Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Desolation, Kiara Adelina Hernandez Padron

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Desolation was made in mind with my late aunt's mental illness, schizophrenia. Though I don't know what it's like having it, listening to her in the past and others about her hardships made me think about her mindset constantly throughout her whole life. This sculpture was made by digitally mapping out the composition, cutting out individual pieces of wood with each layer representing the depth of the many heads of emptiness.

Knyaw/Karen Womanhood, Generational Healing And The Interplay Of Faith, Genocide, Gender Roles, And Education In The Face Of Health Diagnosis, Moo Law Eh Soe

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

During the fall semester of 2023, my honors project aimed to provide representation and shed light on the challenges Knyaw/Karen women encounter as part of their womanhood in traditional and Western communities. The issues are emphasized when these women receive life-altering health diagnosis that not only alters their identities but also requires them to step beyond the invisible parameters of what it means to be a Knyaw/Karen woman. It's worth noting that all the women I interviewed were immigrants from the Thai-Burma Border refugee Camps where Indigenous Knyaw people have been facing at least 70 years of genocide. The project …

Comparison Of Marker-Based And Marker-Less Motion Capture On Kinematic Outcomes; Comparison Of Lower Limb 3d Kinematic Outcomes Between Markerless And Marker-Based Systems During Overground Walking In Children With Cerebral Palsy (Cp) (Irb:8022-21-Ep), Jutharat Poomulna

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The Gait Deviation Index (GDI) serves as a summary measure to evaluate gait pathology in children with cerebral palsy (CP), with a score ≥ 100 denoting typical gait and each 10-point difference representing one standard deviation from the mean. While marker-based (MB) motion capture, the gold standard for 3D gait analysis, has limitations for widespread clinical use, leading to the exploration of video-based markerless motion capture, specifically Theia3D. Theia3D has been validated for accuracy and reliability in healthy adults; however, its clinical applicability is limited. This study aims to compare the impact of different motion capture systems on GDI scores …

Idiopathic And Neuromuscular Scoliosis In A Female College Basketball Player Requiring Spinal Correction Surgery, Magan Kim

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The purpose of this report is to present the case of a 20-year-old female collegiate basketball player who was diagnosed with a combination of idiopathic and neuromuscular scoliosis. Patient underwent thoracic spinal fusion surgery when she was 15 to resolve her extreme scoliosis. The uniqueness of this case stems from the athlete’s urgency to have to undergo a life-altering spine operation and still be able to successfully contribute to a collegiate basketball team. Athletic trainers should be knowledgeable and aware of how to maintain treatment/rehabilitation for athletes with scoliosis, operative or non-operative. Scoliosis should no longer be a reason to …

Effect Of Three-Month Use Of Assistive Shoes On Gait In Patients With Peripheral Artery Disease, Jonathan Kirkland

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Effect of Three-Month Use of Assistive Shoes on Gait in Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease

Materials And Methods Developed For The Recording And Analysis Of Behavior In The Common Marmoset (Callithrix Jacchus)., Christian Wintle

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Materials and methods developed for the recording and analysis of behavior in the common marmoset (Callithrix jacchus).

Christian J. Wintle^a, Jordan B. Hernandez^a,b,c, Dobromir Dotov^d, and Jonathan B. Clayton^a,b,e,f,g

^aDepartment of Biology, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

^bNebraska Food for Health Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA

^cDepartment of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Anatomy, University of Nebraska Medical Center, NE, USA

^dDepartment of Biomechanics, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA

^eDepartment of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, …

Posteriormedial Ankle Impingement In A Male Division I Ice Hockey Player: A Case Report, Bethany Thompson

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The purpose of this case report is to present the case of a 21 year old male Division I collegiate hockey player’s injury during their season, resulting in posteriormedial ankle impingement of the deep posterior tibiotalar ligament, osteochondral lesion of the talus, and tenosynovitis of the tibialis posterior. The patient’s injury did not require surgery; however, they did complete a rehabilitation plan with a physical therapist and receive a cortisone injection. The patient had a positive outcome due to the athletic trainer sending the patient for immediate diagnostic imaging after initial consultation. The patient was able to continue participation in …

Acute Simultaneous Medial And Lateral Ankle Sprain In A Collegiate Football Player: A Case Report, Ian Matlack

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The purpose of this case report is to present a twenty-year-old African American male with a complex ankle injury. During a collegiate football game, the athlete injured his left ankle, damaging his deltoid ligament complex, and lateral ankle complex, causing several bone bruises and tearing his peroneal retinaculum. With surgery being declined, standard rehabilitation protocols of POLICE for initial management of inflammation, strengthening, and ROM exercises were conducted. Manual therapies consisting of milking massage, scraping, and joint mobilizations were added to aid in pain and edema control. Comparative case studies suggest that the athlete may have experienced a subluxation of …

Subacute To Chronic Subdural Hematoma In An 18-Year-Old Male Football Player, Peyton Bodemann

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The purpose of the report is to present the case of a high school football player who survived two brain surgeries to treat a subacute subdural hematoma that turned chronic (cSDH). This case proves to be unique due to the lack of mechanism, the age of the patient, the complications from surgery, and the recovery.^9,12,16 The patient underwent an MMA (middle meningeal artery) embolization to treat the subacute hematoma, followed by a double burr hole craniotomy with drainage of chronic subdural hematoma. It is important for athletic trainers along with other members of the health care system to work …

Accelerometry-Based Analysis Of Postural Sway In Parkinson's Disease Patients With Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia, Chandler Brock

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, with patient numbers projected to double to 12 million in the next 20 years. Levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID) is a major problem associated with the long-term use of levodopa for symptomatic treatment of PD. These involuntary movements can become disabling and may interfere with quality of life. Our prior research showed that PD w/ LID were less stable while standing (i.e., increased postural sway) and had a higher incidence of falls. The aim of this study is to determine if postural sway properties are altered by LID via decomposing the sway signal. We …

Role Of Oral Microbiota In Cancer Development, Vanessa Gunderson

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

More individuals die from oral cancer every year than from melanoma, cervical cancer, and ovarian cancer in the United States. Further, the 5-year survival rate for oral cancer has remained stagnant for over forty years, which is almost unseen across any other form of cancer. This fact exposes that there is a major need to push for research, prevention, and education on oral cancer. To investigate this, a literature review was performed that looked at eight research studies and data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This review revealed that without proper oral hygiene and care, one’s oral bacterial …

Developing A Bacterial Panel For The Evaluation Of Novel Anti-Infective Compounds, Clare Euteneuer

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Antibiotic resistance is one of the leading causes of concern for the world health community. Drugs used to stop various infections for years are now becoming easier for bacteria to resist due to mutations and plasmids conferring resistance. To combat this problem, new drug can help alleviate this concern. We developed an assay that allows us to screen novel drug-like compounds against bacteria in an effort to identify promising new anti-infective compounds. Our assay was designed using known drugs against a panel of gram positive and negative bacilli and cocci including S. epidermidis, P. mirabilis, N. mucosa, and E. …

Healthcare Facilities: Maintaining Accessibility While Implementing Security, Ryan Vilter

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

In the wake of the Tulsa, Oklahoma hospital shooting in the summer of 2022, it was made clear that more security needed to be implemented in healthcare facilities. As a result, I inquired: What is the happy balance for healthcare facilities to maintain their accessibility to the public while also implementing security measures to prevent terrorist attacks? With that base, I give recommendations in the areas of cybersecurity, physical infrastructure, and physical and mental health, based off the existing literature and data gathered from terrorist attacks against hospitals over several decades.

The Effects Of Demographics And Risk Factors On The Morphological Characteristics Of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Majid Jadidi, Alexey Kamenskiy

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Background: Disease of the lower extremity arteries (Peripheral Arterial Disease, PAD) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. During disease development, the arteries adapt by changing their diameter, wall thickness, and residual deformations, but the effects of demographics and risk factors on this process are not clear.

Methods: Superficial femoral arteries from 736 subjects (505 male, 231 female, 12 to 99 years old, average age 51±17.8 years) and the associated demographic and risk factor variables were used to construct machine learning (ML) regression models that predicted morphological characteristics (diameter, wall thickness, and longitudinal opening angle resulting from the …

Impact Of Sex On Macrovascular Endothelial Function During Prolonged Sitting With A Mild Hypercapnic Environemnt, Andres Benitez-Albiter, Michael Allen, Elizabeth J. Pekas, Cody P. Anderson, Song-Young Park

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

IMPACT OF SEX ON MACROVASCULAR ENDOTHELIAL FUNCTION DURING PROLONGED SITTING WITH A MILD HYPERCAPNIC ENVIORNMENT

Andres Benitez-Albiter¹, Michael F. Allen¹, Elizabeth J. Pekas¹, Cody P. Anderson¹, and Song-Young Park¹

1 - School of Health & Kinesiology University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE

Introduction: Prolonged sitting (PS), defined as sitting for 2+ hours at a time[SYP1] , has been identified as an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It has been well-documented that an acute PS bout can impair macro- and microvascular dysfunction in healthy young individuals. Recently, we reported that …

Impact Of Passive Leg Movement On Lower Limb Vascular Function In Patients With A Spinal Cord Injury, Christian D. Sanchez Tato, Elizabeth J. Pekas, Michael F. Allen, Cody P. Anderson, Song-Young Park

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Background: Individuals with spinal cord injuries (SCI) are at a greater risk for developing cardiovascular diseases. Of note, post injury mediated increases in physical inactivity leads to muscle atrophy, which also results in vascular dysfunction in this population. Although a growing body of evidence suggests that passive leg movement (PLM) may be a useful exercise modality to improve peripheral blood flow and skeletal muscle activation in individuals with limited mobility, few studies have examined the impact of PLM on local skeletal muscle blood flow. Therefore, there is a need to examine the impact of PLM on lower limb vascular function …

Effect Of Dual Tasking And Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesia On Postural Sway In People With Parkinson's Disease, Joseph Ayotunde Aderonmu, Carolin Curtze

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that results in motor impairments such as gait and balance deficits. Levodopa is one of the most effective drugs in treating the slowness of movement in individuals with PD. However, the long-term use of levodopa in treating PD often causes undesirable involuntary and uncontrollable movements, known as levodopa-induced dyskinesia (LID). LID is a known cause of increased postural sway. Yet, the relative contribution of the body segments often affected by dyskinesia to postural sway is unknown. We aimed to investigate the contribution of different body segments to postural sway in PD for individuals …

Optimization Of The Musculoskeletal Simulation In Estimation Of Metabolic Cost, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi, Philippe Malcolm

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Energy from food is supplied to the human body in the form of chemical energy in the muscles. This metabolic energy expenditure is one of the main determinants of the way we walk, and indirect calorimetry measurements are an essential tool for understanding how increases in metabolic cost restrict the mobility of clinical populations. Respiratory oxygen consumption measurements allow recording of the average metabolic cost of walking. However, the time required for these measurements prevents assessing metabolic rate in patients who cannot walk long enough. Musculoskeletal modeling techniques allow to estimate average muscle energy expenditure during locomotion in conjunction with …

How Can Actuation Timing And Magnitude Of A Bilateral Semi-Rigid Hip Exoskeleton Optimize Metabolic Cost, Arash Mohammadzadeh Gonabadi, Prokopios Antonellis, Sara Myers, Iraklis Pipinos, Philippe Malcolm

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Semi-rigid exoskeletons could combine some advantages of rigid and soft approaches. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of timing and magnitude of assistance from a semi-rigid hip exoskeleton. For ten participants, we tested ten conditions that were combinations of 5 different end-timings, ranging from 21% to 49%, and 2 different moment magnitudes ranging from 0.06 to 0.12 Nm.kg^-1. The participants walked in two reference conditions: a condition without actuation and a condition without the exoskeleton. A semi-rigid hip exoskeleton could alter metabolic rate. However, to produce a net assistive effect, it is necessary to …

Perishing Personhood, Alaina Mann

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Many people think that art and science do not overlap, especially in an educational sense. As someone who is both a biology and studio art major, I wanted to explore this mentality. This past semester I dived into a project to prove just how much these subjects can work together to expand our understanding of how art can be used for research purposes in a medical setting. With support from my Life Drawing professor, I was able to create multiple drawings from life and from photographs centered around my grandmother's Alzheimer’s Disease during my frequent visits to her nursing home. …

Design And Development Of Software With A Graphical User Interface To Display And Convert Multiple Microscopic Histology Images, Sayed Ahmadreza Razian, Majid Jadidi, Alexey Kamenskiy

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Histological images are widely used to assess the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Recent advancements in image analysis allow the identification of structural features on histological sections that can help advance medical device development, brain and cancer research, drug discovery, vascular mechanobiology, and many other fields. Histological slide scanners create images in SVS and TIFF formats that were designed to archive image blocks and high-resolution textual information. Because these formats were primarily intended for storage, they are often not compatible with conventional image analysis software and require conversion before they can be used in research. We have developed a user-friendly …

Team Coordination Dynamics Of Winning Nba Teams, Alli Grunkemeyer, Joel H. Sommerfeld

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Predicting sports games outcomes is an endless pursuit shared by stakeholders ranging from fans to coaches to data scientists. We have begun investigating the value of positional data recorded during basketball gameplay with the goal of predicting outcomes from team dynamics as they emerge. We approached this problem by analyzing the “shape” of team movements on the court and investigated whether team dynamics in NBA games mimicked long-range correlated patterns observed in other team contexts. We analyzed 622 NBA games from an archival data set, including all area time series obtained for each of the four quarters. We fit a …

Considerations For Implementing An Ankle Foot Orthosis To Improve Mobility In Peripheral Artery Disease, Ayisha Bashir, Sara A. Myers, Danae Dinkel, Iraklis Pipinos

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

An ankle- foot orthosis (AFO) can contribute to push-off during walking by storing energy from heel strike in the rigid strut and subsequently returning force during push-off. Peripheral artery disease (PAD), a manifestation of systemic atherosclerosis, blocks the arteries supplying blood to the legs and causes muscle pain and weakness, which leads to difficulty walking. Wearing an AFO can help patients with PAD walk better. In our study, subjects decided whether to adopt or not adopt the AFO. Our goal is to assess early AFO intervention withdrawal (wAFO) and AFO intervention completion (cAFO). Participants (n=21) were recruited and consented to …

Ankle–Foot Orthosis Alters Biomechanics Of Lower Extremities During Walking, Farahnaz Fallah Tafti, Iraklis Pipinos, Jason Johanning, Hafizur Rahman, Mahdi Hassan, Sara Myers

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Lower extremity peripheral artery disease (PAD) is a cardiovascular condition caused by narrowed or blocked arteries supplying blood to the legs. Leg pain and myopathy significantly impair gait from the first step. Using AFO may assist the gait and prolong the distance patients with PAD can walk. This study aimed to investigate the effect of AFO on the gait biomechanics of patients with PAD. Fourteen Participants walked over the force platforms with and without an AFO and kinetics and kinematics were combined to quantify torques and powers of the hip, knee, and ankle joints. Our data demonstrate that use of …

Breaks In Longitudinal Elastic Fibers Of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries, Elham Zamani

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Breaks in Longitudinal Elastic Fibers of Human Femoropopliteal Arteries

Elham Zamani1, Majid Jadidi1

1 Department of Biomechanics, University of Nebraska Omaha, Omaha, NE

Introduction: Elastin is a major protein in the body with half-life >50 years. It is thought that elastic fibers are formed before the postnatal period. In the femoropopliteal artery (FPA), the main artery in the leg, longitudinal elastic fibers are present in External Elastic Lamina (EEL). Our team has studied more than 1000 cadaveric human FPA and has noticed that there are big breaks in their longitudinal elastic fibers in some subjects. Our goal in this work …

Analyzing Thoracic Spine And Hip Mobility And The Effects On Kinematics In The Golf Swing And Its Relation To Injury And Performance, Michael Servais

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Analyzing Thoracic Spine and Hip Mobility and the Effects on Kinematics in the Golf Swing and its Relation to Injury and Performance

Abstract

Low back pain (LBP) and low back injury have been found to be the most common symptom and injury sustained while playing golf (McHardy et al., 2006). Previous research has sought to determine precursors to injury by investigating physical limitations including hip internal rotation deficits. This study aims to build upon previous research by measuring joint mobility and forces placed on the lower back during the golf swing. Specifically, it evaluates active range of motion of both …

Ingredient Classification Using Food Ontology, Ricky Flores

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

A food label provides some of the most crucial information for a food product. The food label is a key resource for many health-conscious consumers for understanding ingredients. It is also vital for individuals to avoid food allergens or help patients follow dietary recommendations. While the food labels in the United States are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) many labels contain additional information or statements that are not regulated. Moreover, the food label may be complex or contain terminology that the layperson may not understand. Evidence has indicated that consumers often find nutrition labels confusing, especially when …

Implementation And Evaluation Of A Baseball Pitching Program And Its Impact On Injury Prevention And Performance, Tyler Hamer

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The purpose of this study sought to examine the efficacy of biomechanical evaluations on collegiate baseball pitchers. Through this, we seek to develop a model for identifying at-risk athletes through a longitudinal assessment of pitching mechanics spanning pre-season to post-season along with in-season tracking of pathomechanics.

Impact Of Acute Exercise On Micrornas Related To Concussion Symptoms, Emily Work

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Impact of acute exercise on microRNAs related to concussion symptoms

Concussions, or traumatic brain injury (TBI), are a serious medical problem affecting approximately 1.7 million people in the United States each year. Current tools for analysis of concussion include the Glasgow Coma Scale, SCAT5, computerized topography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), however, these tools are typically not indicative of the range and severity of symptoms a patient may experience. Recent studies have explored the use of microRNAs as a biomarker for TBI severity in patients who have already experienced a TBI. We seek to investigate the microRNA levels in …

Remotely Controlled Enzyme Behavior Using Localized Thermal Gradients, Sarah Brown

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

No existing model describes an identified special case of enzyme behavior when directly stimulated with thermal energy via an RF field.

The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Nano-medicine and biotechnology are the future of medical diagnostics and treatment. The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Direct heating of an enzyme vs bulk heating changes the enzyme activity.

I tested how direct transfer of thermal energy changes rates of enzyme reactions. We created samples of enzymes, attached to ferrous (magnetic) nano-particles, and …