SCU Events

As students at Santa Clara University for the past four years, we have noticed a lack of student participation in school-sponsored events. Sporting events, art exhibits, student performances and so on do not draw the desired participation from the Santa Clara community. Part of this problem is that the university’s event calendar page is unorganized, lacks a comprehensive list of SCU events and has a poor user interface. Without a comprehensive, centralized place to find information on Santa Clara events, it is difficult for people to attend events and even more challenging to increase awareness about what is happening on campus. With the ultimate goal of increasing both awareness and participation for university events, we have a created a new SCU events calendar page. This calendar page aims to simplify the user experience so that obtaining desired information and browsing through upcoming events is intuitive and effective. This paper details our year-long process for creating the webpage, SCU Events

Examining the Effect of Immunity on Infection Dynamics at the Host, Population, and Multi-Population Levels.

Dynamic modeling is an important tool for informing public health decisions. In this dissertation, we explored the role of host immunity in infection transmission models at the host, population, and multi-population level. We applied these models to two pathogen systems: 1) anthrax infection at the host level and 2) polio transmission at the population and multi-population level. At the host level, dose-response models are used to characterize the risk of infection given a pathogen exposure and are one of the primary tools for risk assessments. These models are generally static assuming invariant risk over time. We developed a dose-response model that incorporates the immune response to pathogen exposures and thereby allows risk calculations to be dependent on exposure patterns that vary over time. An analysis of an anthrax disease system indicated that the risk of anthrax is invariant to exposure patterns. Although the anthrax data set did not reveal a dose-timing pattern of risk, more variable exposure data is needed to fully evaluate this process. At the population level, transmission models elucidate dynamic infection processes and provide a framework to analyze intervention effectiveness. We developed a model of polio transmission that incorporates vaccine strain transmission and waning immunity to assess the successes and failures of the polio eradication campaign. We demonstrated that long-term success might be difficult due to reinfection transmission dynamics attributable to waning immunity. Increased vaccine strain transmission mitigates the influence of reinfection by boosting immunity but cannot be relied upon due to risk of disease caused by circulating vaccine. Therefore additional interventions may be appropriate such as adult boosters or improved sanitary conditions. We then extended the polio transmission model to the multi-population level to assess the effect of vaccination policies across population groups through migration. Our analysis demonstrated that if vaccination coverage lapses in one population, it is detrimental to the vaccination programs in neighboring populations. This is exemplified when migration comes from high transmission populations. Thus, eradication campaign success might be greatly aided by interventions focusing on mobile populations.PHDEpidemiological ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98008/1/mayerbry_1.pd

Survivorship Care Plans: Prevalence and Barriers to Use

Survivorship care plans (SCPs) are intended to educate survivors and providers about survivors’ transition from cancer treatment to follow-up care. Using a survey of 23 cancer programs in the South Atlantic United States, we (1) describe the prevalence and barriers to SCP use and (2) assess relationships between SCP use and (a) barriers and (b) cancer program characteristics. Most cancer programs (86%) reported some SCP use; however, less than a quarter of cancer programs’ providers had ever used an SCP. The majority (61%) began using SCPs because of professional societies’ recommendations. Key barriers to SCP use were insufficient organizational resources (75%) and systems for SCP use. We found patterns in SCP use across location, program type and professional society membership. Most cancer programs have adopted SCPs, but use remains inconsistent. Efforts to promote SCP use should address barriers, particularly in cancer programs that are susceptible to barriers to SCP use

Reduced Left Executive Control Network Functional Connectivity Is Associated with Alcohol Use Disorders

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/108693/1/acer12505.pd

Forming Realistic Late-Type Spirals in a LCDM Universe: The Eris Simulation

Simulations of the formation of late-type spiral galaxies in a cold dark matter LCDM universe have traditionally failed to yield realistic candidates. Here we report a new cosmological N-body/SPH simulation of extreme dynamic range in which a close analog of a Milky Way disk galaxy arises naturally. Termed Eris, the simulation follows the assembly of a galaxy halo of mass Mvir=7.9x10^11 Msun with a total of N=18.6 million particles (gas + dark matter + stars) within the final virial radius, and a force resolution of 120 pc. It includes radiative cooling, heating from a cosmic UV field and supernova explosions, a star formation recipe based on a high gas density threshold (nSF=5 atoms cm^-3 rather than the canonical nSF=0.1 atoms cm^-3), and neglects AGN feedback. At the present epoch, the simulated galaxy has an extended rotationally-supported disk with a radial scale length Rd=2.5 kpc, a gently falling rotation curve with circular velocity at 2.2 disk scale lenghts of V2.2=214 km/s, a bulge-to-disk ratio B/D=0.35, and a baryonic mass fraction that is 30% below the cosmic value. The disk is thin, is forming stars in the region of the Sigma_SFR - Sigma_HI plane occupied by spiral galaxies, and falls on the photometric Tully-Fisher and the stellar mass-halo virial mass relations. Hot (T>3x10^5 K), X-ray luminous halo gas makes only 26% of the universal baryon fraction and follows a flattened density profile proportional to r^-1.13 out to r=100 kpc. Eris appears then to be the first cosmological hydrodynamic simulation in which the galaxy structural properties, the mass budget in the various components, and the scaling relations between mass and luminosity are all consistent with a host of observational constraints. (Abridged)Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication on the Astrophysical Journa

Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies of the Nearby Centaurus A Group

We present Halpha narrow-band imaging of 17 dwarf irregular galaxies (dIs) in the nearby Centaurus A Group. Although all large galaxies of the group have a current or recent enhanced star formation episode, the dIs have normal star formation rates and do not contain a larger fraction of dwarf starbursts than other nearby groups. Relative distances between dIs and larger galaxies of the group can be computed in 3D since most of them have now fairly accurately known distances. We find that the dI star formation rates do not depend on local environment, and in particular they do not show any correlation with the distance of the dI to the nearest large galaxy of the group. There is a clear morphology-density relation in the Centaurus A Group, similarly to the Sculptor and Local Groups, in the sense that dEs/dSphs tend to be at small distances from the more massive galaxies of the group, while dIs are on average at larger distances. We find four transition dwarfs in the Group, dwarfs that show characteristics of both dE/dSphs and dIs, and which contain cold gas but no current star formation. Interestingly the transition dwarfs have an average distance to the more massive galaxies which is intermediate between those of the dEs/dSphs and dIs, and which is quite large: 0.54 +- 0.31 Mpc. This large distance poses some difficulty for the most popular scenarios proposed for transforming a dI into a dE/dSph (ram-pressure with tidal stripping or galaxy harassment). If the observed transition dwarfs are indeed missing links between dIs and dE/dSphs, their relative isolation makes it less likely to have been produced by these mechanisms. We propose that an inhomogeneous IGM containing higher density clumps would be able to ram-pressure stripped the dIs at such large distances.Comment: 57 pages, 10 fi5gure