Digital Commons Network^™

Development Of Photolabile Coumarin Linker For Rna Synthesis And Crisprcas9 Applications, Ian Mcclain

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The scope of RNA-based therapeutics continues to expand as more siRNA, mRNA, and CRISPR-based treatments are approved for various medical applications. Purification of synthetic RNA drugs is inherently challenging and requires considerable time and resources. New cost-effective and efficient purification strategies will expedite drug development process and will lower the drug costs. In this thesis I describe two generations of photolabile linkers for the non-chromatographic purification of therapeutic RNAs. In addition, the photolabile linker was utilized for regulation CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing. In the first part of the thesis, I describe the first generation of the photolabile coumarin-based linker for non-chromatographic …

Becoming-With The Earth: Contemplative Practice As A Critical Onto-Epistemic Resource For Planetary Belonging, Care, And World-Making, Megan M. Fowler

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In an era of accelerating planetary crisis, social work is called to reimagine its theories, methods, and practices beyond anthropocentric frameworks that separate human wellbeing from the health of the Earth and its resplendent living systems. Working in the space of transformative eco-social work, a growing chorus of voices contends that eco-centric responses require broadening the scope of health, welfare, justice, and care to extend beyond the human, to include the more-than-human world upon which all life intimately depends—understandings resonant with Indigenous and other relational knowledge systems long marginalized by colonialist-capitalist-modernity. Drawing from eco-feminist, eco-queer, decolonial, and post-anthropocentric lineages of …

Building Fiscal Resilience And Enhancing Social Equity In Disaster Mitigation At The Local Level, Hyoeun Kim

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

As climate-related disasters are becoming more frequent and severe, local governments face growing pressure to manage disaster-related fiscal shocks. Although disaster mitigation and preparedness are widely recognized as cost-effective strategies for reducing future losses, local governments often lack the financial, political, and technical capacity to invest in them. Despite the importance of pre-disaster investment, mitigation and preparedness efforts continue to lag at the local level, and concerns remain that federal mitigation funding is not distributed equitably across communities. This has important implications for both equity and resilience because unequal access to mitigation resources can reinforce existing vulnerability to future natural …

Key Processes Involved In The Vortex Alignment Of Sheared Tropical Cyclones, Luis O. Hernandez

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are challenging to forecast when under vertical wind shear (VWS). VWS tilts a TC’s vortex, creating asymmetries in its structure that impedes intensification. Although work has been done to conceptualize and understand how TCs evolve under shear and how they axisymmetrize and intensify, vortex alignment remains a complex and unresolved topic. The goal of this study is to assess what physical processes are important to tilt reduction and how these processes evolve in weak TCs. Using the Hurricane Analysis Forecast System Model-B (HAFS-B) 2.1, a case study on two storms, Hurricane Earl (2022) and Hurricane Lee (2023) …

Drivers Of Extreme Streamflow During A Snowmelt-Enhanced Heavy Rainfall And Atmospheric River Event In The Catskill Mountains Of New York, Christopher A. Gilberti

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This study uses atmospheric reanalysis, precipitation and snow water equivalent (SWE) analyses, mesonet observations, and streamflow records to examine the impact of an atmospheric river storm that produced heavy rainfall and snowpack ablation across the Catskill Mountains of New York on 24–25 December 2020. Earlier in December, an antecedent storm produced SWE values in the Catskills above the 90^th percentile for that point in the season. The atmospheric river event followed with strong southerly warm-air advection ahead of an anomalously deep trough, temperatures and dewpoints that exceeded 10°C, and heavy orographically enhanced rainfall and rapid snowmelt. Sensible heat fluxes …

Weather-Related Road Condition Detection Using Co-Developed Machine Learning Methods, Carly Sutter

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Transportation agencies make critical operational decisions during hazardous weather events, including assessment of road conditions and resource allocation. In this study, machine learning models are developed to provide additional support for the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) by automatically classifying road conditions across the state. Convolutional neural networks and random forests are trained on NYSDOT roadside camera images and weather data to predict road surface conditions. This task draws critically on a labeled dataset of 22,000 camera images containing six road surface conditions (severe snow, snow, wet, dry, poor visibility, and obstructed) generated from an iterative hand-labeling process …

High-Tcr Multivalence Vanadium Oxide Thin-Films From Deposition Parameter Control To Microbolometer Applications, Latika Susheel M. Chaudhary

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This thesis details the development of multivalence-nanostructured vanadium oxide (VOₓ) thin films for uncooled microbolometer applications, with a systematic optimization of magnetron-sputtering parameters. The temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR), resistivity, and optical response of VOₓ thin-film sensing layers are controlled by valence composition, grain growth, and surface morphology. The primary goal was to achieve a high TCR with low resistivity to improve thermal detector performance.

Multivalent VOₓ thin films were deposited on silicon, SiO₂, and glass substrates using DC magnetron sputtering. Three key parameters were systematically varied: Ar:O₂ ratio (18:2 to 15:5), deposition time (60–120 minutes), and DC power (300W …

Gender Inequality In Afghanistan's Public Schools: Provincial Disparities Amid Historical And Political Change, 2002-2021, Enayatullah Nasir

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation examines the persistence and spatial concentration of gender-based educational inequality in Afghanistan's public school system from 2002 to 2021–– a period spanning post-2001 reconstruction, the expansion of the Republic era, and the reversal under the second Taliban regime. Despite substantial international investment and two decades of repeated commitments to gender parity, access to and progression through public schooling remained profoundly uneven across the country’s thirty-four provinces. The Gender Parity Index values differ sharply between provinces, and those with the lowest overall enrollment tend to exhibit the widest gender gaps. Existing scholarship has concentrated on the national level, obscuring …

Regulation Of Private Higher Education In Mexico: How Non-Elite Institutions Navigate Authorization, Edson Eduardo Navarro Meza

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Low quality, excessive commercialization, fraud, profit in disguise, and predatory dynamics remain the most pressing regulatory challenges in the context of private higher education in Mexico. These problems have been largely attributed to the ineffectiveness of authorization mechanisms, which have repeatedly become the focus of controversy and criticism from social, academic, and media sectors regarding their role in shaping the development of the sector. Some observers blame the government for its inaction in the face of rapid institutional proliferation, as well as for maintaining authorization procedures that have proven to be ineffective gatekeepers of sectoral expansion. Others place responsibility on …

Masses And The Gothic In The English Novel: 1700-1820, Szu Ying Chen

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation studies the eighteenth-century English novel and expands the understanding of realism by rereading realist novels through Gothic representations of the masses. The conventional understanding of realism is shaped by Ian Watt’s canonical concept of “formal realism” in The Rise of the Novel and Jürgen Habermas’s conception of the bourgeois public sphere. It identifies realism with a vision of civility grounded in the modern individual and bourgeois social reality. However, the masses and the Gothic challenge this conception of the novel’s realism by representing the social as constituted by collective agency, political violence, and struggles over power rather than …

Essays On Financial Econometrics And Macro-Financial Forecasting, Zhendong A. Li

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The first chapter proposes an innovative supervised learning technique for dimension reduction and forecasting financial and macroeconomic time series in the presence of weak factors that can undermine the effectiveness of traditional Principal Component Analysis (PCA). This approach employs double or multiple supervised learning procedures and is termed ``Supervised Scaled Principal Component Analysis'' (SsPCA). Initially, each predictor is scaled using its predictive slope on the target forecast variable, giving more weight to those with stronger predictive abilities and less to those with weaker ones. Subsequently, utilizing the scaled predictors, we intelligently identify the most informative subset for prediction. This involves …

Beyond Exposure: Belief In Police Misinformation, Media Consumption, And Support For Policing Reform, Linda Balcarova Dietz

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In today’s post-truth era, misinformation has become a central feature of modern society. While not a new phenomenon, the 2024 Presidential election demonstrated what a serious problem it represents, as public perceptions were driven more by information they received (true or false) than by objective social conditions. Policing is one of the most debated topics in criminal justice, dividing public opinion along partisan and racial lines. Studies show that the information people receive about police shapes their attitudes, yet criminologists have largely overlooked how misinformation may influence those views. This dissertation fills that gap by experimentally testing how exposure to …

Hepatitis C Among Persons Who Inject Drugs In New York State: Progress Towards Elimination, Meredith A. Barranco

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is one of the leading causes of liver disease in the United States (US) and worldwide. In the United States today, HCV is transmitted primarily through injection drug use (IDU) and therefore disproportionately impacts persons who inject drugs (PWID), a population with a range of complex social and health needs. HCV is not vaccine-preventable but can be cured in over 90% of cases with an 8–12-week course of daily direct-acting antiviral (DAA) medication. Since approval of curative medications in 2014, various jurisdictions have developed plans to eliminate HCV. In 2021, the New York State …

The Effects Of Vitamin K On Neuronal Ferroptosis, Chelsey P. Eighmey

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Dementia is a crippling illness affecting millions worldwide causing significant public health burdens with long-term care. The lack of treatment options results in many years of suffering for affected individuals and their loved ones who often become primary caretakers. Decades of study have focused on treating dementia with little-to-no success, so an emphasis is needed on attempting to prevent disease progression altogether. This research explored vitamin K as a potential strategy for prevention of dementia onset or progression through the mechanism of suppressing ferroptosis. Ferroptosis is a type of cell death suggested to contribute to the hallmark traits of Alzheimer’s …

The Relationship Between Interoceptive Awareness And Eating Disorder Symptomatology, Madelyn G. Johnson

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Interoceptive awareness (IA; e.g., the ability to perceive and interpret internal bodily sensations) is increasingly recognized as central to eating disorder (ED) psychopathology, yet findings remain mixed regarding whether heightened IA is protective or maladaptive. Across two studies using a sample of 654 college students (Mage = 18.74, SD = 1.56; 46% White; 58% female) from a large northeastern U.S. university, we examined (1) how specific IA facets relate to ED symptom severity, and (2) whether anxiety sensitivity (AS) helps explain these associations. In Study 1, linear regressions predicting Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire–7 (EDE-Q7) scores showed that nearly all MAIA-2 …

Disentangling Exercise Motivation From Eating Disorder Symptom Severity: A Dominance Analysis Of Compulsive Exercise Predictors, Sarah E. Siegel

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Compulsive exercise (CE) appears frequently in eating disorder (ED) samples but also occurs in nonclinical populations, raising the possibility that different motivational processes drive the behavior, perhaps depending on ED pathology. This study examined the relative contribution of exercise motives to CE while separating motivational variance from ED symptom severity. Undergraduate women (N = 376; 38.3% White, 28.8% Black) completed the Exercise Motivations Inventory–2 (EMI-2), the Compulsive Exercise Test (CET), and the 7-item Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q7). An exploratory factor analysis of EMI-2 subscales yielded four factors: Affective Well-being (Enjoyment, Revitalization, Stress Management), Health/Function (Ill-health Avoidance, Nimbleness, Positive Health, …

Belonging, Flourishing, And The Experience Of College Students Of Differing Social Identities, Christine M. Bachen, Andrea E. Brewster, Kyle T. Amore

Communication

This study investigates how cumulative minoritization—the additive effect of multiple marginalized identities—is associated with undergraduate students’ sense of belonging across five distinct ecological levels: campus, faculty, staff, classroom, and peer. Utilizing a sample of 403 students at a private West Coast university, we examine the relationship between students’ Cumulative Minoritization Score (CMS) and belonging, as well as its association with flourishing. Quantitative analyses revealed significant belonging disparities, with higher Cumulative Minoritization scores associated with lower belonging in classroom, campus, and faculty contexts; associations with staff and peer belonging did not reach significance. Additionally, the study finds the relationship between belonging …

Mid-Term And Long-Term Clinical Events With Conduction System Pacing Versus Biventricular Pacing In Hfref With Wide Qrs: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Randomized Controlled Trials With Trial Sequential Analysis, Juan Munoz-Moreno, Carlos Diaz-Arocutipa, Carlos Espiche-Salazar, Jacob Mcauliffe, Raymond L. Benza, Amin Yehya, Johanna Contreras, Erich L. Kiehl

Department of Medicine Faculty Publications

Background/Objectives: Conduction system pacing (CSP) has emerged as a more physiological alternative to biventricular pacing (BiVP) in heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) and wide QRS, but recent randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have yielded discordant results. This meta-analysis aimed to compare CSP with BiVP for clinical events and functional recovery in HFrEF. Methods: MEDLINE, Embase, and Cochrane Library were searched for RCTs through 15 April 2026. Primary outcomes were all-cause mortality (ACM) and heart failure hospitalization (HFH) at mid-term (6–12 months) and long-term (>12 months) follow-up. Random-effects meta-analyses and Trial Sequential Analysis (TSA) were performed. Results: Eleven RCTs …

Why Constitutional Argument Matters, Philip C. Bobbitt

Faculty Scholarship

The program for this symposium promised that I would be discussing the “descriptive grammar of constitutional law.” To put my purpose less benignly, I should say that I mean to attack the practice of limiting what I will call “modal analysis” to its descriptive virtues. Part of that attack will be the claim that courts and their commentators should pay closer attention to the modal requirements of the fundamental forms of constitutional discourse, but not because straying from this is a kind of grammatical faux pas. After all, if the system I have urged for constitutional analysis — the system …

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 …

The Price Of Precision: Financial Insights From A Robotic Nephrectomy Transition, Jill M. Knolle Msw, Mph, Aiden Tobin, George Rofaiel Md

Department of Surgery

No abstract provided.

Tau In Alzheimer’S Disease: Shaping The Future Patient Journey, Catherine J Mummery, Christopher Chen Li-Hsian, Cristian A Lasagna-Reeves, Rik Ossenkoppele, Christopher C Rowe, Douglas W Scharre, Huali Wang, Simon Kyaga, Jeffrey L Cummings

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Alzheimer's disease is a complex and multifactorial disease characterized by two key pathological hallmarks: amyloid-beta plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles. Recent progress has led to the development and approval of disease-targeted therapies for Alzheimer's disease in the form of anti-amyloid-beta monoclonal antibodies. However, findings suggest that amelioration of multiple pathological drivers may be required to maximize clinical effect. An increasing body of evidence suggests that tau is a critical player in Alzheimer's disease pathophysiology, contributing significantly to neurodegeneration and cognitive decline. There are now several tau-targeting drugs in clinical development. In this review, we build on research and advancements in …

Amino Acids And Lean Mass Accretion In Preterm Neonates, Antonio C Ramos Dos Santos, Marta L Fiorotto, Teresa A Davis

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose of review: This review evaluates recent evidence on how total protein and energy intake, amino acid composition, and nutrient delivery modality influence protein synthesis in preterm neonates, with the goal of informing nutritional strategies to support optimal lean mass accretion and growth.

Recent findings: Preterm neonates exhibit anabolic resistance to feeding due to impaired insulin and amino acid signaling in skeletal muscle. Enteral nutrition, especially fortified human milk, supports better lean mass accretion and neurodevelopment than parenteral nutrition. Intermittent bolus feeding and pulsatile leucine supplementation during continuous feeding further enhance mTORC1-dependent translation initiation signaling and protein synthesis efficiency in …

In Vivo Volumetric Visualization And Quantification Of Cumulus Expansion In Mice With Intravital Optical Coherence Tomography, Kohei Umezu, Frank J Brooks, Irina Larina

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Ovulation is preceded by a critical physiological process known as cumulus expansion, during which the cumulus cell layer surrounding the oocyte undergoes structural remodeling. Despite the recognized importance of this process for reproductive success, live quantitative imaging of cumulus expansion has not been previously achieved due to limitations of current imaging technologies for deeply located ovaries. In this study, we employed intravital optical coherence tomography for three-dimensional visualization of mouse follicles containing cumulus-oocyte complexes (COC) within the physiological context of the ovary, both ex vivo and in vivo. This method enabled time-lapse measurement of cumulus layer thickness and COC …

Evolving Burden Of Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease And Its Complications In A Us Nationwide Healthcare System, Basim Ali, Ronald Samuel, Jennifer R Kramer, Liang Li, Xian Yu, Yumei Cao, Roxanne Desiderio, George Cholankeril, Steven M Asch, Hashem B El-Serag, Fasiha Kanwal

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is a growing public health problem. Measuring the burden of cirrhosis and its complications in people with MASLD is important to inform health care delivery.

Methods: We aimed to quantify the changes in the burden of MASLD-related cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in a nationwide U.S. healthcare system. We used data from the Veterans Health Administration to examine temporal trends between 2010 and 2021 in the annual incidence and prevalence of cirrhosis and HCC in a large cohort of patients with MASLD, and to compare them to those in patients with hepatitis C …

Findings And Recommendations From The State Of The Art (Sota) Conference On Nursing Research To Improve Veteran Outcomes, Amelia E Schlak, Sarah Krein, Laura A Petersen, David Atkins, Catherine Battaglia, Elizabeth Burkhart, Renee Colsch, Marguerite Daus, Heather Gilmartin, Nipa Kamdar, Melissa Knox, Ann Kutney-Lee, Christine M Olney, Kathryn Rugen, Tracy Weistreich, Sheila Cox Sullivan, On Behalf The Nursing Sota Planning Committee

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the largest employer of nurses in the United States, has more than 120,000 nursing personnel providing care to over 9 million Veterans across diverse settings. Despite nursing's central role in delivering and sustaining care, research on strengthening the nursing workforce and optimizing nursing practice has remained underdeveloped in VHA. To address this gap, VHA's Office of Research and Development, in partnership with the Office of Nursing Services, convened a State of the Art (SOTA) conference in November 2023 focused on nursing. The Nursing SOTA brought together nurses, researchers, operational leaders, and other stakeholders to review …

Streamlining Eligibility Assessment For Alzheimer’S Disease-Modifying Therapies: Prediction Of Mmse Scores Using The Digital Clock And Recall, Ali Jannati, Claudio Toro-Serey, Marissa Ciesla, Emma Chen, John Showalter, David Bates, Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Sean Tobyne

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

           Introduction: The eligibility of anti-amyloid disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) and their integration into clinical practice in some institutions requires a specific range of Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores. Reliance on this pencil-and-paper psychometric instrument imposes operational burdens and risks of perpetuating health disparities, given the test's known educational and cultural biases. This study evaluates the efficacy of the Digital Clock and Recall (DCR™)-a rapid, FDA-listed digital cognitive assessment-to crosswalk to MMSE scores using machine learning, thereby offering a faster, scalable, and equitable mechanism for patient triage.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis using data from the multi-site Bio-Hermes-001 (BH) study ( …

Performance And Improvement Strategies For Adapting Generative Large Language Models For Electronic Health Record Applications: A Systematic Review, Xinsong Du, Zhengyang Zhou, Yifei Wang, Ya-Wen Chuang, Yiming Li, Richard Yang, Pengyu Hong, David W Bates, Li Zhou

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Purpose: To synthesize performance and improvement strategies for adapting generative LLMs in EHR analyses and applications.

Methods: We followed the PRISMA guidelines to conduct a systematic review of articles from PubMed and Web of Science published between January 1, 2023 and November 9, 2024. Multiple reviewers including biomedical informaticians and a clinician involved in the article reviewing process. Studies were included if they used generative LLMs to analyze real-world EHR data and reported quantitative performance evaluations for an improvement technique. The review identified key clinical applications, summarized performance and the improvement strategies.

Results: Of the 18,735 articles retrieved, 196 met …

External Validation Of A Machine Learning Model To Predict Postpartum Hemorrhage In A Us Northeastern Healthcare System, Vesela P Kovacheva, Ricardo Kleinlein, Nolan Wheeler, Kartik K Venkatesh, Eric Jelovsek, David W Bates, Kathryn J Gray

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Introduction: Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) is a major cause of maternal morbidity and mortality. Timely prediction may prevent adverse maternal outcomes, and efforts are needed to develop accurate predictive tools. A high-performing machine learning model to predict PPH using data from the US Consortium for Safe Labor (CSL) remains to be widely validated in contemporary clinical settings using electronic health record (EHR) data. Our goal was to evaluate the performance of the CSL PPH predictive model using EHR data across a large healthcare system in the Northeastern United States.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study across eight hospitals in the …

Psychometric Properties Of A Novel Affective Bias Task And Its Application In Clinical And Nonclinical Populations, Prathik Kalva, Kourtney Kanja, Brian A Metzger, Xiaoxu Fan, Brian Cui, Bailey Pascuzzi, John Magnotti, Madaline Mocchi, Raissa Mathura, Kelly R Bijanki

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

To mitigate limitations in self-reported mood assessments, we introduce a novel affective bias task (ABT). The task quantifies instantaneous emotional state by leveraging the phenomenon of affective bias, in which people interpret external emotional stimuli in a manner consistent with their current emotional state. This study establishes task stability in measuring and tracking depressive symptoms in clinical and non-clinical populations. Initial assessment in a large non-clinical sample established normative ratings. Depressive symptoms were tracked relative to task performance in a non-clinical sample, as well as in a clinical cohort undergoing surgical evaluation for severe epilepsy. In both cohorts, a stronger …