Digital Commons Network^™

Acute Kidney Injury After Open Heart Surgery: The Diagnostic And Predictive Value Of The New Biomarkers, Ahmed A Faragalla, Ahmed M Elshiemy, Sherif A. Elhendawy

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Background Post-operative acute kidney injury (AKI) following cardiac surgery represents a significant clinical challenge, associated with heightened mortality and an increased propensity for chronic kidney disease. Ischemia-reperfusion injury, a primary pathophysiological mechanism, induces renal tubular damage, releasing biomarkers such as Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) and hemojuvelin (HJV) into the urine. The quantification of these urinary biomarkers offers a means for early AKI detection and risk stratification, with the potential to improve patient prognosis. Aim This investigation tested new urinary biomarkers to detect AKI within the first 24 hours, to enable prompt intervention and enhance patient care. Patients and Method Sixty-three …

Study Of Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude And Practice Of Pediatric Healthcare Practitioners Towards Wilson Disease., Hanaa Ahmed Elaraby, Magdy Anwar Saber, Sally Waheed Elkhadry, Salwa Gamal Attia, Gihan Ahmed Sobhy

Journal of Medicine in Scientific Research

Background; Wilson disease (WD) is a rare genetic disease that occurs secondary to an excess of copper building up in our body, especially in the liver and brain. Diagnosis of WD is challenging. Since it is a curable illness, raising awareness about it among medical professionals is essential. Aim of the work; to assess the awareness, knowledge, attitude and practice of pediatric practitioners towards WD providing useful alerts about this disease and augmenting their knowledge. Participants and Methods ; Five hundred and one (501) pediatric practitioners with varying academic degrees from several Egyptian governmental hospitals participated in this cross-sectional study …

Climate Change Projections Through Optimized Machine Learning And Deep Learning Models: A Comprehensive Analysis, Hala H. Youssef, Salma S. Mohammed, Hanan M. Amer, Abeer T. Khalil

Mansoura Engineering Journal

One major worldwide issue that has far-reaching effects on environmental stability and the avoidance of natural disasters is climate change. Developing efficient mitigating strategies depends on precise climate change forecasts. To predict important climate change indicators, including temperature fluctuations, greenhouse gas (CO2, N2O, CH4, and SF6) emissions, population dynamics, sea level changes, Arctic Sea ice extent, and Antarctica mass, this study evaluated the predictive capabilities of several Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) techniques. The set of machine learning algorithms includes Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Support Vector Machines (SVMs), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Random Forest (RF), …

Polarization, Performance, Responsiveness, And Trust In Malawian Executive, Legislative, And Judicial Institutions, Rodgers Brenner Chawani

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Political trust matters for good governance and democracy. Although Malawi's constitution affirms trust as a key component of authority, Afrobarometer surveys have revealed broad declines, hindering democratic consolidation and the achievement of the long-term Vision 2063 development goals. Prior researchers studying the country have fixated on qualitative analyses and overlooked affective polarization and differentiation across government branches. The purpose of this cross-sectional quantitative study was to examine the predictive relationship between perceived government performance, responsiveness, corruption, affective polarization, democratic satisfaction, and trust in the Malawi president, parliament, and judiciary, using generalized linear models to apply Easton's political support theory to …

Prompt Engineering For Genai In Cybersecurity Incident Response: A Multi-Platform Evaluation Based On Nice Pr-Ir-001, Yuanyuan Liu

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

This study explores the application of prompt engineering in cybersecurity education, mainly by evaluating the performance of different generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) platforms when performing tasks consistent with the NICE framework role pr-ir-001 - Network Defense Incident Responder. The study employed structured prompts designed for a medical technology environment compliant with HIPAA and NIST SP 800-53, while the tasks of the three GenAI models (GPT-4, Gemini, and DeepSeek) were to generate event response scenarios. Their outputs will be evaluated from four aspects: accuracy, relevance, clarity and completeness.

The results show that the three models differ in depth and consistency, but …

An Integrated Pcb-Based Heating And Auto-Ranging Platform For Volatile Organic Compound (Voc) Detection Using Carbon Nanotube Based Sensors, Thomas Kalach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the development, characterization, and integration of a novel low-cost, high-dynamic-range sensor platform for the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), leveraging the unique electrical properties of carbon nanotube (CNT) thin films. The platform introduces a fully integrated auto-ranging analog front-end circuit capable of real-time resistance measurement spanning over eight orders of magnitude ranging from tens of ohms to hundreds of megaohms, without compromising signal resolution or precision. This was achieved through a digitally controlled, multi-path feedback architecture and controllable current source.

To further enhance sensor performance, the system incorporates a copper trace heater beneath the sensor array, …

Organism-Specific Sequence Motifs Link Ribosomal Rnas To Brain Disorders, Isidore Rigoutsos, Stepan Nersisyan, Eric Londin, Iliza Nazeraj, Bonnie Dong, Anastasios Vourekas, Phillipe Loher

Computational Medicine Center Faculty Papers

We report that in humans, mice, fruit flies, and worms, the ribosomal RNAs and the transcribed spacers of 45S are densely packed with organism-specific sequence motifs that are primarily shared with nervous system genes. The human ribosomal RNAs and 45S spacers contain 1,723 such motifs. Specific combinations of these motifs are predominantly found in 3,430 human nervous system genes, of which 1,046 are genes associated with brain disorders, including autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia. The sequences of the 1,723 motifs and their locations in the introns and exons of nervous system genes are unique to primates. Experimental evidence indicates that …

Development Of A Natural Language Processing Application For Lgbtq+ Status In Mental Health Records, Margaret Heslin, Jaya Chaturvedi, Anne Marie Bonnici Mallia, Ace Taaca, Diogo Pontes, Charvi Saraswat, Charlotte Woodhead, Katharine Rimes, David Chandran, Jyoti Sanyal, Ruimin Ma, Robert Stewart, Angus Roberts

School of Psychology

BackgroundLesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and related community (LGBTQ+) individuals have significantly increased risk for mental health problems. However, research on inequalities in LGBTQ+ mental healthcare is limited because LGBTQ+ status is usually only contained in unstructured, free-text sections of electronic health records.AimsThis study investigated whether natural language processing (NLP), specifically the large language model, Bi-directional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT), can identify LGBTQ+ status from this unstructured text in mental health records.MethodUsing electronic health records from a large mental healthcare provider in south London, UK, relevant search terms were identified and a random sample of 10 000 strings extracted. …

Occ's Memo Of Law On Charitable Immunity

Catholic Dioceses in Bankruptcy

No abstract provided.

Assessing Riparian Evapotranspiration Dynamics In A Water Conflict Region In Nebraska, Usa, Ivo Z. Gonçalves, Burdette Barker, Christopher M. U. Neale, Derrel L. Martin, Sammy Z. Akasheh

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The escalating pressure on water resources in agricultural regions has become a catalyst for water conflicts. The adoption of innovative approaches to estimate actual evapotranspiration (ETa) offers potential solutions to mitigate conflicts related to water usage. This research presents the application of a remote sensing-based methodology for estimating actual evapotranspiration (ETa) based on a two-source energy balance model (TSEB) for riparian vegetation in Nebraska, US using the Spatial EvapoTranspiration Modeling Interface (SETMI). Estimated results through SETMI and field data using the eddy covariance system (EC) considering the period 2008–2013 were used to validate the energy balance components and ETa. Modeled …

Inhibition Of Osteosarcoma Lung Metastases By Β-Glucan And Cd40 Agonist Is Mediated By Activation Of Macrophages And Nk Cells, Pradeep Shrestha, Rejeena Shrestha, Eugenie S Kleinerman

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Osteosarcoma (OS) lung metastases remain a significant therapeutic challenge. Innate immune activation is a promising therapeutic approach. Innate immune agonists can modulate the tumor immune microenvironment and improve therapeutic response.

Methods: Using an experimental syngeneic OS lung metastasis BALB/c mouse model with K7M3-luc OS cells, we evaluated the antitumor effects of yeast-derived particulate β-glucan in prevention and therapeutic settings. We then assessed whether the CD40 agonist (CD40a) in combination with β-glucan increased therapeutic response in two different immune-competent mouse models of OS lung tumor burden.

Results: In the pretreatment settings, mice treated with β-glucan prior to OS cell infusion …

Managing Chickens From Chicks To Peak Egg Production, Joseph Okoh, Essence Perry

All Current Publications

Chickens were first domesticated for cultural purposes, but selective breeding has focused on egg production. Choosing the right breeds and good management practices are essential for farmers to maximize egg yield, quality, and safety. This fact sheet covers poultry history, top egg-laying breeds, egg anatomy, nutrition, and practical tips to help farmers improve productivity and run successful egg production ventures.

Numerical Modelling Of The 1 July 2022 Flooding Event, Southwest Huvadhoo Atoll, Maldives: Implications For The Future, Gerd Masselink, Tim Poate, Timothy Scott, Floortje Roelvink, Robert Mccall

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Low-lying atoll islands are among the world's most vulnerable coastal environments to sea-level rise (SLR). Global application of coastal flooding models suggests that centennial flood events may become annual events by 2050 in tropical regions. This article addresses this claim by modelling an island flooding event that occurred in the Maldives on 1 July 2022 as a result of a distant-swell event coinciding with an extra high spring tide. Hydrodynamic data collected after the event on one of the affected islands were used to calibrate and validate a one-dimensional non-hydrostatic XBeach model. The model overpredicted wave setup and underpredicted the …

Integration Of Uav And Remote Sensing Data For Early Diagnosis And Severity Mapping Of Diseases In Maize Crop Through Deep Learning And Reinforcement Learning, Jerry Gao, Krinal Gujarati, Meghana Hegde, Padmini Arra, Sejal Gupta, Neeraja Buch

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Highlights: What are the main findings? A framework combining UAV, satellite, and weather data to detect crop diseases. Ensemble deep learning and reinforcement learning improve classification and severity mapping. What is the implication of the main finding? Enables near real-time, scalable crop disease management to reduce yield losses. Early detection and hotspot mapping optimize water and pesticide use for sustainability. Accurate and timely prediction of diseases in water-intensive crops is critical for sustainable agriculture and food security. AI-based crop disease management tools are essential for an optimized approach, as they offer significant potential for enhancing yield and sustainability. This study …

A Safety-Ii Approach To Learn From Practice Variation In The Diagnostic Process In The Emergency Department: An Action Research Study, Rick Roos, Laura Zwaan, Myrthe Maranus, Iwan A Meynaar, Vanessa J Valk, Cees Van Nieuwkoop, Gert-Jan Kamps, Hardeep Singh, Maarten O Van Aken

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objectives: The focus on improving patient safety has mainly been by learning from errors and near misses (Safety-I). We applied a novel Safety-II approach to identify and learn from practice variations in the diagnostic process in the emergency department (ED), and subsequently design and implement practice changes.

Methods: In this single-center study, we used action research (cycles of micro-experiments to study and improve processes with active stakeholder involvement) in the diagnostic process. We used three subsequent observation cycles of the following six steps: observations, gathering of follow-up data, analyses, a co-creation session with involved stakeholders, sharing of best practices, and …

Timbre — A Transcendent Paradox?, Eugenia Siegel Conte

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Timbre, as ethnomusicologist Cornelia Fales writes, is “paradoxical” precisely because it is one of the most exacting processes in which the human body may sense and comprehend the source of a sound even as that comprehended sound is impossible to describe outside of metaphor or comparison. As one of the more recognizable qualities of sound but the most difficult to describe, timbre allows us to consider physical/emotional (affective) experiences of sound as a key aspect of faith and meditation. In this article, I examine physical-affective intersections of faith and meditation that often are key to praxes of worship, and show …

Singing A Wide Heart: Timbre And Sung Prayer In Senegal’S Layène Community, Margaret L. Rowley

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Layène sung prayer (called sikkar) is embedded within the religious practices of the Layène community, a minority Sufi order in Dakar, Senegal. This article explores the functions of Layène sung prayer, focusing especially on its loud, vibrational timbre. Both men and women vocalists in call-and-response sing loudly, using wide vibrato and electronic amplification to ensure that the sikkar reaches the inhabitants—both human and non-human—in the surrounding community. This article demonstrates that the distinctive timbre of Layène sung prayer serves the spiritual functions of binding the community together in spiritual and social cohesion, increasing individual and collective generosity, and demarcating …

Live Wires: The Angelus Temple And The Timbre Of Power, Catherine Provenzano

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article is a media history and contemporary case study of The Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923. My analysis of the Angelus insists upon the centrality of a hyperaudible paradigm of worship that uses media to maximize the legibility of a Christian message, and, more than this, imagines that media itself as a living soul in need of redemption. Many contemporary megachurches employ savvy applications of sound and sound transmission as instruments of belonging as well as action, and these rely on high-budget investments in church infrastructure, software and personnel. I argue that …

From The Heaviest, Dirtiest Depths To The Washy Ambient Clouds: Guitar Timbre In/As Schismogenesis In North American Christianity, Joshua K. Busman, Nathan Myrick

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This essay argues that within the socio-cultural context of North American Christianity, the timbral qualities of electric guitar, with its long lineage as a site of cultural values conflict and identity negotiation, serves a theological function in the emerging and cohering sonority of digital worship. Using as comparative case studies the timbral qualities of delay and ambience as promoted and sold by Worship Tutorials as representing normative sonic values for these Christians, on the one hand, and the dialectic and schismatic deployment of distortion by the band My Epic on the other, we suggest that these timbral qualities become important …

Introduction: The Power Of Timbre In Religion, Bo Kyung Blenda Im, Nathan Myrick

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

How might attending to timbre shift the boundaries of the experiences and practices that come under the analytical purview of religion? What timbral qualities render prayer efficacious and invite divine encounter? What cosmological claims and social relations are forwarded through sounds invoked in religious rituals and gatherings? How do marginalized voices and instruments shape worshipping communities? On the other hand, how are dominant identities and attendant structures reified through religiously marked timbre? Such questions about the character of sounds and their implications for religion animate this issue of the Yale Journal of Music & Religion.

The Effects Of Non-Pharmacological Interventions During The Covid-19 Pandemic On Viral Respiratory Infections In Neonates During And Just After The Pandemic Era, Sevde N. Menemen, Ümit A. Tandırcıoğlu, Ayşegül Tuna, Serdar Alan

Journal of Pediatric Infectious Diseases

Objective: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, these globally implemented nonpharmacological interventions (NPIs) have altered the circulation of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as well as other respiratory viruses in the community. To evaluate the impact of NPIs on the incidence and severity of viral respiratory tract infection (RTI) in newborns during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The study was performed as a retrospective design between 2020-2023. Newborns with signs of upper or lower RTI who had undergone real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing were included. The study was divided into 3 periods by considering the …

Vinyl Noise, James Kelly

Staff Scholarship - Australia & Dubai

In this talk, audio engineer, composer, and record collector Dr. Kelly will explore the fascinating intersection of sound, technology and perception through the lens of vinyl records and their inherent noisiness. Vinyl noise, or surface noise, refers to the sounds on vinyl records that aren’t part of the music itself. Drawing from both production and listening perspectives, Dr. Kelly will offer insights into how records are made, the noisiness inherent to the medium, and how listeners engage with these unwanted sounds - whether by ignoring, finding them distracting, or embracing them as part of the medium’s texture.

Combatting Road Accidents And Fatalities : The Colonial State, Voluntary Organisations, And Road Safety In Northern Rhodesia, 1940s-1964, Mbozi Santebe

Zamani: A Journal of African Historical Studies

Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) experienced an increase in the use of motor vehicles from the late 1920s. Consequently, there was a rapid increase in the occurrence of road accidents from the 1940s onwards. The rise in cases of accidents attracted attention of the colonial state and other stakeholders that embarked on measures to improve road safety. Using a corpus of archival sources, this article examines the measures that the colonial state and voluntary organisations undertook to improve road safety in Northern Rhodesia from the 1940s to 1964. It contributes to scholarly works on the use of motor vehicles in Africa …

25 Conference Program - Electrophoretic Deposition Viii: Fundamentals And Applications, Aldo R. Boccaccini, Begoña Ferrari, Andrew J. Pascall, Fabien Grasset, Kiyofumi Katagiri

Electrophoretic Deposition VIII: Fundamentals and Applications (EDP)

No abstract provided.

Cortenmm: Efficient Memory Management With Strong Correctness Guarantees, Junyang Zhang, Xiangcan Xu, Yonghao Zou, Zhe Tang, Xinyi Wan, Kang Hu, Siyuan Wang, Wenbo Xu, Di Wang, Hao Chen, Lin Huang, Shoumeng Yan, Yuval Tamir, Yingwei Luo, Xiaolin Wang, Huashan Yu, Zhenlin Wang, Hongliang Tian, Diyu Zhou

Michigan Tech Publications

Modern memory management systems suffer from poor performance and subtle concurrency bugs, slowing down applications while introducing security vulnerabilities. We observe that both issues stem from the conventional design of memory management systems with two levels of abstraction: a software-level abstraction (e.g., VMA trees in Linux) and a hardware-level abstraction (typically, page tables). This design increases portability but requires correctly and efficiently synchronizing two drastically different and complex data structures, which is generally challenging.We present CortenMM, a memory management system with a clean-slate design to achieve both high performance and synchronization correctness. Our key insight is that most OSes no …

Integration Of Systematic, Explicit, And Multisensory Phonics Instruction In Elementary Classrooms, Abbey Schwob

Graduate Teacher Education

This literature review examined the effectiveness of systematic, explicit, and multisensory phonics instruction in improving reading achievement for elementary students. This research synthesized findings from fifteen peer-reviewed studies conducted in public elementary schools across the United States. These studies, which included qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods designs, explored evidence-based approaches to literacy instruction grounded in the Science of Reading. Three major themes emerged from the research. The first theme explored the positive effects of specific phonics curricula on reading achievement. The second theme illustrated the benefits of integrating multisensory approaches to enhance phonemic awareness, decoding, and fluency. The final theme discussed …

Emotional Intelligence Training Correlates With Medical Students’ Apprehension Of Ai In Healthcare: A Single-Institution, Observational Study, Austin P. Runde, Shambhavi Mishra, Marina Feffer, Ramzan Shahid

School of Medicine

Background: The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare is becoming increasingly widespread. While AI has been touted to improve many aspects of the field, its potential to undermine the doctor-patient relationship has also been recognized. It is not known what future physicians believe regarding the potential effects of AI on physicians' professional relationships. It is also unknown whether formal training in emotional intelligence (EI) and resilience strategies influences medical students' opinions on the use of AI in healthcare.

Objective: To ascertain medical students’ opinion on the potential impact of AI on various EI-related aspects of healthcare, such as its …

Improved Streamflow Forecasting Through Swe-Augmented Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks, Akhila Akkala, Soukaina Filali Boubrahimi, Shah Muhammad Hamdi, Pouya Hosseinzadeh, Ayman Nassar

Computer Science Student Research

Streamflow forecasting in snowmelt-dominated basins is essential for water resource planning, flood mitigation, and ecological sustainability. This study presents a comparative evaluation of statistical, machine learning (Random Forest), and deep learning models (Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), and Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network (STGNN)) using 30 years of data from 20 monitoring stations across the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). We assess the impact of integrating meteorological variables—particularly, the Snow Water Equivalent (SWE)—and spatial dependencies on predictive performance. Among all models, the Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Network (STGNN) achieved the highest accuracy, with a Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency (NSE) of 0.84 …

Establishing Priority Pediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship Interventions In The Us: Findings From A Delphi Consensus Study., Harry Obeng, Emmanuel Tetteh, Sara Malone, Lauren Walsh, Tyler Walsh, Fernando J. Bula-Rudas, Ritu Banerjee, Adam W. Brothers, Joshua C. Herigon, Katie Namtu, Scott Weissman, Daniel Riggsbee, Jared Olson, Debra Lynn Palazzi, Ann L. Wirtz, Matthew Sattler, Jessica Tansmore, Brittany A. Rodriguez, Monica Abdelnour, Joshua R. Watson, Alison C. Tribble, Jessica Gillon, Mari Nakamura, Sarah Jones, Jason G. Newland, Virginia R. Mckay

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health threat, with children at higher risk due to developmental differences in drug metabolism, limited treatment options and inappropriate antibiotic use. Pediatric antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) face implementation challenges, often relying on adult-based guidelines and limited pediatric-specific evidence. This study aimed to identify and prioritize the most critical areas for pediatric ASP intervention development through a structured, multi-round Delphi consensus process with experts in antimicrobial stewardship and infectious diseases.

METHOD: A four-round modified Delphi process was conducted to identify and prioritize key pediatric ASP interventions. Experts in antimicrobial stewardship and infectious diseases …

Precision Assessment Of Facial Asymmetry Using 3d Imaging And Artificial Intelligence, Mohamed Adel, Katie Jo Hunt, Daniel Lau, James K Hartsfield, Hugo Reyes-Centeno, Cynthia S Beeman, Tarek Elshebiny, Lina Sharab

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Objectives: There is a growing interest among practitioners in employing artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the precision and efficiency of diagnostic methods. The objective of this study is to assess the precision of an AI-based method for facial asymmetry assessment using 3D facial images. Methods: The study included 130 patients (84 female, 46 male), analyzing 3D facial images from the Vectra ® M3 imaging system using both manual and AI-based methods. Seven bilateral facial landmarks were identified for manual analysis, calculating the asymmetry index for facial symmetry assessment. An AI-based program was developed to automate the identification of the same …