Digital Commons Network^™

A Multiple Input Multiple Output Framework For The Automatic Optical Fractionator-Based Cell Counting In Z-Stacks Using Deep Learning, Palak Dave

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Quantifying cells in a defined region of biological tissue is critical for many clinical and preclinical studies, especially in pathology, toxicology, cancer, and behavior. Unbiased stereology is the state-of-art method for quantification of the total number and other morphometric parameters of stained objects in a defined region of biological tissue. As part of a program to develop accurate, precise, and more efficient automatic approaches for quantifying morphometric changes in biological tissue, our group has shown that both deep learning-based and hand-crafted algorithms can estimate the total number of histologically stained cells at their maximal profile of focus in extended depth …

Bonnets, Braids, And Big Afros: The Politics Of Black Characters’ Hair, Kay Siebler

English Faculty Publications

The representations of a Black woman character’s hair say some- thing about her. The hair of a Black character is never neutral and nuances of hair are noticed by Black woman audience members. In my research interviewing 103 Black women about the representations of Black women in the shows/films they consumed, 12% of the participants discussed the politics of Black women’s hair as a marker of authentic representation. This article analyzes contemporary representations of hair in shows primarily directed/produced by Black women, arguing that representations of Black women’s hair can be empowering to Black women audience members. Hair styles, rituals, …

Palliative Care In The Icu, Grace Cunningham

MSN Capstone Projects

Death and dying is an evident part of being admitted to the intensive care unit. However, too many times, the end-of-life conversations and palliative care team introduction are done when it is too late. The PICOT question is “In ICU patients (P), how does early palliative care involvement in the death and dying process (I) compared to later palliative care involvement in the death and dying process (C) affect positive patient outcomes (O) within the ICU hospital stay (T)?” The objective of this change project is to instill a sense of urgency in providing palliative consults upon admission as this …

Hanakatsura: The Works Of Famous Literary Women In Japan, Tei Fujiu (Trans.), Kaho Miyake, Ichiyo Higuchi, Usurai Kitada, Otsuka Kusuo, Paul Royster (Ed.)

Zea E-Books Collection

Originally published in Tokyo in 1903, Hanakatsura (literally “garland of flowers”) features a biographical sketch of the activist and author Kishida Toshiko (Baroness Nakajima) plus four short stories by Japanese women writers of the Meiji era:

Akebonozome: A Cloth Dyed in Rainbow Colors, by Kaho Miyake

Ōtsugomori: The Last Day of the Year, by Ichiyo Higuchi

Onisenbiki: The Thousand Devils, by Usurai Kitada (Mrs. Kajita)

Shinobine, by Otsuka Kusuo

Compiled and translated by Tei Fujiu, four memorable and affecting stories depict women experiencing the frustrations of traditional family roles within an emergent commercial society at the turn of the century. …

Amplification Of The Plag-Family Genes-Plagl1 And Plagl2-Is A Key Feature Of The Novel Tumor Type Cns Embryonal Tumor With Plagl Amplification, Michaela-Kristina Keck, Martin Sill, Andrea Wittmann, Piyush Joshi, Damian Stichel, Pengbo Beck, Konstantin Okonechnikow, Philipp Sievers, Annika K. Wefers, Nasir Uddin

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Pediatric central nervous system (CNS) tumors represent the most common cause of cancer-related death in children aged 0-14 years. They differ from their adult counterparts, showing extensive clinical and molecular heterogeneity as well as a challenging histopathological spectrum that often impairs accurate diagnosis. Here, we use DNA methylation-based CNS tumor classification in combination with copy number, RNA-seq, and ChIP-seq analysis to characterize a newly identified CNS tumor type. In addition, we report histology, patient characteristics, and survival data in this tumor type. We describe a biologically distinct pediatric CNS tumor type (n = 31 cases) that is characterized by focal …

What Are The Dangers And Risks Of Alcohol And Substance Misuse? How Can You Prevent It?, Anna Jones

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Structural And Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Correlates Of Fatigue And Dual-Task Performance In Progressive Multiple Sclerosis, Paolo Preziosa, Maria A. Rocca, Elisabetta Pagani, Paola Valsasina, Maria Pia Amato, Giampaolo Brichetto, Nicolò Bruschi, Jeremy Chataway, Nancy D. Chiaravalloti, Gary Cutter, Ulrik Dalgas, John Deluca, Rachel Farrell, Peter Feys, Jennifer Freeman, Matilde Inglese, Alessandro Meani, Cecilia Meza, Robert W. Motl, Amber Salter, Brian M. Sandroff, Anthony Feinstein, Massimo Filippi

School of Health Professions

BACKGROUND: Frontal cortico-subcortical dysfunction may contribute to fatigue and dual-task impairment of walking and cognition in progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS). PURPOSE: To explore the associations among fatigue, dual-task performance and structural and functional abnormalities of frontal cortico-subcortical network in PMS. METHODS: Brain 3 T structural and functional MRI sequences, Modified Fatigue Impact Scale (MFIS), dual-task motor and cognitive performances were obtained from 57 PMS patients and 10 healthy controls (HC). The associations of thalamic, caudate nucleus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) atrophy, microstructural abnormalities of their connections and their resting state effective connectivity (RS-EC) with fatigue and dual-task performance were …

Influence Of Salts On The Photocatalytic Degradation Of Formic Acid In Wastewater, Azzah Nazihah Che Abdul Rahim, Shotaro Yamada, Haruki Bonkohara, Tsuyoshi Imai, Yung-Tse Hung, Izumi Kumakiri

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Conventional wastewater treatment technologies have difficulties in feasibly removing persistent organics. The photocatalytic oxidation of these contaminants offers an economical and environmentally friendly solution. In this study, TiO2 membranes and Ag/TiO2 membranes were prepared and used for the decomposition of dissolved formic acid in wastewater. The photochemical deposition of silver on a TiO2 membrane improved the decomposition rate. The rate doubled by depositing ca. 2.5 mg of Ag per 1 g of TiO2. The influence of salinity on formic acid decomposition was studied. The presence of inorganic salts reduced the treatment performance of the TiO2 membranes to half. Ag/TiO2 membranes …

Understanding Alcohol Use Discourse And Stigma Patterns In Perinatal Care On Twitter, Fritz Culp, Yuqi Wu, Dezhi Wu, Yang Ren, Phyllis Raynor, Peiyin Hung, Shan Qiao Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D., Kacey Eichelberger

Faculty Publications

(1) Background: perinatal alcohol use generates a variety of health risks. Social media platforms discuss fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and other widespread outcomes, providing personalized user-generated content about the perceptions and behaviors related to alcohol use during pregnancy. Data collected from Twitter underscores various narrative structures and sentiments in tweets that reflect large-scale discourses and foster societal stigmas; (2) Methods: We extracted alcohol-related tweets from May 2019 to October 2021 using an official Twitter search API based on a set of keywords provided by our clinical team. Our exploratory study utilized thematic content analysis and inductive qualitative coding methods …

Clinical And Molecular Insights Into Gastrointestinal Dysfunction In Myotonic Dystrophy Types 1 & 2, Janel A M Peterson, Thomas A Cooper

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Myotonic dystrophy (DM) is a highly variable, multisystemic disorder that clinically affects one in 8000 individuals. While research has predominantly focused on the symptoms and pathological mechanisms affecting striated muscle and brain, DM patient surveys have identified a high prevalence for gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms amongst affected individuals. Clinical studies have identified chronic and progressive dysfunction of the esophagus, stomach, liver and gallbladder, small and large intestine, and rectum and anal sphincters. Despite the high incidence of GI dysmotility in DM, little is known regarding the pathological mechanisms leading to GI dysfunction. In this review, we summarize results from clinical and …

Comprehensive Review Of Cardiovascular Disease Risk In Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, Kevan Josloff, Jacob Beiriger, Adnan Khan, Richard J. Gawel, Richard S. Kirby, Aaron Kendrick, Abhinav K. Rao, Roy Wang, Michelle Schafer, Margaret Pearce, Kashyap Chauhan, Yash B. Shah, Gregary D. Marhefka, Dina Halegoua-De Marzio

Department of Medicine Faculty Papers

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is a growing global phenomenon, and its damaging effects in terms of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk are becoming more apparent. NAFLD is estimated to affect around one quarter of the world population and is often comorbid with other metabolic disorders including diabetes mellitus, hypertension, coronary artery disease, and metabolic syndrome. In this review, we examine the current evidence describing the many ways that NAFLD itself increases CVD risk. We also discuss the emerging and complex biochemical relationship between NAFLD and its common comorbid conditions, and how they coalesce to increase CVD risk. With NAFLD's rising …

Using Genomic Variation To Distinguish Ovarian High-Grade Serous Carcinoma From Benign Fallopian Tubes, Jesus Gonzalez-Bosquet, Nicholas D Cardillo, Henry D Reyes, Brian J Smith, Kimberly K Leslie, David P Bender, Michael J Goodheart, Eric J Devor

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Faculty Papers

The preoperative diagnosis of pelvic masses has been elusive to date. Methods for characterization such as CA-125 have had limited specificity. We hypothesize that genomic variation can be used to create prediction models which accurately distinguish high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) from benign tissue.

Methods: In this retrospective, pilot study, we extracted DNA and RNA from HGSC specimens and from benign fallopian tubes. Then, we performed whole exome sequencing and RNA sequencing, and identified single nucleotide variants (SNV), copy number variants (CNV) and structural variants (SV). We used these variants to create prediction models to distinguish cancer from benign …

Hpv Vaccination Training Of Healthcare Providers And Perceived Self-Efficacy In Hpv Vaccine-Hesitancy Counseling, Ikponmwosa Osaghae, Charles Darkoh, Onyema Greg Chido-Amajuoyi, Wenyaw Chan, Paige Padgett Wermuth, Mala Pande, Sonia A Cunningham, Sanjay Shete

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

HPV vaccine hesitancy is a key barrier to HPV vaccination. Using a population-based survey of HCPs practicing in Texas we determined the association between formal training of HCPs and perceived self-efficacy in counseling HPV vaccine-hesitant parents and adult patients. A total of 1283 HCPs completed the survey, with 879 providing vaccination services to pediatric patients and 1018 providing vaccination services to adult patients. Among HCPs included in this study, 405 of 577 (70%) and 315 of 505 (62%) perceived they were very/completely confident in counseling HPV vaccine-hesitant parents and adult patients, respectively. Compared to HCPs who received no training, those …

A Conversation In Time: A New Concept For Creating Stream Graphs For Qualitative Data Visualization, Emily S. Nelson, Sheryl Chatfield

The Qualitative Report

Despite the affinity between qualitative research and non-text visual information, the range and application of creative visualizations used to give depth and dimension to qualitative research reports is limited. Thoughtfully designed visualizations, including those which emphasize color, have myriad advantages, including the ability to compress information into an easily understood summary. The purpose of this paper is to describe a new method, developed by the first author, suitable for capturing temporal aspects of conversations and word volume for presentation in an engaging visual way. This method uses the widely available software program Microsoft Excel, in conjunction with R, an open …

Who Am I When I Am Teaching? Self In Yoga Practice, Krzysztof T. Konecki

The Qualitative Report

The paper shows the situational transitions between the different identities of a teacher in hatha yoga practice: teacher, instructor, trainee, student, and researcher. The analysis is based on self-reports of my feelings about practicing and teaching hatha yoga. The explication is based on the self-observation of my lived experiences and the observation of interactions with hatha yoga session participants. The self emerges from the interactions or lack of interactions. Sometimes I am a participant, sometimes an instructor, and sometimes a student, even in the same yoga session. I analyze my self-reports using the first-person perspective and third-person mode. There are …

Glial Interference: Impact Of Type I Interferon In Neurodegenerative Diseases, Ethan Roy, Wei Cao

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Wto Security Exceptions: A Sliding Scale Approach To Protect The Rules-Based System For Global Free Trade, Ts Somashekar, Kanchan Yadav

Articles

Since the enforcement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947 and subsequently with the establishment of the World Trade Organization, the global community has been moving towards a more secure and rule-based international trade law regime. The cornerstones of the system are predictability and transparency, which ensure that a state, no matter how powerful, cannot undertake a discriminatory trade measure against another going above and beyond the rules. However, the recent instances of unilateral invocation of the security exceptions found in the various trade agreements endanger the very basis of the WTO system. The very first …

Teaching And Learning Social Change, Amie Thurber, Helen Buckingham, Jordenn Martens, Rebecca Lusk, Darrylann Becker, Stacey Spenser

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

How can social work courses prepare students to be scholars of social movements, and also to act in solidarity with movements for social justice? How can graduate programs reimagine the professional socialization of social work students from aspiring for expertise toward a stance of life-long learning? How can instructors more deeply leverage our teaching practice to advance justice in our communities? This paper traces one attempt to answer these questions through a three-quarter graduate social work course designed to deepen students’ skills and knowledge in practices for social transformation, while amplifying existing social justice movements. Drawing on reflections from the …

A Method And A Connecting Device For Associating Users And Philanthropic Entities, Malay Ghosh, Papak Mondal, Hui Min Chua, Kelvin Wong, Tan Su Yee, Imaan Rowter

Defensive Publications Series

The present disclosure relates to a method and a connecting device for associating users and philanthropic entities to help in community movement. In the present disclosure, initially a connecting device 103 may receive a request from an authorization entity to connect to a philanthropic entity 105. The authorization entity may send the request to the connecting device 103 when the user device 101 initiates a transaction with a merchant. The authorization entity may determine if the user device 101 is enrolled in the charity program. Further, the connecting device 103 may send a request to retrieve the event data …

Marine, Benn, Andrea Carpenter

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Benn is a 37-year-old trans man living in Maine. He identifies as being pansexual because he feels that he falls in love with personalities regardless of the person’s gender. He grew up with his family in rural southern Maine. He describes feeling that he was different than others from a young age and that, as he describes it, God made a mistake and he was supposed to be a boy. Yet he pushed those feeling under the rug for a long time. He first came out as gay, and much later he came out as trans in his mid-20s, and …

Drought‑Stricken U.S. States Have More Comprehensive Water‑Related Hazard Planning, Theresa Jedd, Kelly Smith

National Drought Mitigation Center: Faculty Publications

Despite the devastating impacts of droughts, the United States lacks a national drought plan. This leaves states to address droughts in water, hazard, and stand-alone plans which are designed to reduce drought vulnerability and to prepare government, industry, and society to cope with the impacts. Yet, there is limited empirical research that evaluates the comprehensiveness of these plans, specifically in terms of whether they include preparedness and mitigation measures or triggers for action and response. To fill this gap, this study’s first aim was to establish an evaluation framework based on principles from the drought mitigation literature. The study then …

Summary: New Perspectives On Worker Subordination, Valerio De Stefano, Sara Slinn, Eric Tucker

International Symposium on New Perspectives on Worker Subordination

No abstract provided.

Memes From Confinement: Disorientation And Hindsight Projection In The Crisis Of Covid-19, David Divita

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Memes have been described as textual forms of “(post)modern folklore” (Shifman, 2014: 5). Photos or short videos, they highlight current cultural phenomena, and they spread exponentially through person-to-person sharing on social media platforms. For this article, I created a corpus of memes that circulated in March 2020, during the first weeks after statewide lockdown orders were issued in the U.S. in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on Bakthin’s (1981) concept of the chronotope, I analyze a subset of these memes that specifically addressed the experience of time in confinement, illuminating two interrelated trends: the disruption of temporal order in …

In Re: Akorn Inc

2022 Decisions

USDC for the District of Delaware

Modeling The Dynamics Of Cerebrovascular Reactivity To Carbon Dioxide In Fmri Under Task And Resting-State Conditions, Seyedmohammad Shams, Prokopis Prokopiou, Azin Esmaelbeigi, Georgios D. Mitsis, J. Jean Chen

Neurology Articles

Conventionally, cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) is estimated as the amplitude of the hemodynamic response to vascular stimuli, most commonly carbon dioxide (CO(2)). While the CVR amplitude has established clinical utility, the temporal characteristics of CVR (dCVR) have been increasingly explored and may yield even more pathology-sensitive parameters. This work is motivated by the current need to evaluate the feasibility of dCVR modeling in various experimental conditions. In this work, we present a comparison of several recently published/utilized model-based deconvolution (response estimation) approaches for estimating the CO(2) response function h(t), including maximum a posteriori likelihood (MAP), inverse logit (IL), canonical correlation analysis …

Strengthened Multi-Stakeholder Linkages In Valuation Studies Is Critical For Improved Decision Making Outcomes For Valuable Mangroves – The Malaysian Case Study, Soon Loong Lee, Amy Yee Hui Then, Hong Ching Goh, Caroline Hattam, Andrew Edwards-Jones, Melanie C. Austen

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Mangrove forests in Southeast Asia are continuously declining as a result of unsustainable practices, partly due to limited recognition of the value of mangrove services in land use decision making. Valuation practitioners have assumed that monetary valuation should inform local and national decision makers to ensure sustainable management of mangrove resources. For ecosystem service valuation to be of use to decision makers, best practices should be adhered to such as having straightforward policy questions and strong stakeholder engagement from the onset of valuation studies, suitable choice of valuation methodologies, and the ability to effectively demonstrate causal links between drivers of …

Evaluation Of Some Antioxidants And Oxidative Stress Tests In Iraqi Lung Cancer Patients, Israa F. Ascar, Fayhaa M. Khaleel, Areej Sh. Hameed, Musaab Kadhim Alabboodi

Baghdad Science Journal

Vitamin K-dependent protein (VKDP) contributes to the development of lung cancer. The purpose of this research was to better understanding of the role of blood matrix Gla protein (MGP), VKDPs, Malondialdehyde (MDA), Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and Vitamin K (Vit K) in Iraqi patients with lung cancer before and after the first cycle of chemotherapy. Blood samples were collected from Al amal National Hospital for cancer treatment from October 2021 to May 2022, and a total of 80 samples were collected, divided into two groups (40 patient before taking a chemotherapy and 40 patients after taking chemotherapy), ranging in age from …

Variation In Human Water Turnover Associated With Environmental And Lifestyle Factors, Yosuke Yamada, Xueying Zhang, Mary E.T. Henderson, Hiroyuki Sagayama, Herman Pontzer, Daiki Watanabe, Tsukasa Yoshida, Misaka Kimura, Philip N. Ainslie, Lene F. Andersen, Liam J. Anderson, Lenore Arab, Issad Baddou, Kweku Bedu-Addo, Ellen E. Blaak, Stephane Blanc, Alberto G. Bonomi, Carlijn V.C. Bouten, Pascal Bovet, Maciej S. Buchowski, Nancy F. Butte, Stefan G. Camps, Graeme L. Close, Jamie A. Cooper, Richard Cooper, Sai Krupa Das, Lara R. Dugas, Simon Eaton, Ulf Ekelund, Sonja Entringer, Terrence Forrester, Barry W. Fudge, Annelies H. Goris

Faculty Publications

Water is essential for survival, but one in three individuals worldwide (2.2 billion people) lacks access to safe drinking water. Water intake requirements largely reflect water turnover (WT), the water used by the body each day. We investigated the determinants of human WT in 5604 people from the ages of 8 days to 96 years from 23 countries using isotope-tracking (2H) methods. Age, body size, and composition were significantly associated with WT, as were physical activity, athletic status, pregnancy, socioeconomic status, and environmental characteristics (latitude, altitude, air temperature, and humidity). People who lived in countries with a low human development …

Notch Missense Mutations In Drosophila Reveal Functions Of Specific Egf-Like Repeats In Notch Folding, Trafficking, And Signaling, Hilman Nurmahdi, Mao Hasegawa, Elzava Yuslimatin Mujizah, Takeshi Sasamura, Mikiko Inaki, Shinya Yamamoto, Tomoko Yamakawa, Kenji Matsuno

Duncan NRI Faculty and Staff Publications

Notch signaling plays various roles in cell-fate specification through direct cell–cell interactions. Notch receptors are evolutionarily conserved transmembrane proteins with multiple epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like repeats. Drosophila Notch has 36 EGF-like repeats, and while some play a role in Notch signaling, the specific functions of most remain unclear. To investigate the role of each EGF-like repeat, we used 19 previously identified missense mutations of Notch with unique amino acid substitutions in various EGF-like repeats and a transmembrane domain; 17 of these were identified through a single genetic screen. We assessed these mutants’ phenotypes in the nervous system and hindgut during …

Worker Participation In A Time Of Covid: A Case Study Of Occupational Health And Safety Regulation In Ontario, Alan Hall, Eric Tucker

Articles & Book Chapters

This study examines worker voice in the development and implementation of safety plans or protocols for covid-19 prevention among hospital workers, long-term care workers, and education workers in the Canadian province of Ontario. Although Ontario occupational health and safety law and official public health policy appear to recognize the need for active consultation with workers and labour unions, there were limited – and in some cases no – efforts by employers to meaningfully involve workers, worker representatives (reps), or union officials in assessing covid-19 risks and planning protection and prevention measures. The political and legal efforts of workers and unions …