Digital Commons Network^™

Smart Hvac System For A Residential House In Kerala, India And Study Of Green Building Regulations In Thrissur, Kerala, India And Dubai, Uae, Sariga Sunilkumar

Theses

The objective is to analyze the green building regulations in Dubai, UAE and Thrissur, Kerala. By comparing these regulations. An understanding of the factors that impact the residents of the building built using these green building regulations and what can be learned from each regulation, and if there is a common factor connecting these two cities with different climates. The rising temperatures in fact have reduced similarities between the two, as Thrissur is a tropical wet climate and Dubai is hot however the temperatures and humidity levels during the summer are similar. The comparative analysis will allow for the determination …

Primary Central Nervous System Germ Cell Tumors In Children And Young Adults: A Review Of Controversies In Diagnostic And Treatment Approach, Kee Kiat Yeo, Sumanth Nagabushan, Girish Dhall, Mohamed S Abdelbaki

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Primary central nervous system (CNS) germ cell tumors (GCT) are a rare heterogenous group of cancers, arising most commonly in the second decade of life. Through several clinical trials conducted around the world by various groups, the treatment approach for CNS GCT has advanced substantially with generally improved overall outcomes. In recent years, the goal of clinical trials has been focused on reduction of the radiotherapy burden and minimization of long-term toxicity. This review summarizes the current diagnostic and treatment regimens for CNS GCT, examines the controversies associated with these approaches, gaps in contemporary knowledge, and underscores the challenges we …

Navigating Care For Rare Diseases: Caregiver And Patient Advice For Families And Clinicians Managing Care For Vascular Malformations, Anna M Kerr, Christine Bereitschaft, Kayla M Duty, Bryan A Sisk

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: Families affected by rare diseases face many challenges finding adequate care and often report poor communication with clinicians. In the current study, we explore patient and caregiver advice for families and clinicians in the context of complex vascular malformations (VMs), a condition that is frequently misunderstood and misdiagnosed.

METHODS: We performed semi-structured interviews with 21 adult patients with complex VMs and 24 caregivers of children with VMs. We analyzed the transcripts using thematic analysis.

RESULTS: Participants advised patients and caregivers to advocate for care, address mental and emotional well-being, seek social support, and promote self-management and self-care. Participants advised …

Multi-Ancestry Transcriptome-Wide Association Analyses Yield Insights Into Tobacco Use Biology And Drug Repurposing, Fang Chen, Lisa De Las Fuentes, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Most transcriptome-wide association studies (TWASs) so far focus on European ancestry and lack diversity. To overcome this limitation, we aggregated genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics, whole-genome sequences and expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) data from diverse ancestries. We developed a new approach, TESLA (multi-ancestry integrative study using an optimal linear combination of association statistics), to integrate an eQTL dataset with a multi-ancestry GWAS. By exploiting shared phenotypic effects between ancestries and accommodating potential effect heterogeneities, TESLA improves power over other TWAS methods. When applied to tobacco use phenotypes, TESLA identified 273 new genes, up to 55% more compared with …

Dissecting Cell Identity Via Network Inference And In Silico Gene Perturbation, Kenji Kamimoto, Blerta Stringa, Christy M Hoffmann, Kunal Jindal, Lilianna Solnica-Krezel, Samantha A Morris

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Cell identity is governed by the complex regulation of gene expression, represented as gene-regulatory networks

Final Results From A Phase 2b Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial Of Rbx2660: A Microbiota-Based Drug For The Prevention Of Recurrent Clostridioides Difficile Infection, Erik R Dubberke, Robert Orenstein, Sahil Khanna, Beth Guthmueller, Christine Lee

2020-Current year OA Pubs

INTRODUCTION: Effective treatments for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (rCDI) are urgently needed. RBX2660 is an investigational microbiota-based live biotherapeutic to reduce CDI recurrence following standard-of-care antibiotic treatment in individuals with rCDI. Here we report the final safety data through 24 months of follow-up as well as final efficacy data, reflecting alignment of the pre-specified statistical analysis plan definitions with the data presented.

METHODS: The PUNCH CD2 clinical trial was a prospective, multicenter, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, three-arm phase 2b study conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of RBX2660 for the reduction of rCDI compared to placebo. Eligible patients were at …

Missed Opportunities In The Diagnosis Of Tuberculosis Meningitis, Niamh Simmons, Margaret A Olsen, Joanna Buss, Thomas C Bailey, Carlos Mejia-Chew

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis meningitis (TBM) has high mortality and morbidity. Diagnostic delays can impact TBM outcomes. We aimed to estimate the number of potentially missed opportunities (MOs) to diagnose TBM and determine its impact on 90-day mortality.

METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort of adult patients with a central nervous system (CNS) TB

RESULTS: Of 893 patients with TBM, median age at diagnosis was 50 years (interquartile range, 37-64), 61.3% were male, and 35.2% had Medicaid as primary payer. Overall, 407 (45.6%) had a prior hospital or ED visit with an MO code. In-hospital 90-day mortality was not different between those …

Autophagy Requirements For Eye Lens Differentiation And Transparency, Lisa Brennan, M Joseph Costello, J Fielding Hejtmancik, A. Menko, S Amer Riazuddin, Alan Shiels, Marc Kantorow

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Recent evidence points to autophagy as an essential cellular requirement for achieving the mature structure, homeostasis, and transparency of the lens. Collective evidence from multiple laboratories using chick, mouse, primate, and human model systems provides evidence that classic autophagy structures, ranging from double-membrane autophagosomes to single-membrane autolysosomes, are found throughout the lens in both undifferentiated lens epithelial cells and maturing lens fiber cells. Recently, key autophagy signaling pathways have been identified to initiate critical steps in the lens differentiation program, including the elimination of organelles to form the core lens organelle-free zone. Other recent studies using ex vivo lens culture …

Description

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Orienting Toward Party Choice: A Simple Self-Determination Tool For Mediators, Robert A. Baruch Bush, Dan Berstein

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Analyzing The Anatomy Of Innovative Investment Treaty Drafting: The Quest To Safeguard The Right To Regulate, Naimeh Masumy, Carrie Shu Shang

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Competing For The Starting Line: How Ombuds Programs Can Help Transgender Student Athletes Participate Under Various State Policies, Drew Fabricius

Journal of Dispute Resolution

No abstract provided.

Legislative Update, Wensdai Brooks, Connor Mcateer, Myca Sutton, Des'aire Taylor, Hannah Williams

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The Legislative Update exists to inform the reader of various state and federal laws passed during the 2021-2022 legislative sessions. More specifically, the statutes discussed below relate to alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) in its many forms. This is an annual update compiled and written by the Journal of Dispute Resolution’s Associate Members and edited by the Associate Editor-in-Chief. This year represented a wide mix of laws passed—some related to health and safety in a post-pandemic world; others posed solutions to problems relevant before the COVID-19 pandemic. Usually, the Legislative Update is limited exclusively to state legislation. We decided to include …

Appendix A

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Appendix A for article Orienting Toward Party Choice

House Price Prediction Using Machine Learning Model, Abdulla Alfalasi

Theses

Data Analytics and Machine Learning play an important role in extracting insights and patterns from datasets. The primary objective of using the above techniques for real world problems is to understand the intricacies of the problem, which is impossible with the help of manual human effort. The below chart shows the price trend (per sq. ft) over the past 10 years in Dubai, with a steady rise during the years from 2014. The 2020 pandemic plummeted the global prices due to the lack of demand and travel restrictions, which is clearly depicted in the chart. But at the very end …

Potassium Fertilizer Rate Recommendations: Does Accounting For Soil Stock Of Potassium Matter?, Kimberly B. Oliver, Michael P. Popp, Di Fang, John D. Anderson, Nathan A. Slaton, Gerson L. Drescher, Trenton L. Roberts, Jada Thompson

Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness Faculty Publications and Presentations

Profitability, yield, and fertilizer use are compared across three different potassium (K) fertilizer rate recommendation ideologies. Existing agronomic, “build and maintain” rate recommendations (KE) are compared to profit-maximizing rates with and without taking long-run soil-test K (STK) implications into account. Regardless of starting STK, K use equilibrated over the course of 3 years irrespective of ideology. Since taking long-run STK into account did not alter ending STK and only led to a miniscule yield effect, we encourage producers to use annual profit-maximizing K rates that were 3–11% lower than KE rates and generated more profit with minimal yield loss.

Myostatin And Follistatin As Monitoring And Prognostic Biomarkers In Dysferlinopathy, Ursula Moore, Alan Pestronk, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Myostatin is a myokine which acts upon skeletal muscle to inhibit growth and regeneration. Myostatin is endogenously antagonised by follistatin. This study assessed serum myostatin and follistatin concentrations as monitoring or prognostic biomarkers in dysferlinopathy, an autosomal recessively inherited muscular dystrophy. Myostatin was quantified twice with a three-year interval in 76 patients with dysferlinopathy and 38 controls. Follistatin was quantified in 62 of these patients at the same timepoints, and in 31 controls. Correlations with motor function, muscle fat fraction and contractile cross-sectional area were performed. A regression model was used to account for confounding variables. Baseline myostatin, but not …

Sex-Specific Hypnotic Effects Of The Neuroactive Steroid (3Β,5Β,17Β)-3-Hydroxyandrostane-17-Carbonitrile Are Mediated By Peripheral Metabolism Into An Active Hypnotic Steroid, Francesca M Manzella, Omar H Cabrera, Davis Wilkey, Brier Fine-Raquet, Jelena Klawitter, Kathiresan Krishnan, Douglas F Covey, Vesna Jevtovic-Todorovic, Slobodan M Todorovic

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: The novel synthetic neuroactive steroid (3β,5β,17β)-3-hydroxyandrostane-17-carbonitrile (3β-OH) blocks T-type calcium channels but does not directly modulate neuronal γ-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA

METHODS: We used a combination of behavioural loss of righting reflex, neuroendocrine, pharmacokinetic, in vitro patch-clamp electrophysiology, and in vivo electrophysiological approaches in wild-type mice and in genetic knockouts of the Ca

RESULTS: Adult male mice were less sensitive to the hypnotic effects of 3β-OH compared with female mice, and these differences appeared during development. Adult males had higher 3β-OH brain concentrations despite being less sensitive to its hypnotic effects. Females metabolised 3β-OH into the active GABA …

Extending Outbreak Investigation With Machine Learning And Graph Theory: Benefits Of New Tools With Application To A Nosocomial Outbreak Of A Multidrug-Resistant Organism, Andrew Atkinson, Benjamin Ellenberger, Vanja Piezzi, Tanja Kaspar, Luisa Salazar-Vizcaya, Olga Endrich, Alexander B Leichtle, Jonas Marschall

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: From January 1, 2018, until July 31, 2020, our hospital network experienced an outbreak of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). The goal of our study was to improve existing processes by applying machine-learning and graph-theoretical methods to a nosocomial outbreak investigation.

METHODS: We assembled medical records generated during the first 2 years of the outbreak period (January 2018 through December 2019). We identified risk factors for VRE colonization using standard statistical methods, and we extended these with a decision-tree machine-learning approach. We then elicited possible transmission pathways by detecting commonalities between VRE cases using a graph theoretical network analysis approach.

RESULTS: …

Machine Learning Approximations To Predict Epigenetic Age Acceleration In Stroke Patients, Isabel Fernández-Pérez, Joan Jiménez-Balado, Uxue Lazcano, Eva Giralt-Steinhauer, Lucía Rey Álvarez, Elisa Cuadrado-Godia, Ana Rodríguez-Campello, Adrià Macias-Gómez, Antoni Suárez-Pérez, Anna Revert-Barberá, Isabel Estragués-Gázquez, Carolina Soriano-Tarraga, Jaume Roquer, Angel Ois, Jordi Jiménez-Conde

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Age acceleration (Age-A) is a useful tool that is able to predict a broad range of health outcomes. It is necessary to determine DNA methylation levels to estimate it, and it is known that Age-A is influenced by environmental, lifestyle, and vascular risk factors (VRF). The aim of this study is to estimate the contribution of these easily measurable factors to Age-A in patients with cerebrovascular disease (CVD), using different machine learning (ML) approximations, and try to find a more accessible model able to predict Age-A. We studied a CVD cohort of 952 patients with information about VRF, lifestyle habits, …

Lgmdd1 Natural History And Phenotypic Spectrum: Implications For Clinical Trials, Andrew R Findlay, Sarah E Robinson, Stephanie Poelker, Michelle Seiffert, Rocio Bengoechea, Conrad C Weihl

2020-Current year OA Pubs

OBJECTIVE: To delineate the full phenotypic spectrum and characterize the natural history of limb girdle muscular dystrophy type D1 (LGMDD1).

METHODS: We extracted age at clinical events of interest contributing to LGMDD1 disease burden via a systematic literature and chart review. Manual muscle testing and quantitative dynamometry data were used to estimate annualized rates of change. We also conducted a cross-sectional observational study using previously validated patient-reported outcome assessments (ACTIVLIM, PROMIS-57) and a new LGMDD1 questionnaire. Some individuals underwent repeat ACTIVLIM and LGMDD1 questionnaire assessments at 1.5 and 2.5 years.

RESULTS: A total of 122 LGMDD1 patients were included from …

Considering Vaccination Status, Govind Persad

UC Law Journal

This Article examines whether policies—sometimes termed “vaccine mandates” or “vaccine requirements”— that consider vaccination status as a condition of employment, receipt of goods and services, or educational or other activity for participation are legally permitted, and whether such policies may even sometimes be legally required. It does so with particular reference to COVID-19 vaccines.

Part I explains the legality of private actors, such as employers or private universities, considering vaccination status, and concludes that such consideration is almost always legally permissible unless foreclosed by specific state legislation. Part II examines the consideration of vaccination status by state or federal policy. …

Masthead

UC Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mitigating Catastrophe Risk For Landowners, Stewart E. Sterk

UC Law Journal

Local, national, and global catastrophes entail significant risk for landowners. The governmentsponsored National Flood Insurance Program illustrates how subsidizing insurance against catastrophe risk can result in overinvestment in risk-prone properties. Government intervention, however, has largely been a response to the historical failure of the private insurance industry to provide adequate protection against correlated risks, a failure with the potential to generate underinvestment in land and devastate existing owners.

When data is available about the incidence and severity of potential disasters, improvements in technology have made it more feasible for insurers to calibrate premiums and discounts with greater accuracy, and sophisticated …

Loyalties V. Royalties, Sarah Polcz

UC Law Journal

Friendship rewards us with a bond of loyalty and equality. The marketplace rewards us based on what we have to offer. When friends work together to create something, and when the market judges their creation to have value, this sets up a clash between realms. Should the pie of profits be sliced according to the values of friendship or the values of the marketplace? The answer matters for policymakers concerned with creative incentives. How satisfied people are with their monetary rewards can turn more on how much others are getting—their relative rewards—than on the absolute amount received. Nevertheless, it is …

Pole Cameras: Applying Fourth Amendment Protections To Emerging Surveillance Technology, Rahil Maharaj

UC Law Journal

Evolving surveillance technologies present unique challenges for the judiciary to maintain robust Fourth Amendment privacy protections. New surveillance tools such as pole cameras raise significant questions regarding the current scope of the Fourth Amendment and the steps the Supreme Court must take to prevent the erosion of a foundational constitutional right.

This Note lays out the current debate among scholars and courts regarding the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Carpenter v. United States. It demonstrates the challenge that new technology presents by providing an overview of the split between state and federal circuit courts in applying Carpenter to …

The Surprisingly Strong Case For Local Income Taxes In The Era Of Increased Remote Work, Erin Adele Scharff, Darien Shanske

UC Law Journal

Traditional theoretical literature on fiscal federalism urges cities to finance themselves with taxes on immobile sources. Thus, the literature sees real property taxes as the best source of local revenue; real property, after all, cannot be easily moved. This same literature eschews local income taxes because it is easy for a taxpayer to move, thus allowing exit from local income tax obligations.

Practice here seems to follow theory: cities do not tend to levy income taxes. However, this general trend has caused scholars to overlook important exceptions. In fact, many cities impose income taxes and have for a long time. …

Foreign Investment And National Security Challenges In The Data Age: An Assessment Of The Current Regime And Recommendations, Irene Yu

UC Law Journal

This Note contributes to the growing literature that attempts to grasp the current landscape of international trade and investment norms and policies in the data age. Focusing on the disputes between the United States and China surrounding Chinese investment in American businesses that gather private user data, this Note adds to the argument that new challenges posed by the internet age and the use of private data have transformed current international trade policy and the national security exception regime. The U.S. government in the recent years has demonstrated little self-restraint in employing national security grounds to justify its interference with …

Electrochromic Smart Glass: Supplier Comparison Return On Investment Analysis, Hayden Stewart Owens

Construction Management

In recent years, sustainability in construction has become the focus of how the industry can progress with minimal environmental impact. As sustainability certifications become more desirable, key companies in the construction industry have started to seek greener alternatives to standard building systems. There are many sustainable products that are released, but these products are typically so complex that members of the industry are not familiar with these new systems. One novel piece of technology introduced to the industry is electrochromic glass, or smart glass. Electrochromic glass windows examine sunlight and heat exposure from the surrounding environment and change their opacity …