UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item Exploring remote service provision in adult day centers during the COVID-19 pandemic(2023) Marte, Crystal; Lazar, Amanda; Vanderheiden, Gregg; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly impacted the long-term services and supports (LTSS) sector, necessitating a rapid shift from in-person services to remote. Adult day service centers (ADSCs) – a type of LTSS – offer in-person community-based programs comprised of health and wellness services to historically underserved populations, such as communities of color, low-income, and older adults. Based on data collected from 23 semi-structured interviews with 22 providers from eight ADSCs across a Mid-Atlantic state, this thesis explores the experiences of ADSC providers – such as directors, activity staff, and nurses – as they navigated pandemic-related closures. To ensure uninterrupted services, centers leveraged their existing infrastructure and adapted to a remote service model. An intricate interplay of technical (e.g., access to devices, internet) to non-technical (e.g., digital literacy, sociocultural context, limited staff) variables affected the overall success of remote services. Simultaneously, ADSCs grappled with limited reimbursement for remote services – which directly impacted their operations and the sustainability of remote services. These findings offer insights into the challenges and adaptations providers experienced amidst an unprecedented crisis, shedding light on the systemic issues throughout this period. The study seeks to inform future interventions that promote the sustainability of remote services in ADSCs, with a specific focus on preventing service disruptions for historically underserved populations.Item Telepathic Maps: A Study in Ongoingness(2021) Gerardo, Renee; Widrig, Patrik; Dance; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)“Telepathic Maps: a study in ongoingness” is the written thesis prepared as research and reflection of the dance performance of “telepathic maps” in January 2021, a requirement for the M.F.A. at the University of Maryland. The process of creating and writing about the dance was undertaken during the CoVid-19 pandemic. Using my own personal experience as a triathlete and dancer, I posit that endurance, usually associated with athletics, can behave differently when explored through the dynamics of dance. The collaborative process and performance of “telepathic maps” are put in conversation, demonstrating how endurance provided multiple entry points to manifest the physical and artistic research. Though the original performance was cancelled due to the pandemic, the writing process revealed answers about the performative nature of endurance; that even with a finish line, the step beyond it is more meaningful than the perceived endpoint. An accessible structure was created, allowing the dance to surpass notions of performance as product and therefore representing the inherent ongoingness of my artistic and pedagogical practice.Item REASSORTMENT AND GENE SELECTION OF INFLUENZA VIRUSES IN THE FERRET MODEL AND POTENTIAL PLATFORMS FOR IN VIVO REVERSE GENETICS(2014) Angel, Matthew Gray; Perez, Daniel R; Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Influenza A virus is a highly infectious agent that cause seasonal epidemics affecting 5-15% of the world population with mild to severe illness and possibly death. While this pathogen represents a significant disease burden to the human population, it can also infect a wide range of animals including swine and land-based poultry, which are thought to serve as intermediate hosts between the human and natural wild aquatic bird reservoir. Here, two viruses, a swine-origin pandemic H1N1 and a seasonal human H3N2 are examined for segment fitness during co-infection of in vivo animal models. In three independent co-infections, reassortment between seasonal and pandemic viruses resulted in the selection of an H1N2 virus with a seasonal PB1 with an otherwise pandemic internal gene constellation. Selection for the seasonal PB1 and NA as well as the pandemic M segment was observed to occur rapidly during segment resolution. As pandemic M gene reassortant strains are being consistently identified in the field, studies were performed to identify the genetic determinants in pandemic M gene selection. Research here shows that both the M1 capsid protein and M2 ion channel from the pandemic virus are sufficient to drive the selection of the entire M segment. As swine represent an important intermediate host for the adaptation of potentially pandemic viruses, including pandemic M gene reassortant strains, alternative DNA and recombinant baculovirus-based platforms are investigated for their ability to generate influenza viruses from porcine polymerase I promoters and serve as potential vaccine candidates. Research here shows that influenza A virus can be rescued de novo using the porcine polymerase I promoter in an eight plasmid system. Furthermore, a single bacmid can be constructed that rescues influenza virus or baculovirus encoding the influenza reverse genetic system in mammalian tissue culture or Sf9 cells, respectively. These represent a new generation of species-tailored vaccine platforms.Item Zoonotic Transmission of Influenza H9 subtype through Reassortment(2013) Kimble, James Brian; Perez, Daniel R; Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Influenza A virus causes disease across a broad host range including avian and mammalian species. Most influenza viruses are found in wild aquatic birds, are of low consequence and refrain from zoonotic transmission. However, some strains occasionally cross the species barrier, into domestic birds and a plethora of mammalian species, most notably swine and humans. Many of these infections are dead ends and quickly disappear from the species, but occasionally, a stable lineage is established and becomes endemic in an animal population. Avian Influenza virus (AIV) H9N2 was predominantly found in wild ducks and shore birds across the globe with occasional infections in turkeys until the late 1980's, at which point the virus became established in Eurasian poultry populations. In the late 1990's the virus again jumped hosts, first into swine, and then into humans. Across many regions, these viruses appear to be gaining human-like virus characteristics. Here, the influenza receptor distribution in a range of poultry species has been characterized and shown that many of the birds were able to bind human-like binding viruses. While no large-scale H9N2 human infections have occurred, the threat is there. The most likely route for this to occur is through reassortment with human viruses. The 2009 human pandemic H1N1 (pH1N1) is a likely candidate as it is found in multiple species and seems to readily reassort. The two viruses were shown to be compatible for reassortment and H9:pH1N1 viruses would readily infect and transmit in both ferrets (a human model animal) and swine. Finally, a novel method of modeling reassortment in vivo was developed, which simultaneously tests the breadth of possible reassortant and utilizes natural host selective pressure to select the most-fit progeny. Furthermore, the characterization of these viruses in ferrets showed they readily infect, efficiently transmit, and exhibit mild to moderate pathological consequences. Taken together, these findings broaden our understanding of natural observations, characterize the potential for zoonosis, highlight the dangers H9 viruses may pose to humans, and give scientists a new tool to deepen our understanding of reassortment.Item International Externalities in Pandemic Influenza Mitigation(2011) Hutton, Stephen; Cropper, Maureen; Economics; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A serious influenza pandemic could be devastating for the world. Ideally, such a pandemic could be contained, but this may be infeasible. One promising method for pandemic mitigation is to treat infectious individuals with antiviral pharmaceuticals. While most of the benefits from treatment accrue to the country in which treatment occurs, there are some positive spillovers: when one country treats more of its population this both reduces the attack rate in the other country and increases the marginal benefit from additional treatment in the other country. These externalities and complementarities may mean that self-interested rich countries should optimally pay for some AV treatment in poor countries. This dissertation demonstrates the presence of antiviral treatment externalities in simple epidemiological SIR models, and then in a descriptively realistic Global Epidemiological Model (GEM). This GEM simulates pandemic spread between cities through the international airline network, and between cities and rural areas through ground transport. Under the base case assumptions of moderate transmissibility of the flu, the distribution of antiviral stockpiles from rich countries to poor and lower middle income countries may indeed pay for itself: providing a stockpile equal to 1% of the population of poor countries will reduce cases in rich countries after 1 year by about 6.13 million cases at a cost of 4.62 doses per rich-country case avoided. Concentrating doses on the outbreak country is, however, even more cost-effective: in the base case it reduces the number of influenza cases by 4.76 million cases, at the cost of roughly 1.92 doses per case avoided. These results depend on the transmissibility of the flu strain, the efficacy of antivirals in reducing infection and on the proportion of infectious who can realistically be identified and treated.