Digital Commons Network^™

Comparative Evaluation Of Data Augmentation Strategies For Rare-Class Intrusion Detection: Assessing Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks Across Benchmark Datasets And Classifiers, Brogan Oconnor

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) are widely used to identify malicious network activity, unauthorized access, and anomalous system behavior. Although machine learning and deep learning classifiers often achieve strong aggregate performance on IDS benchmark datasets, rare attack detection remains difficult because of severe class imbalance. Minority attack categories may contain very few training observations, which can bias classifiers toward normal traffic and more frequent attack classes. This problem is especially important because rare attacks may represent high-impact security events even when they occur infrequently. This quantitative experimental study evaluated whether conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN) augmentation improved rare attack detection in …

A Hybrid Response Surface Methodology And Machine Learning Framework For Quantifying Effects Of Physicochemical Parameters On Pfas Distribution, Harsh V. Patel, Jazmin Green, Hyoshin Park, Stephanie Luster-Teasley Pass, Renzun Zhao

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Predicting PFAS adsorption across diverse adsorbents and environmental matrices remains challenging because adsorbent physicochemical properties, PFAS molecular descriptors, and operational conditions simultaneously influence adsorption. This study develops and evaluates a unified hybrid modeling framework that integrates Response Surface Model (RSM) with machine-learning algorithms to quantify how six key variables, surface area, Log K_ow, pH_pzc, pK_a, log dose, and log-initial concentration, affect PFAS distribution coefficients (Log K_d). A data set of more than 1000 adsorption observations spanning 15 PFAS compounds, multiple adsorbent types, and a broad operational range was compiled and preprocessed using …

A Three-Stage Causal Root-Cause Diagnostic Protocol For Nonstationary Industrial Time Series Data, Cansu Yalim, Resit Unal, Holly A. H. Handley

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Predictive maintenance (PdM) systems effectively forecast failures, but they often fail to find root causes, particularly when system dynamics change over time. This limitation arises from applying static causal models or decoupled segmentation to handle nonstationary industrial time series. For regime-aware causal diagnostics and interventional effect estimation, we introduce a three-stage time-varying dynamic Bayesian network (TV-DBN) protocol. Using a minimum description length (MDL) objective that connects segmentation to mechanism changes, Stage I jointly infers change points and regime-specific graph structure. Stage II produces a completed partially directed acyclic graph (DAG) by orienting edges within each regime using a combination of …

Technological Interventions For Reducing Climate Change Impacts On Health: An Overview Of Future Possibilities, Sujatha Alla, Vijay Kumar Chattu, Bawa Singh

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

Globally, over five million deaths annually are attributed to extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change, such as heatwaves, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, and floods, which create health crises and economic losses. The 2015 Paris Declaration emphasized climate technology mechanisms, including research and development, to enhance resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Biotechnological advancements have mitigated about 20% of economic losses since the 1960s, highlighting technology’s potential to address climate-induced health risks.

Small Language Model Jailbreak Defender Framework, Eduardo Alberto Castro Puello

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Small Language Models (SLMs) are increasingly deployed in enterprise, edge, and domain‑specialized applications due to their lower computational cost and latency compared to Large Language Models (LLMs). However, SLMs typically exhibit weaker safety alignment and are disproportionately vulnerable to jailbreak, prompt‑injection, and fine‑tuning attacks that can erode refusal behavior and enable unsafe outputs. Existing defensive techniques such as rule‑based filtering or heavy safety fine‑tuning often degrade task performance or introduce excessive over‑refusal, limiting the safe adoption of SLMs in regulated or security‑sensitive environments. This dissertation proposes the design and empirical evaluation of a modular security alignment framework for fine‑tuned SLMs …

Can You Hear Me Now?, Daniel Gonzalez, Amanda Moore

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Putting The L In Elsi: Legal Methods For Bioethics Research, Anya E R Prince, Benjamin Berkman, Donald Ford, Dov Fox, Christi Guerrini, Amy Koopmann, Natalie Ram, Jessica L Roberts, Kayte Spector-Bagdady, Sonia Suter

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Lawyers and law professors are increasingly involved in interdisciplinary scientific teams and grant research to answer ethical, legal and policy questions related to biomedical topics. Yet, the methods that lawyers use to conduct legal research and analysis are not always familiar to scientists and social scientists conducting peer review of a proposed project with legal aims or a publication reporting a legal study. To better facilitate interdisciplinary ethical, legal, and social implications collaboration, there is a need to better explain how legal research methodologies can provide robust tools to address a range of nuanced biomedical questions. This paper explores …

Can I Get A Witness? The Ethical Dimensions Of Family Presence In Patient Suffering, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Trevor M Bibler, Holland Kaplan, Adam Omelianchuk, Joanna Smolenski

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

For patients who are suffering, the bedside presence of a family member can provide comfort, and many people hold that there is moral value in being present with a conscious, suffering patient. Yet what is the moral significance of the absence of family members when a patient is minimally conscious or unconscious and not aware of their absence? Clinicians are often troubled when family members and surrogate decision-makers who are able to spend a significant amount of time at an unconscious, seriously ill patient's bedside do not do so. Clinicians feel frustrated that they must bear the burden of witnessing …

Access To Digital Health Technologies: Personalized Framework And Global Perspectives, Sanjiv M Narayan, Mina K Chung, Demilade Adedinsewo, Luisa C C Brant, Leslie L Davis, David Duncker, Jennifer L Hall, Janet K Han, Carolyn S P Lam, Eldrin Lewis, Joseph Loscalzo, Manlio F Márquez, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Fatima Rodriguez, Prashanthan Sanders, Emma Svennberg, Kenneth Stein, Mintu Turakhia, Clyde Yancy, Antonis A Armoundas

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

The emergence and rapid adoption of digital health technologies (DHT) present unprecedented opportunities to democratize and reduce disparities in health care by monitoring health and disease at the point of care in all patients. However, limited access to DHT is becoming a major obstacle to realizing these goals. Access to DHT is influenced not only by well-recognized social determinants of health, but also by digital determinants of health, such as digital literacy and the need for broad access to digital infrastructure, as well as commercial and economic factors. Addressing these challenges and designing unbiased systems of care are essential to …

Clinicians’ Views On A Patient Decision Aid For Deep Brain Stimulation In Parkinson’S Disease, Hillary S King, Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby, Benjamin H Levi, Sol De Jesus, Harini Sarva, Laura Y Cabrera

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Introduction: For people with Parkinson's disease (PD), deciding whether to pursue deep brain stimulation (DBS) has become increasingly complex. Evidence suggests current approaches to collaborative decision-making may fall short of accepted standards. Thus, a decision support intervention, such as a patient decision aid (PtDA) may be warranted. PtDAs have been shown to improve patients' knowledge, expectations, and participation in decision-making for other, similar healthcare decisions. We therefore sought to assess neurologists' awareness of, and experience using, PtDAs, and to solicit their opinions on the ideal features of a PtDA for PD patients considering DBS.

Methods: Sixteen United States-based neurology clinicians …

Toward Ethical Provenance Tracking: The Ga4gh Model Data Access Agreement (Daa), Alexander Bernier, Bartha Maria Knoppers, Jonathan Lawson, Robyn Mcdougall, Maili Raven-Adams, Vasiliki Rahimzadeh

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Purpose: Standardizing contractual clauses that govern data access enables research institutions to responsibly steward genomic and related health data while enabling its efficient downstream reuse.

Methods: We describe a document analysis study using both qualitative and comparative law analytical approaches to identify the most common categories of clauses from 29 different data access agreements used by human biomedical research consortia globally. We furthermore characterized the legal positions and standard practices for each common element of the agreement and synthesized across them to develop model clauses. A total of 3 discussion sessions were organized virtually to refine the clauses among members …

Nanoparticle Albumin-Bound Paclitaxel And Nivolumab For Pd-1 Inhibitor-Refractory Recurrent Or Metastatic Head And Neck Squamous-Cell Carcinoma, Douglas Adkins, Jessica C Ley, Christine Auberle, Brendan Knapp, Jesse Zaretsky, Jingxia Liu, Peter Oppelt

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Standard therapy for PD-1 inhibitor-refractory recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma (RM-HNSCC) has limited activity. Drugs bound to albumin selectively target cancer cells with upregulated macropinocytosis, a process driven by constitutively hyper-activated EGFR/RAS/PIK3CA signaling, which is common in HNSCC. Nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel is active in PD-1 inhibitor-naïve RM-HNSCC and alters immune cells to potentially prime tumor response and reverse resistance to PD-1 inhibitors.

METHODS: In a single-arm phase 2 trial, patients with PD-1 inhibitor-refractory RM-HNSCC received nab-paclitaxel and nivolumab given in 28-day cycles. The primary endpoint was objective response rate (ORR), using RECIST1.1. Key secondary endpoints were …

Prediction Of Continuous Amyloid Positron Emission Tomography With Fluid Measures Of Phosphorylated Tau And Β-Amyloid, Niklas Mattsson-Carlgren, Linda Karlsson, Weizhong Tang, Kaj Blennow, Henrik Zetterberg, Randall J Bateman, Suzanne E Schindler, Nicolas Barthelemy, Sebastian Palmqvist, Erik Stomrud, Shorena Janelidze, Oskar Hansson

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Brain amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology is a core feature of Alzheimer disease (AD) and can be quantified using positron emission tomography (PET). Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and plasma biomarkers detect abnormal Aβ, but it is unclear to what degree they can predict quantitative Aβ-PET. We explored plasma and CSF biomarkers in relation to Aβ-PET in the BioFINDER-2 study (N = 1053), and the BioFINDER-1 study (N = 238). We developed a machine learning pipeline to predict Aβ-PET using CSF and plasma measures. The best models achieved R

Application Of Machine Learning To Blood-Based Biomarkers Of Alzheimer's Disease In Down Syndrome, Patrick H Luckett, Melissa Petersen, Sid O'Bryant, Mark Mapstone, Brad T Christian, Benjamin Handen, Elizabeth Head, Beau M Ances, Alzheimer's Biomarker Consortium‐Down Syndrome

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Blood-based biomarkers can improve Alzheimer's disease (AD) characterization in Down syndrome (DS). This study applied hierarchical clustering and machine learning-based feature selection to identify biomarkers associated with disease progression.

METHODS: Cross-sectional blood-based biomarkers were analyzed from 211 DS participants (

RESULTS: The strongest predictors overall were neurofilament light chain (NfL), tau/amyloid beta (Aβ)40, Aβ42/Aβ40, alpha-2-macroglobulin (A2M), and interleukin (IL)-10. Within the CS group, NfL, tau/Aβ40, A2M, and IL-10 were strong predictors. In MCI, Aβ42/Aβ40, NfL, A2M, and IL-10 were strong predictors. In DS-AD, Aβ42/Aβ40, NfL, and tau/Aβ40 were the top predictors. Cluster membership varied based on disease stage.

DISCUSSION: …

A Neurophenomenological Perspective On The Self And Spirituality: The Role Of The Affective Core Self, Michael J. Winkelman, Andrew B. Newberg

Marcus Institute of Integrative Health Faculty Papers

The self is central to spirituality because the self is necessary for consciousness, and spiritual relations are fundamentally about the self. Diverse research illustrates the role of the downregulation of the right parietal lobe (rPL) in the spontaneous manifestation of spiritual experiences and during meditative practices. The functions of the rPL are central to the self, especially the embodied self. Disturbances of the rPL and embodied self-functions are associated with spiritual experience, exemplified in their association with “selflessness.” Many forms of self appear incompatible with spiritual and mystical experiences. An exception is the affective core self, the most ancient form …

Perception Of Dementia Risk Among Black Adults: An Ecological Analysis Of Causal Loop Diagrams With A Structural And Social Determinant Of Health Composite Index, Jean-Francois Trani, Ramkrishna K Singh, Alexis Ib Walker, Semere Bekena, Yiqi Zhu, Ganesh M Babulal, Robbie Hart

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: To investigate drivers of dementia risk disparities among older Black Americans using a community-based system dynamics (CBSD) approach.

METHODS: Over 18 months, 234 participants created 36 causal loop diagrams (CLDs) on dementia risk. An ecological analysis compared structural differences across groups based on scores on a structural and social determinants of health composite index (S/SDOH-CI).

RESULTS: Groups in the highest SDOH-CI quantile were more likely to identify key protective pathways linking mental health, substance use, exercise, medication, and community support to reduce dementia risk. In contrast, fewer than 25% of low-SDOH-CI groups identified these connections, and under 15% recognized …

Development Of Colonic Polyposis In A Woman With Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Treated With Dasatinib, Guido Pelaez, Behram Suha Yildiz, Mert Candan, Mohammad Ismail, Francesca Vacca, Marianna B Ruzinova, Samuel Ballentine, Kathleen Byrnes, Armin Ghobadi

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a hematopoietic malignancy driven by constitutive tyrosine kinase activity. Dasatinib, a second-generation (2G) tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), is a preferred treatment due to its superior, durable, and rapid response rates. While dasatinib has known gastrointestinal (GI) side effects, colonic polyposis is a rare complication, not well described in the literature.

CASE PRESENTATION: Upon routine colonoscopy, a 66-year-old woman with chronic-phase CML was incidentally discovered to have asymptomatic colonic polyposis after 11 months of dasatinib therapy. Histopathology revealed reactive inflammatory changes without evidence of dysplasia or neoplasia. The polyposis resolved completely after cessation of dasatinib. …

Towards Precision Functional Brain Network Mapping In Parkinson's Disease, Jacob Chernicky, Ally Dworetsky, Sarah Grossen, Emma Carr, Abdulmunaim Eid, Meghan C Campbell, Caterina Gratton

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative condition that leads to widespread disruption of large-scale brain networks and is further complicated by substantial individual variability in symptomology, progression rates, and treatment response. Consequently, the investigation of individual differences in networks measured via resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) may provide insight. However, most RSFC studies are unable to identify interindividual differences due to poor reliability and group average network definitions. "Precision" RSFC addresses these shortcomings through extended data collection, strict denoising, and individual network definition, but remains untested in PD.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the feasibility and reliability of precision RSFC …

Treating Alzheimer's Disease In A Person Living With Hiv, David B Clifford, Tammie L S Benzinger, Jee-Young Han, Savannah Powles, Madeline Paczynski, Beau M Ances, J William Campbell

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) therapies now support survival into advanced ages by suppressing HIV replication and preserving immune function. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common neurologic degenerative condition, may now be treated with anti-amyloid therapies (AAT). HIV was an exclusionary criterion in clinical trials for AAT, leaving the safety and efficacy of these medications unknown in this setting.

METHODS: We report the development of AD supported by careful evaluations and biomarkers over a 10-year period in a person living with well-controlled HIV infection.

RESULTS: AD was diagnosed with consistent clinical and biomarker evidence. AAT was successfully administered without complications. …

Biological Aging Acceleration In Major Depressive Disorder: A Multi-Omics Analysis, Breno Satler Diniz, Shangshu Zhao, Gabin Drouard, Eero Vuoksimaa, Miina Ollikainen, Eric J Lenze, Ming Xu, Richard H Fortinsky, George A Kuchel, Jaakko Kaprio, Chia-Ling Kuo

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is linked to a higher risk of premature aging, but the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. Using data from two population cohorts (UK Biobank and Finnish Twin Cohort), we evaluate the relationship between systemic and organ-specific proteomic and epigenetic aging acceleration and MDD. A lifetime history of MDD was associated with accelerated proteomic aging at both systemic and organ-specific levels-including the brain-in both cohorts, with stronger associations than those observed with systemic epigenetic aging. Systemic and brain-specific proteomic aging acceleration were linked to higher risks of incident MDD and a greater risk of Alzheimer's disease, …

Excellent Survival Following Low-Intensity Approaches Prior To Allo-Hsct In Ph+ All: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, Lacey S. Williams, Wenners Ballard Iii, Deniz Ozisik, Charles Scott Dorris, Kepher Makambi, Scott Rowley, Kieron Dunleavy, John Dipersio, Alaa Ali

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Novel Insights Into Early Alzheimer's Disease: Quantitative Gradient Recalled Echo Mri Reveals Preatrophic Neuronal And Myelin Injury Concurrent With Emerging Amyloid Pathology, Satya V V N Kothapalli, Tammie L S Benzinger, Randall J Bateman, Melody Li, Cihat Eldeniz, John C Morris, Dmitriy A Yablonskiy

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Brain amyloid accumulation is considered an early sign of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology, appearing decades before manifestation of clinical symptoms. However, very little is known about neurodegeneration during this early AD stage. Herein we use quantitative gradient recalled echo (qGRE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to reveal preatrophic microstructural neuronal and myelin damage concurrent with amyloid pathology.

METHODS: qGRE MRI and positron emission tomography (PET) amyloid [

RESULTS: qGRE detected significantly lower gray matter neuronal density and white matter myelination in the group of participants with amyloid level below the conventional amyloid-positive threshold (mean cortical standardized uptake value ratio of …

Comparison Of Positive Dysphotopsia Rates Between Au00t0, Mx60e, Pcb00/Zcb00, And Sn60wf Intraocular Lenses, Jonathan L. Tong, Maggie J. Xing, Arsham Sheybani

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

The Association Between Major Depressive Disorder, Plasma Biomarkers Of Alzheimer's Disease, And Mild Behavioral Impairment Among Older Adults, Yiqi Zhu, Jean-Francois Trani, Ramkrishna K Singh, Semere Bekena, Jonathan Williams, Eric J Lenze, Ganesh M Babulal

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Plasma biomarkers and mild behavioral impairment (MBI) are associated with dementia risk, but their relationships with major depressive disorder (MDD) are understudied. This study aimed to examine associations between plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and MBI among older adults with and without MDD.

METHODS: Older adults aged ≥65 were recruited from longitudinal studies of depression and AD (

RESULTS: Older adults with MDD were more likely to endorse MBI. After adjustment, Aβ42/Aβ40 and p-tau217/np-tau217 positivity were associated with MBI among those with MDD but not among those without.

DISCUSSION: Neuropsychatric symptoms (NPS) and biomarkers are AD risk factors. …

Reliability Of Remote Self-Administered Web-Based Digital Cognitive Measures And Comparison To In-Person Neuropsychological Tests: Stricker Learning Span, Symbols Test, And The Mayo Test Drive Screening Battery Composite, Morgan A Hughes, Jason Hassenstab, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: We describe the reliability of remote self-administered digital cognitive measures completed via the Mayo Test Drive (MTD) web-based platform.

METHODS: A total of 1846 participants (mean age = 70, SD = 12, range 31-101; 48% male; 96% White; 99% non-Hispanic; 97% cognitively unimpaired) with two to four complete MTD sessions at ∼7.5-month intervals were included. Test-retest reliability was assessed using single-rating, absolute-agreement, and two-way mixed intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) with 95% confidence intervals. ICCs for in-person-administered traditional neuropsychological measures were compared to MTD for a subset of 244 participants. Analyses also compared reliability across demographic, residential, and session context …

The Impact Of Congenital Heart Disease On The Timing Of Alzheimer's Disease In Down Syndrome, Julianne G Clina, Beau Ances, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: The incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Down syndrome (DS) exceeds 90%. Approximately 50% of people with DS have congenital heart disease (CHD). Having CHD increases risk for early-onset AD in populations without DS, but it is unclear if CHD influences AD in DS.

METHODS: Data from the Alzheimer Biomarker Consortium-Down Syndrome (ABC-DS) were used. Participants with CHD (

RESULTS: People with CHD scored lower for visuospatial ability (

DISCUSSION: Presence of CHD may influence AD progression in DS.

HIGHLIGHTS: In adults with Down syndrome (DS), those with congenital heart disease (CHD) had higher amyloid beta and reached the …

Antihypertensive Medications And Risk Of Alzheimer's Disease: Evidence For Specific Medication Use, Osvaldo J. Laurido-Soto, Alejandra Camacho-Soto, Irene M. Faust, Kassu M. Beyene, Aaron Katz, Jordan A. Killion, Brad A. Racette

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Criterion And Convergent Validity Of Plasma Biomarkers In Early-Onset Alzheimer's Disease: Initial Findings From Leads, Dustin B Hammers, Kyle Womack, Erik Musiek, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Alzheimer's Disease Stage 1 And 2: Biology, Diagnostics, And Treatment, Suzanne E. Schindler, Sarah M. Hartz, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Plasma P-Tau217 And Apoe Genotype: Prodromal Alzheimer's Disease Staging, Ann M Stowe, Ellen Binder, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Plasma phosphorylated tau (p-tau)217 levels and apolipoprotein E (

METHODS: We measured

RESULTS: Plasma p-tau217 was 57% higher in subjects with at least one

DISCUSSION: Plasma p-tau217 demonstrated elevation in the