Digital Commons Network^™

Specialized Intensive Inpatient Rehabilitation Is Crucial And Time-Sensitive For Functional Recovery From Disorders Of Consciousness, Bei Zhang, Katherine O'Brien, Jean Woo, Bradley Chi, Colton Reeh, Sheng Li, Sunil Kothari

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Disorders of consciousness (DoCs) after severe brain injury are considered to be conditions with dire prognosis. Despite the accumulating evidence, inpatient rehabilitation is often denied by payers referring to the Medicare/Medicaid criteria, under the assumption that such patients will not "actively" participate in therapy or make "measurable improvements."

Objective: This study aimed to report on the effectiveness and efficiency of a specialized inpatient DoC rehabilitation program based on measurable clinical parameters.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted. The cohort comprised 137 patients with DoC admitted to a specialized acute inpatient rehabilitation program between January …

Oral Gauze For Bleeding Control In Perioral And Perinasal Dermatologic Surgery, Riyad N H Seervai, Jose A Cervantes, Ikue Shimizu, Ida F Orengo

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The use of oral gauze is a quick, cheap, and effective method of preventing bleeding into the patient's mouth during dermatologic surgery. We recommend this technique combined with appropriate positioning for lesions in the perioral and perinasal regions. Similar approaches may be applied for the prevention of bleeding into the ear canal during facial/periauricular surgery.

Enabling Human Space Exploration Missions Through Progressively Earth Independent Medical Operations (Eimo), Dana R Levin, Jon Steller, Arian Anderson, Jay Lemery, Benjamin Easter, David C Hilmers, Kris R Lehnhardt

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Goal: Current Space Medicine operations depend on terrestrial support to manage medical events. As astronauts travel to destinations such as the Moon, Mars, and beyond, distance will substantially limit this support and require increasing medical autonomy from the crew. This paper defines Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO) and identifies key elements of a conceptual EIMO system. Methods: The NASA Human Research Program Exploration Medical Capability Element held a 2-day conference at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX with NASA experts representing all aspects of Space Medicine. Results: EIMO will be a process enabling progressively resilient deep space exploration systems and …

Advances In Prosthetic Technology: A Perspective On Ethical Considerations For Development And Clinical Translation, Hayden Gavette, Cody L Mcdonald, Kristin Kostick-Quenet, Ashley Mullen, Bijan Najafi, M G Finco

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Technological advancements of prostheses in recent years, such as haptic feedback, active power, and machine learning for prosthetic control, have opened new doors for improved functioning, satisfaction, and overall quality of life. However, little attention has been paid to ethical considerations surrounding the development and translation of prosthetic technologies into clinical practice. This article, based on current literature, presents perspectives surrounding ethical considerations from the authors' multidisciplinary views as prosthetists (HG, AM, CLM, MGF), as well as combined research experience working directly with people using prostheses (AM, CLM, MGF), wearable technologies for rehabilitation (MGF, BN), machine learning and artificial intelligence …

The Global Prevalence Of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Three-Level Meta-Analysis, Oksana I Talantseva, Raisa S Romanova, Ekaterina M Shurdova, Tatiana A Dolgorukova, Polina S Sologub, Olga S Titova, Daria F Kleeva, Elena L Grigorenko

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is one the most disabling developmental disorders, imposing an extremely high economic burden. Obtaining as accurate prevalence estimates as possible is crucial to guide governments in planning policies for identification and intervention for individuals with ASD and their relatives. The precision of prevalence estimates can be heightened by summative analyses of the data collected around the world. To that end, we conducted a three-level mixed-effects meta-analysis. A systematic search of the Web of Science, PubMed, EMBASE, and PsycINFO databases from 2000 up to 13 July 2020 was performed, and reference lists of previous reviews and existing …

Intermel: An International Biorepository And Clinical Database To Uncover Predictors Of Survival In Early-Stage Melanoma, Irene Orlow, Keimya D Sadeghi, Sharon N Edmiston, Jessica M Kenney, Cecilia Lezcano, James S Wilmott, Anne E Cust, Richard A Scolyer, Graham J Mann, Tim K Lee, Hazel Burke, Valerie Jakrot, Ping Shang, Peter M Ferguson, Tawny W Boyce, Jennifer S Ko, Peter Ngo, Pauline Funchain, Judy R Rees, Kelli O'Connell, Honglin Hao, Eloise Parrish, Kathleen Conway, Paul B Googe, David W Ollila, Stergios J Moschos, Eva Hernando, Douglas Hanniford, Diana Argibay, Christopher I Amos, Jeffrey E Lee, Iman Osman, Li Luo, Pei-Fen Kuan, Arshi Aurora, Bonnie E Gould Rothberg, Marcus W Bosenberg, Meg R Gerstenblith, Cheryl Thompson, Paul N Bogner, Ivan P Gorlov, Sheri L Holmen, Elise K Brunsgaard, Yvonne M Saenger, Ronglai Shen, Venkatraman Seshan, Eduardo Nagore, Marc S Ernstoff, Klaus J Busam, Colin B Begg, Nancy E Thomas, Marianne Berwick, Intermel Consortium

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

INTRODUCTION: We are conducting a multicenter study to identify classifiers predictive of disease-specific survival in patients with primary melanomas. Here we delineate the unique aspects, challenges, and best practices for optimizing a study of generally small-sized pigmented tumor samples including primary melanomas of at least 1.05mm from AJTCC TNM stage IIA-IIID patients. We also evaluated tissue-derived predictors of extracted nucleic acids' quality and success in downstream testing. This ongoing study will target 1,000 melanomas within the international InterMEL consortium.

METHODS: Following a pre-established protocol, participating centers ship formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) tissue sections to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for …

Rewiring Of Mitochondrial Metabolism In Therapy-Resistant Cancers: Permanent And Plastic Adaptations, Katherine E Pendleton, Karen Wang, Gloria V Echeverria

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Deregulation of tumor cell metabolism is widely recognized as a "hallmark of cancer." Many of the selective pressures encountered by tumor cells, such as exposure to anticancer therapies, navigation of the metastatic cascade, and communication with the tumor microenvironment, can elicit further rewiring of tumor cell metabolism. Furthermore, phenotypic plasticity has been recently appreciated as an emerging "hallmark of cancer." Mitochondria are dynamic organelles and central hubs of metabolism whose roles in cancers have been a major focus of numerous studies. Importantly, therapeutic approaches targeting mitochondria are being developed. Interestingly, both plastic (i.e., reversible) and permanent (i.e., stable) metabolic adaptations …

The Gastrointestinal-Brain-Microbiota Axis: A Promising Therapeutic Target For Ischemic Stroke, Yan-Hao Wei, Ren-Tang Bi, Yan-Mei Qiu, Chun-Lin Zhang, Jian-Zhuang Li, Ya-Nan Li, Bo Hu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Ischemic stroke is a highly complex systemic disease characterized by intricate interactions between the brain and gastrointestinal tract. While our current understanding of these interactions primarily stems from experimental models, their relevance to human stroke outcomes is of considerable interest. After stroke, bidirectional communication between the brain and gastrointestinal tract initiates changes in the gastrointestinal microenvironment. These changes involve the activation of gastrointestinal immunity, disruption of the gastrointestinal barrier, and alterations in gastrointestinal microbiota. Importantly, experimental evidence suggests that these alterations facilitate the migration of gastrointestinal immune cells and cytokines across the damaged blood-brain barrier, ultimately infiltrating the ischemic brain. …

Development Of Competency-Based Online Genomic Medicine Training (Cogent), Susanne B Haga, Wendy K Chung, Luis A Cubano, Timothy B Curry, Philip E Empey, Geoffrey S Ginsburg, Kara Mangold, Christina Y Miyake, Siddharth K Prakash, Laura B Ramsey, Robb Rowley, Carolyn R Rohrer Vitek, Todd C Skaar, Julia Wynn, Teri A Manolio

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The fields of genetics and genomics have greatly expanded across medicine through the development of new technologies that have revealed genetic contributions to a wide array of traits and diseases. Thus, the development of widely available educational resources for all healthcare providers is essential to ensure the timely and appropriate utilization of genetics and genomics patient care. In 2020, the National Human Genome Research Institute released a call for new proposals to develop accessible, sustainable online education for health providers. This paper describes the efforts of the six teams awarded to reach the goal of providing genetic and genomic training …

Hippo Signaling: Advances In Potential Therapeutic Targets For Sinoatrial Node Disorders, Julianna N Quinn, Jun Wang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

The cardiac conduction system (CCS) propagates electrical impulses, generates cardiac contractions, and ultimately ensures regular heartbeats. Disruptions within the CCS lead to cardiac arrhythmias, which are known to be the leading cause of cardiac-related mortalities in humans. The sinoatrial node (SAN) is a key component of the CCS and functions as the natural cardiac pacemaker to initiate normal cardiac impulse and conduction. The SAN is characterized by significant heterogeneity and contains various cell types, including pacemaker cells that spontaneously generate action potentials to maintain a constant beating rhythm. The fundamental Hippo signaling pathway plays a key role in heart development …

Addressing Training Gaps: A Competency-Based, Telehealth Training Initiative For Community Health Workers, Laura Porterfield, Victoria Warren, Vanessa Schick, Shannon Gulliot-Wright, Jeff R Temple, Elizabeth M Vaughan

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: To overcome vast variations in Community Health Worker (CHW) training, investigators for the CHW Core Consensus Project (CCCP) derived three types of CHW (Category 1, 2, 3) and established competencies for each category. However, studies are needed that implement these competencies in real-world settings.

OBJECTIVE: Using the six competency domains of the CCCP as a theoretical backbone, we developed and evaluated a training for

METHODS: We developed five telehealth-based, bilingual (Spanish/English) training sessions and implemented them among

RESULTS: All (18/18) CHWs achieved at least 70% on the posttest (mean: 93.7%; range 73.3-100%). Training attendance was 98.9%. Using a six-point …

Differences In The Neurological Pathways Of Innate And Learned Fear, Efrat Jacob

The Science Journal of the Lander College of Arts and Sciences

Fear is a fundamental emotion for survival. However, not all fears are the same, leading to a necessary distinction between the two main subsections of fear; innate and learned. This research paper investigates whether the neural pathways underlying innate and learned fear are independent of each other. Using optogenetics and pharmacology, researchers have manipulated specific brain regions and circuits involved in fear processing, such as the amygdala, hypothalamus, and PAG (periaqueductal gray). By measuring the behavioral and physiological indicators of fear in rodents exposed to different types of stimuli, research suggests that there may be partial overlap between the neural …

Human Rights, Human Duties: Making A Rights-Based Case For Community-Based Restorative Justice,, Aparna Polavarapu

Scholarly Works

Restorative justice is often framed as an alternative to the criminal legal system, and thus justifications of restorative justice tend to be rooted in the language of the criminal system. However, this approach limits our way of thinking about the practice of restorative justice, especially non-state, community-based practices. This Article argues for an independent, rights-based justification to support these community-based practices. By offering an in-depth analysis originating from a rights-based perspective, this Article engages with two underdeveloped areas of scholarly literature and suggests a new way of thinking about the day-to-day practice of restorative justice through a human rights lens. …

Adolescent Education, Health And Wellbeing Status In Four Counties In Kenya: Two Years Into The Covid-19 Pandemic, Population Council Kenya

Adolescents and Young People

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in widespread school closures globally, including in Kenya. This educational disruption had potential adverse consequences for adolescent school learners including school dropout, learning loss, opportunity losses, loss of previously acquired skills, and loss of socio-emotional benefits of time spent with peers and teachers. This study was undertaken in four counties in Kenya—two urban (Nairobi, Kisumu) and two rural (Kilifi and Wajir). Focusing on adolescent girls aged 10–19, the study increased understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls’ education outcomes to enable implementation of policies and programs to address immediate harms caused, and to …

Implications With Identifying Gifted Black Students: A Study Of Implicit Bias, Christen H. Diehl

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine if implicit bias among Indiana educators might affect the identification of gifted Black students for programming. Educators, within school districts with high minority populations, were asked to provide a demographic survey and then take the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Survey data were then collected to determine if potential demographic information like gender, race, the possession of a high ability license, years of experience, highest collegiate degree, or their professional role had a statistical significance when compared to their IAT score. Using t-tests and one-way ANOVAs, demographic data were able to be …

Business Communications, Steelman Library, Beth Leslie Dr.

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

Enactus, Steelman Library, Beth Leslie Dr.

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

Senior Seminar, Steelman Library, Beth Leslie Dr.

Syllabus Repository

No abstract provided.

Pattern And Polarization Diversity Multisector Annular Antenna For Iot Applications, Abel Zandamela, Nicola Marchetti, Max Ammann, Adam Narbudowicz, Wroclaw University Of Science And Technology

Articles

This work proposes a small pattern and polarization diversity multisector annular antenna with electrical size and profile of ka=1.2 and 0.018λ, respectively. The antenna is planar and comprises annular sectors that are fed using different ports to enable digital beamforming techniques, with efficiency and gain of up to 78%and 4.62 dBi, respectively. The cavity model analysis is used to describe the design concept and the antenna diversity. The proposed method can produce different polarization states (e.g., linearly and circularly polarized patterns) and pattern diversity characteristics covering the elevation plane. Owing to its small electrical size, low-profile and diversity properties, the …

Structured Dialogue State Management For Task-Oriented Dialogue Systems, Anh Duong Trinh

Doctoral

Human-machine conversational agents have developed at a rapid pace in recent years, bolstered through the application of advanced technologies such as deep learning. Today, dialogue systems are useful in assisting users in various activities, especially task-oriented dialogue systems in specific dialogue domains. However, they continue to be limited in many ways. Arguably the biggest challenge lies in the complexity of natural language and interpersonal communication, and the lack of human context and knowledge available to these systems. This leads to the question of whether dialogue systems, and in particular task-oriented dialogue systems, can be enhanced to leverage various language properties. …

Towards An Improved Understanding Of The Concept Of Style And Its Implications For Textual Style Transfer, Somayeh Jafaritazehjani

Doctoral

The concept of linguistic style denotes that many aspects of text can vary while maintaining a same source core semantic meaning. For example, a message may be written in a formal or informal style. The textual style transfer problem aims at generating a paraphrase of a given text by modifying its style while preserving its content. To the best of our knowledge, within the literature on textual style transfer, there is no standard widely accepted definition of the concept of style. Moreover, very few works have investigated the characteristics of language styles. Therefore, previous research, as far as our knowledge …

Towards The Development Of A Balanced Legislative Framework For Consumer Data Protection In Electronic Commerce: The Case Of The Sultanate Of Oman, Talib Al Kharusi

Doctoral

This research aims to investigate whether the law as it currently stands in Oman provides adequate legal protection for personal data, to determine the current obstacles facing the electronic commerce sector, and to identify ways of overcoming such challenges. The empirical focus of this study will be electronic commerce transactions between companies and consumers. In this regard, the research will explore the perceptions of the main stakeholders towards privacy regulation and what implications these have for the growth of electronic commerce in Oman. The privacy that this research aims to explore is a complex issue since it concerns human feelings …

How Visual Stimuli Evoked P300 Is Transforming The Brain–Computer Interface Landscape: A Prisma Compliant Systematic Review, Jai Kalra, Prashasti Mittal, Nirmiti Mittal, Abhishek Arora, Utkarsh Tewari, Aviral Chharia, Rahul Upadhyay, Vinay Kumar, Luca Longo

Articles

Non-invasive Visual Stimuli evoked-EEGbased P300 BCIs have gained immense attention in recent years due to their ability to help patients with disability using BCI-controlled assistive devices and applications. In addition to the medical field, P300 BCI has applications in entertainment, robotics, and education. The current article systematically reviews 147 articles that were published between 2006-2021*. Articles that pass the pre-defined criteria are included in the study. Further, classification based on their primary focus, including article orientation, participants’ age groups, tasks given, databases, the EEG devices used in the studies, classification models, and application domain, is performed. The application-based classification considers …

Schizo-Net: A Novel Schizophrenia Diagnosis Framework Using Late Fusion Multimodal Deep Learning On Electroencephalogram-Based Brain Connectivity Indices, Nitin Grover, Aviral Chharia, Rahul Upadhyay, Luca Longo

Articles

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a serious mental condition that causes hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking. Traditionally, SCZ diagnosis involves the subject’s interview by a skilled psychiatrist. The process needs time and is bound to human errors and bias. Recently, brain connectivity indices have been used in a few pattern recognition methods to discriminate neuro-psychiatric patients from healthy subjects. The study presents Schizo-Net , a novel, highly accurate, and reliable SCZ diagnosis model based on a late multimodal fusion of estimated brain connectivity indices from EEG activity. First, the raw EEG activity is pre-processed exhaustively to remove unwanted artifacts. Next, six brain …

An Aggregation-Based Algebraic Multigrid Method With Deflation Techniques And Modified Generic Factored Approximate Sparse Inverses, Anastasia Natsiou, George A. Gravvanis, Christos K. Filelis-Papadopoulos, Konstantinos M. Giannoutakis

Articles

In this paper, we examine deflation-based algebraic multigrid methods for solving large systems of linear equations. Aggregation of the unknown terms is applied for coarsening, while deflation techniques are proposed for improving the rate of convergence. More specifically, the V-cycle strategy is adopted, in which, at each iteration, the solution is computed by initially decomposing it utilizing two complementary subspaces. The approximate solution is formed by combining the solution obtained using multigrids and deflation. In order to improve performance and convergence behavior, the proposed scheme was coupled with the Modified Generic Factored Approximate Sparse Inverse preconditioner. Furthermore, a parallel version …

Nesnet: A Deep Network For Estimating Near-Surface Pollutant Concentrations, Prasanjit Dey, Bibhash Pran Das, Yee Hui Lee, Soumyabrata Dev

Articles

Atmospheric pollution has become a serious threat in recent years. The advancements and expansion of industrial activity and civilization have been the major catalysts. With serious consequences like climate change and global warming, the onset of which is already being observed, keeping a check on atmospheric pollutant levels is now more important than ever. Trace gases play a major role in atmospheric chemistry. Many of these are also regarded as major atmospheric pollutants. The concentration of gases, such as (SO2), (O3), (NO2), etc., are indicators of air quality. Therefore, in this study, we primarily concern ourselves with concentrations of NO2, …

Rate Of Change Of Direct-Axis Current Component Protection Scheme For Inverter-Based Islanded Microgrids, Abdolhamid Farshadi, Behzad Keyvani Eydi, Hamed Nafisi, Hossein Askarian-Abyaneh, Arash Beiranvand

Articles

Rapid growth in the utilization of the inverter-interfaced distributed energy resources (IIDERs) in microgrids has brought new challenges in the network protection area. Microgrid protection specifically becomes a concern during operation in the islanded mode. There is a considerable reduction in fault current levels in this mode compared to when the microgrid is connected to the grid, which makes conventional algorithms operate with significant delay or, in many cases, not even pick up the fault. This paper proposes a protection algorithm based on the rate of change of direct-axis current component ( id ) to protect inverter-based microgrids (IBMGs). The …

Opportunities Of Iot In Fog Computing For High Fault Tolerance And Sustainable Energy Optimization, A. Reyana, Sandeep Kautish, Khalid Abdulaziz Alnowibet, Hossam Zawbaa, Ali Wagdy Mohamed

Articles

Today, the importance of enhanced quality of service and energy optimization has promoted research into sensor applications such as pervasive health monitoring, distributed computing, etc. In general, the resulting sensor data are stored on the cloud server for future processing. For this purpose, recently, the use of fog computing from a real-world perspective has emerged, utilizing end-user nodes and neighboring edge devices to perform computation and communication. This paper aims to develop a quality-of-service-based energy optimization (QoS-EO) scheme for the wireless sensor environments deployed in fog computing. The fog nodes deployed in specific geographical areas cover the sensor activity performed …

A Multidimensionality Reduction Approach To Rainfall Prediction, Menatallah Abdel Azeem, Prasanjit Dey, Soumyabrata Dev

Articles

The rainfall has an impact on various fields and industries, including transportation, construction, tourism, health, and wildlife preservation. Accurate rainfall prediction is essential for mitigating the negative impact of rainfall on these sectors. However, previous studies on rainfall prediction have been mainly based on datasets from North America, Europe, Australia, and Central Asia, covering different periods. This study proposes using weather datasets covering the past 5 to 10 years to capture recent patterns in weather data. Additionally, the curse of dimensionality can impact model performance and lead to overfitting. Therefore, this study proposes utilizing dimensionality reduction techniques to ensure that …

An Integrated Model For Information Adoption&Trust In Mobile Social Commerce, Fulya Acikgoz, Abdelsalam Busalim, James Gaskin, Shahla Asadi

Articles

ABSTRACT Despite the growing importance of mobile social commerce (ms-commerce), little research has been conducted on the effects of informational and social factors on users’ post-adoption behavior. We, therefore, build on the understanding of mobile social commerce in the UK market and how it affects users’ post-adoption behaviors. Our theoretical model leverages the information adoption model, social support theory, and social influence theory. Data was gathered from 377 ms-commerce users from the UK and analyzed via Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM). The research findings show that both informational and social factors have a positive impact on information adoption in ms-commerce apps. …