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<p> West Nile Virus is an emerging infectious disease in the Western Hemisphere. Since it was first identified in New York in 1999, the virus has infected thousands of people and millions of birds. A multitude of studies pertaining to West Nile Virus have been published, but its epidemiology is still not fully understood despite its considerable burden of disease. This study explores the association between land cover and West Nile Virus prevalence among birds within urban spaces in three steps. One, a land cover survey for three geographically distinct study areas located within Orange County, California is performed using i-Tree Canopy. Two, data attributes belonging to land cover and West Nile Virus bird surveillance, provided by the Orange County Vector Control District (OCVCD), are combined through a spatial join using ArcGIS. Lastly, rate of infection and positive West Nile Virus bird carcass prevalence within each study area and land cover type is ranked and compared using one sample proportion Z-test method.</p>

During 30 years of worldwide use, measles virus (MV) vaccination has brought about a dramatic reduction in the morbidity and mortality due to measles infection. In spite of extensive evidence confirming the safety of the vaccine, concerns have recently been raised about possible links with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The publication of this work, which arose principally from a research group in the United Kingdom, has caused a drop in vaccination uptake and subsequently resulted in re-establishment of endemic measles in various parts of Europe. In this thesis, we sought to replicate the real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays designed by this research group to determine whether MV genes were present in intestinal samples from patients with Crohn's disease (CD), ulcerative colitis (UC) and non-IBD controls, as well as in PBMC specimens from children with ASD and developmentally healthy controls. We also developed a probe-based real-time RT-PCR assay to detect MV genes in these same samples. We found no evidence to support the contention that MV persists in individuals with IBD or ASD.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Biology, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-07, Section: B, page: 4320. Adviser: Donald H. Burke-Aguero. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 22, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Francisco, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-01, Section: B, page: 0091. Adviser: Eric Verdin.