The chaperone heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) regulates physiologically and
pathological cellular processes, by binding and stabilizing kinases involved in basal
cellular functions and in cellular responses to stress, respectively. I hypothesize...
In recent years, a number of computational and statistical problems for identifying SNP-SNP interactions in high dimensional survival data have been studied, and several data mining approaches have been proposed. However, the relative performance...
In this dissertation research, we aim to solve problems of two types of survival data, clustered survival data with potentially informative cluster size and sojourn time data. The methods for these two types of data are different. However, both...
Marginal inference for waiting times in multi-stage time-to-event models is complicated by right censoring of observations as well as the prior history of events in the model. In general, complications arise due to the evolution of the censoring...
A common research interest in medical, biological, and engineering research is determining whether certain independent variables are correlated with the survival or failure times. Standard statistical techniques cannot usually be applied for...
In the United States substance abuse takes a toll that is costly in both economic and human terms. In 2005 we paid 467.7 billion dollars to address the consequences of substance abuse, and each year we have lost an estimated 537,000 of our fellows...
Data mining; Lungs--Cancer; Outcome assessment (Medical care)
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States and the world, with more than 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. However, because of a lack of effective tools to diagnose Lung Cancer, more than half of all cases are...
Genes in folate metabolizing pathway are responsible for modulating key enzymes in folate metabolisms necessary for DNA synthesis and repair and influence DNA methylation. Irregularity in DNA methylation may modify tumor phenotype response to...
The complexity of high-dimensional data creates a number of concerns when trying to analyze it. This data often consists of a response or survival time and potentially thousands of predictors. These predictors can be highly correlated, and the...
Bioinformatics; Breast--Cancer--Treatment; Medical care--Data processing
Statistical models have been the first choice for comparative effectiveness in clinical research. Though effective, these models are limited when the data to be analyzed do not fit the assumed distributions; which is mostly the case when the study...
Oxidative stress-induced immunosuppression could be due to a decrease in CD4 + T lymphocyte activation or proliferation. 4-Hydroxynonenal (HNE), an end product of lipid peroxidation, and its protein adducts act as markers of oxidative stress. In...
Interactions between chemokines and their receptors are involved in organ- specific homing and propagation of metastatic breast cancer (BrCa) cells. BrCa cells express higher levels of CXCR4 and CXCR7 mRNA and cell surface protein, than normal...
Recent studies indicate post-translational deacetylation by members of the superfamily of histone deacetylase complexes (HDACs) is necessary for oligodendrocyte precursor cell (OPC) differentiation into mature oligodendrocytes (OLs). However, it...
New firms face financial constraints that could hinder firm performance. Yet founders exhibit persistence and resourcefulness in building their new ventures and finding solutions to their financial constraints. The use of financial theories that...
Naja kaouthia is a significant species because it feeds primarily on agricultural pests, causes human mortality, and is commercially exploited. Understanding the life history and demography of harvested populations is essential to providing...
Medical care--Decision making; Decision making--Simulation methods
A variety of methodologies have been employed for decision making related to the treatment of diseases/injury. Decision trees are a functional way in which to examine problems under uncertainty by providing a method to analyze decisions under risk...
While investigating estrogen response element (ERE) binding properties of Erα in de-identified human breast cancer extracts, additional proteins were observed that recognized ERE sequences (ERE-BP). In order to unravel the apparent role of these...
Pancreatic beta cells are extremely vulnerable to destruction by Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). In type 1 diabetes and islet transplantation ROS are thought to be involved in the loss of beta cells. To test the role of antioxidant in islet...
The fundamental question of the exact nature of the role played by TNF in the failing myocardium remains one of contention. Many preclinical studies have demonstrated beneficial effects with TNF antagonism and recently the dichotomous role played...
The immune system is of profound importance for host survival due to its ability to clear many acquired diseases. In case of infections and cancer, disease arises due to under-performance of immune system. Whereas in autoimmunity and...