Digital Commons Network^™

Examining Teacher Perceptions Of Professional Learning Teams And Teacher Professionalism, Rebecca Thomas Stripling

All ETDs from UAB

EXAMINING TEACHER PERCEPTIONS OF PROFESSIONAL LEARNING TEAMS AND TEACHER PROFESSIONALISM This study explores the perceptions of teachers’ professionalism as they participate in professional learning teams. Through a qualitative lens, teacher perceptions of how their own professionalism (as indicated by the Professionalism Index by McMahon & Hoy, 2009) is influenced or affected as a result of their participation in a PLT were examined from the perspective of teachers that fell into three categories, those teachers that scored high on the Professionalism Index, those teachers that scored low on the Professionalism Index and those teachers that had a medium score on the …

Unintentional Childhood Injuries In Rural Uganda: The Role Of Sibling Supervision And The Potential For Behavior Change Through Classroom-Based Instruction, Marissa Swanson

All ETDs from UAB

Objective: Unintentional childhood injury is a significant global health burden particularly in low and middle income countries (LMIC). Effective supervision can reduce risk of injury to supervisees. Frequently, older siblings assist in supervising younger siblings, but may not be as effective as adult caregivers at preventing supervisee injury. The current investigation had three primary objectives: 1) Assess Ugandan adult caregivers’ self-reported expectations for children to provide sibling supervision; 2) Assess sixth-grade students’ self-reported experiences providing supervision; 3) Determine whether students’ supervision knowledge and skill improve through participation in the Super Siblings program, a novel classroom-based, culturally-adapted intervention. Methods: Adult caregivers …

Examining The Role Of The Unfolded Protein Response In Depression, Matthew Timberlake

All ETDs from UAB

Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide and impacts nearly 350 million people with a disproportionate representation in women with a 1:1.7 ratio of occurrence compared to men. This disorder is characterized by shifts in mood to include feelings of hopelessness, sadness, and lethargy as well as changes in diet, motivation, and sleep patterns. Further, over 50% of patients who struggle with depression also have suicidal ideation and as many as 10% of those commit suicide. At present, treatment plans include behavioral therapy (often) in conjunction with antidepressant medications which act on monoamines and their circuits in the central …

Racial And Gender Differences In The Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experience And Chronic Health Conditions In Adulthood, Jalal Uddin

All ETDs from UAB

A growing body of studies highlights that many adult diseases and health disparities in late-life are rooted in childhood adversities. However, there is little research that examines how social stratification processes structure the inequality in early-life stress exposure, and the effects of stress exposure on health outcomes may vary based on the intersections of social stratification categories. Drawing on an integrated framework of the life course stress process and intersectionality theory, this study examines the patterns in childhood adverse experiences (ACEs) by race/ethnicity and gender and how race/ethnicity, gender, and adult socioeconomic status (SES) combine to modify the effects of …

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 …

Obesity In People With Spinal Cord Injury: Secondary Data Analysis Of National Spinal Cord Injury Database, Huacong Wen

All ETDs from UAB

People with disabilities are 1.5-2.5 times more likely to be obese than those without disabling conditions. We have learned a lot about obesity in the general population. However, the neurological deficits of people with spinal cord injury (SCI) make it difficult to generalize the findings in the general population to the SCI population. Therefore, the purposes of this dissertation were to 1) assess racial differences in body mass index (BMI) change over 5 years; 2) evaluate the role of neighborhood in the relationship between race and obesity; 3) examine the impact of BMI at the time of injury on 1-year …

Exploring Dose Effect Of An Early Palliative Care Intervention For Advanced Heart Failure Patients, Rachel Duncan Wells

All ETDs from UAB

Heart failure (HF), a progressive condition with reduced quality of life (QoL) and high healthcare use, affects 6.5 million US adults. Research supports positive effects of palliative care integration into HF care, but there is limited consensus about the most beneficial intervention ‘dose’ (e.g. amount, duration, frequency, intensity). To date, no studies examining dose in palliative care HF interventions have been completed. Therefore, we examined dose using an existing data from the ENABLE CHF-PC trial (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends Comprehensive Heart Care for Patients and Caregivers; NCT02505425). Operationalizing dose as dichotomous complete/noncomplete of all intervention components (6-weekly, psychoeducational …

A Crisis In Care: Evaluating The Causes And Consequences Of Burnout Among Emergency Physicians, Michael Allyn Wiechart

All ETDs from UAB

For many physicians, the growing list of mandates and the unrelenting pace of change in today’s health care have taken a toll, leading to burnout. The consequences of burnout extend well beyond the impact on the individual provider, with physician burnout linked to a decrease in patient satisfaction, an increase in preventable medical errors, and increased levels of staff turnover. Consequently, the high rates of burnout reported among U.S. physicians might be considered not only as a symptom of dysfunction in the health care delivery system but also as a factor contributing to the dysfunction. While burnout exists to a …

Examining Web-Based Lifestyle Interventions For Cancer Survivors, Victoria Williams

All ETDs from UAB

Diet, physical activity, and body weight status are important modifiable risk factors for many health outcomes among cancer survivors, including cancer recurrence. Face-to-face, print, and mailed lifestyle interventions have been used to promote behavior change in cancer survivors successfully. However, such approaches are costly and have limited reach. Web-based lifestyle interventions represent a promising solution to this public health concern. Therefore, this project involved first reviewing and identifying gaps in the existing literature in this area and then developing and pilot testing a web-based lifestyle intervention for cancer survivors. For this three-part dissertation, study 1 was a narrative review of …

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.

Weight Loss And Weight Gain Among Participants In A Community-Based Weight Loss Challenge, Merrill D. Funk, Minjae Lee, Michelle L. Vidoni, Belinda M. Reininger

Health & Human Performance Faculty Publications

Background

To describe the characteristics of participants who registered for multiple annual offerings of a community-based weight loss program called The Challenge, and to determine participant characteristics associated with weight change over multiple offerings of The Challenge occurring during the years 2010–2016.

Methods

Multivariable linear mixed effects analyses were conducted to describe percent weight change within and between offerings of The Challenge by participant characteristics.

Results

There were 669 and 575 participants included in the within and between analyses, respectively, for offerings of The Challenge. Among the 434 participants who lost weight in their first attempt at The Challenge and …

Modelling Anti-Phishing Authentication Ceremonies, Edina Hatunic-Webster

Doctoral

No abstract provided.

'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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Workplace Bullying Attitudes And Opinions In Local Government Employees, Regan Gaskin

All ETDs from UAB

Bullying is an issue that can affect children, adolescents, and adults (Gould, 2014; Schmidt, 2017). When bullying occurs in the workplace, it causes difficulty not only for victims, but for witnesses, families, and the organizations (Leymann, 1992). Workplace bullying has been defined as the “repeated mistreatment; abusive conduct that is: threatening, humiliating, or intimidating, work sabotage, or verbal abuse” (Namie, 2014). An estimated 60.3 million US workers are affected by workplace bullying, and 20 percent are victims (Namie, 2017). Workplace bullying research in the United States has focused more on the private sector, and to the author’s knowledge, there is …

Effectiveness Of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation On The Functional Capacity Of Cardiac Patients One-Year Post Rehab, Danish Gulamani

All ETDs from UAB

ABSTRACT Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs are designed to improve functional capacity, quality of life, reduce cardiovascular risk factors, and improve psychosocial well-being through lifestyle management strategies. While CR programs effectively reduce cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and improve functional capacity at discharge, little is known regarding long-term lifestyle behavior changes and changes in functional capacity that occur following discharge. PURPOSE: Examine changes in 6-minute walk distance (6MWD) 11-15 months following discharge from CR to evaluate long-term changes in functional capacity. METHODS: Patients who completed 24-36 sessions and 6-minute walk tests [6MWT, intake, discharge, and post-discharge (11-15 months following discharge)] between …

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.

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.

Retinotopic Patterns Of Functional And Structural Connectivity In V1, Sara Sims

All ETDs from UAB

Vision is important for our everyday life, but we use our central vision differently than our peripheral vision. For example, we use central vision to read and peripheral vision when getting the gist of a scene. Different functions of central and peripheral vision suggest that information from central vision may be processed differently from that in peripheral vision. A previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) connectivity study suggested reliable differences in connections between centrally- and peripherally-representing visual cortex, and those differences follow well-established networks. Central-representing cortex was preferentially connected to regions belonging to the fronto-parietal (FP) net-work, mid-peripheral was generally …

Life And Death In Icu: Nursing Care To Smooth Transitions For Patients And Family, Julie Benbenishty

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Background Nurses are the clinicians closest to the patients in daily monitoring of processes and adaptations: assessing, intervening with treatments and evaluating the outcomes. Nurses evaluate all physiological abnormalities, emotional instabilities as well as spiritual requirements regarding religious beliefs, cultural rituals and family relationships. Aim This thesis examines the context, purpose, significance of life threatening and end-of- life situations in critical care and demonstrates the integral work of nurses in calming, organizing and making sense of intensive care unit life and death conditions. Program of work The body of work reported in this thesis comprises a collection of work resulting …

An Exploration Of Sharps Injuries Within A Nursing Student Population In The Uk, Kevin Hambridge

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Percutaneous injuries, such as sharps injuries, can transmit up to 60 different types of pathogen (Tarantola et al., 2006) to the injured party. Whilst up to 100% of some nursing student populations sustain sharps injuries (Trivedi et al., 2013), a dearth of research studies investigating the topic worldwide exist. It is unknown within the UK the devices contributing to sharps injuries, the incidence rates and the locations where they occur. The aims of this study were to identify the characteristics of sharps injuries within a nursing student population within the UK; to explore the experience of sharps injuries, concentrating on …

An Electrophysiological Investigation Of Embodied Language Processing, Isabel Marijana Feven-Parsons

Other Faculty of Health Theses

How we draw meaning from strings of letters is one of the most popular topics under discussion in cognitive science. Traditional theories posited that words represent amodal symbols and meaning is derived through their relationship to other amodal symbols (Galetzka, 2017). The problem with this cognitivist approach is that it was unclear how these symbols came to have meaning, known as the “grounding problem” (Harnad, 1990; Searle, 1980). Theories of embodied cognition were developed in an attempt to resolve this issue (Barsalou, 1999; Glenberg & Robertson, 1999). For example, the Indexical Hypothesis proposed that nouns are indexed to mental representations …

Social Anxiety And Paranoia: A Mixed-Methods Investigation, Sophie Homer

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Social anxiety is highly prevalent and highly debilitating. It is detrimental to educational and occupational progression as well as quality of life for up to 12% of the population. Current research, treatment, and diagnostic criteria maintain that the cause of anxiety in social situations is self-focused fear, usually of personal inadequacy, but social situations invariably involve both the self and other people. This thesis draws upon the paranoia literature to inform arguments about the role of negative perceptions of others in social anxiety. I propound a novel theoretical model of the core fears underlying social anxiety. I argue that anxiety …