Digital Commons Network^™

The First 20 Months Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Mortality, Intubation And Icu Rates Among 104,590 Patients Hospitalized At 21 United States Health Systems, Michael C. Fiore, Li-Shiun Chen, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

MAIN OBJECTIVE: There is limited information on how patient outcomes have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study characterizes changes in mortality, intubation, and ICU admission rates during the first 20 months of the pandemic.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: University of Wisconsin researchers collected and harmonized electronic health record data from 1.1 million COVID-19 patients across 21 United States health systems from February 2020 through September 2021. The analysis comprised data from 104,590 adult hospitalized COVID-19 patients. Inclusion criteria for the analysis were: (1) age 18 years or older; (2) COVID-19 ICD-10 diagnosis during hospitalization and/or a positive COVID-19 PCR …

Inferring The Dynamical Effects Of Stroke Lesions Through Whole-Brain Modeling, Sebastian Idesis, Chiara Favaretto, Nicholas V Metcalf, Joseph C Griffis, Gordon L Shulman, Maurizio Corbetta, Gustavo Deco

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Understanding the effect of focal lesions (stroke) on brain structure-function traditionally relies on behavioral analyses and correlation with neuroimaging data. Here we use structural disconnection maps from individual lesions to derive a causal mechanistic generative whole-brain model able to explain both functional connectivity alterations and behavioral deficits induced by stroke. As compared to other models that use only the local lesion information, the similarity to the empirical fMRI connectivity increases when the widespread structural disconnection information is considered. The presented model classifies behavioral impairment severity with higher accuracy than other types of information (e.g.: functional connectivity). We assessed topological measures …

Neonatal Motor Functional Connectivity And Motor Outcomes At Age Two Years In Very Preterm Children With And Without High-Grade Brain Injury, Peppar E P Cyr, Rachel E Lean, Jeanette K Kenley, Sydney Kaplan, Dominique E Meyer, Jeffery J Neil, Dimitrios Alexopoulos, Rebecca G Brady, Joshua S Shimony, Thomas L Rodebaugh, Cynthia E Rogers, Christopher D Smyser

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Preterm-born children have high rates of motor impairments, but mechanisms for early identification remain limited. We hypothesized that neonatal motor system functional connectivity (FC) would relate to motor outcomes at age two years; currently, this relationship is not yet well-described in very preterm (VPT; born <32 weeks' gestation) infants with and without brain injury. We recruited 107 VPT infants - including 55 with brain injury (grade III-IV intraventricular hemorrhage, cystic periventricular leukomalacia, post-hemorrhagic hydrocephalus) - and collected FC data at/near term-equivalent age (35-45 weeks postmenstrual age). Correlation coefficients were used to calculate the FC between bilateral motor and visual cortices and thalami. At two years corrected-age, motor outcomes were assessed with the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, 3rd edition. Multiple imputation was used to estimate missing data, and regression models related FC measures to motor outcomes. Within the brain-injured group only, interhemispheric motor cortex FC was positively related to gross motor outcomes. Thalamocortical and visual FC were not related to motor scores. This suggests neonatal alterations in motor system FC may provide prognostic information about impairments in children with brain injury.

Differentiating Amyloid Beta Spread In Autosomal Dominant And Sporadic Alzheimer's Disease, Elizabeth Levitis, Jacob W Vogel, Thomas Funck, Vladimir Hachinski, Serge Gauthier, Jonathan Vöglein, Johannes Levin, Brian A Gordon, Tammie Benzinger, Yasser Iturria-Medina, Alan C Evans, Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network, Alzheimer’S Disease Neuroimaging Initiative

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Amyloid-beta deposition is one of the hallmark pathologies in both sporadic Alzheimer's disease and autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease, the latter of which is caused by mutations in genes involved in amyloid-beta processing. Despite amyloid-beta deposition being a centrepiece to both sporadic Alzheimer's disease and autosomal-dominant Alzheimer's disease, some differences between these Alzheimer's disease subtypes have been observed with respect to the spatial pattern of amyloid-beta. Previous work has shown that the spatial pattern of amyloid-beta in individuals spanning the sporadic Alzheimer's disease spectrum can be reproduced with high accuracy using an epidemic spreading model which simulates the diffusion of amyloid-beta across …

Developing An Integrated Multilevel Model Of Uncertainty In Health Care: A Qualitative Systematic Review And Thematic Synthesis, Prashanti Eachempati, Roland Brian Büchter, Kiran Kumar Ks, Sally Hanks, John Martin, Mona Nasser

Peninsula Dental School

Introduction Uncertainty is an inevitable part of healthcare and a source of confusion and challenge to decision-making. Several taxonomies of uncertainty have been developed, but mainly focus on decisions in clinical settings. Our goal was to develop a holistic model of uncertainty that can be applied to both clinical as well as public and global health scenarios.Methods We searched Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus and Google scholar in March 2021 for literature reviews, qualitative studies and case studies related to classifications or models of uncertainty in healthcare. Empirical articles were assessed for study limitations using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) …

Portfolio Optimisation Using Genetic Algorithms And Copula Financial Models, Tahani Alotaibi

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Portfolio optimisation aims to efficiently find optimal proportions of portfolio assets, given certain constraints, and has been well-studied (Jin et al. 2016). While portfolio optimisation ascertains asset combinations most suited to investor requirements, numerous real-world problems impact its simplicity, e.g., investor preferences. Trading restrictions are also commonly faced, and must be met. However, in adding constraints to Markowitz’s basic mean-variance model, problem complexity increases, causing difficulties for exact optimisation approaches to find large problem solutions inside reasonable timeframes. The concern of this study concern is portfolio optimisation under three real-world constraints, using Markowitz’s mean-variance portfolio optimisation problem to obtain optimal …

Tackling Big Data Variety Using Metadata, Georgios Vranopoulos

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

The creation of new knowledge from manipulating and analysing existing knowledge is one of the primary objectives of any cognitive system. Out of the Big Data governing Vs, namely Volume, Velocity, Variety, Veracity, Validity, Volatility and Value, the first three are considered the primary ones. Most of the effort on Big Data research has been focussed upon Volume and Velocity, while Variety, “the ugly duckling” of Big Data, is often neglected and difficult to solve. A principal challenge with Variety is being able to understand and comprehend the data in gaining insight. Organisations have been investing in analytics relying on …

A Systematic Review Of How Cloud Infrastructure And Gdpr Have Affected Digital Investigations In A Multinational Business Context, Stuart Fraser, A.Omar Portillo-Dominguez

Other

With cloud infrastructure becoming an ever more popular platform for business network implementations, and with ever-tightening data protection regulation, the ability to carry out digital investigations has become more difficult. This has led to areas of research that have looked to restore the balance to digital investigations in this environment. These areas include the use of blockchain, data tracing, and digital forensics as a service. With so many methods to consider, this article looks at how each method aims to return the balance and make it possible to carry out an investigation that complies with new privacy regulations (e.g., the …

Design Processes For User Engagement With Mobile Health: A Systematic Review, Tochukwu Ikwunne, Lucy Hederman, P. J. Wall

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Despite the importance of user engagement in mHealth system efficacy, many such interventions fail to engage their users effectively. This paper provides a systematic review of 10 years of research (32 articles) on mHealth design interventions conducted between 2011 and 2020. The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) model was used for this review with the IEEE, Medline EBSCO Host, ACM, and Springer databases searched for English language papers with the published range. The goal of this review was to find out which design process improves user engagement with mHealth in order to guide the development of …

Co-Creating Digital Health Service: Activity Theory And Communicative Ecology Framework Analysis, Tochukwu Ikwunne, Lucy Hederman, P. J. Wall

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Globally, there has been an increase in digital health interventions over the last decade. These interventions aim to improve maternal and infant health outcomes and treatment adherence, as well as HIV/AIDS education and prevention, immunization rates, and communicable disease prevention. The creation of digital health services that incorporated users' dynamic, multi-level, and complexities are crucial to the advancement of digital healthcare. These services are, at best, co-created by developers, community health workers, and government representatives. However, due to the presence of multiple stakeholders, the co-creation of digital health services is a complex process. The paper presents a case study of …

Physical Modelling Of Wave Group Interactions With A Vertical Wall, William Mortimer

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Coastal communities are becoming increasingly exposed to wave-induced flood events due to climate change. Accurate prediction of wave-structure interactions are vital in order to achieve long lasting and economical defences for such communities. Amongst the interactions of importance for design are wave runup and force. This thesis describes data from experiments in laboratory flumes. The novel contribution is with application and validation of second-order wave generation for experiments in shallow to intermediate water depth. The thesis builds on a substantial body of work by coastal engineers to validate focused wave groups, established in offshore engineering, for coastal experiments. Free error …

Flexible Goal-Directed Manipulation Of Representations: Computational Models Of Healthy And Pathological Human Cognition, Giovanni Granato

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

The brain is able to manipulate itself, adapting its internal world in a changing environment. In particular it continuously manipulates its representations to achieve goals. This competence is supported by many neurocognitive high-order processes that interact during the performance of a goal-directed behaviour (e.g. attention processes, executive functions, motivational systems). Overall, adult humans often face a new problem trough a change of the `perceptual point of view' (i.e. a representational change), rather then an extended research of the correct action to perform. On the other hand, infants and children contemporary develop motor competence and task-directed perceptual representations (e.g. categorical perception). …

Consumer Reactions To Alcohol Advertising Health Warnings In Ireland: An Experimental Research Study, Vania Filipova

Doctoral

Introduction and Aims As part of several measures to inform consumers about the health risks of alcohol and reduce alcohol consumption, the Irish Government signed into law the Public Health (Alcohol) Act 2018, with Section 13 requiring the implementation of multiple health warnings in all alcohol ads. While health warnings on product labels have been subject to intensive political discussion and academic research, health warnings in alcohol ads have received little attention and empirical support. This doctoral dissertation investigates whether health warnings in alcohol ads can promote cognitive and affective reactions in consumers. Furthermore, this thesis also examines whether the …

Front Matter

The Writing Center Journal

Front matter for Writing Center Journal 40.3.

Pro-Socially Motivated Knowledge Hiding In Innovation Teams, Rachel Hilliard, James English, Maébh Coleman

Articles

No abstract provided.

Exploring Pedagogic And Practical Intersections Of Academic Writing Support For Students In Higher Education, Maria-Jose Gonzalez, Roisin Donnelly

Articles

This case study explores undergraduate and postgraduate student perceptions of the nature and effectiveness of academic writing provision and practice in a university in Ireland. Its focus isthe Academic Writing Centre (AWC), a university-wide initiative to support all students. It discusses students’ perceptions as to the academic writing support provided at the AWC and students’ preferred writing strategies. The research design used a qualitative approach to gather data on students’ perceptions of the academic writing support received at one-to-one consultations. Data was gathered via a student survey (n=21) sent to all students who avail of the AWC’s one-to-one support. Findings …

Hypertension Alters The Function And Expression Profile Of The Peptide Cotransporters Pept1 And Pept2 In The Rodent Renal Proximal Tubule, Othman A. Alghamdi, Nicola King, Nicholas M. Andronicos, Graham L. Jones, Belal Chami, Paul K. Witting, Pierre D.J. Moens

School of Biomedical Sciences

Hypertension is a major risk factor for kidney and cardiovascular disease. The treatment of hypertensive individuals by selected ACE inhibitors and certain di-and tripeptides halts the progression of renal deterioration and extends life-span. Renal reabsorption of these low molecular weight substrates are mediated by the PEPT1 and PEPT2 cotransporters. This study aims to investigate whether hypertension and ageing affects renal PEPT cotransporters at gene, protein expression and distribution as well as function in the superficial cortex and the outer medulla of the kidney. Membrane vesicles from the brush border (BBMV) and outer medulla (OMMV) were isolated from the kidneys of …

Heritage Requires Citizens’ Knowledge: The Cost Place-Making Action And Responsible Research, Heike Oevermann, Ayse Erek, Carola Hein, Conor Horan, Kata Krasznahorkai, Ida Sofie Gøtzsche Lange, Edmond Manahasa, Marijke Martin, Marluci Menezes, Matej Nikšič, Paulina Polko, Juli Székely, Simone Tappert, Pekka Tuominen

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This chapter reflects on responsible science with an eye toward concrete research practice. To this end, we briefly introduce the RRI paradigm (Responsible Research and Innovation) and then highlight seven EU research projects in the context of a transnational COST Action project. This COST Action will investigate how placemaking activities, like public art, civil urban design, and local knowledge production, reshape and reinvent public space, and improve citizens’ involvement in urban planning and urban design, especially in the context of heritage sites. The chapter introduces heritage case studies that either contrast, differentiate, and add to existing knowledge and practices in …

Peripheral: Women's Imprisonment In Twentieth Century Ireland, Christina Quinlan

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

No abstract provided.

A Neural Network-Based Model For Lower Limb Continuous Estimation Against The Disturbance Of Uncertainty, Wanting Li, Keping Liu, Zhongbo Sun, C Li, Yuanyuan Chai, Jian Gu

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

In this paper, a novel prediction model is proposed to estimate human continuous motion intention using a fuzzy wavelet neural network (FWNN) and a zeroing neural network (ZNN). During walking, seven channel surface electromyography (sEMG) signals and motion data of hip and knee are collected, and two signals are selected and processed from the seven muscles based on physiological and correlation analysis. Then, FWNN is built as an intention recognition model, with sEMG signals as input and physical hip and knee information as output. Meanwhile, ZNN is exploited into the FWNN model, forming a hybrid model to eliminate the prediction …

High-Quality Reconstruction Of China’S Natural Streamflow, Chiyuan Miao, Jiaojiao Gou, Bojie Fu, Qiuhong Tang, Q Duan, Z Chen, Huimin Lei, J Chen, J Guo, Alistair G.L. Borthwick, Wenfeng Ding, X Duan, Yungang Li, Dongxian Kong, X Guo, Jingwen Wu

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Continuous-Flow Synthesis Of Mesoporous Sba-15, Christopher M.A. Parlett, Hamidreza Arandiyan, Lee J. Durndell, Mark A. Isaacs, Antonio Torres Lopez, Roong J. Wong, Karen Wilson, Adam F. Lee

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Magnetic, Optical And Phase Transformation Properties Of Fe And Co Doped Vo2(A) Nanobelts, Ss Saeidi, B Vaseghi, G Rezaei, H Khajehsharifi, D Jenkins

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

In this work, the effects of Fe and Co dopants on the optical bandgap and structural, morphological, and magnetic properties of VO2(A) nanobelts with rectangular cross-sections were studied. The optimized hydrothermal method with proper parameters was used to synthesize the samples. The XRD analyses show that the hydrothermal method promotes the formation of VO2(B) rather than the usual VO2(A) and causes the tetragonal-monoclinic transformation in VO2. Furthermore, expanding the VO2 lattice constant by dopants reveals that Fe3+ and Co2+ are successfully substituted into the lattice sites of V4+. Also, obtained results indicate the optical band gap increment with dopants and …

Adaptation Of The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (Rusle) To Soil Loss Modeling In A Semi-Arid Watershed: A Case Study From Western High Atlas, Morocco, Latifa Bou-Imajjane, Mhamed Alaeddine Belfoul, Martin Stokes, Abdenbi Elaloui, Adnane Labbaci, Ayady H El, Yassine Ez-Zaouy

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Mixture Toxicity Of Tio2 Nps And Tetracycline At Two Trophic Levels In The Marine Ecosystem: Chlorella Sp. And Artemia Salina, V Thiagarajan, R Seenivasan, D Jenkins, N Chandrasekaran, A Mukherjee

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Correct Generation Of The Bound Set-Down For Surface Gravity Wave Groups In Laboratory Experiments Of Intermediate To Shallow Depth, William Mortimer, Alison Raby, Alessandro Antonini, Deborah Greaves, Den Bremer T Van

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Case Study Into Understanding Teaching Practice And Towards Enhancing Transformative Learning And Graduate Employability At Tu Dublin, Ellen Kampinga

Masters

This research focuses on understanding and enhancing the educational practice towards using pedagogies like transformative learning to enhance graduate employability at a new technological university, TU Dublin, during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. It was found that teaching practice depends significantly on the lecturer, the discipline area, the graduate skills that are sought after in each module and discipline, and the context of the delivery. The PAGE (Pedagogy Assisting Graduate Employability) framework developed from this research, aims to visualise the connection between the teaching process, pedagogy, and graduate employability. Application of the framework will offer insight into how each unique lecturer …

Drone-Based Large-Scale Particle Image Velocimetry Applied To Tidal Stream Energy Resource Assessment, Iain Fairley, Benjamin J. Williamson, Jason Mcilvenny, Nicholas King, Ian Masters, Matthew Lewis, Simon Neill, David Glasby, Daniel Coles, Ben Powell, Keith Naylor, Max Robinson, Dominic E. Reeve

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Resource quantification is vital in developing a tidal stream energy site but challenging in high energy areas. Drone-based large-scale particle image velocimetry (LSPIV) may provide a novel, low cost, low risk approach that improves spatial coverage compared to ADCP methods. For the first time, this study quantifies performance of the technique for tidal stream resource assessment, using three sites. Videos of the sea surface were captured while concurrent validation data were obtained (ADCP and surface drifters). Currents were estimated from the videos using LSPIV software. Variation in accuracy was attributed to wind, site geometry and current velocity. Root mean square …

Crowdsourcing Platform For Qoe Evaluation For Cloud Multimedia Services, A Laghari, Hui He, Asiya Khan, R Laghari, Shoulin Yin, Jiachi Wang

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

This paper presents a novel web-based crowdsourcing platform for the assessment of the subjective and objective quality of experience (QoE) of the video service in the cloud-server environment. The user has the option to enter subjective QoE data for video service by filling out a web questionnaire. The objective QoE data of the cloud-server, network condition, and the user device is automatically captured by the crowdsourcing platform. Our proposed system collects both objective and subjective QoE simultaneously in real-time. The paper presents the key technologies used in the development of the platform and describes the functional requirements and design ideas …

Investigation Of Wave-Driven Hydroelastic Interactions Using Numerical And Physical Modelling Approaches, S. A. Brown, N. Xie, M. R. Hann, D. M. Greaves

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Wave-driven hydroelasticity is of great importance to a wide range of applications within offshore and coastal engineering. Harnessing the benefits of hydroelasticity or minimising its impacts, depending on the application, has recently led to substantial investment in research effort in this field. However, the complex and strongly-coupled nature of the problem generally make the impacts very case specific, highlighting the importance of accurate numerical tools for assessing the impact on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, this study aims to provide novel experimental data to assist with the development of a coupled numerical methodology for simulating fully nonlinear hydroelastic interactions with highly-flexible …