Digital Commons Network^™

An Evaluation Of College Preparedness On Natural Selection Principles Following The Completion Of An Entry-Level Biology Course, Amy Bell

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Evolution education in secondary education has long been a topic of research. The level of knowledge and acceptance of students upon entering college has been studied using various methods; however, no study had provided the perception of preparedness from the student perspective nor had analyzed the individual Natural Selection principles. This study analyzed college freshmen (n=162) in an entry-level BIO 101 course. Participants were given the Conceptual Inventory of Natural Selection Instrument (CINSI) and perception survey questions upon completion of the course. The CINSI data was then analyzed for each of the four Natural Selection principles as well as …

Strange Fruit: The Forgotten Lynchings Of Northwest Tennessee And Southwestern Kentucky, 1869-1931, Melinda Meador

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

In the 50 years between 1869 and 1918, 50 African Americans were lynched in a sparsely populated three-county area, far removed from the Cotton Belt and outside the ambit of the Tobacco Black Patch, along the state line in northwest Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. The characteristics of lynchings identified in previous studies have little relevance to the lynchings carried out in this three-county area where the African American population seldom exceeded twenty percent of the overall population. Unlike the Deep South, the practice appears not to have been driven by socio-economic and political factors but primarily by a lust for …

Retention And The Sophomore Slump: Understanding Whether Campus Residency Predicts Retention Of Sophomore College Students, Raglena Salmans

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Retention in higher education is an ongoing challenge in America. Traditional research claims a multitude of reasons for freshman college students to stop out, drop out, or transfer colleges. The term sophomore slump was created many years ago as an all-encompassing phrase for the large amount of students who do not return to campus for their sophomore year or end up leaving during the sophomore year. Institutions of higher education are on a continuous journey to retain students and to understand what the cause of students leaving their university is. Campus housing has morphed through the years to provide programming …

Examining The Relationship Between Inclusivity And Well-Being In The Gender, Sexual, And Romantic Minority Community, Sarah E. Weekes

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

Research has established that higher levels of inclusivity promote increased levels of well-being in GSRM populations (Yoder & Mattheis, 2016); however, there is a lack of research exploring a moderating effect of psychological flexibility on this relationship. Previous research has also demonstrated that psychological flexibility is related to increased quality of life (Walloch & Hill, 2016); however, the relationship between psychological flexibility and inclusivity remains largely unexplored in GSRM populations. The purpose of this study was to explore how inclusivity, psychological distress, and psychological flexibility correlate with well-being among a sample of 198 individuals who identify as GSRM. This study …

Glial Granules And Germline Proteins In The Drosophila Brain, Samuel J. Tindell

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

My overarching goal was to elucidate the role of Tudor (Tud) protein in the Drosophila brain. Tud is an evolutionarily conserved molecular scaffold, containing 11 Tud domains which bind to symmetrically dimethylated arginine (sDMA) residues in a variety of proteins. Tud is an essential component of embryonic ribonucleoprotein complexes (RNPs) called germ granules that contain RNAs and proteins crucial to the differentiation and maintenance of germ cells, the specialized class of stem cells that ultimately give rise to the next generation of organism. In the absence of Tud, there is a complete abolishment of germ cells highlighting its important role …

Understanding Volunteer Motivations To Serve, Dominique P. Wood

Murray State Theses and Dissertations

An organization’s volunteer development program can serve as a useful tool in the P-20 framework to address transitional gaps preventing smooth and consistent movement of individuals from traditional education to career attainment. Utilizing Maslow’s Theory of Motivation and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this qualitative study revealed volunteer motivation effectively resolved needs that work toward Self-Actualization. Satisfied needs, addressed by the volunteer experience, places the organization as a relevant partner in the P-20 framework to resolve career attainment goals. The volunteer makes the gift of time, skills, experience, and knowledge based on personal preferences to the organization’s work. Partnerships are achieved …

Risk Factors For Poor Outcomes Among Patients With Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (Xdr-Tb): A Scoping Review., Karan Varshney, Beverly Anaele, Matthew Molaei, Rosemary Frasso, Vittorio Maio

College of Population Health Faculty Papers

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in cases of drug-resistant TB, and strains of TB resistant to all forms of treatment have begun to emerge; the highest level of resistance is classified as extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). There is an urgent need to prevent poor outcomes (death/default/failed treatment) of XDR-TB, and knowing the risk factors can inform such efforts. The objective of this scoping review was to therefore identify risk factors for poor outcomes among XDR-TB patients. We searched three scientific databases, PubMed, Scopus, and ProQuest, and identified 25 articles that examined relevant risk factors. Across the included …

Big Data Sentiment Analysis Of Twitter Data, Ahmed Hussein Ali, Harish Kumar Kumar Kumar

Mesopotamian Journal of Big Data

The examination local area has utilized man-made brainpower, and specifically machine learning, in various ways to change various unique and, surprisingly, heterogeneous data sources into excellent realities and information, offering driving capacities to exact example finding. In any case, utilizing machine learning strategies on enormous and convoluted datasets is computationally costly and utilizes a great deal of coherent and actual assets, including central processor, memory, and data record space.In the current study collected the review of different researchers from 2010 to 2022. As how much data produced consistently arrives at quintillions of bytes, it is turning out to be more …

Big Data Analysis, Rana Talib Rasheed, Mostafa Abdulgafoor Mohammed Mostafa Abdulgafoor Mohammed, Nicolae Tapus Nicolae Tapus

Mesopotamian Journal of Big Data

“Big Data” can be considered as an expression which has spread suddenly. It could be depicted as a pioneering mechanism for saving, distributing, managing, visualizing and analyzing large data along with very high velocity and approaches for managing incompetent quantity of data. Here, the state-of-the-art and background of big data are reviewed. Every review-related technology and general background of big data are firstly reviewed, for example IoT, cloud computing, Hadoop and data centers. Then, we concentrate on every value chain phase belongs to big data such as data acquisition, data generation, data analysis and data storage. For the four phases, …

Distributed Reduced Convolution Neural Networks, Mohammad Alajanbi, Donato Malerba Donato Malerba, He Liu He Liu

Mesopotamian Journal of Big Data

A Convolution Neural Network (CNN) is a popular tool in the domains of pattern recognition and machine learning. The performance of KCNN (kernel-based convolutional neural networks) is better than that of regular CNN. Although the KCNN can solve challenging nonlinear problems, doing so when dealing with a large-size kernel matrix is time-consuming and memory-intensive. The computational load and memory usage could be drastically decreased by adopting a reduced kernel strategy. But as the total amount of training data grows at an exponential pace, it becomes hard for a single worker to efficiently store the kernel matrix. Because of this, there …

Artificial Neural Networks Advantages And Disadvantages, Maad M. Mijwel

Mesopotamian Journal of Big Data

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are the modelling of the human brain with the simplest definition, and the building blocks are neurons. There are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain. Each neuron has a connection point between 1,000 and 100,000. In the human brain, information is stored in such a way as to be distributed, and we can extract more than one piece of this information from our memory in parallel when necessary. We are not mistaken when we say that a human brain is made up of thousands of very, very powerful parallel processors. In multi-layer artificial neural …

Evaluation Of Corn Herbicide Programs With And Without Atrazine, Jason K. Norsworthy, Jacob Thomas Richburg, L. Tom Barber, Trenton Roberts, Edward Gbur

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Atrazine is a foundational herbicide in corn (Zea mays L.) because of its broad-spectrum weed control and utility for pre-emergence or postemergence applications. Extensive atrazine use has led to traces in groundwater, surface water, and aquifers. This research explored corn herbicide regimes with little or no atrazine. Pre-emergence herbicide treatments [S-metolachlor (0.955 lb acre^–1); saflufenacil (0.054 oz acre^–1) plus dimethenamid-P (0.473 lb acre^–1)] and postemergence herbicide mixtures [bicyclopyrone (0.040 lb acre^–1) plus mesotrione (0.161 lb acre^–1) plus S-metolachlor (1.429 lb acre^–1); thiencarbazone-methyl (0.013 lb …

Characterizing Expansiveness And Iron Reducibility Of Red-Clay Soils For The Purpose Of On-Site Wastewater System Placement In Arkansas, Bailey Darnell, Kristofor R. Brye, Larry T. West, Lisa S. Wood, David M. Miller

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The lack of iron-reducing capability in some red soils poses an issue for determining the suitability for on-site wastewater treatment systems (OSWWTS). The Arkansas Department of Health allows for placement of OSWWTS in certain red-clay soils that have the potential for iron reduction and do not show expansiveness upon wetting, but only in the Ozark Highlands (Major Land Resource Area [MLRA] 116A), which is referred to as the red-soil exception. The objectives of this study were (a) to confirm the nonexpansiveness and iron reducibility of select soils in the Ozark Highlands that meet the criteria for the red-soil exception, and …

Clinicopathologic Implications Of Complement Genetic Variants In Kidney Transplantation, Zhen Ren, Stephen J Perkins, Latisha Love-Gregory, John P Atkinson, Anuja Java

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Genetic testing has uncovered rare variants in complement proteins associated with thrombotic microangiopathy (TMA) and C3 glomerulopathy (C3G). Approximately 50% are classified as variants of uncertain significance (VUS). Clinical risk assessment of patients carrying a VUS remains challenging primarily due to a lack of functional information, especially in the context of multiple confounding factors in the setting of kidney transplantation. Our objective was to evaluate the clinicopathologic significance of genetic variants in TMA and C3G in a kidney transplant cohort. We used whole exome next-generation sequencing to analyze complement genes in 76 patients, comprising 60 patients with a TMA and …

Health Disparities And Treatment Approaches In Portopulmonary Hypertension And Idiopathic Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: An Analysis Of The Pulmonary Hypertension Association Registry, Hilary M Dubrock, Murali Chakinala, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Compared to idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH), patients with portopulmonary hypertension (POPH) have worse survival. Health disparities may contribute to these differences but have not been studied. We sought to compare socioeconomic factors in patients with POPH and IPAH and to determine whether socioeconomic status and/or POPH diagnosis were associated with treatment and health-care utilization. We performed a cross-sectional study of adults enrolled in the Pulmonary Hypertension Association Registry. Patients with IPAH (n = 344) and POPH (n = 57) were compared. Compared with IPAH, patients with POPH were less likely to be college graduates (19.6% vs. 34.9%, p = …

Does Circulating Progesterone Mediate The Associations Of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms In Progesterone Receptor (Pgr)-Related Genes With Mammographic Breast Density In Premenopausal Women?, Favour A Akinjiyan, Yunan Han, Jingqin Luo, Adetunji T Toriola

2020-Current year OA Pubs

UNLABELLED: Progesterone is a proliferative hormone in the breast but the associations of genetic variations in progesterone-regulated pathways with mammographic breast density (MD) in premenopausal women and whether these associations are mediated through circulating progesterone are not clearly defined. We, therefore, investigated these associations in 364 premenopausal women with a median age of 44 years. We sequenced 179 progesterone receptor (PGR)-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We measured volumetric percent density (VPD) and non-dense volume (NDV) using Volpara. Linear regression models were fit on circulating progesterone or VPD/NDV separately. We performed mediation analysis to evaluate whether the effect of a SNP …

Loss Of Angiotensin Ii Type 2 Receptor Improves Blood Pressure In Elastin Insufficiency, Michelle Lin, Robyn A Roth, Beth A Kozel, Robert P Mecham, Carmen M Halabi

2020-Current year OA Pubs

There is ample evidence supporting a role for angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT

Effective Connectivity Extracts Clinically Relevant Prognostic Information From Resting State Activity In Stroke, Mohit H Adhikari, Joseph Griffis, Joshua S Siegel, Michel Thiebaut De Schotten, Gustavo Deco, Andrea Instabato, Matthieu Gilson, Maurizio Corbetta

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Recent resting-state functional MRI studies in stroke patients have identified two robust biomarkers of acute brain dysfunction: a reduction of inter-hemispheric functional connectivity between homotopic regions of the same network, and an abnormal increase of ipsi-lesional functional connectivity between task-negative and task-positive resting-state networks. Whole-brain computational modelling studies, at the individual subject level, using undirected effective connectivity derived from empirically measured functional connectivity, have shown a reduction of measures of integration and segregation in stroke as compared to healthy brains. Here we employ a novel method, first, to infer whole-brain directional effective connectivity from zero-lagged and lagged covariance matrices, then, …

Smaller Spared Subcortical Nuclei Are Associated With Worse Post-Stroke Sensorimotor Outcomes In 28 Cohorts Worldwide, Sook-Lei Liew, Catherine E Lang, Anup K Bhattacharya, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Up to two-thirds of stroke survivors experience persistent sensorimotor impairments. Recovery relies on the integrity of spared brain areas to compensate for damaged tissue. Deep grey matter structures play a critical role in the control and regulation of sensorimotor circuits. The goal of this work is to identify associations between volumes of spared subcortical nuclei and sensorimotor behaviour at different timepoints after stroke. We pooled high-resolution T

Perceived Barriers To Assessing Understanding And Appreciation Of Informed Consent In Clinical Trials: A Mixed-Method Study, Erin D Solomon, Jessica Mozersky, Kari Baldwin, Matthew P Wroblewski, Meredith V Parsons, Melody Goodman, James M Dubois

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Participants and research professionals often overestimate how well participants understand and appreciate consent information for clinical trials, and experts often vary in their determinations of participant's capacity to consent to research. Past research has developed and validated instruments designed to assess participant understanding and appreciation, but the frequency with which they are utilized is unknown.

METHODS: We administered a survey to clinical researchers working with older adults or those at risk of cognitive impairment (

RESULTS: We found that using a validated assessment of consent is relatively uncommon, being used by only 44% of researchers who had an opportunity. …

Teaching For Implementation: A Framework For Building Implementation Research And Practice Capacity Within The Translational Science Workforce, Aaron L Leppin, Ana A Baumann, Maria E Fernandez, Brittany N Rudd, Kathleen R Stevens, David O Warner, Bethany M Kwan, Rachel C Shelton

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Implementation science offers a compelling value proposition to translational science. As such, many translational science stakeholders are seeking to recruit, teach, and train an implementation science workforce. The type of workforce that will make implementation happen consists of both implementation researchers and practitioners, yet little guidance exists on how to train such a workforce. We-members of the Advancing Dissemination and Implementation Sciences in CTSAs Working Group-present the Teaching For Implementation Framework to address this gap. We describe the differences between implementation researchers and practitioners and demonstrate what and how to teach them individually and in co-learning opportunities. We briefly comment …

A Genetic Mouse Model With Postnatal Nf1 And P53 Loss Recapitulates The Histology And Transcriptome Of Human Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor, Akira Inoue, Laura J Janke, Brian L Gudenas, Hongjian Jin, Yiping Fan, Joshua Paré, Michael R Clay, Paul A Northcott, Angela C Hirbe, Xinwei Cao

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNST) are aggressive sarcomas. Somatic inactivation of

METHODS: We combined 2 genetically modified alleles, an

RESULTS: Postnatal

CONCLUSIONS: The NP-Plp model recapitulates human MPNST genetically, histologically, and molecularly.

A Phase Ii Study Of Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy Combined With Doxorubicin In Patients With Recurrent Glioblastoma, Omar H Butt, Alice Y Zhou, Jiayi Huang, William A Leidig, Alice E Silberstein, Milan G Chheda, Tanner M Johanns, George Ansstas, Jingxia Liu, Grayson Talcott, Ruth Nakiwala, Joshua S Shimony, Albert H Kim, Eric C Leuthardt, Jian L Campian, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a major limiting factor for drug delivery in brain tumors. Laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT) disrupts the peritumoral BBB. In this study, we examine survival in patients with recurrent glioblastoma (GBM) treated with LITT followed by low-dose doxorubicin, a potent anti-neoplastic drug with poor BBB permeability.

METHODS: Forty-one patients with recurrent GBM were enrolled; thirty patients were evaluable. Participants underwent LITT followed by 6 weekly doxorubicin treatments starting within one week (Early Arm) or at 6-8 weeks (Late Arm) after LITT. The overall survival (OS), local progression-free survival (PFS), and any PFS were compared …

The Next Generation Of Ocular Pathogen Detection, Sharon L. Sabapathypillai, Hayley R. James, Rachael R. L. Lyerla, Lynn Hassman

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Metagenomic next-generation sequencing is a powerful method for pathogen detection that combines advanced genome sequencing technology with cutting-edge bioinformatics to analyze microbial populations. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing has the potential to identify uncommon, unculturable, and even previously unidentified pathogens from a clinical isolate. Of particular interest to ophthalmology, this robust data extraction can occur from very small volume clinical samples. Here we discuss the opportunities and limitations of this technique and their current and future application to ophthalmic diagnostics.

Project Task Force - Conceptual Framework, Independence Standards Board

Association Sections, Divisions, Boards, Teams

No abstract provided.

Detection Of Β-Amyloid Positivity In Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative Participants With Demographics, Cognition, Mri And Plasma Biomarkers, Duygu Tosun, James Bollinger, Vitaliy Ovod, Kwasi G Mawuenyega, Randall J Bateman, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

A Modified Delphi Approach To Develop A Trial Protocol For Antibiotic De-Escalation In Patients With Suspected Sepsis, Michael E Yarrington, Rebekah W Moehring, Michael Z David, Keith W Hamilton, Michael Klompas, Chanu Rhee, Kevin Hsueh, Elizabeth Dodds Ashley, Ronda L Sinkowitz-Cochran, Matthew Ryan, Deverick J Anderson, Detours Expert Panel Of The Cdc Prevention Epicenters Program

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Background: Early administration of antibiotics in sepsis is associated with improved patient outcomes, but safe and generalizable approaches to de-escalate or discontinue antibiotics after suspected sepsis events are unknown.

Methods: We used a modified Delphi approach to identify safety criteria for an opt-out protocol to guide de-escalation or discontinuation of antibiotic therapy after 72 hours in non-ICU patients with suspected sepsis. An expert panel with expertise in antimicrobial stewardship and hospital epidemiology rated 48 unique criteria across 3 electronic survey rating tools. Criteria were rated primarily based on their impact on patient safety and feasibility for extraction from electronic health …

Evaluation Of A Hybrid Antimicrobial Restriction Process At A Large Academic Medical Center, Jesse D Smith, Linh H Nguyen, Tamara Krekel, Jerrica Waggoner, David J Ritchie, Michael J Durkin, Kevin Hsueh, Elizabeth A Neuner

2020-Current year OA Pubs

We conducted a retrospective review of a hybrid antimicrobial restriction process demonstrating adherence to appropriate use criteria in 72% of provisional-only orders, in 100% of provisional orders followed by ID orders, and in 97% of ID-initiated orders. Therapy interruptions occurred in 24% of provisional orders followed by ID orders.

Transmission Dynamics: Data Sharing In The Covid-19 Era, Randi E Foraker, Albert M Lai, Thomas G Kannampallil, Keith F Woeltje, Anne M Trolard, Philip R O Payne

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Problem: The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic underscores the need for building and sustaining public health data infrastructure to support a rapid local, regional, national, and international response. Despite a historical context of public health crises, data sharing agreements and transactional standards do not uniformly exist between institutions which hamper a foundational infrastructure to meet data sharing and integration needs for the advancement of public health.

Approach: There is a growing need to apply population health knowledge with technological solutions to data transfer, integration, and reasoning, to improve health in a broader learning health system ecosystem. To achieve this, …

Incidentally Found Rib Hemangioma: Case Report And Discussion Of Management, Deniz B. Morkan, Jason M. Gauthier, Daniel Kreisel, Varun Puri, Ruben G. Nava

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Rib hemangioma is a rare chest wall tumor for which few reports in the literature exist to help guide treatment. The clinical presentation, radiographic findings, and treatment strategies vary in the literature, with the majority of patients undergoing surgical resection to definitively rule out malignancy. Here, we report a 23-year-old woman with an incidentally discovered rib hemangioma, who had a history of migraines, during the workup of a severe headache refractory to medical treatment. Imaging revealed a solitary, expansile tumor arising from the posterior left third rib. Spinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a fat-containing lesion with multiple vascular flow …