Other Medical Sciences Commons^™

Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection, Amy N. Wagner

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) causes 35% of myocardial infarctions in women under the age of 50 years old. Typically, these are healthy, active women without risk factors for atherosclerotic coronary artery syndromes. SCAD is a myocardial infarction caused by a coronary arterial dissection and not atherosclerotic plaques. Because of this, those effected do not present with the typical risk factors associated with acute atherosclerotic coronary syndromes. Therefore, clinicians must maintain a high level of suspicion for SCAD in young, healthy, women presenting with chest pain. Observation and pharmacological therapies are the preferred methods of treatment for a SCAD event. …

Advancement Of A 3d Computational Phantom And Its Age Scaling Methodologies For Retrospective Dose Reconstruction Studies, Aashish Gupta

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

We have used a 3D age-scalable computational phantom for over two decades for retrospective dose reconstruction studies of childhood cancer survivors (CCS) treated with 2D historic radiotherapy (RT). However, our phantom and its age scaling functions (ASF) must be updated so that it can be used in studies that include survivors treated with contemporary RT. We aimed to implement our phantom and its age scaling functions in DICOM format and determine the feasibility of applying our ASFs to accurately scale the whole-body CT-based anatomies.

In the implementation study, we developed Python scripts that model the phantom and ASFs in a …

Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging For The Early Prediction Of Treatment Response In Triple Negative Breast Cancer, Benjamin C. Musall

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer which lacks upregulated hormone receptors. Because of this, it is not vulnerable to clinically available targeted therapies. When treated with standard of care neoadjuvant systemic therapy (NAST), TNBC only shows approximately a 40% rate of pathologic complete response (pCR). A biomarker which could predict TNBC response to NAST early during treatment would be useful, as it would allow for non-responders to be triaged to alternative therapies and potentially allow for the treatment of responders to be de-escalated.

Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) may be used to probe and …

The Antimicrobial Properties Of Exogenous Copper In Human Synovial Fluid Against Staphylococcus Aureus: An In-Vitro Study, Fernando Diaz Dilernia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We sought to analyse the antimicrobial properties of exogenous copper in human synovial fluid against Staphylococcus aureus. We performed several in-vitro growth and viability assays to determine the capability of multiple S. aureus strains to survive in synovial fluid under different growth conditions. S. aureus UAMS-1 significantly died at 24 hours (p=0.017), and S. aureus USA300 WT survived at 24 hours. We confirmed a high sensitivity to killing with the addition of exogenous copper on both strains at 4 (p=0.011), 12 (p=0.011), and 24 hours (p=0.011). Both WT and CopAZB-deficient USA300 strains significantly died in synovial fluid, evidencing a …

Roles And Regulation Of Satellite Cells In Skeletal Muscle Regeneration, Sydney Vlasman

University Honors Theses

Skeletal muscle has an innate ability to self-regenerate in response to certain stimuli. In the case of trauma, muscle resident stem cells are required to meet the regenerative needs of the tissue. These resident stem cells, called satellite cells (SCs), are crucial in the regenerative process following injury; understanding the major factors which regulate satellite cell activity can provide valuable insight for regenerative medicine. The ability to implement and properly activate satellite cells has immense potential in the treatment of conditions including trauma, degenerative disorders, and age-related sarcopenia. This review will discuss the current understanding of satellite cell-mediated regeneration and …

Near-Field Electrospinning And Characterization Of Biodegradable Small Diameter Vascular Grafts, William E. King Iii

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

The ideal “off the shelf” tissue engineering, small-diameter (< 6 mm inner diameter (ID)) vascular graft hinges on designing a template that facilitates transmural ingrowth of capillaries to regenerate an endothelized neointimal surface. Previous traditionally electrospun (TES) approaches to create bioresorbable vascular grafts lack the pore sizes required to facilitate transmural capillary ingrowth required for successful in situ neovascular regeneration. Therefore, the ability to create scaffolds with program-specific architectures independent of fiber diameter via the relatively recent sub-technique of near-field electrospinning (NFES) represents a promising solution to create tissue engineering vascular grafts. These programmed large pore sizes are anticipated to promote in situ regeneration and improve the outcomes as well as the quality of life of patients with arterial disease.

In this dissertation, we manufactured via NFES as well as characterized biodegradable polydioxanone (PDO) small-diameter vascular grafts. Chapter 1 introduces the need for off-the-shelf, small-diameter vascular grafts to facilitate in situ regeneration, the process and pore size limitations of TES vascular grafts, and the promising use of NFES to develop precisely tailored PDO vascular grafts. Chapter 2 describes the process of NFES and details the current progress in NFES of biomedical polymers as well as the major limitations that exist in the field. Chapters 3, 4, and 5 contain primary research …

Reiki For Recovery: Incorporating Japanese Health Practices To Increase Contemporary Resiliency In American Health, Leif Peterson

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Japanese health practice of Reiki attempts to maximize the latent ability of the human system to heal itself. The Reiki system, established over a century ago, combines multiple Asian health traditions, experimenting with practices that maximize the natural processes of the body to perform its own repairs. Reiki encourages healthy behaviors that balance the mind and body, return the human system to a lowered stress level, and allow for an optimal recovery state for the patient. This paper illustrates how this Japanese health-affirming method can be integrated and utilized within existing health and medical practices. An area that is …

Factors Contributing To Diminished Long-Term Outcomes Of Secondary Infections, Alia Tayara

Undergraduate Honors Theses

It is widely known that patients suffer diminished long-term outcomes in the years following secondary infections, infectious diseases that occur during or after treatment of a primary infection such as influenza or COVID-19. One common secondary infection is pneumonia, which has become the most fatal hospital-acquired infection. The bacterium responsible for pneumonia is known as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The cytotoxic supernatant in these studies was generated from a PA103 strain of Psuedomonas aeruginosa with a type III secretion system that maintains the ability to transfer exoenzymes ExoU and ExoT into target cells during infection. The focus of the following studies was …

Utilizing Acoustic Levitation To Determine Ionic Liquid Effects On Enthalpy Of Polymerization, Davina V. Ho

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Ionic liquids (ILs) are emerging as an eco-friendlier alternative to traditional organic compounds. The hope with ILs in this project is to incorporate them with resins used in 3D printing to act as plasticizers which will in turn help prolong the life of the printed object. A common issue with plasticizers like phthalate in particular is they can leach out of plastics due to their vapor pressure which leads to decreased performance and can also pose a health risk being released into its surroundings or atmosphere. A major benefit of incorporating ILs in with resins comes from their low volatility …

Covid-19 Media Exposure And Parenting, Abagail Roy

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Rationale- The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a drastic change in the way of living for most parents. A study conducted during the lockdown of Italy found that parents experienced a high level of distress (Marchetti et al., 2020). Several studies have been conducted to find how media exposure and screen time affect children but much less research has been conducted on how media exposure is related to parental feelings and parenting.

Methods- The aim of this paper is to explore the role of COVID-19 media exposure in parental aggravation, closeness to children, parental self-regulation, intolerance of uncertainty, and resourcefulness. …

Integrative Genome Assembly Of Staphylococcus Epidermidis And Staphylococcus Hominis Strains, Cana L. Brown

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Due to rapid advances in sequencing technology, it is becoming increasingly easier to assemble unknown genomes from millions of short sequencing reads of nucleotides taken from the full genomic sequence (Hernandez, 2008). In this study, we used various computational programs to align reads from unsequenced strains of the bacteria Staphylococcus epidermidis and Staphylococcus hominis into a hitherto undefined, single contiguous genomic sequence. We used SPAdes to assist with template free assembly (Bankevich, 2012), BLAST to identify a suitable reference genome from closely related species (Madden, 2013), Bowtie2 to align our reads to the reference genome, SAMtools to sort and organize …