Digital Commons Network^™

Reported Clinical And Financial Performance Of Hospitals With Physician Ceos Compared To Those With Nonphysician Ceos, Leon Moores

All ETDs from UAB

Leaders impact organizational behavior and performance, and CEOs may have greater impact via numerous proposed mechanisms. Because of this, organizations expend considerable resources recruiting and selecting CEOs and may benefit from information suggesting a positive impact on organizational performance based upon measurable CEO characteristics. Little work has been done comparing the performance of hospitals with physician CEOs versus non-physician CEOs, in spite of the ease of identification of this characteristic and extant leadership theories suggesting a relationship between technical expertise and success in leading highly technical organizations. We compared multiple measures of reported clinical and financial performance and our linear …

The Impact Of College Athletic Success On Donations And Applicant Quality, Benjamin Baumer, Andrew Zimbalist

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

For the 65 colleges and universities that participate in the Power Five athletic conferences (Pac 12, Big 10, SEC, ACC, and Big 12), the football and men’s basketball teams are highly visible. While these programs generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue annually, very few of them turn an operating “profit.” Their existence is thus justified by the claim that athletic success leads to ancillary benefits for the academic institution, in terms of both quantity (e.g., more applications, donations, and state funding) and quality (e.g., stronger applicants, lower acceptance rates, higher yields). Previous studies provide only weak support for …

Renewables-Integrated Internal Combustion Engine-Based Multi-Generation Options For Uab Buildings, Qing Mu

All ETDs from UAB

Distributed energy, also district or decentralized energy is generated or stored by a variety of small, grid-connected devices referred to as distributed energy resources, or distributed energy resource systems. The Distributed Generation (DG) systems can increase energy system reliability, reduce peak power requirements, and improve energy infrastructure resilience. In this study, a DG system using renewable energy sources and energy storage has been introduced for the whole University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) campus. The energy sources for this DG system are photovoltaic arrays, a natural-gas-powered Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), and wind turbines. The energy storage component used in this …

Convergence In A Disk Stacking Model On The Cylinder, Christophe Golé, Stéphane Douady

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

We study an iterative process modeling growth of phyllotactic patterns, wherein disks are added one by one on the surface of a cylinder, on top of an existing set of disks, as low as possible and without overlap. Numerical simulations show that the steady states of the system are spatially periodic, lattices-like structures called rhombic tilings. We present a rigorous analysis of the dynamics of all configurations starting with closed chains of 3 tangent, non-overlapping disks encircling the cylinder. We show that all these configurations indeed converge to rhombic tilings. Surprisingly, we show that convergence can occur in either …

The Role Of The Built Environment In Transforming Underserved Neighborhoods Into Smart And Connected Communities, Mary Claire Nabors

All ETDs from UAB

The goal of this report is to create a model for transforming underserved neighborhoods into smart, connected, healthy, and sustainable communities by focusing on the built environment. To do this, there must be a thorough neighborhood analysis of the existing conditions with recommendations for what needs to be done, both short term and long term. The built environment impacts many aspects of a neighborhood and the quality of life for residents. Sidewalks, streets, lighting, landscaping, and accessibility are all components of the built environment and research has continuously shown how the deterioration of the built environment affects the health and …

Inverse Problems, Regularization And Its Applications, Abinash Nayak

All ETDs from UAB

Inverse problems arise in a wide spectrum of applications in fields ranging from engineering to scientific computation. Connected with the rise of interest in inverse problems is the development and analysis of regularization methods, such as truncated singular value decomposition (TSVD), Tikhonov regularization or iterative regularization methods (like Landerweb iterations), which are a necessity in most inverse problems due to their ill-posedness. TSVD can be used when dealing with (small) finite dimensional linear problems, but is computationally very expensive, and sometimes even unfeasible, for large scale linear problems or nonlinear problems. In such scenarios, Tikhonov regularization is an attractive alternative, …

Academic Preparation For Business, Industry, And Government Positions, Alejandra Alvarado, Candice R. Price

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

According to the 2015 Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences, 1901 PhDs were awarded in the USA. The report shows that 52% of those recipients are working in academia. This is a decrease from the 2014 survey which stated that 56% of new doctoral recipients went on to academia. Thus, what support do we, as academics, provide to this growing population of business/industry, or government job seekers? The goal of this paper is to provide insight into programs tackling this question along with relevant information and advice for new PhDs interested in jobs outside of academia as well as those …

Modeling Stock Prices With Differential Equations, Jessica Barnett

All ETDs from UAB

Forecasting the stock market has long been subject to speculation, especially after the global financial crisis in 2008. In this thesis, we formulate a predictive model of the trend of a chosen stock that is derived from verifiable economic tendencies (absent appropriate economic laws) that interact through a system of nonlinear delay differential equations. The system is populated inversely from current economic data and solved numerically using MATLAB. As a result, we are able to use the forecasted trend to estimate a stock’s drift in order to also incorporate the randomness of the stock market. Lastly, we compare the predictions …

The Weight Of Social Relationships: Social Network Analysis In An Adult Weight Loss Program, Alena Borgatti

All ETDs from UAB

Adult behavioral obesity interventions often show improved attendance and weight loss when delivered in a group, as opposed to individual, therapy format. However, research on the exact mechanisms through which group therapy confers additional weight loss is lacking. Pediatric obesity interventions have recently begun to utilize social network analysis (SNA) to identify structural ties that may improve adherence and weight loss; however, this research is limited and has yet to be replicated in an adult weight loss program. The current study is the first to evaluate social networks in an adult behavioral weight loss intervention. Four weight loss groups were …

Legal Conditions Limiting The Possibility Of Acquiring Financing By Local Government Entities. Current State And Proposed Changes, Sebastian Skuza

Monografie/Monographs

The study primarily focuses on an attempt to answer the question formulated below: Is the currently functioning system of legal limitations applied in relation to the possibility of acquiring sources of refundable financing by local government entities justified?

The presented study is primarily an analysis of the currently applicable legal solutions from the perspective of borrowing needs of local government entities in the area of financial law as of 1 May 2018. The aim of this study is to present the barriers to the possibility of entering into financial commitments by local government entities within the national regulatory environment, their …

Comparison Of Longitudinal Voxel-Based Morphometry (Vbm) And Tensor-Based Morphometry (Tbm) For Detecting Structural Use-Dependent Neuroplastic Changes After Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy, Brent Maddox Womble

All ETDs from UAB

Constraint-Induced Movement therapy (CI therapy) is an efficacious physical rehabilitation intervention for lateralized upper-extremity motor deficits resulting from neurological injury or disease, which has been shown to result in use-dependent structural and functional neuroplasticity. While use-dependent neuroplasticity has been shown to result in structural changes in brain tissue density, thickness, and volume, the exact cellular mechanisms underpinning this neuroplasticity in humans have yet to be determined. The present study involved a novel use of synthetic data, with the overall aim of elucidating the nature of structural use-dependent neuroplasticity produced by CI therapy. Longitudinal voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and tensor-based morphometry (TBM) …

The Effect Of Right Ventricular Insertion Cooling On Wavebreak Initiation Following Defibrillation Shocks, Han Yu

All ETDs from UAB

Although strong defibrillation shocks can save patients from life-threating tachyarrhythmias, the function of the heart may be compromised. We found in an earlier study that the right ventricular insertion (RVI) is responsible for most of the initial propagation failure (wavebreak) that drives the transition from ventricular tachycardia (VT) to ventricular fibrillation (VF). To determine whether suppression of wavebreak at the RVI region can decrease VF re-occurrence after defibrillation, thereby decreasing the defibrillation shock strength threshold (DFT), a cooling method was developed to impede waves from propagating between the right ventricle (RV) and the left ventricle (LV) through the RVI. The …

A Deep Learning Framework For Medical Image Segmentation, Zheng Zhang

All ETDs from UAB

Deep Learning (DL) has rapidly become a methodology of choice for analyzing medical images and increasingly attracts researcher’s attention in the medical research community. The brain is one of the most important organs in the human body. Within the context of human brain disease, research and care, accurately detecting, evaluating and segmenting human brain abnormalities play an important role in brain disease diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment planning. A significant challenge in developing good brain abnormalities segmentation methods is the high variation of brain abnormalities such as differences in shape, size, location, appearance, and regularity. Deep Learning approach ad-dresses this challenge …

Wireless Smart Bandage For Real-Time Monitoring And Healing Of Chronic Wounds, Ting Zhang

All ETDs from UAB

Chronic wound recovery time is long and easy to recur, which brings a high burden on the patient's physical and psychological aspects. The increase in the cost of per capita medical services and the increase in the number of people in demand for medical services have led to an increasing requirement for real-time monitoring and healing in patient's health outside of the hospital. For this purpose, the smart bandage is being developed to monitor the real-time situation of the wound. With the development of wireless sensor networks, the increasing number of sensing units has placed a great burden on the …

A Study Of Enamel Thickness Of Permanent Maxillary Canines, Daniel Diaz Rubayo

All ETDs from UAB

Introduction: Tooth agenesis is defined as the lack of development of a tooth. Maxillary lateral incisors have been reported to be missing in 2.2% of the population in the United States of America. Two treatment options are available: opening the space to restore the missing tooth with a dental prosthesis; or close the space by moving the adjacent teeth into the space and substituting the missing lateral incisor with the maxillary canine. With a wider crown and a more convex labial surface than lateral incisors, canines require a significant amount of reduction in order to achieve an adequate occlusion and …

We Never Considered Teaching: A Critical Narrative Of African American Stem Majors’ Identity As Stem Educators, Paulette Georgina Evans

All ETDs from UAB

The need to diversify and retain non-White STEM teachers in the educator workforce has brought to surface the need to more deeply understand why non-White educators choose teaching as a profession and, equally as important, why they choose to stay. Although there is literature documenting the shortages of African American teachers including how African Americans can be recruited and retained, there is a need to look more closely at how African American undergraduate STEM majors who are in innovative teacher preparation programs articulate their affinity to teaching. The following critical narrative study focuses on how pre-service non-White teachers, particularly African …

Simplified Vector-Directed Control Of A Tiltrotator Equipped Excavator, Timothy Daniel Fisher

All ETDs from UAB

A tiltrotator is an attachment for an excavator, inserted between the excavator arm and the bucket. It attaches to and utilizes the excavator’s native bucket motion actuator to provide angular motion in the motion plane of the excavator arm. The tiltrotator then adds a joint with the ability to tilt ±45° perpendicular to the excavator arm, and an additional joint permitting 360° rotation normal to the previous joint axis. [1] The tiltrotator expands an excavator’s range of motion, but also increases the number and complexity of the operator’s controls. This thesis applies principles of robotics to a tiltrotator-equipped excavator, allowing …

Drive-By Bridge Monitoring And Damage Detection, Chengjun Tan

All ETDs from UAB

Bridges are key components of the transportation network, and their safety is essential to maintain effective and safe operation of the transportation facilities. To maintain the structural integrity of the bridges, it is essential to estimate the extent and location of the structural damage through periodic monitoring. Therefore, there is considerable interest in bridge damage detection and considerable progress has been made in recent years. The traditional bridge health monitoring requires many sensors installed on the bridge to collect vibration data for damage assessment, which is expensive, time-consuming, and even dangerous in-site. Compared with traditional ways, the concept of indirect …

Teachers’ Experiences Of Change From Traditional Teaching Methods To Active Participatory Learning Approaches Within The Alabama P-3 Pilot Program: A Case Study, Shushan Vardanyan

All ETDs from UAB

This case study explored teachers’ experiences with the implementation of the Alabama P-3 initiative to move away from traditional teaching methods to active participatory learning (APL) approaches. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine teachers from four schools who taught kindergarten (K), first, or second grade. The data were analyzed through comparison of K and primary (P) teachers’ experiences of the implementation of the initiative using Lewin’s (1951) change theory as an a priori theory. The data were organized into two a priori themes: the process of change and forces influencing the change. The process of change theme was presented in …

Creativity As An Emergent Property Of Complex Educational System, Ceire Monahan, Mika Munakata, Ashwin Vaidya

Department of Mathematics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The importance of creativity in education has been discussed often in the literature. While there remains no agreed-upon definition of creativity, the psychological literature points to traits of a creative person. These include the ability to think outside the box, make connections between seemingly disparate ideas, and question norms. The literature provides several examples of classroom experiments to help foster creativity in the classroom. In science and mathematics, we can start by getting students to recognize mathematics and the sciences as being creative endeavors. While these attempts are noteworthy, they are not necessarily aligned with instructional practices. In this article, …

Designing Tasks And 3d Physical Manipulatives To Promote Students’ Covariational Reasoning, Teo Paoletti, Steven Greenstein, Madhavi Vishnubhotla, Mustafa Mohamed

Department of Mathematics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Constructing and reasoning about covarying quantities is fundamental to students’ modeling of dynamic phenomena. In this report, we describe how we designed and leveraged 3D-printed manipulatives in parallel with iterative task re-design to support middle-grades students (ages 10-14) constructing and reasoning about covarying quantities. We present data from a design experiment to highlight why we adapted the original task to incorporate 3D-printed manipulatives in order to support students’ constructions of mental images of quantities in ways consistent with researcher intentions. In doing so, we highlight how 3D-printing has opened up new possibilities for manipulatives in mathematics education.

Exploring Dynamic Measurement For Volume, Nicole Panorkou

Department of Mathematics Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper describes our efforts for exploring students’ thinking of Dynamic Measurement for Volume (DYME-V), an approach to volume measurement that engages students in dynamic experiences of extruding surfaces to create 3-D objects and assists students in reasoning about volume as a continuous structure that depends on the size of the surface being extruded and the height of the extrusion.

Exploring Subcellular Responses Of Prostate Cancer Cells To X-Ray Exposure By Raman Mapping, Maciej Roman, Agnieszka Panek, Hugh Byrne, Tomasz P Wrobel, Esen Efeoglu, Czeslawa Paluszkiewicz, Wojciech Maria Kwiatek

Articles

Understanding the response of cancer cells to ionising radiation is a crucial step in modern radiotherapy. Raman microspectroscopy, together with Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) analysis has been shown to be a powerful tool for monitoring biochemical changes of irradiated cells on the subcellular level. However, to date, the majority of Raman studies have been performed using a single spectrum per cell, giving a limited view of the total biochemical response of the cell. In the current study, Raman mapping of the whole cell area was undertaken to ensure a more comprehensive understanding of the changes induced by X-ray radiation. …

Multivariate Statistical Methodologies Used In In-Vitro Raman Spectroscopy: Simulations And Applications For Drug And Nanoparticle Interactions, Mark Edward Keating

Doctoral

Raman spectroscopy is a growing technology in the fields of in-vitro drug and nanoparticle screening. The label free capability provided by vibrational spectroscopy, as well as the ability of the technique to probe the chemical nature of samples, makes it a good candidate for use in these fields. Crucial to the progress of these methods is the development and validation of robust and accurate multivariate statistical analysis protocols. In this thesis, both established and novel methods are examined using both real and simulated datasets. In particular, simulated datasets are used to validate and assess the accuracy of these methods in …

Microwave Synthesis And Characterisation Of Zinc Sulfide Nanomaterials For Photocatalytic And Anti-Bacterial Applications, Damian W. Synnott

Doctoral

This thesis is focused on the development of a novel ambient pressure microwave synthesis of ZnS based materials for photocatalytic and anti-bacterial technologies. Chapter 1 introduces the problems with anti-biotic resistant bacteria and the impact that these species are causing within healthcare systems. One of the approaches to tackling these problems is the development of self-cleaning materials to replace the harsh cleaning agents currently in use to sterilize the surfaces of buildings and materials used in healthcare environments. Chapter 1 also introduces semiconductors, semiconductor photocatalysis and the mechanism of action, improving photocatalytic action and how to semiconductor photocatalysts have been …

The Use Of Fluid Haemodynamics In The Diagnosis Of Cardiovascular Disease, Andrew Malone

Doctoral

Currently the diagnostic methods used to detect cardiovascular disease largely rely on the inference of the presence of arterial stenosis. There is a clinical interest in the development of a diagnostic screening technique which can indicate the risk of developing cardiovascular disease at an early stage so that non-surgical treatments can be applied. The goal of this work was to develop and validate a diagnostic screening technique for cardiovascular disease using the mechanical biomarker wall shear stress. Improvements in wall shear stress measurements were made by using a 2D Fourier transform to extract additional spectral information from the ultrasound pulse …

Assessing The Viability Of Blockchain To Impact The Antiquities Trade, Derek Fincham

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Blockchain, the technology underpinning Bitcoin and other digital currencies, offers promise to shift the gathering and sharing of information in profound ways. It could help form a new kind offinancial system that limits current inefficiencies, or even radically change how parties enter into contract, or monitor supply chains. The technology's distributed ledger allows users in a network to monitor and access peer-to-peer digital transactions in real time. This digital ledger allows users to maintain this information securely by encrypting and allowing access only to those who have permission, given by cryptographic keys.

For the art market, blockchain offers a tantalizing …

The Peculiar Case Of State Network Neutrality Regulation, Thomas B. Nachbar

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

In the wake of the FCC's recent decision to rescind federal network neutrality rules, several states have implemented their own network neutrality regulations, some in the form of procurement conditions on state contracts and others affirmative mandates requiring broadband Internet service providers to observe neutrality in providing service. The federal government and industry trade associations have challenged the state network neutrality laws as both preempted and unconstitutional under the "dormant Commerce Clause" doctrine.

This paper analyzes those state restrictions as a matter of constitutional law. The Court has recently changed dormant Commerce Clause law, liberalizing those limits with regard to …

Entropy Analysis Of High-Definition Transcranial Electric Stimulation Effects On Eeg Dynamics, Diego C. Nascimento, Gabriela Depetri, Luiz H. Stefano, Osvaldo Anacleto, Joao P. Leite, Dylan J. Edwards, Taiza E. G. Santos, Francisco Louzada Neto

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

A foundation of medical research is time series analysis—the behavior of variables of interest with respect to time. Time series data are often analyzed using the mean, with statistical tests applied to mean differences, and has the assumption that data are stationary. Although widely practiced, this method has limitations. Here we present an alternative statistical approach with sample analysis that provides a summary statistic accounting for the non-stationary nature of time series data. This work discusses the use of entropy as a measurement of the complexity of time series, in the context of Neuroscience, due to the non-stationary characteristic of …

Behavior Of Fillet Welds In Skewed Joints, Mohamed Salah Gallow

All ETDs from UAB

Fillet weld connections are very common in steel structures because they are easier and cheaper than other types of welded connections, such as groove welds. Several studies were performed on fillet weld of right dihedral angle, such as T-joints weld, to specify its capacity and failure mechanisms under different load directions. Nevertheless, the fillet weld strength analysis is based solely on the shear strength of the weld. Additionally, many of the current details commonly used for T-Joints were based on the requirements for groove welds. Fillet weld design concepts for skewed T-joints in the AWS D1.1 and AISC specifications are …