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A Framework For Advancing Our Understanding Of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts, Erik Sahai, David G. Denardo, Sheila Stewart, Et Al.

Open Access Publications

No abstract provided.

Biological And Computational Studies Of The Structure And Function Of Pul103, A Human Cytomegalovirus Tegument Protein, Ashley N. Anderson

Wayne State University Dissertations

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is an enveloped, single segment, double-stranded DNA virus. HCMV infection causes disease in immunocompromised (HIV patients, transplant recipients) and immunodeficient (fetuses, neonates) populations. Current treatments are effective but are either limited in use or can lead to organ damage and/or antiviral resistance, and no vaccines are available. Additional antiviral targets are needed. HCMV pUL103 is a potential antiviral target. pUL103 is a conserved herpesvirus protein present in the tegument, layer of proteins and RNA between the envelope and capsid of HCMV virions. pUL103 helps reorganize cellular secretory machinery (Golgi, endosomes) to form the cytoplasmic virion assembly compartment …

Heparan Sulfate. A Ligand For Coordination Compounds., Eric Ginsburg

Theses and Dissertations

Heparan sulfate (HS), a type of glycosaminoglycan (GAG), has been identified as a ligand for interactions with polynuclear platinum complexes (PPCs). HS is involved in numerous biological processes, and often considered to be extracellular DNA. PPCs interact with HS through the formation of a “sulfate clamp”, where multiple anionic sulfate groups cluster around the cationic PPC. The masking of HS results in the inhibition of enzymatic activity, protein-HS interactions, and other biological processes. PPCs use HS proteoglycans as an method of cellular internalization. By targeting sulfated-GAGs, PPCs can offer precision medicine not currently observed with the FDA approved platinum therapies. …

Attitudes Toward The Hpv Vaccine Among University Students: Identifying Barriers To Vaccine Uptake, Kristina L. Harbaugh

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Background: In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 32,000 cancers occur annually that can be directly attributable to the acquisition of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). Gender specificity data posits that 21,000 of the annual cancer cases are female and the remaining 11,000 cases occur among males. However, because the implementation and trajectory of HPV vaccination and prevention programs have been historically aimed toward women, vaccination rates for men remain significantly lower. The purpose of this study was to assess gender differences in knowledge attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control about HPV …

The Effect Of Laser Power On Mechanical And Physical Properties Of Ti-6al-4v Eli Fabricated By Selective Laser Melting, Pajaree Termrungruanglert

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This study aimed to examine the differences in mechanical and physical properties of Ti-6Al-4V extra low interstitial (ELI) fabricated by selective laser melting (SLM) between different laser power. The Ti-6Al-4V ELI alloy samples were printed in dumbbell shape by SLM machine (Trumpf/TruPrint 1000, Germany) with 3 laser powers (75, 100 and 125 W), 8 samples for each group. And the other parameters (spot size 30 µm, scanning speed 600 mm/s, layer thickness 30 µm) were kept constantly. All samples were performed under tensile test with universal testing machine. Moreover, The microhardness test was performed. All data were statistically analyzed with …

Controlled Release Of Fibroin Repeat-Tagged Proteins From Silk Hydrogel, Jaturong Promsuk

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Protein-based biologic drugs such as growth factors are playing important roles in modern medicine. These proteins can be used to stimulate local tissue repair. Growth factors are often incorporated into a scaffold, such as a hydrogel, and then put into the desired area of the body to achieve therapeutic effects. However, diffusion of these growth factors outside of the designated area or inappropriate release time can have deleterious consequences, such as inducing tumors in other areas of the body or uncontrolled inflammation. Therefore, this project aims to create a model to study diffusion of protein from hydrogel by using green …

Synthesis And Encapsulation Of 1,3,5-Triazine Derivatives As Anticancer Agent, Monnaya Chalermnon

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The 1,3,5-triazine scaffold is known for its versatile biological activities especially as an anticancer agent, but a limitation of 1,3,5-triazine is the ability to reach cancer cells thus affecting its anticancer potency. In this work, the anticancer activity of twelve 1,3,5-triazine derivatives was evaluated against two colon cancer cell lines along with an investigation of a drug delivery system (DDS) using calcium citrate nanoparticles (CaCit NPs). Results from the biological evaluation showed that there was a variation in the anticancer activity of 1,3,5-triazine derivatives which some of them exhibited comparable activity to the reference drug cisplatin. Compound 2a and 3d …

Hydromorphological Changes Of Chi River, Mueang District, Khon Kaen Province, Pawat Wattanachareekul

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This thesis focuses on the analysis of hydrology coupled with geomorphology for river management such as flood mitigation and river restoration. Morphological Quality Index (MQI) is used for assessing hydro-morphological conditions from part of the Chi River (67 km long) at Khon Kaen province, a major river in north-eastern Thailand. This study area has been suffering from unexpected and repeated flooding. MQI is applied to evaluate the degree of hydro-morphological alteration in terms of relative scores (from 0 to 1). Basically, in case that MQI score equals 1, it means the area has no any alteration. On the other hand, …

Pharmacokinetic And Metabolomic Studies Of Standardized Extract Of Centella Asiatica (Eca 233) Capsule In Thai Healthy Volunteers, Phanit Songvut

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

A well-characterized standardized extract of Centella asiatica (ECa 233) being developed as a phytopharmaceutical product for human use was explored in this clinical study. The first objective of this research was to understand changes in disposition kinetics after oral administration of both the original-formula capsule and a newly-modified enhanced-dissolution capsule of ECa 233. Secondly, this study aimed to investigate alteration of human metabolomes following administration of the modified capsule of ECa 233, using an NMR-based metabolomics approach. For pharmacokinetics, the study involved a phase I clinical trial in twelve healthy Thai volunteers, who each received 250 and 500 mg of …

The Poisson Topp Leone Generator Of Distributions For Lifetime Data: Theory, Characterizations And Applications, Faton Merovci, Haitham M. Yousof, Gholamhossein Hamedani

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

We study a new family of distributions defined by the minimum of the Poisson random number of independent identically distributed random variables having a Topp Leone-G distribution (see Rezaei et al., (2016)). Some mathematical properties of the new family including ordinary and incomplete moments, quantile and generating functions, mean deviations, order statistics, reliability and entropies are derived. Maximum likelihood estimation of the model parameters is investigated. Some special models of the new family are discussed. An application is carried out on real data set applications sets to show the potentiality of the proposed family.

Network-Based Analytics For Discovering Gene Modules And Biomarkers In Complex Diseases, Zongliang Yue

All ETDs from UAB

With rapidly increasing novel discoveries of associations between genomic data and complex disease phenotypes, the translation of those associations into knowledge and the identification of critical molecular mechanisms are essential to guild clinical decisions such as the diagnosis of symptomatic individuals, the prediction of disease risk, reproductive genetic counseling, and determining pharmacogenetic profiles for treatment. To decipher the genome of complex diseases, gene-centric analyses focus on detecting molecular mechanisms lead by driver genetics variants, abnormally expressed genes and high-abundance proteins through gene module construction. Additionally, the gene module construction approaches implement systems biology analysis to reveal the causative co-expressed gene …

Novel Hiv Adaptation Strategy Against Host Cd8 T Cell Immunity, Kai Qin

All ETDs from UAB

Since the 1980s, HIV infection has caused millions of death and tremendous economic losses worldwide. Despite great scientific advances, the only effective therapy to date, antiretroviral therapy (ART), merely delays disease progression yet cannot eradicate viral infection. Therefore, an effective HIV vaccine that can prevent the acquisition of infection would be a desirable alternative. The critical role of CD8 T-cell immunity in HIV infection has been well documented and therefore not surprisingly a great deal of effort has been focused on developing an effective CD8 T-cell based HIV vaccine. However, by far, such CD8 T-cell based HIV vaccine trials have …

Application Of A Brain-Inspired Spiking Neural Network Architecture To Odor Data Classification, Anup Vanarse, Josafath Israel Espinosa-Ramos, Adam Osseiran, Alexander Rassau, Nikola Kasabov

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Existing methods in neuromorphic olfaction mainly focus on implementing the data transformation based on the neurobiological architecture of the olfactory pathway. While the transformation is pivotal for the sparse spike-based representation of odor data, classification techniques based on the bio-computations of the higher brain areas, which process the spiking data for identification of odor, remain largely unexplored. This paper argues that brain-inspired spiking neural networks constitute a promising approach for the next generation of machine intelligence for odor data processing. Inspired by principles of brain information processing, here we propose the first spiking neural network method and associated deep machine …

Age At Diagnosis And Lung Cancer Presentation, Marida Gingras

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States because of its lack of symptoms until late stages. It is noted that a 5-year relative survival rate can be improved by earlier cancer detection. The currently recommended age of screening by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force may not be optimal, and the recommendations are only for smokers. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine the association between the stages of presentation of lung cancer and age at diagnosis using quantitative research. Using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER-18) database, 63,107 records were …

Route Exploration And Synthesis Of The Reported Pyridone-Based Pdi Inhibitor Stk076545, Eric Greve, Sergey V. Lindeman, Christina Scartelli, Lin Lin, Robert Flaumenhaft, Chris Dockendorff

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

The enzyme protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) is essential for the correct folding of proteins and the activation of certain cell surface receptors, and is a promising target for the treatment of cancer and thrombotic conditions. A previous high-throughput screen identified the commercial compound STK076545 as a promising PDI inhibitor. To confirm its activity and support further biological studies, a resynthesis was pursued of the reported β-keto-amide with an N-alkylated pyridone at the α-position. Numerous conventional approaches were complicated by undesired fragmentations or rearrangements. However, a successful 5-step synthetic route was achieved using an aldol reaction with an α-pyridone allyl …

Arsenic Speciation And Its Dna Fractionation In The Rice Plant Oryza Sativa, Me Foulkes, Ba Sadee, Sj Hill

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

The transport of arsenic from soil through to edible crop is important when assessing the potential health risks from a food source.

Isolation And Semi-Synthesis Of Marine Diterpenoids, Paul D. Scesa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Natural products play a historical role in the discovery of medicine but present unique challenges for chemical isolation, identification and production. In this work we describe the identification of twenty novel diterpenoids. These were isolated by use of chromatography, and the structures determined by spectroscopic methods, primarily 1D and 2D NMR. Six of these possess unprecedented diterpenoid skeletons and two of them show significant growth inhibitory effects on cancer cell lines in vitro (GI50 < 10 μM). The biomimetic semisynthesis of diterpendoids and analogues is also presented. Access to the bielschowskyane carbon skeleton by dearomatization of a furanocembranoid precursor is described. Highlights include a stereoselective alkene epoxidation, a novel kinetic furan dearomatization method, and an efficient [2+2] photochemical cycloaddition. The role of conformational steering was studied spectroscopically using VT 1H-NMR and NOESY as well as quantum chemical calculations at the DFT level of theory. We also disclose a biomimetic synthesis of providencin using a photochemical Norrish-Yang cyclization. This provided the absolute configuration by chemical correlation with the precursor bipinnatin E, the latter determined by x-ray diffraction. An unexpected, regioisomeric byproduct was observed and a possible mechanism is proposed. A biomimetic synthesis of the diterpene alkaloid aceropterine is also described, using an epoxidation-rearrangement cascade. This work led to a revised structure of aceropterine, formulated by spectroscopic methods. Finally, the isolation and structure elucidation of a novel, cyclic lipopeptide from Pseudomonas sp. is described. The compound was obtained using a unique antibiotic crowd sourcing approach and the structure determined by spectroscopic methods and advanced Marfey’s analysis.

Heterogeneous Multi-Layered Network Model For Omics Data Integration And Analysis, Bohyun Lee, Shuo Zhang, Aleksandar Poleksic, Lei Xie

Faculty Work

Advances in next-generation sequencing and high-throughput techniques have enabled the generation of vast amounts of diverse omics data. These big data provide an unprecedented opportunity in biology, but impose great challenges in data integration, data mining, and knowledge discovery due to the complexity, heterogeneity, dynamics, uncertainty, and high-dimensionality inherited in the omics data. Network has been widely used to represent relations between entities in biological system, such as protein-protein interaction, gene regulation, and brain connectivity (i.e. network construction) as well as to infer novel relations given a reconstructed network (aka link prediction). Particularly, heterogeneous multi-layered network (HMLN) has proven successful …

Improved Hydrologic Modeling For Characterizing Variable Contributing Areas And Threshold-Controlled Overland Flow In Depression-Dominated Areas, Lan Zeng

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Surface depressions are important topographic features, which affect overland flow, infiltration, and other hydrologic processes. Specifically, depressions undergo filling-spilling-merging-splitting processes under natural rainfall conditions, featuring discontinuity in hydrologic connectivity and variability in contributing area. However, a constant and time-invariant contributing area is often assumed in traditional hydrologic modeling, and consequently, the real threshold-controlled overland flow dynamics cannot be captured. The overall goal of this dissertation research is to improve hydrologic modeling, especially for depression-dominated areas, by quantifying the hydrologic effects of depressions. The specific objectives are to analyze the hydrotopographic characteristics of depressions and identify the intrinsic relationships of hydrologic …

Customer And Employee Social Media Comments/Feedback And Stock Purchasing Decisions Enhanced By Sentiment Analysis, Drew Mikel Hall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warns professional investors that sentiment analysis tools may lead to impulsive investment decision-making. This warning comes despite evidence showing that aided social sentiment investment decision tools can increase accurate investment decision-making by 18%. Using Fama's theory of efficient market hypothesis, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to examine whether customer Twitter comments and employee Glassdoor feedback sentiment predicted successful investing decisions measured by business stock prices. Two thousand records from 3 archival U.S. public NASDAQ 100 datasets from March 28, 2016, to June 15, 2016 (79 days) of 53 companies with …

Effects Of Dietary Guar Meal With Or Without Beta-Mannanase On Performance And Eggquality Traits In Laying Hens, Süleyman Çalişlar

Turkish Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences

In this study, the effects of beta-mannanase supplementation to laying hens? diets with different guar meal (GM) ratios on performance and egg quality traits were investigated. The experimental period lasted 126 days. Ninety-six Lohman Brown hens at the age of 56 weeks were kept in individual cages. They were divided into 8 treatment groups as follows: 0% guar meal (GM0) (control); 0% GM + 0.05% beta-mannanase (GM0E); 8% GM (GM8); 8% GM + 0.05% beta-mannanase (GM8E); 16% GM (GM16); 16% GM + 0.05% beta-mannanase (GM16E); 24% GM (GM24); and 24% GM + 0.05% beta-mannanase (GM24E). A photoperiod of 16.5 h …

Mechanics Of Surface Instabilities Of Soft Nanofibers And Nonlinear Contacts Of Hydrogels, Mojtaba Ahmadi

Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics

The research of this dissertation is formulated in two fields, i.e., the theoretical and computational studies of circumferential wrinkling on soft nanofibers and the swelling mechanics study of a bi-layered spherical hydrogel containing a hard core. Continuous polymer nanofibers have been massively produced by means of the low-cost, top-down electrospinning technique. As a unique surface instability phenomenon, surface wrinkling in circumferential direction is commonly observed on soft nanofibers in electrospinning. In this study, a theoretical continuum mechanics model is developed to explore the mechanisms of circumferential wrinkling on soft nanofibers under uniaxial stretching. The model is able to examine the …

Non-Uniformity Of Projection Distributions Attenuates Resolution In Cryo-Em, Philip R Baldwin, Dmitry Lyumkis

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Virtually all single-particle cryo-EM experiments currently suffer from specimen adherence to the air-water interface, leading to a non-uniform distribution in the set of projection views. Whereas it is well accepted that uniform projection distributions can lead to high-resolution reconstructions, non-uniform (anisotropic) distributions can negatively affect map quality, elongate structural features, and in some cases, prohibit interpretation altogether. Although some consequences of non-uniform sampling have been described qualitatively, we know little about how sampling quantitatively affects resolution in cryo-EM. Here, we show how inhomogeneity in any projection distribution scheme attenuates the global Fourier Shell Correlation (FSC) in relation to the number …

Viral-Immune Cell Interactions At The Maternal-Fetal Interface In Human Pregnancy, Elaine L Parker, Rachel B Silverstein, Sonam Verma, Indira U Mysorekar

Open Access Publications

The human decidua and placenta form a distinct environment distinguished for its promotion of immunotolerance to infiltrating semiallogeneic trophoblast cells to enable successful pregnancy. The maternal-fetal interface also successfully precludes transmission of most pathogens. This barrier function occurs in conjunction with a diverse influx of decidual immune cells including natural killer cells, macrophages and T cells. However, several viruses, among other microorganisms, manage to escape destruction by the host adaptive and innate immune system, leading to congenital infection and adverse pregnancy outcomes. In this review, we describe mechanisms of pathogenicity of two such viral pathogens, Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and Zika …

Sensitivity Analysis Of Monte Carlo Model Of A Gantry-Mounted Passively Scattered Proton System, Milad Baradaran-Ghahfarokhi, Francisco Reynoso, Michael T Prusator, Baozhou Sun, Tianyu Zhao

Open Access Publications

PURPOSE: This study aimed to present guidance on the correlation between treatment nozzle and proton source parameters, and dose distribution of a passive double scattering compact proton therapy unit, known as Mevion S250.

METHODS: All 24 beam options were modeled using the MCNPX MC code. The calculated physical dose for pristine peak, profiles, and spread out Bragg peak (SOBP) were benchmarked with the measured data. Track-averaged LET (LET

RESULTS: For the physical dose distribution, the MCNPX MC model matched measurements data for all the options to within 2 mm and 2% criterion. The Mevion S250 was found to have a …

Postural Directionality And Head Tremor In Cervical Dystonia, Qiyu Chen, Jeanne P Vu, Elizabeth Cisneros, Casey N Benadof, Zheng Zhang, Richard L Barbano, Christopher G Goetz, Joseph Jankovic, Hyder A Jinnah, Joel S Perlmutter, Mark I Appelbaum, Glenn T Stebbins, Cynthia L Comella, David A Peterson

Open Access Publications

Background: Although abnormal head and neck postures are defining features of cervical dystonia (CD), head tremor (HT) is also common. However, little is known about the relationship between abnormal postures and HT in CD.

Methods: We analyzed clinical data and video recordings from 185 patients enrolled by the Dystonia Coalition. We calculated the likelihood of their HT and HT type ("regular" vs. "jerky") given directionality of abnormal head postures, disease duration, sex, and age.

Results: Patients with retrocollis were more likely to have HT than patients with anterocollis (X

Discussion: We found that HT is more likely for CD patients …

The Marshall-Olkin Exponentiated Generalized G Family Of Distributions: Properties, Applications, And Characterizations, Haitham M. Yousof, Mahdi Rasekhi, Morad Alizadeh, Gholamhossein Hamedani

Mathematical and Statistical Science Faculty Research and Publications

In this paper, we propose and study a new class of continuous distributions called the Marshall-Olkin exponentiated generalized G (MOEG-G) family which extends the Marshall-Olkin-G family introduced by Marshall and Olkin [A. W. Marshall, I. Olkin, Biometrika 84 (1997), 641-652]. Some of its mathematical properties including explicit expressions for the ordinary and incomplete moments, generating function, order statistics and probability weighted moments are derived. Some characteristics of the new family are presented. Maximum likelihood estimation for the model parameters under uncensored and censored data is addressed in Section 5 as well as a simulation study to assess the performance of …

Comparative Morphological Analysis Of Diploid And Triploid Oysters, Crassostrea Gigas,Farmed In The Black Sea, Oksana Yurievna Vialova

Turkish Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences

Triploid organisms, in particular oysters, are widely used in marine aquaculture. However, the advantage of triploid oysters compared to diploids has not been proven in all cases. Comparative morphological analysis of Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas of different ploidy levels allows evaluating the benefits of raising triploids in the Black Sea. First, the morphological characteristics of diploid and triploid Pacific oysters C. gigas farmed in the Black Sea were studied. Allometric ratios of weight (W, g) and shell height (H, mm) of oysters were obtained, which are described by the equations W$_{2n}$ = 4 × 10$^{-4}$ × H$_{2n}$ $^{2.56}$, R2 = …

Development Of An Integrated Microfluidic System For Cell Sorting And Trapping—Considering Sorting Efficacy And Cell Viability, Thammawit Suwannaphan

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This study is divided into two phases. The first phase is about the investigation of cell viability and damage of white blood cells after sorting in both a spiral microchannel and contraction and expansion array (CEA) at appropriate flow rates for cell separation. Three techniques such as Trypan Blue staining, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Wright-Giemsa staining are employed in the experiments. After flowing the sample through a whole setup of spiral microchannel at 2 ml/min, 85% of cells are viable while 30% of cells are significantly deformed and 2% of cells are seriously damaged in their intracellular structures. In …

Gulls As Sources Of Environmental Contamination By Colistin-Resistant Bacteria, Alan B. Franklin, Andrew M. Ramey, Kevin T. Bentler, Nicole L. Barrett, Loredana M. Mccurdy, Christina A. Ahlstrom, Jonas Bonnedahl, Susan A. Shriner, Jeffrey C. Chandler

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

In 2015, the mcr-1 gene was discovered in Escherichia coli in domestic swine in China that conferred resistance to colistin, an antibiotic of last resort used in treating multi-drug resistant bacterial infections in humans. Since then, mcr-1 was found in other human and animal populations, including wild gulls. Because gulls could disseminate the mcr-1 gene, we conducted an experiment to assess whether gulls are readily colonized with mcr-1 positive E. coli, their shedding patterns, transmission among conspecifics, and environmental deposition. Shedding of mcr-1 E. coli by small gull flocks followed a lognormal curve and gulls shed one strain >101 …