Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Apolipoprotein E Mediates Attachment Of Clinical Hepatitis C Virus To Hepatocytes By Binding To Cell Surface Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycan Receptors, Jieyun Jiang, Xianfang Wu, Hengli Tang, Guangxiang Luo

Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics Faculty Publications

Our previous studies demonstrated that the cell culture-grown hepatitis C virus of genotype 2a (HCVcc) uses apolipoprotein E (apoE) to mediate its attachment to the surface of human hepatoma Huh-7.5 cells. ApoE mediates HCV attachment by binding to the cell surface heparan sulfate (HS) which is covalently attached to the core proteins of proteoglycans (HSPGs). In the present study, we further determined the physiological importance of apoE and HSPGs in the HCV attachment using a clinical HCV of genotype 1b (HCV1b) obtained from hepatitis C patients and human embryonic stem cell-differentiated hepatocyte-like cells (DHHs). DHHs were found to resemble primary …

Humanitarianism And The Anthropology Of Hunger, Kate Klein

Undergraduate Theses—Unrestricted

While the early view of hunger as the product of a world population too large to sustain has largely been eliminated, and the mainstream international community has come to accept that food insecurity results from issues of distribution rather than an insufficient global food supply, the emphasis on biotechnology in agriculture, humanitarianism in international aid, and social justice in international human rights law in the contemporary era has contributed to other barriers that prevent hunger alleviation.

In this thesis, I argue that these previous contemporary developments have had the capacity to hide hunger. My analysis of technology and humanitarian aid …

A Rural Tobacco Smoke Pollution Study, Kelly Buettner-Schmidt

Nursing ETDs

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the location of hospitality venues considering; rurality, presence of local ordinances, and socioeconomic status, influenced the quantity of tobacco smoke pollution in a predominantly rural state. The study built on current scientific literature in four aspects. First, it was the first U.S. statewide study on tobacco smoke pollution levels in hospitality venues. Second, it quantified indoor tobacco smoke pollution specifically in rural areas. Third, it used random sampling, a method rarely used in studying indoor tobacco smoke pollution. Fourth, it analyzed tobacco smoke exposure as a function of socioeconomic status. A …

Psychological Control, Parental Support, Adolescent Grades And School Engagement, David Brian Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

As we examined research on the effects of parental psychological control and support on adolescents, we noted that these variables have not been widely studied in relation to academic achievement. Using Flourishing Families data, we examined a subsample of females and males who reported parental psychological control and support as well as school engagement variables from adolescents, fathers and mothers. We also used observed variables of grade point average (GPA). Structural equation modeling was used to determine whether parental psychological control and support would negatively or positively relate with academic achievement outcomes of GPA and school engagement. Psychological control and …

Promoting Abstinence From Alcohol During Pregnancy: Implications From Formative Research, Kathryn France, Robert Donovan, Nadine Henley, Carol Bower, Elizabeth Elliott, Janet Payne, Heather D'Antoine, Anne Bartu

Research outputs 2013

This research developed messages to promote abstinence from alcohol during pregnancy and identified elements that enhance message persuasiveness. An exploratory phase was conducted in 2009 that comprised four focus groups with 23 women inWestern Australia and elicited beliefs and attitudes on alcohol use during pregnancy and motivations for behavior change. Four television concepts were subsequently developed and appraised in five focus groups with 31 participants using standard advertising pretesting questions. The implications for campaigns addressing prenatal alcohol exposure and further research are noted and limitations discussed. Funding was received from Healthway and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

Pediatric Oncology: Causes, Treatments, And The Role Of Integrated Medicine, Maria Furnari

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

Cancer is responsible for approximately 10%-12% of childhood deaths, and is second only to accidents as the leading cause of death in individuals over age 14 (Rape & Bush, 1994). There are various forms of cancer that can afflict a child and numerous ways to combat the disease. While it is important to fight the physical aspects of the disease to increase the child's chance of survival, it is also important to deal with the psychological issues that accompany pediatric oncology. Various psychological treatments are available to help a child endure the emotional and physical stresses associated with chemotherapy and …

What’S In A Username? Finding Local Health Departments On Twitter, Jenine K. Harris, Ryan C. Maier, Nina Jolani

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Social media platforms such as Twitter may be useful for local health departments (LHDs) in providing the essential service of educating and informing constituents.¹ However, health departments have relatively few Twitter followers overall.¹ One of the challenges that may be associated with following LHDs on Twitter is knowing how to find an LHD Twitter feed. With no suggested or required conventions for LHDs adopting social media, practitioners are left to independently develop their name and description, resulting in much variety. This report examines the names and descriptions for LHDs using Twitter and uses the Twitter people search function …

Best Practice Use To Address Tobacco-Related Disparities By California Community Coalitions, Rodney K. Mccurdy

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Tobacco-related disparities (TRDs) are a major public health concern. This study surveyed community tobacco coalition project directors in California to determine the usage of 11 CDC-published best practices to address TRDs. Response rate was 80 percent. Communities had implemented, on average, one-half of the 11 practices surveyed. Differences were observed between rankings for best practice implementation and perceived level of importance in addressing TRDs in the community. Resource constraints and community context were the highest reported barriers to best practice use. Study findings could assist tobacco program officials and local coalitions in addressing TRDs in their communities.

Risk Of Asthma Diagnosis Among Obese Children, Joshua C. Blair

Graduate Research Projects

No abstract provided.

Healthnet News V.28:No.2 Summer 2013, Judith S. Kronick, Alberta Richetelle

Articles - Patient Care

A newsletter for public librarians and others interested in consumer health information services.

The Transcriptomics To Proteomics Of Hair Cell Regeneration: Looking For A Hair Cell In A Haystack, Gopinath Rajadinakaran

UCHC Articles - Research

Mature mammals exhibit very limited capacity for regeneration of auditory hair cells, while all non-mammalian vertebrates examined can regenerate them. In an effort to find therapeutic targets for deafness and balance disorders, scientists have examined gene expression patterns in auditory tissues under different developmental and experimental conditions. Microarray technology has allowed the large-scale study of gene expression profiles (transcriptomics) at whole-genome levels, but since mRNA expression does not necessarily correlate with protein expression, other methods, such as microRNA analysis and proteomics, are needed to better understand the process of hair cell regeneration. These technologies and some of the results of …

Department Of Surgery Update, July 2013, Wright State University Department Of Surgery

Department of Surgery Updates

A two page newsletter created by the Department of Surgery documenting changes to the department. This issue contains a message from the chair, a list of important dates, committee meetings, scholarly activity and more.

Regulation Of Lung Injury And Fibrosis By P53-Mediated Changes In Urokinase And Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1, Yashodhar P. Bhandary, Shwetha K. Shetty, Amarnath S. Marudamuthu, Hong-Long Ji, Pierre Neuenschwander, Vijay Boggaram, Gilbert F. Morris, Jian Fu, Steven Idell, Sreerama Shetty

School of Medical and Biological Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Alveolar type II epithelial cell (ATII) apoptosis and proliferation of mesenchymal cells are the hallmarks of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a devastating disease of unknown cause characterized by alveolar epithelial injury and progressive fibrosis. We used a mouse model of bleomycin (BLM)-induced lung injury to understand the involvement of p53-mediated changes in urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) levels in the regulation of alveolar epithelial injury. We found marked induction of p53 in ATII cells from mice exposed to BLM. Transgenic mice expressing transcriptionally inactive dominant negative p53 in ATII cells showed augmented apoptosis, whereas those deficient in …

The Association Between A Medical History Of Depression And Gestational Diabetes In A Large Multi-Ethnic Cohort In The United States, Katherine Bowers, S. Katherine Laughon, Sungduk Kim, Sunni L. Mumford, Jennifer Brite, Michele Kiely, Cuilin Zhang

Publications and Research

Background: Both major depression and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are prevalent among women of reproductive age. Our objective was to determine whether a medical history of depression is related to subsequent development of GDM.

Methods: The Consortium on Safe Labor was a US retrospective cohort study of 228 562 births between 2002 and 2008. Exclusion criteria for the present analysis included multiple gestation pregnancies (n = 5059), pre-existing diabetes (n = 12 771), deliveries(n = 395), site GDM prevalence (

Results: The final analytic population included 121 260 women contributing 128 295 pregnancies, of which 5606 were affected by GDM. …

Factors Influencing Access To Healthcare Services, Melissa Delia

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Following several political upheavals, the country of Madagascar has become one of the poorest countries in the world. This level of poverty affects many aspects of life, especially access to healthcare services. The availability of both allopathic and traditional healthcare to the impoverished citizens of Madagascar was examined through discussions, interviews, and journal articles. It was found that although both the allopathic and traditional medicinal systems do not charge their patients for general consultations and care, there is a high cost for pharmaceutical medications in the allopathic system. These medications are sometimes too expensive for many Malagasy patients to afford. …

Approaches To Mental Illness In Madagascar: A Case For Reconciling Reason With Faith, Raisa Tikhtman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper expounds the shortcomings of the mental health provisions inherent in the current primary health care system in Madagascar in light of its limited accessibility to the Malagasy. Integrating traditional medicine with allopathic psychiatric care is proposed, with attention to prevailing Malagasy beliefs in spiritual possession as the basis for mental illness, in order to accommodate the discrepant worldviews espoused by physicians and their Malagasy patients that inhibit the efficacy of public mental health care. Through an integrated system based on the model piloted at the Clinique de Manongarivo in northwestern Madagascar, the financial, physical, and epistemological barriers that …

Integrated Health Care Systems: A Holistic Approach To Medicine, Tatiana Kaehler

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper examines how the strengths of both allopathic and traditional medical systems are harnessed in integrated health care systems – a system which “consciously targets and harnesses people’s links with biodiversity for health care reasons” (Quansah, personal communication, July 1, 2013). It uses examples of integrated health care in Madagascar to prove that integrated health care systems offers health care in an affordable and accessible manner, while also promoting cultural sustainability and conservation of biodiversity. By recognizing and establishing integrated health care systems throughout the world, global health disparities can be addressed and various health goals can be accomplished.

Poverty, Wealth, And How Traditional Medicine Would Benefit The United States, Becky Darin Goldberg

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper seeks to discover and address the various reasons as to how traditional medicine, “the sum total of knowledge, skills and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures that are used to maintain health, as well as to prevent, diagnose, improve or treat physical and mental illnesses” (WHO 2013), would benefit the U.S. Within the United States, health disparities from race and geographic location are worsening, and traditional medicine could be a viable way of reversing this. Madagascar and the U.S. face similar issues within allopathic medicine such as distance to a doctor and …

Fanta Fanafody: Malagasy Traditional Medicine In A Globalized World, Mary Buswell

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study investigates the relationship between traditional medicine and globalization in Madagascar. Information from interactions and interviews with both traditional and allopathic healers is used to study the current healthcare system and provide direction for the establishment of an Integrated Health Care System (IHCS). This study finds that traditional medicine and globalization have a closer and more reciprocal relationship than it would initially appear, and that traditional medicine is very adaptable to change. Because of this, it is proposed that globalization and technology could be tools to bring traditional and allopathic medicine together in an IHCS to resolve the health …

Role Of Environment And Sex Differences In The Development Of Autoimmune Diseases: A Roundtable Meeting Project, Monica P. Mallampalli, Erika Davies, Debra Wood, Hillary Robinson, Federica Polato, Christine L. Carter

Prevention and Community Health Faculty Publications

Autoimmune diseases (ADs) impose substantial health and financial burdens in the United States and in many parts of the world. Women are disproportionately affected by many of these disorders, which often contribute to lifelong disabilities. While the number of patients with some ADs appears to be rising, the complexities of conducting epidemiological studies prevent a thorough understanding of the prevalence and incidence of these various conditions. Research on environmental influences of these illnesses is limited, although they are generally hypothesized to result from the interaction of environmental agents in genetically susceptible individuals. Further, there is little known regarding the role …

Com Outlook Summer 2013, College Of Osteopathic Medicine

COM Outlook

No abstract provided.

Perspectives Summer-Fall 2013, College Of Health Care Sciences

Perspectives

No abstract provided.

Medical Education Digest, Vol. 15 No. 4 (July/August 2013), Nova Southeastern University

Medical Education Digest

No abstract provided.

Brittany Bernal - Sensorimotor Adaptation Of Vowel Production In Stop Consonant Contexts, Brittany A. Bernal

Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program 2013

The purpose of this research is to measure the compensatory and adaptive articulatory response to shifted formants in auditory feedback to compare the resulting amount of sensorimotor learning that takes place in speakers upon saying the words /pep/ and /tet/. These words were chosen in order to analyze the coarticulatory effects of voiceless consonants /p/ and /t/ on sensorimotor adaptation of the vowel /e/. The formant perturbations were done using the Audapt software, which takes an input speech sample and plays it back to the speaker in real-time via headphones. Formants are high-energy acoustic resonance patterns measured in hertz that …

Tamiah N. Mccoy - African American Women’S Birth Stories As Told To African American Women Interviewers, Tamiah N. Mccoy

Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program 2013

Background: A woman’s birth story allows each woman to tell her own perspectives about her experience of bringing a child into the world. As healthcare providers, it is always important to value listening to and learning from our clients. Researchers systematically analyzing birth stories can yield insights on ways to improve birthing experiences for women. This is especially important for African American women, who differentially encounter the most numerous health disparities of any racial group, with twice as much infant mortality than other groups.

Purpose: This study examined birth stories of African American women in order to gain insights from …

Maribel Gamon - Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis In India: Solving A Problem By Reconstructing The Public Health Infrastructure, Maribel Gamon

Ronald E. McNair Scholars Program 2013

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, commonly referred to as TB, is responsible for causing about 630,000 cases per year of infectious diseases worldwide. Recently, multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has become an alarming public health concern. In addition, many developing countries lack effective treatment programs. India is one of those countries with a high prevalence of TB, seemingly affected by disconnectedness in their public health infrastructure. India, although a developing country, is still burdened with both chronic and infectious diseases, and there is a reactive public health system that must place focus on long-term effects of emerging resistant strains of TB. It is important …

Exosomes Derived From Hiv-1-Infected Cells Contain Trans-Activation Response Element Rna., Aarthi Narayanan, Sergey Iordanskiy, Ravi Das, Rachel Van Duyne, Steven Santos, Elizabeth Jaworski, Irene Guendel, Gavin Sampey, Elizabeth Dalby, Maria Iglesias-Ussel, Anastas Popratiloff, Ramin Hakami, Kylene Kehn-Hall, Mary Young, Caroline Subra, Caroline Gilbert, Charles Bailey, Fabio Romerio, Fatah Kashanchi

Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine Faculty Publications

Exosomes are nano-sized vesicles produced by healthy and virus-infected cells. Exosomes derived from infected cells have been shown to contain viral microRNAs (miRNAs). HIV-1 encodes its own miRNAs that regulate viral and host gene expression. The most abundant HIV-1-derived miRNA, first reported by us and later by others using deep sequencing, is the trans-activation response element (TAR) miRNA. In this study, we demonstrate the presence of TAR RNA in exosomes from cell culture supernatants of HIV-1-infected cells and patient sera. TAR miRNA was not in Ago2 complexes outside the exosomes but enclosed within the exosomes. We detected the host miRNA …

Spatially Explicit Modeling Of Schistosomiasis Risk In Eastern China Based On A Synthesis Of Epidemiological, Environmental, And Intermediate Host Genetic Data, Matthias Schrader, Torsten Hauffe, Zhijie Zhang, George M. Davis, Fred Jopp, Justin V. Remais, Thomas Wilke

Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine Faculty Publications

Schistosomiasis japonica is a major parasitic disease threatening millions of people in China. Though overall prevalence was greatly reduced during the second half of the past century, continued persistence in some areas and cases of re-emergence in others remain major concerns. As many regions in China are approaching disease elimination, obtaining quantitative data on Schistosoma japonicum parasites is increasingly difficult. This study examines the distribution of schistosomiasis in eastern China, taking advantage of the fact that the single intermediate host serves as a major transmission bottleneck. Epidemiological, population-genetic and high-resolution ecological data are combined to construct a predictive model capable …

Racial Disparities In The Use Of Cardiac Revascularization: Does Local Hospital Capacity Matter?, Suhui Li, Arnold Chen, Katherine H. Mead

Health Policy and Management Faculty Publications

Objective: To assess the extent to which the observed racial disparities in cardiac revascularization use can be explained by the variation across counties where patients live, and how the within-county racial disparities is associated with the local hospital capacity.

Data Sources: Administrative data from Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4) between 1995 and 2006.

Study Design: The study sample included 207,570 Medicare patients admitted to hospital for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). We identified the use of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures within three months after the patient’s initial admission for AMI. Multi-level hierarchical …

Is Adrenalectomy Necessary During Unilateral Nephrectomy For Wilms Tumor? A Report From The Children's Oncology Group., Kathleen Kieran, James R Anderson, Jeffrey S Dome, Peter F Ehrlich, Michael L Ritchey, Robert C Shamberger, Elizabeth J Perlman, Daniel M Green, Andrew M Davidoff

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

PURPOSE: To determine whether performing adrenalectomy at the time of nephrectomy for unilateral Wilms tumor impacts clinical outcome.

METHODS: We reviewed information on all patients enrolled on National Wilms Tumor Study-4 and -5. Data were abstracted on patient demographics, tumor characteristics, surgical and pathologic status of the adrenal gland, and patient outcomes. The primary endpoints were intraoperative spill and five-year event-free survival (EFS) in patients who did or did not undergo adrenalectomy.

RESULTS: Of 3825 patients with complete evaluable data, the adrenal was left in situ in 2264 (57.9%) patients, and was removed completely in 1367 patients (36.7%) or partially …