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Plga-Coated Drug-Loaded Nanotubes Anodically Grown On Nitinol, F. Davoodian, E. Salahinejad, E. Sharifi, Z. Barabadi, Lobat Tayebi

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

This study evaluates the use of nanotubes (NTs) as a matrix for local drug delivery modified by a biodegradable polymeric coating on medical-grade nitinol (NiTi alloy) surfaces. For this purpose, NiTi was anodized within parameters that promote the formation of NTs, ultrasonicated, annealed and impregnated with vancomycin hydrochloride. To improve bioperformance, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) was also deposited on the drug-loaded NTs. The samples were characterized in terms of structure, wettability, drug delivery, corrosion and cytocompatibility. Scanning electron microscopy and water contact angle measurements signify the formation of open-top homogeneous NTs of 600– 700 nm in length and ~30 nm in …

Eating Habits And Lifestyle During Covid-19 Lockdown In The United Arab Emirates: A Cross-Sectional Study, Leila Cheikh Ismail, Tareq M. Osaili, Maysm N. Mohamad, Amina Al Marzouqi, Amjad H. Jarrar, Dima O.Abu Jamous, Emmanuella Magriplis, Habiba I. Ali, Haleama Al Sabbah, Hayder Hasan, Latifa M.R. Almarzooqi, Lily Stojanovska, Mona Hashim, Reyad R.Shaker Obaid, Sheima T. Saleh, Ayesha S.Al Dhaheri

All Works

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. The coronavirus disease is still spreading in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with subsequent lockdowns and social distancing measures being enforced by the government. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of the lockdown on eating habits and lifestyle behaviors among residents of the UAE. A cross-sectional study among adults in the UAE was conducted using an online questionnaire between April and May 2020. A total of 1012 subjects participated in the study. During the pandemic, 31% reported weight gain and 72.2% had less than eight cups of …

Effects Of The Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic On Routine Pediatric Immunization Coverage Rates At The Main University Hospital In Saudi Arabia, Abdulkarim A. Alrabiaah, Ahmed H. Alshaer, Hadeel A. Aljammaz, Khalid M. Almoosa, Nawaf F. Alshuraym, Mohamad-Hani A. Temsah, Fahad M. Alsohime, Sara S. Alsubaie, Elham E. Bukhari, Ali M. Somily, Fahad A. Alzamil

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To investigate whether the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic has had any effects on pediatric vaccination rates at the main university hospital in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A retrospective study conducted at King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia using electronic health records. The vaccination statuses of all children who were scheduled for vaccinations at birth and at 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months during March, April and May between 2017 and 2020 were included in the study with total sample of 15,870 children, and comparisons between the cohorts were performed. Results: All vaccination visits during April and May 2020 …

The Emergence Of New Trends In Clinical Laboratory Diagnosis, Mohammed A. Alaidarous

Saudi Medical Journal

Diagnostic processes typically rely on traditional and laborious methods, that are prone to human error, resulting in frequent misdiagnosis of diseases. Computational approaches are being increasingly used for more precise diagnosis of the clinical pathology, diagnosis of genetic and microbial diseases, and analysis of clinical chemistry data. These approaches are progressively used for improving the reliability of testing, resulting in reduced diagnostic errors. Artificial intelligence (AI)-based computational approaches mostly rely on training sets obtained from patient data stored in clinical databases. However, the use of AI is associated with several ethical issues, including patient privacy and data ownership. The capacity …

Implementation Of Surgical Site Infection Surveillance In Low- And Middle-Income Countries: A Position Statement For The International Society For Infectious Diseases, Shaheen Mehtar, Anthony Wanyoro, Folasade Ogunsola, Emmanuel A. Ameh, Peter Nthumba, Claire Kilpatrick, Gunturu Revathi, Anastasia Antoniadou, Helen Giamarelou, Anucha Apisarnthanarak

Pathology, East Africa

Surgical site infection (SSI) rates in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) range from 8 to 30% of procedures, making them the most frequent healthcare-acquired infection (HAI) with substantial morbidity, mortality, and economic impacts. Presented here is an approach to surgical site infection prevention based on surveillance and focused on five critical areas identified by international experts. These five areas include 1. Collecting valid, high-quality data; 2. Linking HAIs to economic incapacity, underscoring the need to prioritize infection prevention activities; 3. Implementing SSI surveillance within infection prevention and control (IPC) programs to enact structural changes, develop procedural skills, and alter healthcare …

Varroa Destructor Mites Vector And Transmit Pathogenic Honey Bee Viruses Acquired From An Artificial Diet, Francisco Posada-Florez, Eugene V. Ryabov, Matthew C. Heerman, Yanping Chen, Jay D. Evans, Daniel E. Sonenshine, Steven C. Cook

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The ectoparasitic mite Varroa destructoris one of the most destructive pests of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) and the primary biotic cause of colony collapse in many regions of the world. These mites inflict physical injury on their honey bee hosts from feeding on host hemolymph and fat body cells/cellular components, and serve as the vector for deadly honey bee viruses, including Deformed wing virus (DWV) and the related Varroa destructor virus-1 (VDV-1) (i.e., DWV-like viruses). Studies focused on elucidating the dynamics of Varroa-mediated vectoring and transmission of DWV-like viruses may be confounded by viruses present in …

Pricing The Global Health Risks Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Policies to address the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) require a balancing of the health risk reductions and the costs of economic dislocations. Application of the value of a statistical life (VSL) to monetize COVID-19 deaths produces a U.S. mortality cost estimate of $1.4 trillion for deaths in the first half of 2020. This article presents worldwide COVID-19 costs for over 100 countries. The total global mortality cost through July 2, 2020 is $3.5 trillion. The United States accounts for 25% of the deaths, but 41% of the mortality cost. Adjustments for the shorter life expectancy and lower income of the …

U.S. Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, And The Racially Disparate Impacts Of Covid-19, Monika Batra Kashyap

Faculty Articles

This Essay contextualizes the racially disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 in the United States within a framework of settler colonialism in order to broaden the understanding of how structural inequality is produced, imposed, and maintained. A settler colonialism framework recognizes that the United States is a present-day settler colonial society whose laws, institutions and systems of governance continue to reenact the three processes upon which the United States was built—Indigenous elimination, anti-Black racism, and immigrant exploitation. This Essay connects these foundational processes—and their underlying White supremacist logics—to the disparate health impacts of COVID-19 on Indigenous, Black, and immigrant of color communities …

Dissecting Drivers Of Basal Immunity And Acute Responses To Viral Infection, Aisha Nadia Hegab Souquette

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Heterogeneity in the human immune system can lead to limited vaccine efficacy, poor response to therapeutics, increased susceptibility to immune mediated diseases, and differential outcome to infection. Studies to date have suggested a role for biological, environmental, and genetic factors in immune variation; however, they are often focused on a specific subset of the population (e.g. ancestral group, age range) which can exclude phenotypes unique to a diverse population and bias results. To address this gap, we have utilized samples from healthy or influenza virus infected subjects from 8 distinct populations in 5 countries to conduct an integrative analysis of …

Model-Based Dose-Exposure-Response Assessment For Lead And Backup Spectinamide In A Mouse Model Of Tuberculosis, Santosh Janardan Wagh

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Despite decades of research, tuberculosis remains the oldest pathogen-based disease that is the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent. Among many anti-tubercular therapies under investigation, the semisynthetic compounds spectinamides are a promising novel class of anti-tuberculosis agents. One such lead candidate, spectinamide 1810, and backup spectinamide 1599 have demonstrated excellent efficacy, safety, and drug-like properties in various in vitro and in vivo assessments. The dose-ranging and dose fractionation studies were designed to characterize the dose-exposure-response relationship for lead and backup spectinamide in a mouse model of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection. In this current study, we used 26 and …

Attenuation Of Interferon Responses In The Obese Host And Ramifications For Influenza Virus Evolution, Rebekah Reed Honce

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The most insidious pandemic of modern life does not arise from an infectious agent but rather from malnutrition. With its global incidence tripling over the past three decades, obesity is a major public health concern. Obesity’s rising prevalence has also illuminated its impact on communicable diseases. Following the 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus pandemic, obesity was identified as a risk factor for increased disease severity and mortality in infected individuals. Obesity causes a chronic state of meta-inflammation with systemic implications for immunity, including delayed antiviral responses to influenza virus infection, poor recovery, and impaired immunological memory. However, the majority of …

Network Analysis As A Tool To Understand Social Development In Spider Monkeys, Emily R. Boeving, Michelle A. Rodrigues, Eliza L. Nelson

Social and Cultural Sciences Faculty Research and Publications

The emerging field of network science has demonstrated that an individual's connectedness within their social network has cascading effects to other dimensions of life. Like humans, spider monkeys live in societies with high fission–fusion dynamics, and are remarkably social. Social network analysis (SNA) is a powerful tool for quantifying connections that may vary as a function of initiating or receiving social behaviors, which has been described as shifting social roles. In primatology, the SNA literature is dominated by work in catarrhines, and has yet to be applied to the study of development in a platyrrhine model. Here, SNA was utilized …

Feasibility And Acceptability Of Implementing Early Infant Diagnosis Of Hiv In Papua New Guinea At The Point Of Care: A Qualitative Exploration Of Health Worker And Key Informant Perspectives, Yasmin Mohamed, Martha Kupul, Janet Gare, Steven G. Badman, Selina Silim, Andrew J. Vallely, Stanley Luchters, Angela Kelly-Hanku

Population Health, East Africa

Introduction: Early infant diagnosis (EID) of HIV and timely initiation of antiretroviral therapy can significantly reduce morbidity and mortality among HIV-positive infants. Access to EID is limited in many low-income and middle-income settings, particularly those in which standard care involves dried blood spots (DBS) sent to centralised laboratories, such as in Papua New Guinea (PNG). We conducted a qualitative exploration of the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a point-of-care (POC) EID test (Xpert HIV-1 Qualitative assay) among health workers and key stakeholders working within the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programme in PNG.

Methods: This qualitative substudy was …

A Statistical Learning Regression Model Utilized To Determine Predictive Factors Of Social Distancing During Covid-19 Pandemic, Timothy A. Smith, Albert J. Boquet, Matthew V. Chin

Publications

In an application of the mathematical theory of statistics, predictive regression modelling can be used to determine if there is a trend to predict the response variable of social distancing in terms of multiple predictor input “predictor” variables. In this study the social distancing is measured as the percentage reduction in average mobility by GPS records, and the mathematical results obtained are interpreted to determine what factors drive that response. This study was done on county level data from the state of Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is found that the most deterministic predictors are county population density …

Exploring The Impact Of Covid-19 On Aviation Industry: A Text Mining Approach, Gottipati Swapna, Kyong Jin Shim, Weiling Angeline Jiang, Sheng Wei Andre Justin Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Our study presents a comprehensive analysis of news articles from FlightGlobal website during the first half of 2020. Our analyses reveal useful insights on themes and trends concerning the aviation industry during the COVID-19 period. We applied text mining and NLP techniques to analyse the articles for extracting the aviation themes and article sentiments (positive and negative). Our results show that there is a variation in the sentiment trends for themes aligned with the real-world developments of the pandemic. The article sentiment analysis can offer industry players a quick sense of the nature of developments in the industry. Our article …

Twitter Reveals Human Mobility Dynamics During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Xiao Huang, Zhenlong Li, Yuqin Jiang, Xiaoming Li, Dwayne Porter

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The current COVID-19 pandemic raises concerns worldwide, leading to serious health, economic, and social challenges. The rapid spread of the virus at a global scale highlights the need for a more harmonized, less privacy-concerning, easily accessible approach to monitoring the human mobility that has proven to be associated with viral transmission. In this study, we analyzed over 580 million tweets worldwide to see how global collaborative efforts in reducing human mobility are reflected from the user-generated information at the global, country, and U.S. state scale. Considering the multifaceted nature of mobility, we propose two types of distance: the single-day distance …

A One Health Framework To Estimate The Cost Of Antimicrobial Resistance, Chantal Morel, Richard Alm, Christine Årdal, Alessandra Bandera, Giacomo Bruno, Elena Carrara, Giorgio Colombo, Marlieke De Kraker, Sabiha Essack, Isabel Frost, Bruno Gonzalez-Zorn, Herman Goossens, Luca Guardabassi, Stephan Harbarth, Peter Jørgensen, Souha Kanj, Tomislav Kostyanev, Ramanan Laxminarayan, Finola Leonard, Gabriel Levy Hara, Marc Mendelson, Malgorzata Mikulska, Nico Mutters, Kevin Outterson, Jesus Rodriguez Baňo, Evelina Tacconelli, Luigia Scudeller

Faculty Scholarship

Objectives/purpose

The costs attributable to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remain theoretical and largely unspecified. Current figures fail to capture the full health and economic burden caused by AMR across human, animal, and environmental health; historically many studies have considered only direct costs associated with human infection from a hospital perspective, primarily from high-income countries. The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Platform for ONE-Burden Estimates (GAP-ON€) network has developed a framework to help guide AMR costing exercises in any part of the world as a first step towards more comprehensive analyses for comparing AMR interventions at the local level as well as more harmonized …

A Noteworthy Case Report Of Neuroborreliosis In An Unvaccinated Pediatric Patient., Amber R Walker, Teresita Morales-Yurick

Neuroscience Articles

INTRODUCTION: Lyme disease typically presents with viral-like symptoms and a pathognomonic rash. With disease progression, symptoms of nervous system involvement usually include facial nerve palsy and meningitis, but other atypical neurologic manifestations have less commonly been documented.

CASE REPORT: A six-year-old male presented with prolonged fevers, rash, headache, and non-specific neurologic symptoms. The diagnosis of neuroborreliosis with meningitis and polyradiculitis was confirmed with laboratory evaluation and lumbar puncture.

CONCLUSION: Neuroborreliosis is a disseminated form of Lyme disease. While meningitis is a common sign, the presentation of polyradiculitis in children is rare and can lead to misdiagnosis and delay in treatment.

State: The Magazine Of Illinois State University, November 2020, Illinois State University, University Marketing And Communications

State: The Magazine of Illinois State University (1999-present)

Illinois State University alumni magazine

Stochastic Delay Differential Equations With Applications In Ecology And Epidemics, Hebatallah Jamil Alsakaji

Dissertations

Mathematical modeling with delay differential equations (DDEs) is widely used for analysis and predictions in various areas of life sciences, such as population dynamics, epidemiology, immunology, physiology, and neural networks. The memory or time-delays, in these models, are related to the duration of certain hidden processes like the stages of the life cycle, the time between infection of a cell and the production of new viruses, the duration of the infectious period, the immune period, and so on. In ordinary differential equations (ODEs), the unknown state and its derivatives are evaluated at the same time instant. In DDEs, however, the …

Characterization Of Glycan Determinants That Mediate Recognition Of The Major Wuchereria Bancrofti Circulating Antigen By Diagnostic Antibodies, Marla I Hertz, Amy Rush, Thomas B Nutman, Gary J Weil, Sasisekhar Bennuru, Philip J Budge

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The Global Program to Eliminate Lymphatic Filariasis (GPELF) relies heavily on a rapid diagnostic test (RDT) to a Wuchereria bancrofti circulating filarial antigen (Wb-CFA) to identify endemic areas and for determining when mass drug administration can stop. The antigen contains a carbohydrate epitope that is recognized by monoclonal antibody AD12. Og4C3, a monoclonal antibody that is used in a commercial ELISA for Wb-CFA recognizes the same moiety. Despite its diagnostic importance, little is known about the structure and function of this "AD12 epitope". It is also present on other W. bancrofti glycoproteins and on glycoproteins of other filarial worms, but …

Management Of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome In Children Associated With Covid-19: A Survey From The International Kawasaki Disease Registry., Matthew D. Elias, Brian W. Mccrindle, Guillermo Larios, Nadine F. Choueiter, Nagib Dahdah, Ashraf S. Harahsheh, Supriya Jain, Cedric Manlhiot, Michael A. Portman, Geetha Raghuveer, Therese M. Giglia, Audrey Dionne, International Kawasaki Disease Registry

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Background: Since April 2020, there have been numerous reports of children presenting with systemic inflammation, often in critical condition, and with evidence of recent infection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This condition, since defined as the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), is assumed to be a delayed immune response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and there are frequently cardiac manifestations of ventricular dysfunction and/or coronary artery dilation.

Methods: We surveyed the inpatient MIS-C management approaches of the members of the International Kawasaki Disease Registry across 38 institutions and 11 countries.

Results: Among the respondents, 56% reported …

Modeling And Controlling Epidemic Outbreaks: The Role Of Population Size, Model Heterogeneity And Fast Response In The Case Of Measles, Kezban Yagci Sokat, Benjamin Armbruster

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Modelers typically use detailed simulation models and vary the fraction vaccinated to study outbreak control. However, there is currently no guidance for modelers on how much detail (i.e., heterogeneity) is necessary and how large a population to simulate. We provide theoretical and numerical guidance for those decisions and also analyze the benefit of a faster public health response through a stochastic simulation model in the case of measles in the United States. Theoretically, we prove that the outbreak size converges as the simulation population increases and that the outbreaks are slightly larger with a heterogeneous community structure. We find that …

Healthcare Innovation From The Inside Out: Leveraging The Human Capital System At Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Kenneth T. Goh, Richard Raymond Smith, Cher Heng Tan, David Dhevarajulu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The global pandemic has strained healthcare systems around the world, yet some providers have been able to adapt better and more swiftly than others. One such example is Singapore’s Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). When Covid-19 broke out, TTSH had to strike a balance between reducing business-as-usual (BAU) services and increasing outbreak-coping capacity. The latter meant that the hospital needed to build isolation rooms, and effectively ramp up its intensive care unit (ICU) capacity and capabilities to adapt to a rapidly evolving global pandemic. Furthermore, hospital management had to make an active push towards ensuring adequate supplies of personal protective …

The Spread Of Medical Information Through Social Media Platforms, Emma Durham

Honors College Theses

Social media has exploded in the past decade making it hard to find a teenager or adult without a smartphone or tablet in their possession at all times. Social media makes it easy for people to access information and friends at the click of a button. Information is easier to spread today than it ever has been; however, with this widespread social media usage comes a rapid spread of information with little fact checking. The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a surge of medical information being posted online, and not all of it has been completely accurate. The purpose of …

Is World Malaria Day An Effective Awareness Campaign? An Evaluation Of Public Interest In Malaria During World Malaria Day, J. Michael Anderson, Aaron Stafford, Austin L. Johnson, Micah Hartwell, Samuel Jellison, Matt Vassar

Student Publications

Objective: We retrospectively analysed the relative search interest of malaria to (1) assess the relationship between Internet searches for malaria and rates of infection in 11 countries considered 'high burden' by WHO in 2019 and to (2) determine the ability of World Malaria Day on April 25 to generate interest in the disease.

Methods: Using Google Trends, we sought to determine the relative popularity of the topic of Malaria over 4 years (2015-2019). Worldwide and country-specific searches for 'malaria' were used to assess the influence the international awareness day has on global and local interest in malaria. In order to …

Fatal Covid-19 Infection In A Patient With Long-Chain 3-Hydroxyacyl-Coa Dehydrogenase Deficiency: A Case Report, Parith Wongkittichote, James R Watson, Jennifer M Leonard, Elizabeth R Toolan, Patricia I Dickson, Dorothy K Grange

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Long-chain fatty-acyl CoA dehydrogenase deficiency (LCHADD) is an inborn error of long chain fatty acid oxidation with various features including hypoketotic hypoglycemia, recurrent rhabdomyolysis, pigmentary retinopathy, peripheral neuropathy, cardiomyopathy, and arrhythmias. Various stresses trigger metabolic decompensation. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic caused by the RNA virus SARS-CoV-2 with diverse presentations ranging from respiratory symptoms to myocarditis. We report a case of a patient with LCHADD who initially presented with typical metabolic decompensation symptoms including nausea, vomiting, and rhabdomyolysis in addition to mild cough, and was found to have COVID-19. She developed acute respiratory failure and refractory hypotension from …

Remotely Monitored Inactivity Due To Covid-19 Lockdowns: Potential Hazard For Heart Failure Patients, Ahmed Al Fagih, Mariam Al Onazi, Saleh Al Basiri, Fahmi Al-Kaf, Khalid Dagriri, Yahya Al Hebaishi, Sondos Samargandy, Lamia Al Shengeiti

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To study the impact of curfews during the COVID-19 pandemic, on the physical activity in patients of heart failure implanted withcardiac implantable electronic devices (CIEDs). Methods: This was a retrospective single-center study of heart failure patients inserted with remote monitoring (RM)-capable CIED. We analyzed the transmitted data of physical activity and fluid volume status of all patients, before, and during the lockdown periods between February and April 2020. The clinical status of the patients was also evaluated. Results: Device data from 429 patients implanted with CIED capable of RM were initially evaluated. Patients with an implantable loop recorder, Brugada …

Role Of The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Pandemic In The Upgrading Of Personal Hygiene. A Cross-Sectional Study In Saudi Arabia, Yosef M. Zakout, Fahmida Khatoon, Mohamad A. Bealy, Nuha Ar. Khalil, Awdah M. Alhazimi

Saudi Medical Journal

Objectives: To assess the role of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in improving personal hygiene in Saudi Arabia. Methods: We administered a questionnaire distributed online between 19 and 28 May 2020 to determine alterations in personal hygiene practices during this pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic phase. Results: We included 211 respondents from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in this study. Improvement at different levels was detected in all examined personal hygiene items compared to the pre-pandemic stage. The percentages of respondents who always washed their hands after coming back home (34.1%), used soap to wash their hands (58.8%), …

Chronic Ulcers And Malnutrition In An African Patient\, Timothy G Singer, Monica A Bray, Audrey Chan, Saki Ikeda, Brittany Walters, Maren Y Fuller, Carla Falco

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

An 11-year-old female with a congenitally malformed left hand, sickle-cell trait, asthma, and history of appendicitis was transferred from Zambia for evaluation and treatment of widespread suppurative and ulcerative skin lesions that typically appeared following trauma to her skin. The ulcers first presented 3 years earlier but had markedly worsened in the 9 months prior to transfer, spreading circumferentially on her extremities and abdomen at the site of an appendectomy. They were painful and did not resolve with multiple courses of intravenous (IV) antibiotics and close management by a Pediatric Infectious Disease specialist working for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in …