Digital Commons Network^™

Acute And Persistent Effects Of Commonly Used Antibiotics On The Gut Microbiome And Resistome In Healthy Adults, Winston E Anthony, Bin Wang, Kimberley V Sukhum, Alaric W D'Souza, Tiffany Hink, Candice Cass, Sondra Seiler, Kimberly A Reske, Christopher Coon, Erik R Dubberke, Carey-Ann D Burnham, Gautam Dantas, Jennie H Kwon

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Antibiotics are deployed against bacterial pathogens, but their targeting of conserved microbial processes means they also collaterally perturb the commensal microbiome. To understand acute and persistent effects of antibiotics on the gut microbiota of healthy adult volunteers, we quantify microbiome dynamics before, during, and 6 months after exposure to 4 commonly used antibiotic regimens. We observe an acute decrease in species richness and culturable bacteria after antibiotics, with most healthy adult microbiomes returning to pre-treatment species richness after 2 months, but with an altered taxonomy, resistome, and metabolic output, as well as an increased antibiotic resistance burden. Azithromycin delays the …

Urinary Proteomic Profile Of Arterial Stiffness Is Associated With Mortality And Cardiovascular Outcomes, Dongmei Wei, Jesus D. Melgarejo, Lutgarde Thijs, Xander Temmerman, Thomas Vanassche, Lucas Van Aelst, Stefan Janssens, Jan A. Staessen, Peter Verhamme, Zhen-Yu Zhang

School of Medicine Publications

Background

The underlying mechanisms of arterial stiffness remain not fully understood. This study aimed to identify a urinary proteomic profile to illuminate its pathogenesis and to determine the prognostic value of the profile for adverse outcomes.

Methods and Results

We measured aortic stiffness using pulse wave velocity (PWV) and analyzed urinary proteome using capillary electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry in 669 randomly recruited Flemish patients (mean age, 50.2 years; 51.1% women). We developed a PWV‐derived urinary proteomic score (PWV‐UP) by modeling PWV with proteomics data at baseline through orthogonal projections to latent structures. PWV‐UP that consisted of 2336 peptides explained …

Washu Epigenome Browser Update 2022, Daofeng Li, Deepak Purushotham, Jessica K Harrison, Silas Hsu, Xiaoyu Zhuo, Changxu Fan, Shane Liu, Vincent Xu, Samuel Chen, Jason Xu, Shinyi Ouyang, Angela S Wu, Ting Wang

2020-Current year OA Pubs

WashU Epigenome Browser (https://epigenomegateway.wustl.edu/browser/) is a web-based genomic data exploration tool that provides visualization, integration, and analysis of epigenomic datasets. The newly renovated user interface and functions have enabled researchers to engage with the browser and genomic data more efficiently and effectively since 2018. Here, we introduce a new integrated panel design in the browser that allows users to interact with 1D (genomic features), 2D (such as Hi-C), 3D (genome structure), and 4D (time series) data in a single web page. The browser can display three-dimensional chromatin structures with the 3D viewer module. The 4D tracks, called 'Dynamic' tracks, animatedly …

Racial And Ethnic Representation In Clinical Psychotherapy Research, Vivian Mcgaughey

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

Though there is an active mental health crisis among college students, there is low utilization of psychotherapy among minoritized racial and ethnic groups. This independent research examines peer-reviewed literature to help explain four possible reasons for the low utilization of psychotherapy within marginalized groups: discrimination, stigma, feelings of alienation, and lack of representation. These four reasons all have a direct impact on college students’ academics, success during and after college, and overall wellbeing. Thus, it is crucial to explore the reasoning behind the low utilization of mental health resources and possible changes that are necessary to fix this. Peer-reviewed literature …

Healthcare With A Focus In Neurological Disease Solutions, Andrea Hernandez

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

There is a need for patient-centered care that is easily accessible to all PD patients given the serious implications of falls. Our goal was to examine the feasibility of delivering specialized physical and occupational therapy directly to the patient’ s home using telemedicine. As a result of this internship, I have had the privilege of participating in several other projects, such as Dr. Afshari’s iteration of this program to the NIH in a career development award. I am pleased to begin a new project alongside Dr. Afshari to expand our understanding of freezing of gait experienced by patients with PD.

Depressive And Anxiety Symptoms And Their Association With Sleep Consistency In Female College Students, Lora Djambov

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

Sleep is a critical part of daily functioning. Recent work has highlighted the consistency of a person’s sleep schedule as an important factor in health (Phillips, 2017). College students often have inconsistent sleep patterns, including irregular increased napping (Adriansen et al., 2017), and increased wake time variability (Roane et al., 2015). These patterns adversely impact cognitive functioning, physical health, and mental health (Bei et al., 2016; Phillips et al., 2017; Murray et al., 2017), including higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Studies, however, have not examined sleep regularity and its association with these symptoms in college students (Fang et …

Generating Equity Within The Food System Through Institutional Purchasing, Rakayla T. Campbell

Undergraduate Research and Engagement Symposium

Our current food systems are largely profit driven and create negative environmental externalities such as pollution and excess waste (Barlett, 2017). Colleges and universities are unique in that they have a large potential to create a change in the food system through changes in their institutional purchasing habits. Higher education purchasing offers a unique opportunity to shift consumer demands to these sorts of products. In addition, this purchase poses a unique opportunity to support and uplift historically disenfranchised BIPOC producers. Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit institution in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, situated on the north side. …

Historic Notes And Documents: "Our Desired Haven": The Letters Of Corinna Brown Aldrich From Antebellum Key West, 1849-1850, James M. Denham

Florida Historical Quarterly

On January 8,1849, Dr. Edward S. Aldrich wrote his wife Corinna Brown Aldrich from Key West, Florida. His description of American's southernmost town spoke of its beauty and economic potential.

A St. Augustine Crime Passionnel, Vivien Miller

Florida Historical Quarterly

The crime passionnel is not formally recognized in North American law. Nevertheless, any reading of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century southern court records and pardon files reveal that, as acts of interpersonal violence, crimes of passion "generated by thwarted love, jealousy, [and] hatred that rise to the level of obsession" were not uncommon. One such crime was perptrated by Alexander Campbell. This was the unusual case of a middle-class white man who was convicted of first-degree murder in a Florida court in 1891 and sent to the convict lease system where he remained for a considerable length of time. This partiular Florida …

Whitening Miami: Race, Housing, And Government Policy In Twentieth-Century Dade County, Raymond A. Mohl

Florida Historical Quarterly

Throughout the twentieth century, government agencies played a powerful role in creating and sustaining racially separate and segregated housing in Dade County, Florida. This pattern of housing segregation initially was imposed early through official policies of "racial zoning," During the New Deal era of lhe 1930s, federal housing policies were implemented at the local level to maintain legally segregated housing and neighborhoods. Such policies included the appraisal system established by the federal Home Owners Loan Corporation, which helped to create the discriminatory lending system known as "redlining." In addition, under the New Deal's federally sponsored public housing program, local housing …

Public Goods From Private Data: An Effectiveness And Justification Dilemma For Digital Contact Tracing, Andrew Buzzell

The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

Debate about the adoption of digital contact tracing (DCT) apps to control the spread of COVID-19 has focussed on risks to individual privacy. This emphasis reveals significant challenges to ethical deployment of DCT, but generates constraints which undermine justification to implement DCT. It would be a mistake to view this result solely as the successful operation of ethical foresight analysis, preventing deployment of potentially harmful technology. Privacy-centric analysis treats data as private property, frames the relationship between individuals and governments as adversarial, entrenches technology platforms as gatekeepers, and supports a conception of emergency public health authority as limited by individual …

The Impact Of Disability Inclusion Programs On Organizational Culture And Strategy, Bianca Kristal Sofia Contreras Lopez

Liberty University Research Week

Graduate

Textual or Investigative

The Connection Between Body Modification And Personality, Taylor Shoemaker

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

Previous research has been inconsistent in its findings regarding the associations between body modifications (e.g., piercings, tattoos, augmentation, scarification, split tongue) and the Big Five personality traits (i.e., openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism). All traits have been found to be significantly correlated with body modification in at least one study, but their significance differed from study to study. The purpose of the current study was to examine the associations between body modification and each domain of personality concurrently to add to the literature surrounding differences between modified and unmodified individuals. To participate in this study, participants were asked …

Using Modern Portfolio Theory To Create Efficient Portfolios From The S&P Index, Dylan Rhoads

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) serves as a proxy for the U.S. equity market and is among the most widely cited financial instruments in the world. Its risk and return can be accepted as the market’s, leading it to be the benchmark for performance in many investment settings. Modern portfolio theory helps to quantify performance by explaining the relationship between risk and return. Every portfolio has its own return and risk level, with the optimal allocations falling on the “Efficient Frontier”, that is the line on a graph that connects the portfolios that have the maximum return …

Suicide Risk And School Related Stressors In Veterinary Students, Deanna Arnold

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

Compared to the general population of the United States, veterinarians are at an increasingly higher risk for suicide. This is commonly associated with stressful work environments, long work hours, poor work-life balance, client demands and complaints, and large amounts of euthanasia procedures. While many studies have been performed to confirm the above statements, few to no studies have been done on students currently enrolled in veterinary school to assess their mental health. This study will survey graduate school students in this field and will evaluate their mental health state and risk factors towards suicide. Through comparing the results of this …

School Violence And Its Impact On Student Academic Achievement, Kewanis Kennedy

Steeplechase: An ORCA Student Journal

This study explores the occurrence of school violence and its impact on academic success and attendance. This study will encompass K-12 academic institutions in the state of Kentucky during the 2018-2019 academic school year, with an in-depth analysis of data submitted to the Kentucky Department of Education by the 171 participating school districts. The participating schools shared data in the form of disciplinary actions, attendance, graduation rates, academic achievement, and other relevant demographics. The collected data was analyzed to determine if there was a statistically significant difference among attendance rate, graduation rate, math ACT benchmark scores, and English ACT benchmark …

Binding Affinities Of Bpa Derivatives To The Human Estrogen Receptor: Utilization And Assessment Of Autodock Vina, Luke Newman

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Synthesis Of Molecularly Imprinted Polymer For The Detection Of Perfluorooctanoic Acid, Yuqi Wang, Hannah Rhodes

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Inhibiting Nitroso Related Methylation Of Guanine Using Dietary Supplements And Flavonoids, Hannah Klose, Madeline Mccoy, Mary Hall

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

The Use Of Molecular Beacon Sirna To Induce Degradation Of Sars Cov-2 Mrna In Infected Cells, Katelynn Sepke, Hanna Dutt

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Casein Kinases Interact And Stabilize Glucose Sensing Receptors In Yeast, Julia Humble, Levi Mailloux, Sophia Adams

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

High-Performance Liquid Chromatography Analysis Of Common Adulterants, Madison Landreth, Elijah Deyoung, Jedidiah Black, Lynza Osorio

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Validating Methods For Monitoring Physiological Health Of Plethodon Hubrichti Along An Elevational Gradient, Taylor Salvigsen, Kyra Todd

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

School Counseling At Cedar Falls High School, Chloe Thostenson

INSPIRE Student Research and Engagement Conference

This semester, I had the opportunity to intern with a school counselor at Cedar Falls High to gain insight into how mental health programs function and how they are applied by the team. I have learned therapy techniques, created yearly mental health reports to foresee trends, and have helped support the students’ emotional and academic needs. This poster exemplifies how sleep is strongly linked with depression and attendance in school, the various programs and plans that Cedar Falls High School offers, and how this experience has aided in creating additional future career goals for me.

A Case Of Recurrent Severe Hypocalcemia With Prolonged Hospitalization And Readmissions After Single Dose Of Denosumab In Metastatic Prostate Cancer Patient, Ojbindra Kc, Punya Hari Dahal, Manisha Koirala, Chandra Sekhar Kothagundla, Enas Al Zaghal, Rabih Fahed

Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives

Denosumab is a human monoclonal antibody used to prevent skeletal-related events in prostate cancer patients with bone metastasis. Hypocalcemia ranging from mild to severe requiring prolonged hospitalization have been reported with the use of denosumab in patients with known risk factors such as chronic kidney disease, vitamin D deficiency, low parathyroid hormone level, hypomagnesemia, extensive osteoblastic metastasis, prior use of bisphosphonates, and comorbidities impairing calcium absorption. We present a case of a metastatic prostate cancer patient with extensive osteoblastic metastasis who developed severe recurrent hypocalcemia after a single dose of denosumab requiring a total of 58 days of high dose …

A Case Of Hepatitis C Related Mixed Cryoglobulinemia Syndrome, Fisayo Kayode-Ajala, Chidinma Ejikeme, Joseph Picone, Aditya Sanyal

Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is an RNA virus that preferentially infects hepatocytes and is transmitted through infected blood contact. Chronic hepatitis C can result in serious life-threatening conditions like fibrosis, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. Additionally, it can result in extrahepatic conditions including lymphoproliferative disease and mixed cryoglobulinemic vasculitis. Mixed cryoglobulinemic vasculitis occurs as a result of immune system dysfunction leading to immunoglobulin deposits into different blood vessels in the body. The main manifestations commonly seen are purpura, weakness, arthralgias. Other symptoms include peripheral neuropathy, arthritis, vasculitic skin ulcers, liver, and renal involvement. This case highlights a 57-year-old male with a …

Immensely High Creatine Kinase Levels In A Case Of Rhabdomyolysis Due To Legionnaires’ Disease In A Patient On Tofacitinib: A Case Report And Literature Review, Harish Gopalakrishna, Ahmad Al-Abdouh, Gayatri B Nair, Vinod Solipuram, Ammer Bekele

Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives

Abstract: A 58-year-old female patient presented with altered mental status, diarrhea, and fever. She was hospitalized for acute kidney injury [AKI] and a patchy right lower lobe infiltrates on chest X-ray. Subsequent testing revealed rhabdomyolysis and a positive urinary Legionella antigen test. Creatinine kinase [CK] level peaked at 512,820 U/L and was managed with aggressive intravenous hydration and appropriate antibiotic treatment. With clinical signs of resolution of pneumonia, the CK level declined rapidly, however renal function returned to baseline only after 2 months requiring hemodialysis in the meantime. The patient was also on tofacitinib which can rarely contribute to rhabdomyolysis. …

Pulmonary Evaluation Of Post-Covid-19 Patients: An Ecuadorian Experience, Ivan Cherrez-Ojeda, Efraín Sanchez-Angarita, Emanuel Vanegas, María José Farfán Bajaña, Karla Robles-Velasco, María F. Osorio, Azza Sarfraz, Zouina Sarfraz, Juan C. Calderón, Jorge Cáneva, Laura Gochicoa-Rangel, Matías Panchana Lascano, Juan Carlos Fernández Cadena, Derly Madeleiny Andrade Molina, Amado X Freire, Miguel Felix

Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives

Background: Despite the growing concerns related to the potential of long-term pulmonary sequelae due to COVID-19, data about intermediate and long-term changes in the respiratory function of patients who recover is relatively sparse, particularly in developing countries. Objectives: To assess the characteristics and pulmonary function at follow-up in a sample of Ecuadorian patients that recovered from the virus. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study that included 43 patients after symptomatic COVID infection, who were evaluated by spirometry, single breath DLCO, and 6MWT. For statistical analysis we performed point biserial correlations, and chi squared tests. Results: Overall, 30.3% of patients (n=13) …

Dronedarone For Atrial Fibrillation Prophylaxis In Patients Undergoing Open Heart Surgical Interventions: A Case Series, Jay D. Patel, Mrhaf Alsamman, Dewansh Goel, Sai Gudduru, Rakesh Prashad

Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives

Atrial fibrillation (a-fib) is one of the most frequently encountered and studied arrhythmias in medicine. The presence of A-fib in the post-operative period of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery is of particular concern for clinicians as this presents risks of post-operative stroke, hospital readmission, or anticoagulation dilemmas depending on the patient’s comorbidities. In this case study, we present 5 patients who were treated with dronedarone prior to undergoing open heart procedures. We subsequently followed each patients clinical course paying close attention for any evidence of post-operative a-fib.

Extranodal Rosai-Dorfman Disease- A Review Of Diagnostic Testing And Management., Imad Ud Deen, Abhinandan Chittal, Nabil Badro, Robert Jones, Christopher Haas

Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives

Rosai-Dorfman disease (RDD) is a rare, benign histiocytic proliferative disorder primarily occurring in the lymph nodes. Extranodal disease can occur in skin and soft tissue, central nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and breast. Here we present a case of a 55-year-old female with a history of hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes mellitus who presented with a fixed solid mass localized to the right medial thigh. Excision revealed S100 and CD 68 positive scattered lymphoid aggregates and emperipolesis, hallmark molecular and cytopathologic features of RDD. RDD is a nonmalignant, classically sporadic histiocytosis. Clinical outcome in terms of mortality seems to be favorable in …