Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Efficacy Of The Covid-19 Vaccine In Mississippi, Ilyse Miriam Levy

Honors Theses

The Efficacy of The COVID-19 Vaccine in Mississippi

(Under the direction of Dr. Xin Dang)

By tracking and analyzing fifty-three weeks of COVID-19 data, this thesis analyzes the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine within the State of Mississippi. Over the course of these fifty-three weeks, I have also been able to calculate the confidence intervals for vaccination efficacy and the risk reduction due to vaccination by using data regarding the correlations between deaths and vaccination status, provided to me by the Mississippi Office of Epidemiology. My analysis demonstrates that the COVID-19 vaccine is effective not only in Mississippi but also …

Vampires And Other Diseases: Stochastic Infection Dynamics Of Small Populations, Marijn Jaarsma

Honors Projects in Science and Technology

Mathematical models are powerful tools often applied in the field of epidemiology. The type and shape of the model will differ between different types of diseases. In this study, stochastic dynamical models are applied to the entertaining example of vampires, and the results of this analysis are compared to real-life diseases with small populations of infected. The data used comes from pop-culture depictions of vampires in literature, television shows, movies, and fan pages associated with these depictions. The aim of this study is to serve as an educational tool for modeling diseases with small populations to predict and control the …

Using An Interdisciplinary Case Study To Incorporate Quantitative Reasoning In Social Work, Nursing, And Mathematics, Elizabeth Post, Mischelle Stone, Lauren Cavner Williams, Mary Beaudry

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

Through the national consortium, SUMMIT-P, Ferris State University faculty collaborated to develop and scaffold mathematics and quantitative reasoning across disciplines to reduce math anxiety. Participants in this collaborative group included faculty from social work, nursing, and mathematics who developed a case study on a Hurricane Katrina scenario that necessitated calculating the need for emergency shelter, water, food, and medicine, and as a response to the potential for a Malaria outbreak. This particular case study allowed faculty to use the lens of social justice to teach mathematical concepts and provided an avenue for nursing and social work students to engage in …

Multivariate Distributions Of Correlated Binary Variables Generated By Pair-Copulas, Huihui Lin, N. Rao Chaganty

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Correlated binary data are prevalent in a wide range of scientific disciplines, including healthcare and medicine. The generalized estimating equations (GEEs) and the multivariate probit (MP) model are two of the popular methods for analyzing such data. However, both methods have some significant drawbacks. The GEEs may not have an underlying likelihood and the MP model may fail to generate a multivariate binary distribution with specified marginals and bivariate correlations. In this paper, we study multivariate binary distributions that are based on D-vine pair-copula models as a superior alternative to these methods. We elucidate the construction of these binary distributions …

An Exploration Of The Numeracy Skills Required For Safe, Quality Nursing Practice, Anna Wendel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to explore the numeracy skills required for safe, quality nursing practice. Using a descriptive mixed methods design, this study answered two research questions: 1) What numeracy skills do nurses perceive as important for providing safe, quality nursing care in the first three years of practice? 2) How do nurses incorporate numeracy skills into daily patient care during the first three years of practice? Early career nurses from a not-for-profit health care organization in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States (n=109) responded to an online survey tool developed by the student investigator that ranked …

College Of Liberal Arts And Sciences_Mt 101 & Wgs 101_Covid-19 Response, Kevin Roberge

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Email from Kevin Roberge, Adjunct Mathematics Faculty, University of Maine to the Provost Office regarding how he had incorporated the COVID-19 pandemic into his courses MAT 101 and WGS 101.

Mat 116 Introduction To Calculus - Course Material, Ayesha Maliwal Bundy

Teaching, Learning & Research Documents

Updated addendum to MAT 116 (Introduction to Calculus) syllabus, updated course timeline (both before and after the storms since many students lost power) and a contingency plan for their course team.

Mat 127 (Calculus Ii) - Course Syllabus, David Bradley

Teaching, Learning & Research Documents

Updated syllabus of MAT 127 (Calculus II) class. The update reflects the change in course format necessitated by the mandated transition to off-campus online instruction.

Mat 426 Real Analysis Ii - Course Syllabus, David Bradley

Teaching, Learning & Research Documents

Updated syllabus of MAT 426 (Introduction to Real Analysis II) class. The update reflects the change in course format necessitated by the mandated transition to off-campus online instruction.

Drug Repositioning Based On Bounded Nuclear Norm Regularization, Mengyun Yang, Huimin Lao, Yaohang Li, Jianxin Wang

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Motivation: Computational drug repositioning is a cost-effective strategy to identify novel indications for existing drugs. Drug repositioning is often modeled as a recommendation system problem. Taking advantage of the known drug–disease associations, the objective of the recommendation system is to identify new treatments by filling out the unknown entries in the drug–disease association matrix, which is known as matrix completion. Underpinned by the fact that common molecular pathways contribute to many different diseases, the recommendation system assumes that the underlying latent factors determining drug–disease associations are highly correlated. In other words, the drug–disease matrix to be completed is low-rank. Accordingly, …

Descartes Comes Out Of The Closet, Nora E. Culik

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

While “Descartes Comes Out of the Closet” is ostensibly about a young woman’s journey to Paris, the descriptive detail borrows language and images from Cartesian coordinate geometry, dualistic philosophy, neuroanatomy (the pineal), and projections of three dimensions onto planes. This mathematical universe is counterpointed in the natural language of the suppressed love story that locates the real in the human. Thus, at the heart of the story is the tension between competing notions of mathematics, i.e., as either an independent realm apart from history or as a culturally produced and historical set of practices. Of course, the central character proves …

Facilitating Pre-Service Teachers To Learn The Mathematical Practices And Engage English Language Learners, Jim Ewing

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

A methods course attempted to help pre-service teachers facilitate the engagement of English language learners (ELLs) in Mathematical Practices from the Common Core State Standards. When 22 elementary pre-service teachers were taught a mathematics lesson in Spanish, most were unable to make sense of the lesson. This made them more aware of challenges ELLs may face when they attempt to engage in Mathematical Practices. The pre-service teachers developed their own strategies to facilitate ELLs. The findings suggest that pre-service teachers not only better empathized with ELLs after being taught in another language, they also learned Mathematical Practices more deeply.

The Effect Of Tommy John (Ucl) Reconstructive Surgery On A Pitcher’S Arm And Career Progression, Jack Grant

Honors Projects in Mathematics

Injuries have plagued professional athletes since their sports have been in existence. The examination of how teams can diminish the side effects of the injuries en route to a speedy recovery remains an evolving process and a topic of concern for all. Injury preventative tactics have been implemented by coaching staffs and various training personnel. Major League Baseball (MLB) pitchers are noticing an increase in the number of surgeries performed each year. The tearing of the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) in the elbow has become a predominant injury among pitchers in the MLB. Reconstructive surgery, also known as Tommy John …

Courtship In The Borderlands: Hollistic Intimate Space Creation Within Courtship Ideaologies, Alejandro Sánchez

The Compass

While telling me the story of how she met her husband, Mrs. Aguilar told me “I really feel bad for your generation, they are missing out on falling in love.” She was referring to the courtship practices, or the social regulation and cultural markers between two individuals who create a social relation developing a “relationship.”1 She was comparingthe courtship practices of her generation to that of mine and her statement is reflective of the changes in the cultural environment. From courting, a “relationship” can develop. Its dimensions are defined by the mediation between cultural norms and the agent, and can …

Strategies For Leaders To Counter Social Loafing Through The Use Of Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Literature Review, Richard Hildreth

The Compass

Social loafing (SL) is a counterintuitive phenomenon that describes a decrease of efficiency observed in both small groups and large organizations. Research over the past century has increased our understanding of SL and identified antecedent factors that appear to reduce or exacerbate its effect. Subsequent organizational models have beenconceived and evolved, starting with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), which led toward contextualperformance (CP), and recently to contextual and citizenship performance (CCP). Each type of model can provide valuable insight explaining employee behavior and under which contexts SL occurs. Research shows that OCB has improves organizational productivity and competitiveness, due to organizational …

The Efficacy Of Mathematics Education, Eric Geimer

The STEAM Journal

Evidence supports the notion that mathematics education in the United States is inadequate. There is also evidence that mathematics education deficiencies extend internationally. The worldwide mathematics education deficit appears large enough that improving student performance in this educational problem area could yield great economic benefit. To improve the efficacy of mathematics education, education’s root problems must first be understood. Often supposed educational root problems are considered and contrasted against potential deficiencies of mathematics methodologies and curricula that are based on mainstream educational philosophies. The educational philosophies utilized to form early-grade mathematics methodologies and related curricula are judged to be the …

Halcomb, Warren G. (Sc 587), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 587. Ciphering book of Warren G. Halcomb’s of Caswell County, North Carolina, which he kept from 11 September 1809 to 15 July 1815. Other entries in the book include a few family names and dates, personal business notes, and a recipe for the cure of rheumatism. Loose items, 1840-1854, found in the book concern the slave trade, 1840 and 1849.

Validating Pareto Optimal Operation Parameters Of Polyp Detection Algorithms For Ct Colonography, Jiang Li, Adam Huang, Nicholas Petrick, Jianhua Yao, Ronald M. Summers, Maryellen L. Giger (Ed.), Nico Karssemeijer (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We evaluated a Pareto front-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for optimizing our CT colonography (CTC) computer-aided detection (CAD) system. The system identifies colonic polyps based on curvature and volumetric based features, where a set of thresholds for these features was optimized by the evolutionary algorithm. We utilized a two-fold cross-validation (CV) method to test if the optimized thresholds can be generalized to new data sets. We performed the CV method on 133 patients; each patient had a prone and a supine scan. There were 103 colonoscopically confirmed polyps resulting in 188 positive detections in CTC reading from either the prone or …