Digital Commons Network^™

​Youth Smoking In Europe. Strategies For Prevention And Reduction, Joan Hanafin, Luke Clancy

Books / book chapters

No abstract provided.

Atmospheric Cold Plasma Interactions With Microbiological Risks In Fresh Food Processing, Apurva Patange

Doctoral

Atmospheric cold plasma (ACP) is a novel emerging non-thermal technology that has attracted attention as a decontamination tool in several industrial, food and healthcare sectors. This study investigated the anti-microbial efficacy of ACP against microbiological risks associated with fresh foods. Treatment was performed using in-package ‘dry’ ACP technology and plasma functionalised liquid to decontaminate microorganisms, exploring the responses to real and challenging microbiological risks pertinent to both fresh foods themselves as well as the effluents generated from food processing industry. A range of critical control process parameters were investigated with respect to key pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms commonly implicated in …

Modelling Anti-Phishing Authentication Ceremonies, Edina Hatunic-Webster

Doctoral

No abstract provided.

Synthesis And Novel Applications Of Cerium Dioxide, Rafaela Cristina De Carvalho

Doctoral

Cerium dioxide nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesised using a novel precipitation procedure and their function explored in a range of applications. The impact of different factors on CeO2 NPs synthesis including temperature and reactant concentration were evaluated experimentally and optimised. The resulting nanoparticles (with an average size of 35 nm) was then characterised by a range of physical and spectroscopic techniques including dynamic light scattering, scanning electron microscopy in conjunction with energy dispersive spectrometry, X-ray diffractometry,Brunauer–Emmett–Teller isotherm measurement, Raman spectroscopy, UV-visible spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A new nanoparticle synthetic route, the “frozen NH4(OH) cubes method”, was developed, resulting in a …

Screening Of Human Serum/Plasma Using Vibrational Spectroscopy For Early Disease Diagnostics And Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Drishya Rajan Parachalil [Thesis]

Doctoral

Analysis of analytes present in the blood stream can potentially deliver crucial information on patient health and indicate the presence of numerous pathologies. Existing clinical techniques for this analysis can, however, be costly and time-consuming. The potential of Raman spectroscopic analysis of human plasma and/or serum for diagnostic purposes has been widely investigated and, increasingly, its feasibility for clinical translation has been explored. However, as the concentration of many analytes in plasma/serum is relatively low, to date such analysis has commonly been performed on air-dried drops deposited on substrates, leading to inhomogeneity and inconsistencies. This study explores the potential of …

Distance,Time And Terms In First Story Detection, Fei Wang

Doctoral

First Story Detection (FSD) is an important application of online novelty detection within Natural Language Processing (NLP). Given a stream of documents, or stories, about news events in a chronological order, the goal of FSD is to identify the very first story for each event. While a variety of NLP techniques have been applied to the task, FSD remains challenging because it is still not clear what is the most crucial factor in defining the “story novelty”. Giventhesechallenges,thethesisaddressedinthisdissertationisthat the notion of novelty in FSD is multi-dimensional. To address this, the work presented has adopted a three dimensional analysis of the …

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 …

'Elle T'Aime Trop, Et Moi, Pas Assez': Jacques Feyder's Melodramatic Mise En Scène Of Female Desire In Pension Mimosas (1935), Barry Nevin

Articles

Extract

Melodrama ‘à la française’: Feyder and French cinema of the 1930s

By the end of 1934, Jacques Feyder had led a distinguished career in French silent cinema, had directed a critically acclaimed adaptation of Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1928) in Berlin, had returned from a three-year contract in Hollywood, had brought Le Grand Jeu to the screen (the greatest box-office success of the 1933–34 season), and appeared to be virtually unstoppable as he proceeded to direct his next film, Pension Mimosas. The film was described by one critic as ‘sans aucun doute l’une des œuvres les plus attendues …

Identifying Associated Risk With Exposure Ti Weapon Carrying Among Emerging Adults Living In Disadvantaged Urban Areas In Birmingham, Tolulope Aduroja

All ETDs from UAB

IDENTIFYING ASSOCIATED RISK WITH EXPOSURE TO WEAPON CARRYING AMONG EMERGING ADULTS LIVING IN DISADVANTAGED URBAN AREAS IN BIRMINGHAM TOLULOPE ADUROJA HEALTH EDUCATION/HEALTH PROMOTION ABSTRACT Weapon carrying is a public health concern due to its association with a serious injury, disability or death, and adverse health-related outcomes. Weapon carrying among youth is associated with both intrinsic or internalizing and extrinsic or externalizing factors (Stayton, 2011). Violence in youth and young adults is the 2nd leading cause of death (homicide) in Alabama. Health behavior theories posit that health-relevant attitudes, beliefs, and behavioral skills drive subsequent actions people take to protect themselves from …

Religion, Psychological Distress, And Discrimination Among Arab Americans, Najwa Alharbi

All ETDs from UAB

A growing body of research has focused on the experiences of Arab Americans post-9/11. These studies have been conducted to investigate the relationship between ethnic discrimination and mental health among Arab Americans. However, these studies show some gaps. Specifically, no study has explored the differences between Muslim and Christian Arabs after the 9/11 attacks in terms of religion, including how religious attendance influences the levels of psychological distress and discrimination among the two religious groups. This paper is dedicated to exploring religion (religious affiliation and religious attendance) as a key factor to understand the different levels of psychological distress and …

Towards Safeguarding Users Against Phishing And Ransomware Attacks, Arsh Arora

All ETDs from UAB

Over the past decade, malicious software (malware) attacks have skyrocketed and increased at a considerably faster pace than predicted. The variety in the number of malware categories is one of the contributing factors to this rapid insurgence. According to Microsoft statistics, a range of 300,000-400,000 malware binaries is observed on average per day. With this increase, there is an unmet need for innovative approaches to detect new malware, as current nomenclature is not equipped to handle the prevention against continuous growth. Developing appropriate preventive measures to stop these malware attacks has been an ongoing struggle for security experts. The most …

Numerical Study Of Periodic Magnetic Field Effect On 3d Natural Convection Of Mwcnt-Water/Nanofluid With Consideration Of Aggregation, Lioua Kolsi, Hakan F. Oztop, Kaouther Ghachem, Mohammed A. Almeshaal, Hussein A. Mohammed, Houman Babazadeh, Nidal Abu-Hamdeh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

In this paper, a numerical study is performed to investigate the effect of a periodic magnetic field on three-dimensional free convection of MWCNT (Mutli-Walled Carbone Nanotubes)-water/nanofluid. Time-dependent governing equations are solved using the finite volume method under unsteady magnetic field oriented in the x-direction for various Hartmann numbers, oscillation periods, and nanoparticle volume fractions. The aggregation effect is considered in the evaluation of the MWCNT-water/nanofluid thermophysical properties. It is found that oscillation period, the magnitude of the magnetic field, and adding nanoparticles have an important effect on heat transfer, temperature field, and flow structure. © 2019 by the authors.

Exhaustion In The Service Of Progress, Ofer Tur-Sinai

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Under the doctrine of patent exhaustion, an authorized sale of a patented item exhausts the patentee's rights with respect to that item, leaving the purchaser and subsequent owners free to use or resell it without fear of an infringement lawsuit. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Impression Products v. Lexmark International, which strengthened the exhaustion doctrine in various significant ways. The Court held that an authorized sale of a patented item exhausts all patent rights with respect to that item, regardless of any restrictions on use or resale the patentee purports to impose. The Court …

Panel 2: Art Law And Blockchain, Tonya M. Evans, Derek Fincham, Katya Fisher, Jeanne Schroeder

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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 …

Changes In The Children's Television Marketplace, The Children's Television Act, And The First Amendment, Joel Timmer

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

Since the passage of the Children's Television Act of 1990, broadcast television stations have been required to provide educational programming for children as a condition for license renewal. Since 1996, broadcasters can fulfill this obligation by providing three hours of such programming according to the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) guidelines. These requirements were later extended to broadcasters' multicast channels. With more children's programming available today than ever before from a wide variety of sources, and with changes in the ways children consume programming, the FCC has proposed to revise its rules to reflect these changes. This Article considers the constitutionality …

Is It Reasonable To Block Unreasonable Advertisements? An Examination Of The Legality Of Ad-Blockers, Andrew Steele

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Immobilization Of Magnetite Nanoparticles For The Removal Of Arsenic And Antimony From Contaminated Water, Guangzhi Sun, Mehdi H. Khiadani

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Magnetite (Fe3 O4) nanoparticles were synthesized and immobilized in a synthetic resin poly-methyl methacrylate (PMMA). The Fe3 O4 nanoparticle-PMMA composites were studied for their efficiencies of removing dissolved arsenic (As) and antimony (Sb). The effects of major environmental and operating parameters on the removal of As and Sb were investigated in batch experiments. Singular and competitive adsorption of As and Sb onto the composites were studied. The results demonstrated the capability of the Fe3 O4-PMMA composites for removing dissolved metalloids.

Post-Activation Potentiation Versus Post-Activation Performance Enhancement In Humans: Historical Perspective, Underlying Mechanisms, And Current Issues, Anthony J. Blazevich, Nicolas Babault

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Post-activation potentiation (PAP) is a well-described phenomenon with a short half-life (~28 s) that enhances muscle force production at submaximal levels of calcium saturation (i.e., submaximal levels of muscle activation). It has been largely explained by an increased myosin light chain phosphorylation occurring in type II muscle fibers, and its effects have been quantified in humans by measuring muscle twitch force responses to a bout of muscular activity. However, enhancements in (sometimes maximal) voluntary force production detected several minutes after high-intensity muscle contractions are also observed, which are also most prominent in muscles with a high proportion of type II …

Memoir As Witness To Mental Illness, Dora W. Klein

Faculty Articles

During a trial, a witness's job is to supply the facts by telling the jury what she saw, heard, or otherwise experienced that is relevant to the legal questions the jury must answer. The jury's job is to decide how much weight and credibility to accord a witness's testimony. Jurors are expected, even instructed, to rely on their own knowledge about the world when deciding whether and how much to believe a witness. Most of the time, jurors' own experiences are sufficient to allow them to accurately assess a witness's testimony. However, jurors are sometimes called upon to assess testimony …

Identification Of Two Spop-Mediated Pathways In Prostate Cancer Progression, Joshua Fried

All ETDs from UAB

Prostate cancer is one of the most common malignancies and causes of cancer related death in men. Morbidity is primarily attributed to late-stage and metastatic disease. Re-cent genomic screening studies have revealed that the Speckle type Poz Protein (SPOP) is the most frequently altered gene by missense mutations in prostate cancer. Interestingly, all of the identified mutations were located in the substrate binding domain of SPOP. Here, two pathways highlighting the impact of SPOP mutation on prostate cancer are pre-sented. First, evidence showing that one of the naturally occurring SPOP mutations, ser-ine 119 to asparagine (S119N), induces radiosensitivity and an …

Rituals Of Reconciliation: The Use Of Peaceful Interactions To Repair Relationships, Sheila Renee Gainer

All ETDs from UAB

Reconciliation is the process by which social animals maintain valuable social relationships. It has been documented in many species including humans and nonhuman primates. While evidence of rituals has been seen in other species, the primary aim of this research is to explore how ritual behaviors are interconnected to human acts of reconciliation. Rituals are habitual activities closely linked to important events and reaffirm the identity of those who practice them as a group or a society. They are found in every society, culture and religion. In this study, rituals specifically related to reconciliation were exhibited in 27 of 138 …

A Scalable Nearline Disk Archive Storage Architecture For Extreme Scale High Performance Computing, Hampton Walker Haddock

All ETDs from UAB

Parallel file systems that exploit Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Devices (RAID) as the mechanism for greater resilience are primarily intended to provide high bandwidth and low latency. Quantifying and studying the trade-offs among reduced run time (bandwidth and latency), resilience (availability and integrity), and cost (energy and capital) is important. For instance, distributing the checksums of RAID systems appears in conflict with the canonical parallel access patterns in high performance computing such as long sequential reads, random access, and checkpoint operations. Choices consequently have to be made between performance, concurrency, latency, energy, capital, integrity and availability of the data for …

Integration Of Yeast Phenomics And Cancer Pharmacogenomics To Model Precision Medicine, Sean Santos

All ETDs from UAB

Precision medicine aims to optimize disease treatment by considering the differential influence of functional genetic variation on phenotypic outcomes and therapeutic efficacy. However, current precision medicine paradigms lack consideration of the abundance of genetic interaction and ensuing complexity of phenotypes, thus thwarting resolution of gene-drug interaction at a systems level and ‘precise’ predictions for most patients. Yeast phenomics enables quantitative, high-resolution experimental modeling of gene-drug interaction phenotypes at a systems level by measuring growth curves for the ~6000 yeast knockout/knockdown library strains, which can guide a more global resolution of disease and treatment complexity at the organism level. We postulate …

Novel Approaches To Enhance Translational Readthrough Efficacy For Cystic Fibrosis Nonsense Mutations, Jyoti Sharma

All ETDs from UAB

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a monogenic autosomal recessive disease caused by over 1,900 naturally occurring variants in the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). CFTR is an epithelial anion channel which regulates the movement of chloride and bicarbonate ions. Mutations in the CFTR causes diminished CFTR protein and/or reduced CFTR function that lead to clinical manifestations. These include severe epithelial dysfunction of multiple tissues, including the lungs, intestine, pancreas, and reproductive organs. Premature termination codons (PTC), or nonsense mutations, are among the most severe CFTR variants and occur in ~11% of the CF population. PTCs are caused by the presence of …

Modeling Resilience In Resetttled Syrian Refugees With Disabilities Living In The United States, Nicholas Ryan Sherwood

All ETDs from UAB

Since 2011, the ongoing conflict in Syria displaces millions of individuals, many of whom have resettled across foreign borders. The US currently hosts 21,000 Syrian refugees, and of these, approximately 5,000 have at least one type of disability. This thesis asks of these individuals: given your experience as a person with a disability who has survived state-sanctioned violence and navigated forced migration, what have been your greatest sources of strength and resilience? Utilizing systems theory and a transdisciplinary approach, this thesis examines how three forms of identity promote community, interpersonal, and intrapersonal resilience within the target population.

New Authentication And Privacy Paradigms In Mobile And Wearable Computing, Prakash N/A Shrestha

All ETDs from UAB

Mobile devices (e.g., smartphones) have already become ubiquitous, and wearable technology (e.g., embodied in smartwatches or bracelets) is gaining popularity in many – commercial, medical and personal – domains of day-to-day life. Many of the security schemes, particularly authentication paradigms, have been designed and deployed utilizing the general-purpose mobile devices, and many of them have started using wearable devices. The use of these devices, on one hand, improves user experience, while, on the other hand, opens up security and privacy vulnerabilities. In this dissertation work, we explore new authentication and privacy paradigms, from both offensive and defensive perspectives, in/using mobile …

Physical Activity Promotion Among Adolescents With Pediatric Onset Multiple Sclerosis, Elizabeth Morghen Sikes

All ETDs from UAB

Pediatric onset multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic and disabling disease of the central nervous system with an onset before 18 years of age. Youth with pediatric onset MS may benefit from physical activity as evidenced by past research suggestsing higher levels of physical activity are associated with reduced physical and psychosocial disease manifestations. Unfortunately, published estimates of physical activity participation among those with pediatric onset MS are very low (<10 min/day). This dissertation aimed to describe the current literature regarding physical activity among youth with pediatric MS, and to further explore experiences, patterns, correlates, and potential confounders of physical activity for the ultimate purpose of informing future behavior change interventions. Results are presented through five single study chapters. Briefly, interventions developed to promote physical activity for adolescents with pediatric onset MS should be individually tailored, include a strong social component, aim to educate regarding safety and outcomes of physical activity, and differentially target weekday and weekend day activity and sedentary behavior. Social cognitive theory (SCT) is an appropriate method for promoting physical activity behavior change among youth with pediatric onset MS, and SCT constructs including exercise goal setting, barriers self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and social support should be incorporated in the intervention as appropriate. Further, physical activity is seemingly an appropriate method for the management of functional limitations for youth with pediatric onset MS. Clinicians and researchers seeking to promote physical activity among those with pediatric onset MS may find this dissertation especially useful in providing a framework for the development of behavior change interventions.

Discovering Biomarkers Of Alzheimer's Disease By Statistical Learning Approaches, Jintao Long

Other Faculty of Health Theses

In this work, statistical learning approaches are exploited to discover biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease (AD). The contributions has been made in the fields of both biomarker and software driven studies. Surprising discoveries were made in the field of blood-based biomarker search. With the inclusion of existing biological knowledge and a proposed novel feature selection method, several blood-based protein models were discovered to have promising ability to separate AD patients from healthy individuals. A new statistical pattern was discovered which can be potential new guideline for diagnosis methodology. In the field of brain-based biomarker, the positive contribution of covariates such as …