Diseases Commons^™

Acute Chest Syndrome In Sickle Cell Disease In The Setting Of Covid-19 Pneumonia, Michael K. Espino, Nioti Karim

Gulf Coast Division GME Research Day 2022

No abstract provided.

Congenital Non-Union Of C1 Leading To Quadriplegia Following A Roller Coaster Ride, Kelly Champlin, Saptarshi Biswas

South Atlantic Division GME Research Day 2022

No abstract provided.

Implementation Of Standardized Protocols For Office Blood Pressure Measurement, Steven Nevers, Alice Tran, Carol Gambrill, Anush Pillai

Gulf Coast Division GME Research Day 2022

No abstract provided.

A Rare Case Of Ibrutinib-Induced Panniculitis In A Patient With Chromic Lymphocytic Leukemia, Elise Weisert, Kevin Dimas, Michelle Hebert, Nawaf Alrehani

Gulf Coast Division GME Research Day 2022

No abstract provided.

Unusual Case Of Isolated Pancreatitis Secondary To Blunt Abdominal Trauma, Haroutiun Hamzoian, Reuben Plasencia, Ndifreke Ekpa, Elias Georg

Gulf Coast Division GME Research Day 2022

No abstract provided.

North Carolina Public School Educator Perceptions Of Teaching During Covid And Impacts On Burnout, Leah Huttlinger

Doctor of Education Dissertations

Educators in North Carolina have been burdened with many different negative stressors, such as low pay, increasing class sizes, and violence in the classroom, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only added to the role of the educator. Current research suggests an inevitable exodus of teachers due to the increased stress brought by the pandemic. Through this mixed methods study, I sought to examine relationships between COVID-19 stress, physical and mental health symptoms, and occupational burnout. Using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, I determined statistical relationships between specific domains of COVID stress and the physical and mental health of North Carolina educators. There …

Botanicals As Prospective Agents Against Sars-Cov-2 Virus, Vyacheslav Dushenkov, Anna Dushenkov

Publications and Research

The COVID-19 high morbidity and mortality resulted in a worldwide healthcare emergency that triggered accelerated and amplified efforts in the relevant areas of health sciences research and practice. Purpose: To assess the potential role of botanicals as therapeutic agents against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Methods: This narrative review examined the potential role of botanicals as therapeutic agents against the SARS-CoV-2 virus based on the references limited to the English language and published up to February 2022 and retrieved from common academic search engines using multiple keywords and their combinations. The scientific names of plant species were confirmed using World Flora Online …

Healing Through Mother Earth, Taylor A. Russell

Dance (MFA) Theses

This thesis deals with mental health, with a focus on Black women. Historically, Black women are often so compromised, being constant caregivers and helping everyone else, that they forget to help themselves, not having the time and financial means to do so. If we go back in the time of slavery, many Black women were taking care of slave owners' children and suckling the white women’s babies instead of their own. By the time they got home and after diligently caring for other people’s children they were focused on their own children, who they had been away from for hours …

Reexamining Cytolethal Distending Toxin's Host Cell Entry And Trafficking: The First Steps Down A Long Road, George Huhn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) is a virulence factor produced by many Gram-negative bacteria, including Haemophilus ducreyi, the causative agent of genital chancroid. CDT is a heterotrimeric toxin consisting of a cell-binding domain (CdtA + CdtC) and a catalytic domain (CdtB) that has DNase activity. After binding to the host plasma membrane, CDT undergoes endocytosis and travels through the endosomes en route to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Only CdtB and CdtC arrive in the Golgi before moving to the ER. Only then does CdtB move into the nucleus, causing DNA damage that induces cell-cycle arrest and apoptosis. The previous CDT trafficking …

The Relationship Between Sarcopenia And Diabetes Among Different Ethnic Groups, Rachel K. Williams

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Sarcopenia and diabetes are two conditions that reflect ongoing changes in global health trends: aging and obesity. Sarcopenia affects approximately 10-40% of the global population and type II diabetes affects around 415 million individuals (6.28% globally), with obesity contributing to a majority of the cases. Currently, approximately 9.3% of the population (727 million individuals) is aged 65 years or older; this number is predicted to reach 16% of the global population (around 1.5 billion individuals) in 2050. Many developed countries are undergoing demographic population pyramid rearrangements whereby an increasingly aging population must be supported by a shrinking youth cohort. Sarcopenia …

An Examination Of Lung Cancer Treatment Characteristics On Lung Cancer Patients With Co-Existing Heart Disease, Elias Rhanime

Honors Undergraduate Theses

With the rising rates of heart disease incidents in the United States and the increase in lung cancer deaths as well, many individuals suffer and get their treatments compromised due to these diseases. Especially considering that many lung cancer and heart disease patients are over 70 years of age, treatment options and success rates drop significantly. Due to this, a great concern is raised for patients with co-existing heart disease and lung cancer. This was a case-control study that assessed lung cancer treatment options and success rates for patients with co-existing heart disease. We used research papers that discussed lung …

Estrogen Regulation Of Daily Metabolic Rhythms In Female Mice, Oluwabukola Omotola

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Circadian rhythms are approximately 24-hour cycles of behavior, physiology, and gene expression. In mammals, these circadian rhythms are generated by clocks located in nearly every tissue in the body. The function of circadian clocks is to synchronize physiology and behavior with environmental cycles such as the light-dark cycle. After menopause, when circulating levels of estrogens are very low, women are more susceptible to obesity comorbidities such as metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease, suggesting that estrogens regulate these processes. Estrogens could protect females from metabolic dysfunction by regulating circadian rhythms. Consumption of diets that are high in fat contribute to obesity. …

Mammalian Target Of Rapamycin Cell Signaling Pathway In Phosphatase And Tensin Homolog Induced Kinase 1 Knockout Rat Model Of Familial Parkinson's Disease, Martha Helena Mortell

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

More than 10 million people are living with Parkinson’s disease (PD), one million of which are people in the United States. PD is the second most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder, after Alzheimer’s disease, and is characterized by the accumulation of a-synuclein aggregates and the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons. The loss of endogenous dopamine in PD brain accounts for the motor decline presented clinically in PD patients. Etiological factors of PD include oxidative damage and inflammation, although the detailed mechanisms remain unknown. Risk factors for PD include gender, age, environmental factors, and gene mutations.

The current thesis research employed phosphatase and …

Apoe Genotype And Sex Modulate Ketogenic Diet Enhancements To Metabolism And Gut Microbiome In Young Mice, Andrew T. Yackzan

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

The apolipoprotein ε (APOE) allele in humans has been associated with risk for development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). There are predominately three variations of the allele – ε2 (E2), ε3 (E3), and ε4 (E4) – with E4 contributing the greatest risk of AD development. Recent research has unveiled evidence of neurometabolic and neurovascular deficits in E4 carriers present decades before the onset of dementia; it is believed these chronic defects play a major role in the development of AD, thus making them a potential target for preventative intervention. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a …

Interleukin-1 Receptor 1 Signaling In Mild Tbi: Do Endothelial Cells Play A Major Role?, Colleen N. Bodnar

Theses and Dissertations--Neuroscience

Across the world, over 69 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury (TBI) per year making TBI a major health concern worldwide. Of all the TBIs that occur each year, it is suggested that up to 90 percent are mild in nature. Even a mild TBI causes both physical damages to the cells of the brain and activation of a variety of biochemical cascades. Inflammation is an extremely common pathology seen in the brains of TBI survivors of all severities. Chronic inflammation can cause detrimental effects within the brain including neurodegeneration. A major pro-inflammatory cytokine, interleukin-1 (IL-1), is upregulated within …

Studies Toward The Development Of An Improved Countermeasure For Synthetic Opioid Overdose, Sidnee L. Hedrick

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

One of the most prominent opioid analgesics in the United States is the high potency agonist fentanyl. It is used in the treatment of acute and chronic pain and as an anesthetic adjuvant. When used inappropriately, however, ingestion of just a few milligrams of fentanyl or other synthetic opioid can cause opioid-induced respiratory depression (OIRD), often leading to death. Currently, the treatment of choice for OIRD is the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone. Recent reports, however, suggest that higher doses or repeated dosing of naloxone (due to recurrence of respiratory depression) may be required to fully reverse fentanyl-induced respiratory depression, rendering …

The Relative Contribution Of Liver And Intestine In Reverse Cholesterol Transport, Rupinder Kaur

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

Despite decades of advances in research, death due to cardiometabolic disease remains the largest contributor to mortality in the US. While present therapies oppose “forward cholesterol transport,” and atherosclerotic plaque progression, they do not remove cholesterol from established atherosclerotic plaques. Reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) is the active process of mobilizing peripheral cholesterol for excretion through the hepatobiliary (transhepatic cholesterol elimination, THCE) or intestinal (transintestinal cholesterol elimination, TICE) pathways. Currently, there are no clinically approved therapeutics that target RCT. Elucidation of the mechanisms that govern RCT and TICE, and the subsequent identification of novel targets is of importance. The present work …

Progressive Endoscopic Approach To Balloon Dilation For Benign Esophageal Strictures, Chad J. Cooper

Theses and Dissertations--Clinical and Translational Science

Benign esophageal strictures are a frequently encountered problem in clinical practice. The management of benign esophageal strictures have slowly evolved over the decades based on “expert opinion.” Despite vast amounts of data about the efficacy and safety of dilation, unfortunately there is no consensus on a systematic and safe approach that is efficient, limits complications and provides long lasting improvement of dysphagia. Our group designed a progressive approach to endoscopic balloon dilation based on tailoring certain technical aspects of the dilation process.

Most studies in the literature concluded that endoscopic dilation is safe and effective in relieving dysphagia caused by …

Modeling The Effects Of Adverse Childhood Experiences Using A Mouse Model Of Neglect: Mechanisms Of Adiposity Expansion In Females, Jacqueline Leachman

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacology and Nutritional Sciences

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are an independent risk factor for chronic disease, including obesity and metabolic syndrome. We have previously shown that a mouse model of early life stress, maternal separation and early weaning (MSEW), exacerbates high-fat diet (HF)-induced obesity only in adult female mice. In agreement, the analysis of several cohorts of participants exposed to ACEs have shown that women are more susceptible to develop obesity than men. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the link between early life stress and obesity in pre-clinical and clinical settings. Male and female MSEW mice fed 1 week a …

An Ecological Study Of Glyphosate Use And Non-Hodgkin’S Lymphoma, Dexter Corlett, Steven R. Browning

Theses and Dissertations--Public Health (M.P.H. & Dr.P.H.)

Glyphosate is currently the most widely used herbicide in the world. Initially thought to be non-carcinogenic in humans, in 2015 glyphosate was classified as a “probable carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer due to several small epidemiological studies indicating a link between the pesticide and hematologic cancers, especially non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). The current work is an ecological study using counties in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Iowa to compare glyphosate usage to NHL incidence using a multivariate Poisson regression. We found no significant correlation between glyphosate use and NHL incidence, though caution should be taken to draw significance from …

Did The Political Climate Exacerbate The Pandemic In The U.S.?, Brittany T. Morin, Joanna Gyory, Anthony F. Morin

Master's Theses and Capstones

The global pandemic that began in the United States in early 2020 continues to be a topic of controversy. The added aspect of affect polarization in the country’s political realm may have exacerbated the effects of COVID-19. In their published article in Nature Human Behaviour, Gollwitzer et. al. found that it was possible to link voting partisanship, physical distancing, and COVID-19 outcomes showing that a county’s partisanship might be used to predict the degree to which that county would socially distance and then, therefore, the rate of cases and fatalities in that error on a lagged timescale. This researcher attempted …

Privacy Paradox: The Impact A Health Crisis Has On Individual Views Regarding Privacy And Data Collection, Jessica B. Walsh

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Epidemiological Models, Parameters, And Prediction Of The Covid-19 Outbreak In A Southwest Georgia Hotspot, Daniel F. Linder, William M. Sewell Iii, Jack D. Owens, Jim Franklin, Mark Miller, Casey Newton, Priyank Shah

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Background: We investigate epidemiological models, their parameters, and the models’ predictive performance of daily new cases during the first three weeks of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in a southwest Georgia hotspot.

Methods: We fit stochastic versions of the classical SIR, a network-based SIR, an SEIR model with two different priors on the latent period rate parameter, and a simple doubling time model to SARS-CoV-2 patients’ date of hospital admission and length of symptoms data from the Phoebe Putney Health System.

Results: The estimated basic reproductive numbers and 95% Bayesian credible intervals for each of the models were: 1.98 (1.63, 2.45) for …

Air Pollutant Levels And Asthma Emergency Room Visits In A Highly Populous Us Urban County During 2018-19, Osaremhen Ikhile, Jingjing Yin, Atin Adhikari

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Objective: Air pollutants are linked to asthma exacerbation. The study purpose was to demonstrate an association between air pollutants levels and asthma emergency room (ER) visit trends in a highly populated US urban county in Georgia during 2018-2019.

Methods: Time series analyses were conducted for the variations in daily numbers of children and adult asthma emergency room visits and changes in daily mean PM_2.5, daily mean PM₁₀ concentrations, daily max 1-hour SO₂ concentrations, daily max 1-hour NO₂ concentrations, daily max 8-hour ozone concentrations, and airborne pollen loads for 2018 to 2019 and potential trends were …

Ambiguous Genitalia: A Medical, Surgical, Psychiatric And Ethical Concern, Saachi M. Khanna, Anoush Sardesai Sadat, Ranjani Rammohan, Sundeep Payyanur Thotan

Manipal Journal of Medical Sciences

Disorders of Sexual Differentiation or DSDs are congenital anomalies which lead to the abnormal development of the internal and external genitalia. Our main objective in this review was to bring to light the psychiatric side of healthcare for a patient with ambiguous genitalia and DSD and create more awareness of the ethical aspects of the condition. The most important step in the management of DSD is the avoidance of prematurely designating sex or using gendered pronouns, as well as reassuring the family. Treatment is not singular, but a multidisciplinary approach. It involves medical management and surgical correction of the genitalia. …

Prevalence Of Mutations In The Pfdhfr, Pfdhps, And Pfmdr1 Genes Of Malarial Parasites Isolated From Symptomatic Patients In Dogondoutchi, Niger, Ibrahima Issa, Mahaman Moustapha Lamine, Veronique Hubert, Amadou Ilagouma, Eric Adehossi, Aboubacar Mahamadou, Neil F. Lobo, Demba Sarr, Lisa M. Shollenberger, Houze Sandrine, Ronan Jambou, Ibrahim Maman Laminou

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The effectiveness of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) depends not only on that of artemisinin but also on that of partner molecules. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of mutations in the Pfdhfr, Pfdhps, and Pfmdr1 genes from isolates collected during a clinical study. Plasmodium genomic DNA samples extracted from symptomatic malaria patients from Dogondoutchi, Niger, were sequenced by the Sanger method to determine mutations in the Pfdhfr (codons 51, 59, 108, and 164), Pfdhps (codons 436, 437, 540, 581, and 613), and Pfmdr1 (codons 86, 184, 1034, and 1246) genes. One hundred fifty-five (155) pre-treatment samples were …

Modelling Air Quality In An Aircraft Passenger Cabin Using Health Care Standards, Bert Silich

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The interest in aerosol contamination of aircraft passenger cabins has increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mathematical models have been developed to help describe how an aerosol behaves in a closed space. The number of infectious particles inhaled is of scientific interest because it can be related to the risk of getting ill from a pathogen. The data required to calculate these results is often difficult to obtain in real world settings. In fact, particle inhalation details are not obtained in the day-to-day routine of a health care environment and are they not required to maintain safety. Hospital …

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Not A Catch-All, Amanda Shulski

Capstone Showcase

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) is prolonged and disproportionate neuropathic pain and inflammation which presents after surgery, fracture, or trauma to a limb. This phenomenon has been recognized in the literature since the civil war but the pathophysiology has only become clear over the last 20 years. There are no diagnostic tests for CRPS and it is a relatively rare condition with only about 20 cases in 100,000 people per year. CRPS is then under-recognized by some providers but over-diagnosed by others. Occasionally, providers use CRPS as a catch-all for unexplained pain rather than a recognized condition with specific diagnostic …

Covid-19 Vaccine Disparities And Attitudes, Deonne Cartwright, Meryem Saygili

Pursue: Undergraduate Research Journal

The past couple of years have caused so much uncertainty and grief amidst the global pandemic. The goal of this study is to explore the attitudes behind COVID-19 vaccination to address the cause for vaccine disparities and help minimize health disparities in the United States. The study considers two multivariable regressions in SPSS of the social factors on vaccination status and vaccine confidence. This model studies the relationship between one’s ethnicity, race, education level, education specialization, household income, political ideology, and media source on vaccine confidence and vaccination status on an East Texas college campus. A campus-wide survey was conducted …

An Investigation Of Hhv6'S Impact On The Cognitive Progression And Microglial Changes In An Alzheimer's Disease Cohort, Charles E. Seaks

Theses and Dissertations--Physiology

The role of herpesviruses and, more specifically, HHV6 in the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and associated cognitive decline is still being investigated. High ubiquity and prevalence in the population have led to a high degree of skepticism about HHV6 as a potential contributor to cognitive decline and dementias. However, recent evidence related to another herpesvirus, herpes simplex virus 1, suggests that reactivation, not carriage, of the virus may be the key factor to explain the dissonance between the virus’ ubiquity and contributions to dementias. With that in mind, we set out to assess cases from the Sanders-Brown Center on …