Digital Commons Network^™

The Bus Transit System In Birmingham: A Rider's Approach, Jennifer Elaine Harrell

All ETDs from UAB

Citizen participation has become an integral part of implementing bus transit oriented development in many U.S. cities. The method of bus rider surveying is a traditional technique used to encourage diverse citizen participation. From November 2012 to January 2013, a Birmingham bus rider survey questionnaire study was conducted in the BJCTA (Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority) Central Station lobby. Although previous BJCTA bus rider surveys have been used to gather accurate route and demographic data, there has never been a bus rider survey that addresses the quality of transit service and performance in the Birmingham-Jefferson County area. In 2000, the National …

Comparison Of The Lenstar Optical Biometer And A-Scan Ultrasonography To Measure Ocular Components, Drew W. Gann

All ETDs from UAB

The purpose of this study was to compare ocular component dimensions and treated minus control eye differences measured with the Lenstar optical biometer to those measured with A-scan ultrasound in the tree shrew model of refractive development and induced myopia. A-scan ultrasonographic measures (A-scan) were taken with a 15 MHz focused pulser/receiver and compared with measures made with the Lenstar LS900 optical biometer (Haag-Streit, Basel, Switzerland). Anterior segment depth (ASD), lens thickness (LT), vitreous chamber depth (VCD), and axial length (AL) were measured in treated eyes (30), fellow control eyes (30), and normal eyes (86) in tree shrews (n=146), between …

The Alabama Promise To Improve Student Achievement: A Phenomenological Study Of Torchbearer Principals, Stacey P. Gill

All ETDs from UAB

STACEY P. GILL EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP ABSTRACT This study examined leadership characteristics from the perspective of urban school leaders in high-poverty and high-achieving schools in the state of Alabama in order to better understand their relationship to student achievement. Principals were selected from three school sites in three urban school districts located in central and southern Alabama. The study's theoretical framework was drawn from change theory, transformational leadership, instructional leadership, and the effective schools movement. A phenomenological approach was used to understand the essence of the phenomenon, in this instance, urban school leaders' and teachers' perceptions of Torchbearer leadership characteristics, was …

Prevalence Of Overweight And Obesity In Classic Rett Syndrome., Kathrine Clova Grigsby

All ETDs from UAB

Introduction: Rett syndrome (RTT) is a genetic, neurodevelopmental disorder that displays high incidence of growth failure, variations in body composition, feeding/gastrointestinal complications, and undernutrition. The ongoing Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDNCRN) Rett Syndrome Natural History Research Project has yielded observations regarding the less recognized occurrence of overnutrition in adult females with classic Rett syndrome. The purpose of this study was the determine the prevalence of overweight/obesity in children and young adults with classic Rett syndrome, the percent overweight and obese among adults with classic Rett syndrome, and to determine if the prevalence of overnutrition increases after the puberty years …

The Relationship Between Inflammatory Biomarkers And Cognitive Function In Older Adults, Andrea C. Sartori

All ETDs from UAB

Recent literature indicates associations between inflammation, aging, and cognitive function. Inflammatory processes have also been implicated in the onset of pathological and neurodegenerative conditions. Current study aims were to examine the associations between inflammatory biomarkers and cognitive function in older adults, and to explore the interrelationships of inflammatory biomarkers, depressive symptoms, health conditions, and cognitive function. Two studies were utilized for the current project: 1) a cross-sectional sample of sedentary older adults aged 65+ from the Physical and Cognitive Exercise Study (PACES; n=54); and 2) a longitudinal study (UAB Study of Aging) of community-dwelling older African Americans and Caucasians (n=393). …

Role Of Endothelial Mannose Residues In Monocyte Adhesion Under Flow, David Wayne Scott

All ETDs from UAB

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the vessel wall and underlying cause of most cardiovascular disease. Much is understood about the nature of atherosclerosis development, including contributions from leukocytes that drive the disease process forward. The general process by which leukocytes are trafficked to sites of atherosclerosis development, and sites of inflammation in general, is understood and relies upon endothelial expressed protein adhesion molecules which serve as ligands for cognate leukocyte receptors. While these adhesion molecules share the post-translation modification of N-glycosylation, relatively little is known as to what functional role these modification plays in: i) interactions of leukocytes …

Neural Substrates That Mediate Learning-Related Changes In The Emotional Response To A Threat, Joshua Richard Shumen

All ETDs from UAB

Recognizing cues that predict a threat allows one to react more effectively under threatening conditions, attenuating or potentiating the response to the threat depending on the circumstances. This is demonstrated during Pavlovian fear conditioning when the unconditioned response (UCR) to a predictable unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is diminished compared to the UCR of an unpredictable UCS (Dunsmoor, Bandettini, & Knight, 2008; Wood, Ver Hoef, & Knight, 2012). In the current study skin conductance, electromyography (orbicularis oculi), UCS expectancy, and blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were assessed during a Pavlovian temporal fear conditioning paradigm. Right-handed volunteers were …

Epigenetic Markers In The Developing Postnatal Brain, Rebecca Kaye Simmons

All ETDs from UAB

Epigenetic mechanisms provide a critical and plausible mechanism by which genes and the environment can interact and have been implicated in a number of diseases and disorders. In order to better understand how epigenetic mechanisms go awry in a diseased brain we must first understand how epigenetic mechanisms unfold during normal development. The present body of work begins to examine the role of DNA methylation in normal development and how it may contribute to a rodent model of emotion dysfunction. Using a variety of techniques, we evaluated the transcript, protein and functional output levels of DNA methyltransferase1, -3a, and -3b …

Progressive Forming Of Thermoplastic Composite Laminates, John Robert Smith

All ETDs from UAB

Composite materials display excellent specific strength and stiffness, light-weighting benefits, and are effective replacements for metals which are typically heavy and susceptible to corrosion. Next generation transportation, military, infrastructure, and marine sectors are extensively using fiber reinforced composite materials for part replacement and structural applications. Producing these advanced composite structures can often result in extensive development time and material wastage. There is a need to understand composite laminate formability and implement predictive methodology during product design to minimize manufacturing costs. The overall objective of this research was to predict the formability of thick section, plain woven, thermoplastic matrix composite laminates …

Defining, Punishing, And Membership In The Community Of Nations- Material Support And Conspiracy Charges In Military Commissions, Peter Margulies

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Emerging From The Haze Of America's War On Drugs And Examining Canada's New Half-Baked Laws, Ramy Oden

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Recasting Icsid's Legitimacy Debate- Towards A Goal-Based Empirical Agenda, Sergio Puig

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

International Arbitration Scholarship And The Concept Of Arbitration Law, Stavros Brekoulakis

Fordham International Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Human Embodiment And Trinitarian Anthropology - Six Implications For Religious Education, G O'Shea

Education Papers and Journal Articles

The author starts his considerations with a remark on the human person as a unique kind of reality – an embodied being with a Trinitarian structure. He claims that we must account for human nature as it is and educate the human person accordingly. He focuses on six key areas which need further exploration for the renewal of religious education: (1) religious education and the human person, (2) religious education for the body, (3) religious education for the heart, (4) religious education for the mind, (5) religious education and moral formation, and (6) the nature of faith.

Keeping It In The Target Language, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Amy Roberts

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This article investigates how target language use can be optimized in the language classroom to enhance language development. Principles and guidelines for integration of the target language are extracted from empirical evidence and best practices demonstrated by teachers who maximize target language. Classroom tested strategies and examples are described and illustrated.

Keeping It In The Target Language, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Amy Roberts

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This article investigates how target language use can be optimized in the language classroom to enhance language development. Principles and guidelines for integration of the target language are extracted from empirical evidence and best practices demonstrated by teachers who maximize target language. Classroom tested strategies and examples are described and illustrated.

There is much debate about the use of the target language (TL) and first language (L1) in the foreign language classroom. How much TL will maximize language development? When should L1 be used and how often? Language teachers are receiving mixed messages that range from 100% exclusive use of …

Race, Difference, Meritocracy, And English: Majoritarian Stories In The Education Of Secondary Multilingual Learners, Kara Viesca

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Urban Community Teacher Education, University of Colorado, Denver, USA In this study, empirical and conceptual scholarship (approximately 100 studies) regarding the education of secondary multilingual learners and their teachers are analyzed through the lens of critical race theory (CRT). Specifically, four common majoritarian stories are identified that are both challenged and endorsed in the research literature: there is no story about race, difference is deficit, meritocracy is appropriate, and English-is-all-that-matters. This article discusses the literature, the four identified majoritarian stories and the specific ways they are both promoted and countered throughout the literature. The implications of these four majoritarian stories …

Curricular Treatments Of Length Measurement In The United States: Do They Address Known Learning Challenges?, John P. Smith Iii, Lorraine Males, Leslie C. Dietiker, Kosze Lee, Aaron Mosier

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Extensive research has shown that elementary students struggle to learn the basic principles of length measurement. However, where patterns of errors have been documented, the origins of students’ difficulties have not been identified. This study investigated the hypothesis that written elementary mathematics curricula contribute to the problem of learning length measurement. We analyzed all instances of length measurement in three mathematics curricula (grades K–3) and found a shared focus on procedures. Attention to conceptual principles was limited overall and particularly for central ideas; conceptual principles were often presented after students were asked to use procedures that depended on them; and …

In Praise Of Ambiguity: Musical Subtlety And Merleau-Ponty, Tiger C. Roholt

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

When a jazz, rock, or hip-hop drummer strikes certain notes in each measure slightly late, instead of hearing the degree to which those notes are late, we typically hear the effects of those variations; namely, a groove, the "feel" of a rhythm. Slight variations of pitch function similarly. In this essay, I argue that certain analytic theorists go astray due to their preoccupation with the variations themselves. By invoking Maurice Merleau-Ponty's insights into subtle visual perceptions, and his notion of perceptual indeterminacy, I avoid an account of musical subtlety suggested by Daniel Dennett that is too coarse-grained, as well as …

Cheap Talk With Two Audiences: An Experiment, Mikhail Drugov, Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez, Praveen Kujal, Marta Troya Martinez

ESI Working Papers

In this paper we experimentally test strategic information transmission between one informed and two uninformed agents in a cheap-talk game. We find evidence of the "disciplining" effect of public communication as compared to private; however, it is much weaker than predicted by the theory. Adding a second receiver naturally increases the complexity of strategic thinking when communication is public. Using the level-k model, we exploit the within subject design to show how individuals decrease their level-k in public communication. Surprisingly, we find that individuals become more sophisticated when they communicate privately with two receivers rather than one.

What Is A Fair Wage? Reference Points, Entitlements And Gift Exchange, Eleonora Bottino, Cintia Goddio, Praveen Kujal

ESI Working Papers

Society adopts institutions that can change incentives, reference points and entitlements for the economic agents. In this paper we look at two stylized wage setting institutions and their effect on wage offers and effort in the classic gift exchange experiments of Fehr, Kirchsteiger and Riedl (1993). The first one is the exogenously imposed minimum wage institution (first instituted in New Zealand in 1894). The second institution we look is an endogenous wage proposal institution where workers first make wage proposals. We find that the imposition of an exogenous minimum wage floor at the competitive outcome lowers average wage offers. However, …

The Relative Efficacy Of Price Announcements And Express Communication For Collusion: Experimental Findings, Joseph E. Harrington Jr., Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez, Praveen Kujal

ESI Working Papers

Collusion is when firms coordinate on suppressing competition, and coordination typically requires that firms communicate in some manner. This study conducts experiments to determine what modes of communications are able to produce and sustain collusion and how the efficacy of communication depends on firm heterogeneity and the number of firms. We consider two different communication treatments: non-binding price announcements and unrestricted written communication. Our main findings are that price announcements allow subjects to coordinate on a high price but only under duopoly and when firms are symmetric. While price announcements do result in higher prices when subjects are asymmetric, there …

Limitations To Signaling Trust With All Or Nothing Investments, Eric Schniter, Roman M. Sheremeta, Timothy W. Shields

ESI Working Papers

Many economic interactions are characterized by “all or nothing” action spaces that may limit a demonstrable index of trust and, therefore, the propensity to reciprocate. In two experimental trust games, the action space governing investments was manipulated to examine the effects on investments and reciprocity. In the continuous game the investor could invest any amount between 0 and 10, while in the binary game the investor could invest either 0 or 10. In both games, the trustee received the tripled investment and then could return any amount back to the investor. Investors invested significantly more in the binary game than …

Do Prediction Markets Aid Defenders In A Weak‐Link Contest?, Cary Deck, Li Hao, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

Laboratory experiments have demonstrated that prediction market prices weakly aggregate the disparate information of the traders about states (moves) of nature. However, in many practical applications one might want to predict the move of a strategic participant. This is particularly important in aggressor‐defender contests. This paper reports a set of such experiments where the defender may have the advantage of observing a prediction market on the aggressor’s action. The results of the experiments indicate that: the use of prediction markets does not increase the defender’s win rate; prediction markets contain reliable information regarding aggressors’ decisions, namely excess bid information, that …

Conflicted Emotions Following Trust-Based Interaction, Eric Schniter, Roman M. Sheremeta, Timothy W. Shields

ESI Working Papers

We investigated whether 20 emotional states, reported by 170 participants after participating in a Trust game, were experienced in a patterned way predicted by the “Recalibrational Model” or Valence Models. According to the Recalibrational Model, new information about trust-based interaction outcomes triggers specific sets of emotions. Unlike Valence Models that predict reports of large sets of either positive or negative emotional states, the Recalibrational Model predicts the possibility of conflicted (concurrent positive and negative) emotional states. Consistent with the Recalibrational Model, we observed reports of conflicted emotional states activated after interactions where trust was demonstrated but trustworthiness was not. We …

Overbidding And Heterogeneous Behavior In Contest Experiments, Roman M. Sheremeta

ESI Working Papers

We provide an overview of experimental literature on contests and point out the two main phenomena observed in most contest experiments: (i) overbidding relative to the standard Nash equilibrium prediction and (ii) heterogeneous behavior of ex-ante symmetric contestants. Based on the sample of contest experiments that we review, the median overbidding rate is 72%. We provide different explanations for the overbidding phenomenon, including bounded rationality, utility of winning, other-regarding preferences, probability distortion, and the shape of the payoff function. We also provide explanations for heterogeneous behavior of contestants based on differences in preferences towards winning, inequality, risk and losses, and …

Prediction Markets In The Laboratory, Cary Deck, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

"The idea that there is wisdom from the collective has been forcefully described in “The Wisdom of the Crowds” by James Surowiecki, who argues that the aggregation of information in groups results in better decisions than those that are afforded by any single member of the group. Markets, like opinion polls, are one mechanism for aggregating disparate pieces of information. The aggregation properties of prices were first noted by Hayek (1945) and were formally examined by Muth (1961). In particular, Hayek argues that market prices serve the purpose of sharing and coordinating local and personal knowledge, while Muth shows that …

The Effect Of Earned Vs. House Money On Price Bubble Formation In Experimental Asset Markets, Brice Corgnet, Roberto Hérnan-Gonzalez, Praveen Kujal, David Porter

ESI Working Papers

Can “house money” explain asset market bubbles? We test this hypothesis in an asset market experiment with a certain dividend. We compare experiments where the initial portfolio of cash and shares is given to subjects, i.e. house money, to a treatment in which individual initial portfolios are constructed using subject earned money from a real effort task. We find that bubbles still occur; however trading volumes are significantly abated and the dispersion of earnings is significantly lower when subjects earn their starting endowments. We further investigate the role of cognitive ability in accounting for the differences in earnings distribution across …

A Method To Reduce Plastic Shrinkage Cracking Of Concrete Using Re-Vibration Technique, Mustafa Abushaala Aldalinsi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

One of the problems that reduce durability; thus, performance of concrete is the development of plastic shrinkage cracking (PSC). Traditionally, the development of PSC has been minimized by controlling its exposure to weather conditions or by adding fibers. In this study, concrete re-vibration was used as an alternative technique to control PSC because of the limited availability of fibers in the developing countries. In this study, the wait time after slab casting and before vibration was selected to be 90 minutes while length of re-vibration time was varied from 15 to 45 seconds. Also, the water-cement ratios were selected to …

Scalar Polarization Operator In A Superfluid Medium, Sajib Kumar Barman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A QCD-inspired effective theory of fermions is considered to study superfluidity. We calculate the quark propagator in a theory with fermion-fermion condensate at finite density. In this theory color degrees of freedom are absent and the quark-quark interaction is modeled through a Yukawa interaction term. Since the diquark condensate is neutral, the system is a superfluid. To study the response of this superfluid to the scalar field propagation, we find the scalar polarization operator of the system.