Digital Commons Network^™

Para-Infectious Brain Injury In Covid-19 Persists At Follow-Up Despite Attenuated Cytokine And Autoantibody Responses, Benedict D Michael, Cordelia Dunai, Edward J Needham, Kukatharmini Tharmaratnam, Robyn Williams, Yun Huang, Sarah A Boardman, Jordan J Clark, Parul Sharma, Krishanthi Subramaniam, Greta K Wood, Ceryce Collie, Richard Digby, Alexander Ren, Emma Norton, Maya Leibowitz, Soraya Ebrahimi, Andrew Fower, Hannah Fox, Esteban Tato, Mark A Ellul, Geraint Sunderland, Marie Held, Claire Hetherington, Franklyn N Egbe, Alish Palmos, Kathy Stirrups, Alexander Grundmann, Anne-Cecile Chiollaz, Jean-Charles Sanchez, James P Stewart, Michael Griffiths, Tom Solomon, Gerome Breen, Alasdair J Coles, Nathalie Kingston, John R Bradley, Patrick F Chinnery, Jonathan Cavanagh, Sarosh R Irani, Angela Vincent, J Kenneth Baillie, Peter J Openshaw, Malcolm G Semple, Covid-Cns Consortium, Isaric4c Investigators, Leonie S Taams, David K Menon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1-11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common …

Decentralized Computing For Reliable Home Automation, Rahav Dor

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Smart homes are distributed systems that should provide reliable home automation services. Distributed controllers have been used to improve the reliability of smart homes. However, despite the redundancy in controllers, the reliability of smart homes is hindered by the unreliable network infrastructure comprising home Wi-Fi and low-power wireless networks. As a result, smart homes cannot be trusted with much more than casual automation to date. This dissertation identifies the limitations of traditional fault-tolerant approaches that require inter-controller coordination over an unreliable network infrastructure. A new class of decentralized control paradigm named Banyan, with fully autonomous controllers, is introduced by this …

Mechanisms And Prevention Of Antibiotic Resistant Organism Spread In Hospitals, Erin P. Newcomer

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Our quest as a species to treat and prevent disease has led us to develop medical care that would have been inconceivable even one century ago. However, as we learn to overcome previous roadblocks, new hurdles that we hadn’t even considered continue to present themselves. Once we learned to understand the germ theory of disease, we sought treatments for infectious diseases, which led us to the development of antibiotics. Antibiotics are responsible for saving countless lives and have ushered in the advances in other fields of medicine like cancer treatment and surgery. Now, antibiotic resistance threatens our ability to treat …

The Development And Validation Of Novel Imaging Biomarkers For Uterine Contraction, Cervix And Placenta In Pregnancy, Wenjie Wu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Annually, nearly half a million neonates in the United States and 15 million globally are born preterm, defined as prior to 37 completed weeks of gestation. These births present elevated risks of neonatal mortality and long-term neurological deficits. The predominant obstetric precursors of preterm birth (PTB) include spontaneous preterm labor (45%), medically-indicated deliveries (30%), and preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM, 25%). Each precursor is associated with distinct physiological or structural alterations such as uterine contractions, placental dysfunction, or cervical insufficiency. Current methodologies for monitoring uterine contractions, such as intrauterine pressure catheters and electrohysterography, possess limitations in spatial resolution, coverage, …

Improving And Integrating Quantitative Single Cell Spatial Biology For Theranostic Medicine, Peng Lu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Disease states are the result of a complex interplay of many different cell types interacting in close proximity in the context of often heterogeneous tissues. Alpha particles are drawing intense research and clinical interest because of their potent cytotoxic effects and their short path lengths. Analyzing the dose distribution and tissue micro-environment for alpha therapy plays a key role in predicting the efficacy of this targeted radiotherapy. However, to date there have been no direct on-tissue analytical methods for alpha dose distributions and the corresponding tissue microenvironments. Therefore, we have developed a pipeline to overcome this limitation by utilizing quantitative …

Variables Affecting The Extraction Of Antioxidants In Cold And Hot Brew Coffee: A Review, Brian Yust, Frank Wilkinson, Niny Rao

College of Life Sciences Faculty Papers

Coffee beans are a readily available, abundant source of antioxidants used worldwide. With the increasing interest in and consumption of coffee beverages globally, research into the production, preparation, and chemical profile of coffee has also increased in recent years. A wide range of variables such as roasting temperature, coffee grind size, brewing temperature, and brewing duration can have a significant impact on the extractable antioxidant content of coffee products. While there is no single standard method for measuring all of the antioxidants found in coffee, multiple methods which introduce the coffee product to a target molecule or reagent can be …

A New Methodology To Determine The Orifice For Root Canal Configurations In First Permanent Molar Root And Canal Morphologies Using Micro-Computed Tomography, Casper Hendrik Jonker, Guy Lambourn, Anna Catherina Oettlé, Federico Foschi, Charlotte Theye, Ericka Noelle L’Abbé

Peninsula Dental School

Background: The distinction between where the pulp chamber ends and the root canal system begins is poorly defined within the existing literature. Methods: This paper aimed to describe a range of accurate methods to define the transition from pulp chamber to root canal in different first molar root morphologies using micro-focus computed tomography (micro-CT). Methods: The sample consisted of 86 mandibular and 101 maxillary first molars from the skeletal collections housed in the Department of Anatomy and Histology of the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University and the Pretoria Bone Collection. A stepwise approach using the cemento–enamel junction (CEJ) and dedicated …

Evaluating The Impact Of Source-Specific Order Sets For Sepsis On Empiric Antibiotic Selection In The Emergency Department, Lourdes Menendez Alvarado, Alice Landayan, Jason Morell, Zhenwei Zhang, Richard Levine, Timothy Gauthier

All Publications

This retrospective cohort study found that implementing source-specific antibiotic order sets for sepsis in the emergency department increased appropriate empiric antibiotic selection from 51% to 74% (P = .01).

How To Peer Review A Neurology Education Manuscript, Daniel G Di Luca, Steven M Lazar, Preeta Gupta, Marie Charmaine S Lukban, Cole Crowson, Dara V F Albert, Jeremy J Moeller, Andres Fernandez, Andrew M Southerland, Zachary London

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Peer review is an essential process in scientific research, ensuring the comprehensiveness, accuracy, and suitability of manuscripts for publication. Neurology education research differs from biomedical clinical research in several ways. These differences encompass specific paradigms, the use of theoretical frameworks, and different methodological approaches. Despite the high number of studies and journal publications on neurology education, there is a dearth of resources and guidance on how to perform a formal review on this specific literature. This article aims to review the distinctive features of neurology education from clinical research while proposing an organizational framework and model for performing peer reviews …

Technology And Mental Health Counseling, Hanna Cespedes, Elizabeth Robey, Tyler Wilkinson

Journal of Technology in Counselor Education and Supervision

The use of technology in the field of mental health has been an increasing interest of study and utilization in recent years, especially during and after the Covid 19 pandemic in which social distancing practices were encouraged to limit the spread of the virus. During this time, the use of technology for health-related appointments became vital as many offices shut down and/ or had limited in-person access. Furthermore, technology has already been integrated and researched significantly in other areas of the healthcare fields such as psychiatry and nursing. However, there is a lack of understanding of the role of technology …

Apple: Global Ethics And Transformational Leadership, Bisma Ahmed

Journal of Global Awareness

Apple Inc. is an American technological company that designs, manufactures, and sells various products such as laptops, phones, accessories, streaming services, licensing services, and so much more. The paper explores the corporate responsibility and unethical business practices that arise from the global sourcing of Apple’s products. The company established many relationships with suppliers in East Asia to meet the rigorous demands of consumers, promising high-quality products at the expense of factory workers. However, global sourcing comes with unethical business practices. There have been various cases against Apple’s suppliers. This research highlights unfair working conditions, overworking employees, and environmental pollution that …

Impact Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Marketing Of Education, Shreekant Joag

Journal of Global Awareness

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many schools to partially or totally switch to remote communication methods for delivering education in the years 2020-2021. It is believed that forced compliance with unfamiliar and even unpreferred modes of behavior can have a profound and lasting impact on people’s attitudes and opinions toward the behavior itself because of first-hand exposure and experience. It is, therefore, possible that this experience with remote teaching and learning could have materially changed both instructors’ as well as students’ attitudes toward remote delivery of education. Such changed attitudes may predict their future choices and behavior.

This paper will present …

Effect Of Covid-19 On Food Pricing And Coping Strategies Among Households In Kakamega County Kenya, Angela Mungai

Journal of Global Awareness

Food price shocks exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic have the potential to threaten food security, especially among low-income households. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of COVID-19 on food prices and the coping strategies of households in Malava and Lurambi Sub-Counties of Kakamega County, Kenya. The researchers adopted a descriptive survey design for this study. A semi-structured questionnaire was developed using KoBo Collect and synchronized to the Open Data Kit (ODK) server and used to collect data from a sample size of 200 households. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 26 to …

The Coming Transformative Impact Of Large Language Models And Artificial Intelligence On Global Business And Education, Eva K. Jermakowicz

Journal of Global Awareness

Rapid advances in the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLM) as a basis for Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications, and their sudden wide accessibility, have garnered significant attention recently. These technologies (e.g., ChatGPT, BARD), which have the ability to predict and generate human language, have led to excitement and concerns regarding their use in various industries. This paper explores the history of LLM, examines their applications in business and education, and delves into the critical ethical concerns and challenges of these emerging technologies to ensure that their uses are not only effective, but also responsible and equitable.

Notes From The Editor, Jay Nathan

Journal of Global Awareness

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

No abstract provided.

Medicine And The Mines, Troy Madsen

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

When Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad laborers stumbled onto eastern Utah's coal deposits in 1881, they sparked the development of Carbon County's explosive mining communities. Known across the state for their rampant disorder and untamed energy, the volatile coal mining towns of eastern Utah departed dramatically from the ecclesiastical, agrarian societies dotting the rest of Utah's map. Raucous taverns and seamy brothels quickly surfaced along Main Street in Helper. Violent union strikes shook the foundations of the communities' coal companies. Dark clouds of imminent danger hung continually above the portals of the region's somber, murky mines. Deeply rooted ethnic …

Perpetuated Inferiority, Kristine Ashton

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

Nineteenth-century schools taught more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. They were expected to convey patriotism and civic responsibility and to mold moral character. While publishers designed textbooks to teach children to spell and to read, they also inculcated the books with social values through word choice and lesson plans. The printers, journalists, teachers, and ministers who wrote the schoolbooks selectively filled their pages with political, economic, social, and moral concepts that shaped children's views of their nation's past and their position within the present society.

The Meanings Of The Millennium, Bernard J. Mcginn

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

As we approach the year 2000-2001 of what we now ecumenically term the Common Era words like millennium and apocalypse seem to meet us everywhere. Millennial madness, as I call it, may be in large part a media event, but no age in Western history has lacked for those who believed that the end of history, which is what the word apocalypse signifies for most people, was near. While apocalypse conjures up images of dread and destruction in most minds, the history of the broader phenomenon of apocalypticism in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, has always been an intricate fusion of …

Re-Visions: Examining Narratives Of Asian American Mental Health, Kenji Aoki

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This paper examines the intersection between Asian American mental health and resilience tropes. While research has acknowledged that Asian Americans have disparate mental health gaps regarding mental health stigma and how Asian American young adults are the only racial group in which suicide is their leading cause of death, there has been limited study that attempts to directly convey Asian American voices beyond broad statistical or cultural generalizations. To supplement ongoing research and Asian American livelihoods, this essay conjectures and attempts to illuminate the histories, mental illness, and health narratives of Asian Americans, the good, the bad, the ugly, the …

Monstrous Matrilineage In Chinese American Literature, Leina Hsu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

In this paper, I explore the monstrous relationships between Chinese American mothers and daughters in The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, Bone by Fae Myenne Ng, and Severance: A Novel by Ling Ma. I employ monsters as metaphors and motifs that illustrate the womens’ genealogical trauma and resistance. By putting Chinese American matrilineages in a monstrous context, I elevate them as alternative knowledge sources that haunt the margins of Western society. In The Joy Luck Club, ghosts reveal the invisibility and survivor mindset of Chinese American immigrant mothers. For Bone, skeletons represent the unspoken trauma that plagues Chinese American …

"Loving You No Matter What You Do": Ai's Dramatic Monologues, 1970s Asian American Feminisms, And Reproductive Justice, Catherine Irwin

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This essay makes visible the 1970s involvement of Asian American and Women of Color feminists in reproductive justice. Grounded in the Asian American feminist praxis of remembering, this essay analyzes how three dramatic monologues by the Asian American mixed-race poet Ai engage with the discourses of reproduce justice set forth by Asian American and Women of Color activists leading up to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Using an Asian American feminist lens, this paper argues that the speakers in Ai’s monologues utilize these discourses circulating about abortion and women’s health care to construct images of the treatment of dispossessed …

Introduction To Volume Twelve: Counting Our Blessings, Noelle Brada-Williams

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

No abstract provided.

Archiving “Sensitive” Social Media Data: ‘In Her Shoes’, A Case Study, Lorraine Grimes Dr, Kathryn Cassidy Dr, Murilo Dias, Clare Lanigan, Aileen O'Carroll Dr, Preetam Singhvi

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

Social media play an increasingly significant role in activist and social movements around the globe. Archiving social media is a relatively new phenomenon and an area which needs greater clarity, understanding and uniformity. When it comes to archiving and cataloguing sensitive social media collections, such as personal abortion stories, the process is even more ambiguous. The campaign to repeal the Eighth Amendment (a constitutional ban on abortion) in Ireland saw many such stories shared through online media, particularly in the lead-up to the 2018 referendum. Using the ‘In Her Shoes: Women of the Eighth’ Facebook dataset as a case study, …

Volume 6, Issue 1 (2023) Criminal Justice Agents And Responsibility, Colleen Berryessa, Elizabeth Griffiths, Kaitlen Hubbard, Deena A. Isom, Kateryna Kaplun, Hiuxuan Li, Siyu Liu, Esther Nir, Heather L. Scheuerman, Rachel Schumann, Sandy Xie, Carolyn Yule

International Journal on Responsibility

This special issue of the International Journal on Responsibility (IJR) advances scholarship on the various ways responsibility infuses the roles of criminal justice agents. As the inaugural issue of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief, Volume 6 deepens our understanding of responsibility in the context of the criminal justice system, thereby fulfilling IJR’s aim and scope. Specifically, the articles highlight issues of responsibility within each component of the criminal justice system: police, courts, and corrections.

Navigating Transitions: Cranialsacral Therapy, Occupational Therapy And Neuroregulation Strategies For Adjusting To A New Home, Carol J. Reshan

Journal of Transformative Touch

Report of working with a hyper-vigilant 9-year-old male with difficulty handling a transition to a new home. CST and sensory processing enhancement were utilized to help develop neuroregulation, enabling self-awareness, self-regulation, and personally directed life skills for maintaining a safe and alert state.

“Big Data” Revitalizing Librarianship: Impact On Librarians, Alice A. Bamigbola Dr.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Advanced technologies undeniably developed in the 4th Industrial Revolution era, and led to incessantly growing volumes of information daily. “Big Data” is simply information surplus due to the volume, velocity, variety, variability and veracity of the data that need to be processed to get value and better visualisation. Big Data helps libraries understand the ever-changing users’ needs, consequently reshaping their services and procedures. However, it offers several information challenges concerning its capturing, storage, searching, structuring, and visualization. This paper, explores the concept of Big Data in a library environment, how to introduce Big Data, its benefits in the library, roles …

Techniques For Interacting With Collaborative Spaces In An Augmented Reality Environment And Controlling Admission Of Certain Users Into Said Collaborative Spaces, And Systems And Methods Of Using The Techniques

Defensive Publications Series

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium includes instructions that, when executed by an augmented-reality system, cause the system to perform operations. The operations include, while a user of the system is within a predefined discovery distance associated with a virtual collaboration space that is defined within a physical area, in accordance with a determination that a collaboration criteria defined by the other user of the different system for the virtual collaboration space permits the user to access the virtual collaboration space, displaying a representation of the virtual collaboration space to the user. In response to receiving a request from the user …

The Role Of Teachers (De-)Motivational Styles On Students’ Autonomous Motivation In Physical Education And Leisure Time, Henri Tilga, Kaija Vahtra, Andre Koka

Baltic Journal of Health and Physical Activity

Introduction: The aim of this research was to examine the relationships of four perceived teaching styles (i.e., autonomy support, structure, control, and chaos) of physical education (PE) teachers with students’ satisfaction of psychological needs as well as autonomous and controlled motivation towards physical activity in PE and leisure time context. Materials and Methods: 320 students (166 boys and 154 girls) aged from 12 to 18 years old (M = 14.13, SD = 1.6) participated in the study. In this cross-sectional study, participants filled in a questionnaire of study variables. A variance-based structural equation model was employed to test the study …

Vol.51 N.22 December 21th 2023, Voice Media Ventures

Black Voice News

No abstract provided.