Development of Recombinant Varicella-Zoster Virus Vaccines Expressing SARS-CoV-2 Antigens

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) continues to cause infections and deaths around the globe. Since its emergence, scientists have worked diligently to discover and produce vaccines to battle the virus. While they successfully created and distributed vaccines, the vaccines are not without flaw. These vaccines do not grant long term immunity, require multiple booster shots, and have not prevented the emergence of viral variants. In this study, the SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD), which is a key part of the spike protein (S), and nucleocapsid (N) genetic sequences were inserted into the live varicella zoster virus (VZV) vaccines creating a live recombinant (rVZV) expressing SARS-CoV-2 antigens (rVZV-SARS-Cov-2). The overall goal of this project was to confirm rVZV-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines express SARS RBD and N antigens. Specific aims of the experiment were to confirm that the SARS RBD and N genetic sequences are located in open reading frame 13 of the rVZV-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and to confirm expression of SARS RBD and N antigens in rVZV-SARS-CoV-2 infected cells by immunoblot and immunofluorescence assay. The rVZV-SARS-Cov-2 vaccines were shown to contain the genetic sequence for both the RBD and N antigens by PCR and to express the SARS-CoV-2 RBD and N antigens in infected cells by immunoblot and immunofluorescence assay. Based on these results, the rVZV-SARS-CoV-2 RBD and rVZV-SARS-CoV-2 N vaccines may proceed to animal testing with the hope of reaching clinical trial

An Educational Module Explaining The Effect of Cryotherapy on Post-Operative Opioid Consumption Following Orthopedic Surgery: A Quality Improvement Project

Background: The opioid crisis has stemmed from the undertreatment of pain. This inadequacy has led to increased use of opioids and a rapid rise in opioid-related fatalities. Opioids are used extensively in the perioperative period because of their beneficial pain-relieving and conscious-altering properties. Patients are often sent home with prescriptions for these habit-forming medications, leading to tolerance, addiction, and potential overdoses. This is especially true for very painful procedures, such as orthopedics. As a result, healthcare providers are at the forefront of making a change in the trajectory of the opioid crisis. One method is to find safe and effective non-opioid modalities to control postoperative pain. One such modality is the use of cryotherapy. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted using Google Scholar and PubMed databases to find research articles within the last 6 years on the effects of cryotherapy on postoperative opioid consumption following orthopedic surgery. Results: Five research articles were selected for review. The articles investigated the effect of cryotherapy on postoperative opioid consumption in orthopedic surgery patients. It was shown that cryotherapy reduces postoperative opioid consumption following orthopedic surgery

Victim-Group Legitimacy: An Argument for Extending our Understanding of Legitimacy after Crisis

Organizational legitimacy has been useful approach to studying relationship management in crisis. This presentation suggests an expansion of organizational legitimacy theory: victim-group legitimacy. Multiple recent cases of crisis involving historically marginalized groups (HMGs) suggest that organizations may not be fully prepared to respond to crises involving HMGs. Recent cases also suggest that publics now routinely see modern crises as chapters within larger marginalization narratives. Victim-group legitimacy acts as a framework for evaluating, interpreting, and responding to not only the crisis at hand, but the historical crisis between an organization and HMGs

Distributed and Scalable Video Analysis Architecture for Human Activity Recognition Using Cloud Services

This thesis proposes an open-source, maintainable system for detecting human activity in large video datasets using scalable hardware architectures. The system is validated by detecting writing and typing activities that were collected as part of the Advancing Out of School Learning in Mathematics and Engineering (AOLME) project. The implementation of the system using Amazon Web Services (AWS) is shown to be both horizontally and vertically scalable. The software associated with the system was designed to be robust so as to facilitate reproducibility and extensibility for future research

Discourse Networks of Emergency Response Communication: A Case Study of Civilian Deliberation on the Reddit Platform

Using discourse and network analysis, this research explores a reddit thread concerning an emergency situation in the U.S.V.I. after a 2017 hurricane. In particular, research seeks to gain greater understanding of deliberation and problem-solving behaviour of a crowdsourced, citizen group in response to a disaster. Findings support the use of network analysis and measures of centrality to isolate particularly important actors and contributions in a network. Furthermore, findings also depict seven archetypical roles played by users in the discourse. Further research is needed to understand how the tier structure of the reddit platform influences network structure and behaviour and normalize methods and approaches to conducting network-based research on the platform for consistent and reliable findings across research cases

An Educational Module Explaining The Effect of Cryotherapy on Post-Operative Opioid Consumption Following Orthopedic Surgery: A Quality Improvement Project

Background: The opioid crisis has stemmed from the undertreatment of pain. This inadequacy has led to increased use of opioids and a rapid rise in opioid-related fatalities. Opioids are used extensively in the perioperative period because of their beneficial pain-relieving and conscious-altering properties. Patients are often sent home with prescriptions for these habit-forming medications, leading to tolerance, addiction, and potential overdoses. This is especially true for very painful procedures, such as orthopedics. As a result, healthcare providers are at the forefront of making a change in the trajectory of the opioid crisis. One method is to find safe and effective non-opioid modalities to control postoperative pain. One such modality is the use of cryotherapy. Methods: A comprehensive search was conducted using Google Scholar and PubMed databases to find research articles within the last 6 years on the effects of cryotherapy on postoperative opioid consumption following orthopedic surgery. Results: Five research articles were selected for review. The articles investigated the effect of cryotherapy on postoperative opioid consumption in orthopedic surgery patients. It was shown that cryotherapy reduces postoperative opioid consumption following orthopedic surgery

“Warming up” in the developmental sequence? Upward transfer conditional on dependency status

The purpose of this study was to determine predictor factors of upward transfer for Kentucky community college students enrolled in a developmental algebra course. For independent students, a mother with a college degree, a declared major, a federal work-study position, greater adjusted gross income, and a higher grade point average was positively correlated with upward transfer. For dependent students, a father with a college degree, a declared major, and a higher grade point average was positively correlated with upward transfer

U.S. International Tax Policy and Corporate America

Given the Republican-controlled House and narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, the Biden Administration has found itself in the perilous situation of needing to raise tax revenue while retaining the support of moderate Democrats. President Biden has proposed raising revenue by bringing the United States closer to a worldwide no deferral system and raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent. These changes are unlikely to become law. Together, they simply do not have the support of moderate Democrats, Republicans, and, especially, Corporate America. This Article aims to resolve the Biden Administration’s conundrum by proposing a worldwide no deferral system with a corporate tax rate in the mid to high teens. In fact, such a proposal has already, in some sense, been made by both the Biden Administration and Congress and recently enacted into law: the 15 percent corporate alternative minimum tax. But few recognize this new tax system as a worldwide no deferral system because it is imposed on financial accounting income and applies only to the largest corporations. This Article addresses a gap in existing proposals for U.S. international tax reform by discussing Corporate America’s focus on the interaction between financial accounting and tax accounting. Additionally, it proposes a U.S. international tax system that could have the support of tax scholars, policymakers, and Corporate America, all without sacrificing revenue

The impact of supervisor gender on employee\u27s job satisfaction

It is a commonly held notion that there is gender inequality throughout the workforce. There is factual evidence such as salary differences between men and women that supports this claim. In the past, a misconception had developed that men are better suited for executive, leading roles, which also offers an explanation to the differences in wages. In modern times, we understand these differences in gender do not hold up to scientific scrutiny. Our purpose in this research is to continue to dispel the myth that men are better suited for power positions in the workforce and push for further progress in the fight for gender equality. We questioned workers in the Northwest Georgia area on their job satisfaction as well as their satisfaction with their supervisor. Our results indicate that there is no significant difference between male and female supervisors in relation to job satisfaction scores

On the Chopping Block: Examining the Fairness of Observational Data of Teacher Effectiveness

Since the No Child Left Behind legislation, the assessment of teacher effectiveness (TE) for accountability purposes has been at the forefront of educational policy. Prominent among both already-existing and newly developed measures is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008). The CLASS is used currently in over 40 states across the country (Teachstone, 2013; Office of Head Start, 2014) to make high-stakes decisions for teachers, including compensation, promotion, and termination. For this reason, it is important that measures like the CLASS are evaluated by research. Our research hypothesizes that if measures like the CLASS can be reliably used for high-stakes outcomes, then scores for individual teachers should remain stable over time, and particularly so within units of thematically related lessons. We used a single-subject design, reflective of the real-world uses of TE scores, to assess score stability for two kindergarten teachers purposively selected from a larger database. Stability ranges were created around mean scores and then visually examined. Significant variability was found between lessons for both teachers, particularly in the instructional support domain of the CLASS. We conclude that single observations are likely not sufficient to reliably evaluate teachers’ instructional effectiveness. Further research should investigate: (1) if similar variability is found with a larger number of teachers when observed for longer periods of time; (2) if this instability is found when using other TE measures; (3) the factors that contribute to observed instability; and (4) the number of teacher observations needed to obtain accurate views of teachers’ effectiveness patterns