Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Normal Breast Tissues Harbour Rare Populations Of Aneuploid Epithelial Cells, Yiyun Lin, Junke Wang, Kaile Wang, Shanshan Bai, Aatish Thennavan, Runmin Wei, Yun Yan, Jianzhuo Li, Heba Elgamal, Emi Sei, Anna Casasent, Mitchell Rao, Chenling Tang, Asha S Multani, Jin Ma, Jessica Montalvan, Chandandeep Nagi, Sebastian Winocour, Bora Lim, Alastair Thompson, Nicholas Navin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Aneuploid epithelial cells are common in breast cancer

Wirelessly Actuated Microfluidic Pump And Valve For Controlled Liquid Delivery In Dental Implants, Yilan Xu, Honglu Lin, Boyang Xiao, Hutomo Tanoto, Joel Berinstein, Alend Khoshnaw, Simon Young, Yuxiao Zhou, Xiaoguang Dong

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Enabling minimally invasive and precise control of liquid release in dental implants is crucial for therapeutic functions such as delivering antibiotics to prevent biofilm formation, infusing stem cells to promote osseointegration, and administering other biomedicines. However, achieving controllable liquid cargo release in dental implants remains challenging due to the lack of wireless and miniaturized fluidic control mechanisms. Here wireless miniature pumps and valves that allow remote activation of liquid cargo delivery in dental implants, actuated and controlled by external magnetic fields (< 65 mT), are reported. A magnet-screw mechanism in a fluidic channel to function as a piston pump, alongside a flexible magnetic valve designed to open and close the fluidic channel, is proposed. The mechanisms are showcased by storing and releasing of liquid up to 52 µL in a dental implant. The liquid cargos are delivered directly to the implant-bone interface, a region traditionally difficult to access. On-demand liquid delivery is further showed by a metal implant inside both dental phantoms and porcine jawbones. The mechanisms are promising for controllable liquid release after implant placement with minimal invasion, paving the way for implantable devices that enable long-term and targeted delivery of therapeutic agents in various bioengineering applications.

Engineering Immunity: Bacterial Delivery Of Cancer Neoantigen Vaccines, Christopher D Johnston, Jennifer A Wargo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In the battle against cancer, researchers are exploring the use of engineered bacteria as living medicines. Redenti and colleagues demonstrate that Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 (EcN) can be engineered to deliver cancer neoantigen payloads, stimulating antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and mediating antitumor immunity in preclinical models of colorectal cancer and melanoma.

Neurocognitive Functioning Of Patients With Sinonasal And Nasopharyngeal Cancers Treated With Multimodality Therapy, Dan Yaniv, Lindsay M Niccolai, Jeffrey S Wefel, Catherine M Sullaway, Jack Phan, Clifton David Fuller, Kareem B Haroun, Ehab Y Hanna, Shirley Y Su

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Importance Few recent studies have examined neurocognitive functioning (NCF) in patients with sinonasal and nasopharyngeal cancers (NPCs) prior to and following multimodality therapy or the potential differences in NCF by disease variables such as disease site.

Objective The objective of this study is to determine rates of NCF impairments prior to and following multimodality therapy, declines in NCF following radiotherapy (RT), and possible differences in NCF by the disease site.

Design, Setting, and Participants We conducted a retrospective chart review of 39 patients with sinonasal and NPCs who underwent comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations. Twenty patients were evaluated prior to RT, of …

Modelling Tinnitus Functional Index Reduction Using Supervised Machine Learning Algorithms, Edmund F. Agyemang

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This study aims to model the reduction in the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI) utilizing supervised machine learning algorithms, focusing primarily on Ordinary Least Squares (OLS), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Ridge, and Lasso regressions. Our analysis highlighted Group, ISI, and SWLS as significant predictors of TFI reduction, identified through the best subset selection and confirmed by both forward and backward selection criteria in the OLS regression. Notably, the shrinkage methods, Ridge and Lasso regressions, demonstrated superior performance compared to OLS and KNN, with the Ridge regression presenting the smallest test mean square error (MSE) of 318.30. This finding establishes the Ridge regression …

Healthcare Disparities, Screening, And Molecular Testing In The Changing Landscape Of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer In The United States: A Review, Razelle Kurzrock, Aadel A Chaudhuri, David Feller-Kopman, Narjust Florez, Jed Gorden, Ignacio I Wistuba

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Inequitable access to care continues to hinder improvements in diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. This review describes healthcare disparities in the changing landscape of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the United States, focusing on racial, ethnic, sex-based, and socioeconomic trends. Furthermore, strategies to address disparities, overcome challenges, and improve patient outcomes are proposed. Barriers exist across lung cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment regimens, varying by sex, age, race and ethnicity, geography, and socioeconomic status. Incidence and mortality rates of lung cancer are higher among Black men than White men, and incidences in young women are substantially greater than …

Pain Interference Prior To And 1 Year After Surgery For Adult Traumatic Brachial Plexus Injury, Christopher J Dy, David M Brogan, Bryan J Loeffler, Steve K Lee, Harvey Chim, Mihir J Desai, Sami H Tuffaha, Yusha Liu, Planet Study Group

2020-Current year OA Pubs

PURPOSE: Pain after brachial plexus injury (BPI) can be severely debilitating and is poorly understood. We hypothesized that pain interference (PI) ("the extent to which pain hinders engagement in life") would be predicted by depression, anxiety, severity of pain symptoms, and poorer preoperative muscle function.

METHODS: Among patients in a prospective multicenter BPI cohort study, 37 completed Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) PI questionnaires before and 1 year after surgery. At both times, participants completed anxiety and depression questionnaires and BPI-specific measures of pain symptoms, physical limitations, and emotional recovery. Surgeon-graded muscle testing, injury severity, age at the time …

From A Timeline Contact Graph To Close Contact Tracing And Infection Diffusion Intervention, Yipeng Zhang, Zhifeng Bao, Yuchen Li, Baihua Zheng, Xiaoli Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper proposes a novel graph structure to address the problems of information spreading in a real-world, frequently updating graph, with two main contributions at hand: accurately tracing infection diffusion according to fine-grained user movements and finding vulnerable vertices under the virus immunization scenario to mitigate infection diffusion. Unlike previous work that primarily predicts the long-term epidemic trend at the census level, this study aims to intervene in the short-term at the individual level. Therefore, two downstream tasks are formulated to illustrate practicalities: Epidemic Mitigating in Public Area problem (EMA) and Epidemic Maximized Spread in Public Area problem (ESA), where …

Vitamin D In Patients With Low Tumor-Burden Indolent Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Treated With Rituximab Therapy (Ilyad): A Randomized, Phase 3 Clinical Trial, Jonathan W Friedberg, Michael T Brady, Myla Strawderman, Brad S Kahl, Izidore S Lossos, Jonathon B Cohen, Patrick M Reagan, Carla Casulo, Barbara L Averill, Andrea Baran, Grerk Sutamtewagul, Paul M Barr, John P Leonard, John M Ashton, John G Strang, Francisco Vega, Derick R Peterson, Loretta J Nastoupil

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: There is a significant association between low vitamin D levels at diagnosis of indolent B-cell lymphomas and inferior overall survival (OS). To determine whether supplemental vitamin D improves event-free survival (EFS) in these patients, we conducted a comparative double-blind study of vitamin D3 vs. placebo.

Methods: In this phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, patients with low tumor burden follicular, marginal zone or small lymphocytic lymphoma, age 18 or older, with stage two or greater disease and no prior systemic treatment were enrolled at 7 academic cancer centers. Patients were stratified by histology and FLIPI (Follicular Lymphoma International Prognostic …

Antiangiogenic Therapy Combined With Immune Checkpoint Blockade In Urothelial Cancer: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Mohammad Jad Moussa, Iuliia Kovalenko, Emanuele Crupi, Ekaterina Proskuriakova, Yimin Geng, Giuseppe Fallara, Raed Benkhadra, Daniele Raggi, Matthew T Campbell, Pavlos Msaouel, Omar Alhalabi

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Antiangiogenic therapy had been tested in urothelial cancer (UC) without reaching the clinic.

Objective: We provide a systematic review and meta-analysis of trials to assess efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) combined with antiangiogenic agents in UC.

Methods: Following PRISMA guidelines, we searched for trials with at least one arm of patients with UC treated with ICI plus antiangiogenics. Data were analyzed with the "meta" package from R using a one-staged frequentist meta-analysis.

Results: After screening 13,708 titles and abstracts, 9 studies were selected for analysis with 14 identified cohorts comprising 621 patients: 448 were ICI-naïve (ICI-N) and 173 …

Early-Stage Extranodal Nk/T-Cell Lymphoma, Nasal Type: A Role For Elective Nodal Irradiation?, Penny Fang, Sonal S Noticewala, Susan Y Wu, Jillian R Gunther, Ethan B Ludmir, L Jeffrey Medeiros, Paolo Strati, Ranjit Nair, Chijioke Nze, Loretta J Nastoupil, Sairah Ahmed, Luis Malpica Castillo, Luis Fayad, Jason Westin, Sattva Neelapu, Christopher Flowers, Auris Huen, Swaminathan P Iyer, Bouthaina Dabaja, Chelsea C Pinnix

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: Extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTCL) is rare in the Western Hemisphere and is commonly treated with combined modality therapy (CMT).

Methods and materials: We retrospectively reviewed 35 patients treated with Ann Arbor stage I/II ENKTCL between 1994 and 2015 at a large academic cancer center in the United States.

Results: With 11.6 years median follow-up, median overall survival and progression-free survival were 13.5 and 7.5 years, respectively. Eighteen (51%) patients experienced disease relapse, with 5 regional nodal relapses, of which 2 experienced combined regional and distant relapses. All 5 regional nodal relapses occurred exclusively among patients not treated with elective …

Low Intensity Mechanical Signals Promote Proliferation In A Cell-Specific Manner: Tailoring A Non-Drug Strategy To Enhance Biomanufacturing Yields, M Ete Chan, Christopher Ashdown, Lia Strait, Sishir Pasumarthy, Abdullah Hassan, Steven Crimarco, Chanpreet Singh, Vihitaben S Patel, Gabriel Pagnotti, Omor Khan, Gunes Uzer, Clinton T Rubin

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Biomanufacturing relies on living cells to produce biotechnology-based therapeutics, tissue engineering constructs, vaccines, and a vast range of agricultural and industrial products. With the escalating demand for these bio-based products, any process that could improve yields and shorten outcome timelines by accelerating cell proliferation would have a significant impact across the discipline. While these goals are primarily achieved using biological or chemical strategies, harnessing cell mechanosensitivity represents a promising - albeit less studied - physical pathway to promote bioprocessing endpoints, yet identifying which mechanical parameters influence cell activities has remained elusive. We tested the hypothesis that mechanical signals, delivered non-invasively …

Constructing Phylogenetic Trees For Microbiome Data Analysis: A Mini-Review, Ruitao Liu, Xi Qiao, Yushu Shi, Christine B Peterson, William S Bush, Fabio Cominelli, Ming Wang, Liangliang Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

As next-generation sequencing technologies advance rapidly and the cost of metagenomic sequencing continues to decrease, researchers now face an unprecedented volume of microbiome data. This surge has stimulated the development of scalable microbiome data analysis methods and necessitated the incorporation of phylogenetic information into microbiome analysis for improved accuracy. Tools for constructing phylogenetic trees from 16S rRNA sequencing data are well-established, as the highly conserved regions of the 16S gene are limited, simplifying the identification of marker genes. In contrast, metagenomic and whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequencing involve sequencing from random fragments of the entire gene, making identification of consistent …

Healthcare Disparities, Screening, And Molecular Testing In The Changing Landscape Of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer In The United States: A Review, Razelle Kurzrock, Aadel A Chaudhuri, David Feller-Kopman, Narjust Florez, Jed Gorden, Ignacio I Wistuba

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Inequitable access to care continues to hinder improvements in diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. This review describes healthcare disparities in the changing landscape of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the United States, focusing on racial, ethnic, sex-based, and socioeconomic trends. Furthermore, strategies to address disparities, overcome challenges, and improve patient outcomes are proposed. Barriers exist across lung cancer screening, diagnosis, and treatment regimens, varying by sex, age, race and ethnicity, geography, and socioeconomic status. Incidence and mortality rates of lung cancer are higher among Black men than White men, and incidences in young women are substantially greater than …

Artificial Intelligence Uncertainty Quantification In Radiotherapy Applications – A Scoping Review, Kareem A Wahid, Zaphanlene Y Kaffey, David P Farris, Laia Humbert-Vidan, Amy C Moreno, Mathis Rasmussen, Jintao Ren, Mohamed A Naser, Tucker J Netherton, Stine Korreman, Guha Balakrishnan, Clifton D Fuller, David Fuentes, Michael J Dohopolski

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background/purpose: The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in radiotherapy (RT) is expanding rapidly. However, there exists a notable lack of clinician trust in AI models, underscoring the need for effective uncertainty quantification (UQ) methods. The purpose of this study was to scope existing literature related to UQ in RT, identify areas of improvement, and determine future directions.

Methods: We followed the PRISMA-ScR scoping review reporting guidelines. We utilized the population (human cancer patients), concept (utilization of AI UQ), context (radiotherapy applications) framework to structure our search and screening process. We conducted a systematic search spanning seven databases, supplemented by manual …

A Confounding Pediatric Spinal Cord Injury: Anterior, Central, Or Both?, Mara Martinez-Santori, Anthony Kennedy, Autumn Atkinson, Stuart Fraser, Simra Javaid

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Pediatric spinal cord injury (SCI) most commonly affects the cervical region. Central cord syndrome most often occurs in the lower cervical injury due to hyperextension injury, while anterior cord syndrome is primarily due to vascular infarction after hyperextension injury. An unusual case of a pediatric patient who physically presented with central cord syndrome but radiologically had evidence of anterior spinal artery syndrome is described.A two-year-old male presented after a fall from three feet with flaccid upper extremities and dysesthesias but maintained functional strength in bilateral lower extremities. Although his clinical presentation was that of central cord syndrome, he was found …

Aging-Associated Mechanisms Of Atrial Fibrillation Progression And Their Therapeutic Potential, Shuai Zhao, Aaron M Johnston, Chi Him Kendrick Yiu, Lucia M Moreira, Svetlana Reilly, Xander H T Wehrens

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia, with a particularly high prevalence in the elderly. As the global aging population rapidly expands, it is increasingly important to examine how alterations to the aging heart contribute to an increased AF susceptibility. This work critically reviews the key molecular mechanisms that may underpin the complex association between aging and AF. Moreover, we identify emerging novel opportunities for therapeutic intervention that may be able to prevent and/or improve the current treatment paradigms for age-related AF. This review contributes to a holistic understanding of the intricate relationship between aging and AF.

Improved Robustness For Deep Learning-Based Segmentation Of Multi-Center Myocardial Perfusion Cardiovascular Mri Datasets Using Data-Adaptive Uncertainty-Guided Space-Time Analysis., Dilek M Yalcinkaya, Khalid Youssef, Bobak Heydari, Janet Wei, C Noel Bairey Merz, Robert Judd, Rohan Dharmakumar, Orlando P Simonetti, Jonathan W Weinsaft, Subha V Raman, Behzad Sharif

Heart and Vascular Articles

BACKGROUND: Fully automatic analysis of myocardial perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging datasets enables rapid and objective reporting of stress/rest studies in patients with suspected ischemic heart disease. Developing deep learning techniques that can analyze multi-center datasets despite limited training data and variations in software (pulse sequence) and hardware (scanner vendor) is an ongoing challenge.

METHODS: Datasets from three medical centers acquired at 3T (n = 150 subjects; 21,150 first-pass images) were included: an internal dataset (inD; n = 95) and two external datasets (exDs; n = 55) used for evaluating the robustness of the trained deep neural network (DNN) models …

Relative Muscular Effort In The Older Adults During The Sit-To-Stand Task: Monitoring Neuromuscular Reserve And Movement Limitations, Nayun Ahn, Michael H. Haischer, Cara L. Lewis, Kristof Kipp

Exercise Science Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Due to lower maximum strength, older adults purportedly need to exert greater muscular effort to stand up from a chair. This study investigated joint-specific muscular effort during a sit-to-stand by calculating relative-muscular-effort and investigating differences between healthy older and young adults.

Methods

Fifteen older (age: 69.9 ± 3.5 years) and 15 young (age: 22.2 ± 2.6 years) adults performed five self-paced sit-to-stand trials. Kinematic and kinetic data were collected and used to calculate inverse dynamics net joint moment. Peak isometric knee and hip extensor torques were measured and used as inputs to regression models that predicted angle- and velocity-dependent …

Advocating For The Role Of An Occupational Therapy Assistant In The Mental Health Field, Aleah Snell

Honors Theses

As a student in the WMU OTA Bachelor's of Science program, I completed a baccalaureate project. I chose to advocate for the role of occupational therapy in traditional mental health settings. I chose this topic as I have had several close loved ones struggle with mental health, and I wanted to push my learning of occupational therapy's role in this setting further. Upon choosing my topic, I learned although occupational therapy initially started in mental health aiding veterans returning from war, only 2-3% of OT practitioners work in a mental health setting today. I wanted to understand this decline, and …

Mesoporous Silica Administration As A New Strategy In The Management Of Warfarin Toxicity: An In-Vitro And In-Vivo Study, Fatemeh Farjadian, Fatemeh Parsi, Reza Heidari, Khatereh Zarkesh, Hamid Reza Mohammadi, Soliman Mohammadi-Samani, Lobat Tayebi

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose:

Warfarin is one of the most widely used anticoagulants that functions by inhibiting vitamin K epoxide reductase. Warfarin overdose, whether intentional or unintentional, can cause life-threatening bleeding. Here, we present a novel warfarin adsorbent based on mesoporous silica that could serve as an antidote to warfarin toxicity.

Methods:

Amino-functionalized mesoporous silica (MS-NH2) was synthesized based on the co-condensation method through a soft template technique followed by template removal. The prepared structure and functional group were studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) checked the morphology. The …

Ectopic Dental Canal: A Case Report Highlighting A Unique Bifid Mandibular Canal Variant, Kevin W. Yu, Manal Hamdan, Stephanie J. Sidow

School of Dentistry Faculty Research and Publications

Bifid mandibular canals are common anatomical findings with variations based on direction and location of branching, which carry significant clinical implications for endodontic and surgical dental procedures. This case report describes a previously unreported ectopic dental canal that branches off the superior border of the mandibular canal, enters the apex of a mandibular second molar, traverses through the root, anastomoses with the root canal system, and subsequently exits through the lingual aspect of the root. The anastomosis of this ectopic dental canal with the mesial lingual canal led to significant bleeding during rotary instrumentation. This unique anatomical variation demonstrates the …

Precision And Efficacy Of Rna-Guided Dna Integration In High-Expressing Muscle Loci, Made Harumi Padmaswari, Gabrielle Bulliard, Shilpi Agrawal, Mary S. Jia, Sabin Khadgi, Kevin A. Murach, Christopher E. Nelson

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Gene replacement therapies primarily rely on adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors for transgene expression. However, episomal expression can decline over time due to vector loss or epigenetic silencing. CRISPR-based integration methods offer promise for long-term transgene insertion. While the development of transgene integration methods has made substantial progress, identifying optimal insertion loci remains challenging. Skeletal muscle is a promising tissue for gene replacement owing to low invasiveness of intramuscular injections, relative proportion of body mass, the multinucleated nature of muscle, and the potential for reduced adverse effects. Leveraging endogenous promoters in skeletal muscle, we evaluated two highly expressing loci using homology-independent …

The Brief Mind Wandering Three-Factor Scale (Bmw-3), Anna-Lena Schubert, Gidon T Frischkorn, Kathrin Sadus, Matthew S Welhaf, Michael J Kane, Jan Rummel

2020-Current year OA Pubs

In recent years, researchers from different fields have become increasingly interested in measuring individual differences in mind wandering as a psychological trait. Although there are several questionnaires that allow for an assessment of people's perceptions of their mind wandering experiences, they either define mind wandering in a very broad sense or do not sufficiently separate different aspects of mind wandering. Here, we introduce the Brief Mind Wandering Three-Factor Scale (BMW-3), a 12-item questionnaire available in German and English. The BMW-3 conceptualizes mind wandering as task-unrelated thought and measures three dimensions of mind wandering: unintentional mind wandering, intentional mind wandering, and …

The Assignment Despite Objection Construct: Its Efficacy And Utility In Measuring Nurse-Perceived Unsafe Staffing Events And Associated Outcomes, Debra F. Fox

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Purpose: This three-manuscript approach provided a progressively built overview of Assignment Despite Objection as a construct used by nurses to document their perceptions of unsafe staffing events and as an unstudied concept in the staffing outcomes literature.

Background: All nurses have an ethical, legal, and professional responsibility to refuse or object to assignments they believe are unsafe for their well-being or their patient’s safety. Assignment Despite Objection being the only widely used construct nurses use to document these perceptual details. No studies have focused on Assignment Despite Objection as a construct or concept, leaving a complete gap in understanding its …

Physiology And Genomics At The Bottom Of The World: Genome To Phenome, Amy Christine Klink

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Mammals are exposed to a suite of physiological challenges based on the environment in which they inhabit. Animal individuals can overcome challenges associated with the dynamic nature of their habitat through variation in phenotypic traits. The plasticity of a phenotype relies on an individual’s genome and the transcription factors that act on regulatory elements. Species living in Antarctica display physiological specializations to withstand harsh conditions, such as severe cold temperatures, shifts in available ice habitat, and annual fluctuations in daylight. To explore the connections between an individual’s genome and its phenotype, we investigated two physiologies of the Antarctic Weddell seal …

Exploring Staff Nurses’ Perceptions Of Nursing Student Enculturation Within Clinical Teaching: A Focused Ethnography, Larizza Limjuco Woodruff

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The traditional clinical education model in nursing has utilized on-site learning experiences in clinical settings with patient encounters. With the growing complexity and demands of contemporary nursing care today, it is imperative to question the principal assumptions that guide the design and use of traditional clinical teaching experiences. Staff nurses working with nursing students can illuminate the impact of sociocultural workplace factors on clinical teaching and learning when preparing students for practice. Yet there is little known about staff nurses’ perspectives of nursing culture and how enculturation prepares nursing students for the profession. By understanding the perceptions of enculturation among …

Development And Testing The Predictability Of An Instrument Based On The Multi- Theory Model (Mtm) Of Health Behavior Change For Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (Prep) Uptake Among People Of Color, Siddharth Raich

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

HIV/AIDS continues to be a significant public health problem in the US and globally. In the US, it disproportionately affects people of color. In 2012, Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) was approved by the FDA for HIV prevention. PrEP reduces the chances of acquiring HIV by 99% among people at high risk. However, PrEP uptake among people of color remains low. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and test the predictability of an instrument to describe the intent to initiate and sustain PrEP use among people of color. This research utilized an exploratory sequential mixed methods design based on the fourth-generation, multi-theory …

Cultivating Nursing Student Competency Through Serious Gaming Simulation-Enhanced Prebriefing, Shopha M. Tserotas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Problem: Simulation is an effective teaching strategy for undergraduate nursing students, providing a safe environment for learning in a low-risk setting. However, students are not fully prepared to take full advantage of high-fidelity simulation activities. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of serious gaming simulation-enhanced prebriefing on student competency and simulation effectiveness. Methodology: The study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional, quasi-experimental design using secondary data. Participants included undergraduate nursing students in a southern private university. The students were enrolled in the prelicensure nursing program and the obstetric or the transition to practice course. The control group received …

Alteration Of Peripheral Cytokines In Alzheimer’S Disease, Zhengshi Yang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with the clinical symptoms of gradual cognitive decline and memory loss. Biologically, abnormal accumulation of Aβ (Aβ) plaque and tau tangles in the brain are the core pathological hallmarks in AD. Although inflammatory response is not specific to AD, emerging evidence suggests that the disrupted innate immune system within the central nervous system, particularly microglial activation, might act as the bridge linking Aβ aggregation to pathological phosphorylation and aggregation of tau. The inflammatory response was suggested to initially have a neuroprotective role of attempting to clear Aβ plaques, and then become neurotoxic …