Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 30 of 558
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Titanium-45 Radiochemistry For The Development Of Pet Radiopharmaceuticals, Fnu Shefali
Titanium-45 Radiochemistry For The Development Of Pet Radiopharmaceuticals, Fnu Shefali
All ETDs from UAB
Imaging using nuclear medicine techniques has enabled non-invasive measurements of biomarkers for a wide range of diseases including cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. The production and characterization of new radioisotopes are crucial steps in designing radiopharmaceuticals for nuclear imaging applications. 45Ti is a novel radionuclide with desired physical characteristics for use in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging. The half-life of 3.08 h is ideal for the imaging of small peptides. In addition, the 45Ti decay by positron emission (85 %) and a low mean positron energy (0.439 MeV) offers high spatial resolution. The production route of 45Ti is straightforward due to …
Multi-Enclave Blockchain Architecture Integrating Useful Work For Member Selection In Committee-Based Consensus, Shawn C. Adams
Multi-Enclave Blockchain Architecture Integrating Useful Work For Member Selection In Committee-Based Consensus, Shawn C. Adams
All ETDs from UAB
Blockchains offer an alternative approach to centralized systems for data and record storage by using independently operated nodes in a distributed and decentralized network. Within a blockchain network, each node maintains an identical version of all data, without being directly controlled or managed by any centralized entity. Nodes maintain the synchronization of data through the network's consensus mechanism, a protocol built into the nodes to determine which node is given the right to append data to the network. Once chosen, the data added by the node is propagated to other nodes which update their local records to maintain synchronization. Common …
Use Of Psilocybin And Other Classic Psychedelics In Fibromyalgia: A Survey Study, Kathleen Hodgin
Use Of Psilocybin And Other Classic Psychedelics In Fibromyalgia: A Survey Study, Kathleen Hodgin
All ETDs from UAB
Psilocybin and other classic psychedelics may have potential for treatment of fibromyalgia, a chronic condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain and other symptoms including fatigue, cognitive difficulties, and sleep problems. In this exploratory, descriptive study, an online survey was distributed among individuals with fibromyalgia to gather reports of any changes in pain related to past classic psychedelic use. Sixty-four participants with fibromyalgia completed the study, with most having used psilocybin mushrooms or LSD. In addition to recreational use and other reasons, use of psychedelics for mental health or pain-related reasons was frequently endorsed. Of the participants who reported experiencing any …
Exploring The Associations Between Cognitive Training, Social Determinants Of Health, And Driving Behaviors: A Longitudinal Analysis Of The Active Study, Katie Wheeler
All ETDs from UAB
As the average lifespan increases, older adults are remaining independent into older ages than before. The ability to drive a vehicle is an essential part of daily living that helps older adults maintain independence. Cognitive training, specifically speed of processing training (SOPT), is an intervention that has consistently shown to benefit older adult’s driving abilities and driving behaviors. This dissertation examined the longitudinal association between cognitive training and primary driving location on crash risk across 20 years (Paper 1), investigated the effects of cognitive training and dosage on driving mobility across 10 years (Paper 2), and explored social determinants of …
Environmental Influences On The Physiology Of Cnidarians And Their Symbionts, Shelby Gantt
Environmental Influences On The Physiology Of Cnidarians And Their Symbionts, Shelby Gantt
All ETDs from UAB
Corals and other cnidarians maintain complex symbioses that include photosynthetic endosymbiotic dinoflagellates (Symbiodiniaceae), protozoans, fungi, bacteria, archaea, and other metazoans, collectively known as the holobiont. The stability of these associations is crucial for holobiont resilience and adaptation to environmental conditions and are the results of long-term ecological and evolutionary processes. Environmental factors such as light availability, seasonal environmental fluctuations, and warmer, more acidic conditions can disrupt these symbiotic associations and alter holobiont functioning. To understand the influence of different environments on cnidarian host and symbiont physiology, two framework coral species (Acropora palmata and Orbicella faveolata) from nursery-raised and wild populations …
Temporal And Epigenetic Mechanisms Underlying Dietary Phytochemicals In Breast Cancer Prevention, Andrew Brane
Temporal And Epigenetic Mechanisms Underlying Dietary Phytochemicals In Breast Cancer Prevention, Andrew Brane
All ETDs from UAB
Breast cancer (BC) is a widespread malignancy that, despite advancements in treatments and improvements in survival, had an estimated 297,790 new cases and 43,170 mortalities in 2023. With around 1 in every 8 women in the US expected to be diagnosed with BC at some point in their lives, the economic, societal, and healthcare burdens associated with this disease cannot be understated. Because of this, treatments and preventions that are affordable, efficacious, and easily administered are in high demand. Preventive therapies have shown great promise in reducing disease burden with relatively few serious side effects. BC prevention through the consumption …
Investigating Impacts Of Caregiving On Cognitive Function: Role Of Social Support, Lu Tian
Investigating Impacts Of Caregiving On Cognitive Function: Role Of Social Support, Lu Tian
All ETDs from UAB
Study Aim: Using the stress process model as a framework, this dissertation aims to investigate the role of social support on the influence of informal caregiving on cognitive function of caregivers aged 50 years and older and to look at potential gender and racial differences in this association. Method: Leveraging data from the 2016 to 2020 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), this research employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis to examine the influence of caregiving on the cognitive function of older adults. To comprehensively understand the pathways through which caregiving impacts cognitive outcomes, I use mediation …
The Freshman Life And Student Health (Flash) Study: Using Social Network Analysis To Understand How Obesity And Stigma Impact Emerging Adult Health, Alena C. Borgatti
The Freshman Life And Student Health (Flash) Study: Using Social Network Analysis To Understand How Obesity And Stigma Impact Emerging Adult Health, Alena C. Borgatti
All ETDs from UAB
Both racial discrimination and weight stigma have been identified as risk factors for poorer mental, physical, and social health. College students are vulnerable to the effects of stigma, as they greatly value peer acceptance and friendships during a pivotal time of emotional and health behavior development. The present study was the first to use social network analysis to examine the impact of weight and racial discrimination on the development of college social relationships and how these experiences influence students’ physical and mental health. 1330 participants (69% of on-campus freshmen) completed a brief survey on social networks, physical health, mental health, …
Motor Development Of Individuals Referred For An Asd Evaluation, Timothy Gary Hilty
Motor Development Of Individuals Referred For An Asd Evaluation, Timothy Gary Hilty
All ETDs from UAB
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is neurodevelopmental disorder that affects 1 in 36 children. Fine motor skill delays and deficits are a common occurrence among autistic individuals. Fine motor delays tend to present in toddlerhood and deficits tend to persist into adulthood. However, fine motor skill delays and deficits are not a component of the diagnostic criteria for an ASD diagnosis. While fine motor differences between autistic and typically developing individuals are well established, it remains unclear if these differences exist between autistic individuals and those with other neurodevelopmental disorders and whether they provide additional insight into diagnosing ASD more accurately. …
Characterization And Application Of Radiolabeled Peptides For Pet Imaging Of Cd206 Positive Macrophages In Cancer, Candace Ciera Parker
Characterization And Application Of Radiolabeled Peptides For Pet Imaging Of Cd206 Positive Macrophages In Cancer, Candace Ciera Parker
All ETDs from UAB
Positron emission tomography (PET) is a form of molecular imaging that allows for a noninvasive assessment of physiologic information by utilizing radioactive contrast agents. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are large phagocytic cells that play numerous roles in cancer biology and are an important component of the relationship between immune system response and tumor progression. Macrophages are broadly classified into two main groups with differing roles in immune defense and immune surveillance: classically activated macrophages (M1-like) and alternatively activated macrophages (M2-like). TAMs can influence chemoresistance, immune regulation, tumor initiation, and tumor growth, both directly and indirectly, and the presence of TAMS can …
The Er Stress-Pathogen Nexus In Regulation Of Cell Death In Arabidopsis Immunity, Danish Diwan
The Er Stress-Pathogen Nexus In Regulation Of Cell Death In Arabidopsis Immunity, Danish Diwan
All ETDs from UAB
Pathogens and plants are involved in a coevolutionary battle for dominance. As plants lack adaptive immune systems, they rely on their innate immunity to protect themselves from infectious agents. Upon pathogen attack, plant cells activate their pro-survival strategy by recognizing the pathogen and actively transcribing and translating proteins to effectively defend against the pathogen infection. As the intensity of infection increases, the heightened demand for proteins places an excessive burden on the ER machinery resulting in the accumulation of misfolded or unfolded proteins within the ER. To restore the protein homeostasis, a cellular relief signaling pathway called Unfolded Protein Response …
Synthesis And Characterization Of High Entropy Borides Under High-Pressure And High-Temperature Environments, Seth David Iwan
Synthesis And Characterization Of High Entropy Borides Under High-Pressure And High-Temperature Environments, Seth David Iwan
All ETDs from UAB
The high-entropy materials containing five or more constituent elements are of current interest because of enhancement in physical, mechanical, and thermal properties that are not achievable by simple elements or binary alloys. In this thesis, high pressure and high temperature synthesis studies have been carried out on High-Entropy Borides(HEB) like (Hf0.2, Mo0.2, Nb0.2, Ta0.2, Zr0.2)B2 , (Hf0.2, Mo0.2, Nb0.2, Ta0.2, Ti0.2)B2, and (Hf0.2, Ti0.2, Zr0.2, Ta0.2, Mo0.2)B2, at the Advanced Photon Source(APS) High Pressure Collaborative Access Team (HPCAT) Facility. These High Entropy materials are synthesized under high pressure and high temperature starting from a precursor powder composed of desired transition …
Open-Vocabulary Scene Graph Generation With Compositional Prompt-Tuning, Mirza Tanzim Sami
Open-Vocabulary Scene Graph Generation With Compositional Prompt-Tuning, Mirza Tanzim Sami
All ETDs from UAB
Scene graphs are explicit data structures that express the semantics of an image. It is semantically richer than simple image encodings from Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) because objects (big or small) are represented as distinct nodes and the relationship between them are expressed as labeled edges in a graph structure. Thus, scene graphs can express not only the visual context of an image but also the relationship context between pairs of objects. This added context information makes scene graphs ideal for several downstream visual language (VL) tasks such as Visual Question Answering (VQA), image captioning, text to image retrieval, and …
Realization Of Hyperbolic Laminations And Properties Of Limit Laminations, Adam Carty
Realization Of Hyperbolic Laminations And Properties Of Limit Laminations, Adam Carty
All ETDs from UAB
The dynamics of polynomials is a topic of great interest for those studying complex dynamics. Polynomial dynamics is concerned with how collections of points behave under iteration of a polynomial P. The Julia set of P, which is the boundary of the collection of points which iterate off to ∞, is an interesting collection of points to look at because P is sensitive to small pertubations of points in the Julia set. Thanks to the work of William Thurston, we have a tool known as a lamination (a closed collection of chords in the unit disk D which do not …
Functional Least Squares Minimization, Kyoung Joo Cox
Functional Least Squares Minimization, Kyoung Joo Cox
All ETDs from UAB
In this thesis, we forecast the trend and price of a selected stock using four new algorithms and a previous mathematical model built from economic ‘tendencies’. We use a new variational regularization method to determine the coefficients of the delay differential equation in the previous mathematical model. We also apply our new approach to obtaining initial points for the regularization method as well as a technique for mitigating the exponential growth model error throughout the minimization process of the regularization method. Lastly, we use the newly discovered coefficients together with a new iterative improvement procedure and a knowledge of the …
The Association Of Cognitive And Physical Functioning With Health And Mortality Outcomes Among Puerto Ricans, Cheyanne Celine Barba
The Association Of Cognitive And Physical Functioning With Health And Mortality Outcomes Among Puerto Ricans, Cheyanne Celine Barba
All ETDs from UAB
Puerto Rico has experienced a rapid increase in the older adult population over the last decade. With a growing older adult population, the importance of healthy aging becomes increasingly more important to understand. Understanding the impact that impairments in cognitive and physical functioning have on older adults in Puerto Rico will be important to supporting the rapidly aging population. The current project proposed to (1) examine predictors of transition to frailty, (2) examine whether cognitive function and frailty are associated with healthcare utilization, and (3) examine frailty and cognitive impairment as predictors of mortality and Alzheimer’s disease related cause of …
Examining The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic And Subsequent Vaccine Availability On Children’S Social Play Opportunities With A Focus On The Autism Community, Jenni Koehler
All ETDs from UAB
Play, especially social play, is crucial to child development and impacts their cognitive, socioemotional, and motor growth. Children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have social and motor impairments that act as barriers to their access to these critical social play opportunities. Those who are able to overcome these barriers through therapy have been shown to have better physical and mental outcomes. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic restricted social play opportunities for all children and disproportionately impacted children with ASD, further widening developmental gaps between them and their non-autistic peers. The development of the COVID-19 vaccine and its availability to children …
Roles Of Dietary Bioactive Compounds In Gut Microbiota Modulation And Epigenetic Regulation In The Prevention Of Breast Cancer, Huixin Wu
All ETDs from UAB
Breast cancer (BC) is the second most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States. The average risk of a woman developing BC is about 13% according to American Cancer Society. Various genetic-related risk factors including inherited mutations of genes, and lifestyle-related risk factors such as physical inactivity, obesity, aging, smoking, and air pollution have been studied for cancer prevention and treatment. The currently existing treatment methods such as chemotherapy and neoadjuvant systemic therapy can induce adverse effects on patients. Therefore, cancer prevention has been of great interest to the society. Numerous …
Towards A Biobehavioral And Social-Structural Model Of Inflammation And Executive Function In Pediatric Obesity: A Pilot Longitudinal Study, Kathryn P. King
Towards A Biobehavioral And Social-Structural Model Of Inflammation And Executive Function In Pediatric Obesity: A Pilot Longitudinal Study, Kathryn P. King
All ETDs from UAB
Pediatric chronic health conditions (CHCs) prevalence has increased post-COVID- 19, and CHCs affect children’s psychosocial development while representing significant family and societal financial burden. Interventions addressing CHC outcomes and psychosocial sequelae would benefit from examining and targeting biobehavioral and social-structural influences on such outcomes. Chronic inflammation and executive function (EF) deficits represent cross-cutting biobehavioral processes, promising novel targets, are vulnerable to social-structural influences, and common across CHC populations. Pediatric obesity represents a model CHC to examine, given its strong ties to chronic inflammation, EF deficits, health behavior, and SES, in addition to its increased prevalence in the wake of COVID-19. …
Rates, Presentation, & Effects Of Public Autism Stigma, Monica Abdul-Chani
Rates, Presentation, & Effects Of Public Autism Stigma, Monica Abdul-Chani
All ETDs from UAB
Limited availability of resources regarding developmental issues, health literacy, linguistic-sensitivity (i.e., use of linguistically appropriate resources and measures), structural barriers (i.e., appointment length, transportation), and cultural values and beliefs are commonly-cited barriers in identifying Latine autistic children. Stigma may also play a role, as it is negatively related to both knowledge/awareness within ASD and to acculturation in other disorders (i.e., HIV). Stigma can have detrimental, pervasive effects on daily living for those stigmatized and their families. Limited research examined the rate, presentation, and effect of ASD stigma within the Latine community, and all available studies explored stigma as reported by …
Investigating The Epigenetic Mechanisms Regulating Gene Expression And Dna Methylation In Rainbow Trout And Zebrafish, Khalid Walid Freij
Investigating The Epigenetic Mechanisms Regulating Gene Expression And Dna Methylation In Rainbow Trout And Zebrafish, Khalid Walid Freij
All ETDs from UAB
With the expansion of the aquaculture industry, sustainable shifts in aquaculture must be made to access nutrients essential to human health in response to a decline in marine resources for aquafeeds. Along with shifts in aquafeed composition, selective breeding programs aid in enhancing production-related traits, like growth and feed efficiency, and disease resistance to improve overall profits. Dietary components are important in relation to the growth and metabolism of fishes. Recent research has focused on the benefits of micronutrient supplementation (e.g., choline, methionine, selenium, etc.) on growth performance in fishes. Rainbow trout are a commercially important aquaculture species in the …
Investigation Of Reversibility And Nucleotide Effects In The Kinetic Mechanisms Of Nucleotide Addition In The Eukaryotic Rna Polymerases, Kaila B. Fuller
Investigation Of Reversibility And Nucleotide Effects In The Kinetic Mechanisms Of Nucleotide Addition In The Eukaryotic Rna Polymerases, Kaila B. Fuller
All ETDs from UAB
Eukaryotes utilize at least three multi-subunit DNA dependent RNA polymerases (Pol I, II, and III) to synthesize RNA. The Pols are similar in structure but have distinct kinetic mechanisms that describe nucleotide addition. The product of Pol I synthesis, ribosomal RNA (rRNA) comprises the majority of the ribosome and is necessary for gene expression. Despite the importance of Pol I transcription in the cell, there is still much to understand about the roles of specific subunits in Pol I and the different factors that affect the kinetic mechanism of nucleotide addition catalyzed by Pol I. Our group has previously published …
Unveiling The Unknown Rna-Binding Landscape Of Srsf1, Naiduwadura Ivon Upekala De Silva
Unveiling The Unknown Rna-Binding Landscape Of Srsf1, Naiduwadura Ivon Upekala De Silva
All ETDs from UAB
SRSF1 is a prototypical SR protein and its interactions with single stranded RNA (ssRNA) are crucial in mRNA splicing. Its RNA-binding specificity is governed by the RNA-binding Domain (RBD), which contains two RNA Recognition Motifs (RRMs) tethered by a flexible linker. Its C-terminal unstructured Serine-Arginine-rich (RS) domain has been believed to bind RNA non-specifically so far. Although SRSF1 is known to bind a variety of RNA containing its RRM-cognate motifs, its interactions with such RNA have been poorly characterized. Therefore, we explore how SRSF1 achieves a broad RNA-binding specificity ranging from ssRNA to G-quadruplex (GQ) RNA. According to our Fluorescence …
Variation In The Gut Microbiome In Response To Nutrition In Danio Rerio, George Brian Hadley Green
Variation In The Gut Microbiome In Response To Nutrition In Danio Rerio, George Brian Hadley Green
All ETDs from UAB
Like humans, Danio rerio, commonly known as the zebrafish, generally harbor millions of gut microbes, whose commensal microbial organisms aid in digestive physiology, nutrition, and host health. The emergence of high throughput sequencing technology (HTS) enables researchers to sequence collective microbial genomes, providing information on the composition of entire microbial communities, as well as the dynamics across taxa encompassing the overall community. Thus, the advancement of genome sequencing and metagenomic analysis have provided a broader understanding of resident and exogenous microbes across biological model organisms. These technologies have enabled researchers to review a spectrum of endogenous and exogenous factors influencing …
Physiology And Energetics Of Resilient Coral-Dinoflagellate Communities, Elise F. Keister
Physiology And Energetics Of Resilient Coral-Dinoflagellate Communities, Elise F. Keister
All ETDs from UAB
Despite coral reefs declining globally, thermally resilient coral-dinoflagellate communities have been identified, providing insight into how corals can inhabit warmer environments. These corals are able to better resist and recover from thermal stress events compared to adjacent, offshore conspecifics that are found in habitats that have cooler temperatures. To better understand the physiological traits that make corals resilient, I measured the initial tissue biomass and energy reserves of eight coral species. These corals were collected from both warm-water nearshore habitats and offshore reefs with milder temperatures in Palau, Micronesia. Despite contrasting environments, coral tissue similarities between these populations were striking, …
Cognition, Self-Awareness, And Driving After Moderate-To-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury, Christina A. Diblasio
Cognition, Self-Awareness, And Driving After Moderate-To-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury, Christina A. Diblasio
All ETDs from UAB
Moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) often results in cognitive deficits in learning/memory, executive functions, and self-awareness. Cognitive impairments and unawareness of those impairments hinder driving capacity, yet a large proportion of survivors return to driving after injury. Given that many survivors are driving, it is essential to understand how cognition and self-awareness impact driving practices. To date, studies in this area are limited. This dissertation aimed to (1) create a normative sample for the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone (BTACT), a short cognitive battery adapted for telephone administration and validated for the TBI population; (2) examine the relationship …
Production, Purification And Radiochemistry Development Of Manganese-52 Fir Characterization Of Pet/Mr Imaging Agents, Jennifer Marie Pyles
Production, Purification And Radiochemistry Development Of Manganese-52 Fir Characterization Of Pet/Mr Imaging Agents, Jennifer Marie Pyles
All ETDs from UAB
Manganese (Mn) has the potential to be an important element in biomedical research as different isotopes of Mn have the characteristics to be used for both positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Manganese(II) (55Mn) is paramagnetic which makes it useful as a contrast agent in T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Mn as a radiotracer provides excellent sensitivity for studying 55Mn, but only Manganese-52 (52Mn) met the criteria for this research. 52Mn has a half-life (t1/2 = 5.591 days) that was long enough to optimize purification, chemistry and examine timepoints over several days. 52Mn decays by positron emission …
Electronegative Clusters Modulate The Stability, Folding And Binding Affinity Of Rna-Binding Proteins, Steven Mathew Zaharias
Electronegative Clusters Modulate The Stability, Folding And Binding Affinity Of Rna-Binding Proteins, Steven Mathew Zaharias
All ETDs from UAB
RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are crucial to RNA processing and regulation. RBPs have elevated levels of disordered regions that are enriched with repetitive motifs. The longest and most common of these repetitive motifs are electronegative clusters (ENCs) that are made up of consecutive acidic amino acids and/or phosphorylatable residues. In this dissertation, we aim to characterize the function of ENCs in RBPs for the first time. We investigate the effect that ENCs have on both structured and unstructured RNA binding domains (RBDs). Using NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy we illustrate that a native ENC in ribosome biogenesis protein 15 (Nop15) increases the …
Large-Scale Mining Of Dense Subgraphs: Algorithms And Systems, Jalal Khalil
Large-Scale Mining Of Dense Subgraphs: Algorithms And Systems, Jalal Khalil
All ETDs from UAB
Quasi-cliques and k-plexes are dense structures with established significance in graph mining, offering flexibility and resilience to data anomalies. However, mining these structures poses computational challenges due to their NP-hardness. In this study, we address these challenges and propose solutions for efficient mining, in addition to visualization tools for tuning and analysis. For quasi-clique mining, we adapted the distributed solution (G-thinker) [1] to a sharedmemory multi-core environment, making it accessible to average users. Our solution is two orders of magnitude faster than the recent solution by [2], and it scales almost ideally with the number of CPU cores. To facilitate …
Alternating Current Electrospinning And Characterization Of Nanofibrous Fish Skin Gelatin As An Innovative Biomaterial Platform, Amanda Kennell
Alternating Current Electrospinning And Characterization Of Nanofibrous Fish Skin Gelatin As An Innovative Biomaterial Platform, Amanda Kennell
All ETDs from UAB
A biomaterial for tissue repair is globally sought after, as transplant surgeries and general wound healing have a strong need for a manufactured scaffold that mimics the natural body’s tissue in morphology, composition, and properties. This research presents a nanofibrous (NF) fish skin gelatin-based (FSG) substrate fabricated through an uncommon high-yield method of Alternating Current electrospinning that mimics that can mimic the natural body’s extracellular matrix (ECM). An ECM is the first step in tissue repair. Fabrication through electrospinning gave the NF FSG substrate an identical mimic of the natural body’s extracellular matrix morphology with nanofiber diameter on the order …