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Social And Emotional Development In Early Childhood: Examining The Relationship Between Teacher Beliefs, Assessment, And Teaching Practices, William Hooper Jan 2019

Social And Emotional Development In Early Childhood: Examining The Relationship Between Teacher Beliefs, Assessment, And Teaching Practices, William Hooper

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The purpose of this sequential explanatory mixed methods study was to examine the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of both the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (DECA-P) and the Conscious Discipline program and their connections with teaching practices that support children’s social and emotional development. Quantitative data collected during phase one of the study examined the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the DECA-P and the Conscious Discipline program used for undertaking social and emotional assessments and supports for teaching practices. Quantitative data was collected through the distribution and completion (n = 72) of an adapted Treatment …

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Modeling And Optimization Of Advanced Hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump Systems, Gaoyang Hou Jan 2019

Modeling And Optimization Of Advanced Hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump Systems, Gaoyang Hou

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Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems contribute significantly to building energy efficiency. Most conventional HVAC systems, such as electrical resistance heater or air to air heat pumps, require high energy consumption while generating a large amount of carbon emission. Therefore, the HVAC system of a building has become the core part of the building design process to improve energy efficiency. Ground source heat pumps (GSHP) offering a relatively high coefficient of performance (COP) and low carbon emission have become a widely-accepted choice. By adding assistive components or alternative heat exchangers, the overall performance can be boosted to a new …

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The Initiation: Relations Of Power In Women-Forward Indie Horror Films, Shannon House Jan 2019

The Initiation: Relations Of Power In Women-Forward Indie Horror Films, Shannon House

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This thesis aims to investigate the role of female characters in three recent horror indie films: It Follows, Hereditary, and The Witch. Current criticism of these films regale them as women-forward stories of what it means to struggle with mental illness, religious beliefs, or long-held virtues of womanhood. Before analyzing the relations of power between male and female characters in these films and their placement in a patriarchal dystopia or matriarchal utopia, the horror film genre as a whole is discussed to bring context to the prevailing attitudes against horror films for their overt violence or sexualization of female characters. …

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Characterization Of The Tgfb Pathway And Its Role In Prostaglandin Metabolism In C. Elegans, Muhan Hu Jan 2019

Characterization Of The Tgfb Pathway And Its Role In Prostaglandin Metabolism In C. Elegans, Muhan Hu

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Cell to cell communication is fundamental to all life processes, from fertilization to death. The TGFߟ superfamily is a large family of proteins that is involved in a wide array of physiological and pathological processes, including development, wound healing, immune system function, cancer, and reproduction. This group of signaling peptides is well conserved across many organisms, from basic nematode to humans. While many studies have aimed to delineate the functions of TGFߟ, they have also unveiled the complexity of this multifunctional family of ligands. In this thesis, I take advantage of the simple C. elegans model system to study the …

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Mike And Ikes 'N Buttered Bricks: My Adventures In Scouting, Kasey Duane Hullett Jan 2019

Mike And Ikes 'N Buttered Bricks: My Adventures In Scouting, Kasey Duane Hullett

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I started my time in the Boy Scouts of America at age eight. Some of my earliest memories in the cub program consisted of pine wood derbies, tying square knots, and looking up at the stars at Moundville Archaeological Park. I was a kid tied to the outdoors and the organization always allowed me to nurture that relationship. Over the years, I went up in the ranks. I made it through the five ranks of the Cub Scouts to get my Arrow of Light to transition to the Boy Scouts. Once there, I earned over 50 merit badges that ranged …

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A Low-Cost Planar Inkjet-Printed Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistor For Sensor And Circuit Applications, Md Toriqul Islam Jan 2019

A Low-Cost Planar Inkjet-Printed Carbon Nanotube Field Effect Transistor For Sensor And Circuit Applications, Md Toriqul Islam

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The semiconductor-based transistor is an essential building block of electronic components, computing applications, and sensors. However, the fabrication of this primary electronic element is complex and costly, especially when considering flexible electronics for bio-sensing applications. This thesis work proposes a new circuit manufacturing technique to print planar inkjet-printed carbon nanotube field effect transistor (CNTFET), sensor and circuits on paper and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film substrate to reduce the complexity of the system and to lower the cost of conventional fabrication schemes. Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are being used as semiconductor ink for an inkjet-printer to facilitate and fabricate two …

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The Literacy Coaching Experience: Exploring Teacher And Principal Perceptions And The Teacher-Coach Relationships In Urban Elementary Schools, Curtrina Nanette Jones Jan 2019

The Literacy Coaching Experience: Exploring Teacher And Principal Perceptions And The Teacher-Coach Relationships In Urban Elementary Schools, Curtrina Nanette Jones

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ABSTRACT Literacy coaches are being tasked with helping to close the literacy achievement gap. Literacy coaches are also being heavily relied upon as a mechanism for professional development. Based on early research, coaching can improve the capacity of teachers to deliver high quality instruction and thereby improve student learning. However, limited research exists on the impact of the literacy coach on teachers’ instructional practices and student achievement. The present study attempted to address this gap in the research base by developing a grounded theory explaining factors which relate to the development of effective teacher-coach interactions. Qualitative methods were used for …

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The Role Of The St6gal-I Sialyltrasferase In Protecting Tumor Cells From Hypoxic Stress, Robert Brent Jones Jan 2019

The Role Of The St6gal-I Sialyltrasferase In Protecting Tumor Cells From Hypoxic Stress, Robert Brent Jones

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An emerging concept in cancer biology is that surface glycosylation can play important roles in the regulation of cancer development and progression. Our group and others have shown that ST6Gal-I, a sialyltransferase that adds α2-6-linked sialic acids to N-glycosylated proteins, is upregulated in many cancers. Furthermore, data has indicated that ST6Gal-I acts as a pro-survival factor in a variety of settings, including resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs, radiotherapy resistance, and serum deprivation. The work presented in this dissertation adds to this understanding of ST6Gal-I’s role as a potent pro-survival factor and explores ST6Gal-I’s function in aiding tumor cells to survive hypoxic …

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Assessing Diabetes Risk Among Hispanic Populations: Development And Validation Of A Risk Score Using Readily Available Information, Lucia Juarez Jan 2019

Assessing Diabetes Risk Among Hispanic Populations: Development And Validation Of A Risk Score Using Readily Available Information, Lucia Juarez

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Background: Diabetes prevalence is increasing worldwide affecting vulnerable popula-tions, in particular Hispanics living in the United States (U.S.). The burden of diabetes and its complications can be reduced by identifying those at high risk and routing them to treatment and intensive behavioral interventions. Aim: The aim of this study is to develop and validate a simple score to identify undiag-nosed diabetes among Hispanics living in the U.S. Methods: A representative sample of Hispanics living in the U.S. was used to develop and validate the score. Logistic regression was used to identify significant risk factors and model coefficients were used to …

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Structural And Functional Insights Into Influenza A Virus Ns1-Mediated Rig-I Antagonism, Alexander Jureka Jan 2019

Structural And Functional Insights Into Influenza A Virus Ns1-Mediated Rig-I Antagonism, Alexander Jureka

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The influenza virus non-structural protein 1 is well known to antagonize the host innate immune response through its interaction with the innate immune sensor, retinoic acid induc-ible gene I (RIG-I). While the complete mechanism of the NS1:RIG-I interaction remains unclear, we were the first to demonstrate a direct interaction between the NS1 RNA-binding domain (NS1RBD) from the 1918H1N1 influenza virus and the second caspase activa-tion and recruitment domain (CARD2) of RIG-I using NMR. In addition, we also identi-fied that mutation of Arg 21 in the 1918H1N1 NS1RBD to Gln (R21Q) completely abrogated the NS1:CARD2 interaction. Given that CARD2 plays a …

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Bk Polyomavirus Activates The Dna Damage Response To Hijack Host Cell Cycle Control, Joshua L. Justice Jan 2019

Bk Polyomavirus Activates The Dna Damage Response To Hijack Host Cell Cycle Control, Joshua L. Justice

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BK Polyomavirus (BKPyV) is a DNA tumor virus that latently infects the >90% of humanity. BKPyV infection is inconsequential in healthy individuals; however, the immunocompromised carry increased risk of viral reactivation that can lead to a number of genitourinary diseases. Overall, BKPyV reactivation is a major risk factor for kidney dysfunction and failure following solid organ transplantation. There are no approved therapeutics to treat BKPyV infection, therefore studies have focused on understanding the host/virus interactions that drive infection to identify therapeutic targets. The PyV genome is small and does not encode a polymerase. Cellular transformation by the viral oncogene, T …

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The Electronic Health Record And The Clinical Informatics Researcher: A Journey To Predicting False Positive Alerts With Patient Characteristics, Timothy Kennell Jan 2019

The Electronic Health Record And The Clinical Informatics Researcher: A Journey To Predicting False Positive Alerts With Patient Characteristics, Timothy Kennell

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Since their introduction in the 1960s, electronic medical systems have brought with them tremendous opportunities and difficult challenges. In order to address patient safety, Clinical Decision Support (CDS) was added to the system, many times in the form of "pop-up" alerts. However, traditional alert typically do not incorporate enough patient-specific context resulting in inaccurate warnings. In response, clinicians override many of them. However, the high exposure to false positive alerts results in alert fatigue, a desensitization to future ones. This issue decreases patient safety by causing clinicians to ignore legitimate alerts. Despite some shortcomings, the data in modern Electronic Health …

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Sexual Health Risk And Hiv Prevention: An Exploratory Study Of Behavior Among Heterosexual, African American Men And Women In Birmingham, Alabama., Kiko J. King Jan 2019

Sexual Health Risk And Hiv Prevention: An Exploratory Study Of Behavior Among Heterosexual, African American Men And Women In Birmingham, Alabama., Kiko J. King

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ABSTRACT The Deep South of the U.S. continues to have increased incidence of new cases of HIV since its inception, despite many advancements in HIV testing, treatment, and prevention. According to data by the CDC, rates are increasingly high among heterosexual African American (AA) men and women compared to their non-AA counterparts (CDC/HIV, 2017). In 2015, heterosexual transmission accounted for a share of new diagnoses for AA men and is the most common transmission route for AA women (KFF, 2017). The primary population affected by HIV/AIDS in Alabama is men who have sex with men (MSM) at 62.2%, followed by …

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Structural And Functional Insights Into The Influenza A Virus Non-Structural Protein 1 Effector Domain, Alex Kleinpeter Jan 2019

Structural And Functional Insights Into The Influenza A Virus Non-Structural Protein 1 Effector Domain, Alex Kleinpeter

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The influenza A virus (IAV) non-structural protein 1 (NS1) is a highly multifunctional viral protein responsible for antagonizing the type-I interferon (IFN) response to infection. NS1 has therefore been identified as a potentially effective target for the development of novel anti-influenza compounds. Furthermore, it is important to understand the molecular underpinnings driving NS1 function to more effectively elucidate antiviral targets. In this dissertation, we have contributed significant insight into NS1’s potential as an antiviral target, and the structure-function relationships driving its activity in an infected cell. First, we structurally characterized the binding of two known influenza inhibitors (A9 and A22) …

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Rapid Melting Of Aluminum Alloys By Induction Melting, Carlos Alfonso Larrazabal Colina Jan 2019

Rapid Melting Of Aluminum Alloys By Induction Melting, Carlos Alfonso Larrazabal Colina

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RAPID MELTING OF ALUMINUM ALLOYS BY INDUCTION MELTING CARLOS ALFONSO LARRAZABAL COLINA MATERIAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING ABSTRACT Die-casting and high-pressure die-casting are manufacturing processes meant to produce high volumes of parts. However, the die-casting industry suffers when the market is low or when short quantities of a part are needed, because this process may not be as flexible in small quantities. In such situations, one piece of the operation that is inflexible is running excess melting and holding furnace capacity. Rapid induction melting systems are proposed here as an alternative to big furnaces to provide amounts of molten metal in …

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Stories From Rwandan Churches Prior To The Genocide; A Collection Of Oral Histories, Carmen Ava Lau Jan 2019

Stories From Rwandan Churches Prior To The Genocide; A Collection Of Oral Histories, Carmen Ava Lau

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STORIES FROM RWANDAN CHURCHES PRIOR TO THE GENOCIDE: A COLLECTION OF ORAL HISTORIES CARMEN A. LAU ANTHROPOLOGY PEACE & HUMAN RTS ABSTRACT As a tragedy in which religion did not serve as demarcation between rival groups, the Rwandan Genocide provides an example of Christians killing Christians. I use interviews from 14 Rwandan survivors who were Seventh-day Adventists, a Protestant group to which both heroes and villains belonged. Based on Eisler’s Theory of Cultural Transfor-mation, I assume that narratives inform action. I examine oral histories through a frame-work that searches for elements of Girard’s Mimetic Rivalry that might have influenced Adventists …

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A Structure Based Approach For Defining Ligand Interaction Requirements With Atp-Binding Cassette Proteins, Christina A. Le Jan 2019

A Structure Based Approach For Defining Ligand Interaction Requirements With Atp-Binding Cassette Proteins, Christina A. Le

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Membrane proteins belonging to the ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) superfamily are responsible for transporting substrates into or out of cells. ABC transporters, such as P-glycoprotein (Pgp/ABCB1) defend cells by the active efflux of many chemically diverse cytotoxic compounds. The ABC protein, CFTR/ABCC7, is a passive chloride ion channel that provides fluid homeostasis. Pgp and CFTR of are high clinical interest since mutations in CFTR can result in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and upregulation of Pgp in tumor cells can result in multidrug resistance (MDR). There has been a major effort to develop clinical drugs to treat CF by either repairing defects in …

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Work Engagement Of Hospital Nurses And Patients’ Ratings Of Nurse Communication, Overall Hospital Rating And Likelihood To Recommend The Hospital To Others, Apryl S. Lewis Jan 2019

Work Engagement Of Hospital Nurses And Patients’ Ratings Of Nurse Communication, Overall Hospital Rating And Likelihood To Recommend The Hospital To Others, Apryl S. Lewis

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Significance/Background: Work engagement may play a key role in quality patient outcomes. The inpatient hospital experience is a U.S. healthcare system priority with one component of the patients’ hospital experience focused on hospital staff-to-patient communication. Nurses are the main communicators of vital information about inpatient care and recovery and, therefore, play a critical role in achieving high scores on patient experience measures. Past studies show a relationship between high levels of nurse work engagement and positive patient outcomes, such as quality of health services, but it is unknown if hospital nurses’ work engagement is associated with patients’ hospital experience ratings. …

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The Effects Of Saha And Egcg On Metastatic Potential In Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Kayla Lewis Steed Jan 2019

The Effects Of Saha And Egcg On Metastatic Potential In Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Kayla Lewis Steed

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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 …

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Person Re-Identification By Deep Structured Prediction: A Generative Approach, Xinpeng Liao Jan 2019

Person Re-Identification By Deep Structured Prediction: A Generative Approach, Xinpeng Liao

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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 …

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Kinetics Of Thermal Decomposition And Polymerization During Continuous Cooling, Tatsiana Liavitskaya Jan 2019

Kinetics Of Thermal Decomposition And Polymerization During Continuous Cooling, Tatsiana Liavitskaya

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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 …

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Effects Of Protein Timing And Energy Balance On Body Composition In Collegiate Athletes, Ashley Licata Jan 2019

Effects Of Protein Timing And Energy Balance On Body Composition In Collegiate Athletes, Ashley Licata

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The current literature indicates that energy balance and protein consumption influence body composition. However, the effects of protein intake, timed protein supplementation, and energy balance on body composition have not yet been fully investigated in collegiate athletes. The purpose of this research was to assess collegiate athletes using hourly food and exercise data to examine how protein timing and energy balance relate to body composition. Aims 1 and 2 focus on collegiate female soccer athletes and further our understanding of the potential roles that protein amount and frequency and hourly energy balance play in optimizing fat mass and fat-free mass. …

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The Mechanism Of Glucose-Induced Trib3 Expression In Myoblasts And Myotubes, Xiaobing Liu Jan 2019

The Mechanism Of Glucose-Induced Trib3 Expression In Myoblasts And Myotubes, Xiaobing Liu

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Our previous data indicates that glucose-toxicity is dependent upon upregulation of TRIB3 expression in muscle. TRIB3 is a glucose-responsive gene and, as a pseudokinase, it blocks phosphorylation of AKT resulting in insulin resistance. The purpose of the current study was to identify the role of the differentiation process and the minimal functional sequence of TRIB3 promoter region in modulating glucose-induced TRIB3 gene expression in C2C12 myocytes. First, C2C12 myocytes were collected every 48 hours during the whole differentiation, totally 4 intervals. Before collection, cells were treated with either 5mmol glucose or 25mmol glucose for 24 hours. Under 5mmol glucose, the …

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Design, Develop And Manufacture A Low-Cost 32-Channel Biosignal Amplifier And D/A Converter Device For Multi- Electrode Neural Recording, Yen-Tze Liu Jan 2019

Design, Develop And Manufacture A Low-Cost 32-Channel Biosignal Amplifier And D/A Converter Device For Multi- Electrode Neural Recording, Yen-Tze Liu

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In the current market, there are many multichannel neural recording devices are available. However, they are either very expensive or physically big so that it cannot be used too close to the specimen because of the space limitations due to experimental setting such as Faraday cage, microscope, and other stimuli apparatus. In addition to that, the large electronic devices in the cell recording area are susceptible to create electrical noise, especially if they are not battery operated. This thesis work will try to deliver solutions following three main problems. The first problem we address is the device cost per recording …

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Smile Outcome Comparison Of Orthodontic Cases Treated With Different Extraction Patterns, Gregory Long Jan 2019

Smile Outcome Comparison Of Orthodontic Cases Treated With Different Extraction Patterns, Gregory Long

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Extraction of premolar teeth for orthodontic purposes is a common treatment approach. The effects of premolar extraction on the occlusion and the face have been studied extensively in the past. To date, however, the effects of premolar extractions on the smile have not been comprehensively quantified in the literature. The purpose of this study was to compare the smile outcome of patients treated with premolar extractions. Methods: This retrospective case-control study established 4 groups of 33 patients each for comparison. Three groups of patients with the same malocclusion were treated with different premolar extraction patterns. The remaining group of patients …

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Early Life Stress And Immune Responses In Adult Rat Kidneys, Ijeoma E. Obi Jan 2019

Early Life Stress And Immune Responses In Adult Rat Kidneys, Ijeoma E. Obi

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Globally, human studies show overwhelming associations between adverse childhood experiences and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD risks throughout adult life. As early as 6 years old, there are significant associations between childhood adversity and inflammation, and those association are observed throughout adult life as well. Over a decade ago, rodent models were used to establish the importance of the immune cells in hypertension, which is the major risk factor in developing CVD. Although these associations in humans are important, they pose several limitations that can be overcome by the use of animal models to study the molecular mechanisms that are …

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A Deep Learning Approach For Identifying Key Biomarkers In Medical Imaging Applications, David Odaibo Jan 2019

A Deep Learning Approach For Identifying Key Biomarkers In Medical Imaging Applications, David Odaibo

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Although Deep Leaning has achieved great success in many domains in recent years, research into its applicability and effectiveness in medical applications has been limited for various reasons. Some of these barriers are related to the historic impression that neural networks are black boxes, especially when applied to medical diagnosis and offer no in terpretation into prediction. In this dissertation, I demonstrated that deep learning can be an effective utility in medical diagnosis and biomarker detection. In particular, I have developed deep learning models that can identify biomarkers in brain hemorrhage, brain tumor, pneumonia, diabetic retinopathy and Parkinsons disease, with …

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Identification Of Bottleneck Locations From Analysis Of National Performance Management Research Data Set (Npmrds) Records, Xinyun Pan Jan 2019

Identification Of Bottleneck Locations From Analysis Of National Performance Management Research Data Set (Npmrds) Records, Xinyun Pan

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The traveling public is enduring traffic congestion on a regular basis which is a serious problem for the society. Congestion has negative impacts on transportation users’ convenience and satisfaction, results in lost productivity, increases stress and health related issues, has negative environmental impacts, increases fuel consumption, negatively affects travel reliability and increases travel time and delays. Traffic bottlenecks are often associated with traffic congestion. They represent a localized disruption of traffic flow due to a specific physical condition (such as insufficient roadway capacity or poor geometric design) or due to a temporary situation that restricts traffic flow such as a …

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A Study Of Approximation Error In Eulerian Hydrocodes, Parth Yogeshbhai Patel Jan 2019

A Study Of Approximation Error In Eulerian Hydrocodes, Parth Yogeshbhai Patel

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In this study, we examine a number of approximations in the formulation of hydrocodes. These approximations were borne out of an original requirement for the code to run as fast as possible i.e. with accuracy being secondary to speed. Many of these approximations originated from the 1970’s when computers were slow and memory was at a premium. Although speed and memory are not as much of an issue today, these approximations are still used to formulate the hydrocodes. In this study, the effect of these approximations is examined systematically. The lumped mass approximation is a simplification to the consistent mass …

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Framework For Validation Of Different Media Types Using A Model Based On Consensus, Adilahmed Patel Jan 2019

Framework For Validation Of Different Media Types Using A Model Based On Consensus, Adilahmed Patel

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Increasingly people of all ages consume news and entertainment through electronic media and social media [1]. As the internet in general and social media in particular are a recent phenomenon, the laws governing them and the technologies to monitor them are still evolving. There is a general consensus on the ubiquity and power of these media, hence the worry of how to handle these media. In this context, validating the online content becomes of paramount importance. Fighting fake content is not only relevant to news and current affairs but is very useful in other areas like technical content, legal content …

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