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State Of The University Annual Report - 2020-2021, Office Of The President, East Tennessee State University, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

Office of the President State of the University Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Brock On Open Borders, Javier S. Hidalgo

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Justice for People on the Move includes rich and insightful discussions of many areas of immigration policy. But, in this paper, I’ll focus on evaluating Brock’s arguments against open borders. Justice for People on the Move includes rich and insightful discussions of many areas of immigration policy. But, in this paper, I’ll focus on evaluating Brock’s arguments against open borders.

Lived Experiences Of Lassa Fever Survivors In Southsouth Nigeria, Albert Oamen Oyeribhor

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractLassa fever, a viral disease, was first isolated in the late 1960s and affects 300,000 to 500,000 people, causing 5,000 to 10,000 fatalities annually across West Africa. Although there are studies on the causes and prevalence of Lassa fever, there is a paucity of studies regarding the quality of life (QoL) and lived experiences of survivors. The purpose of this qualitative study, guided by Leininger’s culture care theory, was to describe the QoL and meanings of the lived experiences of Lassa fever survivors in the Southsouth region of Nigeria. Fifteen survivors of Lassa disease were interviewed. Data were analyzed using …

Healthcare Leadership In The Context Of Cognitive Diseases Of Aging: A Community-Based Participatory Research Model, Dean Sherzai

Dissertations

The Problem

The world is facing a tsunami of chronic diseases of the brain such as dementia, Parkinson's, and stroke. But all populations are not affected equally. Though we are all at greater risk of developing these diseases, minority communities such as the Black and Hispanic populations are at much greater risk of succumbing to these conditions. To date we have spent billions of dollars on research and public health measures that have repeatedly failed, but over the last decade it has become evident that much of these diseases can simply be averted through effective public health and community-based measures …

The Right To Mental Health In Yemen, Waleed Alhariri, Amanda Mcnally, Sarah Knuckey

Faculty Scholarship

Mental health issues are all too common consequences of conflict and atrocity crimes, often causing upwards of one-quarter of the post-conflict, post-atrocity population to suffer from physical and mental sequelae that linger long after weapons have been silenced. After more than six years of ongoing conflict, Yemen’s already weak health care system is on the brink of collapse, and population resilience has been severely stressed by indiscriminate attacks, airstrikes, torture, food insecurity, unemployment, cholera, and now the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines Yemen’s responsibilities regarding the right to mental health and details the few actions the government has taken to …

Vaccination Equity By Design, Olatunde C.A. Johnson, Kristen Underhill

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay examines how states’ initial COVID-19 vaccine-distribution strategies tended to disadvantage populations of color, including Black, Latinx, and Native American communities. These dynamics resonate with “inverse equity” effects of other public-health innovations. We argue for a federal regulatory framework to reduce inequity-forcing effects during initial vaccine rollout.

Hand Hygiene For Health Promotion, Phyllis Knight-Brown

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

For many years public health organizations, such as The World Health Organization (WHO) and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have stressed the need for proper hand hygiene. Proper hand hygiene requires a prescribed process to rid the hands of potentially infecting organisms by using soap and water (handwashing) or hand sanitizer (sanitizing). These processes need to be performed at critical times to promote infection prevention. Many studies have shown that hand hygiene is a learned behavior that becomes habitual over time, and behavior change mechanisms in addition to education are needed to affect a long-term change in …

Should The U.S. Government Actively Assert Its Own Patents?, Christopher J. Morten, Barry Datlof, Amy Kapczynski, Donna Meuth, Zain Rizvi

Faculty Scholarship

On March 10, 2021, our journal partnered with the Engelberg Center on Innovation Law and Policy to host a symposium addressing the role and impact of U.S. innovation policy on access to medicine. Our 2021 Symposium Issue — Volume 11, Issue 1 — captures that event.

The following article represents the second of four panels. This panel asked, “Should the U.S. government actively assert its own patents?” The panel was moderated by Christopher Morten, Deputy Director of NYU Law’s Technology Law & Policy Clinic. The panelists included Barry Datlof, Chief of Business Development and Commercialization in the Office of Medical …

The Lie Of Pandemic Pivot And Essential Work, Alexandra Crampton

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

My emotional responses to this moment include feelings of anger, hope, and déjà vu. Although the scope and scale of this pandemic is unprecedented in our lifetimes, what has been especially hard is not necessarily new – nor entirely unprecedented – and therefore unavoidable. In this essay, I reflect on what was avoidable and call for better response. We must question the seemingly benign (if not optimistic) terms emerging as pandemic discourse, such as “pivot to a new normal” and “essential work,” for what they reveal of social injustice and failure to avert future crisis.

Introduction: The Future Of Global Health Governance, Elizabeth Weeks, Anish Patel

Scholarly Works

CONFERENCE: The Future of Global Health Governance

Hosted by the Dean Rusk International Law Center and the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law on January 25, 2021 in Athens, Georgia

When we began developing this topic last winter and early spring, the global pandemic in which we still find ourselves deeply entrenched, a year later, was just emerging. For many in the United States, including our former President, the threat seemed distant, even hypothetical.' Few imagined the devastating loss of life, health, economic security, home, family, companionship, and "normal" ways of life that we would come to experience over …

Efficacy Of Rinsing Chlorhexidine Digluconate 0.12% And Povidone Iodine 1% On Total Bacterial Count As Aseptic Technique At Department Of Oral Surgery, Faculty Of Dentistry, Universitas Sumatera Utara, Isnandar, Hendry Rusdy, Indra B. Siregar, Karisha Hs. Ashari

Journal of Dentomaxillofacial Science

No abstract provided.

Economic Liberty Takings, Jeffrey Manns

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

State governors rediscovered the sweeping contours of their police powers in imposing recurring waves of COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns. However necessary shutdowns have been to slow down the spread of COVID-19, state governors’ actions have exposed how takings law has become all but toothless in compensating business owners from state-imposed shutdowns. The result has been state governors picking economic winners and losers. Stores and sectors that state governors designated as “essential” have remained continuously open and received windfalls of pandemic profits. In contrast, businesses that state governors deemed “non-essential” have been stripped of their ability to function for months at a …

Impact Of Ptsd On Hcv/Hiv Risk-Reduction Interventions Among Incarcerated Drug-Using Women In Rural Appalachia, Caitlyn Hood

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Justice-involved women in rural Appalachian Kentucky are a particularly vulnerable group in need of targeted risk-reduction interventions for hepatitis C virus (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Compared to women in the general U.S. population, justice-involved women in rural Appalachia report dramatically higher rates of HCV/HIV risk behaviors (e.g., injection drug use and risky sex), interpersonal violence (IV; e.g., physical, sexual, or emotional abuse), and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). IV and PTSD may exacerbate rural Appalachian women’s risk for contracting and transmitting HIV/HCV, indicating a need to approach HCV/HIV risk-reduction interventions from a trauma-informed perspective.

Brief motivational interviewing and psychoeducation …

Analysis Of Regulatory Mechanisms For T Cell Activation, Aleksandra Vuchkovska

Dissertations

The primary function of the immune system is to seek and eliminate altered or unhealthy cells. T cells are a major component of the immune response and mediate their functions by recognizing specific antigens that allow elimination of infected or neoplastic cells. To avoid inappropriate activation and subsequent immune injuries, T cells have evolved strategies to discriminate self from non-self, or healthy from altered and infected. These strategies rely on the activation of receptors that restrict the T cell response. CD33rSiglecs are a family of mostly inhibitory receptors that bind to sialic acids. Siglecs respond to specific sialic acid patterns …

The Dynamic Codon Biaser: Calculating Prokaryotic Codon Usage Biases, Brian Dehlinger, Jared Jurss, Karson Lychuk, Catherine Putonti

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Bacterial genomes often reflect a bias in the usage of codons. These biases are often most notable within highly expressed genes. While deviations in codon usage can be attributed to selection or mutational biases, they can also be functional, for example controlling gene expression or guiding protein structure. Several different metrics have been developed to identify biases in codon usage. Previously we released a database, CBDB: The Codon Bias Database, in which users could retrieve precalculated codon bias data for bacterial RefSeq genomes. With the increase of bacterial genome sequence data since its release a new tool was needed. Here …

Wastewater Treatment Alters Microbial Colonization Of Microplastics, John J. Kelly, Maxwell G. London, Amanda R. Mccormick, Miguel Rojas, John W. Scott, Timothy J. Hoellein

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Microplastics are ubiquitous contaminants in aquatic habitats globally, and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are point sources of microplastics. Within aquatic habitats microplastics are colonized by microbial biofilms, which can include pathogenic taxa and taxa associated with plastic breakdown. Microplastics enter WWTPs in sewage and exit in sludge or effluent, but the role that WWTPs play in establishing or modifying microplastic bacterial assemblages is unknown. We analyzed microplastics and associated biofilms in raw sewage, effluent water, and sludge from two WWTPs. Both plants retained >99% of influent microplastics in sludge, and sludge microplastics showed higher bacterial species richness and higher abundance …

Rfid Adaption In Healthcare Organizations: An Integrative Framework, Ahed Abugabah, Louis Sanzogni, Luke Houghton, Ahmad Ali Alzubi, Alaa Abuqabbeh

All Works

Radio frequency identification (RFID), also known as electronic label technology, is a non-contact automated identification technology that recognizes the target object and extracts relevant data and critical characteristics using radio frequency signals. Medical equipment information management is an important part of the construction of a modern hospital, as it is linked to the degree of diagnosis and care, as well as the hospital's benefits and growth. The aim of this study is to create an integrated view of a theoretical framework to identify factors that influence RFID adoption in healthcare, as well as to conduct an empirical review of the …

A Model For Inhalation Of Infectious Aerosol Contaminants In An Aircraft Passenger Cabin, Bert A. Silich

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Aerosol contamination of an aircraft cabin by infectious passengers is a concern of passengers, aircrew and the aviation industry. This may be especially important during a pandemic, such as COVID-19, where the full extent of aerosol transmission is not well understood. A statistical method to determine the number of infectious passengers on board along with a mathematical model estimating the contaminant concentration of aerosols in the cabin and the number of inhaled infectious particles by passengers is presented. An example is used to demonstrated how the results can be estimated during normal operations and emergency conditions with malfunctions of the …

An Assessment Of Universal Tumour Associated Antigens In Primary Liver Neoplasms, Oliver Rupar

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Rates of primary liver cancer are increasing in the Western world, a fact yet to be reflected in research with most currently undertaken in Asia. Whilst here in the UK, during a diagnostic and therapeutic workup within the NHS, surgically resected tumours are routinely kept in storage for up to thirty years. Meaning there is a huge, currently unused, resource that could potentially be included in clinical research. The regional specialist centre in the Southwest of England has been performing liver resections since 2005, no basic-science research has been performed using these archived specimens. In this research I have assessed …

Regulation Of The Expression And Lysine Acetylation Of Pro-Inflammatory Molecules By Lipid-Modifying Enzyme (Lpcat2) In Raw264.7 Cells, Victory Ibigo Poloamina

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Lysophosphatidylcholine Acyltransferases (LPCATs) are Lipid modifying enzymes that significantly regulate changes in the glycerophospholipid components of the macrophage membrane phospholipid bilayer. LPCAT2 is a subtype of LPCAT that regulates inflammatory responses to infection by lipopolysaccharides and lipopeptides. LPCAT2 co-localises with TLR4 and prevents its translocation to the signalling site (lipid rafts) of macrophage membranes. The first response to inflammation involves infiltration of macrophages to the infected site, where they fight infection by phagocytosing the microbial pathogen. Changes in the macrophage membrane phospholipid bilayer are essential for phagocytosis and receptor signalling. Regulation of protein acylation is also an integral mechanism for …

Plasmodium Tlap-2 Is A Microtubule-Associated Protein With Microtubule Stabilization Properties, Grifin Berge

Master's Theses

Microtubules facilitate major cellular and morphological changes in eukaryotic cells, including the protozoan parasite Plasmodium. Microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs), only very few of which have been characterized in the malaria parasite, regulate the highly dynamic microtubules. Thioredoxin-like associated protein 2 (TLAP2) is a MAP unique to the phylum apicomplexa, which in addition to Plasmodium includes the important human pathogen Toxoplasma. Here we report on the cloning and microtubule-binding activity of TLAP2 of the rodent malaria parasite Plasmodium berghei (PbTLAP2). PbTLAP2 is coded by a single exon gene and consists of 598 amino acids. The protein contains a putative C-terminal microtubule-binding domain. …

Chga-Depleted Urothelial Amp And Immune Response During Urinary Tract Infection, Theadora Jane Ceccarelli

Master's Theses

Women are 8 times more likely than men to experience a urinary tract infection (UTI) with up to 60% of women reporting a UTI in their lifetime. This significant healthcare burden is caused by the infection of uropathogenic Escherichia coli in the urinary tract. At this time, treatment is limited to antibiotic therapy, which is challenged by antibiotic-resistance. These factors make UTIs an NIH priority and are motivation for our research.CgA is a protein of the granin family co-released with catecholamines from neuroendocrine cells throughout the body. Pro-hormone convertases post-translationally cleave CgA into peptides, like catestatin, which can have antimicrobial …

Assessing The Role Of The Interaction Between Polyamines And Heparan Sulfate In Coxsackievirus B3 Viral Infection, Oreoluwa Omoba

Master's Theses

Non-polioenteroviruses are highly infectious viruses that typically cause mild asymptomatic cases but can cause severe disease such as aseptic meningitis and dilated cardiomyopathy. Coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) is a member of this group and is prevalent in the United States and Eastern Asia. Viruses like CVB3 rely on the host cell for many molecules in order to replicate. One such set of molecules is the polyamines. Polyamines are small, positively charged molecules that play a role in a multitude of cellular processes including RNA/DNA stabilization, gene expression, translation, and regulating membrane fluidity. Previous studies have shown CVB3 relies on polyamines for …

Ecology And Open-Minded Cognition: Does Exposure To Pathogens Influence Open-Minded Cognition?, Gabriel Escudero

Master's Theses

This study aimed to examine if a perceived pathogen contamination threat would influence participants level of open-minded cognition. This study obtained an online sample of 300 adults (i.e., 18-years or older) U.S. Amazon Mechanical Turk workers to participate in an online study. This study used a quantitative experimental design to examine if a manipulation of perceived pathogen contamination threat would influence participants level of situation-specific open-minded cognition (SSOMC). Participants were randomly assigned to either a perceived pathogen contamination condition in which they watched a short informative video on pathogens or a control condition in which participants watched a short innoxious …

Pseudomonas Aeruginosa Prophages And Engineered Temperate Phages, Genevieve Johnson

Master's Theses

The rising rate of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a global health concern, and the Pseudomonas aeruginosa is estimated to be a leader in serious threats. Bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria, have gained renewed interest in Western Medicine as an alternative to antibiotics. Phage therapy of P. aeruginosa infections has primarily focused on obligately lytic phages. However, prophages, or phages in the lysogenic life cycle, are estimated to far outnumber obligately lytic phages. In theory, these prophages can be genetically modified to be obligately lytic and thus ideal candidates for phage therapy. To date there has not been a comprehensive analysis …

Whose Line Is It Anyway? Rhetoric, Pathology, And The Jewish Race In Late Victorian England, Stephanie G. Pokras

Senior Independent Study Theses

This thesis examines how both late Victorian Anglo-Jews and Gentiles used rhetoric of race science and Jewish pathology to encode lines of difference, as well as the relationship between these discourses. My first chapter analyzes the role of Gentile discourse of disease and disability as the foundation of late Victorian anti-Semitism. My second chapter focuses on Jewish ‘expert’ engagement with race science. In this chapter, I argue that contrary to the dominant historical narrative, not only was the Jewish community engaged with race science, but their scholarly conversations were dynamic and diverse. Ideas about race and pathology became central to …

Market Structure And Quality Of Service: Investigating Oligopolies And The Quality Of Nursing Home Care In California During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Tessa Ireton

Senior Independent Study Theses

Quality-of-service outcomes in nursing homes are of great social and human importance. However, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, consistently maintaining markets with high quality care has been a pervading issue in the American nursing home industry. Furthermore, the industry is strongly characterized by oligopolies, a market structure that literature indicates may be less compatible with quality service than competitive markets. With this paper, I aim to investigate the possible intersection of oligopolist market structures and the quality of nursing home care during the COVID-19 pandemic. I start by describing quality of care in nursing homes, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, …

Opportunities, Barriers, And Recommendations In Down Syndrome Research., James A. Hendrix, Angelika Amon, Leonard Abbeduto, Stamatis Agiovlasitis, Tarek Alsaied, Heather A. Anderson, Lisa J. Bain, Nicole Baumer, Anita Bhattacharyya, Dusan Bogunovic, Kelly N. Botteron, George Capone, Priya Chandan, Isabelle Chase, Brian Chicoine, Cécile Cieuta-Walti, Lara R. Deruisseau, Sophie Durand, Anna Esbensen, Juan Fortea, Sandra Giménez, Ann-Charlotte Granholm, Laura J. Hahn, Elizabeth Head, Hampus Hillerstrom, Lisa M. Jacola, Matthew P. Janicki, Joan M. Jasien, Angela R. Kamer, Raymond D. Kent, Bernard Khor, Jeanne B. Lawrence, Catherine Lemonnier, Amy Feldman Lewanda, William Mobley, Paul E. Moore, Linda Pollak Nelson, Nicolas M. Oreskovic, Ricardo S. Osorio, David Patterson, Sonja A. Rasmussen, Roger H. Reeves, Nancy Roizen, Stephanie Santoro, Stephanie L. Sherman, Nasreen Talib, Ignacio E. Tapia, Kyle M. Walsh, Steven F. Warren, A Nicole White, Guang William Wong, John S. Yi

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: Recent advances in medical care have increased life expectancy and improved the quality of life for people with Down syndrome (DS). These advances are the result of both pre-clinical and clinical research but much about DS is still poorly understood. In 2020, the NIH announced their plan to update their DS research plan and requested input from the scientific and advocacy community.

OBJECTIVE: The National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) and the LuMind IDSC Foundation worked together with scientific and medical experts to develop recommendations for the NIH research plan.

METHODS: NDSS and LuMind IDSC assembled over 50 experts across …

African Swine Fever Virus Circulation Between Tanzania And Neighboring Countries: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Jean Nepomuscene Hakizimana, Clara Yona, Olivier Kamana, Hans Nauwynck, Gerald Misinzo

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

For over 100 years after the description of the first case of African swine fever (ASF) in Kenya, ASF virus (ASFV) cross-border spread in eastern and southern Africa has not been fully investigated. In this manuscript, we reviewed systematically the available literature on molecular epidemiology of ASF in Tanzania and its eight neighboring countries in order to establish the transmission dynamics of ASFV between these countries. Data were retrieved from World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS), Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, and CrossRef databases, using the recommendations of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and reviewed …

Complete Genome Analysis Of African Swine Fever Virus Responsible For Outbreaks In Domestic Pigs In 2018 In Burundi And 2019 In Malawi, Jean Nepomuscene Hakizimana, Jean B. Ntirandekura, Clara Yona, Lionel Nyabongo, Gladson Kamwendo, Julius L.C Chulu, Désiré Ntakirutimana, Olivier Kamana, Hans Nauwynck, Gerald Misinzo

All Rsif Scholars' Publications

Several African swine fever (ASF) outbreaks in domestic pigs have been reported in Burundi and Malawi and whole-genome sequences of circulating outbreak viruses in these countries are limited. In the present study, complete genome sequences of ASF viruses (ASFV) that caused the 2018 outbreak in Burundi (BUR/18/Rutana) and the 2019 outbreak in Malawi (MAL/19/Karonga) were produced using Illumina next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform and compared with other previously described ASFV complete genomes. The complete nucleotide sequences of BUR/18/Rutana and MAL/19/Karonga were 176,564 and 183,325 base pairs long with GC content of 38.62 and 38.48%, respectively. The MAL/19/Karonga virus had a total …