Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Impact Of Virtual Reality On The Healthcare Industry, Peter Sullivan

Honors Projects in Information Systems and Analytics

Virtual reality (VR) took off in 2013 and has touched many public sectors, from gaming, to business, to healthcare. This study looks at virtual reality's impact has affected the healthcare system, with a focus on its use for medical training, patient recovery, patient pain management, and mental health care. A literature review was conducted on the current state of the industry addressing virtual reality's performance in the field, the perception of experts, and an estimation of financial undertakings. Looking at cost analyses brought a fuller approach to the research. Surveying researchers and workers within the realm of healthcare and VR …

From Deep Mutational Mapping Of Allosteric Protein Landscapes To Deep Learning Of Allostery And Hidden Allosteric Sites: Zooming In On “Allosteric Intersection” Of Biochemical And Big Data Approaches, Gennady M. Verkhivker, Mohammed Alshahrani, Grace Gupta, Sian Xiao, Peng Tao

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have driven the design of new expert systems and automated workflows that are able to model complex chemical and biological phenomena. In recent years, machine learning approaches have been developed and actively deployed to facilitate computational and experimental studies of protein dynamics and allosteric mechanisms. In this review, we discuss in detail new developments along two major directions of allosteric research through the lens of data-intensive biochemical approaches and AI-based computational methods. Despite considerable progress in applications of AI methods for protein structure and dynamics studies, the intersection between allosteric …

Hipaa Vs. Medical Research: Improving Patient Care Through Integration Of Data Privacy And Data Access, Katherine D'Ordine

Honors Projects in Data Science

The purpose of this research is to understand the current relationship between data access and data privacy in the health care industry and attempt to find a way that important health care research can still be conducted amidst HIPAA regulations. There is a lack of extensive research on the impacts of data privacy on health care research due to access regulations, so a survey was created regarding current data processes and recommendations for creating a healthier relationship between privacy and access for research. It was distributed to anyone in health care, analytics, or research to get a variety of perspectives. …

A Pharmacoepidemiological Study Of Myocarditis And Pericarditis Following The First Dose Of Mrna Covid-19 Vaccine In Europe, Joana Tome, Logan Cowan, Isaac Fung

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

This study assessed the myocarditis and pericarditis reporting rate of the first dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in Europe. Myocarditis and pericarditis data pertinent to mRNA COVID19 vaccines (1 January 2021–11 February 2022) from EudraVigilance database were combined with European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)’s vaccination tracker data. The reporting rate was expressed as events (occurring within 28 days of the first dose) per 1 million individuals vaccinated. An observed-to-expected (OE) analysis quantified excess risk for myocarditis or pericarditis following the first mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. The reporting rate of myocarditis per 1 million individuals vaccinated was 17.27 (95% …

The Santa Clara, 2023-04-21, Santa Clara University

The Santa Clara

No abstract provided.

Open Data Indicates That Collegedale Could Be A Bluezone, Tristan Deschamps, Alva Johnson

Campus Research Month

A blue zone is an indicator of exceptional health in a community. Adventists have a blue zone community in Loma Linda, but there has been little research into other Adventist populated areas that could be blue zones. Therefore, our goal is to show that open data suggests that a blue zone may exist near Southern Adventist University, specifically in Collegedale. This data has been gathered from different federal sources, including, the CDC, the US Census Bureau, the Tennessee Department of Health, official state records, and federal documents that are available to the public.

Interactive Dashboard Of Diabetes In The Us, Marc Butler

Campus Research Month

The contribution of this research project is the construction and interactive dashboard in order to facilitate the visualization of diabetes-related data to the public

Slide Preparation For Dna Attachment For Use In Optical Tweezers, Dylan J. Kirkeby, Karissa Carlson, Emily Grace, Eric Jones

Celebration of Research

Our research team, ISLAND CURE, is a multidisciplinary team of professors and undergraduate students with the goal to design and build instruments to make biological measurements on a limited budget. One of the apparatuses we are designing, is optical tweezers, which are a Nobel Prize-winning technology capable of trapping microscopic and sub-microscopic particles using a laser beam. Using a 1064 nm beam, we will trap a single strand of DNA using beads and this will enable us to exert minute forces upon the DNA. This experiment will give us a better understanding of the forces on damaged DNA; specifically, the …

Enhancement Of Deep Learning Protein Structure Prediction, Ruoming Shen

Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Student Capstone Conference

Protein modeling is a rapidly expanding field with valuable applications in the pharmaceutical industry. Accurate protein structure prediction facilitates drug design, as extensive knowledge about the atomic structure of a given protein enables scientists to target that protein in the human body. However, protein structure identification in certain types of protein images remains challenging, with medium resolution cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) protein density maps particularly difficult to analyze. Recent advancements in computational methods, namely deep learning, have improved protein modeling. To maximize its accuracy, a deep learning model requires copious amounts of up-to-date training data.

This project explores DeepSSETracer, a …

Review Of Nighttime Temperature Effects On Long-Term Health Condition Through Sleep Studies, Sydnie Matkins

Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Student Capstone Conference

Over the past 40 years, there has been increasing interest in human sleep quality and duration. This nonsystematic review looked at over 80 peer-reviewed papers on the association among sleep, temperature, and long-term health conditions. Generally, warmer temperatures lend to poorer sleep quality, and poor sleep quality lend to mental illness and a higher risk of coronary heart disease and mortality. Future research should be to conduct a study that relies more on health records rather than questionnaires to accurately map current and future health quality.

Computational Design And Molecular Modeling Of Morphine Derivatives For Preferential Binding In Inflamed Tissue, Makena Augenstein, Nayiri Alexander, Matthew Gartner

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

The opioid epidemic has impacted over 10 million Americans in 2019. Opioids, like morphine, bind non-selectively in both peripheral tissue, leading to effective pain relief, and central tissue, resulting in dangerous side effects and addiction. The inflamed conditions of injured tissues have a lower pH (pH = 6–6.5) environment than healthy tissue (pH = 7.4). We aim to design a morphine derivative that binds selectively within inflamed tissue using molecular extension and dissection techniques. Morphine binds to the μ-opioid receptor (MOR) when the biochemically active amine group is protonated. Fluorination of a β-carbon from the tertiary amine group led to …

Learning In A Virtual Environment To Improve Type 2 Diabetes Outcomes: Randomized Controlled Trial, Constance M Johnson, Gail D'Eramo Melkus, Louise Reagan, Wei Pan, Sathya Amarasekara, Katherine Pereira, Nancy Hassell, Sarah Nowlin, Allison Vorderstrasse

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Given the importance of self-management in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a major aspect of health is providing diabetes self-management education and support. Known barriers include access, availability, and the lack of follow through on referral to education programs. Virtual education and support have increased in use over the last few years.

Objective: The purpose of the Diabetes Learning in a Virtual Environment (LIVE) study was to compare the effects of the LIVE intervention (educational 3D world) to a diabetes self-management education and support control website on diet and physical activity behaviors and behavioral and metabolic outcomes in adults …

From Policy Promotion To Research Output: Brief Analysis Of Technical Challenges Of Hospital-Led Artificial Intelligence Research, Yu Zhuang, Cheng Zhou

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

In recent years, artificial intelligence has become a key direction of medical and health-related research and a hot spot of international competition. In order to investigate the current situation and challenges in hospital-led artificial intelligence researched, this study selects 14 national pilot hospitals to promote the high-quality development of public hospitals as samples, adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, analyzes the research articles related to artificial intelligence published by the sample hospitals in recent years, and analyzes the technical challenges in the hospital-led artificial intelligence research. The results show that although the number of hospital-led artificial intelligence research …

The Role Of Machine Learning In Improved Functionality Of Lower Limb Prostheses, Joaquin Dominguez, Richard Kim, Robert Slater

SMU Data Science Review

Lower-limb amputations can cause a plethora of obstacles that lead to a lower quality of life. Implementing machine learning techniques means advanced prosthetics can contribute to facilitating the lives of those that live with lower-limb amputations. Using the publicly available HuGaDB data set, the current study investigates several classification models (random forest, neural network, and Vowpal Wabbit) to predict the locomotive intentions of individuals using lower-limb prostheses. The results of this study show that the neural network model yielded the highest accuracy, comparable precision, and recall scores to the other models. However, the Vowpal Wabbit model's advantage in speed may …

A Multi-Site Randomized Trial Of A Clinical Decision Support Intervention To Improve Problem List Completeness, Adam Wright, Richard Schreiber, David W Bates, Skye Aaron, Angela Ai, Raja Arul Cholan, Akshay Desai, Miguel Divo, David A Dorr, Thu-Trang Hickman, Salman Hussain, Shari Just, Brian Koh, Stuart Lipsitz, Dustin Mcevoy, Trent Rosenbloom, Elise Russo, David Yut-Chee Ting, Asli Weitkamp, Dean F Sittig

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVE: To improve problem list documentation and care quality.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We developed algorithms to infer clinical problems a patient has that are not recorded on the coded problem list using structured data in the electronic health record (EHR) for 12 clinically significant heart, lung, and blood diseases. We also developed a clinical decision support (CDS) intervention which suggests adding missing problems to the problem list. We evaluated the intervention at 4 diverse healthcare systems using 3 different EHRs in a randomized trial using 3 predetermined outcome measures: alert acceptance, problem addition, and National Committee for Quality Assurance Healthcare …

Volume 14, Ireland Seagle, Dalton C. Whitby, Cassandra Poole, Rachel Cannon, Heidi Parker-Combes, Devon G. Shifflett, Antonio Harvey

Incite: The Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Dr. Amorette Barber
• From the Editor: Dr. Larissa "Kat" Tracy
• From the Designers: Rachel English, Rachel Hanson
• Hungry Like the Wolf: The Wolf as Metaphor in Paramount Network’s Yellowstone: Ireland Seagle
• “Floating Cities”: Illustrating the Commercial and Conservation Conflict of Alaskan Cruise Ship Tourism: Dalton C. Whitby
• What Can You Do When Your Genes are the Enemy? Current Applications of Gene Manipulation and the Associated Ethical Considerations: Cassandra Poole
• La doble cara: un tema romántico en las obras de Larra y Hawthorne: Rachel Cannon
• Resolving a Conflict: How to …

The Compound Risk Of Heat And Covid-19 In New York City: Riskscapes, Physical And Social Factors, And Interventions, Janelle Knox-Hayes, Juan Camilo Osorio, Natasha Stamler, Maria Dombrov, Rose Winer, Mary Hannah Smith, Reginald Blake, Cynthia Rosenzweig

Publications and Research

Climate change is disrupting the fundamental conditions of human life and exacerbating existing inequity by placing further burdens on communities that are already vulnerable. Risk exposure varies by where people live and work. In this article, we examine the spatial overlap of the compound risks of COVID-19 and extreme heat in New York City. We assess the relationship between socio-demographic and natural, built and social environmental characteristics, and the spatial correspondence of COVID-19 daily case rates across three pandemic waves. We use these data to create a compound risk index combining heat, COVID-19, density and social vulnerability. Our findings demonstrate …

Knowledge, Attitude, And Behavioral Intention About Oral Cancer Among Public Health Students In Southeast Georgia, Ravneet Kaur, Gulzar H. Shah

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: Oral cancer (OC) is a significant public health problem; however, the degree to which the future public health workforce is aware of this issue is not well researched. The purpose of this study is to explore the level of knowledge, attitudes, and behavioral intentions about OC among public health students.
Materials and Methods: A sequential exploratory mixed-method research design was employed for this study. Using quantitative and qualitative measures, a survey was administered to 129 public health students. Subsequently, to understand the quantitative findings, two follow-up focus groups were conducted with survey participants.
Results: We found …

The Potential Regulation Of A-To-I Rna Editing On Genes In Parkinson's Disease, Sijia Wu, Qiuping Xue, Xinyu Qin, Xiaoming Wu, Pora Kim, Jacqueline Chyr, Xiaobo Zhou, Liyu Huang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by dopaminergic neurodegeneration and an abnormal accumulation of α-synuclein aggregates. A number of genetic factors have been shown to increase the risk of PD. Exploring the underlying molecular mechanisms that mediate PD's transcriptomic diversity can help us understand neurodegenerative pathogenesis. In this study, we identified 9897 A-to-I RNA editing events associated with 6286 genes across 372 PD patients. Of them, 72 RNA editing events altered miRNA binding sites and this may directly affect miRNA regulations of their host genes. However, RNA editing effects on the miRNA regulation of genes are more complex. They can (1) …

Volume 9 Full Text, Bjur Staff

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Air Temperature And Diet Are Not Associated With Oxygen Consumption Rate In Banded Crickets, Gryllodes Sigillatus, Nicole Bailey, Connor Oakes, Rachel Sleeth, Mallorie Smith

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

All living organisms acclimate to their environments, with ectothermic species particularly susceptible to environmental change, specifically temperature. Ectothermic insects like crickets directly alter their physiological processes depending on the environment in which they live. Temperature is vital in regulating processes such as metabolism, respiration, and reproduction, among other things. What remains unclear is how a change in the environment, specifically extreme temperature change and dietary alterations, affects physiological processes. In this study, we performed experiments on ectothermic banded crickets to examine the effects of temperature change and the interaction of temperature and diet on oxygen consumption. For both experiments, we …

Effects Of Anthropogenic Noise On Body Mass In Gryllodes Sigillatus, Jessica L. Venturi, Joyce Zheng

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Insects use vibrational structures to produce and sense airborne sounds in intraspecific communication. These signals are important in courtship as well as defensive behavior against predators. For example, insects can detect the presence of nearby predators using vibrations. With an increase in anthropogenic activity, processing these signals and the constant threat they represent may increase stress on insects, subsequently affecting their behavior and physiology. Our experiment was designed to determine whether anthropogenic noise, possibly perceived as a stressor, will decrease the body mass of banded crickets, Gryllodes sigillatus. We predicted that the anthropogenic noise would stress the crickets, leading to …

Truth, Not Accuracy: Native American Fiction Vs. White Settler Colonialism, Charles Democker

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

For centuries, depictions of Native American culture have largely been constructed by White authors and have thus reflected white settler colonialist ideology. This paper suggests that one way to counter this point of view when studying Native American history is to turn to fiction, specifically fiction written by Indigenous authors. Taking as an example Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich’s Plague of Doves, a novel based on the real-life massacre of a frontier family in the late nineteenth century, this paper argues that the creative fiction of Indigenous authors can counter the biased, incomplete, and often incorrect official histories of White–Native interactions. …

Bad Boy Bias: Linguistic Bias In The Law, Parth Sharma

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper seeks to establish and put in use methodology capable of analyzing the significant linguistic bias found within American jurisprudence. It summarizes the limited preexisting empirical work done and adds a new original empirical study on linguistic bias in the courtroom. It examines a large number of cases through various software and examines the prevalence of certain labels (badges of bias). In doing so, this paper seeks to find the most common labels and seeks to determine the amount of emotional variability present within the courtroom. Based on these results, the paper provides recommendations, answering how best to efficiently …

Higher Education Students’ Perceptions Of Online Learning During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Abby O’Bryant

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This article focuses on the impacts of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic on students at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Using survey data (n = 64) and semistructured interviews with currently enrolled students (n = 17), key impacts of online learning on the student body were analyzed. The respondents reported disengagement in lectures, negative impacts on their mental and physical health, negative thoughts about dropping out and transferring, apprehension about the quality of course content, and dissatisfaction with tuition. The paper utilizes qualitative data analysis to report the findings.

The Physics Research Problem: A Brief Analysis Of Financial And Administrative Factors Relating To Recent Trends In Research Output In Physics In India, Varad Dhodapkar

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper attempts to view and interpret data from various sources such as the World Bank database, research and development (R&D) reports by the Indian government, Nature Index, Scopus index, and others to examine the effect that the various government financial initiatives and administrative features and policies concerning funding of institutions of higher attainment have had on India’s research output in the field of physics. In addition to this, the inconsistent standards of funding across various institutes of higher education, investment in R&D activities made by other nations in comparison to India, the share of physics research output of various …

Survival Of Deaf Jewish People During The Holocaust Era, Phyllis D. Rifkin

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This project uses academic and personal research to explore the experiences of Deaf Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The author is a member of the Deaf community and a Deaf Interpreter, as well as the daughter of a Deaf Jewish Holocaust survivor. She examines the construction of Deafness in the eugenics era and chronicles the stories of Deaf Jewish survivors. A recurring theme in these narratives is Deaf survivors’ strategic use of silence to facilitate survival.

Almost 30 Years Later: Anti-Femicide Activism In Mexico From 1993 To 2022, Kathryn Webb

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

What factors have influenced the strategies of the anti-femicide social movement, and what has this movement accomplished after continuously advocating for almost 30 years? Analyzing news articles, scholarly journals, books on social movements, and Twitter accounts, I argue that the inaction of the government was a root cause of the movement’s change in strategies, from peaceful petitions to highly visible vandalism, and that institutional barriers prevent progress on this issue even in the current day. I demonstrate that transnational activism through international institutions such as the United Nations had a limited impact on effecting domestic change but that using social …

Work-Life And Health Experiences Of Computer Science Faculty Parents Of Children With Developmental Disabilities During Covid-19, Molly Armstrong

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents of children with developmental disabilities (PCDD) had been shown to experience more stress than parents of children without developmental disabilities (non-PCDD). COVID-19 may have exacerbated difficulties for PCDD. To compare differences in COVID-19 experiences between PCDD and non-PCDD, 202 parents working as computer science (CS) faculty reported their experiences of mental health symptoms, physical health symptoms, work-life conflict levels as experienced during the pandemic, and any changes in their childcare responsibilities because of COVID-19. Participants completed surveys on their experiences during Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, the first academic year after the start of …

Agency Actualization And Artistic Awakening: The Poetic Rhetoric Of Freedom School Students, Eden Doyle

Butler Journal of Undergraduate Research

This paper analyzes the rhetoric of poems written by Freedom School students in Mississippi amidst the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Much of the rhetoric documented, explored, and valued from this era is of adults with the power and means to have their voices heard and respected; however, this paper argues the value of these students’ unique Black experience as one that is underexplored and greatly compelling. The social and political context surrounding the inception of Freedom Schools is discussed, as well as the need for further research and scholarship on the intellectual activity and rhetorical artifacts of the …