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2013

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Characterizing The Roles Of Il-11 And Cd68 In Breast Cancer Bone Metastasis, Erin Mills Mccoy Jan 2013

Characterizing The Roles Of Il-11 And Cd68 In Breast Cancer Bone Metastasis, Erin Mills Mccoy

All ETDs from UAB

The molecular mechanisms regulating the preferential metastasis of breast cancer to bone have not been fully elucidated, but it is hypothesized that local conditions in the bone create an environment conducive to colonization by breast cancer cells and that the breast cancer cells interact directly with cells in the bone. In this dissertation, two goals were pursued: (1) to explore breast cancer secreted interleukin (IL)-11's role on osteoclast function and (2) investigate the expression and potential role of CD68 in breast cancer adhesion to bone. Higher rates of bone metastasis occur in human breast cancer tumors expressing IL-11, a cytokine …

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Cooking With Caste Iron: Food System Modernization In Birmingham, 1910-1964, Thomas Carl Mclemore Jan 2013

Cooking With Caste Iron: Food System Modernization In Birmingham, 1910-1964, Thomas Carl Mclemore

All ETDs from UAB

This thesis aims to capture the social and political conditions that contributed to the rise of class and racial disparities in Birmingham's food system. The way in which all Birmingham residents located, grew, raised, purchased, cooked, and consumed food reinforced and furthered a caste system of social dispossession and black oppression. An overview of the poor health conditions of the pre-modern, industrial city provides a basis for understanding the reasoning of later efforts in systematic modernization. These efforts took place amid broader, national contexts of political and social Progressivism and the emerging paradigm of the New South. These trends contributed …

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Apparent Change In Obesity-Mortality Associations: Methodological Issues In Survival Analyses With Censored Outcomes, Tapan Shirish Mehta Jan 2013

Apparent Change In Obesity-Mortality Associations: Methodological Issues In Survival Analyses With Censored Outcomes, Tapan Shirish Mehta

All ETDs from UAB

Analyses of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) have suggested that the mortality rate (MR) associated with obesity has decreased over calendar time. However, there has been conflicting evidence about the apparent change in the obesity-MR over calendar time. This dissertation investigates some of the empirical and methodological issues involved in assessing the longitudinal change in the obesity-mortality associations. In the first manuscript, Obesity and Mortality: Are the Risks Declining? Evidence from Multiple Prospective Studies in the U.S., a multiple longitudinal design is proposed and implemented to evaluate whether the obesity-mortality associations have declined over calendar time after …

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The Effectiveness Of A Behavioral Summer Treatment Program For Children With High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, Elisabeth Sheridan Mitchell Jan 2013

The Effectiveness Of A Behavioral Summer Treatment Program For Children With High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, Elisabeth Sheridan Mitchell

All ETDs from UAB

Children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate a number of core social and behavioral deficits that affect their ability to interact effectively with peers. Despite recommendations to improve intervention programs for children with high-functioning ASD, few empirical studies have evaluated the effectiveness of comprehensive, skills building behavioral interventions. Previous clinical case studies documented that a behavioral summer treatment program (STP) produced substantial changes in behavior and social functioning for several children with high-functioning ASD. While the STP may be a promising efficacious intervention for these children, a quantitative examination is needed to further examine the effectiveness of the STP …

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Intrinsic And Extrinsic Factors Required For Cd4 T Memory Cell Formation And Function, Sarah B. Mollo Jan 2013

Intrinsic And Extrinsic Factors Required For Cd4 T Memory Cell Formation And Function, Sarah B. Mollo

All ETDs from UAB

CD4 T cells are central to the organization of the immune response through the secretion of cytokines that recruit and activate other immune cells. Following infection and pathogen control, the majority of the effector CD4 T cells undergo apoptosis, leaving a subset that persists and gives rise to the memory T cell pool. Upon encountering the same pathogen, memory CD4 T cells respond rapidly, providing enhanced protection from re-infection. What determines which effector CD4 T cells will survive is unclear; however, there are a number of factors both intrinsic to the cell as well as external signals from the environment …

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Phenotypic Analysis Of B Cells In Hla*B44 Positive Patients That Exhibit Common Variable Immunodeficiency And Recurrent Sino-Pulmonary Infections, Eva Szymanska Mroczek Jan 2013

Phenotypic Analysis Of B Cells In Hla*B44 Positive Patients That Exhibit Common Variable Immunodeficiency And Recurrent Sino-Pulmonary Infections, Eva Szymanska Mroczek

All ETDs from UAB

Depressed serum immunoglobulin levels and recurrent sinopulmonary infections mark Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID). Many family members of CVID patients also suffer Recurrent Sino-Pulmonary Infection (RESPI) but have normal serum immunoglobulins. We identified HLAB44 positive identical female twins who suffer sinopulmonary infections and are discordant for CVID and RESPI. Flow cytometry subsets showed equivalent numbers of immature B cells (BC) in both twins, but lower numbers of transitional and mature BC in the CVID twin. Presented is an in-depth comparison of V (D) J gene usage, hydrophobicity, length, DH reading frame, and amino acid usage between µ H chain repertoires …

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Making Room For A Restorative Response To Conflict: Challenging The Retributive Paradigm In American Journalism, Cynthia Duggan Mwenja Jan 2013

Making Room For A Restorative Response To Conflict: Challenging The Retributive Paradigm In American Journalism, Cynthia Duggan Mwenja

All ETDs from UAB

Reactions to current events from across the political spectrum highlight a journalistic retributive narrative framework that is ubiquitous in the American media. News articles from the childhood obesity debate support claims that journalists on both left and right interpret this story - and by implication, all stories - through a retributive cultural lens. Burke's rhetorical analysis tool, dramatism, is used to examine the rhetoric on all sides of the issue and demonstrate the common retributive aspects of the narratives, regardless of the social or political orientations of the writers and their affiliations. The retributive narrative is connected to American justice …

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The Relation Of Hospital Choices In It Infrastructure Spending And Deployment With Hit/Ehr Strategies And Operational Efficiency, Harold Neumeier Jan 2013

The Relation Of Hospital Choices In It Infrastructure Spending And Deployment With Hit/Ehr Strategies And Operational Efficiency, Harold Neumeier

All ETDs from UAB

This study examined certain aspects of the association between information technology (IT) strategy and structure changes within hospitals, as well as the effects of IT infrastructure changes on measures of financial performance for these hospitals during the period of 2009-2011. Following the Process School of the Resource Based View, both internal and external information technology resources were examined to see how hospitals had responded to Federal policies related to the "meaningful use" of Health IT and Electronic Health records. Specifically, this study examined changes in information technology spending by hospitals based on size, hospital type, and percentage of revenue derived …

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Uptake Of Antenatal Care Services And Pregnancy Outcome In Kumasi, Ghana, Asundep Ntui Jan 2013

Uptake Of Antenatal Care Services And Pregnancy Outcome In Kumasi, Ghana, Asundep Ntui

All ETDs from UAB

A prior study reported a 44.6% prevalence of adverse pregnancy outcomes in Kumasi, Ghana. This study investigated factors that may influence antenatal care (ANC) utilization and their association with adverse pregnancy outcomes; defined as low birth weight, stillbirth, preterm delivery or small for gestational age among pregnant women in Kumasi. A quantitative cross sectional study of 643 women, age 19-48 years who presented for delivery at select public hospitals and private traditional birth attendants from July through November 2011 was conducted. Information on socio-demographic characteristics and other factors associated with ANC attendance was collected using a structured questionnaire. Medical and …

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Energy Performance Evaluation Of Aac, Hulya Aybek Jan 2013

Energy Performance Evaluation Of Aac, Hulya Aybek

All ETDs from UAB

The U.S. building industry constitutes the largest consumer of energy (i.e., electricity, natural gas, petroleum) in the world. The building sector uses almost 41percent of the primary energy and approximately 72percent of the available electricity in the United States. As global energy-generating resources are being depleted at exponential rates, the amount of energy consumed and wasted cannot be ignored. Professionals concerned about the environment have placed a high priority on finding solutions that reduce energy consumption while maintaining occupant comfort. Sustainable design and the judicious combination of building materials comprise one solution to this problem. A future including sustainable energy …

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The Interactional Effects Of Incentive Value And Task Difficulty: A Partial Explanation For Gender Differences In Cardiovascular Response To A Performance Challange., Patricia Barreto Jan 2013

The Interactional Effects Of Incentive Value And Task Difficulty: A Partial Explanation For Gender Differences In Cardiovascular Response To A Performance Challange., Patricia Barreto

All ETDs from UAB

Participants were presented an impossible or moderately difficult mental addition task; half of them were led to believe that they could win a traditionally masculine incentive by meeting a certain performance standard and half of them were led to believe that they could win a traditionally feminine incentive if they met the same performance standard. In the feminine incentive group, Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) during the work period was stronger under difficult than impossible conditions among women, but low under both difficulty conditions among men. In the masculine incentive group, blood pressure measures (SBP, diastolic blood pressure, and mean arterial …

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The Relationship Of Maternal Depressive Symptoms Among First Time Adolescent And Adult Mothers And Their Safe Parenting Practices And Child Injuries, Angela Warren Baumann Jan 2013

The Relationship Of Maternal Depressive Symptoms Among First Time Adolescent And Adult Mothers And Their Safe Parenting Practices And Child Injuries, Angela Warren Baumann

All ETDs from UAB

Maternal depressive symptoms have been associated with deficits in parenting practices that protect children from injuries; however, few studies have been conducted to examine these relationships. Using data from a multisite longitudinal study of 252 first-time mothers, the relationships between the use of safe parenting practices and maternal depressive symptoms was examined, taking into account mother's resources (as defined by age and education level) and race at five time points during the first 3 years of the child's life. Depressive symptoms were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory. Measures of maternal depressive symptoms, safe parenting practices (use of car seat, …

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Adapter Based Strategies For Adenovirus Vector Retargeting To T Lymphocytes, Matthew S. Beatty Jan 2013

Adapter Based Strategies For Adenovirus Vector Retargeting To T Lymphocytes, Matthew S. Beatty

All ETDs from UAB

Adenoviruses are the most commonly used gene therapy vector for cancer therapy clinical trials. While adenovirus has shown a great track record in a variety of cancer therapeutics it has not progressed as a vector system for the modification of T lymphocytes. One of the major roadblocks towards utilizing adenovirus for T cell therapy is the lack of coxsackie virus and adenovirus receptor on the cell surface of T cell lineages. Exploitation of alternative receptors has allowed adenovirus vectors to be utilized in a variety of cell types that native adenovirus type 5 cannot infect. Thus, retargeting adenovirus to an …

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Perceptions Of Participating K-12 Educational Leaders' Experiences And Decisions Regarding The Crisis Caused By The April 27, 2011 Tornadoes In Rural Alabama, William Earl Bishop Jan 2013

Perceptions Of Participating K-12 Educational Leaders' Experiences And Decisions Regarding The Crisis Caused By The April 27, 2011 Tornadoes In Rural Alabama, William Earl Bishop

All ETDs from UAB

PERCEPTIONS OF PARTICIPATING K-12 EDUCATIONAL LEADERS' EXPERIENCES AND DECISIONS REGARDING THE CRISIS CAUSED BY THE APRIL 27, 2011 TORNADOES IN RURAL ALABAMA WILLIAM E. BISHOP, JR. (BILL) HUMAN STUDIES ABSTRACT April 27, 2011, will be remembered by many as a catastrophic day and event in Alabama, and specifically by K-12 educational leaders. Natural disasters like tornadoes have a significant impact on leaders, on their decision making and, obviously, on the survival of many of their victims. The possibility and threat of a major crisis caused by natural disasters is always going to be present. Organizations, businesses, and leaders at various …

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In-Vivo Characterization Of Cone Photoreceptor Packing Density With Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy In Different Racial Groups, Ernesto Blanco Rivero Jan 2013

In-Vivo Characterization Of Cone Photoreceptor Packing Density With Adaptive Optics Scanning Laser Ophthalmoscopy In Different Racial Groups, Ernesto Blanco Rivero

All ETDs from UAB

Cone photoreceptors are one of the two types of essential light sensitive cells that initiate the visual process in the human retina. A normal database of the cone density of healthy eyes may provide an important measure for diagnosing retinal diseases that cause photoreceptor loss, for monitoring disease progression, and for evaluating treatment out-come. Recent studies revealed that the foveal pit morphology, retina thickness, retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness, and optic nerve head structure significantly correlated with racial background. We hypothesize that the cone density may be also modified by racial background. To test this hypothesis, I used a …

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Resonances And Inverse Scattering, Matthew Bledsoe Jan 2013

Resonances And Inverse Scattering, Matthew Bledsoe

All ETDs from UAB

Inverse scattering problems for Sturm-Liouville differential equations find numerous applications in physics, in particular, quantum mechanics. While the theory of these problems has been developed over a number of decades, a more recent concern has been the use of resonances, important phenomena in physics, as data — the inverse resonance problem. In this dissertation, we address this problem in a variety of cases. First, we investigate the full-line Schroedinger equation where the data for the inverse problem include the eigenvalues and resonances. We prove that any two potentials that have enough data points sufficiently close together must also be close …

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The Incidental Leader: The Role Of Reading Recovery Training In The Professional Lives Of Teachers In A Rural Alabama School System, Sharon Lynn Bounds Jan 2013

The Incidental Leader: The Role Of Reading Recovery Training In The Professional Lives Of Teachers In A Rural Alabama School System, Sharon Lynn Bounds

All ETDs from UAB

This qualitative multiple case study was undertaken to answer the following question: How did Reading Recovery ® (RR) teachers and former Reading Recovery teachers in a mid-sized rural school system in the southeastern United States describe the influences of their Reading Recovery training as it related to their current professional lives? Additional questions included: (1) How did training in Reading Recovery position the teacher as a reading expert within her school? (2) How did Reading Recovery change her approach to working with struggling readers? (3) How did the "behind the glass" experience impact the teacher's own teaching? (4) How did …

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Characterization Of Legal Highs And Their Pyrolysis Products, Emily Denise Bouso Jan 2013

Characterization Of Legal Highs And Their Pyrolysis Products, Emily Denise Bouso

All ETDs from UAB

Legal highs are any mind-altering substance produced and sold in a manner to avoid the legal consequences of illicit substances. They have been advertised and sold as Spice, Bath Salts, plant food, and research chemicals. Not only are these drugs presenting major problems to law enforcement, but also to health care providers. The exact composition for many of these substances is not known. Therefore, treatment for patients who have taken these drugs is limited to symptomatic care. Harmful exposure to these substances is not limited to the primary components within the drugs, but can include potentially toxic by-products that result …

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The Pusillanimous Denis: What "U.P: Up" Really Breens, Leah Harper Bowron Jan 2013

The Pusillanimous Denis: What "U.P: Up" Really Breens, Leah Harper Bowron

All ETDs from UAB

Denis Breen, a minor character in James Joyce's Ulysses, receives an unsigned postcard which reads "U.p: up". Scholars consider "U.p: up" to be a joke encoded in a puzzle or riddle. This paper proposes to decode the postcard message "U.p: up" and to identify its author. The postcard message "U.p: up" is read "you pee up" and refers to Denis Breen's unusual urination. Denis Breen "pees up" or sprays his urine upward when urinating from a standing position because he has hypospadias and his urethral opening is within or behind his testes. The symbol "p:" in the message "U.p: up" …

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Impact Of Quality Performance On Financial Risk And Cost Of Capital In Hospitals, James D. Byrd Jan 2013

Impact Of Quality Performance On Financial Risk And Cost Of Capital In Hospitals, James D. Byrd

All ETDs from UAB

This study evaluated the relationship of hospital quality of care as measured by mortality scores to hospital cost of capital as represented by average cost of debt. A composite mortality score (weighted average of Hospital Compare's risk adjusted mortality rate for each hospital) was regressed against the hospitals' average cost of debt using OLS and the Stata 11 robust clustering function to adjust for repeated occurrences of hospitals across years. The data base consisted of acute care hospitals with interest expense observed over the three year period 2008 - 2010 (n=3420). Control variables included a number of hospital characteristic (e.g., …

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O-Linked Beta-N-Acetylglucosamine (O-Glcnac) And The Mitochondrion, Christopher Calderon Jan 2013

O-Linked Beta-N-Acetylglucosamine (O-Glcnac) And The Mitochondrion, Christopher Calderon

All ETDs from UAB

O-linked beta-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) is a dynamic and ubiquitous posttranslational modification of serine and threonine residues on nuclear and cytoplasmic proteins. O-GlcNAc has emerged as an important regulator of cellular processes such as cell signaling, transcription, translation, apoptosis, and cell cycle regulation, among others. O-GlcNAc is thought to be a contributor to pathologies such as hyperglycemia and insulin resistance. O-GlcNAc has been viewed as an indicator of cellular energy levels and is associated with diabetic complications under nutrient excess. Other studies have shown that a variety of stress stimuli increase the levels of protein O-GlcNAc in mammalian cells, and this increase …

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Reckless Reevaluated: Containment Theory And Its Ability To Explain Desistance Among Serious Adolescent Offenders, Stephanie Michelle Cardwell Jan 2013

Reckless Reevaluated: Containment Theory And Its Ability To Explain Desistance Among Serious Adolescent Offenders, Stephanie Michelle Cardwell

All ETDs from UAB

Social control theorists posit that crime and delinquency occur among members in society because an individuals' behavior is not well regulated. Recent control theories have emphasized the importance of high self-control and strong bonds to society in deterring criminal behavior. However, one of the original theories of self-control has been largely ignored among scholars. Developed by Walter Reckless in the 1960s, containment theory suggests that individuals are pushed and pulled into crime. Pushes are elements that pressure individuals to engage in delinquency while pulls draw individuals away from accepted forms of behavior. The theory states that pushes and pulls are …

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Ecclesia Semper Reformanda Est: Radical Reformation And The Irs, Mason Powell Jan 2013

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda Est: Radical Reformation And The Irs, Mason Powell

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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Compelled Investigatory And Testimonial Speech: An Overdue Clarification Of The Public Employee Speech Doctrine That Rehabilitates "All Of The Values At Stake", Molly K. Smith Jan 2013

Compelled Investigatory And Testimonial Speech: An Overdue Clarification Of The Public Employee Speech Doctrine That Rehabilitates "All Of The Values At Stake", Molly K. Smith

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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Transforming Domestic Violence Representation, Jane K. Stoever Jan 2013

Transforming Domestic Violence Representation, Jane K. Stoever

Kentucky Law Journal

The dominant theories used in the law to explain domestic violence, namely, the Power and Control Wheel and the Cycle of Violence, provide only limited insight into intimate partner abuse. Both theories focus exclusively on the abusive partner' wrongful actions, consistent with recent decades' concentration on criminalization, but fail to educate about the survivor's needs and efforts to end violence. The Stages of Change Model, conversely, reveals that domestic abuse survivors seek an end to relationship violence through a five-stage cyclical sequence and identifies the survivor's needs and actions at each stage. This critical information should inform the representation of …

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The Sentence Of Hiv, Carrie Griffin Basas Jan 2013

The Sentence Of Hiv, Carrie Griffin Basas

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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Closing The Door On Subjective Reasonableness: Evaluating Police-Created Exigencies And The Issues With The Doctrinal Shift To Objectivity In Warrantless Searches, Gordon L. Mowen Ii Jan 2013

Closing The Door On Subjective Reasonableness: Evaluating Police-Created Exigencies And The Issues With The Doctrinal Shift To Objectivity In Warrantless Searches, Gordon L. Mowen Ii

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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He Said, She Said, Let's Hear What The Data Say: Sexual Harassment In The Media, Courts, Eeoc, And Social Science, Joni Hersch, Beverly Moran Jan 2013

He Said, She Said, Let's Hear What The Data Say: Sexual Harassment In The Media, Courts, Eeoc, And Social Science, Joni Hersch, Beverly Moran

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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Kàn Bú Tài Dong: The Fair Housing Act, Language Discrimination, And Chinese Classifieds, R. Ian Forrest Jan 2013

Kàn Bú Tài Dong: The Fair Housing Act, Language Discrimination, And Chinese Classifieds, R. Ian Forrest

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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The Sacred And The Secular: South Africa's Constitutional Court Rules On Same-Sex Marriages, Albie Sachs Jan 2013

The Sacred And The Secular: South Africa's Constitutional Court Rules On Same-Sex Marriages, Albie Sachs

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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