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Predictors Of School Weapon Carrying Among Adolescents, Jonathan Adams
Predictors Of School Weapon Carrying Among Adolescents, Jonathan Adams
All ETDs from UAB
The presence of weapons threatens the safety of all individuals on school grounds. Emergent research suggests factors linked to school weapon carrying may stem from both within and outside the school environment; however, few efforts have been made to identify a comprehensive set of risk and protective factors associated with school weapon carrying. To address this gap, the first manuscript serves as a comprehensive, systematic review of variables associated with higher or lower likelihood an adolescent will carry weapons to school. Results indicated higher rates of weapon carrying among individuals who are male, sexual minority, children of single parents; exhibit …
Deciphering The Roles Of Hopd1 In Carbon Metabolism During Pathogen Infection, Yali Sun
Deciphering The Roles Of Hopd1 In Carbon Metabolism During Pathogen Infection, Yali Sun
All ETDs from UAB
Plants are equipped with various immune responses including MAMP-triggered immunity (MTI) and effector-triggered immunity (ETI) to fight against pathogens, while virulent pathogens release virulent proteins (effectors) and phytotoxins to compete with host immune responses. Comprehensively, plant-pathogen interactions involve multi- layered and highly coordinated processes, and dynamic regulation at both transcriptional and translational levels plays a pivotal role in plant defense. For example, NPR1, a key immune regulator, is regulated by hosts and manipulated by pathogens at different levels during different stages of plant-pathogen interaction. However, besides the competition over immune responses, bacterial pathogens also need to gain nutrients from host …
The Relationship Between Cortical Excitability And Neuropsychological Functioning In Patients With Idiopathic Generalized Epilepsies (Iges), Lauren Bolden
All ETDs from UAB
Recent advances in neurostimulation and neuromodulation techniques, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), may offer alternative treatment options to patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsies (IGEs). In a previous study, we utilized TMS to demonstrate a relationship between increased cortical excitability (i.e. hyperexcitability), attentional dysfunction, and mood disturbance in a sample of healthy adults. In general, patients with IGEs are found to exhibit cortical hyperexcitability, cognitive dysfunction, and mood problems; however, a relationship between these variables in IGEs has not yet been investigated. Importantly, patients with treatment-resistant IGEs (trIGEs) are shown to demonstrate greater cortical excitability, cognitive deficits, and mood problems …
Tensor Decompositions And Rank Approximation Of Tensors With Applications, Ramin Goudarzi Karim
Tensor Decompositions And Rank Approximation Of Tensors With Applications, Ramin Goudarzi Karim
All ETDs from UAB
Tensor decompositions are higher-order analogues of matrix decompositions which have applications in data analysis, signal processing, machine learning and data mining. One of the most challenging problems in the tensor decomposition area is to approximate the rank of a given tensor. Unlike the matrix case there is no simple formula to bound the rank of a tensor. In fact, finding the exact rank of a tensor is an NP hard problem. In this thesis we formulate the tensor rank estimation of a tensor as an optimization problem and estimate the rank via $\ell_1$ minimization. We propose a numerical iterative method …
Self-Tracking Practices: The Roles Of Social Contexts And Chronic Conditions, Aowen Zhu
Self-Tracking Practices: The Roles Of Social Contexts And Chronic Conditions, Aowen Zhu
All ETDs from UAB
The rapid development of mobile health (mHealth) technologies is propelled by the culture of disease prevention and management. Smartphone applications and wearable devices provide valuable personal data for self enhancement. In addition to health promotion, people with chronic conditions are using apps and devices to monitor symptoms and behaviors. There is great potential for self-tracking practices to reduce health care cost and improve population health. However, the emphasis on personal responsibility of individuals’ health may hinder the long-term effectiveness of self-tracking practices. The purpose of the study is to examine the associations between social contexts and self-tracking practices, chronic health …
Inverse Problems, Regularization And Its Applications, Abinash Nayak
Inverse Problems, Regularization And Its Applications, Abinash Nayak
All ETDs from UAB
Inverse problems arise in a wide spectrum of applications in fields ranging from engineering to scientific computation. Connected with the rise of interest in inverse problems is the development and analysis of regularization methods, such as truncated singular value decomposition (TSVD), Tikhonov regularization or iterative regularization methods (like Landerweb iterations), which are a necessity in most inverse problems due to their ill-posedness. TSVD can be used when dealing with (small) finite dimensional linear problems, but is computationally very expensive, and sometimes even unfeasible, for large scale linear problems or nonlinear problems. In such scenarios, Tikhonov regularization is an attractive alternative, …
Biopsychosocial Correlates Of Pain In Youth With Eosinophilic Esophagitis: A Comparison To Other Pediatric Patients, Mary Kenna Lynch
Biopsychosocial Correlates Of Pain In Youth With Eosinophilic Esophagitis: A Comparison To Other Pediatric Patients, Mary Kenna Lynch
All ETDs from UAB
EoE is a chronic, clinico-pathological, esophageal disease with symptoms that include dysphagia, reflux, vomiting, feeding aversion, and epigastric pain. Diagnosis requires clinical symptom presentation and histologic findings of eosinophil-predominant inflammation of the esophagus. While the pediatric patient’s epigastric pain is predictive of their quality of life, little is known about their pain experience. Through two studies, the pain experience, sleep quality, and internalizing symptoms of youth with Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) have been examined. Through individually evaluating each of these factors as well as testing their relations with each other, the model proposed by Lynch and colleagues (2015) to understand the …
An Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Study Of The Magnesium Acceptor In Gallium Nitride In Different Crystal Field Environments, Ustun Robert Sunay
An Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Study Of The Magnesium Acceptor In Gallium Nitride In Different Crystal Field Environments, Ustun Robert Sunay
All ETDs from UAB
Non-uniform strain phenomena localized to Mg acceptor sites were investigated in Mg-doped GaN single crystals using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Samples in this study were grown either as µm thick thin film or mm thick free standing samples with the Mg concentration ranging from 3 150 x1018 cm-3. In all samples, the Mg related EPR signal was observed but the g-factor, intensity, and lineshape anisotropy characteristics varied significantly depending on the magnitude of the bi axial crystal field Δx local to the Mg acceptor. By modelling the Mg acceptor as basal atomic 2p orbitals, the angular dependent intensity could …
The Relationship Of Bedside Assessment Of Orientation And Cognition To Treatment Outcome In Moderate To Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: A Growth Curve Analysis, Amber Marie Fahey
The Relationship Of Bedside Assessment Of Orientation And Cognition To Treatment Outcome In Moderate To Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: A Growth Curve Analysis, Amber Marie Fahey
All ETDs from UAB
Disorientation and cognitive impairment are commonly experienced in acute moderate to severe TBI patients and deficits early in recovery are predictive of worse long-term outcome. Hence, tracking recovery over time is a significant aspect of rehabilitation research. The Orientation-Log (O-log) and Cognition-Log (Cog-log) are important clinical measures used to monitor cognitive progress during treatment and previous research has shown them to be predictive of long-term outcome. This study used two-level growth curve modeling to, 1) determine the growth trajectory of orientation and cognition in persons with moderate to severe TBI in acute rehabilitation, as determined by the O-log and Cog-log, …
Utilization Of The Zebrafish Model System To Predict Effects Of Dietary Lipid Composition On Human Health, Lauren Adele Fowler
Utilization Of The Zebrafish Model System To Predict Effects Of Dietary Lipid Composition On Human Health, Lauren Adele Fowler
All ETDs from UAB
Obesity is a disease that encompasses the interaction of both genetics and life-style factors, and the pathology behind its development remains unclear. Specifically, defining the influence of dietary lipid intake on adiposity and metabolic health continues to be a fundamental challenge, and the use of animal models will be required to gain a full understanding of the processes contributing to diet-induced obesity in humans. The zebrafish Danio rerio has emerged as a powerful model system to study diet-induced obesity and metabolic disease in humans, while simultaneously offering multiple advantages over rodent models. This dissertation addresses multiple aspects regarding the use …
An Investigation Of Histocompatibility Testing And Mhc Class I In Xenotransplantation, Gregory Ryan Martens
An Investigation Of Histocompatibility Testing And Mhc Class I In Xenotransplantation, Gregory Ryan Martens
All ETDs from UAB
In the United States, hundreds of thousands of patients suffer from end-stage organ failure or terminal diseases without the option of a life-saving transplant because of severe organ shortages. Xenotransplantation offers a possible solution by using genetically engineered pigs as organ donors. Application of pig-to-human organ transplantation has been limited by antibody-mediated rejection (AMR), but recent genetic engineering advances have eliminated pig glycan xenoantigens and dramatically reduced antibody binding. In human-to-human transplantation, allotransplantation, AMR is prevented by pretransplant screening donors and recipients. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC), class I and II, are primary targets for antibodies and may also bind …
Transition Into Adulthood: Cannabis Use And Mental Health, Katie Mcintyre
Transition Into Adulthood: Cannabis Use And Mental Health, Katie Mcintyre
All ETDs from UAB
The US is currently experiencing sweeping changes in the legal status of cannabis, the most common illicit drug used in America. Due to its classification as a Schedule I substance we know very little about how cannabis use impacts mental health since illicit drugs are not legally allowed to be researched in a laboratory setting. The current research on cannabis use (CU) and mental health (MH) is expansive and conflicting. One side of the debate suggests CU in adolescence has a direct effect on MH, the other side suggests CU could be an indirect coping mechanism of poor MH. One …
Neurocognition In Patients With Primary Dystonia, Lindsay Niccolai
Neurocognition In Patients With Primary Dystonia, Lindsay Niccolai
All ETDs from UAB
Dystonia is defined as involuntary, sustained muscle contractions often causing twisting and repetitive movements. While dystonia is classified as a movement disorder with marked motor disturbance, there are also non-motor features associated with this disorder such as psychiatric, sensory, and neurocognitive deficits. This dissertation research focuses on the neurocognitive deficits found in patients with primary dystonia. Prior studies examining cognition in primary dystonia have often had the limitations of having small samples and lacking control groups. In addition, cognition is often assessed in deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgical candidacy evaluations, but neurocognitive deficits have not been studied as a predictor …
A Scalable Nearline Disk Archive Storage Architecture For Extreme Scale High Performance Computing, Hampton Walker Haddock
A Scalable Nearline Disk Archive Storage Architecture For Extreme Scale High Performance Computing, Hampton Walker Haddock
All ETDs from UAB
Parallel file systems that exploit Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Devices (RAID) as the mechanism for greater resilience are primarily intended to provide high bandwidth and low latency. Quantifying and studying the trade-offs among reduced run time (bandwidth and latency), resilience (availability and integrity), and cost (energy and capital) is important. For instance, distributing the checksums of RAID systems appears in conflict with the canonical parallel access patterns in high performance computing such as long sequential reads, random access, and checkpoint operations. Choices consequently have to be made between performance, concurrency, latency, energy, capital, integrity and availability of the data for …
High-Pressure Studies On Borosilicate And Bulk Metallic Glasses, Kathryn Jinae Ham
High-Pressure Studies On Borosilicate And Bulk Metallic Glasses, Kathryn Jinae Ham
All ETDs from UAB
Multi-angle energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction (EDXD) and white-beam radiography studies were conducted on a borosilicate glass sample (17.6% B2O3) to 13.7 GPa in a Paris-Edinburgh (PE) press at Beamline 16-BM-B, HPCAT, The Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. The measured structure factor S(q) to q = 19 Ã -1 was used to determine internuclear bond distances between various species of atoms contained in the glass sample. Bond distances for Si-O, O-O, and Si-Si were determined from the reduced pair distribution function G(r) and were measured as a function of pressure. The sample height, as determined via white-beam radiography, showed an overall …
Genomic Insight Into The Gut Microbiome Of The Sea Urchins Lytechinus Variegatus And Strongylocentrotus Purpuratus Revealed Distinct Community Compositions And Their Metabolic Profiles, Joseph Antoine Hakim
Genomic Insight Into The Gut Microbiome Of The Sea Urchins Lytechinus Variegatus And Strongylocentrotus Purpuratus Revealed Distinct Community Compositions And Their Metabolic Profiles, Joseph Antoine Hakim
All ETDs from UAB
For over 500 million years, our planet’s self-replicating prokaryotes have colonized multicellular host organisms, forging complex interdependent relationships under the selective pressures of the natural environment. Recently, the use of high-throughput sequencing (HTS) technology targeting metacommunity DNA has uncovered the unprecedented diversity and metabolic processes of these communities. Such information has extensively been investigated in the guts of higher bilaterian organisms, such as mammals including humans. One of the early bilaterian organisms that have been linked to humans are the sea urchins, the gut microbiota of which have not been sufficiently studied. Thus, the objective of this dissertation was to …
Relationship Between Frustration Tolerance And Psychological Self-Regulatory Mechanisms In Weight Loss Maintenance, Samantha Kaytana Henry
Relationship Between Frustration Tolerance And Psychological Self-Regulatory Mechanisms In Weight Loss Maintenance, Samantha Kaytana Henry
All ETDs from UAB
The present study investigated the relevance of frustration tolerance and other psychological regulation factors (e.g., trait mindfulness, executive function) to long-term weight maintenance. Using a cross-sectional design, participants (N=91) were recruited from three behavioral weight loss interventions and categorized dichotomously (maintainer vs. regainer) based on their level of success in maintaining weight loss long term. Participants completed the Frustration Discomfort Scale (FDS), objective measures of executive functioning (EF), and self-report questionnaires. Poorer frustration tolerance was significantly associated with lower trait mindfulness, higher negative affectivity, and greater difficulties in self-reported EF. There were no differences by race or weight maintenance status. …
The Effects Of Saha And Egcg On Metastatic Potential In Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Kayla Lewis Steed
The Effects Of Saha And Egcg On Metastatic Potential In Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Kayla Lewis Steed
All ETDs from UAB
About 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some time in their lives, and more than 40,000 women will die due to breast cancer this year. Women do not die from localized breast cancer cases but from metastatic, or Stage IV, breast cancer (MBC). Over 150,000 women are currently living with MBC, and treatments focus on length and quality of life considering there is no cure. Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) do not respond to targeted therapies as they are lacking estrogen receptor alpha (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). They …
Quantifications Of Theranostic Polymer-Based Particles For Image-Guided Drug Delivery, Sithira Ratnayaka
Quantifications Of Theranostic Polymer-Based Particles For Image-Guided Drug Delivery, Sithira Ratnayaka
All ETDs from UAB
Modern medicine employs many drugs in its disease treatment methods. This is because they provide the best permanent solutions to complicated ailments. However the usefulness of these drugs is mitigated by several factors, namely that of specific release. Common drug delivery mechanisms lack the specificity needed to ensure that release is limited to the diseased area, which can lead to unnecessary side effects. By utilizing medical imaging, both drug delivery devices and physiology can be observed by physicians, which can greatly increase the specificity of drug delivery. Specifically, utilizing a very inert medical imaging modality, such as ultrasound, guarantees minimum …
Beyond Access: Predictors Of Unmet Need For Health Care From Adolescence To Young Adulthood, Sarah B. Rutland
Beyond Access: Predictors Of Unmet Need For Health Care From Adolescence To Young Adulthood, Sarah B. Rutland
All ETDs from UAB
Background: Unmet need (UN) can be characterized as a person not getting care even when they think they need it. Younger populations are understudied for UN, even though UN can emerge as early as adolescence. The aim of this dissertation is to use the national Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine whether adolescent socioeconomic status (SES) or health factors better predict UN over time, and how UN differs by race/ethnicity. Life course perspective, cumulative advantage and disadvantage hypothesis, and fundamental cause theory inform my hypotheses. Primary hypotheses: 1) The likelihood of UN will increase over …
Impact Of Familial Chronic Illness On Adolescent Somatization, Lindsey Elliott
Impact Of Familial Chronic Illness On Adolescent Somatization, Lindsey Elliott
All ETDs from UAB
Somatic symptoms, or physical symptoms that do not have an identifiable organic etiology, have a prevalence of 10-30% in children. They have been associated with poor psychosocial outcomes in children, including emotional and behavioral problems, school absences, and impaired social functioning. Further, these symptoms represent a burden on the health care system as patients with somatic symptoms are frequent users of both primary care physicians and specialists. The etiology of somatic symptoms is thought to be due to a combination of biological, psychological, interpersonal, and healthcare factors. Two theories exist regarding the etiology of somatic symptoms. Brown’s integrative conceptual model …
Modeling Stock Prices With Differential Equations, Jessica Barnett
Modeling Stock Prices With Differential Equations, Jessica Barnett
All ETDs from UAB
Forecasting the stock market has long been subject to speculation, especially after the global financial crisis in 2008. In this thesis, we formulate a predictive model of the trend of a chosen stock that is derived from verifiable economic tendencies (absent appropriate economic laws) that interact through a system of nonlinear delay differential equations. The system is populated inversely from current economic data and solved numerically using MATLAB. As a result, we are able to use the forecasted trend to estimate a stock’s drift in order to also incorporate the randomness of the stock market. Lastly, we compare the predictions …
Structural Elements Underlying The Neuroplastic Changes Produced By Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy In Chronic Stroke, Yue Zhang
All ETDs from UAB
Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CIMT) is a rehabilitation treatment that produces large motor function improvements in patients with chronic stroke. One of the hypothesized mechanisms by which CIMT achieves its therapeutic effect is the large functional and structural plastic changes that it produces in the brain. The goal of the present project was to determine the neural underpinnings of cortical reorganization produced by CIMT in chronic stroke using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS). Before applying the proposed 1H-MRS techniques (i.e., single voxel spectroscopy/SVS and whole brain magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging/WB-MRSI) to evaluate longitudinal changes in brain metabolites after CIMT, it is …
Discovering The Genetic Architecture Underlying Exercise Response Using Drosophila Melanogaster, Louis P. Watanabe
Discovering The Genetic Architecture Underlying Exercise Response Using Drosophila Melanogaster, Louis P. Watanabe
All ETDs from UAB
The growth of modern jobs, technology, and transportation has coincided with increased sedentary behavior in many developed nations. In the United States, this increase has contributed partially to rising rates of obesity, leading to more than 78 million obese individuals. The annual medical costs associated with obesity are thought to range from 147 to 210 billion dollars. The initial treatment recommendations for individuals with obesity are increased exercise and changes in diet. Despite the strong narrative pushing exercise as a health benefit, individual responses can vary widely, and little is known regarding the genetic networks modulating exercise response. In order …
Photo-Induced Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Study Of Charge Transfer In Compensated Gallium Nitride Substrates Grown By The High Nitrogen Pressure Solution Method, William Ryan Willoughby
Photo-Induced Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Study Of Charge Transfer In Compensated Gallium Nitride Substrates Grown By The High Nitrogen Pressure Solution Method, William Ryan Willoughby
All ETDs from UAB
Charge transfer occurring in semi-insulating GaN crystals grown by the high nitrogen pressure solution (HNPS) method was investigated using electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Samples were semi-insulating due to compensation of residual shallow oxygen donors with Mg and/or Be acceptor impurities. EPR was detected after illumination with photon energies greater than 2.7 eV in samples containing at least $10^{17} \textnormal{ cm\textsuperscript{-3}}$ beryllium atoms. The resonance consisted of two Gaussian lines. One was stable at temperatures less than 25 K with isotropic $g=1.989$ and was attributed to a paramagnetic neutral acceptor state. This resonance was quenched with photon energies between 0.5 …
Comparison Of Longitudinal Voxel-Based Morphometry (Vbm) And Tensor-Based Morphometry (Tbm) For Detecting Structural Use-Dependent Neuroplastic Changes After Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy, Brent Maddox Womble
All ETDs from UAB
Constraint-Induced Movement therapy (CI therapy) is an efficacious physical rehabilitation intervention for lateralized upper-extremity motor deficits resulting from neurological injury or disease, which has been shown to result in use-dependent structural and functional neuroplasticity. While use-dependent neuroplasticity has been shown to result in structural changes in brain tissue density, thickness, and volume, the exact cellular mechanisms underpinning this neuroplasticity in humans have yet to be determined. The present study involved a novel use of synthetic data, with the overall aim of elucidating the nature of structural use-dependent neuroplasticity produced by CI therapy. Longitudinal voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and tensor-based morphometry (TBM) …
Laser Spectroscopy Of Atomic Gadolinium, Upendra Mani Adhikari
Laser Spectroscopy Of Atomic Gadolinium, Upendra Mani Adhikari
All ETDs from UAB
We investigated the hyperfine structure and isotope shift measurements on the spin-forbidden transitions of atomic gadolinium (Gd) at 726 nm and 743 nm in a hollow cathode glow discharge. The spectroscopic study of this sample will help to develop better isotope separation techniques. This also aids in narrowband laser cooling of Gd for novel dipolar physics investigations, and advances new technology in high precision devices. This was accomplished by performing optogalvanic spectroscopy inside an atomic vapor source. As a source, we have used a Gd hollow cathode discharge lamp with neon as a low-pressure buffer gas. Resonant absorption of a …
Metal Complexation In Hydrogen-Bonded Microcapsules Of Poly(N-Vinylpyrrolidone) And Tannic Acid For Medical Imaging And Controlled Drug Delivery, Patrick Aaron Alford
Metal Complexation In Hydrogen-Bonded Microcapsules Of Poly(N-Vinylpyrrolidone) And Tannic Acid For Medical Imaging And Controlled Drug Delivery, Patrick Aaron Alford
All ETDs from UAB
Even the most effective and widely used drugs in modern disease treatment can be compromised by low bioavailability and off-target damage which leads to detrimental side effects. Polymeric drug carriers have been developing in recent times with the aim of rendering the therapeutic cargo inert and protecting it from the body’s natural defense mechanisms until arrival at the target site, upon which a specific stimulus will cause the drug to release from the carrier locally. To this end, antioxidant capability in drug carriers can help mediate the cascade of reactive oxygen species that meet injected materials and, in doing so, …
Person Re-Identification By Deep Structured Prediction: A Generative Approach, Xinpeng Liao
Person Re-Identification By Deep Structured Prediction: A Generative Approach, Xinpeng Liao
All ETDs from UAB
Visual appearance based person re-identification (re-ID) is the task of assigning the same identifier to all instances of a particular individual captured in images or videos, even after the occurrence of significant gaps over time or space. The state-of-the-art methods can be categorized into two main approaches: Given a set of gallery images with known IDs, the task is to infer either the ID label of a probe image individually (person re-ID via image retrieval) or the collective ID labeling of all probe images simultaneously (person re-ID via a highly-crafted re-ID structure). This dissertation is primarily focused on exploring the …
Kinetics Of Thermal Decomposition And Polymerization During Continuous Cooling, Tatsiana Liavitskaya
Kinetics Of Thermal Decomposition And Polymerization During Continuous Cooling, Tatsiana Liavitskaya
All ETDs from UAB
The processes that naturally occur on heating such as thermal decompositions and polymerizations can be made to proceed on cooling. Studying the resulting cooling kinetics is the major objective of this work. The kinetics of the reactions are explored by using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) in combination with isoconversional kinetic analysis. The kinetic parameters obtained on cooling are compared to the ones evaluated on heating and physical insights into the differences and similarities in the kinetics of the processes on heating and cooling are proposed. The study is driven by the hypothesis that the kinetics on …