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Proton Therapy Patient Log File Analysis for Machine Performance Evaluation
No full textabstract: Treatment log files for spot scanning proton therapy provide a record of delivery accuracy, but they also contain diagnostic information for machine performance. A collection of patient log files can identify machine performance trends over time. This facilitates the identification of machine issues before they cause downtime or degrade treatment quality. At Mayo Clinic Arizona, all patient treatment logs are stored in a database. These log files contain information including the gantry, beam position, monitor units (MUs), and gantry angle. This data was analyzed to identify trends, which were then correlated with quality assurance measurements and maintenance records. (abstract
What the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization Do Not Want Us to Know About Neglected Diseases and Populations in Latin America
No full textabstract: The purpose of this research is to exploit the neglect of specific populations and diseases in Latin America through an epidemiological literature review. As a small part of a larger publication, the foci of this research was the infectious disease, helminthiasis. Using manually indexed abstracts from the National Library of Medicine database in PubMed, 4,594 papers were synthesized and then processed for further review. Of those papers, 29 provided information about helminths in indigenous populations. These papers were reviewed and used in prevalence data extraction and variable analysis. The main conclusion was to reveal the fact that from an entire health database less than 30 papers provided information about the persistence of helminths in indigenous communities of Latin America. Not only that but the few papers that could be analyzed had consistently high prevalence ratios. (abstract
How does the weather forecast impact decision-making in Phoenix, AZ?
No full textabstract: Surveys have shown that several hundred billion weather forecasts are obtained by the United States public each year, and that weather news is one of the most consumed topics in the media. This indicates that the forecast provides information that is significant to the public, and that the public utilizes details associated with it to inform aspects of their life. Phoenix, Arizona is a dry, desert region that experiences a monsoon season and extreme heat. How then, does the weather forecast influence the way Phoenix residents make decisions? This paper aims to draw connections between the weather forecast, decision making, and people who live in a desert environment. To do this, a ten-minute survey was deployed through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) in which 379 respondents were targeted. The survey asks 45 multiple choice and ranking questions categorized into four sections: obtainment of the forecast, forecast variables of interest, informed decision making based on unique weather variables, and demographics. This research illuminates how residents in the Phoenix metropolitan area use the local weather forecast for decision-making on daily activities, and the main meteorological factors that drive those decisions. (abstract
The Impact of Different Normalization Methods on Western Blot Results
No full textabstract: Reducing the amount of error and introduced data variability increases the accuracy of Western blot results. In this study, different methods of normalization for loading differences and data alignment were explored with respect to their impact on Western blot results. GAPDH was compared to the LI-COR Revert total protein stain as a loading control. The impact of normalizing data to a control condition, which is commonly done to align Western blot data distributed over several immunoblots, was also investigated. Specifically, this study addressed whether normalization to a small subset of distinct controls on each immunoblot increases pooled data variability compared to a larger set of controls. Protein expression data for NOX-2 and SOD-2 from a study investigating the protective role of the bradykinin type 1 receptor in angiotensin-II induced left ventricle remodeling were used to address these questions but are also discussed in the context of the original study. The comparison of GAPDH and Revert total protein stain as a loading control was done by assessing their correlation and comparing how they affected protein expression results. Additionally, the impact of treatment on GAPDH was investigated. To assess how normalization to different combinations of controls influences data variability, protein data were normalized to the average of 5 controls, the average of 2 controls, or an average vehicle and the results by treatment were compared. The results of this study demonstrated that GAPDH expression is not affected by angiotensin-II or bradykinin type 1 receptor antagonist R-954 and is a less sensitive loading control compared to Revert total protein stain. Normalization to the average of 5 controls tended to reduce pooled data variability compared to 2 controls. Lastly, the results of this study provided preliminary evidence that R-954 does not alter the expression of NOX-2 or SOD-2 to an expression profile that would be expected to explain the protection it confers against Ang-II induced left ventricle remodeling. (abstract
Isolation of Recombinant IgV-CD47 Fragment to Probe the Interaction Between CD47 and Mac-1 Integrin
No full textabstract: CD47 is a cell surface receptor expressed on many cells in the body. It has many immune functions such as marking host cells as “self� and the activation of apoptosis through phagocytosis. Mac-1 is a major integrin on myeloid cells and has been implicated in several different macrophage immune functions. Previous studies from Dr. Ugarova’s lab demonstrated CD47 may form a complex with Mac-1 through the cis-interaction and could regulate Mac-1-dependent macrophage functions. To localize the binding site for Mac-1 in CD47, the extracellular domain of CD47 IgV was isolated as GST-fusion protein from E. coli cells. The recombinant fusion protein is being used in current studies with cell adhesion assays and immunoprecipitation to determine the complementary binding site in Mac-1. (abstract
A new story: Narrative-Based Medicine Applied to Latino Healthcare
No full textabstract: Language has a critical role as a social determinant of health and a source of healthcare disparities. Rhetorical devices are ubiquitous in medicine and are often used to persuade or inform care team members. Rhetorical devices help a healthcare team acknowledge and interpret narratives. For example, metaphors are frequently used as rhetorical devices by patients to describe cancer, including winning or losing a battle, surviving a fight, war, potentially implying that the patient feels helpless like a pawn fighting in a struggle directed by the physician, thus reducing patient autonomy and agency. However, this occidental approach is flawed because it excessively focuses on the individual's agency and marginalizes external factors, such as cultural beliefs and social support (Sontag, 1989). Although there is a large body of research about how the rhetoric of medicine affects patients in the United States, there is a lack of such research about how patient experiences' rhetoric can help increase the understanding of Latino populations' unique social determinants. This creative project aims to analyze the rhetorical differences in the description of disease amongst Latino and American communities, translating to creating an educational module for a Spanish for biomedical sciences class. The objective is to increase future healthcare professionals' ability to understand how the composition of descriptions and medical rhetoric in different mediums of humanities can serve as critical tools to analyze social determinants in Latino healthcare delivery. (abstract
Geochemical Modeling of the Yellowstone Mixing Zone
No full textabstract: In this study, the influence of fluid mixing on temperature and geochemistry of hot spring fluids is investigated. Yellowstone National Park (YNP) is home to a diverse range of hot springs with varying temperature and chemistry. The mixing zone of interest in this paper, located in Geyser Creek, YNP, has been a point of interest since at least the 1960’s (Raymahashay, 1968). Two springs, one basic (~pH 7) and one acidic (~pH 3) mix together down an outflow channel. There are visual bands of different photosynthetic pigments which suggests the creation of temperature and chemical gradients due to the fluids mixing. In this study, to determine if fluid mixing is driving these changes of temperature and chemistry in the system, a model that factors in evaporation and cooling was developed and compared to measured temperature and chemical data collected downstream. Comparison of the modeled temperature and chemistry to the measured values at the downstream mixture shows that many of the ions, such as Cl�, F�, and Li�, behave conservatively with respect to mixing. This indicates that the influence of mixing accounts for a large proportion of variation in the chemical composition of the system. However, there are some chemical constituents like CH₄, H₂, and NO₃�, that were not conserved, and the concentrations were either depleted or increased in the downstream mixture. Some of these constituents are known to be used by microorganisms. The development of this mixing model can be used as a tool for predicting biological activity as well as building the framework for future geochemical and computational models that can be used to understand the energy availability and the microbial communities that are present. (abstract
Building an optimized NBA Team Team Composition: A Sports Analytical Approach
No full textabstract: Sports analytics is a growing field that attempts to showcase interesting aspects of a sport with the use of modern technology and machine learning techniques. This thesis will demonstrate how the NBA has progressed in the past decade by comparing the performance have five teams (SAS, OKC, PHO, MIN, and SAC). It will also provide key insight on what an NBA team should focus on to build an optimized NBA team composition, which will better their performance in the league, which will improve their chances of making into the playoffs. These teams were chosen after conducting extensive analysis on all NBA teams. These five teams were chosen because of the variability in performance (two successful and three less successful teams). Two successful teams, SAS and OKC, and three less successful teams, PHO, MIN, and SAC, were chosen to exemplify the different approaches of teams in the NBA and to distinguish what an NBA team should consider build an optimized team composition to better their performance in the league stage. (abstract
A Behavioral Economic Exploration of Risk and Loss Aversions Among College Students
No full textabstract: The field of behavioral economics explores the ways in which individuals make choices under uncertainty, in part, by examining the role that risk attitudes play in a person’s efforts to maximize their own utility. This thesis aims to contribute to the body of economic literature regarding risk attitudes by first evaluating the traditional economic method for discerning risk coefficients by examining whether students provide reasonable answers to lottery questions. Second, the answers of reasonable respondents are subject to our economic model using the CRRA utility function in which Python code is used to make predictions of the risk coefficients of respondents via a two-step regression procedure. Lastly, the degree to which the economic model provides a good fit for the lottery answers given by reasonable respondents is discerned. The most notable findings of the study are as follows. College students had extreme difficulty in understanding lottery questions of this sort, with Medical and Life Science majors struggling significantly more than both Business and Engineering majors. Additionally, gender was correlated with estimated risk coefficients, with females being more risk-loving relative to males. Lastly, in regards to the model’s goodness of fit when evaluating potential losses, the expected utility model involving choice under uncertainty was consistent with the behavior of progressives and moderates but inconsistent with the behavior of conservatives. (abstract
Optimal Sampling for Function Approximation
No full textabstract: This thesis project focuses on algorithms that generate good sampling points for function approximation. In one dimension, polynomial interpolation using equispaced points is unstable, with high Oscillations near the endpoints of the interpolated interval. On the other hand, Chebyshev nodes provide both stable and highly accurate points for polynomial interpolation. In higher dimensions, optimal sampling points are unknown. This project addresses this problem by finding algorithms that are robust in various domains for polynomial interpolation and least-squares. To measure the quality of the nodes produced by said algorithms, the Lebesgue constant will be used. In the algorithms, a number of numerical techniques will be used, such as the Gram-Schmidt process and the pivoted-QR process. In addition, concepts such as node density and greedy algorithms will be explored. (abstract