Digital Commons Network^™

Long Non-Coding Rnas As Prognostic Markers In Human Breast Cancer, Hairong Liu, Juan Li, Pratirodh Koirala, Xianfeng Ding, Binghai Chen, Yiheng Wang, Zheng Wang, Chuanxin Wang, Xu Zhang, Yin-Yuan Mo

Faculty Publications

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been recently shown to play an important role in gene regulation and normal cellular functions, and disease processes. However, despite the overwhelming number of lncRNAs identified to date, little is known about their role in cancer for vast majority of them. The present study aims to determine whether lncRNAs can serve as prognostic markers in human breast cancer. We interrogated the breast invasive carcinoma dataset of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) at the cBioPortal consisting of ~ 1,000 cases. Among 2,730 lncRNAs analyzed, 577 lncRNAs had alterations ranging from 1% to 32% frequency, which include …

Polymer Chain Dynamics In Epoxy Based Composites As Investigated By Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy, Mohammad K. Hassan, Samuel James Tucker, Ahmed Abukmail, Jeffrey S. Wiggins, Kenneth A. Mauritz

Faculty Publications

Epoxy networks of the diglycidyl ether of bisphenol A (DGEBA) were prepared using 3,3′- and 4,4′-diaminodiphenyl sulfone isomer crosslinkers. Secondary relaxations and the glass transitions of resultant networks were probed using broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS). A sub-T_g γ relaxation peak for both networks shifts to higher frequencies (f) with increasing temperature in Arrhenius fashion, both processes having the same activation energy and being assigned to phenyl ring flipping in DGEBA chains. A β relaxation is assigned to local motions of dipoles that were created during crosslinking reactions. 4,4′-based networks exhibited higher T_g relative to 3,3′-based …

Unintended Pregnancies In Brazil - A Challenge For The Recommendation To Delay Pregnancy Due To Zika, Cynthia Schuck-Paim, Daniel Lopez, Lone Simonsen, Wladimir Alonso

Global Health Faculty Publications

Because of the potential link between the ongoing Zika virus outbreak and a surge in the number of cases of congenital microcephaly, officials in Latin America have recommended that women postpone pregnancy until this association is firmly established or the outbreak subsides. However, in all these countries a large proportion of babies are still born out of unplanned pregnancies. Teenage girls are particularly at high risk, as they often lack access to preventive contraception methods, or the knowledge to use them appropriately. To gauge the magnitude of the barriers preventing the implementation of such a recommendation in Brazil, the country …

Chlamydial Antibiotic Resistance And Treatment Failure In Veterinary And Human Medicine, Nicole Borel, Cory Leonard, Jessica Slade, Robert V. Schoborg

ETSU Faculty Works

The Chlamydiaceae are widespread pathogens of both humans and animals. Chlamydia trachomatis infection causes blinding trachoma and reproductive complications in humans. Chlamydia pneumoniae causes human respiratory tract infections and atypical pneumonia. Chlamydia suis infection is associated with conjunctivitis, diarrhea, and failure to gain weight in domestic swine. Chlamydial infections in humans and domesticated animals are generally controlled by antibiotic treatment—particularly macrolides (usually azithromycin) and tetracyclines (tetracycline and doxycycline). Tetracycline-containing feed has also been used to limit infections and promote growth in livestock populations, although its use has decreased because of growing concerns about antimicrobial resistance development. Because Sandoz and Rockey …

Development, Evaluation, And Validation Of A High-Resolution Directivity Measurement System For Played Musical Instruments, K Joshua Bodon

Theses and Dissertations

A high-resolution directivity measurement system at Brigham Young University has been renovated and upgraded. Acoustical treatments have been installed on the microphone array, professional-grade audio hardware and cabling have been utilized, and user-friendly MATLAB processing and plotting codes have been developed. The directivities of 16 played musical instruments and several loudspeakers have been measured by the system, processed, and plotted. Using loudspeakers as simulated musicians, a comprehensive analysis was completed to validate the system and understand its error bounds. A comparison and evaluation of repeated-capture to single-capture spherical systems was made to demonstrate the high level of detail provided by …

Discovery Of Low-Molecular Weight Novel Serum Biomarkers For Diagnosing Preeclampsia And Alzheimer's Disease, Swati Anand

Theses and Dissertations

Preeclampsia (PE), a life threatening pregnancy-related disorder, is characterized mainly by new onset of hypertension and proteinuria after 20 weeks of gestation. Currently, PE cannot be predicted prior to onset of symptoms and there is no cure for the disease. There is a clear value in having biomarkers able, early in a pregnancy, to identify women at risk for PE so that proper treatment therapies could be developed. Although a number of serum candidate markers have been proposed to be altered in PE patients, their use is limited due to poor sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, there is ongoing need for …

Teachers’ Perspectives On Academic Achievement And Educational Growth Of U.S.-Born Hispanic Students In A Midwestern Spanish Language Immersion Program, Herlinda Arlene Galve Salgado

Dissertations

Elementary Spanish language immersion programs have become more popular in the educational field in the United States to support the academic achievement of minority students. The final goal of immersion programs is to develop proficiency in the home language and dominant language, identified as first language (L1) and second language (L2), to impact the understanding of academic concepts. This study explores teachers’ perspectives of U.S.-born ELL Hispanic students’ academic achievement and educational growth in a Spanish language immersion program. Ultimately, the study aimed to identify processes that educational leaders could incorporate into instructional models to improve as many Hispanic students’ …

Modeling Individual Health Care Utilization, Matthew Aaron Webb

Theses and Dissertations

Health care represents an increasing proportion of global consumption. We discuss ways to model health care utilization on an individual basis. We present a probabilistic, generative model of utilization. Leveraging previously observed utilization levels, we learn a latent structure that can be used to accurately understand risk and make predictions. We evaluate the effectiveness of the model using data from a large population.

Neutral Parametric Database, Server, Logic Layers, And Clients To Facilitate Multi-Engineersynchronous Heterogeneous Cad, Kelly Eric Bowman

Theses and Dissertations

Engineering companies are sociotechnical systems in which engineers, designers, analysts, etc. use an array of software tools to follow prescribed product-development processes. The purpose of these amalgamated systems is to develop new products as quickly as possible while maintaining quality and meeting customer and market demands. Researchers at Brigham Young University have shortened engineering design cycle times through the development and use of multiengineer synchronous (MES) CAD tools. Other research teams have shortened design cycle-times by extending seamless interoperability across heterogeneous design tools and domains. Seamless multi-engineer synchronous heterogeneous (MESH) CAD environments is the focus of this dissertation. An architecture …

The Principles Of Effective Teaching Student Teachershave The Opportunity To Learn In An Alternativestudent Teaching Structure, Danielle Rose Divis

Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown that the focus of mathematics student teaching programs is typically classroom management and non-mathematics specific teaching strategies. However, the redesigned BYU student teaching structure has proven to help facilitate a greater focus on mathematics-specific pedagogy and student mathematics during post-lesson reflection meeting conversations. This study analyzed what specific principles of NCTM’s standards of effective teaching were discussed in the reflection meetings of this redesigned structure. This study found that the student teachers extensively discussed seven of the eight principles NCTM considers to be necessary for effective mathematics teaching. Other pedagogical principles pertaining to student mathematical learning not …

Parents Of College Graduates With Learning Disabilities: Practices And Factors Attributing To Their Children's Preparation For Postsecondary Education, Alexander Johnston Hale

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate and describe parenting practices that parents believe were effective in helping prepare their children with LD for college enrollment. Participants were chosen from among the parents of students interviewed by Cook (2010). Six parents (three couples) volunteered to be interviewed by phone. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed using hermeneutic phenomenological methodology. Under the category of Parent Practices, themes emerged in the areas of early identification, self-advocacy training, and home accommodations, and under the category of Family Factors, themes emerged in the areas reading, expectation, and normalization. Findings are discussed …

Enabling Optimizations Through Demodularization, Blake Dennis Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Programmers want to write modular programs to increase maintainability and create abstractions, but modularity hampers optimizations, especially when modules are compiled separately or written in different languages. In languages with syntactic extension capabilities, each module in a program can be written in a separate language, and the module system must ensure that the modules interoperate correctly. In Racket, the module system ensures this by separating module code into phases for runtime and compile-time and allowing phased imports and exports inside modules. We present an algorithm, called demodularization, that combines all executable code from a phased modular program into a single …

Improvements To The Two-Point In Situ Method For Measurement Of The Room Constant And Sound Power In Semi-Reverberant Rooms, Zachary R. Jensen

Theses and Dissertations

The two-point in situ method is a technique for measuring the room constant of a semi-reverberant room and the sound power of a source in that room simultaneously using two measurement positions. Using a reference directivity source, where the directivity factor along any given axis of the source has been measured, one is able to use the Hopkins-Stryker equation to measure both the room constant and the sound power level of another source rather simply. Using both numerical and experimental data, it was found that by using generalized energy density (GED) as a measurement quantity, the results were more accurate …

Understanding And Addressing Collaboration Challenges For The Effective Use Of Multi-User Cad, David James French

Theses and Dissertations

Multi-user computer-aided design (CAD) is an emerging technology that promises to facilitate collaboration, enhance product quality, and reduce product development lead times by allowing multiple engineers to work on the same design at the same time. The BYU site of the NSF Center for e-Design has developed advanced multi-user CAD prototypes that have demonstrated the feasibility and value of this technology. Despite the possibilities that this software opens up for enhanced collaboration, there are now a new variety of challenges and opportunities to understand and address. For multi-user CAD to be used effectively in a modern engineering environment, it is …

Increment - Interactive Cluster Refinement, Logan Adam Mitchell

Theses and Dissertations

We present INCREMENT, a cluster refinement algorithm which utilizes user feedback to refine clusterings. INCREMENT is capable of improving clusterings produced by arbitrary clustering algorithms. The initial clustering provided is first sub-clustered to improve query efficiency. A small set of select instances from each of these sub-clusters are presented to a user for labelling. Utilizing the user feedback, INCREMENT trains a feature embedder to map the input features to a new feature space. This space is learned such that spatial distance is inversely correlated with semantic similarity, determined from the user feedback. A final clustering is then formed in the …

Effects Of Two Gait Tasks On Language Complexity In Parkinson's Disease, Betty Ann Marquardt

Theses and Dissertations

The effects of dual tasking in Parkinson's disease (PD) have been studied for a number of years. Previous research has generally focused on changes in gait patterns while another task has been performed concurrently. Very few studies have focused on the impact of a concurrent task on speech or language. Language is key for communication: to express wants and needs, to maintain familial relationships, and for social interaction. Thirty-seven individuals participated in the study: 10 with PD, 14 neurologically healthy older (HO) adults, and 13 healthy younger (HY) adults. The participants were given a list of topics to consider and …

Evaluation Of Passive Force On Skewed Bridge Abutments With Controlled Low-Strength Material Backfill, Kevin Bjorn Wagstaff

Theses and Dissertations

Although its use has become more widespread, controlled low-strength material, or CLSM, has fallen through the crack between geotechnical engineering and materials engineering research. The National Ready Mix Association states that CLSM is not a low strength concrete, and geotechnical engineers do not consider it as a conventional aggregate backfill. The use of CLSM as a bridge abutment backfill material brings up the need to understand the passive force versus backwall displacement relationship for this application. To safely account for forces generated due to seismic activity and thermal expansion in bridge design, it is important to understand the passive force …

Prognostic Factor Research In Homoeopathy, Lex Rutten

Indian Journal of Research in Homoeopathy

Validation of homoeopathic medicines is about validating effectiveness in individual cases. Homoeopathic practitioners base their expectation that a medicine will work on the experience that specific symptoms of the patient indicate specific medicines. The prevalence of such symptoms is higher in a population responding well to a specific medicine than in the remainder of the population. This principle has a solid mathematical foundation in Bayes' theorem, identifies homoeopathic symptoms as prognostic factors, and offers an interesting perspective of individualized research. This kind of research depends on recording symptoms and results of treatment. An important challenge in this research is establishing …

Introduction To Special Issue: Design And Performance Of Networks On Chip, Abderazek Ben Abdallah, Ramachandran Vaidyanathan, Ezendu Ariwa, Wael El-Medany

Faculty Publications

Preamble: This special issue of International Journal of Computing and Digital Systems (IJCDS) focuses on Design and Performance of Networks on Chip, and publishes selected papers from the 2nd International Workshop on Design and Performance of Networks on Chip (DPNoC 2015), which has been held on August 17-20, 2015, Belfort, France [1, 2], and was organized in conjunction with the 10th International Conference on Future Networks and Communications (FNC 2015) [3]. This workshop represented an international forum for researchers from both academia and industry to expose the latest trends, research findings, and emerging issues in the on-chip networking area and …

Combining On-Line Characterization Tools With Modern Software Environments For Optimal Operation Of Polymerization Processes, Navid Ghadipasha, Aryan Geraili, Jose A. Romagnoli, Carlos A. Castor, Michael F. Drenski, Wayne F. Reed

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the initial steps towards the formulation and implementation of a generic and flexible model centric framework for integrated simulation, estimation, optimization and feedback control of polymerization processes. For the first time it combines the powerful capabilities of the automatic continuous on-line monitoring of polymerization system (ACOMP), with a modern simulation, estimation and optimization software environment towards an integrated scheme for the optimal operation of polymeric processes. An initial validation of the framework was performed for modelling and optimization using literature data, illustrating the flexibility of the method to apply under different systems and conditions. Subsequently, off-line capabilities …

Opening The Gates Of A Gate Program: A Mixed Methods Study Of Recruitment Processes And Retention Practices In One Multicultural Middle School, Marie Lynette Aldapa

LMU Theses and Dissertations

The under-representation of racial minority students in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE)programs has been an issue with little to no resolution (Ford, 2002). These under-represented racial minority groups are experiencing the obstacles of discrimination. Ogbu’s (1987) observation offers a framework distinguishing minorities: voluntary and involuntary. Researchers report on the under-representation of “involuntary” minority groups (McBee, 2006).

Researchers have offered keys to opening the gates of GATE programs to bring about racial equity. Recruitment processes: alternative assessments and teacher referrals are available to identify minority GATE students (Elhoweris, Mutua, Alsheikh, & Holloway, 2005). Retention practices: racial diversity of gate teachers, culturally …

Evaluation Of Lightweight Pieces In Aggregates, Mark Lindemann, Doug Macke, Jim Wilken, John Ebito, Mark Hassler, Lieska Halsey, Bob Seger

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR) Material and Research (M&R) Division started an evaluation to determined injurious deleterious lightweight pieces of aggregate from a dry pit location, as a result of field observations from a project stock pile. This brief summary presents the field observation and laboratory testing evaluations to determine the percent of lightweight pieces in aggregate.

Evaluation Of Lightweight Pieces In Aggregates, Mark Lindemann, Doug Macke, Jim Wilken, John Ebito, Mark Hassler, Lieska Halsey, Bob Seger

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

A Remark On The Global Dynamics Of Competitive Systems On Ordered Banach Spaces, King Yeung Lam, Daniel Munther

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

A well-known result in [Hsu-Smith-Waltman, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. (1996)] states that in a competitive semiflow defined on , the product of two cones in respective Banach spaces, if and are the global attractors in and respectively, then one of the following three outcomes is possible for the two competitors: either there is at least one coexistence steady state, or one of attracts all trajectories initiating in the order interval . However, it was demonstrated by an example that in some cases neither nor is globally asymptotically stable if we broaden our scope to all of . In this paper, …

Effective Rheological Properties In Semi-Dilute Bacterial Suspensions, Mykhailo Potomkin, Shawn D. Ryan, Leonid Berlyand

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Interactions between swimming bacteria have led to remarkable experimentally observable macroscopic properties such as the reduction in the effective viscosity, enhanced mixing, and diffusion. In this work, we study an individual-based model for a suspension of interacting point dipoles representing bacteria in order to gain greater insight into the physical mechanisms responsible for the drastic reduction in the effective viscosity. In particular, asymptotic analysis is carried out on the corresponding kinetic equation governing the distribution of bacteria orientations. This allows one to derive an explicit asymptotic formula for the effective viscosity of the bacterial suspension in the limit of bacterium …

Balika: Empowering Girls To Delay Child Marriage In Bangladesh, Sajeda Amin

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The BALIKA project evaluated whether three skills-building approaches to empower girls can effectively delay the age at marriage among girls aged 12–18 in parts of Bangladesh where child marriage rates are at their highest. BALIKA results show that programs that educate girls, build their skills for modern livelihoods and engage their communities can delay child marriage and produce better health, educational and social outcomes for girls. This brief summarizes the project's endline results.

The Update, March-May 2016, University Of Northern Iowa. College Of Humanities, Arts And Sciences.

Update

Inside This Issue:
--CHAS Briefs
--Spotlight– Alumni Katy Slaven
--Spotlight – Faculty Dr. Rui He
--School of Music Women's Choir Tours Ireland
--Spotlight – Student Cassara Higgins
--Featured Story: ECO+House Art Exhibition
--Communication Sciences & Disorders
--ICCD Conference
--Spotlight – Student Bob Spielbauer
--Spotlight – Student Lisa Diercks

Mckee Minute March 2016, Southern Adventist University

McKee Minute – McKee Library This Month

The March 2016 McKee Minute features books on "The Art of Relationships," including Friends Forever by Suzanne Degges and The Sibling Effect by Jeffrey Kluger. Other featured items include the films The Life of Birds and Planet Earth, as well as the periodicals Sojourners and Outreach. This month's spotlight is on computing.

Cracks In The Cornerstone: Toward More Informed Decision-Making In Rhetorical Education, David M. Grant

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In their forum on the First-Year Cornerstone course, April Chatham-Carpenter and Deedee Heistad (2015) explain their memories of developing the program and sketch a vision of what they hope they have achieved. Certainly, all involved have worked "toward the goal of helping first-year students succeed in college," and they should be commended for their dedication and efforts to bring together often disconnected parts of the university in the name of improving student learning, retention, and overall satisfaction. As an early member of the planning team who assisted bringing the proposal for Cornerstone to the Liberal Arts Core Committee in 2010 …

Contributors

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.