Digital Commons Network^™

Using Machine Learning And Text Mining Algorithms To Facilitate Research Discovery Of Plant Food Metabolomics And Its Application For Human Health Benefit Targets, Jithin Jose Mathew

Genomics and Bioinformatics

With the increase in scholarly articles published every day, the need for an automated systematic exploratory literature review tool is rising. With the advance in Text Mining and Machine Learning methods, such data exploratory tools are researched and developed in every scientific domain. This research aims at finding the best keyphrase extraction algorithm and topic modeling algorithm that is going to be the foundation and main component of a tool that will aid in Systematic Literature Review. Based on experimentation on a set of highly relevant scholarly articles published in the domain of food science, two graph-based keyphrase extraction algorithms, …

A Five-Sample Confirmatory Factor Analytic Study Of Burnout-Depression Overlap, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Jay Verkuilen

Publications and Research

Objective: It has been asserted that burnout—a condition ascribed to unresolvable job stress—should not be mistaken for a depressive syndrome. In this confirmatory factor analytic study, the validity of this assertion was examined.

Methods: Five samples of employed individuals, recruited in Switzerland and France, were mobilized for this study (N = 3,113). Burnout symptoms were assessed with the Shirom–Melamed Burnout Measure, the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)—General Survey, and the MBI for Educators. Depressive symptoms were measured with the PHQ‐9.

Results: In all five samples, the latent factors pertaining to burnout’s components correlated on average more highly with the latent Depression …

Parental Knowledge And Other Factors Associated With Infants' Exposure To Screens, Shea Lammers

Human Development and Family Science

Excessive screen time in children is linked to reduced white matter integrity and developmental delays such as reduced vocabulary. Nevertheless, many parents allow their infants and toddlers to have access to screen devices. The current study examined mothers’ awareness of the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations, parenting information sources utilized, and motivational and contextual factors associated with screen time exposure in mothers who had a child under the age of two. Results indicated that over 60% of mothers were aware of the recommendations, usually citing educational benefits as their rationale for infant screen time use. Most mothers reported they receive …

Experimental Study Of The Temperature Profile Of A Gaussian Type Heat Distribution, Sunny Prashant Mare

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In research aimed at studying the laser microwelding of thermoplastic materials, two theoretical heat flow models were studied by Dr. Grewell. In the surface temperature profile based on the Gaussian type distributed heat source model, two peak temperatures were predicted. The purpose of the current project was to develop a controlled test environment to study the surface temperature profile of a thermoplastic material using a Gaussian type heat source and to validate the prediction of the inflection point in the plastic sample. One of the key results of the initial experimentation was the lack of a Gaussian distribution of the …

Improving Low Health Literacy In Poststroke Patients By Educating The Health Care Staff, Marthilde Brzycki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Lack of health literacy in the poststroke patient population is a serious issue; with the addition of the homeless population to that group, the result may be devastating. According to the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association (AHA/ASA, 2016), stroke is considered the primary cause of death and one of the chief reasons for disability in the United States, and nearly75% of strokes occur in those who are 65 years of age or older. Nurse practitioners are vital, providing necessary training and stroke education to the nursing and other health care staff. This DNP project was initiated to …

Reducing Gaps In Knowledge About Electroconvulsive Therapy Among Mental Health Nurses, Janice L. Edmonson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This DNP study was conducted to identify knowledge gaps about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) among mental health nurses and to determine the effectiveness of an educational intervention on the knowledge and attitude of mental health nurses about the use of ECT at a psychiatric hospital. In this study, the researcher sought to build upon an existing knowledge base using principles of adult learning theory to enhance the therapeutic relationship of the nursing staff when caring for ECT patients. A sample of three-quarters (N = 119) of the mental health nursing staff employed by the psychiatric hospital consented to participate in …

The International Human Right To Adequate Housing:An Economic Approach, Sahar Segal

Chicago Journal of International Law

International law recognizes a right to adequate housing. Affordability is one component of this right, and it is increasingly unrealized in highly concentrated cities in advanced economies. The prevailing approach to the right to adequate housing is the human rights approach, which favors government involvement in the market to reduce housing prices, for example, via rentcontrol regulations and policies that limit the use of housing as primarily an investment. This Comment notes that this approach misses the critical fact that governments are already involved in the housing market through the imposition of zoning laws. It suggests that an economic approach, …

When Is Cyber Defense A Crime? Evaluating Activecyber Defense Measures Under Thebudapest Convention, Alexandra Van Dine

Chicago Journal of International Law

As cyberattacks increase in frequency and intensity around the globe, private actors have turned to more innovative cyber defense strategies. For many, this involves considering the use of cutting-edge active cyber defense measures—that is, tactics beyond merely erecting firewalls and installing antivirus software that permit cyber defenders to detect and respond to threats in real time. The legality of such measures under international law is a subject of intense debate because of definitional uncertainty surrounding what qualifies as an “active” cyber defense measure. This Comment argues that active defense measures that do not rise to the level of a cybercrime …

Training, Equipping, And Deploying Teenagers For Preaching With A Prophetic Emphasis At The Plantation Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Iosif Salajan

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Teenagers were not integrated in the preaching ministry of the Plantation Seventh-day Adventist Church. Their involvement in the worship service revealed challenges in publicly expressing their faith and spiritual experience. The absence of training, equipping, and deploying teenagers for preaching ministry contributed to their low retention and their lack of representation in the leadership of the church.

Method

Between August 2018 and May 2019, under the coordination of the researcher, preaching mentors offered teenage mentees from the Plantation Seventh-day Adventist Church a complete learning cycle called sermonic process. It started with producing the sermon, continued with practicing the sermon …

Increasing Effectiveness And Efficiency Through A Collaborative Evangelism Strategy Within The Georgia-Cumberland Conference Of Seventh-Day Adventists, Victor Maddox

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

There were a number of organizations, ministries, and individuals throughout the Georgia-Cumberland Conference (GCC) territory engaged in various forms of evangelism which include health education, literature distribution, media presentations, community service, Bible instruction, etc. All had some level of success. Personal observations of these efforts revealed a redundancy in programing, uncoordinated planning, insufficient record-keeping, inadequate follow-up on interests generated, and failure to build upon the results of previous evangelistic meetings within the GCC.

Method

The goal was to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the evangelism process in the GCC through the coordination of evangelistic meetings between organizations, …

Identifying Risk For Hiv And Implementation Of Prep Amongst Primary Care Providers, Kayli Christine Gross

Nursing

The purpose of this project was to improve primary care provider knowledge, attitude and behaviors related to the current HIV-screening and PrEP implementation guidelines. Surveys were conducted among five primary care providers at a Midwest VA Healthcare System before and after an HIV and PrEP-related education. The surveys were anonymous, and participation was voluntary. Each participant received a survey by pen and paper to self-assess their HIV-screening and PrEP prescribing intention, comfort-level with HIV prevention practices, and knowledge before and after the presentation by using Likert scales, true/false, and correct answer recall questions. Of the eligible 11 providers in attendance …

Tissue-Engineered Nanoclay-Based Bone-Mimetic 3d In Vitro Testbed For Studying Breast Cancer Metastasis To Bone, Sumanta Kar

Materials and Nanotechnology

Breast cancer shows a high affinity towards the bone, causing bone-related complications leading to poor clinical prognosis. Approximately 80% of breast cancer patients die within five years after primary cancer has metastasized to the bones. The tumor stage strongly influences the survival rates of patients with breast cancer that has spread to bone at the time of diagnosis. There are currently no effective therapeutics available for bone metastases due to the failure of animal models and the scarcity of human bone metastasized samples, as most patients with advance stages of cancer are already in palliative care. Therefore, it is imperative …

Leveraging Technology To Blend Large-Scale Epidemiologic Surveillance With Social And Behavioral Science Methods: Successes, Challenges, And Lessons Learned Implementing The Unite Longitudinal Cohort Study Of Hiv Risk Factors Among Sexual Minority Men In The United States, H. Jonathon Rendina, Ali J. Talan, Nicola F. Tavella, Jonathan Lopez Matos, Ruben H. Jimenez, S. Scott Jones, Brian Salfas, Drew Westmoreland

Publications and Research

The use of digital technologies to conduct large-scale research with limited interaction (i.e., no in-person contact) and objective endpoints (i.e., biological testing) has significant potential for the field of epidemiology, but limited research to date has been published on the successes and challenges of such approaches. We analyzed data from a cohort study of sexual minority men across the United States, collected using digital strategies during a 10-month period from 2017 to 2018. Overall, 113,874 individuals were screened, of whom 26,000 were invited to the study, 10,691 joined the study, and 7,957 completed all enrollment steps, including return of a …

Double Inclusive Small-X Gluon Production And Their Azimuthal Correlations In A Biased Ensemble, Gary Kapilevich

Publications and Research

We consider double gg → g production in the presence of a bias on the unintegrated gluon distribution of the colliding hadrons or nuclei. Such bias could be due to the selection of configurations with a greater number of gluons or higher mean transverse momentum squared or, more generally, due to a modified spectral shape of the gluon distribution in the hadrons. Hence, we consider reweighted functional averages over the stochastic ensemble of small-x gluons. We evaluate explicitly the double inclusive gluon transverse momentum spectrum in high-energy collisions, and their azimuthal correlations, for a few simple examples of biases.

Resource Ecologies, Political Economies And The Ethics Of Audio Technologies In The Anthropocene, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Understanding how recorded and amplified stage musics contribute towards producing the Anthropocene necessitates attending to complex transnational flows of material, capital and labor, and how they coalesce into technological objects. This is complicated by the wide array of sites, practices and knowledges involved during various stages of the production process, from initial resource extraction, to smelting, component manufacturing, technology assembly, and distribution. To develop a suitable technological ethics, and to understand what happens to environments and to human, animal and plant lifeworlds, requires one to resist abstraction and undertake a global accounting of resource ecologies with recourse to planetary-scale political …

Biohackathon 2015: Semantics Of Data For Life Sciences And Reproducible Research., Rutger A Vos, Toshiaki Katayama, Hiroyuki Mishima, Shin Kawano, Shuichi Kawashima, Jin-Dong Kim, Yuki Moriya, Toshiaki Tokimatsu, Atsuko Yamaguchi, Yasunori Yamamoto, Hongyan Wu, Peter Amstutz, Erick Antezana, Nobuyuki P Aoki, Kazuharu Arakawa, Jerven T Bolleman, Evan Bolton, Raoul J P Bonnal, Hidemasa Bono, Kees Burger, Hirokazu Chiba, Kevin B Cohen, Eric W Deutsch, Jesualdo T Fernández-Breis, Gang Fu, Takatomo Fujisawa, Atsushi Fukushima, Alexander García, Naohisa Goto, Tudor Groza, Colin Hercus, Robert Hoehndorf, Kotone Itaya, Nick Juty, Takeshi Kawashima, Jee-Hyub Kim, Akira R Kinjo, Masaaki Kotera, Kouji Kozaki, Sadahiro Kumagai, Tatsuya Kushida, Thomas Lütteke, Masaaki Matsubara, Joe Miyamoto, Attayeb Mohsen, Hiroshi Mori, Yuki Naito, Takeru Nakazato, Jeremy Nguyen-Xuan, Kozo Nishida, Naoki Nishida, Hiroyo Nishide, Soichi Ogishima, Tazro Ohta, Shujiro Okuda, Benedict Paten, Jean-Luc Perret, Philip Prathipati, Pjotr Prins, Núria Queralt-Rosinach, Daisuke Shinmachi, Shinya Suzuki, Tsuyosi Tabata, Terue Takatsuki, Kieron Taylor, Mark Thompson, Ikuo Uchiyama, Bruno Vieira, Chih-Hsuan Wei, Mark Wilkinson, Issaku Yamada, Ryota Yamanaka, Kazutoshi Yoshitake, Akiyasu C Yoshizawa, Michel Dumontier, Kenjiro Kosaki, Toshihisa Takagi

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

We report on the activities of the 2015 edition of the BioHackathon, an annual event that brings together researchers and developers from around the world to develop tools and technologies that promote the reusability of biological data. We discuss issues surrounding the representation, publication, integration, mining and reuse of biological data and metadata across a wide range of biomedical data types of relevance for the life sciences, including chemistry, genotypes and phenotypes, orthology and phylogeny, proteomics, genomics, glycomics, and metabolomics. We describe our progress to address ongoing challenges to the reusability and reproducibility of research results, and identify outstanding issues …

Current Status And Future Prospects Of Genome-Scale Metabolic Modeling To Optimize The Use Of Mesenchymal Stem Cells In Regenerative Medicine., Þóra Sigmarsdóttir, Sarah Mcgarrity, Óttar Rolfsson, James T Yurkovich, Ólafur E Sigurjónsson

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Mesenchymal stem cells are a promising source for externally grown tissue replacements and patient-specific immunomodulatory treatments. This promise has not yet been fulfilled in part due to production scaling issues and the need to maintain the correct phenotype after re-implantation. One aspect of extracorporeal growth that may be manipulated to optimize cell growth and differentiation is metabolism. The metabolism of MSCs changes during and in response to differentiation and immunomodulatory changes. MSC metabolism may be linked to functional differences but how this occurs and influences MSC function remains unclear. Understanding how MSC metabolism relates to cell function is however important …

Skin Cancer Screening In Primary Care Using Dermoscopy, Erin Eliza Lubitz

Nursing

Skin cancer rates continue to rise affecting millions of individuals annually. While cutaneous malignant melanoma comprises a fraction of total skin cancers diagnosed, melanoma is associated with a poor prognosis and higher mortality rate when compared to other forms of skin cancer. The greatest risk factor for skin cancer is the amount of ultraviolet light exposure making skin cancer the most common preventable form of cancer. In conjunction with primary prevention, part of secondary prevention measures involves performing routine skin examinations. According to data from the National Health Interview Survey, only 8% of individuals who had seen a primary care …

Lung Cancer Screening: Identification Of High-Risk Patients And Shared Decision-Making, Teresa Dianna Formo

Nursing

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Prevention and early detection of lung cancer are imperative in decreasing lung cancer mortality. Screening for lung cancer with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) decreases lung cancer by 20%. Several organizations introduced lung cancer screening (LCS) guidelines in 2013, including Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) and the United States Preventive Services Task Force. However, LCS participation for eligible patients remains low, due in part to the complexity of the LCS process. The goal of this practice improvement project was to increase the knowledge of rural primary …

Implementation Of A Diabetes-Related Distress Scale In A Primary Care Clinic, Lisa Michelle Vaca

Nursing

Individuals with diabetes face many multifaceted issues when integrating their plan of care into their daily lives, which can become burdensome and lead to inadequate diabetes control. Due to the persistent demands of diabetes management, screening for psychosocial factors that can impact control, such as depression, anxiety, and diabetes-related distress (DRD) should occur routinely (American Diabetes Association [ADA], 2017). DRD is distinctly different from depression in that the focus is on the burden experienced due to the rigorous treatment regimen associated with diabetes. DRD focuses on the self-management demands, complications, comorbidities, and lack of perceived social support (ADA, 2019). DRD …

Electronic Fetal Monitoring Credentialing Examination: The First 4000., Mark Tomlinson, Sara A Brumbaugh, Marin O'Keeffe, Richard L Berkowitz, Mary D'Alton, Michael Nageotte

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

No abstract provided.

Functional Neuroimaging In Psychiatry-Aiding In Diagnosis And Guiding Treatment. What The American Psychiatric Association Does Not Know., Theodore A Henderson, Muriel J Van Lierop, Mary Mclean, John Michael Uszler, John F Thornton, Yin-Hui Siow, Dan G Pavel, Joe Cardaci, Phil Cohen

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

While early efforts in psychiatry were focused on uncovering the neurobiological basis of psychiatric symptoms, they made little progress due to limited ability to observe the living brain. Today, we know a great deal about the workings of the brain; yet, none of this neurobiological awareness has translated into the practice of psychiatry. The categorical system which dominates psychiatric diagnosis and thinking fails to match up to the real world of genetics, sophisticated psychological testing, and neuroimaging. Nevertheless, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently published a position paper stating that neuroimaging provided no benefit to the diagnosis and treatment of …

Advances In Targeted Therapy For Acute Myeloid Leukemia., Jifeng Yu, Peter Y Z Jiang, Hao Sun, Xia Zhang, Zhongxing Jiang, Yingmei Li, Yongping Song

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clonal malignancy characterized by genetic heterogeneity due to recurrent gene mutations. Treatment with cytotoxic chemotherapy has been the standard of care for more than half of a century. Although much progress has been made toward improving treatment related mortality rate in the past few decades, long term overall survival has stagnated. Exciting developments of gene mutation-targeted therapeutic agents are now changing the landscape in AML treatment. New agents offer more clinical options for patients and also confer a more promising outcome. Since Midostaurin, a FLT3 inhibitor, was first approved by US FDA in 2017 …

The Effects Of Agricultural Factors On Foodborne Bacterial Pathogen Isolation, Attachment, And Survival, Autumn Lea Kraft

Microbiological Sciences

The pathogens enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC), Salmonella enterica, and Listeria monocytogenes are prominent causes of foodborne illness. If they reach the pre- or post-harvest environment of produce, they can survive for extended periods of time and transfer to post-harvest processing to reach consumers. There are a multitude of factors that influence this survival, bacterial attachment, and isolation, which have been identified for pre- and post-harvest conditions. However, how these pathogens respond to the changes in these systems requires more work to inform effective control methods. To compare the efficacy of an isolation method in different types of matrices, we used …

A Brief Overview Of Lung Disease Caused By Environmental Microorganisms, Aspergillus Fumigatus And Saccharopolyspora Rectivirgula, Missy Ann Berry

Microbiological Sciences

People often take breathing and respiratory health for granted, but our lungs are constantly inundated with damaging agents, making them highly vulnerable to injury and infection. Globally, respiratory diseases are a leading cause of morbidity, mortality, and disability. Many respiratory diseases are preventable; however, avoidance of ubiquitous microorganisms is not realistic. The aim of this paper is to discuss how two environmental microorganisms, Aspergillus fumigatus and Saccharopolyspora rectivirgula, affect cellular activity and cause lung disease. Prevention, control, and cure of respiratory disease is the ultimate goal and understanding the mechanisms of disease progression is the first step.

The Rehearsal Plan And The Preparation Of Brazilian Art Songs: An Autoethnographic Study In Collaborative Piano, Elisama Da Silva Gonçalves Santos

Music

The objective of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of the rehearsal plan in the preparation of Brazilian art songs. This disquisition proposes a rehearsal plan model based on the concept of the class plan used in the field of education. The rehearsal plans were applied in a series of rehearsals with two singers at North Dakota State University in which we worked on four art songs composed by the Brazilian composer Francisco Mignone (1897-1986). This qualitative study adopted the autoethnography as research method. In this autoethnographic research I worked both as researcher and as pianist in the rehearsals. …

Combining Cover Crops, Strip Tillage, And Novel Mulches To Manage Weeds In Vegetable Cropping Systems, Jesse Jor-El Puka-Beals

Plant Sciences

Vegetable producers may benefit from integrating living mulches into their operations to manage weeds and improve soil quality. Living mulches, however, can reduce vegetable yield through competition. Here we investigate strip tilling into living mulches and then direct seeding a vegetable crop in the strip till zone as a production practice to limit competition. We further investigate the use of two surface-applied mulches, a newsprint hydromulch and a compost blanket, for weed control within the strip till zone. In field conditions, living mulches reduced vegetable yield by 49-84% and the use of the newsprint hydromulch and compost blanket reduced weed …

Debranning Affects Durum Wheat Milling Properties And Semolina Quality, Delgersaikhan Shinezorigt

Plant Sciences

Wheat can undergo debranning before milling. Debranning involves the removal of the outer bran layer from wheat kernels by friction and abrasion forces. This research was conducted to determine the effect of durum cultivar and debranning time on milling extraction and semolina and pasta quality. Four cultivars of durum wheat were debranned for 0, 1, 3 and 5 minutes and milled on a Bühler 202 MLU laboratory mill. Cultivars differed in the amount of bran removed at a given debranning time. Debranning for 3 min removed 8% of outer layer which resulted in 69% increase in mill throughput and 35% …

Pre-Breeding To Improve Yield And Disease Resistance Of Hard Red Winter Wheat, Dylan Mitchell Barry

Plant Sciences

Challenges to growing winter wheat in North Dakota include winter temperature and disease pressure. Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a devastating disease that necessitates breeding for resistance. In the NDSU breeding program FHB resistance genes are often associated with a decrease in performance. This study used single seed descent to advance lines while maintaining a near random population. Early generation (F4) selection focused heavily on yield and the presence of FHB resistance quantitative trait loci to develop winter wheat lines with FHB resistance and high yield. Stripe rust is a fungal disease that is becoming increasingly problematic in North Dakota. …

Understanding Host Resistance And Pathogen Biology In The Wheat-Fusarium Graminearum Pathosystem, Bikash Poudel

Plant Sciences

Fusarium head blight (FHB) is a major challenge in global wheat production. In the United States, the disease is predominantly caused by the fungus Fusarium graminearum. Utilization of FHB-resistant wheat cultivars integrated with other measures such as fungicide application is the most effective approach for the management of this disease. This study aimed to 1) identify novel quantitative trait loci (QTL) for resistance to FHB in a Brazilian spring wheat cultivar ‘Surpresa’ through bi-parental mapping, 2) detect QTL for FHB resistance in a global panel of 233 spring wheat accessions by genome-wide association analysis (GWAS), and 3) localize genomic regions …