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Axial Symmetry Tests Of Milky Way Disk Stars Probe The Galaxy's Matter Distribution, Austin Hinkel

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

In Galactic dynamics, various assumptions have been employed for mathematical ease. These assumptions are approximately valid, but departures reveal perturbations on our Galaxy. In this dissertation, we select a complete, Gaia DR2 data set, and using this data, we find evidence for axial symmetry breaking in the Galaxy, away from the spiral arms and the Galactic bar. This asymmetry is compatible with a prolate dark matter halo tilted with respect to the disk, with a long axis pointing in the direction of the Magellanic Clouds, and this matches an inventory of nearby torques. These asymmetries vary North and South of …

Feminist Abolitionist Nursing, Martha Paynter, Keisha Jefferies, Leah Carrier, Lorie Goshin

Publications and Research

The converging crises of COVID-19 and racist state violence in 2020 shifted public discourse about marginalization, public health, and racism in unprecedented ways. Nursing responded to the pandemic with heroic commitment and new politicization. But public engagement with systemic racism is forcing a reckoning in nursing. The profession has its own history of racism and of alliance with systems of state control with which to contend. In this article, we argue nursing must adopt an ethics of abolitionism to realize its goals for health and justice. Abolitionism theorizes that policing and prison systems, originating from systems of enslavement and colonial …

The Effect Of Support Systems On Delinquency, Elizabeth S. Bohrer

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

There are many reasons why adolescents and young adults turn to delinquent behaviors, much of which result from the environment they are residing in. Copious research has been done on the effects that parent, teacher, peer, and partner relationships have on delinquency, but very little focuses on support systems as a whole. Support systems create positive or negative modeling behaviors for people to follow and individuals will allow these models to influence their own personal behavior patterns. The goal of this study is to assess how a possible change in support systems affects delinquent tendencies in a study group of …

Tracking The Racial Validity Of Placement By Probability, Annie M. Del Principe, Lesley Broder, Lauren Levesque

Publications and Research

Any placement decision is a gamble on the validity of the mech- anism used. The better the placement mechanism matches the actual pro- ficiencies required for success in a future, real-life context, the more accu- rately it will place students into the best classes for them and the more valid it will prove to be. But what happens if the most obvious, commonsensical approaches to placement that would appear to have the strongest validity— writing tests for placement into writing classes—prove unreliable? Rather than accurately placing students into the “right” class for them, we now know that writing placement tests …

Stress And Coping Among Surgery Residents In A Developing Country, Qamar Riaz, Syeda Kausar Ali, Muhammad Rizwan Khan, Abdul Rehman Alvi

Department for Educational Development

Objective: Stress during residency training in surgical disciplines not only hampers professional development but can also compromise patient care and personal health. The purpose of this study was to measure the stress level among the surgical residents, identify factors within the learning and work environment that cause stress, and identify different strategies that the residents use habitually to cope with these stresses.
Methodology: This mix method study was conducted in the department of Surgery at Aga Khan University, Pakistan. Residents' stress level was measured using Perceived Stress Scale (PSS); focus group discussions (FGDs) with faculty and residents explored stressors during …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of 'Mcq Development Workshop Using Cognitive Model Framework: A Pre-Post Study, Rahila Ali, Amber Shahmim Sultan, Nida Zahid

Department for Educational Development

A workshop on MCQ development using cognitive model framework was conducted for health educators from Aga Khan University (AKU) and other academic institutions. The aim was to develop the skill of preparing MCQs for assessing higher cognitive levels. A pre-post study was conducted, participant satisfaction was evaluated and pre-post test scores were used to assess learning capability of the workshop participants. Out of the 19 who attended the workshop, 16 participated in the pre- and post-tests and were included in the study through convenience sampling. The total duration of the study was six months. There was a significant difference in …

Multichannel Mixture Models For Time-Series Analysis And Classification Of Engagement With Multiple Health Services: An Application To Psychology And Physiotherapy Utilization Patterns After Traffic Accidents, Nazanin Esmaili, Quinlan D. Buchlak, Massimo Piccardi, Bernie Kruger, Federico Girosi

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background: Motor vehicle accidents (MVA) represent a significant burden on health systems globally. Tens of thousands of people are injured in Australia every year and may experience significant disability. Associated economic costs are substantial. There is little literature on the health service utilization patterns of MVA patients. To fill this gap, this study has been designed to investigate temporal patterns of psychology and physiotherapy service utilization following transport-related injuries.

Method: De-identified compensation data was provided by the Australian Transport Accident Commission. Utilization of physiotherapy and psychology services was analysed. The datasets contained 788 psychology and 3115 physiotherapy claimants and 22,522 …

Coronary 18f-Sodium Fluoride Pet Detects High-Risk Plaque Features On Optical Coherence Tomography And Ct-Angiography In Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome, Kamran Majeed, Jamie W. Bellinge, Steele C. Butcher, Richard Alcock, Jon Spiro, David Playford, Graham S. Hillis, David E. Newby, Trevor A. Mori, Roslyn Francis, Carl J. Schultz

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background and aims: ¹⁸F-Sodium Fluoride Positron Emission Tomography (¹⁸F–NaF PET) non-invasively detects micro-calcification activity, the earliest stage of atherosclerotic arterial calcification. We studied the association between coronary ¹⁸F–NaF uptake and high-risk plaque features on intra-coronary optical coherence tomography (OCT) and CT-angiography (CTCA) and the potential application to patient-level risk stratification.

Methods: Sixty-two prospectively recruited patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) underwent multi-vessel OCT, ¹⁸F–NaF PET and CTCA. The maximum tissue to background ratio (TBRmax = standardised uptake value (SUV)max/SUVbloodpool) was measured in each coronary segment on ¹⁸F–NaF PET scans. High-risk plaque features on OCT …

Could "The Wonder Equation" Help Us To Be More Ethical? A Personal Reflection, Margaret Somerville

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

This is a personal reflection on what I have learnt as an academic, researching, teaching and participating in the public square in Bioethics for over four decades. I describe a helix metaphor for understanding the evolution of values and the current “culture wars” between “progressive” and “conservative” values adherents, the uncertainty people’s “mixed values packages” engender, and disagreement in prioritizing individual rights and the “common good”. I propose, as a way forward, that individual and collective experiences of “amazement, wonder and awe” have the power to enrich our lives, help us to find meaning and sometimes to bridge the secular/ …

Essentials Of A New Clinical Practice Guidance On Familial Hypercholesterolaemia For Physicians, Gerald F. Watts, David R. Sullivan, David L. Hare, Karam M. Kostner, Ari E. Horton, Damon A. Bell, Tom Brett, Ronald J. Trent, Nicola K. Poplawski, Andrew Martin, Shubha Srinivasan, Robert N. Justo, Clara K. Chow, Jing Pang

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH) is a common, heritable and preventable cause of premature coronary artery disease. New clinical practice recommendations are presented to assist practitioners in enhancing the care of all patients with FH. Core recommendations are made on the detection, diagnosis, assessment and management of adults, children and adolescents with FH. Management is under-pinned by the precepts of risk stratification, adherence to healthy lifestyles, treatment of non-cholesterol risk factors and appropriate use of low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol-lowering therapies including statins, ezetimibe and proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors. The recommendations need to be utilised using judicious clinical judgement and shared …

Exported Plasmodial J Domain Protein, Pfe0055c, And Pfhsp70-X Form A Specific Co-Chaperone-Chaperone Partnership, Tanima Dutta, Harpreet Singh, Jason E. Gestwicki, Gregory L. Blatch

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Plasmodium falciparum is a unicellular protozoan parasite and causative agent of a severe form of malaria in humans, accounting for very high worldwide fatality rates. At the molecular level, survival of the parasite within the human host is mediated by P. falciparum heat shock proteins (PfHsps) that provide protection during febrile episodes. The ATP-dependent chaperone activity of Hsp70 relies on the co-chaperone J domain protein (JDP), with which it forms a chaperone-co-chaperone complex. The exported P. falciparum JDP (PfJDP), PFA0660w, has been shown to stimulate the ATPase activity of the exported chaperone, PfHsp70-x. Furthermore, PFA0660w has been shown to associate …

Examining The Potential For Coronary Artery Calcium (Cac) Scoring For Individuals At Low Cardiovascular Risk., David Playford, Christian Hamilton-Craig, Girish Dwivedi, Gemma Figtree

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Atherosclerosis is the commonest cause of death in Australia. Cardiovascular (CV) risk calculators have an important role in preventative cardiology, although they are are strongly age-dependent and designed to identify individuals at high risk of an imminent event. The imprecision around “intermediate” or “low” risk generates therapeutic uncertainty, and a significant proportion of patients presenting with myocardial infarction come from these groups, often with no warning. This highlights a conundrum: “Low” risk does not mean “no” risk.

A fresh approach may be required to address the clinical conundrum around CV preventative approaches in non-high-risk individuals. While probabilistic calculators do not …

Clinical Outcomes Associated With Robotic And Computer-Navigated Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Machine Learning-Augmented Systematic Review, Quinlan D. Buchlak, Joe Clair, Nazanin Esmaili, Arshad Barmare, Siva Chandrasekaran

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background

Robotic (RTKA) and computer-navigated total knee arthroplasty (CNTKA) are increasingly replacing manual techniques in orthopaedic surgery. This systematic review compared clinical outcomes associated with RTKA and CNTKA and investigated the utility of natural language processing (NLP) for the literature synthesis.

Methods

A comprehensive search strategy was implemented. Results of included studies were combined and analysed. A transfer learning approach was applied to train deep NLP classifiers (BERT, RoBERTa and XLNet), with cross-validation, to partially automate the systematic review process.

Results

52 studies were included, comprising 5,067 RTKA and 2,108 CNTKA. Complication rates were 0–22% and 0–16% and surgical time …

Transhumanist Genetic Enhancement: Creation Of A 'New Man' Through Technological Innovation, George Mendz, Michael Cook

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

The transhumanist project of reshaping human beings by promoting their improvement through technological innovations has a broad agenda. This study focuses on the enhancement of the human organism through genetic modification techniques. Transhumanism values and a discussion of their philosophical background provide a framework to understand its ideals. Genetics and ethics are employed to assess the claims of the transhumanist program of human enhancement. A succinct description of central concepts in genetics and an explanation of current techniques to edit the human genome serve to assess the capabilities and limitations of editing techniques. Potential benefits and liabilities of human enhancement …

Behavioural Phenotyping Of Thunder Mice With A Hypomorphic Mutation Of Heterogeneous Nuclear Ribonuclear Protein L-Like (Hnrnpll) And Reduced T Cell Function, Maarten Van Den Buuse, Paul Halley, Gerard Hoyne

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Heterogeneous nuclear ribonuclear protein l-like (hnRNPLL) is an RNA binding protein that regulates alternative splicing of mRNA and is abundantly expressed in memory T lymphocytes of the immune system and in the brain. A hypomorphic allele of the gene encoding hnRNPLL (Hnrpllthunder) selectively reduces T cell accumulation in lymphoid tissues, but little is known about its effects in the brain. Therefore, we exposed Hnrpllthunder mice to a test battery with relevance for a range of psychiatric illnesses. Thunder mice showed enhanced immobility in the tail-suspension test for depression-related behaviours, impaired short-term spatial memory in the Y-maze and reduced …

The Role Of Depression And Other Psychological Factors In Work Ability Among Breast Cancer Survivors In Australia, Seon-Young Kim, David W. Kissane, Gary Richardson, Jenny Senior, Joanna Morgan, Peter Gregory, Sarah Birks, Corinne Ooi, Lara Lipton, Yoland Antill, Melissa Vereker, Natasha Michael, Irene Bobevski

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Objective: Identifying modifiable factors affecting work ability among cancer survivors is important. The primary aim of the present study was to examine the effects of depression and related psychological factors on work ability among breast cancer survivors in Australia.

Methods: In this cross‐sectional electronic and postal survey, Australian breast cancer survivors were investigated. Work status and conditions before and after cancer treatment were analysed. Work ability was measured using the Work Limitation Questionnaire©‐Short Form (WLQ‐SF) with its four domains (time management, physical tasks, mental‐interpersonal tasks, and output tasks). Three psychological factors were investigated: depression, fear of cancer recurrence, and demoralisation. …

Combining External Beam Radiation And Radionuclide Therapies: Rationale, Radiobiology, Results And Roadblocks, E M. Abbott, N Falzone, Nat P. Lenzo, K A. Vallis

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

The emergence of effective radionuclide therapeutics, such as radium-223 dichloride, [¹⁷⁷Lu]Lu-DOTA-TATE and [¹⁷⁷Lu]Lu-PSMA ligands, over the last 10 years is driving a rapid expansion in molecular radiotherapy (MRT) research. Clinical trials that are underway will help to define optimal dosing protocols and identify groups of patients who are likely to benefit from this form of treatment. Clinical investigations are also being conducted to combine new MRT agents with other anticancer drugs, with particular emphasis on DNA repair inhibitors and immunotherapeutics. In this review, the case is presented for combining MRT with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT). The …

Breast Density Notification: A Systematic Review Of The Impact On Primary Care Practitioners, Brooke Nickel, Tessa Copp, Meagan Brennan, Rachel Farber, Kirsten Mccaffery, Nehmat Houssami

Medical Papers and Journal Articles

Background: In the last decade, there has been an unprecedented amount of advocacy and attention surrounding the issue of breast density (BD) in relation to mammography screening. It is largely unknown what impact notifying women of their BD has had on clinical practice for PCPs. This systematic review aimed to synthesize evidence from existing studies to understand the impact of BD notification on primary care practitioners' (PCPs) knowledge, attitudes, and practice implications.

Methods: Empirical studies were identified through relevant database searches (database inception to May 2020). Two authors evaluated the eligibility of studies, extracted and crosschecked data, and assessed the …

Olfactory Dysfunction At Six Months After Coronavirus Disease 2019 Infection, S R. Leedman, M Sheeraz, P G. Sanfilippo, Dale W. Edgar, G V. D'Aulerio, D M. Robb, T Richards, C C. Blyth, D A. Mackey

IHR Papers and Journal Articles

Objective: This study aimed to assess olfactory dysfunction in patients at six months after confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 infection.

Methods: Coronavirus disease 2019 positive patients were assessed six months following diagnosis. Patient data were recoded as part of the adapted International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium Protocol. Olfactory dysfunction was assessed using the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test.

Results: Fifty-six patients were included. At six months after coronavirus disease 2019 diagnosis, 64.3 per cent of patients (n = 36) were normosmic, 28.6 per cent (n = 16) had mild to moderate microsmia and 7 per …

Influence Of Age And Maturation Status On Sprint Acceleration Characteristics In Junior Australian Football, Toby Edwards, Jonathon Weakley, Harry G. Banyard, Ashley Cripps, Benjamin Piggott, G. Gregory Haff, Christopher Joyce

Health Sciences Papers and Journal Articles

This study aimed to investigate the influence of chronological age and maturation status on sprint acceleration characteristics in junior Australian football (AF) players. Biological maturity of 109 subjects was assessed and subjects were grouped according to predicted years from peak height velocity (PHV) (pre-, mid-, and post-PHV) and chronological age (13 years, 14 years, and 15 years). A one-way multivariate analysis of variance and magnitude-based decisions were used to determine between-group differences. Instantaneous velocity was measured during two maximal 30m sprints via radar gun with the velocity-time data used to derive the force, velocity, and power characteristics. Chronologically, the greatest …

Wellbeing And Nature Connectedness For Emerging Adult Undergraduates After A Short Expedition: A Small Pilot Study, Michael J.A Down, Paola Chivers, Prudence Kirsch, Duncan Picknoll

Health Sciences Papers and Journal Articles

Issue addressed: Emerging adult university undergraduates are a vulnerable population due to various life stressors. Previous studies have reported a range of positive outcomes from outdoor expeditions for this population. This small pilot study aimed to investigate the impacts of an outdoor expedition on wellbeing and connectedness to nature and possible confounding by gender and living environment.

Methods: A sample of 54 Health and Physical Education emerging adult undergraduates in the second year of their four-year degree completed a 3-day/2-night immersion expedition. Pre-post differences and a repeated-measures analysis with confounders examined the expedition's impact on scores from the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental …

Human Organic Anion Transporters 1 And 3: Structural Elements Impacting Transporter-Substrate Binding Interactions, Julie Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

Organic anion transporters (OATs) are known to interact with a wide variety of negatively charged drugs and can impact their clinical safety and efficacy profiles. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) have recognized and highlighted the importance of evaluating the potential interactions with transporters, specifically hOAT1 and hOAT3, during the development of new drug entities. Little is known about OAT-drug interactions as they are difficult to discern on a molecular level in the absence of any solved crystal structures for OATs. Therefore, in a previous study, in silico homology models of hOAT1 and hOAT3 …

Shape Shifting: Bodies, Sound, And Queerness, Cordylia B. Vann

Theses and Dissertations

Writings in support of my visual and sonic thesis, Performing Ourselves. The paper examines the relationship between the labor of creating a queer body in how it moves and feels to the creation of choreography, sound, and graphic scores

A Psychometric Evaluation Of The Best In Class Adherence And Competence Scale, Katrina A. Markowicz

Theses and Dissertations

It is critical to utilize treatment integrity instruments to support the evaluation of evidence-based programs in early classroom contexts. However, in the early childhood field, guidelines for collecting treatment integrity data are underdeveloped. Consequently, most treatment integrity instruments employed in the field solely assess adherence, vary in design features and have little psychometric evidence supporting their use. As such, this represents a gap in the field that might slow efforts to implement evidence-based programs. The current study examines the score reliability and validity of an observational treatment integrity instrument (The BEST in CLASS Adherence and Competence Scale [BiCACS]; Sutherland et …

Successional Changes In Carbon Storage Are Sustained In A Temperate Forest Across Different Initiating Disturbances, Cameron Clay

Theses and Dissertations

Managing forests for carbon (C) sequestration requires an understanding of how disturbance history shapes C pools and fluxes over successional time. At the University of Michigan Biological Station, we examined how two stand establishing disturbances influenced C pools and fluxes over 100+ years of succession, comparing these secondary forests with “legacy” late-successional stands encompassing ages and compositions that would be present in the absence of region-wide stand-replacing disturbance. Our work utilized measurements taken between 2014 and 2020 from separate experimental forest chronosequences initiated following clear-cut harvesting only or clear-cut harvesting and fire, along with three >130-yr-old late successional stands comprising …

A Novel Sulfated Trimer Of Quercetin For Pulmonary Delivery To Treat The Emphysematous Lung, Abhinav Mohan

Theses and Dissertations

Emphysema, a major manifestation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), affects millions of patients in the United States; yet, no present treatment is able to directly modify the disease process. In the recent past, a pathobiologic hypothesis surrounding the deficiency of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), has surfaced as a cause of the alveolar structural destruction and loss in emphysema. Additionally, sirtuin 1 (SIRT1), a regulator of anti-oxidative proteins and cellular homeostasis, has been found to be reduced in the lungs of emphysematous patients. Given these disturbances, this research hypothesized that such pathobiologic deficiencies can be inhibited with a sulfated …

The Mechanisms And Consequences Of Shrub Encroachment On The Virginia Barrier Islands, Lauren K. Wood

Theses and Dissertations

Shrub encroachment is a global phenomenon driven by direct and indirect anthropogenic influence which alters plant communities and ecosystem function. Many studies have investigated drivers and consequences of woody plant establishment, but mesic landscapes are underrepresented in the literature. My objective was to assess the mechanisms of Morella cerifera encroachment into coastal mesic grassland, the potential for self-reinforcement, and consequences on community composition, nutrients, and landscape productivity. I studied temperature and water microclimate modification by Morella cerifera presence and removal to understand ecosystem engineering and community composition changes. Additionally, I examined the influence of shrubs on surrounding grassland species traits …

Urate Genetic Assessment In Asian And Pacific Islander Subgroups Of Pregnant Women: Implications For Personalized Medicine And Means To Reduce Health Disparities, Ali Alghubayshi

Theses and Dissertations

Gout is one of the most common rheumatic conditions and appears to have a higher prevalence in certain populations. Risk factors for gout and its precursor, hyperuricemia, are also significant risk factors for preeclampsia, major pregnancy-related morbidity. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted on 1059 pregnant women from different populations whom 100% reported their ethnicities from the Asian, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander populations. Numerous uric acid (UA) genes and clinical conditions were addressed, and all study details were reviewed and exempted by the University of Hawaii human Studies Program (Protocol Number: 2018-00225). In this project, we hypothesized that UA …

Rheological Analysis Of The Mechanical Properties Of Murine Lungs Over The Lifespan, Olajumoke Olufunke Harrison

Theses and Dissertations

To study the effects of aging in murine lungs, we characterized C57Bl6j mice from neonatal to 24-month-old mice. Samples were divided into two groups: Young Mice (YM) and Middle Age/Old Age Mice (MOM). The YM group included the neonatal and 6-10week. The MOM group included 7- and 22–24-month-old mice. Rheological testing was performed using a TA Instruments DHR-2 Rheometer to collect the mechanics of each mice sample. Utilizing a 20-mm parallel plate fixture, a gap of 0.8-1.0-mm, and a temperature setting of 25C, we conducted a frequency sweep. Samples were the decellularized over a four-day process then lyophilized for mass …

K-Nearest Neighbors Density-Based Clustering, Avory C. Bryant

Theses and Dissertations

Traditional density-based clustering approaches rely on a distance-based parameter to define data connectivity and density. However, an appropriate value of this parameter can be difficult to determine as it is highly dependent on the underlying distribution of the data. In particular, distribution parameters affect the scale of inter-group distances (e.g., variance); this dependence leads to a well-known inability to simultaneously detect clusters at varying levels of density. In this work, connectivity and density are defined according to the rank-order induced by the distance metric (i.e., invariant to the expected scale of the distances). Connectivity by k-nearest neighbors and density by …