Digital Commons Network^™

The Smile Attractiveness Of Patients Successfully Treated According To The Finishing Standards Of The American Board Of Orthodontics, Tayem Abou Saleh

All ETDs from UAB

Smiling is the most useful way people can use to express their emotions, therefore, it is critical to build our treatment plan not just around establishing a stable functional occlusion but also to achieve beautiful harmonious smile. It has been suggested that the smile may be made up of 3 components: Gingival component, soft tissue component, and dental component, and the ultimate smile beauty can be achieved by trying to find the balance in between these components. We collected 68 smiling photos for cases were taken to American board of orthodontics clinical exam and they were considered successfully treated, all …

Predictors Of School Weapon Carrying Among Adolescents, Jonathan Adams

All ETDs from UAB

The presence of weapons threatens the safety of all individuals on school grounds. Emergent research suggests factors linked to school weapon carrying may stem from both within and outside the school environment; however, few efforts have been made to identify a comprehensive set of risk and protective factors associated with school weapon carrying. To address this gap, the first manuscript serves as a comprehensive, systematic review of variables associated with higher or lower likelihood an adolescent will carry weapons to school. Results indicated higher rates of weapon carrying among individuals who are male, sexual minority, children of single parents; exhibit …

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 …

Identification And Application Of Gingival Mesenchymal Stem Cells For Dental Tissue Regenration, Yousuf Al-Aboosi

All ETDs from UAB

Mesenchymal stem cells have been very attractive treatment modality in regenerative medicine, but not so much in regenerative dentistry. This can be attributed to the difficulty in obtaining dental origin stem cells without extracting a tooth or other invasive procedures. Autogenous gingival graft harvested from palatal tissue is used as the gold standard for treating single tooth recession. The healing of the gingival graft has been shown to be mostly depended on the recipient side more than the graft itself. This study is aiming to find if the palatal tissue has cells with mesenchymal characteristics that are helping in the …

[68ga] Labeled Radiopharmaceuticals For Diagnostic Applications Beyond Sstr And Psma Imaging, Abdullah Alosaimi

All ETDs from UAB

Imaging with radiolabelled peptides is an important technique used in medical imaging fields that can lead to significant advances in patient care. These tracers are utilized to target a variety of receptors, in particular, specific-receptors which are overexpressed on tumor cells. Recently, the application of Positron Emission Tomography (PET) radiotracers for medical imaging has grown significantly due to the high sensitivity and specificity of this technique. In particular, 68Ga is one of the most favorable PET radioisotopes, due to its short half-life, low radiation dose, generator production, and same day imaging procedures. [68Ga]-DOTATATE, which targets somatostatin receptors (SSTR) overexpressed on …

Spun Prestressed Concrete Pole Options As An Alternative To Wood Utility Distribution Poles, Paula Alvarez Alvarez Pino

All ETDs from UAB

The purpose of this research project is to analyze the current state-of-the-art, including use and design practices, of utility distribution poles and to evaluate the performance of spun prestressed concrete poles with different reinforcement schemes as a viable alternative to wood utility poles. There are an estimated 185 million utility distribution poles in place in the United States, and over 130 million are made out of wood. Most of the existing distribution poles are now approaching or have surpassed their useful lives since they were designed with a life expectancy of 50 years and were installed in the 1950s and …

Perceived Difficulty And Satisfaction With Treatment Outcomes Of Constraint Induced Movement Therapy In Chronic Stroke, Mudasir Saleem Andrabi

All ETDs from UAB

Constraint Induced Movement (CI) therapy has been demonstrated to be an efficacious rehabilitation therapy for upper extremity (UE) hemiparesis after stroke. Despite this, CI therapy is not widely used in neurorehabilitation in the United States. One barrier to its acceptance is the perception of its difficulty among therapists and patients. However, this opinion has been influenced by two published surveys in which responses were obtained from therapists with no direct exposure of CI Therapy. Patients’ perception that a treatment is difficult to undergo has an important role in determining whether it will be provided clinically. Besides the perception of difficulty, …

Our Friendship And Our Enmity: British Imperialism And The 1921 Cairo Conference, Mary Katharine Armbrester

All ETDs from UAB

A vital attempt at continued peace after the First World War that I chose to focus on for my thesis is the 1921 Cairo Peace Conference. The British government wanted an inexpensive peace that suited its own interests, and they used emissaries, particularly Winston Churchill, Gertrude Bell and T. E. Lawrence to maneuver the Cairo Peace Conference of 1921 to that end. This thesis discusses how after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the British unofficially offered the Arabs autonomy via the Hussein-McMahon letters if they gave the British support against the Turks during the Arab Revolt. The Arabs fought …

Assessment Of A Bdnf Mimetic To Improve Behavioral Deficits In Female Mecp2 Heterozygous Mice, A Model Of Rett Syndrome, Karen Nataly Ayala Baylon

All ETDs from UAB

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a neurodevelopmental disorder representing the second most common cause of intellectual disability in women. Most RTT cases are caused by mutations in the gene coding for the transcriptional regulator Methyl-CpG-binding Protein 2 (MeCP2). The neurotrophin BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) has therapeutic potential for RTT because BDNF levels are lower in RTT autopsy brains and in Mecp2 deficient mice, while conditional Bdnf deletion results in phenotypes similar to those of Mecp2 knockout (KO) mice. In addition, Bdnf overexpression in forebrain excitatory neurons in Mecp2 KO mice significantly improved their lifespan, locomotor function, and brain weight. However, BDNF …

Inhibition Of The Self-Assembly Of Aβ And Of Tau By Polyphenols: Mechanistic Studies, Qiuchen Zheng, Micheal T. Kebede, Merc M. Kemeh, Saadman Islam, Bethany Lee, Stuart D. Bleck, Liliana A. Wurfl, Noel D. Lazo

Chemistry

The amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide and tau protein are thought to play key neuropathogenic roles in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Both Aβ and tau self-assemble to form the two major pathological hallmarks of AD: amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, respectively. In this review, we show that naturally occurring polyphenols abundant in fruits, vegetables, red wine, and tea possess the ability to target pathways associated with the formation of assemblies of Aβ and tau. Polyphenols modulate the enzymatic processing of the amyloid-β precursor protein and inhibit toxic Aβ oligomerization by enhancing the clearance of Aβ42 monomer, modulating monomer–monomer interactions and remodeling oligomers to …

Lineup Fairness: Propitious Heterogeneity And The Diagnostic Feature-Detection Hypothesis, Curt A. Carlson, Alyssa R. Jones, Jane A. Whittington, Robert Lockamyeir, Maria Carlson, Alex R. Wooten

Faculty Publications

Researchers have argued that simultaneous lineups should follow the principle of propitious heterogeneity, based on the idea that if the fillers are too similar to the perpetrator even an eyewitness with a good memory could fail to correctly identify him. A similar prediction can be derived from the diagnostic feature-detection (DFD) hypothesis, such that discriminability will decrease if too few features are present that can distinguish between innocent and guilty suspects. Our first experiment tested these predictions by controlling similarity with artificial faces, and our second experiment utilized a more ecologically valid eyewitness identification paradigm. Our results support propitious heterogeneity …

No Longer Immune? How Network Theory Decodes Normative Shifts In Personal Immunity For Heads Of State, Nadia Banteka

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

The customary international law (CIL) norm of personal immunity for Heads of State has come under significant fire in the past decade. While immunity norms have traditionally been absolute, the increasing influence of the human rights and anti-impunity movements, coupled with pleas for international criminal responsibility for egregious human rights and humanitarian violations, have eroded them, particulary within international jurisdictions. These changes reflect a larger challenge to the traditional statecentric model. Although states remain the primary makers of international law, many other participants, including international organizations, courts, and non-governmental oganizations (NGOs), are crucial to the development of international legal norms …

Attainment And Maintenance Of Pubertal Cyclicity May Predict High A4 Cows With Reduced Fertility, Sarah Nafziger

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Puberty attainment was investigated in heifers. Blood samples were collected from weaning until breeding during 6 years from heifers born in 2012-2017. Plasma progesterone concentrations ≥ 1 ng/ml were used to indicate cyclicity, and heifers were categorized into one of four puberty groups using SAS: 1) Early heifers reached puberty before March 12 and cycled continuously during the sampling period, 2) Typical heifers reached puberty on or after March 12 and cycled continuously, 3) Start-Stop heifers had at least one occurrence of progesterone ≥ 1 ng/ml but discontinued cycling during the sampling period, and 4) Non-Cycling heifers had no occurrence …

The Paradox Of Patient Consent: A Feminist Perspective Of Illness And Healthcare, Kristen Cole

Faculty Publications

Through autoethnographic analysis, I present my personal illness story as a case study in patient consent. In doing so, I explore the complexities that emerge at the intersection of gender and health, including issues of autonomy and choice. Specifically, I reflect on the ideological and systemic factors that contribute to a paradox of consent versus noncompliance in US healthcare contexts. Within this paradoxical binary, control is both persistent and illusive, which is a condition fueled by individualism, paternalistic antagonism, and medical colonization. As an alternative, I offer two viable options for facilitating patients’ agency in gendered health contexts, even under …

Front Box Of Flash Cards, Anwar Shaikh Phd

Archives of Anwar Shaikh

This collection includes:

Shaikh, A. (2019, October 1). Money notes: Isabella proposal defense [Folder cover].

Shaikh, A. (1997, January 12). Growth and endogenous money supply [Unpublished handwritten notes].

Shaikh, A. (1992, May 12). Internal finance & cons. demand [Unpublished handwritten notes].

Shaikh, A. (1996, October 4). The meaning of the money market [Unpublished handwritten notes].

Shaikh, A. (1996, March 28). Bank credit and multiplier rounds [Unpublished handwritten notes].

Shaikh, A. (n.d.). Commercial bank assets and liabilities: Data tables with annotations [Data tables with handwritten annotations].

Shaikh, A. (1997, February 27). A note on the money stock [Unpublished manuscript].

Shaikh, A. …

Codification Of Statements On Standards For Attestation Engagements, Number 18, As Of January 2019, American Institute Of Certified Public Accountants (Aicpa)

AICPA Professional Standards

No abstract provided.

Attractive Or Aggressive? A Face Recognition And Machine Learning Approach For Estimating Returns To Visual Appearance, Guodong Guo, Brad R. Humphreys, Mohammad I. Nouyed, Yang Zhou

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

A growing literature documents the presence of appearance premia in labor markets. We analyze appearance premia in a high-profile, high-pay setting: head football coaches at bigtime college sports programs. These employees face job tasks involving repeated interpersonal interaction on multiple fronts and also act as the “face” of their program. We estimate the attractiveness of each employee using a neural network approach, a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network fine tuned for this application. This approach can eliminate biases induced by volunteer evaluators and limited numbers of photos. We also use this approach to estimate the perceived aggressiveness of each employee based …

The Efficient Corruption Hypothesis And The Dynamics Between Economic Freedom, Corruption, And National Income, Joshua Hall, John Levendis, Alexandre R. Scarcioffolo

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

Income, economic freedom, and corruption interact in complex ways as all three variables are arguably endogenous. We explicitly model this endogeneity using a panel VAR framework. The pVAR models we estimate are able to explicitly model this endogeneity better than the single-equation panel data models previously used in the literature. Using data on corruption and income from the World Bank and economic freedom from the Fraser Institute, we provide evidence that corruption and the absence of economic freedom have a negative effect on national income.

Geographic Determinants Of Infant Health: The Impact Of Sports Facility Construction Projects, Brad Humphreys, Jane Ruseski

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

A large body of research examines determinants of infant health outcomes but little examines geographic variation generated by exogenous economic shocks. Linking birth data from the CDC Natality files to counties building new facilities from 1995-2002, we find that sports facility construction projects generate local negative externalities. Infants born during facility construction periods have lower birth weights than infants born in comparable counties where no new facility opened. Maternal prenatal health visits also fall in the post-facility-opening period. Mechanisms for this impact include local airborne particulate matter and reduced provision of government services affecting prenatal health.

2019 Association Integrated Report; Re-Imagine; Aicpa Annual Report, 2019, Association Of International Professional Accountants

AICPA Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Religious Experience And Yoga, Christopher Key Chapple

Theological Studies Faculty Works

Yoga practice provides access to religious experience, which has been defined by William James as “immediate luminousness, philosophical reasonableness, and moral helpfulness.” In this paper the processes of Yoga will be summarized as found in the Bhagavad Gῑtā and the Yoga Sūtra. This article concludes with instructions on how to perform a practice that integrates Yoga breathing and movement with reflections on the Sāṃkhya descriptions of physical and emotional realities

Practical Theology In The United States, Brett C. Hoover

Theological Studies Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Masthead, Editor In Chief

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Legal Jurisdiction And Virtual Social Life, Paul Schiff Berman

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Social lives are increasingly unmoored from physical location. 21^st century developments in social media, virtual worlds, augmented reality, electronic financial transactions, drones, robotics, and artificial intelligence allow human beings to interact in more and more robust ways at a physical remove from their location. Meanwhile, the ubiquity of multinational corporations, global supply chains, and cloud-based data all mean that our lives are more likely to be affected by activity that is spatially distant. Virtual effects often replace direct territorial effects.

Three important consequences flow from this ubiquitous technology-enabled, data-driven virtual global societal activity. First, the territorial location of data …

Freeform Extrusion Fabrication Of Advanced Ceramics And Ceramic-Based Composites, Wenbin Li

Doctoral Dissertations

"Ceramic On-Demand Extrusion (CODE) is a recently developed freeform extrusion fabrication process for producing dense ceramic components from single and multiple constituents. In this process, aqueous paste of ceramic particles with a very low binder content ( < 1 vol%) is extruded through a moving nozzle to print each layer sequentially. Once one layer is printed, it is surrounded by oil to prevent undesirable water evaporation from the perimeters of the part. The oil level is regulated just below the topmost layer of the part being fabricated. Infrared radiation is then applied to uniformly and partially dry the top layer so that the yield stress of the paste increases to avoid part deformation. By repeating the above steps, the part is printed in a layer-wise fashion, followed by post-processing. Paste extrusion precision of different extrusion mechanisms was compared and analyzed, with an auger extruder determined to be the most suitable paste extruder for the CODE system. A novel fabrication system was developed based on a motion gantry, auger extruders, and peripheral devices. Sample specimens were then produced from 3 mol% yttria stabilized zirconia using this fabrication system, and their properties, including density, flexural strength, Young's modulus, Weibull modulus, fracture toughness, and hardness were measured. The results indicated that superior mechanical properties were achieved by the CODE process among all the additive manufacturing processes. Further development was made on the CODE process to fabricate ceramic components that have external/internal features such as overhangs by using fugitive support material. Finally, ceramic composites with functionally graded materials (FGMs) were fabricated by the CODE process using a dynamic mixing device"--Abstract, page iv.

Techno-Economic Optimization And Environmental Life Cycle Assessment Of Microgrids Using Genetic Algorithm And Artificial Neural Networks, Prashant Nagapurkar

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation focuses primarily on techno-economic optimization and environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) of sustainable energy generation technologies. This work is divided into five papers. The first paper discusses the techno-economic optimization and environmental life cycle assessment of microgrids located in the USA using genetic algorithm. In this paper, a methodology was developed that assessed the techno-economic and environmental performance of a small scale microgrid located in US cities of Tucson, Lubbock and Dickinson. Providing uninterrupted power the microgrid was composed of seven components -- solar photovoltaics, wind-turbines, lead acid batteries, biodiesel generators, fuel cells, electrolyzers and H₂ tanks. …

High Level Thermochemical And Spectroscopic Computations For Molecules Relevant To Combustion And The Atmosphere, Bradley K. Welch

Doctoral Dissertations

"Computational thermochemistry can be a complicated multistep process, but in recent years has become an equal partner with experiment. Many important molecules in combustion systems or in the atmosphere (such as short-lived radicals) are difficult to study experimentally. Predicting highly accurate thermochemistry is a key aspect in understanding these species. In this project, computational thermochemistry was developed into an automated streamlined procedure and then used to understand the methyl and ethyl peroxy families of radicals. This effort involved optimizing a standard workflow for computational thermochemistry. Computational thermochemistry generally requires numerous individual calculations whose cost and scalings vary widely. Conducting such …

Microstructural Evolution Of Zirconium Carbide (Zrcₓ) Ceramics Under Irradiation Conditions, Raul Florez

Doctoral Dissertations

A comprehensive understanding of the microstructural evolution of Zirconium Carbide (ZrC₂) ceramics under irradiation conditions is required for their successful implementation in advanced Gen-IV gas-cooled nuclear reactors. The research presented in this dissertation focusses on elucidating the ion and electron irradiation response of ZrC₂ ceramics. In the first part of the research, the microstructural evolution was characterized for ZrC₂ ceramics irradiated with 10 MeV Au³⁺ ions up to doses of 30 displacement per atom (dpa) at 800 ºC. Coarsening of the defective microstructure, as a function of dose, was revealed by transmission electron microscopy analysis. …

The Benefit Of Precise Chemical Shift And Concentration Referencing In Nmr Applications, Ming Huang

Doctoral Dissertations

“In Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, the chemical shift and intensity of NMR signals provide critical information about a sample's molecular structure, reaction conditions, and material properties. For the precise determination of structures and properties, it is critical to know sample or reaction conditions such as temperature, pH, concentration, or absolute amount of material. Chemical-shift and signal-intensity calibrations play a key role for extracting the maximum amount of information from NMR experiments. In this dissertation, internal and external reference standards are used to calibrate NMR spectra with respect to chemical shift and signal intensity. Sealed capillary tubes filled with specific …

Online Dispute Resolution For Smart Contracts, Amy J. Schmitz, Colin Rule

Faculty Publications

Smart contracts built in the blockchain are quietly revolutionizing traditional transactions despite their questionable status under current law. At the same time, disputes regarding smart contracts are inevitable, and par-ties will need means for dealing with smart contract issues. This Article tackles this challenge, and proposes that parties turn to online dispute resolution (“ODR”) to efficiently and fairly resolve smart contract disputes. Furthermore, the Article acknowledges the benefits and challenges of current blockchain ODR start-ups, and proposes specific ideas for how designers could address those challenges and incorporate ODR to provide just resolutions that will not stymie efficiencies of smart …