3,010 research outputs found

    Undergraduate Catalog of Studies, 2023-2024

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    Location Reference Recognition from Texts: A Survey and Comparison

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    A vast amount of location information exists in unstructured texts, such as social media posts, news stories, scientific articles, web pages, travel blogs, and historical archives. Geoparsing refers to recognizing location references from texts and identifying their geospatial representations. While geoparsing can benefit many domains, a summary of its specific applications is still missing. Further, there is a lack of a comprehensive review and comparison of existing approaches for location reference recognition, which is the first and core step of geoparsing. To fill these research gaps, this review first summarizes seven typical application domains of geoparsing: geographic information retrieval, disaster management, disease surveillance, traffic management, spatial humanities, tourism management, and crime management. We then review existing approaches for location reference recognition by categorizing these approaches into four groups based on their underlying functional principle: rule-based, gazetteer matching–based, statistical learning-–based, and hybrid approaches. Next, we thoroughly evaluate the correctness and computational efficiency of the 27 most widely used approaches for location reference recognition based on 26 public datasets with different types of texts (e.g., social media posts and news stories) containing 39,736 location references worldwide. Results from this thorough evaluation can help inform future methodological developments and can help guide the selection of proper approaches based on application needs

    The development of bioinformatics workflows to explore single-cell multi-omics data from T and B lymphocytes

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    The adaptive immune response is responsible for recognising, containing and eliminating viral infection, and protecting from further reinfection. This antigen-specific response is driven by T and B cells, which recognise antigenic epitopes via highly specific heterodimeric surface receptors, termed T-cell receptors (TCRs) and B cell receptors (BCRs). The theoretical diversity of the receptor repertoire that can be generated via homologous recombination of V, D and J genes is large enough (>1015 unique sequences) that virtually any antigen can be recognised. However, only a subset of these are generated within the human body, and how they succeed in specifically recognising any pathogen(s) and distinguishing these from self-proteins remains largely unresolved. The recent advances in applying single-cell genomics technologies to simultaneously measure the clonality, surface phenotype and transcriptomic signature of pathogen- specific immune cells have significantly improved understanding of these questions. Single-cell multi-omics permits the accurate identification of clonally expanded populations, their differentiation trajectories, the level of immune receptor repertoire diversity involved in the response and the phenotypic and molecular heterogeneity. This thesis aims to develop a bioinformatic workflow utilising single-cell multi-omics data to explore, quantify and predict the clonal and transcriptomic signatures of the human T-cell response during and following viral infection. In the first aim, a web application, VDJView, was developed to facilitate the simultaneous analysis and visualisation of clonal, transcriptomic and clinical metadata of T and B cell multi-omics data. The application permits non-bioinformaticians to perform quality control and common analyses of single-cell genomics data integrated with other metadata, thus permitting the identification of biologically and clinically relevant parameters. The second aim pertains to analysing the functional, molecular and immune receptor profiles of CD8+ T cells in the acute phase of primary hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. This analysis identified a novel population of progenitors of exhausted T cells, and lineage tracing revealed distinct trajectories with multiple fates and evolutionary plasticity. Furthermore, it was observed that high-magnitude IFN-Îł CD8+ T-cell response is associated with the increased probability of viral escape and chronic infection. Finally, in the third aim, a novel analysis is presented based on the topological characteristics of a network generated on pathogen-specific, paired-chain, CD8+ TCRs. This analysis revealed how some cross-reactivity between TCRs can be explained via the sequence similarity between TCRs and that this property is not uniformly distributed across all pathogen-specific TCR repertoires. Strong correlations between the topological properties of the network and the biological properties of the TCR sequences were identified and highlighted. The suite of workflows and methods presented in this thesis are designed to be adaptable to various T and B cell multi-omic datasets. The associated analyses contribute to understanding the role of T and B cells in the adaptive immune response to viral-infection and cancer

    Using Aromatherapy for Comfort, Ease, and Stress for Adults Being Treated for Substance Use Disorder in North Central Appalachia: A Randomized Controlled Trial

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    Background:Those in treatment for substance use disorder (SUD) face significant challenges and express the need for enhanced support for comfort to be successful. There is growing interest in integrative modalities such as aromatherapy using essential oils to support health. Purpose: The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, to see if there was an increase in comfort and ease, and a decrease in stress in those who used an aroma inhaler with Citrus bergamia (Bergamot) essential oil. Second, to determine the feasibility of the intervention. Method: This study was founded upon an integrated theoretical framework combining the theory of comfort (Kolcaba, 2003) and the concept of welcoming ease (Reven, 2022a). This study used two aims to answer the research question. Aim 1 was designed to see if using an aroma inhaler (Aethereo®Stick) with bergamot essential oil for three inhalations, three times a day for seven days compared to those who did not use the aroma inhaler could increase scores for comfort and ease and decrease scores for stress in those in the intervention group. Aim 2 was designed to evaluate feasibility and acceptability. An experimental pretest posttest design with random assignment and an intention to treat design was used. The CONSORT guideline and the TREATS checklist were used to promote clear and complete reporting. Three valid and reliable instruments were used including the generalized comfort questionnaire (GCQ), the ease measure, and the depression, anxiety, and stress scale (DASS-21). Recruitment and enrollment took place between August 2022 and January 2023. Results: The relationships and findings were coherent with concepts of the integrated theoretical framework. A sample size of 57 participants including 25 in the intervention group and 32 in the control group was obtained. There were no statistically significant changes shown in the intervention group. However, post test scores compared to baseline showed mean scores increased for comfort and ease and decreased for stress in the intervention group. In the control group, both ease and stress showed statistically significant worsening (p = \u3c .001; p = .047) respectively. Ease increased after the intervention in both statistical significance (p = .044) and in effect size eta squared = .093. Recruitment, enrollment, and retention rates were good with 57 volunteers in five months. Fidelity was shown with one hundred percent of participants completing the study correctly as shown by data from the logbooks. The intervention was cost effective and relatively easy to do. Conclusions: Those in treatment for SUD face substantial challenges in everyday life and are looking for ways to help manage stress and succeed. This study showed that the use of an aroma inhaler with bergamot essential oil three times daily for one week improved scores for comfort and ease and decreased scores for perception of stress. These findings are encouraging and warrant further investigation

    2023-2024 Catalog

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    The 2023-2024 Governors State University Undergraduate and Graduate Catalog is a comprehensive listing of current information regarding:Degree RequirementsCourse OfferingsUndergraduate and Graduate Rules and Regulation

    Undergraduate Catalog of Studies, 2022-2023

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    A Process Model for Continuous Public Service Improvement: Demonstrated in Local Government Context for Smart Cities.

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    The new era of the smart city is accompanied by Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and many other technologies to improve the quality of life for the citizen of the modern city, that in turn, has brought immense opportunities as well as challenges for government and organizations. Local authorities of the cities provide multiple services across different domains to the citizens (e.g. transport, health, environment, housing, etc.). Citizens are involved during different stages of smart city services and provide their feedback across those domains. Existing smart city initiatives provide various technological platforms for gathering citizens’ feedback to provide improved quality of services to them. Even though technological developments have resulted in a higher degree of digitalization, there is a need for improvement in the services provided by municipalities. There are multiple engagement platforms to obtain citizens’ feedback for the improvement of smart city services and to transform public services. However, limited studies consider the challenges faced by practitioners at the local level during the incorporation of those feedback for further service improvement. As a result, city services fail to fulfil the need of citizens and do not meet the goals set by existing engagement platforms. Technology-oriented solutions in the public sector domain require a logical and structured approach for the transformation of public services and digitalization. Enterprise Architecture (EA) can provide this structured approach to transform public services by providing a medium to manage change, and to respond to the need of multiple stakeholders including citizens. Thus, this research proposes a process model based on the guidelines of EA and the collaboration with practitioners that would assist local authorities to provide improved services to the citizens and fulfil their needs

    Collecting information on estrus in cattle using the internet of things

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    ABSTRACT Monitoring the movements of ruminant animals is one of the most challenging tasks. In animals that act according to their habits, it is difficult to label such movements and transfer them to farmers. Monitoring and recording the movement and behavior of animals on a farm is an adopted method for successfully determining the duration of the estrus cycle in ruminant animals. The Internet is a technology that offers remarkable solutions for such applications. The aim of this study is to determine the hourly step counts and to find the estrus period in the most accurate way with a circuit design applied to the ankles of animals using an IoT-supported microcontroller. The data is transferred to the web environment wirelessly and monitored via wi-fi communication signals. This wireless wearable and network equipment determines the step count and monitors the animal's abnormal body temperature. An IoT-supported microcontroller provides wireless communication, high-speed data transmission, and low power consumption. Insemination was ensured by testing different animals on the application farm. The data is monitored in real-time, and the system gives an alert. Low cost, high reliability, and being able to be watched over the internet are the advantages of the system. This study helped develop new techniques and provided a low-cost proposition for testing wearable technologies on animals

    TeamSTEPPS and Organizational Culture

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    Patient safety issues remain despite several strategies developed for their deterrence. While many safety initiatives bring about improvement, they are repeatedly unsustainable and short-lived. The index hospital’s goal was to build an organizational culture within a groundwork that improves teamwork and continuing healthcare team engagement. Teamwork influences the efficiency of patient care, patient safety, and clinical outcomes, as it has been identified as an approach for enhancing collaboration, decreasing medical errors, and building a culture of safety in healthcare. The facility implemented Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS), an evidence-based framework which was used for team training to produce valuable and needed changes, facilitating modification of organizational culture, increasing patient safety compliance, or solving particular issues. This study aimed to identify the correlation between TeamSTEPPS enactment and improved organizational culture in the ambulatory care nursing department of a New York City public hospital
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