Relationship Between Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency And Obstructive Sleep Apnea, Lindsay Megenhardt

Health Sciences Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) is a genetic condition that causes inadequate production of the alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) protein, which is known to protect connective tissues in the body from destruction. The purpose of this dissertation study was to identify if individuals with mild to severe AATD are at higher risk for developing obstructive sleep apnea than the general population. The investigator hypothesized there would be a higher prevalence of OSA in the AATD population due to the etiology of disease. A seven-question sleep apnea risk assessment questionnaire, STOPBAG, was applied to the retrospective, de-identified, self-reported 2,338 participant responses from the …

College Of Pharmacy 2020, Nova Southeastern University

Health Professions Divisions Course Catalogs and Course Descriptions

No abstract provided.

Deep Sea Sediments Of The Arctic Central Basin: A Potential Sink For Microplastics, Colleen Mcmaken

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Will Shark Skin Dissolve Under High Co2?, Emily K. Witt

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

First Estimates Of Greenland Shark (Somniosus Microcephalus) Abundances In Arctic Waters, Taryn Szalay

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Thirty Years Of Data Sheds Light On Plastic Pollution In The Deep Sea, Adam Warren

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Dolphin Study Gives Insight Into Marine Mammal Threat Response, Marshall Hawkins

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Ptsd And Immunological Correlations Of Attention And Working Memory In Gulf War Illness, Mary Jeffrey

Theses and Dissertations

Gulf War Illness (GWI) impacts 25 to 32 percent of those deployed in the 1991 Gulf War (White et al., 2016) and includes symptoms related to fatigue and mood/neurological disturbances. Therefore, it is difficult to ascertain the influence of trauma exposure and chemical exposure when investigating neuropsychological symptoms. This cross-sectional study utilized a group of veterans with and without GWI (n=61) to investigate: 1) the unique impact that GWI has on a survey measure of attention and memory or the Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT). We also investigated how PTSD symptoms, followed by fatigue levels, improved the GWI model …

Social Structure Of Killer Whales (Orcinus Orca) In The Galápagos Archipelago, Mary Gad

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Using Drones To Assess Great White Shark Behavior Along Coastal Beaches, Alydia Moorhead

Scientific Communication News

No abstract provided.

Does One Session Of Pre-Operative Pelvic Floor Muscle Training Aid In Improving Urinary Incontinence Immediately Following Robotic Assisted Radical Prostatectomy? A Retrospective And Pilot Study, Francine Noel-Ford

Department of Physical Therapy Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Background: Despite advancements in surgical techniques through the use of robotic assisted radical prostatectomy, urinary incontinence remains the most common side effect following surgery affecting men’s quality of life.

Objective: To explore the role of a single pre-operative pelvic floor muscle training session. To determine if men who receive the training session have a decrease incidence of incontinence post-op, whether pelvic floor muscle strength pre-operatively is an independent predictor of urinary incontinence, and the impact of incontinence on quality of life in men following a robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy in the early stages post-operatively.

Design: A two part study with a …

Neck Muscle Composition In Persistent Whiplash Associated Disorder: A Relationship With Disability, Bradford G. Callan

Department of Physical Therapy Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Purpose/hypothesis: Neck pain and related symptoms following a motor vehicle collision (MVC) can significantly influence the quality of life for some people. While the MVC related mechanics of the head and neck gives rise to the term whiplash, the signs and symptoms of neck related disability are often complex and are clinically referred to as whiplash associated disorder(WAD). Muscle fatty infiltrate (MFI) has been associated with persistent WAD, but its influence on the generation and maintenance of WAD is largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between MFI and baseline demographic variables related to persistent …

Quantitative Nmr-Based Biomedical Metabolomics: Current Status And Applications, Alexandra A. Crook, Robert Powers

Department of Chemistry: Faculty Publications

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a quantitative analytical tool commonly utilized for metabolomics analysis. Quantitative NMR (qNMR) is a field of NMR spectroscopy dedicated to the measurement of analytes through signal intensity and its linear relationship with analyte concentration. Metabolomics-based NMR exploits this quantitative relationship to identify and measure biomarkers within complex biological samples such as serum, plasma, and urine. In this review of quantitative NMR-based metabolomics, the advancements and limitations of current techniques for metabolite quantification will be evaluated as well as the applications of qNMR in biomedical metabolomics. While qNMR is limited by sensitivity and dynamic range, …

Methods Ofmaking And Using Lignin Derivatives, Mark Alan Helle, Chin Li Cheung

Department of Chemistry: Faculty Publications

Materials and methods for preparing reactive lignin and for preparing a bio-based adhesive are described herein.

Gene Duplication And Deletion, Not Horizontal Transfer, Drove Intra-Species Mosaicism Of Bartonella Henselae, Rachana Banerjee, Oshina Shine, Vyshakh Rajachandran, Govind Krishnadas, Michael F. Minnick, Sandip Paul, Sujay Chattopadhyay

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Bartonella henselae is a facultative intracellular pathogen that occurs worldwide and is responsible primarily for cat-scratch disease in young people and bacillary angiomatosis in immunocompromised patients. The principal source of genome-level diversity that contributes to B. henselae's host-adaptive features is thought to be horizontal gene transfer events. However, our analyses did not reveal the acquisition of horizontally-transferred islands in B. henselae after its divergence from other Bartonella. Rather, diversity in gene content and genome size was apparently acquired through two alternative mechanisms, including deletion and, more predominantly, duplication of genes. Interestingly, a majority of these events occurred in regions that …

Buried In Silence: Homosexuality And The Feighner Criteria, Stewart Justman

Global Humanities and Religions Faculty Publications

The diagnostic revolution that culminated in the third edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1980) began with the publication in 1972 of the Feighner criteria, a set of rules for the identification of 16 disorders. While Feighner et al. claim that their diagnostic categories rest on solid data, the fact is that one was soon to be removed by the APA from its classification of mental disorders: homosexuality. However, the anomaly of an extinct category in a list of supposedly validated diagnostic criteria never became a point of discussion, quite as if the …

Rock Glacier Development In The San Juan Mountains, Brandon K. Bailey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rock glaciers are common landform features found in deglaciated alpine areas. They are commonly used in the study of climatic changes throughout the Holocene and the reconstruction of neoglacial chronologies. For this research, Schmidt hammer rebound values, weathering rind thicknesses, and the length of lichen thalli diameters found on rock glacier surfaces are used to investigate their effectiveness as field-based relative age determination techniques. Additionally, the ability to identify periods of neoglacial activity using these methods is assessed in two neighboring cirque basins in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. 41 field sites across three rock glaciers are established with …

Working For A Living: A Terror Management Theory Approach To Finding Meaning In Vocation, Julian T. Frazier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many individuals spend approximately a third of their lives either working, receiving training or education for work or otherwise engaged in their career. While the current literature attempts to discern the many roles that work can play in our lives, it only scantly explore the existential nature of work in relation to death and mortality. Terror Management Theory provides a framework explaining how increases in awareness of our mortality influences our behavior and beliefs. By studying work constructs from the lens of Terror Management Theory, we seek to gain insight on the potential role that work plays in bolstering psychological …

Automated Recognition Of Facial Affect Using Deep Neural Networks, Behzad Hasani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Automated Facial Expression Recognition (FER) has been a topic of study in the field of computer vision and machine learning for decades. In spite of efforts made to improve the accuracy of FER systems, existing methods still are not generalizable and accurate enough for use in real-world applications. Many of the traditional methods use hand-crafted (a.k.a. engineered) features for representation of facial images. However, these methods often require rigorous hyper-parameter tuning to achieve favorable results.

Recently, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have shown to outperform traditional methods in visual object recognition. DNNs require huge data as well as powerful computing units …

Performances Of An Able, Academic Mind, Caleb Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Western culture individualizes issues of public health. This is especially clear in academic life, where the structures of the university disable atypical bodies and minds in order to force them to simultaneously perform the roles of scholar, teacher, and colleague. The university not only fails to accommodate afflicted minds and bodies, it also produces more precarity in the process. This project is a performance ethnography of my time in the academy, starting with my life as an undergraduate being disciplined into academic life, moving toward recruitment for graduate school, and ending with events surrounding the construction of this very project. …

Using Multi-Source Data To Assess The Dynamics Of Socioeconomic Development In Africa, Xuantong Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Frequent and rapid spatially explicit assessment of socioeconomic development is critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at both national and global levels. In the past decades, scientists have proposed many methods for monitoring human activities on the Earth’s surface on various spatiotemporal scales using Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Line System (DMSP-OLS) nighttime lights (NTL) data. However, the DMSP-OLS NTL data and the associated processing methods have limited their reliability and applicability for systematic measuring and mapping of socioeconomic development. This research utilizes Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) NTL and the Isolation Forest (iForest) machine learning algorithm …

The Casc Framework: An Assessment Model For Students With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Laurel A. Snider

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School psychologists pay a critical role in providing assessment and intervention services within the realm of special education. Within this role, they are highly likely to interact with students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Students with IDD are characterized by significantly lower than average cognitive and daily living skills that may be comorbid with difficulties with communication, social skills, or other domains. With these differences in mind, dominant assessment practices have been criticized as lacking social and empirical validity when applied to this population. Although students with IDD frequently undergo evaluations, they continue to face significantly poorer post-school outcomes …

Cellular And Organismal Ramifications Of De Novo Purine Synthesis Dysregulation, Randall Craig Mazzarino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purines are a class of nitrogenous bases and are essential small molecules to life. Purines are used within the cell as genetic information carriers, energy currency, signaling molecules, and cofactors for multiple processes. They are formed through de novo and salvage pathways found in cells across the phylogenetic tree. The substrates of enzymes within de novo purine synthesis are known to influence other processes within the cell, such as energy homeostasis. In humans, de novo purine synthesis disorders are rare, with around 100 people identified. These patients exhibit a range of phenotypes, with varying degrees of mental retardation, seizure activity, …

How 6-12th Grade Staff Support Students With Depression: A Pilot Study To Develop Measures Of Implicit Associations, Explicit Attitudes And Helping Behavior, Paul M. Thompson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students with emotional disabilities are disproportionately suspended and expelled in K-12 schools. Attribution theory suggests individuals are less likely to provide assistance to others if they believe the individuals are responsible for their own difficulties. To test attribution theory, this study created new measures of explicit attitudes and implicit associations of licensed 6-12th grade staff regarding students with depression as well as a helping behavior measure of staff toward students with depression. The survey was distributed within a single school district in the western United States. A majority of the sample (N = 52) held a mental health license (60%), …

Implications Of The Ban On Open Service By Transgender Individuals In The United States Military, Louie Swanson

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Ms Environmental Biology Capstone Project, Alexandra Sorenson

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

• Chapter 1. Literature Review: Invasive Plant Considerations in Alpine Restoration Project Planning
• Chapter 2. Grant Proposal: Success Rates of Native See Germination on Esplanade-Treated Plots
• Chapter 3. Journal Manuscript: Meta-Analysis of Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum) Control with Three Commonly Used Herbicides
• Chapter 4. Stakeholder Analysis: Stakeholder Analysis: Recommendation for Herbicide Use at Lippincott Ranch

Environmental Biology Masters Project, Marley Borham

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Environmental Biology Masters Project

A Backbone Organization For Denver Based Environmental Justice Organizations 5280 For Environmental Justice, Allison Finnegan-Kihega

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Environmental injustices in Denver follow the same patterns that are seen throughout the country, which is that low-income People of Color are, relative to White people, disproportionately impacted by poor air and water quality, food deserts, displacement, and a phenomenon known as urban heat islands. The literature review conducted for this proposal revealed that despite the 2019 U.S Census Bureau indicating that Denver is 80.9 percent White, 29 percent Latino, and 10 percent Black, neighborhoods with predominantly Black and Latino residents are the neighborhoods experiencing environmental injustices in Denver.

For this project proposal, a literature review was conducted along with …

Considerations Of Antibiotic Treatment For Genital Ureaplasma, Shelbie Paul

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Genital Ureaplasma is a worldwide issue in obstetrics and gynecology. Morbidities can include pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, miscarriage, preterm delivery, and chorioamnionitis, if left untreated. The quality improvement (QI) initiative used a retrospective chart review of 128 subjects, collecting data of antibiotic treatment differences and recurrence of genital Ureaplasma at a corporate owned obstetrical and gynecologic outpatient clinic in the metro-Denver area. The investigator used the percentage change mathematical formula to determine the percentage difference between patient antibiotic treatment only with symptomatic genital Ureasplasma versus antibiotic treatment of the patient and the partner. Overall, the project did not show statistical …

A Structured, Intentional Simulation Delivery Method: Development Of A Best Practice Faculty Teaching Policy, Jody Panian

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Executive Summary

Consistent, structured, intentional simulation teaching methods for best practice

Problem: Observation at two nursing programs indicated inconsistent, simulation faculty teaching methods and absence of training and orientation for faculty development and competency evaluation.

Project purpose: Create a structured, consistent faculty development training program utilizing the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation Learning standards (INACSL) and using the Debriefing Assessment for Simulation in Healthcare (DASH) measurement instrument for annual competency review.

Project Goals: Support positive faculty role modeling, professional development, increased self-efficacy and decreased faculty and student confusion.

Project Objectives: Both identified schools will have a system in place …