About

Patricia Smith is a Professor and Department Head in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at Texas A&M University. She earned her B.S. in Management from Oklahoma State University in 1992, followed by an M.S. in Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1996, and a Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2000. Her areas of expertise include hydrologic modeling, particularly land use and land cover effects on hydrologic processes at different temporal and spatial scales, as well as the development of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) for bacterial impairment of streams. Dr. Smith has contributed to research on water-quality estimation using remote sensing data, pollutant buildup and wash-off modeling in urban watersheds, and the efficiency of vegetated treatment areas for removing E. coli and nutrients from small-scale swine operations. She has also conducted hydrological modeling of glacierized basins and assessed climate change impacts on glacier melt runoff. Dr. Smith has received awards such as the Margaret Annette Peters Award and the Advising Award from Texas A&M University, as well as the USDA Food and Agriculture Sciences Excellence in Teaching Regional Award. Her work is published in various scientific journals, and she is actively involved in research that advances understanding of hydrologic and water quality processes.

Research topics

• Physics
• Quantum mechanics
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Combinatorics
• Statistics
• Medicine
• Mathematical analysis
• Physical therapy
• Organic chemistry
• Psychiatry
• Surgery
• Geometry
• Chemistry
• Dentistry
• Orthodontics

Selected publications

• The second Vassiliev measure of uniform random walks and polygons in confined space

  Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical · 2022 · 3 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Mathematics
  • Combinatorics

  Abstract Biopolymers, like chromatin, are often confined in small volumes. Confinement has a great effect on polymer conformations, including polymer entanglement. Polymer chains and other filamentous structures can be represented by polygonal curves in three-space. In this manuscript, we examine the topological complexity of polygonal chains in three-space and in confinement as a function of their length. We model polygonal chains by equilateral random walks in three-space and by uniform random walks (URWs) in confinement. For the topological characterization, we use the second Vassiliev measure. This is an integer topological invariant for polygons and a continuous functions over the real numbers, as a function of the chain coordinates for open polygonal chains. For URWs in confined space, we prove that the average value of the Vassiliev measure in the space of configurations increases as O ( n 2 ) with the length of the walks or polygons. We verify this result numerically and our numerical results also show that the mean value of the second Vassiliev measure of equilateral random walks in three-space increases as O ( n ). These results reveal the rate at which knotting of open curves and not simply entanglement are affected by confinement.

  PublisherDOI

• Restorative Rehabilitation of the Cleft Affected Occlusion - A Service Evaluation.

  The European journal of prosthodontics and restorative dentistry · 2022

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Medicine
  • Dentistry
  • Orthodontics

  Cleft Lip and/or Palate (CLP) is the most common cranio-facial abnormality thought to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors causing challenges with feeding, dental development and speech. Cleft affected individuals often present a unique set of challenges with regards to their oro-facial and dental development and require multidisciplinary care. This article aims to describe the role of the restorative dentist in the multidisciplinary management of cleft affected individuals and outlines the various clinical presentations and restorative challenges. This article describes the various treatment modalities provided for cleft affected individuals under the National Health Service (NHS) at Liverpool University Dental Hospital (LUDH) and ranges from minimally invasive techniques to conventional fixed and removable prosthodontics.

  Publisher

• Comparison of Exponential and Biexponential Models of the Unimolecular Decomposition Probability for the Hinshelwood–Lindemann Mechanism

  The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters · 2020 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Chemistry
  • Physics
  • Mathematics

  is derived.

  PublisherDOI

• Hiding in Plain Sight: Functional Neurological Disorders in the News

  Journal of Neuropsychiatry · 2019-05-23 · 23 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Functional movement and seizure disorders are still widely misunderstood and receive little public and academic attention. This is in stark contrast to their high prevalence and levels of associated disability. In an exploratory observational study, the authors examined whether the relative lack of media coverage of functional neurological disorders is in part due to misidentification in "human interest" news stories. METHODS: Thirteen recent news stories from high-impact English-language media outlets that portrayed patients with complex symptoms either attributed to other diagnoses or presented as medical mysteries were identified using online keyword searches. All selected news stories contained video or still images displaying relevant symptoms. Cases were categorized into movement disorders or seizure disorders and were then independently assessed by 10 respective expert raters. For each category, one story of a patient whose symptoms were due to a well-recognized neurological disease was also included. Both the diagnostic category and the respective confidence level were reported by each rater for each case. The interrater agreement was calculated for each group of disorders. RESULTS: The raters confirmed almost unanimously that all presented news stories except the negative control cases portrayed misidentified functional movement or seizure disorders. The interrater agreement and average diagnostic confidence were high. CONCLUSIONS: Functional neurological disorders are often wrongly considered a rare medical curiosity of the past. However, these findings suggest that, while they are largely absent from public discourse, they often appear in the news incognito, hiding in plain sight.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• PSO Method for Fitting Analytic Potential Energy Functions. Application to I^–(H₂O)

  Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation · 2018-01-18 · 7 citations

  article

  In this work a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm was used to fit an analytic potential energy function to I–(H2O) intermolecular potential energy curves calculated with DFT/B97-1 theory. The analytic function is a sum of two-body terms, each written as a generalized sum of Buckingham and Lennard-Jones terms with only six parameters. Two models were used to describe the two-body terms between I– and H2O: a three-site model H2O and a four-site model including a ghost atom. The fits are compared with those obtained with a genetic/nonlinear least-squares algorithm. The ghost atom model significantly improves the fitting accuracy for both algorithms. The PSO fits are significantly more accurate and much less time-consuming than those obtained with the genetic/nonlinear least-squares algorithm. Eight I–---H2O potential energy curves, fit with the PSO algorithm for the three- and four-site models, have RMSE of 1.37 and 0.22 kcal/mol and compute times of ∼20 and ∼68 min, respectively. The PSO fit for the four-site model is quite adequate for determining densities of states and partition functions for I–(H2O)n clusters at high energies and temperatures, respectively. The PSO algorithm was also applied to the eight potential energy curves, with the four-site model, for a short time ∼8 min fitting. The RMSE was small, only 0.37 kcal/mol, showing the high efficiency of the PSO algorithm with retention of a good fitting accuracy. The PSO algorithm is a good choice for fitting analytic potential energy functions, and for the work presented here was able to find an adequate fit to an I–(H2O) analytic intermolecular potential with a small number of parameters.

  PublisherDOI

• The Effect of Try-In Paste and Resin Cement Shade on Colour Properties of Dental Veneers.

  PubMed · 2018-08-30 · 10 citations

  article

  OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate how different shades of try-in pastes, uncured and cured resin cements affect the overall colour of porcelain veneer restorations. METHODS: A total of 90 porcelain veneers of shade Vita 1M1 VM7 and 0.6 mm thick were applied to bovine teeth using 3 shades of resin cement and their try-in paste produced by 3 manufacturers. RESULTS: Colour differences produced between the try-in pastes and the corresponding shades of cured resin cements ranged from (ΔE* 1.18-3.1). The colour differences between uncured and cured resins of the same shade ranged from (ΔE* 0.78 - 1.41). CONCLUSIONS: Different shades of try-in pastes and resin cements produced colour changes which are clinically useful in changing the colour of veneer restorations and therefore assist in colour matching to adjacent teeth. Clinically significant differences were noticed between try-in pastes and the cured resin of the same shade, however, there were relatively small changes measured between un-cured and cured resins. The colour match obtained by the try-in paste has to be treated with caution and further evaluation of the restoration made with the resin in place before curing is recommended.

  PublisherDOI

• Region 6 Collegiate Soils Contest Results

  CSA News · 2017-05-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Dental plaque regrowth studies to evaluate chewing gum formulations incorporating magnolia bark extract

  Journal of Functional Foods · 2017-08-20 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  The plaque inhibiting properties of magnolia bark extract (MBE) were assessed in a volunteer trial following the consumption of various sugar-free chewing gum formulations over a period of 4-days. Paired t-tests demonstrated significant (p < 0.15) differences between the placebo and a gum containing MBE (0.4%) plus lauramide arginine ethyl ester (LAE) (0.5%) with respect to% plaque coverage (36.3% vs 34.0%) and area of plaque fluorescence (109.4 mm2 vs 75.2 mm2). These findings were supported by microbiological counts of total salivary bacteria (7.77 log10 cfu/ml vs 7.45 log10 cfu/ml) as well as Streptococcus spp. (6.76 log10 cfu/ml vs 6.29 log10 cfu/ml). MBE (0.4%) + LAE (0.5%) delivered by chewing gum had a moderate inhibitory effect on plaque formation and salivary bacteria. Limiting the formation of dental plaque and salivary bacteria, specifically oral streptococci, could contribute towards an improvement in oral health with respect to gum disease and caries.

  PublisherDOI

• Complete dentures revisited

  Dental Update · 2014-04-02 · 9 citations

  article

  UNLABELLED: The aim of the article is to assist practitioners in the diagnosis and management of complete denture problems by addressing the problems from a theoretical viewpoint and in a clinically diagnostic way. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: To assist practitioners and undergraduates to understand the clinical basis of complete denture prosthodontics.

  PublisherDOI

• Assessing the Association between Oral Hygiene and Preterm Birth by Quantitative Light-Induced Fluorescence

  The Scientific World JOURNAL · 2014-01-01 · 18 citations

  articleOpen access

  The aim of this study was to investigate the purported link between oral hygiene and preterm birth by using image analysis tools to quantify dental plaque biofilm. Volunteers (n = 91) attending an antenatal clinic were identified as those considered to be "at high risk" of preterm delivery (i.e., a previous history of idiopathic preterm delivery, case group) or those who were not considered to be at risk (control group). The women had images of their anterior teeth captured using quantitative light-induced fluorescence (QLF). These images were analysed to calculate the amount of red fluorescent plaque (ΔR%) and percentage of plaque coverage. QLF showed little difference in ΔR% between the two groups, 65.00% case versus 68.70% control, whereas there was 19.29% difference with regard to the mean plaque coverage, 25.50% case versus 20.58% control. A logistic regression model showed a significant association between plaque coverage and case/control status (P = 0.031), controlling for other potential predictor variables, namely, smoking status, maternal age, and body mass index (BMI).

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• V.H. Holsinger

  Agricultural Research Service

  48 shared

• Michael H. Tunick

  48 shared

• Edyth L. Malin

  38 shared

• Charles K. Chui

  Stanford University

  34 shared

• Peter Cooke

  New Mexico State University

  32 shared

• J. D. Ward

  Texas A&M University

  28 shared

• María Stamelou

  Hygeia Hospital

  24 shared

• Hannah R. Cock

  20 shared

Education

• B.S., Management

  Oklahoma State University

  1992

• M.S., Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

  Oklahoma State University

  1996

• Ph.D., Biological and Agricultural Engineering

  North Carolina State University

  2000

Awards & honors

• 2019 Margaret Annette Peters Award Advising Award from Unive…
• 2015 United States Department of Agriculture Food and Agricu…