Digital Commons Network^™

A Cross-Sectional Analysis Of Bronchodilator Prescribing In Copd And Cardiovascular Comorbidity, Damilola Tejumola Adesanoye

Open Access Master's Theses

Background: Bronchodilators used to treat Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease have been associated with adverse cardiovascular events. Moreover, the high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in COPD (8-40%) requires an evaluation of treatment differences between comorbid groups in order to understand the appropriateness of drug prescribing.

Objective: To determine whether COPD patients with concurrent CVD are less likely to be prescribed bronchodilators compared to those without CVD.

Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted using the 2010 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) to quantify the association between concurrent CVD morbidity and the probability of receiving a bronchodilator …

Rhetoric Of Flat Design And Skeuomorphism In Apple's Ios Graphical User Interface, Ambrose Curtis

Open Access Master's Theses

This work sets out to examine the visual rhetoric located within flat and skeuomorphic iterations of Apple's iOS graphical user interfaces. I argue that design scholar Richard Buchannan is correct in his assertions regarding ethos, pathos, and logos in product design, but in this work I apply his ideas to Apple's iOS graphical user interface.

Buchannan suggests that much of the effectiveness of a product is based on that product's ability to appeal to the user, by way of these Aristotelian proofs. This examination of ethos, pathos, and logos also calls upon the work of anthropologist Thomas J. Schlereth; specifically, …

The Real And The Ideal In Ri National Guard Uniform Practices, Christine Lee Callaghan

Open Access Master's Theses

Dress and appearance are regulated in minute detail for members of the Rhode Island National Guard, as they are for all in the US military. In practice, adherence to these regulations is both imperfect and variable. This study explored the extent and form of variations from the ideal in Rhode Island National Guard uniform practices as well as the ideal military service-members are expected to emulate and how military uniform policies were enforced.

Individual interviews were conducted with thirteen former members of the RI National Guard. Topics of discussion included levels of strictness or laxity encountered, opinions on various uniforms …

Effect Of Average Happiness For Twitter On The Dow Jones Industrial Average Return Volatility, Zonghao Zhu

Open Access Master's Theses

The stock market is well known for its volatility and many models are proposed to capture the volatility. Volatility is naturally unobservable and the absolute values of the returns work as the realized volatility. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the study object and the models used are generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) models with different extensions. The unique extension in this study is to add happiness data into the model and check whether it helps to better capture the volatility and improve the forecasting accuracy. The happiness data is extracted from Twitter and it is an index to show …

Shellfish Farms As Agritourism Destinations: The Growers' Perspective, Maria Vasta

Open Access Master's Theses

Agritourism encompasses a variety of different types of agricultural tourism products and can be defined broadly as the incorporation of commercial tourism into a working farm. Agritourism has been used on land as a way to diversify farm activities. As national shellfish aquaculture production in the United States increased over the years, aquaculture growers also began adopting agritourism components on their farms.

The primary objectives for this study were to (1) expand on current agritourism knowledge; (2) help to address the gap in existing literature pertaining to aquaculture farm-based tourism; and (3) provide shellfish growers and coastal managers with insights …

Measuring Social Vulnerability And Adaptive Capacity To Climate Change In Dominican Republic Coastal Communities, Hilary Lohmann

Open Access Master's Theses

People’s capacity to adapt to shifting and emerging climate conditions is one of the most important characteristics to consider when addressing climate risks. This study explores the vulnerability and adaptive capacity to changing climate conditions of individuals in various sectors of employment in three coastal communities of the Dominican Republic. Participants included individuals who directly use marine resources for their occupation and those who do not. Specific research questions in this study are: What are the factors related to adaptive capacity in coastal communities of the Dominican Republic? Do these factors vary between direct resource users and non-­‐direct resource users? …

Fair Fishing Human Rights And Sustainability In Bilateral Fishing Agreements Between The Eu And Developing Countries, Anna S. Antonova

Open Access Master's Theses

This project investigates bilateral fishing agreements between the European Union and developing states in order to assess the extent to which these agreements are as successful at implementing international law principles as European Union officials have claimed they are. Over the past two decades, European Union rhetoric has communicated an intent to take on a normative power role in advancing human rights and sustainable development approaches in the context of global fisheries policy. Officials have propagated an image of a “new Europe,” conscientious of its colonizing heritage, committed to promoting good maritime governance, and ensuring responsible fishing worldwide as part …

Dual Images Of The “Monstrous Feminine” In Three Horror Films, Erica Tortolani

Open Access Master's Theses

“Dual Images of the ‘Monstrous Feminine’ in Three Horror Films” centers on the women in mainstream, psychological horror films. Namely, as an extension of Barbara Creed’s extensive research of the horror genre in works including The Monstrous Feminine: Film, Feminism, and Psychoanalysis (1993), my analysis locates the concept of the “monstrous feminine” in three distinct, yet interconnected films: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Carrie (1976), and Single White Female (1992). However, my analysis of these films deviates slightly from Creed’s study of the “monstrous feminine” – whereas Creed examines the representation of singular female characters in horror films, I …

Linkages Between New England Dolphin Stranding Frequency And North Atlantic Oscillation Variability, Charles Thomas Harry Ii

Open Access Master's Theses

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is a dominant climatic driver that influences hydrographic and ecological parameters at multiple spatial scales and several trophic levels. To date, linkages between NAO variability and dolphin strandings on a regional scale have not been investigated. Stranding records of short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis) and Atlantic white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus acutus) during 1990–2014 between Maine and New York were correlated against the winter NAO index at several time lags in order to explore the link between stranding variability and NAO. The stranding frequencies of the two species were positively correlated to one …

Persistent Organic Pollutants In The Arctic, Atlantic And Pacific Oceans, Caoxin Sun

Open Access Master's Theses

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are a group of compounds that are persistent, toxic, bioaccumulative and undergo long range transport. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are three groups of POPs. They were widely used as dielectric and coolants fluids, pesticides and flame retardants, respectively. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), normally produced by incomplete combustion of carbonaceous materials, were not in the list but have similar properties as POPs. Even though restrictions and bans over POPs started decades ago (PCBs and OCPs in the 1970s and BDEs in the 2000s), POPs are still detected in the environment …

Injectable Conductive Hydrogels For Use In Neuroprosthetic Intervention, Rosa Ghatee

Open Access Master's Theses

Neuroprosthetic interventions are strategies aimed at treating a wide range of neurological disorders, long-term neuroprosthetic treatments traditionally require the implantation of hard metallic electrodes that must sustain their electrical connection with neural tissues for prolonged periods of time. However, surgical introduction of these electrodes and their mechanical mismatch with neural tissues results in inflammation, which disrupts their electrical interface. Our aim was to develop soft, injectable, and conducting hydrogel-based electrode materials and characterize their sustained mechanical and electrical properties before and after sterilization and injection. These gels were made from poly (3-4, ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) (a conductive polymer) and poly (acrylic …

The Development Of Guidance For Solving Polymer-Penetrant Diffusion Problems In Marine Hardware, Matthew Aaron Rice

Open Access Master's Theses

There is a need for the development and trial of an accessible, robust procedure that can be followed to solve polymer-penetrant diffusion problems associated with marine hardware failures, incorporating some of the complexities abounding in these types of systems. The goals of this guidance are to instruct design engineers in the appropriate methods to apply when predicting diffusion phenomena as well as to assist them when selecting materials for diffusion-susceptible or -dependent applications, especially those related to marine hardware. A straightforward step-by-step flowchart tool is presented to accomplish this instruction to average scientists and engineers not deeply versed in the …

'Not Much Power In A Dead Man's Voice': Perfected Memory, Configured Ideology, And The Representation Of Self In Kawabata Yasunari's Jyurokusai No Nikki, James A. Wren

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Contrary to its title, the 1968 Nobel Laureate for Literature Kawabata Yasunari's early diary Jyurokusai no nikki (Diary of a Sixteen Year Old) is anything but an unassuming chronicle of a single year in a young man's life. The complicated structure of reality in this work is constituted by homologous realities belonging to several distinct discourses which when read together co-signify something that none separately could. Certainly, we become privileged readers who, as we read, share a quest not just to perfect the mandate of self-knowledge but also to perfect the language of memory, identity and culture as the privileged, …

The Schwartz Space: Tools For Quantum Mechanics And Infinite Dimensional Analysis, Jeremy Becnel, Ambar Sengupta

Faculty Publications

An account of the Schwartz space of rapidly decreasing functions as a topological vector space with additional special structures is presented in a manner that provides all the essential background ideas for some areas of quantum mechanics along with infinite-dimensional distribution theory.

Section 1: Bio-Medical/Bioengineering, Ectc Coordinating Committee

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the 15th Annual Early Career Technical Conference, November 7, 2015. School of Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama; pp. 1-36

Section 3: Dynamic Systems & Control, Ectc Coordinating Committee

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the 15th Annual Early Career Technical Conference, November 7, 2015. School of Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama; pp. 65-106

Section 5: Numerical Methods, Ectc Coordinating Committee

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the 15th Annual Early Career Technical Conference, November 7, 2015. School of Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama; pp. 151-165

Analysis Of Strain Distribution On Several Parts Of Human Lung During Mechanical Ventilation Breathing, Israr Bin M Ibrahim, Parya Aghasafari, Ramana Pidaparti

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Section 1: Bio-Medical/Bioengineering; pp. 3-9

Proceedings Of The 15th Annual Early Career Technical Conference (Complete Issue), Ectc Coordinating Committee

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the 15th Annual Early Career Technical Conference, November 7, 2015. School of Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama

Airflow Characteristics In Adult Upper 9 Generations Of Lung Model And Airway Changing (Aging) Effect Under Ventilated Breathing, Jongwon Kim, Ramana Pidaparti, Rebecca L. Heise, Angela M. Reynolds

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Section 1: Bio-Medical/Bioengineering; pp. 22-27

Orbital Mechanic Simulation Of A 1u Cubesat, Alicia Ratcliffe, Carlos Montalvo

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Section 3: Dynamic Systems & Control; pp. 67-71

Finite Element Simulation Of Cylindrical Piezoelectric Energy Harvesters Under Internal Loading, Parya Aghasafari, Israr Bin M Ibrahim, Ramana Pidaparti

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Section 5: Numerical Methods; pp. 160-165

Niche Construction And The Evolution Of Leadership, B. R. Spisak, Michael J. O'Brien, N. Nicholson, M. Van Vugt

History Faculty Publications (Archived)

We use the concept of niche construction - the process whereby individuals, through their activities, interactions, and choices, modify their own and each other's environments - as an example of how biological evolution and cultural evolution interacted to form an integrative foundation of modern organizational leadership. Resulting adaptations are formal structures that facilitate coordination of large, postagrarian organizational networks. We provide three propositions explaining how leadership processes evolve over time within and between organizations in order to solve specific coordination problems. We highlight the balancing act between self-interests and group interests in organizations and show how leadership must regulate this …

Citations And Convictions: One Community’S Coordinated Response To Intimate Partner Violence & Efforts Toward Offender Accountability, Kerry Beldin, Allison Lauritsen, Henry J. D'Souza, Bob Moyer

Social Work Faculty Publications

In 1996, a coordinated community response (CCR) was formally established in a mid-sized Midwestern city to improve the criminal justice response to intimate partner violence (IPV). Data for this study included all IPV-related incidents to which the local police department responded since the establishment of the CCR for a fourteen year period. Effective CCRs provide for IPV offender accountability through citation and prosecution of IPV-related crimes. Concerns about demographic variables affecting citation and prosecution rates have been identified in the literature. Compared to national statistics, gender differences were consistent but higher citation and conviction rates were identified in this community. …

Complete Issue, Christopher W. Tremblay, Ed.D, Patrick J. O'Connor Phd

Journal of College Access

No abstract provided.

Guest Perspective: Lumina Foundation, Jamie P. Merisotis

Journal of College Access

No abstract provided.

An Ontology Of Space: Methodological Recursiveness And The Diagram, Rita Cachao

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Current debates on space reveal a dichotomy between two apparently conflicting understandings of space: on the one hand, space is understood as a physical, tangible entity that has an impact on how we perceive, feel and emotionally inhabit the world, and on the other hand, space is conceived as an abstract entity, suggesting that space has no active role (a productivity) within everyday life, being solely a conceptual product of intellectual reasoning. As a result, the commonly used word: ‘space’, will be discussed as an ontologically paradoxical, ambiguous and elusive concept; a concept that cannot be captured within a single …

Machine Performers: Agents In A Multiple Ontological State, Louis-Philippe Demers

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

In this thesis, the author explores and develops new attributes for machine performers and merges the trans-disciplinary fields of the performing arts and artificial intelligence. The main aim is to redefine the term “embodiment” for robots on the stage and to demonstrate that this term requires broadening in various fields of research. This redefining has required a multifaceted theoretical analysis of embodiment in the field of artificial intelligence (e.g. the uncanny valley), as well as the construction of new robots for the stage by the author. It is hoped that these practical experimental examples will generate more research by others …

An Artistic Equivalence Of My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Tom Baugh

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

An Artistic Equivalence of my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Thomas Baugh Abstract In this research I explore my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and make manifest equivalent experiences of it through art practice. I investigate my OCD through artistic enactments and test my equivalence of the framework obsessioncompulsion using installation art – an equivalence, which I suggest is a relationship between my embodied perception and my memory. My interpretation of equivalence contains characteristics that arguably align with common emotions of control and doubt, inflated sense of responsibility and fear of disaster, which, I suggest are accessible to an audience other than myself. …

Reflecting On The Development Of British Ocean Cruise Tourism: Keeping The Romance Afloat, Martin John Cholwill

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This study reflects on the development of the British ocean cruise industry. In taking a historical perspective this provides an opportunity to discover if, despite changes in social expectation and technological advance, an element of the value cruise passengers place on their experience has been lost. Equating the ocean cruise experience to passenger cumulative value, the study utilises a thematic approach to reviewing literature and relates this to philosophical perspectives in developing a research strategy. The research data collected provides an insight to cruise tourist expectation and their perception of cumulative value in providing conclusions of value to cruise planners …