With the outbreak of the 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1) comes the need to evaluate the preparedness level of government entities that had preparedness plans. This study looks at the preparedness level for pandemic influenza among key leaders in Brazos County according to their Brazos County Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Plan. Ten key leaders were recruited to participate in interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed for salient themes. Main themes that emerged from interviews were categorized into vaccinations, communication, logistical issues, and the need for evaluations and feedback. Recommendations for increasing preparedness include addressing contingency plans, increasing education through public health efforts, addressing biosecurity, increasing use of technology, and increasing funding and research.

Here the ciliate protozoa Tetrahymena thermophila was used as a model system to study the DNA damage response. Tetrahymena enclose nuclear dimorphism, a polyploid somatic macronucleus (MAC), which is transcriptionally active and maintains vegetative growth, and a diploid germline micronucleus (MIC) responsible for the transmition of genetic information during conjugation. Previous studies have identified Tif1p, a novel protein involved in the regulation of rDNA replication in Tetrahymena. TIF1 hypomorphic strains acquire spontaneous DNA damage during vegetative cell cycle and are hypersensitive to DNA damaging agents. TIF1-deficient strains acquire DNA damage in both nuclear compartments, suggesting a global role of Tif1p in the maintenance of genomic stability. In my dissertation research, I studied the role of Tif1p during the cell cycle progression. To this end, I generated tagged-Tif1p strains, which revealed that the subcellular localization of Tif1p is dynamic throughout the cell cycle. However, the addition of epitope tag to this protein generated phenotypes analogous to ones observed in a TIF1-deficient strain. This suggested that the addition of epitope tag to Tif1p severely affects the properties of Tif1p and hence the overall integrity of the cell. To overcome these limitations, a peptide antibody specific to Tif1p was generated to study the endogenous protein. This work revealed that the abundance of Tif1p protein is not cell cycle regulated and that Tif1p is absent in starved cells. Furthermore, the specific binding of TIf1p to rDNA minichromosome was studied during vegetative cell cycles. Chromatin immunoprecipitation studies revealed that the specific binding of Tif1p extends beyond the cis-acting determinant of replication present at the rDNA origin and promoter. This suggests that coding regions may be targeted for the binding of Tif1p to previously uncharacterized sequences, and that Tif1p preferentially localizes on the rDNA minichromosome. I also studied the induction of DNA damage response, demonstrating that Tetrahymena activates a checkpoint response mediated by an ATR-like pathway. Studies with a hypomorphic TIF1 strain revealed that Tif1p mediates proper activation of the DNA damage response. Further characterization of the response to genotoxic agents showed that Tetrahymena is able to activate a G1/S and intra-S phase DNA damage response. The results presented here suggest that a caffeine-dependent checkpoint activator protein modulates the response to DNA damage. In addition, a subunit of the replicative helicase, Mcm6p, is directly affected by the induction of DNA damage. This suggests that Tetrahymena uses a novel mechanism to halt the progression of DNA replication forks during genotoxic stress through degradation of Mcm6p.

This study evaluates the efficiency of albendazole against different stages of Angiostrongylus cantonensis in Sprague-Dawley rats. Using a single oral dose of albendazole of 10 mg/kg at 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 weeks post-infection (PI) showed that the drug in 0 or 1 weeks PI was more effective in the larval infection. Compared to those in non-treated control, the rats treated 0 or 1 weeks PI showed significant reductions not only in the relative wet weight of heart and lungs (g/100 g body weight), but also in the mean number of adults recovered. With regard to single oral doses of 10 or 50 or 100 mg/kg at weekly intervals from 6 weeks PI, the rats treated 100 mg/kg in 2 weeks post-treatment (PT) showed significant reduction in the L1 in its feces and the amounts were lastingly few. In the rats treated 10 or 50 mg/kg, larval output reappeared from 4 weeks PT. The histomorphology of granuloma formation was also investigated in the lungs of SD rats infected with A. cantonensis¡@by paraffin section. It was observed that granulomatous fibros was strongly associated with the number of L1 in the lungs. IgG and IgE antibodies specific for antigens from L1, L5, male worms or female adults of A. cantonensis were respectively measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The specific IgE response to antigens from L1 or female adults of A. cantonensis in the serum reached the maximum at 1 and 5 weeks PI. Similarly, the eosinophil response also revealed remarkable peaks at 1 and 5 weeks PI. These results might prove that the increases of IgE titer and eosinophil are related to antibody-dependent cell mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC).

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Animal disease outbreaks either through deliberate terroristic act or accidental introductions present a serious economic problem. This work concentrates on the economics of choosing strategies to mitigate possible agricultural terrorism and accidental introduction events largely in the animal disease management setting. General economic issues and the economic literature related to agricultural terrorism broadly and animal disease concerns specifically are reviewed. Basic economic aspects, such as the economic consequences of outbreaks, costs and benefits of various mitigation strategies, and stochastic characteristics of the problem are discussed. A conceptual economic model is formulated to depict the animal disease outbreak related decision making process. The key element of this framework is the choice between ex ante versus ex post mitigation strategies. The decision of investing in preventative and/or responsive strategies prior to the occurrence of an event versus relying on response and recovery actions after an outbreak event needs careful consideration. Comparative statics investigations reveal that factors that affect this decision are event probability, and severity, as well as costs, benefits, and effectiveness of various mitigation strategies. A relatively simplified empirical case study is done analyzing the economic tradeoffs between and optimum levels of ex ante detection, as a form of prevention, and ex post slaughter, as a form of response. The setting chosen involves Foot and Mouth Disease management. Empirical investigation is done on the conditions under which it is economically more advantageous to invest in ex ante detection as opposed to relying just on ex post response. Results show that investment in ex ante activities becomes more advantageous as the probability and severity of an agricultural terrorism event increases, response effectiveness decreases, and costs of surveillance decrease. Also spread rate is found to play a key role in determining optimal combination of ex ante and ex post strategies with more done ex ante the faster the disease spread. Finally, an economic framework is posed for future work given availability of a more detailed epidemiologic model. Access to such a model will allow for incorporation of wider spectrum of strategies including numerous possibilities for prevention, detection, response and market recovery facilitation. The framework allows more localized options, multiple possible events and incorporation of risk aversion among other features.

This research investigates the performance of an existing structural damage detection method (SDIM) when only experimentally-obtained measurement information can be used to calculate the frequency response functions used to detect damage. The development of a SDIM that can accurately identify damage while processing measurements containing realistic noise levels and overcoming experimental modeling errors would provide a robust method for identifying damage in the larger, more complex structures found in practice. The existing SDIM program, GaDamDet, uses an advanced genetic algorithm, along with a two-dimensional finite element model of the structure, to identify the location and the severity of damage using the linear vibration information contained in frequency response functions (FRF) as response signatures. Datagen is a Matlab program that simulates the three-dimensional dynamic response of the four-story, two-bay by two-bay UBC test structure built at the University of British Columbia. The dynamic response of the structure can be obtained for a range of preset damage cases or for any user-defined damage case. Datagen can be used to provide the FRF measurement information for the three-dimensional test structure. Therefore, using the FRF measurements obtained from the UBC test structure allows for a more realistic evaluation of the performance of the SDIM provided by GaDamDet as the impact on performance of more realistic noise and model errors can be investigated. Previous studies evaluated the performance of the SDIM using only simulated FRF measurements obtained from a two-dimensional structural model. In addition, the disparity between the two-dimensional model used by the SDIM used to identify damage and the measurements obtained from the three-dimensional test structure is analyzed. The research results indicate that the SDIM is able to accurately detect structural damage to individually damaged members or to within a damaged floor, with few false damages identified. The SDIM provides an easy to use, visual, and accurate algorithm and its performance compares favorably to performance of the various damage detection algorithms that have been proposed by researchers to detect damage in the three-dimensional structural benchmark problem.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Issued also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University. / Bibliography: p. 40-41.

Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Thomas A. Houpt, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biological Science. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Apr. 7, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.