Digital Commons Network^™

Functionalizing Hydroxyapatite Biomaterials With Biomimetic Peptides Of Integrin Ligands, Kristin Marie Hennessy

All ETDs from UAB

Hydroxyapatite (HA) coatings of hard tissue implants have been shown to increase osseointegration, but the mechanisms by which HA improves implant integration are not well understood. Numerous studies have shown that modifying HA with adhesive peptides, including RGD, and the collagen I mimetics, DGEA and P15, stimulates the adhesion of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), a cell type that differentiates along the osteoblast lineage. However, HA is a highly adsorptive biomaterial, and therefore it is unlikely that cells at the implant site would ever encounter a peptidemodified HA surface in the absence of an adsorbed protein layer. In fact, our laboratory …

Processing And Characterization Of Long Fiber Thermoplastics, Krishnan Balaji Thattai Parthasarathy

All ETDs from UAB

Thermoplastic composites have found increasing use in transportation, military, and aerospace applications. Specifically, long fiber thermoplastics (LFT) have become well established as medium performance, high volume, and low cost materials due to high level of productivity in processing. The mechanical properties of LFT components are defined by the fiber / matrix system and also, to a large extent, by the process-induced flow orientation and fiber lengths. The orientations and fiber length are influenced significantly by the flow characteristics, processing method, and parameters. This work focuses on the rheological characterization of LFT processed via the extrusion-compression molding technique. The squeeze flow …

Adenovirus As A Platform For Assembly And Targeted Delivery Of Gold Nanoparticles To Tumor Cells, Vaibhav Saini

All ETDs from UAB

Novel combinatorial strategies need to be explored to achieve tumor eradication. In this regard, viral vector based gene therapy and nanotechnology offer unique possibilities for cancer therapy. As an example, multifunctional adenoviral (Ad) vectors capable of targeting, imaging, and successful cancer gene therapy have been advanced into multiple clinical trials. Similarly, novel multifunctional gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been utilized for drug delivery, targeting, imaging, and hyperthermia tumor therapy. Therefore, to accrue the benefits of both gene therapy and nanotechnology for cancer therapy, we proposed to combine Ad vectors and AuNPs in a single multifunctional nanodevice. Towards this goal, herein, we …

The Role Of Tgf-Ss And Wnt5a In Mammary Gland Development And Tumurorigenesis, Kevin Patrick Roarty

All ETDs from UAB

cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide behind lung cancer, affecting women of all ages, races, ethnicities, and socioeconomic strata. Concerted efforts have been made to understand this heterogeneous disease from the clinical stage down to the molecular level. Importantly, it has become clear that an understanding of the normal biology of the breast at all stages of development is needed to gain insight into how alterations in normal regulatory networks contribute to the initiation and development of breast cancer. TGF-ß plays a role in growth and patterning of the mammary gland and alterations in its signaling exhibit biphasic …

The Use Of Molecular Imaging To Evaluate Te Efficacy Of Treatments For Metastatic Breast Cancer, April Adams Szafran

All ETDs from UAB

The development of molecular imaging technologies has allowed biomedical researchers to study the process of cancer metastasis in animal models of disease. Bioluminescence imaging has been a crucial tool for non-invasive monitoring of tumor growth, dissemination, and response to therapies. In this report, we have applied bioluminescence imaging to evaluate the efficacy of Death Receptor 5 agonist therapy for the treatment of breast cancer metastasis, predominately to the skeleton, in an athymic nude mouse model. Initially, we determined that bioluminescence imaging was the most ideal technology for studying secondary bone lesions in vivo when compared to both x-ray Computed Tomography …

Giving Millennials A Leg-Up: How To Avoid The "If I Knew Then What I Know Now" Syndrome, Leslie Larkin Cooney

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Rock Of Ages: Why Kentucky's Use Of The Abandonment Test In Deciding The Ownership Of Mineral Refuse Is Inadequate, Monica Hobson Braun

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The 2007 Amendments To The Kentucky Business Entity Statutes, Thomas E. Rutledge

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Prognostic Factors Of Varying Treatment Outcomes For Onychomycosis (Nail Fungal Infection) Patients, Bin Cai

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Prevalence of onychomycosis, as high as 26.9% in the general population, can be reduced by improving current antifungal treatment. This could be accomplished by understanding prognostic factors, especially healthy nail growth, associated with achieving complete cure. This population-based study aimed to evaluate if healthy nail length or percentage of total full nail length as healthy can be early indictors for complete cure. Logistics regression analyses were performed by comparing variables between a population who achieved the complete cure and a population who failed after both populations received the same antifungal treatment in two large randomized double-blinded clinical trials that assessed …

The Law As Bard: Extolling A Culture's Virtues, Exposing Its Vices, And Telling Its Story, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

Before literacy rates in the English speaking world reached their apex (and long before they dropped into the trough they are now thought to occupy), before we commoners read newspapers (and long before we wrote blogs), before autobiographies crowded book shelves (and long before reality television created celebrities out of rather mean raw material), our cultural forebears appointed a rather singular individual to preserve for their children a record of their values, rituals, institutions, and assumptions: the bard.

The bard told stories. But the bard didn't tell just any stories. The bard told stories drawn from the fabric of which …

From Policy To Reality: Maximizing Urban Water Conservation In Texas, Amy Hardberger

Faculty Articles

Ensuring that Texas is sustainable in the 21st century depends in large part on smart management of the state’s water resources. A central element of that challenge is improving the efficiency of water use in the rapidly growing urban areas of the state. More efficient water use technologies, more sophisticated understanding of water pricing, and the ability to more carefully measure water use at both the individual and municipal level provide new opportunities to reach advanced levels of water use efficiency.

Water supply planning is constantly evolving and forces such as population growth and climate change are making it more …

Modeling Of Oversaturated Conditions On Arterial Networks, Abhishek Acharya

All ETDs from UAB

Oversaturated conditions on arterial networks are a concern for both transportation agencies and the traveling public. The cost of construction, right-of-way constraints, and a variety of environmental, political, and other social issues often prohibit facility expansion and place extra emphasis on optimizing the operations of existing facilities. One of the options available to urban planners and transportation professionals for handling recurring and non-recurring oversaturation conditions in arterial networks is traffic signal optimization. The objective of this study is to develop a better understanding of traffic signal system performance in oversaturated conditions. The case study reported in this research focuses on …

Biomimetic Self -Assembled Nanomatrix For Bone Tissue Regeneration, Joel M. Anderson

All ETDs from UAB

Bone is a dense, connective tissue with an extracellular matrix (ECM) comprised of biological and organic/inorganic biphasic matrices. For this study, novel peptide amphiphile (PA) nanomatrices were synthesized to mimic the native bone ECM and evaluated with human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) isolated from bone marrow. The ability of this nanoscale, biomimetic scaffold composed of PAs that are inscribed with cellular adhesive ligands to direct hMSC osteogenic differentiation without supplements, along with other cellular behaviors, was investigated. Typical osteogenic supplements include dexamethasone, β-glycerol phosphate, and ascorbic acid. The synthesized PA sequences were evaluated as two-dimensional nanomatrix coatings without the inorganic …

Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding In The Repair Of Reinforced Concrete Bridge Structures, Stephen Michael Cauthen

All ETDs from UAB

Composite technology, including the use of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP), may be the answer to many growing structural engineering concerns. With the growth and development present in the United States, efficient transportation infrastructures must be maintained as to provide linkage between ports of commerce. With forty percent of all bridges either structurally deficient or obsolete, a low cost, quick repair method is needed which can facilitate these arterials remaining open during a rehabilitation process. Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM) can perform under these conditions. It fully exceeds the traditional hand layup method of an FRP application; often times providing …

Assessment Of Managed Lanes Options, Ozge Cavusoglu

All ETDs from UAB

The continuous increase in automobile use is directly related to the increase in congestion and decline in air quality in urban settings. In the past 20 years, the total number of vehicle miles traveled in the United States has increased over 70%, whereas highway capacity grew by only 0.3%. Increased construction costs, right-of-way constraints, and environmental and social issues shifted the interest of transportation agencies from building new roadways to strategies that maximize the operational efficiency of existing facilities. Transportation agencies across the nation employed a number of strategies aiming at reducing traffic demand or spreading it over time and …

Conversion Of One-Way Street Pairs To Two-Way Operations In Downtown Birmingham, Jugnu Chemmannur

All ETDs from UAB

In recent years, higher-than-ever gas prices and soaring living expenses are driv-ing people back to city centers in search of reduced travel costs and greater proximity to services. This calls for an immediate need to revive downtown areas to make them attrac-tive and increase their efficiency at accommodating a variety of transportation modes, motorized and non-motorized. To help support this revival, researchers are conducting studies countrywide to understand the effects and relevance of conversion of one-way streets to two-way opera-tions. This paper reports the findings of a study that investigated the feasibility and poten-tial impacts of street conversion options on …

Age And Gender Differences In Hip Extension And Flexion Torque Steadiness, Iveta Grunte

All ETDs from UAB

Purpose of this study was to compare age and gender differences in hip extension (HE) and flexion (HF) relative (5, 25, and 50% of maximal voluntary contraction [MVC]) and absolute (25 Nm) torque steadiness measured as standard deviation (SD) and coefficient of variation (CV) of torque fluctuations, and torque accuracy (TA). MVC and steadiness were assessed for 20 young (24.0 + 2.2 yrs) and 11 older (65.4 + 4.5 yrs) men and women. MVC was lower for HF, but HE had greater torque fluctuations. For HE, CV of 5% MVC was greater for older compared to young adults and women …

Ethernet Controller Design For An Embedded System Using Advanced Fpga Technology, Eddie L. Groom

All ETDs from UAB

In this work, an embedded Ethernet controller platform was implemented using reconfigurable hardware technology that incorporates system-level components. The specialized hardware and software work flows necessary to implement an embedded system using highly integrated electronics are not commonly addressed in academic environments. The primary objective of this work was to fill this void by describing and demonstrating the hardware/software co-design processes used to implement the project’s embedded Ethernet controller. Ethernet was selected as the project’s design focus to provide an example of the processes used to integrate common system-level components into an embedded system. To analyze the performance of this …

The Use Of Modeling Tools In The Analysis Of Functional Requirements, Gopi Kamadia

All ETDs from UAB

The thesis offers an Object-Oriented analysis methodology to investigate the functional requirements of software systems with modeling technologies, such as Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Systems Modeling Language (SysML). The main focus of the analysis is to discover objects and describe them in the problem domain. The thesis also proposes a validation process for the requirements stage of the development life cycle with an Acclaro Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) approach. A software development experiment is carried out with a case study of a threedimensional graphics game. The game is first implemented without following any sound analysis process and then …

Optimization Of Thermoplastic Pultrusion Process Using Commingled Fibers, Vishal D. Kamble

All ETDs from UAB

This work focuses on experimental studies and process modeling pertaining to pultrusion of glass reinforced thermoplastic composites. The experimental work focuses on optimizing the process and investigating process variables which are relevant to the processing of commingled glass polypropylene (PP) fibers. Several parameters affecting the quality of the pultruded parts were identified. A laboratory scale thermoplastic pultrusion machine was set up and glass/PP pultruded composite profiles were fabricated using commingled yarns for different processing variables. The pultrusion process includes tows of commingled fibers, preheater, heating die, chiller and a pulling mechanism. The work describes the process conditions that govern the …

Micro-Raman Spectroscopy And Dry Turning Evaluations Of Nanostructured Diamond Films Deposited On Tungsten-Carbide Lathe Inserts, Thomas Ryan Lawson

All ETDs from UAB

Synthetic diamond is increasingly called upon to play important roles in high-tech machining. This thesis follows the progress of nanostructured diamond films deposited on tungsten-carbide lathe inserts by means of MPCVD. Testing of films was done under the rigors of dry turning. Comparisons were made to the performance of uncoated WCCo, polycrystalline diamond compacts (PCD) and microcrystalline diamond (MCD) coated lathe inserts in the categories of surface finish and lifespan. Attempts were also made to correlate nanodiamond film performance to indentation tests and Raman spectroscopy. Raman results indicate that specifically the peak at 1556 cm-1 is detrimental to film lifespan …

The Convergence Envelope For Iterative Estimation In Ss-Parse, Ningzhi Li

All ETDs from UAB

A novel and recently developed fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, Single-Shot Parameter Assessment by Retrieval from Signal Encoding (SSPARSE), promises significant improvements in robustness and accuracy of local signal parameter estimates compared to the conventional MRI methods. In using a more accurate signal model, the reconstruction for SS-PARSE differs from the traditional Fourier transform method. An iterative estimation algorithm, progressive length conjugate gradient (PLCG), is currently employed by SS-PARSE to reconstruct independent parameter maps of local magnetization, transverse relaxation rate and frequency. In practice, the large number of degrees of freedom and partial poor conditioning of the problem itself …

Biomechanical Evaluation Of Proximal Humerus Fracture Fixation And Rotator Cuff Repair, Parthasarathy Raghava

All ETDs from UAB

Locked plating is frequently used to treat proximal humerus fractures. However, varus collapse remains common. Anatomic reduction may decrease the frequency of varus collapse though no studies have evaluated this relation. Hence the first part of this study was to evaluate the role of calcar comminution and calcar fixation upon fixation stability. Eleven matched humeri with three-part fractures were fixed with proximal humeral locking plate. Six pairs had an additional 1-cm medial wedge removed to simulate calcar comminution. Within each matched humerus, one had calcar fixation with long screws while the other did not. The constructs were then loaded to …

Night Moves, Jason Edward Slatton

All ETDs from UAB

Night Moves, the title of this collection of poetry, will most likely be familiar to readers as derived from the FM radio staple by Detroit songwriter Bob Seger. Seger’s song is an attempt to understand and navigate a past that is essentially lost to him, and I see each of these poems as “night moves” in that I am writing to a past that is lost to me and that I am fervently attempting to in some way record. That this title is born of the rock and roll ethos is also certainly intentional; I spent a great deal of …

Traffic Responsive Signal Systems To Address Rain-Related Congestion, Suman Reddy Surabhi

All ETDs from UAB

Rainy conditions typically have an impact on the behavior of drivers and in turn can affect traffic flow characteristics in transportation networks. As a result, signal timing plans developed for dry conditions may be unsuitable or sub-optimal during periods of rain, and changes in such plans may be desirable to account for changes in environmental conditions. Current technology in the field of traffic signal control and communications make it possible to change the signal controller settings remotely, a capability that offers opportunities for signal timing adjustments during rain conditions. This study explores the feasibility and benefits of implementing alternative signal-timing …

Study Of Nano-Mechanical Properties Of 3d Scaffolds Prepared From Polycaprolactone And Hydroxyapatite, Parul Tyagi

All ETDs from UAB

Nanocomposite scaffolds based on nanofibrous polycaprolactone (PCL) and nanohydroxyapatite (nanoHA) with fixed polymer compositions (7.5wt%) but different total wt% were prepared by electrostatic co-spinning to mimic the nanofeatures of the natural extracellular matrix (ECM) for natural bone tissue. Electrospinning is used to produce ultra-fine fibers using a high-voltage electrostatic field. The proposed concentrations of NanoHA in polymer were 0wt%, 10wt%, 20wt%, 30wt%, 40wt%, 50wt%. NanoHA was found to be well dispersed in polymers up to the addition of 30wt%, whereas substantial beading, electro-spraying and agglomeration of HA particles was observed in 40wt% and 50wt%. There are several factors which may …

Quantitative Protein Detection In Serum Samples Using Fiber-Optic Biosensors, Chun-Wei Wang

All ETDs from UAB

We report highly specific and sensitive detection of proteins in serum samples using a combination tapered fiber-optic biosensor (CTFOB) dip-probe. Sandwich immunoassay was used to generate specific fluorescence signal. A novel competitive adsorption strategy was used to reduce the false signal from non specific binding to a negligible level. Moreover, the similar strategy was also used to reduce the loss of target protein and increase the accuracy of immunoassay. The probes do not require pre-treatment with any blocking buffer. The specificity of the sensor was established by using negative control probes. The CTFOB probes were able to detect human interleukin-6 …

Multi-Material Contact For Computational Structural Mechanics, Kenneth Cline Walls

All ETDs from UAB

Multi-material Eulerian formulations in computational structural mechanics are traditionally approached using mixed-element thermodynamic or constitutive models. These traditional approaches replace contacting materials in an element with an equivalent, single material. However, this approximation often has little basis in the actual physics taking place at the contacting boundary. This work presents a significant departure from traditional Eulerian contact models by solving the conservation equations in each material separately and then imposing inequality constraints associated with contact to the solutions for each material with the appropriate traction integrals included. The advantages of this method are demonstrated with several computational examples. This work …

Stochastic Energetics Of The Buttiker-Landauer Motor And Refrigerator, Ronald Benjamin

All ETDs from UAB

We investigated the energetics of a Brownian motor driven by position dependent temperature, commonly known as the B¨uttiker-Landauer motor. Overdamped models (M = 0) predict that the motor can attain Carnot efficiency. However, the overdamped limit (M → 0), contradicts the previous prediction due to the kinetic energy contribution to the heat transfer. Using molecular dynamics simulation and numerical solution of the inertial Langevin equation, we confirmed that the motor can never achieve Carnot efficiency and verified that the heat flow via kinetic energy diverges asM−1/2 in the overdamped limit. The reciprocal process of the motor, namely the B¨uttiker-Landauer refrigerator …

Green Collar Jobs, Yvonne Sims Murray

All ETDs from UAB

No abstract provided.