Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Mri Image Regression Cnn For Bone Marrow Lesion Volume Prediction, Kevin Yanagisawa

Theses and Dissertations

Bone marrow lesions (BMLs), occurs from fluid build up in the soft tissues inside your bone. This can be seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and is characterized by excess water signals in the bone marrow space. This disease is commonly caused by osteoarthritis (OA), a degenerative join disease where tissues within the joint breakdown over time [1]. These BMLs are an emerging target for OA, as they are commonly related to pain and worsening of the diseased area until surgical intervention is required [2]–[4]. In order to assess the BMLs, MRIs were utilized as input into a regression …

Big Data Applications And Challenges In Giscience (Case Studies: Natural Disaster And Public Health Crisis Management), Amir Masoud Forati

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the application and significance of user-generated big data in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), with a focus on managing natural disasters and public health crises. It explores the role of social media data in understanding human-environment interactions and in informing disaster management and public health strategies. A scalable computational framework will be developed to model extensive unstructured geotagged data from social media, facilitating systematic spatiotemporal data analysis.The research investigates how individuals and communities respond to high-impact events like natural disasters and public health emergencies, employing both qualitative and quantitative methods. In particular, it assesses the impact of socio-economic-demographic …

Mathematical Evaluation Of Ulnar Nerve Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (Sseps), Maribel Carmen Gomez

Theses and Dissertations

As the number of individuals suffering with low back and neck pain rises, we find people undergoing spinal procedures more often. In means, of safeguarding the patient and their neurological structures during the procedure intraoperative neuro-physiological monitoring (I.O.M) has been more widely used amongst surgeons orthopedic and neuro alike. During these procedures, a modality widely used for both low back and neck surgery is somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEPs). The aim of neuro-technicians is to obtain a baseline waveform that can be considered present and reliable. When obtaining SSEPs the technician can encounter obstacles with ’noisy’ wave-forms due to …

Dynamic Regulation Of Store-Operated Calcium Entry By Protein S-Acylation, Goutham Kodakandla

Theses and Dissertations

Calcium plays a pivotal role in many physiological functions in cells. Cytosolic calcium levels are finely tuned by calcium ion channels, pumps, and intracellular organelles. Store-operated calcium entry (SOCE) is when depletion of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) calcium stores activates a calcium sensor known as stromal interaction molecule 1 (STIM1). Activation of STIM1 leads to a conformational change from a compact state to an extended state. This extended state of STIM1 allows it to bind to a calcium channel in the plasma membrane (PM) known as Orai1. The binding of Orai1 and STIM1 leads to opening of Orai1 channels and calcium …

Vertical Federated Learning Using Autoencoders With Applications In Electrocardiograms, Wesley William Chorney

Theses and Dissertations

Federated learning is a framework in machine learning that allows for training a model while maintaining data privacy. Moreover, it allows clients with their own data to collaborate in order to build a stronger, shared model. Federated learning is of particular interest to healthcare data, since it is of the utmost importance to respect patient privacy while still building useful diagnostic tools. However, healthcare data can be complicated — data format might differ across providers, leading to unexpected inputs and incompatibility between different providers. For example, electrocardiograms might differ in sampling rate or number of leads used, meaning that a …

Advanced Prognostic Modeling For Breast Cancer Patients: Leveraging Data-Driven Approaches For Survival Analysis, Theophilus Gyedu Baidoo

Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second most prevalent form of cancer in women in the United States. Each year, about 264,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in women and of this number, about 42,000 women lose their lives as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Early detection and effective treatment are crucial for improving survival rates and reducing mortality. This study aimed to explore the influential factors that may risk the survival of women with the disease and compare their predictive abilities using several error and performance metrics. The study uses a dataset from the National Cancer …

Atomistic Assessment Of Drug-Phospholipid Interactions Consequent To Cancer Treatment: A Study Of Anthracycline Cardiotoxicity, Yara Elsayed Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

Despite being one of the most effective chemotherapeutic agents developed to date, Anthracyclines are notorious for their cardiotoxicity. Their clinical use is frequently limited both in dosage and in prescription due to the severe cardiac damage they cause. The mechanism of anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity is not yet fully understood. However, it is hypothesized that interactions with the myocardial membrane play an important role in imparting cardiotoxicity. In this study, we use molecular dynamics simulations and density functional theory calculations to study the anthracycline drug molecules and the interactions that they have with the myocardial membrane. We construct a myocardial membrane model …

Artemisinin And Its Derivatives Reactions: Characterization Of The Reaction Products Using Lc/Tof Ms, Kogila Vijayan

Theses and Dissertations

Artemisinin (ART) is a sesquiterpene lactone and a popular malaria drug with potential anticancer properties. In this work, LC/TOF MS was used to investigate the reaction of ART with DNA bases and estradiol. ART-deoxyadenosine and ART-deoxycytidine interactions were studied in the presence of Fe (II) ions. ART-deoxyadenosine and ART-deoxycytidine reaction mixtures gave chromatographic signatures that remained unchanged at room temperature but grew after incubation at 37°C. The change in temperature from room temperature to 37°C was the main driver of adduct formation in these reactions. ART was found to react with Fe (II) ions as observed from several new chromatographic …

Data Science For Hospital Antibiotic Stewardship, Saikou Jawla

Theses and Dissertations

Antibiotics are widely used to treat bacterial infections, but their misuse leads to antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today. Antibiotic resistance leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality. Antimicrobial stewardship is an approach to measure and improve the appropriate use of antibiotics in healthcare settings. Data science has the potential to support these programs by providing insights into antibiotic prescribing patterns, identifying areas for improvement, and predicting patient outcomes. We explored the role of data science in hospital antibiotic stewardship programs, including statistical methods …

Modeling Radiation Exposure On Flight Missions To Analyze Aircrew Risk, Camila V. Quintero Hilsaca

Theses and Dissertations

GCR and SPE comprise the majority of the ionizing radiation experienced in the upper atmosphere within flight-altitude environments. Although previous studies have analyzed radiation doses from single sources on civilian flight operations, there is a lack of research focused on dose received by military personnel during flight from both sources simultaneously. In-flight radiation environments are modeled through the MCNP6 for two separate aircraft, an Air Force A-10 and a Boeing 737. Particle fluence values for galactic cosmic rays and solar particle events for four separate flight paths are determined using the CARI-7A software and the SIRE2 toolkit, respectively. MCNP6 code …

Pipeline For Calculating Calories For Print Recipes With Minimal User Intervention, Karl W. Holten

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis will provide a pipeline to estimate calorie counts from print recipes. The pipeline takes scanned recipes from cookbooks and uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert the scanned images of recipes to text. Several OCR tools were tested for their accuracy on fractions using a sample of the data, and the most accurate tool is used on the data. Next, a specially trained named entity recognition model is used to identify ingredients, quantities and units. These ingredients are used to search a database of values from the FDA to compute a calorie count for the recipe. The thesis …

Effects Of Macronutrients Intake And Physical Activity On Childhood Obesity Of Hispanic Children, Prosanta Barai

Theses and Dissertations

Obesity has become more ubiquitous during the past few decades, and still, its prevalence is increasing. It is in every population in the world and all regions, including rural parts of low and middle-income countries. In the USA, regardless of age, the severity of obesity is no different from the global trend. Although numerous pieces of literature are available, that tried to find answers to some pressing issues like how obesity can be controlled, but there is little to no study focused on younger children, especially the 4-6-year-old Hispanic population. Our study aimed to determine the causal path among literature …

Could Cultures Determine The Course Of Epidemics And Explain Waves Of Covid-19?, Md Salman Rahman

Theses and Dissertations

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is an infectious disease that quickly became a pandemic spreading with different patterns in each country. Travel bans, lockdowns, social distancing, and non-essential business closures caused significant economic disruptions and stalled growth worldwide in the pandemic’s first year. In almost every country, public health officials forced and/or encouraged Nonpharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) such as contact tracing, social distancing, masks, and quarantine. Human behavioral decision-making regarding social isolation significantly impedes global success in containing the pandemic. This thesis focuses on human behaviors and cultures related to the decision-making of social isolation during the pandemic. …

Development Of Enhanced Food Packaging Systems Based On Blends Of Bio-Based And Biodegradable Polymers Exhibiting Antimicrobial Properties, Aishat Agboluaje

Theses and Dissertations

Food packaging is one of the important aspects of food processing, which contributes greatly to decreasing post-harvest food losses. While ensuring that foods are adequately packaged, it is also important to consider the impact of these food packaging materials on the environment. Accordingly, this research work was aimed at investigating the potential of bio-based and biodegradable blends of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and chitosan loaded with antimicrobial agents such as turmeric, clove, and cinnamon for use in food packaging applications. The methodology involved creating PVA/chitosan films with varying compositions via solvent casting method and selecting the best composition exhibiting the highest …

Enhancing Vanadium Redox Battery Performance Using Tungsten-Bismuth-Based Oxide Nanostructures As Electrode Modifiers, Taher Al Najjar

Theses and Dissertations

Renewable energy power plants require high efficiency conversion and storage systems that can store high amounts of energy and can be integrated with the electrical grid. Vanadium redox flow batteries are very promising for this application. However, one major drawback of VRFBs is their low power density which means that right now they cannot replace non-renewable energy sources. Different carbon materials are used as electrodes in VRFBs and each carbon material affects the battery’s performance in a different way. Modification of these electrodes can increase the power density of the battery. Some metal oxides like tungsten oxide can enhance vanadium …

Patient Centric Solutions To Mitigate Information Need Of Obstetric Ultrasound Exam Among Pregnant Women: Design-Thinking Approach, Eman Alanazi

Theses and Dissertations

Design thinking approach is an approach used widely to solve problems by providing innovative solutions. In this dissertation I focused on the user experience research filed where I designed new obstetric ultrasound reports by adopting the design thinking approach to reach the main goal of the dissertation which is mitigating pregnant women information needs about obstetric ultrasound exam and improve their understanding and knowledge about the obstetric ultrasound report and the exam. I developed two versions of new designed report called SPOUR (Smart Patient-Oriented Obstetric Ultrasound Report). We have conducted five studies to reach the dissertation goal and designed two …

Resident Doctor Duty Shift Scheduling In Tarragona, Spain, Anna Daniel Fuentes

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to create a computer algorithm to schedule family care resident doctors’ duty shifts in Tarragona, Spain. The algorithm considers European Working Time Directive regulations which limit the number of hours any worker can work in a year. Furthermore, each health center has different work time and staffing requirements, and the medical training program requirements change based on a resident’s level of experience also known as rank of residency. Fair scheduling is essential to healthcare workers’ rights to have time to recover between shifts while satisfying all the training requirements and regulations. Integer programming is …

In Vitro And In Vivo Identification And Quantification Of Carmofur And 5-Fluorouracil Using Tandem Mass Spectrometry, Mohammad Mohiminul Islam

Theses and Dissertations

Glioblastoma is the most aggressive solid tumor of the brain. Prior studies from our lab found that carmofur, also known as 1-hexylcarbanoyl 5-fluorouracil (HCFU) is a promising candidate in suppressing and killing tumor cell lines compared to the FDA-approved drug temozolomide. Originally developed as pro-drug of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), carmofur has been in use in clinic for the treatment of colorectal cancer for over four decades in Japan. Having it used in clinics, it has a high probability of repurposing for diseases with no cure such as glioblastoma. Carmofur has also been found effective against other cancers such as head and …

An Application Of Matrices To The Spread Of The Covid 19, Selena Suarez

Theses and Dissertations

We represented a restaurant seating arrangement using matrices by using 0 entry for someone without covid and 1 entry for someone with covid. Using the matrices we found the best seating arrangements to lessen the spread of covid. We also investigated if there was a factor needed to create a formula that could calculate the matrix that shows who would be affected with covid with each seating arrangement. However, there did not seem to be a clear pattern within the factors. Aside from covid applications, we also investigated the symmetries in seating arrangements and the possible combinations with these arrangements …

Behavioral Screening And Chiral Bioanalysis Of Emerging Stimulant-Type Drugs In Rats, Tyson R. Baird

Theses and Dissertations

The epidemic of drug use in the United States and elsewhere in the world has resulted in tragic loss of life and substantial economic costs. Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are one of the contributors to this problem, and the lack of information about many of these drugs compounds their risk. This dissertation proposes a strategy to use intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) as a behavioral screening tool to assess emerging drugs of abuse for their abuse potential in order to generate a proactive threat assessment. A series of stimulant-type drugs including methcathinone, α-pyrrolidinohexanophenone (α-PHP), cocaine, and the phenyltropane analogs of cocaine WIN35428 …

Estimating Weighted Panel Sizes For Primary Care Providers: An Assessment Of Clustering And Novel Methods Of Panel Size Estimation On Electronic Medical Records, Martin A. Lavallee

Theses and Dissertations

Primary Care is on the frontlines of healthcare, thus they see the most diverse set of patients. In order to achieve high functioning primary care, a practice must establish empanelment, the pairing of patients to providers. Enumeration of empanelment, or estimating panel sizes, helps ensure that the demands of the patients demand the supply of providers and optimize the balance of primary care resources to improve quality of care. Further we can adjust panel sizes by using patient-level data on healthcare utilization and complexity extracted from the electronic medial record to determine the amount of care or burden of work …

Mathematical Models Of Infection Prevention Programs In Hospital Settings, Kelly A. Reagan

Theses and Dissertations

Hospitals play a vital role in providing for the healthcare needs of a community. Patients can develop hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) during their hospitalization due to exposure to foreign bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Infection prevention programs target and reduce HAIs, but implementing the infection prevention programs often comes with a cost. The goal of my research is to use mathematical models to quantify the impact of infection prevention programs on cases of HAIs and total healthcare costs. First, I use a Markov chain model to quantify how one infection prevention program reduces general HAIs in the hospital. Then, I calculate the …

Antiviral Effects Of Metalloshielding: Differential Antiviral Activity Of Polynuclear Platinum And Cobalt Compounds, Mary Zoepfl

Theses and Dissertations

The majority of antiviral drug development has focused on virus-specific discovery targeting discrete steps in the individual life cycles. Although great strides have been made for a number of clinically relevant diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus, influenza virus, and hepatitis B, broad spectrum antivirals do not exist. Broad spectrum antivirals would offer (1) treatment for viruses without specifically-targeted antivirals, (2) treatment for viruses which have developed resistance to their available treatments, and (3) a rapidly deployable treatment option in viral epidemics. Many viruses including human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), HIV, and SARS-CoV-2. rely on heparan sulfate (HS), a highly sulfated glycosaminoglycan …

Multi-Modality Automatic Lung Tumor Segmentation Method Using Deep Learning And Radiomics, Siqiu Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Delineation of the tumor volume is the initial and fundamental step in the radiotherapy planning process. The current clinical practice of manual delineation is time-consuming and suffers from observer variability. This work seeks to develop an effective automatic framework to produce clinically usable lung tumor segmentations. First, to facilitate the development and validation of our methodology, an expansive database of planning CTs, diagnostic PETs, and manual tumor segmentations was curated, and an image registration and preprocessing pipeline was established. Then a deep learning neural network was constructed and optimized to utilize dual-modality PET and CT images for lung tumor segmentation. …

Direction Modulated Brachytherapy For The Treatment Of Cervical Cancer, Dylan Richeson

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: To evaluate and compare the performance of 9 experimental DMBT tandem models of varying physical dimensions in relation to 24 previously planned HDR cervical cancer treatment plans from multiple institutions that used conventional tandem and rings or ovoid applicators.

Methods and Materials: The DMBT tandem is designed to be used concurrently with IGABT and is made from an MRI-compatible tungsten-alloy rod with 6 channels grooved out of its periphery. 9 experimental DMBT tandem prototypes were provided. Each of the models was of equal lengths but varied in thickness, channel diameter size, and circle channel diameter size. Replanning …

Evaluating The Biological Activities Of Novel Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors (Hdaci) In Adherent And Nonadherent Tumor Cell Lines, Samer Alanani

Theses and Dissertations

Epigenetic dysregulations are linked to many human diseases including neurodegenerative disorders, immunodeficiencies, cardiac disease, and most notably cancer. Changes in the mechanisms of histone modifications have been recognized as hallmarks of carcinogenesis. One of these modifications is histone acetylation which is regulated by the activities of histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACs). The reversible actions of these enzymes govern the acetylome and maintain its balance allowing for activation and repression of gene transcription. However, aberrant overexpression of HDACs in certain tumors is associated with decreased levels of transcription leading to tumor progression and survival. Hence, small-molecule histone deacetylase inhibitors …

Mass Spectrometry Directed Pre-Clinical Studies Of Asthma Candidate Midd0301 And Its Analogs, Md Shadiqur Rashid Roni

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACTMASS SPECTROMETRY DIRECTED PRE-CLINICAL STUDIES OF ASTHMA CANDIDATE MIDD0301 AND ITS ANALOGS by Md Shadiqur Rashid Roni The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2021 Under the Supervision of Professor Alexander (Leggy) Arnold

Asthma is one of the most prevalent global health problems. More than 25 million Americans are suffering from asthma and their symptoms especially in children are not well controlled with current medications. The current therapeutic options to control symptoms are limited and are commonly based on inhaled corticosteroids. There are several reasons for uncontrolled asthma symptoms that includes steroid resistance, improper use of inhalers and very few orally available medications. …

Comparison Of Statistical Methods For Modeling Count Data With An Application To Length Of Hospital Stay, Gustavo A. Fernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Hospital length of stay (LOS) is a key indicator of hospital care management efficiency, cost of care, and hospital planning. Therefore, understanding hospital LOS variability is always an important healthcare focus. Hospital LOS data are count data, with discrete and nonnegative values, typically right-skewed, and often exhibiting excessive zeros. Numerous studies have been conducted to model hospital LOS to identify significant predictors contributing to its variability. Many researchers have used linear regression with or without logarithmic transformation of the outcome variable LOS, or logistic regression on a dichotomized LOS. These regression methods usually violate models’ assumptions and are subject …

Factors Influencing Intent To Take A Covid-19 Test In The United States, Sheila Rutto

Theses and Dissertations

In 2020, COVID-19 became the first pandemic in the world’s history that brought the entire world to an abrupt and unexpected halt. Since the first reported case of the disease to date, the novel coronavirus has been able to wreak havoc in literary every corner of the globe and left an ever-growing number of unprecedented fatalities. The normal way of life has been disrupted, and the level of uncertainty about the end of this pandemic continues to manifest to many. Due to the urgency to bring this pandemic under control, medical officers have been able to recommend actions that people …

A Statistical Comparison Of Covid-19 In The United States Across Political Affiliations And Census Regions, Margarito Torres

Theses and Dissertations

In mid-January 2020, the United States reported their first cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) from a passenger returning from Wuhan, China. Initially, the situation wasn’t very alarming as in China and European countries, but the situation began to worsen in March 2020 when the number of cases began to multiply. Then, in a matter of a few months, the United States became the number one country in terms of total cases and total deaths from COVID-19. We have been closely observing the United States and the world since July 2020. Our study aims to compare the political affiliations and …