Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Recognition And Screening For Chagas Disease In The Usa, Rachel Marcus, Andres F. Henao-Martinez, Melissa Nolan Ph.D., Mph, Elizabeth Livingston, Stephen A. Klotz, Robert H. Gilman, Monica Miranda-Schaeubinger, Sheba Meymandi

Faculty Publications

Chagas disease (CD), caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, is a public health concern, mainly among countries in South and Central America. However, despite the large number of immigrants from endemic countries living in the USA, awareness of CD is poor in the medical community, and therefore it is significantly underdiagnosed. To avoid the catastrophic cardiac complications of CD and to prevent maternal–fetal transmission, widespread educational programs highlighting the need for diagnosis are urgently needed.

Moving On Up: Vertical Distribution Shifts In Rocky Reef Fish Species During Climate-Driven Decline In Dissolved Oxygen From 1995 To 2009, Erin L. Meyer-Gutbrod, Li Kui, Mary Nishimoto, Linda Snook, Milton Love

Faculty Publications

Anthropogenic climate change has resulted in warming temperatures and reduced oxygen concentrations in the global oceans. Much remains unknown on the impacts of reduced oxygen concentrations on the biology and distribution of marine fishes. In the Southern California Channel Islands, visual fish surveys were conducted frequently in a manned submersible at three rocky reefs between 1995 and 2009. This area is characterized by a steep bathymetric gradient, with the surveyed sites Anacapa Passage, Footprint and Piggy Bank corresponding to depths near 50, 150 and 300 m. Poisson models were developed for each fish species observed consistently in this network of …

Small Studies, Big Decisions: The Role Of Pilot/Feasibility Studies In Incremental Science And Premature Scale-Up Of Behavioral Interventions, Michael William Beets, Lauren Von Klinggraeff, Robert G. Weaver, Bridget Ryan Armstrong, Sarah Burkart

Faculty Publications

Background: Careful consideration and planning are required to establish “sufficient” evidence to ensure an investment in a larger, more well-powered behavioral intervention trial is worthwhile. In the behavioral sciences, this process typically occurs where smaller-scale studies inform larger-scale trials. Believing that one can do the same things and expect the same outcomes in a larger-scale trial that were done in a smaller-scale preliminary study (i.e., pilot/feasibility) is wishful thinking, yet common practice. Starting small makes sense, but small studies come with big decisions that can influence the usefulness of the evidence designed to inform decisions about moving forward with a …

A Southwestern United States Pilot Investigation Of Triatomine–Mite Prevalence, Kyndall C. Dye-Braumuller, Hanna Waltz, Mary K. Lynn, Stephen A. Klotz, Justin O. Schmidt, Alvaro Romero, Marvin Stanley Rodriguez Aquino, Jose Ricardo Palacios Valladares, Pamela Michelle Cornejo Rivas, Melissa Nolan Ph.D., Mph

Faculty Publications

An estimated 70 million persons in the Western Hemisphere are living at risk for Chagas disease, a parasitic infection transmitted to humans by over 156 different competent triatomine insect vector species. Prior Pan American Health Organization insecticide campaigns throughout Latin America in the 1990s and 2000s demonstrated that domestic insecticide spraying had temporary effects, which resulted in the re-establishment of triatomine species within a few years. Serendipitously, our team found ectoparasitic mites parasitizing triatomines collected from the field in multiple locations in the southwestern United States, where human–triatomine interaction was high but human parasite infection remains low. Upon further investigation …

Maternal Diet In Pregnancy And Child’S Respiratory Outcomes: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis Of 18 000 Children, Sara M. Mensink-Bout, Evelien R. Van Meel, Johan C. De Jongste, Isabella Annesi-Maesano, Adrien M. Aubert, Jonathan Y. Bernard, Ling-Wei Chen, Cyrus Cooper, Sarah R. Crozier, Wojciech Hanke, Nicholas C. Harvey, James R. Hébert Scd, Barbara Heude, Joanna Jerzynska, Cecily C. Kelleher, John Mehegan, Fionnuala M. Mcauliffe, Catherine M. Phillips, Kinga Polanska, Caroline L. Relton, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., Matthew Suderman, Vincent W.V. Jaddoe, Liesbeth Duijts

Faculty Publications

Rationale Severe fetal malnutrition has been related to an increased risk of respiratory diseases later in life, but evidence for the association of a suboptimal diet during pregnancy with respiratory outcomes in childhood is conflicting. We aimed to examine whether a pro-inflammatory or low-quality maternal diet during pregnancy was associated with child's respiratory health.

Methods We performed an individual participant meta-analysis among 18 326 mother–child pairs from seven European birth cohorts. Maternal pro-inflammatory and low-quality diets were estimated by energy-adjusted Dietary Inflammatory Index (E-DII) and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) scores. Preschool wheezing and school-age asthma were measured using …

Prevalence, Awareness, And Control Of Hypertension Among Bangladeshi Adults: An Analysis Of Demographic And Health Survey 2017-18, Gulam Muhammed Al Kibria, Rajat Das Gupta Ph.D., Jannatun Nayeem

Faculty Publications

Background

The prevalence of hypertension is increasing in Bangladesh, however, few recent studies investigated the proportion of people and factors associated with prevalence, awareness, and control of this condition in this country. This study investigated these among Bangladeshi adults.

Methods

Using Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2017–18 data, a cross-sectional study was conducted. Multilevel logistic regression analysis was employed after descriptive analysis and prevalence estimation.

Results

Among 12,926 persons (mean age: 40 years, 57% women), the prevalence of hypertension was 27.4% (n = 3551), it was 28.4 and 26.2% among females and males, respectively. Among hypertensive people, about 42.4% …

Ocean Regime Shift Is Driving Collapse Of The North Atlantic Right Whale Population, Erin L. Meyer-Gutbrod, Charles H. Greene, Kimberley T.A. Davies, David G. Johns

Faculty Publications

Ocean warming linked to anthropogenic climate change is impacting the ecology of marine species around the world. In 2010, the Gulf of Maine and Scotian Shelf regions of the Northwest Atlantic underwent an unprecedented regime shift. Forced by climate-driven changes in the Gulf Stream, warm slope waters entered the region and created a less favorable foraging environment for the endangered North Atlantic right whale population. By mid-decade, right whales had shifted their late spring/summer foraging grounds from the Gulf of Maine and the western Scotian Shelf to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The population also began exhibiting unusually high …

Table Of Contents

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Creation Of A Cip Method For The Heat Exchangers At Rolls-Royce, Melanie Howe, Austin Williams, Caroline Dempsey, Bethany Fralick

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Rolls-Royce produces various engines which must be tested prior to their distribution to ensure a high-quality product. The manufacturing plant contains four test cells where the engines can be subjected to high levels of torque and extreme temperatures. A heat exchanger is necessary in this testing system and over time, unwanted waste accumulates on the system’s plates. The team is tasked with developing and implementing a system mounted on a mobile cart which can provide data to determine whether the plates need to be cleaned. For this cleaning system to work, it must fully saturate the heat exchanger in cleaning …

Partially Speaker-Dependent Automatic Speech Recognition Using Deep Neural Networks, Christopher J. Li, Michelle Spigner

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Noise-Reducing Acoustic Panels On The Noise Levels And Overall Safety Of Infant Sleep Machines, Pranav Poola

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

Infant sleep machines (ISMs) are devices used to help infants fall asleep faster and stay asleep for longer amounts of time, yet they can often be too loud for infantile ears, which could potentially be dangerous. This research aimed to minimize the risks of infant sleep machines without reducing the effectiveness of the infant sleep machines themselves through the use of acoustic panels. Based on previous studies, it was hypothesized that the acoustic panels would reduce the noise levels of the ISM to less than recommended limits of 50 dB-A. A specific corner of a designated room was prepared with …

The Accuracy Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai) Chatbots In Telemedicine, Robert K. Swick

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

2021 Scas Annual Meeting Program And Bulletin

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Poverty Levels And Minority Percentages On Lead Content In South Carolina Midlands School Drinking Water, Kathleen L. Barfield

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Extended Search For Supernovalike Neutrinos In Nova Coincident With Ligo/Virgo Detections, M. A. Acero, P. Adamson, L. Aliaga, N. Anfimov, A. Antoshkin, E. Arrieta-Diaz, L. Asquith, A. Aurisano, A. Back, C. Backhouse, M. Baird, N. Balashov, P. Baldi, B. A. Bambah, S. Bashar, K. Bays, R. Bernstein, V. Bhatnagar, B. Bhuyan, J. Bian, Roberto Petti, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

A search is performed for supernovalike neutrino interactions coincident with 76 gravitational wave events detected by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration. For 40 of these events, full readout of the time around the gravitational wave is available from the NOvA Far Detector. For these events, we set limits on the fluence of the sum of all neutrino flavors of F < 7(4) × 10¹⁰ cm⁻² at 90% C.L. assuming energy and time distributions corresponding to the Garching supernova models with masses 9.6ð27Þ M_^⊙. Under the hypothesis that any given gravitational wave event was caused by a supernova, this corresponds to a distance …

Chagas Disease In Hiv-Infected Patients: It’S Time To Consider The Diagnosis, Melissa Nolan Ph.D., Mph, Natasha S. Hochberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effect Of An Antenatal Lifestyle Intervention On Dietary Inflammatory Index And Its Associations With Maternal And Fetal Outcomes: A Secondary Analysis Of The Pears Trial, Sarah Louise Killen, Catherine M. Phillips, Anna Delahunt, Cara A. Yelverton, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James Hébert Scd, Maria A. Kennelly, Martina Cronin, John Mehegan, Fionnuala M. Mcauliffe

Faculty Publications

We investigated the effect of an antenatal lifestyle intervention of a low-glycaemic index (GI) diet and physical activity on energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index (E-DIITM) and explored its relationship with maternal and child health in women with overweight and obesity. This was a secondary analysis of 434 mother−child pairs from the Pregnancy Exercise and Nutrition Study (PEARS) trial in Dublin, Ireland. E-DII^TM scores were calculated for early (10–16 weeks) and late (28 weeks) pregnancy. Outcomes included lipids, inflammation markers, insulin resistance, mode of delivery, infant size, pre-eclampsia, and gestational diabetes. T-tests were used to assess changes in E-DII^TM. …

Ca Special Issue On Neural Network Approximation, Wolfgang Dahmen, Ronald A. Devore, Philipp Grohs

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

High-Throughput Discovery Of Novel Cubic Crystal Materials Using Deep Generative Neural Networks, Yong Zhao, Mohammed Al-Fahdi, Ming Hu, Edirisuriya M.D. Siriwardane, Yuqi Song, Alireza Nasiri, Jianjun Hu

Faculty Publications

High-throughput screening has become one of the major strategies for the discovery of novel functional materials. However, its effectiveness is severely limited by the lack of sufficient and diverse materials in current materials repositories such as the open quantum materials database (OQMD). Recent progress in deep learning have enabled generative strategies that learn implicit chemical rules for creating hypothetical materials with new compositions and structures. However, current materials generative models have difficulty in generating structurally diverse, chemically valid, and stable materials. Here we propose CubicGAN, a generative adversarial network (GAN) based deep neural network model for large scale generative design …

Associations Between Fasting Duration, Timing Of First And Last Meal, And Cardiometabolic Endpoints In The National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey, Michael David Wirth, Longgang Zhao, Gabrielle Turner-Mcgrievy, Andrew Ortaglia

Faculty Publications

Background: Research indicates potential cardiometabolic benefits of energy consumption earlier in the day. This study examined the association between fasting duration, timing of first and last meals, and cardiometabolic endpoints using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Methods: Cross-sectional data from NHANES (2005–2016) were utilized. Diet was obtained from one to two 24-h dietary recalls to characterize nighttime fasting duration and timing of first and last meal. Blood samples were obtained for characterization of C-reactive protein (CRP); glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c %); insulin; glucose; and high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and total cholesterol. Survey design procedures …

12 C(E,E'Pn) Measurements Of Short Range Correlations In The Tensor-To-Scalar Interaction Transition Region, I. Korover, J. R. Pybus, A. Schmidt, F. Hauenstein, M. Duer, O. Hen, E. Piasetzky, L. B. Weinstein, D. W. Higinbotham, S. Adhikari, K. Adhikari, M. J. Amaryan, Giovanni Angelini, H. Atac, L. Barion, M. Battaglieri, A. Beck, I. Bedlinkskiy, Fatiha Benmokhtar, Steffen Strauch, Ralf W. Gothe, Krishna Chandra Neupane, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

High-momentum configurations of nucleon pairs at short-distance are probed using measurements of the C-12(e, e' p) and C-12(e, e' pN) reactions (where N is either n or p), at high-Q(2) and x(B) > 1.1. The data span a missing-momentum range of 300-1000 MeV/c and are predominantly sensitive to the transition region of the strong nuclear interaction from a Tensor to Scalar interaction. The data are well reproduced by theoretical calculations using the Generalized Contact Formalism with both chiral and phenomenological nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction models. This agreement suggests that the measured high missing-momentum protons up to 1000 MeV/c predominantly belong to short-ranged …

Splash: Learnable Activation Functions For Improving Accuracy And Adversarial Robustness, Mohammadamin Tavakoli, Forest Agostinelli, Pierre Baldi

Publications

We introduce SPLASH units, a class of learnable activation functions shown to simultaneously improve the accuracy of deep neural networks while also improving their robustness to adversarial attacks. SPLASH units have both a simple parameterization and maintain the ability to approximate a wide range of non-linear functions. SPLASH units are: (1) continuous; (2) grounded (f(0)=0"); (3) use symmetric hinges; and (4) their hinges are placed at fixed locations which are derived from the data (i.e. no learning required). Compared to nine other learned and fixed activation functions, including ReLU and its variants, SPLASH units show superior performance across three datasets …

Seasonal Variation Of Multiple-Muon Cosmic Ray Air Showers Observed In The Nova Detector Detector On The Surface, M. A. Acero, P. Adamson, L. Aliaga, N. Anfimov, A. Antoshkin, E. Arrieta-Diaz, L. Asquith, A. Aurisano, A. Back, C. Backhouse, M. Baird, N. Balashov, P. Baldi, B. A. Bambah, S. Bashar, K. Bays, R. Bernstein, V. Bhatnagar, B. Bhuyan, J. Bian, Roberto Petti, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

We report the rate of cosmic ray air showers with multiplicities exceeding 15 muon tracks recorded in the NOvA Far Detector between May 2016 and May 2018. The detector is located on the surface under an overburden of 3.6 meters water equivalent. We observe a seasonal dependence in the rate of multiple-muon showers, which varies in magnitude with multiplicity and zenith angle. During this period, the effective atmospheric temperature and surface pressure ranged between 210 K and 230 K and 940 mbar and 990 mbar, respectively; the shower rates are anticorrelated with the variation in the effective temperature. The variations …

Treatment Patterns And Outcomes In Elderly Patients With Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma: Results From The Connect® Mm Registry, Hans C. Lee, Sikander Ailawadhi, Cristina J. Gasparetto, Sundar Jagannath, Robert M. Rifkin, Brian G.M. Durie, Mohit Narang, Howard R. Terebelo, Kathleen Toomey, James W. Hardin Ph.D., Lynne Wagner, James L. Omel, Mazaher Dhalla, Liang Liu, Prashant Joshi, Rafat Abonour

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Cognitive Complaints In Age-Related Chronic Conditions: A Systematic Review, Nikki L. Hill, Sakshi Bhargava, Monique J. Brown, Hyejin Kim, Iris Bhang, Kaitlyn Mullin, Kathleen Phillips, Jacqueline Mogle

Faculty Publications

Introduction

Cognitive complaints in older adults may be indicative of progressive cognitive decline including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but also occur in other age-related chronic conditions, complicating identification of early AD symptoms. To better understand cognitive complaints in aging, we systematically reviewed the evidence to determine their prevalence and characterization among older adults with the most common age-related chronic conditions.

Methods

This systematic review was conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement and the review protocol was prospectively registered with PROSPERO (ID: CRD42020153147). Searches were conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and …

An Operational Overview Of The Export Processes In The Ocean From Remote Sensing (Exports) Northeast Pacific Field Deployment, David A. Siegel, Ivona Cetinic, Jason R. Graff, Craig M. Lee, Norman Nelson, Mary Jane Perry, Inia Soto Ramos, Deborah K. Steinberg, Ken Buesseler, Roberta Hamme, Andrea J. Fassbender, David Nicholson, Melissa M. Omand, Marie Robert, Andrew Thompson, Vinicius Amaral, Michael Behrenfeld, Claudia R. Benitez-Nelson, Kelsey Bisson, Emmanuel Boss, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

The goal of the EXport Processes in the Ocean from RemoTe Sensing (EXPORTS) field campaign is to develop a predictive understanding of the export, fate, and carbon cycle impacts of global ocean net primary production. To accomplish this goal, observations of export flux pathways, plankton community composition, food web processes, and optical, physical, and biogeochemical (BGC) properties are needed over a range of ecosystem states. Here we introduce the first EXPORTS field deployment to Ocean Station Papa in the Northeast Pacific Ocean during summer of 2018, providing context for other papers in this special collection. The experiment was conducted with …

Ahr Expression On Rorc-Expressing Immune Cells Is Essential For I3c-Mediated Protection Against Colitis, Michal C. Williams

Senior Theses

Colitis is an inflammatory bowel disorder (IBD) whose etiology is attributed to modification in the luminal microbiota and dysregulation in the immune response. Indole is a signaling molecule which is naturally produced by gut luminal microbiota. Indole-3- carbinol (I3C) is a compound commonly found in vegetables and a ligand for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR). Previous studies have detected decreased expression and activation on the AhR receptor in colitis patients, thought to possibly alter gut microbiota metabolism, subsequently promoting colitis. 1 AhR, expressed in a variety of immune and epithelial cells, contributes to gut homeostasis by affecting vital mediators such …

Trimming Complexes, Keller Vandebogert

Theses and Dissertations

We produce a family of complexes called trimming complexes and explore applications. We first study ideals defining type 2 compressed rings with socle minimally generated in degrees s and 2s − 1 for s > 2. We prove that all such ideals arise as trimmings of grade 3 Gorenstein ideals and show that trimming complexes yield an explicit free resolution. In particular, we give bounds on parameters arising in the Tor-algebra classification and construct explicit ideals attaining all intermediate values for every s. This partially answers a question of realizability of Tor-algebra structures posed by Avramov. Next, we study how …

Polynomials, Primes And The Pte Problem, Joseph C. Foster

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers three different topics. In the first part of the dissertation, we use Newton Polygons to show that for the arithmetic functions g(n) = n t , where t ≥ 1 is an integer, the polynomials defined with initial condition P g 0 (X) = 1 and recursion P g n (X) = X n Xn k=1 g(k)P g n−k (X) are X/ (n!) times an irreducible polynomial. In the second part of the dissertation, we show that, for 3 ≤ n ≤ 8, there are infinitely many 2-adic integer solutions to the Prouhet-Tarry-Escott (PTE) problem, that are …

A Comparison Of Spatial Clustering Assessment Methods, Nadeesha Dilhani Vidanapathirana

Theses and Dissertations

Spatial clustering detection methods are widely used in many fields of research including sociology, epidemiology, ecology, and criminology. The objective of this study is to assess the performance of four spatial clustering detection methods: the average nearest neighbor ratio, Ripley’s K function, local Moran’s I and Getis-Ord Gi* statistics. We conduct a simulation study to evaluate the performance of each method for areal data under different types of spatial dependence and three different areal structures; a 20x20 regular grid, United States counties in six states and Canadian forward sortation areas (FSAs) in three provinces. The results shows that the empirical …