major changes induced by the post-treatment in terms of physicochemical properties were the enhancement of …

Roadmap On Photonic, Electronic And Atomic Collision Physics: Ii. Electron And Antimatter Interactions, Stefan Schippers, Emma Sokell, Friedrich Aumayr, Hossein Sadeghpour, Kiyoshi Ueda, Igor Bray, Klaus Bartschat, Andrew Murray, Jonathan Tennyson, Alexander Dorn, Masakazu Yamazaki, Masahiko Takahashi, Nigel Mason, Oldřich Novotný, Andreas Wolf, Leon Sanche, Martin Centurion, Yasunori Yamazaki, Gaetana Laricchia, Clifford M. Surko, James Sullivan, Gleb Gribakin, Daniel Wolf Savin, Yuri Ralchenko, Ronnie Hoekstra, Gerry O'Sullivan

Martin Centurion Publications

We publish three Roadmaps on photonic, electronic and atomic collision physics in order to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the ICPEAC conference. In Roadmap II we focus on electron and antimatter interactions. Modern theoretical and experimental approaches provide detailed insight into the many body quantum dynamics of leptonic collisions with targets of varying complexity ranging from neutral and charged atoms to large biomolecules and clusters. These developments have been driven by technological progress and by the needs of adjacent areas of science such as astrophysics, plasma physics and radiation biophysics. This Roadmap aims at looking back along the road, explaining …

Computer Simulations Of Amphiphile Based Hybrid Nanostructures, Hari Sharma

Doctoral Dissertations

Archival abstract submitted

The Eye Of The Larval Firefly Photuris: A Structural And Functional Description, Fred Murphy

Doctoral Dissertations

Fireflies are bioluminescent beetles and members of the holometabolous clade. As holometabola, fireflies interact with their environment during two stages: larva and adult. I studied firefly stemmata, Photuris genus, with the aim of understanding their ecological utility by identifying structural and functional features of the eye. As a first step toward this goal, I used microscopy to characterize the architecture of firefly stemmata. I concluded that Photuris eyes were a type of fusion-stemmata, evidenced by a bi-lobed organization. Each eye contained 88 photoreceptors that contributed dense interlocking-microvilli forming a fused-rhabdom. In the next section, I tested whether stemmata regulated photo-dependent …

Three Essays On Emerging Issues In Healthcare Management, Yucheng Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

The healthcare industry is growing fast and its services have an intense effect in human lives, thus providing the need and opportunity for improvement by using operations and information management methodologies. In this dissertation, we research three emerging issues regarding the healthcare industry. First, we consider the economics of precision medicine (PM) treatments. PM is a surging healthcare field consisting of a set of high-cost complex medical procedures that provide targeted treatments according to the individual characteristics of each patient. We develop a cost-benefit decision model of a patient undergoing PM treatments to assess learning curve effects in cost reduction …

Agronomic Management Of Flooded Soybean In Mississippi Delta, William Lassiter

Theses and Dissertations

Flooding is a major obstacle for soybean production in the Mississippi Delta. One management practice that soybean producers use to mitigate the effects of flooding is planting soybean on raised beds. Another potential management practice that could be employed in the Mississippi Delta is the use of flood tolerant soybean cultivars. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of raised beds for flooding management and compare the tolerance of six soybean cultivars under flooded conditions at multiple growth stages and flood durations. Field studies were established during the 2017 and 2018 growing seasons at the Mississippi …

Alternative Therapeutic Mechanisms Of Novel Phenoxyalkyl Pyridinium Oximes To Treat Organophosphorus Compounds, Royce Harrison Nichols

Theses and Dissertations

Organophosphates (OPs), such as nerve agents and insecticides, potently inhibit acetylcholinesterase (AChE). Oximes, such as the currently FDA approved oxime 2-PAM, remove the OP from the inhibited enzyme. 2-PAM is effective against select OPs and cannot effectively pass the blood-brain barrier to attenuate OP induced CNS damage. Our laboratory has synthesized a series of substituted phenoxyalkyl pyridinium oximes (Patent number: 9,227,937) that have demonstrated increased survival rates compared to 2-PAM. This research investigated 1) in vitro oxime reactivation of rat, human, and guinea pig serum BChE after inhibition by nerve agent and insecticidal OPs; 2) in vitro determination of reactivation …

A Single-Nuclei Rna Sequencing Study Of Mendelian And Sporadic Ad In The Human Brain, Jorge L Del-Aguila, Zeran Li, Umber Dube, Kathie A Mihindukulasuriya, John P Budde, Maria Victoria Fernandez, Laura Ibanez, Joseph Bradley, Fengxian Wang, Kristy Bergmann, Richard Davenport, John C Morris, David M Holtzman, Richard J Perrin, Bruno A Benitez, Joseph Dougherty, Carlos Cruchaga, Oscar Harari

Open Access Publications

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. This neurodegenerative disorder is associated with neuronal death and gliosis heavily impacting the cerebral cortex. AD has a substantial but heterogeneous genetic component, presenting both Mendelian and complex genetic architectures. Using bulk RNA-seq from the parietal lobes and deconvolution methods, we previously reported that brains exhibiting different AD genetic architecture exhibit different cellular proportions. Here, we sought to directly investigate AD brain changes in cell proportion and gene expression using single-cell resolution.

METHODS: We generated unsorted single-nuclei RNA sequencing data from brain tissue. We leveraged the tissue donated from …

Development Of A Raman Spectroscopic Method To Detect Protein Conformation In Amorphous Solids: Application To Protein Formulation And Stability, Lauren Kathleen Fontana

Doctoral Dissertations

Therapeutic proteins are freeze-dried to improve storage stability. However, any changes in conformation of the protein molecule induced by stresses encountered during freeze-drying can influence the storage stability. Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) is very useful for monitoring secondary structural changes in protein solid state, but is much less sensitive to smaller tertiary structural changes associated with tryptophan, tyrosine and phenylalanine residues, that may be more predictive of stability. The aim of the present study was development and evaluation of a solid-state Raman spectroscopic method capable of detecting both tertiary and secondary structural solid-state changes in the spectral region from …

Investigation Of Antimicrobial Activity And Metabolic Genes In Bacterial Symbionts Associated With The Female Reproductive System Of The Hawaiian Bobtail Squid, Euprymna Scolopes, Andrea Suria

Doctoral Dissertations

The Hawaiian bobtail squid, Euprymna scolopes, maintains a diverse bacterial consortium in epithelium lined tubules in a female reproductive organ, the accessory nidamental gland (ANG). During egg laying, bacteria from the ANG are deposited into a jelly coat (JC) that surrounds the yolk sac. The ANG/JC communities are composed of Alphaproteobacteria, Verrucomicrobia, Flavobacteriia, and Gammaproteobacteria. Removing or altering the JC bacterial community leaves eggs vulnerable to biofouling and infections. To understand the metabolism of this community and look for potential mechanisms of egg defense, the antimicrobial activity of ANG/JC symbionts was tested, 4 ANG metagenomes …

Conservation, Acquisition, And Maturation Of Gut And Bladder Symbioses In Hirudo Verbana, Emily Ann Mcclure

Doctoral Dissertations

The medicinal leech is a developing experimental model of gut symbioses. Aeromonas veronii and Mucinivorans hirudinis are core members of the gut microbial community in Hirudo verbana and may aid the leech in digesting the blood meal, preserving the blood meal, and keeping invading bacteria from colonizing the gut. The bladders of H. verbana contain an entirely different microbial consortium. The scientific interest in this symbiosis is currently due to its simple nature and the extreme dietary habits of the leech. In order to increase the usefulness of this model, a more sophisticated understanding of processes by which the microbiome …

Is One Man’S Trash An Oyster’S Treasure?, John Carroll

Sustainability Showcase (2014-2022)

Dr. John Carroll, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology ($17,384.00 )

Investigation of whether new building construction and remodeling debris waste might be a suitable substrate for oyster recruitments, and if so, this will present a new avenue for recycling construction debris from campus.

Propolis Modulates Inflammatory Mediators And Improves Histopathology In Male Rats With L-Arginine-Induced Acute Pancreatitis, Mohammed T. Al-Hariri, Tharwat G. Eldin, Tarek Chathoth, Shahanas, Abdullah Alswied

Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal

Objectives: This study aimed to determine the effects of propolis on immune mediators and tissue histopathology in rats with L-arginine-induced acute pancreatitis (AP). Methods: This study was conducted at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Dammam, Saudia Arabia between September and November 2017. A total of 24 male albino Wistar rats were divided into three equal groups. Group one was the negative control, group two was the positive control (L-arginine-induced AP) and group three received treatment (L-arginineinduced AP and propolis). The rats in group three were treated with 100 mg/kg propolis for seven days after AP induction. Pancreatic tissue was evaluated …

A Cerebellar High-Grade Neuroepithelial Tumour With Bcor Alteration In A Five-Year-Old Child: A Case Report, Abeer Al-Battashi, Zahra Al Hajri, Arie Al-Kindi, Hunaina, Ibrahim Al-Ghaithi

Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal

New groups of high-grade neuroepithelial tumours (HGNET) have emerged from the reclassification of central nervous system (CNS) embryonal tumours that have recognised CNS HGNET with BCOR alteration (CNS HGNET-BCOR). We report a two-year, nine-month-old Omani boy who presented to the Royal Hospital, Muscat, Oman, in 2015 with subacute head tilting and neck pain. A well-defined cerebellar lesion was found and he was treated with standard chemoradiotherapy. After a relapse at the age of five years, molecular testing revealed a BCOR alteration. He was treated with further surgery and high-dose chemotherapy; unfortunately, he relapsed and died three years after he was …

Characterization Of The Fungicidal Activity And Biochemical Impact Of Occidiofungin, A Novel Antifungal Compound Derived From Burkholderia Contaminans, Dayna Emrick

Theses and Dissertations

Fungal infections have a significant impact on the world population, with estimates of over 1.6 million deaths a year. One contributing factor is the increasing number of fungi resistant to the current clinical treatments, including the last approved family of antifungal compounds introduced into the market over a decade ago. This is driving the search for new antifungals with different biological targets. A new potential antifungal occidiofungin, is a cyclic glycolipopeptide isolated from the soil bacterium Burkholderia contaminans MS14 with a broad spectrum of activity against both human and plant pathogens. Kill kinetics demonstrated that this compound is fungicidal and …

Transit Amplifying Cells Coordinate Mouse Incisor Mesenchymal Stem Cell Activation, Jemma Victoria Walker, Heng Zhuang, Donald Singer, Charlotte Sara Illsley, Wai Ling Kok, Kishor K. Sivaraj, Yan Gao, Chloe Bolton, Y Liu, Mengyuan Zhao, Portia Rebecca Clare Grayson, Shuang Wang, Jana Karbanová, Tim Lee, Stefano Ardu, Qingguo Lai, J Liu, Moustapha Kassem, Shuo Chen, Kai Yang, Yuxing Bai, Christopher Tredwin, Alexander C. Zambon, Denis Corbeil, Ralf Adams, Basem M. Abdallah, Bing Hu

Peninsula Dental School

No abstract provided.

Charged Nanoparticles Quench The Propulsion Of Active Janus Colloids, Marola W. Issa, Christopher L. Wirth

Faculty Scholarship

Active colloidal particles regularly interact with surfaces in applications ranging from microfluidics to sensing. Recent work has revealed the complex nature of these surface interactions for active particles. Herein, we summarize experiments and simulations that show the impact of charged nanoparticles on the propulsion of an active colloid near a boundary. Adding charged nanoparticles not only decreased the average separation distance of a passive colloid because of depletion attraction as expected but also decreased the apparent propulsion of a Janus colloid to near zero. Complementary agent-based simulations considering the impact of hydrodynamics for active Janus colloids were conducted in the …