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Journal Of The Arkansas Academy Of Science - Volume 73, 2019, Academy Editors

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Keynote Address And Meeting Program, Academy Editors

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Instructions To Authors, Academy Editors

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Mid-Atlantic Oil Spill Workshop: Are We Ready? A Regional Workshop As Part Of The National Academies And Sea Grant Collaborative Workshop Series, G. Walker, M. Covi

OES Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) In 2017, the Gulf Research Program (GRP) and the Health and Medical Division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a workshop to prepare for and respond to major marine oil spills. To address gaps identified at the workshop, GRP reached out to the Sea Grant Oil Spill Science Outreach Program to host a series of regional workshops. The Sea Grant Oil Spill team, based in the Gulf, partnered with state Sea Grant programs across the country to plan and deliver regional workshops in 2018-2019. The goals of the workshops were to raise awareness of …

Conformational Flexibility In The Enterovirus Rna Replication Platform, Meghan S. Warden, Kai Cai, Gabriel Cornilescu, Jordan E. Burke, Komala Ponniah, Samuel E. Butcher, Steven M. Pascal

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

A presumed RNA cloverleaf (5′CL), located at the 5′-most end of the noncoding region of the enterovirus genome, is the primary established site for initiation of genomic replication. Stem–loop B (SLB) and stem–loop D (SLD), the two largest stem–loops within the 5′CL, serve as recognition sites for protein interactions that are essential for replication. Here we present the solution structure of rhinovirus serotype 14 5′CL using a combination of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and small-angle X-ray scattering. In the absence of magnesium, the structure adopts an open, somewhat extended conformation. In the presence of magnesium, the structure compacts, bringing SLB …

Mental Imagery Practice As A Therapy For Naming Impairments: A Preliminary Study, Subhash Bhatnagar, Bridget Patek, Yasmeen Khan-Ansari, Naveen K. Bansal, Hugh Buckingham, Lotfi Hacein-Bey

Speech Pathology and Audiology Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Anomia remains one of the most recalcitrant linguistic disruptions in aphasia to treat. Developing successful interventions to address the word-finding deficits are complicated by the post-stroke symptom variability and inconsistent recovery patterns associated with anomia. Most of the current treatment methods, with a focus on specific compensating techniques and the repetitive practice of a limited set of items, have had variable success in naming treatment. However, it has not been possible to predict the gains in generalizing the learning beyond the stimuli used in practice or the controlled clinical setting. In this preliminary case study, we explore the value …

Natural Environment Associations With Mental Health And Obesity Status, Adam Edwin London

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Mental health and obesity were ranked among the health priorities of the 2014 and 2017 Community Health Needs Assessments in Kent County, Michigan. Exposure to nature is correlated to improved health outcomes across a variety of morbidities including poor mental health and obesity. This cross-sectional study set within the frameworks of attention restoration theory, environmental health, and pathways to health benefits from nature assessed county survey data including self-reported nature exposures/interactions separated into 3 domain areas: access to nature, attitudes about nature, and physical activity in nature or in nature-based activities. Binary logistic regression analyses of the 653 respondents found …

The Role Of Glucose Level On The Performance Of The Framingham Risk Score, Uohna June Thiessen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are responsible for more deaths than any other disease, continue to threaten the quality of life for many, and is a major burden to the health care system. The Framingham Heart Study (FHS) identified the major CVD risk factors that became essential to effective CVD screening strategies and the Framingham Risk Score (FRS), is used to assess CVD risk. Based on the concepts of the health behavior model and CVD as a cardiometabolic disorder, multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the association between fasting blood glucose (FBG) levels and a CHD event, and to determine …

A Geographic Study Of Lung And Bronchus Cancer Rates In Kentucky, Gabriel Njoh Dikong

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The average age-adjusted incidence and mortality rates of lung and bronchus cancer is 55% and 56% higher in Kentucky than the national averages in the United States, respectively. Populations with low income and educational attainment, and those who live close to the mining regions across Kentucky are more affected by the high prevalence and resulting mortality rates of lung and bronchus cancer. This study was conducted because of the high incidence of lung and bronchus cancer and resulting mortality rates in the state of Kentucky that may not be caused solely by social and demographic factors. The theoretical foundation for …

Improving Disaster Preparedness And Planning For Chronic Disease Populations, Gladys N. Gichomo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The significant rise of both chronic diseases and disasters in the last 20 years and the healthcare outcomes of individuals with chronic diseases during and in the aftermath of disasters have raised concerns among public health practitioners, healthcare providers, the U.S government, and the general public. Researchers have indicated that during disasters, the health outcomes of individuals with chronic diseases are significantly unfavorable compared to the general public. However, there is inadequate information on the management of chronic diseases, quality of care, and resource identification and allocation by disaster responders. This qualitative, grounded theory study, explored how the study participants …

Reducing Errors With Blood Administration Transfusion Systems, Kim D. Stevens

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The intention of implementing technology into healthcare practices is to reduce opportunity for errors in the delivery of providing health care. However, errors still occur, and many times are preventable. Configurations of health information technology systems should match clinical workflows to promote usage as intended. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate the impact of revised system configurations and use of a blood product transfusion system for the administration of blood products after one year of implementation. The method of heuristic evaluation is a usability engineering method for finding problems in a user interface design with the …

Successful Strategies For Implementing Health Information Technology In Primary Care Practice, Samuel O. Otoo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Health information technology (HIT) owner-practitioners who adopt effective strategies for HIT implementation can improve primary facility care delivery and profitability. However, some HIT owner-practitioners have ineffective implementation strategies, so they have not realized the total revenue increases of more than 8%. Grounded in general systems theory, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore successful strategies primary care practitioners (PCPs) use to implement HIT to improve primary facility care delivery and profitability. The participants included 6 owner-practitioners located in Queens County, NY, who successfully implemented HIT to improve facility care delivery and profitability. Data were collected through face-to-face …

Understanding Diabetes Through Pathway Analysis Evaluation, London Cavaletto

Research Opportunities for Engineering Undergraduates (ROEU) Program 2018-19

Metabolic disorders affect many people and identifying significantly perturbed biological processes in a metabolic disease can provide valuable insight into the disease’s mechanisms. Evaluating the proposed Metabolic Pathway Analysis Method (RAMP) will enable us to reliably use it to identify significantly perturbed metabolic pathways that could help identify disease mechanisms and potential therapy targets or disease bio-markers of a metabolic disorder.

Assessment Of Two Behavioural Models (Hbm And Ranas) For Predicting Health Behaviours In Response To Environmental Threats: Surface Water Flooding As A Source Of Groundwater Contamination And Subsequent Waterborne Infection In The Republic Of Ireland, L. Andrade, K. O'Malley, Paul Hynds, E. O'Neill, J. O'Dwyer

Articles

Extreme weather events (EWEs) are increasing in frequency, posing a greater risk of adverse human health effects. As such, developing sociological and psychological based interventions is paramount to empowering individuals and communities to actively protect their own health. Accordingly, this study compared the efficacy of two established social-cognitive models, namely the Health Beliefs Model (HBM) and Risks-Attitudes-Norms-Abilities-Self-regulation (RANAS) framework, in predicting health behaviours following EWEs. Surface water flooding was used as the exemplar EWE in the current study, due to the increasing incidence of these events in the Republic of Ireland over the past decade. Levels of prior experience with …

Nuclear Frames In The Irish Media: Implications For Conversations On Nuclear Power Generation In The Age Of Climate Change, Catherine Devitt, Finbarr Brereton, Simon Mooney, David Conway, Eoin O'Neill

Articles

Keeping within the temperature limits set by the Paris Agreement on climate action will be a significant challenge. Nuclear power generation may contribute to achieving these targets, however, there are significant environmental, economic and health risks attached. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, this paper explores how nuclear power generation is framed in the Irish print media, and discusses the implications of these frames for how nuclear power is perceived within the context of climate change mitigation in Ireland. Two Irish broadsheet papers, the Irish Times and the Irish Independent were selected for data collection, focusing on Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents. …

Current Source Density Approaches Improve Spatial Resolution In Event Related Potential Analysis In People With Parkinson's Disease, Conor Fearon, John Butler, Saskia M. Waechter, Isabelle Killane, Richard B. Reilly, Timothy Lynch

Articles

No abstract provided.

Multivariate Statistical Methodologies Used In In-Vitro Raman Spectroscopy: Simulations And Applications For Drug And Nanoparticle Interactions, Mark Edward Keating

Doctoral

Raman spectroscopy is a growing technology in the fields of in-vitro drug and nanoparticle screening. The label free capability provided by vibrational spectroscopy, as well as the ability of the technique to probe the chemical nature of samples, makes it a good candidate for use in these fields. Crucial to the progress of these methods is the development and validation of robust and accurate multivariate statistical analysis protocols. In this thesis, both established and novel methods are examined using both real and simulated datasets. In particular, simulated datasets are used to validate and assess the accuracy of these methods in …

Usability Challenges With Insulin Pump Devices In Diabetes Care: What Trainers Observe With First-Time Pump Users, Helen Birkmann Hernandez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Insulin pumps are designed for the self-management of diabetes mellitus in patients and are known for their complexity of use. Pump manufacturers engage trainers to teach patients how to use the devices correctly to control the symptoms of their disease. Usability research related to insulin pumps and other infusion pumps with first-time users as participants has centered on the relationship between user interface design and the effectiveness of task completion. According to prior research, the characteristics of system behavior in a real life environment remain elusive. A suitable approach to acquire information about potential usability problems encountered by first-time users …

The Effect Of Maternal Dietary Habits During Pregnancy On Neonate Leptin Methylation Patterns And Gestational Age, Sean Fitzpatrick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The health of a newborn baby is inextricably linked to the health status of its mother and in turn the mother’s diet during pregnancy. Leptin (LEP) is an adipokine hormone involved in metabolism regulation and has been linked fetal development through the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA). Prior work suggests that gestational epigenetic alterations the LEP gene may be sensitive to adverse exposures during pregnancy, which in turn could explain variation in neonate outcomes. However, no prior work has examined this possibility explicitly. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between dietary patterns of mothers during pregnancy and their …

Depression, Sensation-Seeking Behavior And Violence As Mediators Of The Association Between Childhood Adversity And Substance Use Disorder, Calvin Wong

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Background:

Evaluating The Impacts Of Antidepressant Use On The Risk Of Dementia, Ran Duan

Theses and Dissertations--Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Dementia is a clinical syndrome caused by neurodegeneration or cerebrovascular injury. Patients with dementia suffer from deterioration in memory, thinking, behavior and the ability to perform everyday activities. Since there are no cures or disease-modifying therapies for dementia, there is much interest in identifying modifiable risk factors that may help prevent or slow the progression of cognitive decline. Medications are a common focus of this type of research.

Importantly, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 19.1% of the population aged 60 and over report taking antidepressants during 2011-2014, and this number tends to …

Drug Repositioning Based On Bounded Nuclear Norm Regularization, Mengyun Yang, Huimin Lao, Yaohang Li, Jianxin Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Motivation: Computational drug repositioning is a cost-effective strategy to identify novel indications for existing drugs. Drug repositioning is often modeled as a recommendation system problem. Taking advantage of the known drug–disease associations, the objective of the recommendation system is to identify new treatments by filling out the unknown entries in the drug–disease association matrix, which is known as matrix completion. Underpinned by the fact that common molecular pathways contribute to many different diseases, the recommendation system assumes that the underlying latent factors determining drug–disease associations are highly correlated. In other words, the drug–disease matrix to be completed is low-rank. Accordingly, …

High Frequency Percussive Ventilation For Tumor Motion Immobilization, Ina Marina Sala

Wayne State University Dissertations

This work investigates the use of High Frequency Percussive Ventilation as a technique for respiratory motion mitigation in radiotherapy. This technique was extensively investigated in several prospective and retrospective studies.

In an initial prospective study, we evaluated the feasibility of HFPV and chest-wall motion reduction, by recruiting 15 healthy volunteers to undergo HFPV with three commercially available interfaces. For direct tumor motion immobilization, a second prospective study was performed in which with ten lung cancer patients underwent HFPV while imaged with high frame rate fluoroscopy. Diaphragm motion and image artifacts were quantified in a prospective study of a healthy volunteer …

Utilizing Log Files For Treatment Planning And Delivery Qa In Radiotherapy, Carl W. Stanhope

Wayne State University Theses

Purpose: Monte Carlo-based log file quality assurance (LF-MC QA) is investigated as an alternative method to phantom-based patient-specific quality assurance in radiotherapy (e.g. ArcCHECK QA (AC QA)).

Methods: First, the shortcomings of AC QA were investigated. The sensitivity dependence of ArcCHECK diodes on dose rate (in-field) and energy (primarily out-of-field) was quantified. LF-MC QA was then analyzed on the phantom geometry. Planned (‘Plan’) and LF-reconstructed CS and MC doses were compared with each other and AC measurement via statistical (mean ± StdDev(σ)) and gamma analyses to isolate dosimetric uncertainties and quantify the relative accuracies of AC QA and LF-MC QA. …

Functionality Of Membrane Proteins Overexpressed And Purified From E. Coli Is Highly Dependent Upon The Strain, Khadija Mathieu, Waqas Javed, Sylvain Vallet, Christian Lesterlin, Marie-Pierre Candusso, Feng Ding, Xiaohong Nancy Xu, Christine Ebel, Jean-Michel Jault, Cédric Orelle

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Overexpression of correctly folded membrane proteins is a fundamental prerequisite for functional and structural studies. One of the most commonly used expression systems for the production of membrane proteins is Escherichia coli. While misfolded proteins typically aggregate and form inclusions bodies, membrane proteins that are addressed to the membrane and extractable by detergents are generally assumed to be properly folded. Accordingly, GFP fusion strategy is often used as a fluorescent proxy to monitor their expression and folding quality. Here we investigated the functionality of two different multidrug ABC transporters, the homodimer BmrA from Bacillus subtilis and the heterodimer PatA/PatB …

New Types Of Neutrosophic Set/Logic/Probability, Neutrosophic Over-/ Under-/ Off Set, Neutrosophic Refined Set, And Their Extension To Plithogenic Set/Logic/Probability, With Applications, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This international collective massive book, edited by Florentin Smarandache, has 716 pages, and represents the special issue on neutrosophic environment at SYMMETRY international journal (Scopus, Web of Science, IF: 2.143). The book contains 37 published papers, by 73 authors and coauthors, from 13 countries from around the world, in alphabetical order: China, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Romania, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, and United States of America.

How To Balance Intuitive And Analytical Functions Of Brain: A Neutrosophic Way Of Scientific Discovery Process, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto, Robert Neil Boyd

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Initially this article stems from our discussion on math and mysticism, inspired by an article by Ralph Abraham. But it becomes a discussion on the role of intuition and inspiration in scientific discovery process. Hopefully this article will help anyone who aspires to be good scientists or engineers.

Wireless Technologies (4g, 5g) Are Very Harmful To Human Health And Environment: A Preliminary Review, Victor Christianto, Robert N. Boyd, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The intent of this article is to show that wireless technology is, without remedy other than termination, one of the most devastating environmental and health threats and threats to personal liberty ever created. It is becoming widely known that 4G and 5G technologies cause many harms to human health. Cancer is only one problem, and one that is easily solved. 4G and 5G cause 720! (factorial) different maladies in human beings, and can kill everything that lives but some forms of micro organisms. Some pathogens and certain parasites are made more virulent by selected frequencies of RF. Insects and birds …

Sparsity Promoting Regularization For Effective Noise Suppression In Spect Image Reconstruction, Wei Zheng, Si Li, Andrzej Krol, C. Ross Schmidtlein, Xueying Zeng, Yuesheng Xu

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

The purpose of this research is to develop an advanced reconstruction method for low-count, hence high-noise, Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) image reconstruction. It consists of a novel reconstruction model to suppress noise while conducting reconstruction and an efficient algorithm to solve the model. A novel regularizer is introduced as the nonconvex denoising term based on the approximate sparsity of the image under a geometric tight frame transform domain. The deblurring term is based on the negative log-likelihood of the SPECT data model. To solve the resulting nonconvex optimization problem a Preconditioned Fixed-point Proximity Algorithm (PFPA) is introduced. We prove …

Improving Access To Clean Water In Rural Ecuador: The Connection Between Willingness To Pay And Population Health, Micalea Leaska

Capstone Collection

Climate change is affecting social and environmental determinants of health through access to safe drinking water, safely managed sanitation systems, and access to health care services and the ability for individuals to break free from unsuitable circumstances. Ecological disturbances such as those caused by climate change can cause a shift in host vectors or a change in habitat that results in a greater likelihood of the pathogen coming in contact with humans. Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services and their accessibility to populations can directly impact a community’s vulnerability to diseases and limiting factors to increase economic growth. If rural …