Biostatistics Commons^™

Optimizing Water Quality And Temperature Parameters To Increase Survival Rates Of Anotheca Spinosa (Anura: Hylidae) Eggs At The El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center, Morgan Oestereich

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Amphibians globally are facing extinction due to the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). This has resulted in a worldwide push for increased conservation efforts. These efforts include those of the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center (EVACC) in El Valle de Antón, Panama, where captive assurance colonies of many native amphibian species are housed. Among these species is Anotheca spinosa, a species of tree frog native to mountainous regions of Central America. This study was performed to analyze the relationship between water quality parameters and egg survival and reproductive success of EVACC’s captive population of A. spinosa and assess how related husbandry …

Socioemotional Selectivity And Psychological Health In Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients And Caregivers: A Longitudinal, Dyadic Analysis, Suzanne C. Segerstrom, Edward J. Kasarskis, David W. Fardo, Philip M. Westgate

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective: Socioemotional selectivity theory predicts that as the end of life approaches, goals and resources that provide immediate, hedonic reward become more important than those that provide delayed rewards. This study tested whether these goal domains differentially affected psychological health in the context of marital dyads in which one partner had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a life-limiting disease.

Design: ALS patients (N = 102) being treated in three multidisciplinary clinics and their spouses (N = 100) reported their loneliness, financial worry and psychological health every 3 months for up to 18 months.

Main …

Acute Systemic Inflammatory Response To Lipopolysaccharide Stimulation In Pigs Divergently Selected For Residual Feed Intake, Haibo Liu, Kristina M. Feye, Yet T. Nguyen, Anoosh Rakhshandeh, Crystal L. Loving, Jack C. M. Sekkers, Nicholas K. Gabler, Christopher K. Tuggle

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Background: It is unclear whether improving feed efficiency by selection for low residual feed intake (RFI) compromises pigs’ immunocompetence. Here, we aimed at investigating whether pig lines divergently selected for RFI had different inflammatory responses to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) exposure, regarding to clinical presentations and transcriptomic changes in peripheral blood cells.

Results: LPS injection induced acute systemic inflammation in both the low-RFI and high-RFI line (n = 8 per line). At 4 h post injection (hpi), the low-RFI line had a significantly lower (p= 0.0075) mean rectal temperature compared to the high-RFI line. However, no significant differences in complete blood count …

Mental Health And Gun Violence: A Link Held By Misperception, Neil Morte, Kelly L. Sullivan

Biostatistics, Epidemiology & Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

From Traps To Snapshots: Examining The Ecology Of Feral Predators And Native Small Mammals In Southeastern Australia Through Case Studies Of Two Faunal Sampling Methods, Katherine Karson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and feral cat (Felis catus) are introduced mesopredators that significantly threaten native small mammal species in Australia. For decades, environmental managers have attempted to mitigate the effects of these introduced species. However, ecosystems are highly complex, making it difficult to assess the impacts of feral predators on communities of native fauna independent of other disturbances such as fire regime and habitat fragmentation. Cost-effective ecological monitoring programs are imperative for evaluating threats to native species and informing environmental decisions. New technology has become increasingly present in wildlife monitoring, and camera trapping has provided an alternative to …

An Analysis Of The Rajasthan Public Health System’S Response To The 2019 Dengue Insurgence, Luke Bryan

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Dengue virus is in a pandemic status and is a major public health issue in the modern world. The mosquito-borne disease is largely prevalent in Asia and specifically India, where more than half of the states are considered to have complete presence of the dengue virus. The intricate infrastructure of the Indian public health system looks for dengue cases at all levels and reports to the integrated disease surveillance programme (IDSP).

Analyses of the IDSP and trends of dengue cases was done in response to dengue outbreaks throughout the state. Geographic information system (GIS) maps were created to evaluate a …

What About The Environment?: Exploring The Neglected Third Dimension Of Antimicrobial Resistance, Paige E. Montfort

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most urgent and complex health risks of our time, with links to human health, animal health, and the environment. The majority of research and policy related to AMR, however, has been dedicated to human and animal health. The third dimension — the environment — has been relatively neglected. Conversations about this problem have begun, but gaps in understanding remain. This study explores the key barriers that have hindered developments related to the environmental aspect of AMR and some of the solutions that have begun to or could be utilized to overcome these barriers. …

Metformin Blunts Muscle Hypertrophy In Response To Progressive Resistance Exercise Training In Older Adults: A Randomized, Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled, Multicenter Trial: The Masters Trial, R. Grace Walton, Cory M. Dungan, Douglas E. Long, S. Craig Tuggle, Kate Kosmac, Bailey D. Peck, Heather M. Bush, Alejandro G. Villasante Tezanos, Gerald Mcgwin, Samuel T. Windham, Fernando Ovalle, Marcas M. Bamman, Philip A. Kern, Charlotte A. Peterson

Center for Muscle Biology Faculty Publications

Progressive resistance exercise training (PRT) is the most effective known intervention for combating aging skeletal muscle atrophy. However, the hypertrophic response to PRT is variable, and this may be due to muscle inflammation susceptibility. Metformin reduces inflammation, so we hypothesized that metformin would augment the muscle response to PRT in healthy women and men aged 65 and older. In a randomized, double-blind trial, participants received 1,700 mg/day metformin (N = 46) or placebo (N = 48) throughout the study, and all subjects performed 14 weeks of supervised PRT. Although responses to PRT varied, placebo gained more lean body …

Probabilistic Modeling Of Democracy, Corruption, Hemophilia A And Prediabetes Data, A. K. M. Raquibul Bashar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Parametric analysis of any real-world data is the most powerful tool to characterize the probabilistic behavior in social, economic, medical, epidemiological, and other areas of study. In the present study, we identify the theoretical Probability Distribution Function(PDF) for Democracy Index Scores (DIS) from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) database and estimate the maximum likelihood estimates of the theoretical PDFS. We also identify the individual PDFs for each of the clusters, Full Democracy, Flawed Democracy, Hybrid Regime, and Authoritarian Regime defined by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

A statistical model is a convenient instrument to predict the future value of any …

Behavior Problem Impact To Decreasing Kidney Function Among Migrant Workers, Laily Isroin, Made Suandika

Kesmas

Indonesian Workers were undergoing 18% of hemodyalysis from the number of hemodyalysis patients. They did not know about CRF. The study aimed to analyze the behavior of migrant workers who were suffering hemodyalysis. The study used a qualitative design with a phenomenological approach, that is carried out on former migrant workers who suffer from chronic kidney failure. Indepth interview used as data collection. While data validation used triangulation and confirmability. Data analysis techniques was done by reducing and interpreting the data. The study show migrant workers behavior before becoming migrant workers were very pathetic. They often drunk kind of energy …

Effects Of Son Preference On Contraceptive Use In Bangladesh, Mohammad Nazmul Hoq

Kesmas

Son preference resulting from traditional beliefs, social customs and economic benefits including support of aging parents is widespread not only in Bangladesh but also in many Asian and African countries, which are believed for low levels of contraceptive use. To carry out the research task effectively and efficiently, the research work extracted 16,858 currently married women aged 15-49 out of 17,863 ever-married women from a nationally representative 2014 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey Data (BDHS, 2014) set. Levels of contraceptive prevalence rate of the respondents having only daughters is found only 48.4, which is remarkably lower than the national average …

The Risk Of Hypertension In Adulthood As A Consequence Of Adolescent Obesity, Demsa Simbolon, Epti Yorita, Ruzita Abd Talib

Kesmas

Population increase in adolescence are associated with increased overweight and obesity problems. If this problem not early intervention will have an impact on increasing hypertension prevalence and risk of death. This research aimed to explain the consequences of overweight and obesity in adolescent to hypertension in adults. The study used Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) data with a retrospective cohort study. Adolescent BMI measurements on 2007 and the risk of hypertension on 2014. Population are all adolescents aged 10-20 years in 2007. Sample of 1,697 adolescent who randomly IFLS 2007 with the inclusion criteria: biological children and a single birth, …

Duration Of Hormonal Contraception And Risk Of Cervical Cancer, Yuni Kusmiyati, Annisaputri Prasistyami, Heni Puji Wahyuningsih, Hesty Widyasih, Qorinah Estiningtyas Sakilah Adnani

Kesmas

The use of long hormonal contraceptives can disrupt the balance of estrogen in the body, resulting in abnormal cell changes. This study aimed to determine a correlation between the duration of hormonal contraception and risk of cervical cancer. This study used a case-control design. The population were patients who had examined at a cancer installation and obstetrics-gynecology polyclinic Dr. Sardjito Hospital in 2018. Case samples were 95 women have cervical cancer diagnosis and control were 95 women with a negative pap smear. Sampling with random sampling. Dependent variable cervical cancer and independent variable the duration of hormonal contraception are obtained …

Private Midwives’ Perceptions On Barriers And Enabling Factors To Voluntary Counselling And Hiv Test (Vct) In Bali, Indonesia, Dinar Saurmauli Lubis, Lpl Wulandari, Ni Luh Putu Suariyani, Kadek Tresna Adhi, Sari Andajani

Kesmas

In Indonesia, more than half of pregnant women seek antenatal care (ANC) at private midwifery clinics. The midwives play an important role in advocating for voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) uptake among pregnant women during ANC. This study examined midwives’ perception of barriers and enabling factors with regards to refer pregnant women for HIV testing. The study was conducted in Denpasar City and Badung District, two localities in Bali with high HIV prevalence. Two focus groups discussions with 15 private midwives and five in-depth interviews were conducted. Data were transcribed verbatim and thematic analysis methods were used to examine patterns …

Hematological Indices Of Pesticide Exposure Rice Farmers In Southern Thailand, Wiyada Kwanhian, Supabhorn Yimthiang, Siriuma Jawjit, Junjira Mahaboon, Udomratana Vattanasit, Phiman Thirarattanasunthon

Kesmas

The most common pesticides used in rice farming are organophosphates and carbamates. These pesticides inhibit acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity, resulting in excessive levels of acetylcholine accumulation and disrupted neurotransmission. This study compared AChE activity and hematological parameters between pesticide-using rice farmers, non-pesticide using rice farmers, and non-agricultural occupational groups (non-farmers). Pesticide residues that accumulated in rice and the water and soil of the study area were also determined. AChE activity of all participants showed 10 from 87 samples (11.49%) as borderline depressed, with 50% of these being pesticide-using farmers. Most of the hematological parameters were normal in all samples. However, platelet …

Analysis Of Traditional Health Care In Three Community Health Centers In West Java Province, Indonesia, 2018, Adik Wibowo, Evita Diniawati, Than Tun Sein

Kesmas

The National Traditional Health Care set up three objectives for its implementation at the health centers, whereby health staff to be trained on traditional health and provide accupressure care, able to collect data, register and provide technical guidance to traditional healers and guide individuals in the use of traditional medicine and herbs. This qualitative research aimed to analyze the implementation of traditional health care at 3 subdistrict health centers Ciomas, Ciawi and Caringin in district Bogor. Data was collected through document analysis, observation and indepth inteview. Each health center has trained staff in accupressure but care is hindered by lack …

Dietary Inflammatory Index And Non-Communicable Disease Risk: A Narrative Review, Catherine M. Phillips, Ling-Wei Chen, Barbara Heude, Jonathan Y. Bernard, Nicholas C. Harvey, Liesbeth Duijts, Sara M. Mensink-Bout, Kinga Polanska, Giulia Mancano, Matthew Suderman, Nitin Shivappa, James R. Hébert

Faculty Publications

There are over 1,000,000 publications on diet and health and over 480,000 references on inflammation in the National Library of Medicine database. In addition, there have now been over 30,000 peer-reviewed articles published on the relationship between diet, inflammation, and health outcomes. Based on this voluminous literature, it is now recognized that low-grade, chronic systemic inflammation is associated with most non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, cancers, respiratory and musculoskeletal disorders, as well as impaired neurodevelopment and adverse mental health outcomes. Dietary components modulate inflammatory status. In recent years, the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII^®), a literature-derived …

Increased Dietary Inflammatory Index Is Associated With Schizophrenia: Results Of A Case–Control Study From Bahrain, Haitham Jahrami, Moez Al-Islam Faris, Hadeel Ghazzawi, Zahra Saif, Layla Habib, Nitin Shivappa, James R. Hébert

Faculty Publications

Background: Several studies have indicated that chronic low-grade inflammation is associated with the development of schizophrenia. Given the role of diet in modulating inflammatory markers, excessive caloric intake and increased consumption of pro-inflammatory components such as calorie-dense, nutrient-sparse foods may contribute toward increased rates of schizophrenia. This study aimed to examine the association between dietary inflammation, as measured by the dietary inflammatory index (DII^®), and schizophrenia. Methods: A total of 120 cases attending the out-patient department in the Psychiatric Hospital/Bahrain were recruited, along with 120 healthy controls matched on age and sex. The energy-adjusted DII (E-DII) was computed …

Identifying Risk Factors Related To Premature Birth Through Binary Logistic And Proportional Odds Ordinal Logistic Regression, Clayton Elwood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Premature birth has been identified as the single greatest cause of death worldwide in children under the age of five. This thesis will implement binary logistic regression and proportional odds ordinal logistic regression to predict different levels of premature birth and identify associated risk factors. The models will be built from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's 2014 Vital Statistics Natality Birth Data containing nearly 4 million live births within the United States. Odds ratios and confidence intervals on risk factors were produced utilizing binary logistic regression.

Beta Regression Models For Repeated-Measures Data Analysis, Nicholas A. Hein

Theses & Dissertations

Bounded data often give rise to uncorrectable skew and heteroscedasticity. Bounded data are a relatively frequent occurrence in clinical and research settings. For example, in neuropsychology, most neurocognitive tests are bounded, and subjects are repeatedly measured over time. The statistician needs to choose a model that accounts for the correlated nature of the repeated measures. The Beta distribution is a natural choice for modeling bounded data. Currently, generalized linear mixed models (GLMM) and generalized estimating equations (GEE) are two methods that can be used to model Beta distributed data with repeated measures. However, GLMMs and GEEs have limitations, i.e., GLMMs …

Sharing Of Injection Drug Preparation Equipment Is Associated With Hiv Infection: A Cross-Sectional Study, Laura J. Ball, Klajdi Puka, Mark Speechley, Ryan Wong, Brian Hallam, Joshua C. Weiner, Sharon Koivu, Michael S. Silverman

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Background: Sharing needles/syringes and sexual transmission are widely appreciated as means of HIV transmission among persons who inject drugs (PWIDs). London, Canada, is experiencing an outbreak of HIV among PWIDs, despite a large needle/syringe distribution program and low rates of needle/syringe sharing.

Objective: To determine whether sharing of injection drug preparation equipment (IDPE) is associated with HIV infection.

Methods: Between August 2016 and June 2017, individuals with a history of injection drug use and residence in London were recruited to complete a comprehensive questionnaire and HIV testing.

Results: A total of 127 participants were recruited; 8 were excluded because of …

Sample Size Calculation Of Clinical Trials With Correlated Outcomes, Dateng Li

Statistical Science Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we investigate sample size calculation for three kinds of clinical trials: (1). Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with longitudinal count outcomes; (2). Cluster randomized trials (CRTs) with count outcomes; (3). CRTs with multiple binary co-primary endpoints.

Dietary Inflammatory Index And Its Relationship With Cervical Carcinogenesis Risk In Korean Women: A Case-Control Study, Sundara Raj Sreeja, Hyun Yi Lee, Minji Kwon, Nitin Shivappa, James R. Hébert, Mi Kyung Kim

Faculty Publications

Several studies have reported that diet’s inflammatory potential is related to chronic diseases such as cancer, but its relationship with cervical cancer risk has not been studied yet. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII^®) and cervical cancer risk among Korean women. This study consisted of 764 cases with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN)1, 2, 3, or cervical cancer, and 729 controls from six gynecologic oncology clinics in South Korea. The DII was computed using a validated semiquantitative Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). Odds ratios and 95% CI were calculated using multinomial …

Effectiveness Of High-Intensity Interval Training For Fitness And Mobility Post Stroke: A Systematic Review., Joshua C. Wiener, Amanda Mcintyre, Scott Janssen, Jeffrey Ty Chow, Cristina Batey, Robert Teasell

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the evidence on the effectiveness of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in improving fitness and mobility post stroke. TYPE: Systematic review.

LITERATURE SURVEY: Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, and Scopus were searched for articles published in English up to January 2018.

METHODOLOGY: Studies were included if the sample was adult human participants with stroke, the sample size was ≥3, and participants received >1 session of HIIT. Study and participant characteristics, treatment protocols, and results were extracted.

SYNTHESIS: Six studies with a total of 140 participants met inclusion criteria: three randomized controlled trials and three pre-post studies. HIIT protocols ranged …

Novel Bayesian Methodology In Multivariate Problems., Debamita Kundu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation involves developing novel Bayesian methodology for multivariate problems. In particular, it focuses on two contexts: shrinkage based variable selection in multivariate regression and simultaneous covariance estimation of multiple groups. Both these projects are centered around fully Bayesian inference schemes based on hierarchical modeling to capture context-specific features of the data and the development of computationally efficient estimation algorithm. Variable selection over a potentially large set of covariates in a linear model is quite popular. In the Bayesian context, common prior choices can lead to a posterior expectation of the regression coefficients that is a sparse (or nearly sparse) …

Association Of Copy Number Variations With Chronic Hepatitis B In Chinese Population, Fang Niu

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

With one third of the Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection population of the world, chronic Hepatitis B (CHB) has become a top burden in China. CHB is a lifelong infection with HBV which can cause serious health problems, like cirrhosis, liver cancer or even death. HBV infection is known to result in various clinical conditions, including asymptomatic HBV carriers to chronic hepatitis and primary hepatocellular carcinoma. Several studies have shown that host genetic susceptibility could be an important factor that determines these various outcomes of HBV infection. Many Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) and Copy Number Variations (CNVs) have been associated …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Tree Ring Chronology And Precipitation, Ruizhe Yin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tree ring chronology data is known to reflect regional climate due to the strong impact of rainfall and temperature. Therefore, tree ring data can be used to reconstruct historical climate in order to understand how climate changed in the past and make prediction about the future behavior of the climate. For simplicity, this research only considers the influence of precipitation on tree ring growth within the New England area. A total of 94 measurement sites are used to record tree ring width over 881 years and corresponding precipitation data are given at some locations for 121 years. We developed a …

Factors Associated With Eosinophilic Esophagitis In Nevada, Julia Lorraine Anderson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) is a rare immune-mediated illness with symptoms that range from difficulty swallowing to food impaction of the esophagus. Most published studies have been documented among patients residing in cool regions with significant annual rainfall. No published studies to our knowledge have been performed examining the healthcare utilization trends of EoE in Nevada. Utilizing two unique databases, the factors associated with EoE healthcare utilization patterns in Nevada were examined. All analyses were performed in R version 3.5.1. This study included a demographic and regional analysis identifying risk factors associated with having an EoE healthcare visit in Nevada. Several …

Extension Of Risk-Based Measure Of Time-Varying Prognostic Discrimination For Survival Models, Shujie Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The Cox proportional hazards (PH) model and time dependent PH model are the most popular survival models in survival analysis. The hazard discrimination summary HDS(t) proposed by Liang and Heagerty [2017] is used to evaluate the mean hazard difference between cases and controls at time t. Liang and Heagerty [2017] evaluated the discrimination performance under the PH model and time dependent PH model with right censoring.

In this thesis, first, we further investigate their method via comprehensive simulations including 1) We extend the simulation in Liang and Heagerty [2017] under the PH model by adding more scenarios such as different …

Statin Prescription For Patients With Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease From National Survey Data, Kristina Vatcheva, Vicente Aparicio, Ayesha Araya, Eduardo Gonzalez, Susan T. Laing

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Despite strong evidence for the use of statins for patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD), statin prescription is still suboptimal. We aimed to determine the rates and factors that influence statin prescription using national survey data. This is a cross-sectional retrospective study on 8,468 patients with clinical ASCVD who were drawn from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey from years 2011 to 2015. Survey-weighted analysis was conducted to estimate weighted prevalence and odds ratios for statin prescription. There was a significant increase in statin prescription from the years 2011 to 2015. Nevertheless, …