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University of Alabama at Birmingham

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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

The (Non)Tragic Passing Of Rena Walden: Black Female Agency In Charles Chesnutt's The House Behind The Cedars, Sarah Emily Goggans Jan 2016

The (Non)Tragic Passing Of Rena Walden: Black Female Agency In Charles Chesnutt's The House Behind The Cedars, Sarah Emily Goggans

All ETDs from UAB

This project analyzes Charles W. Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars in an attempt to accredit Chesnutt as a forerunner of Critical Race Theory (CRT). Secondly, this project argues that Rena gains agency solely through her black ancestry in her ability to read and write both cultural and written texts. I will also argue in that creating a metanarrative form for his novel, Chesnutt is able to provide a radically feminist text through his representation of the power of Rena’s literacy, and furthermore, that Chesnutt is able to critique the laws and customs of normative white society. Lastly, this project …


Cultural And Gender Differences In Child Abuse Risk In African American And White Expectant Mothers And Fathers, Anjali Gowda Jan 2016

Cultural And Gender Differences In Child Abuse Risk In African American And White Expectant Mothers And Fathers, Anjali Gowda

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Previous maltreatment literature examining child physical abuse risk has not effectively examined cultural nuances in risk and protective factors. Further, research has relied heavily upon maternal only samples, limiting our understanding of paternal risk factors. The current study examined macro-level variables (i.e., racial identification and gender role ideologies) in conjunction with individual-level factors (i.e., attribution of child intent and acceptability of abuse) as they relate to parental abuse risk. The study employed explicit and implicit measures administered to 142 African American and White first-time expectant mother and father dyads. Study hypotheses were partially supported, identifying both consistencies and inconsistencies across …


Clustering Phish Using The Simple Set Comparison Tool, Jason Robert Britt Jan 2016

Clustering Phish Using The Simple Set Comparison Tool, Jason Robert Britt

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Phishing has been a problem since before the early 2000s and has only become more prevalent and diverse since. Phishing countermeasures have been developed and used to prevent or mitigate phishing attacks. However, each countermeasure has pros and cons and not every countermeasure is effective in every situation. Choosing the best suited phishing countermeasure or combination of phishing countermeasures to use and track their effectiveness requires grouping phish based upon common characteristics and tactics used by phish or phish grouping. To be effective phish grouping needs to produce dependable groupings, quickly produce groups, and analyze large volumes of phish. This …


Conceptualizations Of Health And Health Communication By Clergy In Jefferson County, Alabama: A Qualitative Exploration, Anthony David Campbell Jan 2016

Conceptualizations Of Health And Health Communication By Clergy In Jefferson County, Alabama: A Qualitative Exploration, Anthony David Campbell

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The purpose of this dissertation is to examine how clergy define health and how they communicate health messages to their congregations and communities. Clergy are influential figures who fulfill a variety of roles outside of their unique pastoral responsibilities, including serving as a source of health-related information and resources. Little is known about how clergy perceive the role of churches and their own role in health and health ministry. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 32 African American and white clergy members from a variety of religious denominations in Jefferson County, Alabama between January 2015 and February 2016. Data were …


Design Of Layer-By-Layer Shaped Microparticles For Controlled Drug Delivery, Jun Chen Jan 2016

Design Of Layer-By-Layer Shaped Microparticles For Controlled Drug Delivery, Jun Chen

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Free drug administration is always associated with several problems, such as poor drug solubility, rapid drug breakdown, fast drug clearance, lack of targeting viability, and inappropriate biodistribution. These problems significantly prevent the accumulation of drugs, specifically to the cancer sites, to achieve high therapy efficacy. The unrestricted diffusion of drugs throughout the whole body also results in severe side effects, such as cytotoxicity and immune responses, to healthy cells which limit the accomplishment of the necessary drug dose to produce efficacious therapy. Therefore, to address these prob-lems, it is urgent to design and develop drug delivery carriers that can protect …


Parental Acculturation And Adolescent Depression, Serra Sevde Aydogan Jan 2016

Parental Acculturation And Adolescent Depression, Serra Sevde Aydogan

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This study investigates whether or not parental acculturation is associated with depression levels among youth in US-based immigrant families. Previous research has shown that even though individual acculturation is negatively correlated with adolescents’ good mental health, parental acculturation is associated with higher levels of mental health among youth. This study elaborates on these prior findings by using a large national sample of immigrant children ages 13-14 and considering the mediating role of social ties and social support. Data for the study are derived from the Children of Immigrant Longitudinal Study to examine the relationship between parental acculturation and youth depression. …


1,1-Diamino-2,2-Dinitroethylene (Fox-7) Under High Pressure-Temperature, Matthew Marc Bishop Jan 2016

1,1-Diamino-2,2-Dinitroethylene (Fox-7) Under High Pressure-Temperature, Matthew Marc Bishop

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The high pressure-temperature (P-T) phase diagram of 1,1-diamino-2,2-dinitroethylene (FOX-7) was determined by in situ synchrotron infrared radiation spectroscopy and resistively heated diamond anvil cell (DAC) techniques. The stability of the high P-T FOX-7 polymorphs is established from ambient pressure up to 10 GPa and temperatures until decomposition. The phase diagram indicates two near isobaric phase boundaries at ~2 GPa (  I) and ~ 5 GPa ( I  ) that persists from 25oC until the onset of decomposition at ~300oC. In addition, the ambient pressure, high-temperature    phase transition (~111oC) lies along a steep boundary (~100oC/GPa) with …


Calcium Carbonate Composition And Other Measures Of Vulnerability Of The Skeletons And Shells Of Echinoderms And Gastropods Challenged By Ocean Acidification Or Climate Warming, Ashley Duquette Douglas Jan 2016

Calcium Carbonate Composition And Other Measures Of Vulnerability Of The Skeletons And Shells Of Echinoderms And Gastropods Challenged By Ocean Acidification Or Climate Warming, Ashley Duquette Douglas

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Marine invertebrate calcium carbonate (CaCO3) composition will likely be impacted by climate warming and ocean acidification (OA). Elevated temperature alters physiological processes that can induce stress, and OA alters the ability of calcareous marine invertebrates to maintain acid-base balances, calcify, and repair skeletal dissolution. The first of three chapters of this dissertation exploits a natural CO2 seep to evaluate impacts of chronic exposure to OA on the shells of four gastropods: the limpets Patella caerulea and P. rustica, top-shell snail Osilinus turbinatus, and whelk Hexaplex trunculus. All four gastropods experienced shell dissolution to various degrees and reduced shell integrity as …


Natural Variation Of The Ire1a Gene Of Arabidopsis Thaliana And Its Effects On Abiotic Stress Tolerance, Brenna Cathryn Terry Jan 2016

Natural Variation Of The Ire1a Gene Of Arabidopsis Thaliana And Its Effects On Abiotic Stress Tolerance, Brenna Cathryn Terry

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The IRE1a protein is a key player in the response of plant cells to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress by activating bZIP60, a transcription factor implicated in effective ER stress response. Natural variation has been observed in the expression of the IRE1a gene in natural accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant organism. Here, an attempt is made to correlate basal natural variation of IRE1a with response of the plant to abiotic stress. Abiotic stress response through IRE1a activity, specifically bZIP60 transcript splicing, does correspond to basal IRE1a expression. Additionally, alleles of the IRE1a gene were determined to exist as a …


Managing Data Flow Through The Storage Hierarchy Of Extreme Scale Hpc Systems, Sagar Thapaliya Jan 2016

Managing Data Flow Through The Storage Hierarchy Of Extreme Scale Hpc Systems, Sagar Thapaliya

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Scientific applications running on extreme scale high performance computing (HPC) machines require high performance I/O and storage system to carry out operations including checkpointing, analysis and visualization of simulation outputs. However, there is significant imbalance in I/O and compute capabilities in HPC systems, and as a result, applications often have to spend a large amount of time to complete I/O. Such imbalance is projected to be higher in the future exascale systems. The I/O problem is exacerbated by I/O interference that occurs when processes of an application or multiple applications simultaneously access the shared storage systems, such as a parallel …


Liberty And Collaboration For All: A Case Study On Collective Impact, Social Capital, And Community Inclusion, Laura Peyton Vickery Jan 2016

Liberty And Collaboration For All: A Case Study On Collective Impact, Social Capital, And Community Inclusion, Laura Peyton Vickery

All ETDs from UAB

Disenfranchised communities often face exclusion at the hands of outside organizations trying to assist. Citizens within the community are excluded and left with few means of actively participating in the conversation and development surrounding these communities. This paper takes the position that the imbalance of power dynamics, where citizens become subjects, does not fully utilize the potential of those inside and those from outside the community. As discussed in Chapter 1, utilizing social capital to build networks and integrate insider and outsider organizations and resources will ultimately create optimization. Chapter 2 uncovers historical examples of civic life and a new …


Investigating The Mechanisms Of Dopaminergic Signaling In Regulating Refractive Error, Alexander Hadwyn Ward Jan 2016

Investigating The Mechanisms Of Dopaminergic Signaling In Regulating Refractive Error, Alexander Hadwyn Ward

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Myopia is a significant public health problem. Most juvenile-onset myopia occurs because the eye becomes too long for its own optics. We study mechanisms regulating refractive error in an animal model, the tree shrew (Tupaia glis belangeri), a mammal closely related to primates. We use translucent diffusers to induce form deprivation myo-pia (FDM). A role of the retinal dopaminergic system has been validated during the de-velopment of FDM. In this study, in Specific Aim 1, we used intravitreal injections as a way to deliver sub-stances to the retina to investigate their effect on eye growth and induced myopia. However, a …


An Investigation Into The Developmental Response Of The Amphipod Hyalella Azteca To Different Predator-Related Chemical Cues, William Ryan James Jan 2016

An Investigation Into The Developmental Response Of The Amphipod Hyalella Azteca To Different Predator-Related Chemical Cues, William Ryan James

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Predator chemical cues have been widely demonstrated to influence developmental plasticity in aquatic prey. However, understanding the role that conspecifics have on an individual’s anti-predator response has received little attention. The present thesis investigated the developmental plasticity of individual and groups of the amphipod Hyalella azteca chronically exposed to kairomones from predatory sunfish. Previous field studies have suggested that small body size in H. azteca is a likely adaptive response to reducing predation by sunfish, but no experimental studies have been carried out to test if the amphipods have a developmental response to the presence of sunfish. Containers with single …


Egesta Of The Sea Urchin Lytechinus Variegatus Promote Weight Gain In The Shrimp Litopenaeus Vannamei, Karen Elizabeth Jensen Jan 2016

Egesta Of The Sea Urchin Lytechinus Variegatus Promote Weight Gain In The Shrimp Litopenaeus Vannamei, Karen Elizabeth Jensen

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Long-term economic and environmental sustainability of aquaculture will be dependent on utilization of novel nutrient sources and remediation of effluent streams. Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) is a method intended to maximize productivity and minimize waste by strategically reusing effluent from a primary, fed species in the production of one or more secondary, extractive species. Such relationships are based on the trophic role of the fed and extractive species in question. Sea urchin egesta are thought to play a role in nutrient cycling in natural habitats by providing an energy source for many coprophagous deposit feeders, suspension feeders, and microbes. The …


Fastnumerics: Compiling Matlab To C++, Sujan Khadka Jan 2016

Fastnumerics: Compiling Matlab To C++, Sujan Khadka

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and bone strength feedback. Participants, through computer surveys, rated perceived


Perturbation Formulas For Gross-Pitaevskii Equation With Periodic Potential, Seonguk Kim Jan 2016

Perturbation Formulas For Gross-Pitaevskii Equation With Periodic Potential, Seonguk Kim

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Gross-Pitaevskii equation (GPE), which was introduced in early 1960s, is widely used in several areas, such as condensed matter physics, and nonlinear optics. The purpose of this thesis is to carry out mathematical studies for GPE. We concentrate on extended solutions of GPE. This thesis mainly contains three parts. The first part is to investigate explicit perturbation formulas for stationary solutions close to a plane wave and their corresponding energies for the nonlinear polyharmonic equation when 2l > n, where n is dimension and l is a power of the Laplacian. The main idea is to consider a non-linear term as …


Non-Violent Resistance Vs. Passivity: A Look Into Percy Shelley's Politics In Prometheus Unbound, The Mask, And The Cenci, Kayla Lashae Light Jan 2016

Non-Violent Resistance Vs. Passivity: A Look Into Percy Shelley's Politics In Prometheus Unbound, The Mask, And The Cenci, Kayla Lashae Light

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This thesis explores the differences between passiveness in Percy Shelley and Martin Luther King Jr.’s works by sectioning it off into types of passiveness: positive and negative passivity. Positive passivity is equated with a non-violent resistance, and negative passivity is the refusal or fear of acknowledging evil. Shelley and King agree that this type of evil is the most prominent among common people. In Shelley’s, Cenci, Mask of Anarchy, and Prometheus Unbound, readers can see how he is using minor characters and some major characters to illustrate oppression. King’s works, however, use personal examples and a more direct narrative. Even …


Understanding Protein-Protein Interactions In Plantae In Network Biology Utilizing A Novel Y2h Liquid Assay Approach, Jessica Lopez Lopez Jan 2016

Understanding Protein-Protein Interactions In Plantae In Network Biology Utilizing A Novel Y2h Liquid Assay Approach, Jessica Lopez Lopez

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The Yeast-2-Hybrid (Y2H) assay is a heterologous system that is expanding network biology knowledge via in vivo investigations of binary protein-protein interactions. Traditionally, the Y2H protocol entails the mating or co-transformation of yeast in solid agar media followed by visual analysis for diploid selection. Having played a key role in identifying protein-protein interactions for nearly three decades, the Y2H system includes the interaction between two proteins of interest which result in a reconstituted transcription factor allowing a reporter gene to be transcribed. In this thesis, two primary objectives were pursued to expand the knowledge of protein-protein interactions. The primary objective …


A Wavelet Representation For A Fractional Brownian Motion, Robert Mann Jan 2016

A Wavelet Representation For A Fractional Brownian Motion, Robert Mann

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like adequate calcium and vitamin D intake, to prevent osteoporosis and osteoporosisrelated


Changes In Intrinsic Local Functional Connectivity In Children With Autism Followed By A Visualizing/Verbalizing Reading Intervention, Jose Omar Maximo Jan 2016

Changes In Intrinsic Local Functional Connectivity In Children With Autism Followed By A Visualizing/Verbalizing Reading Intervention, Jose Omar Maximo

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Deficits in language are a major clinical feature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Previous studies suggest that individuals with ASD may rely on visuospatial skills to compensate for these deficits. Existing intervention programs in autism have not been tested at the neural level, thus falling short of quantifiable neurobiological changes underlying behavioral improvement. The current study takes a translational neuroimaging approach to test the impact of a structured visual imagery-based reading intervention on improving reading comprehension and its underlying neural circuitry. Changes in connectivity of a set of brain regions commonly known as the “reading network” were examined in children …


Improving The Scalability Of Directed Model Checking Of Concurrent Java Code Through Hybrid And Distributed Analysis, Reed Morgan Milewicz Jan 2016

Improving The Scalability Of Directed Model Checking Of Concurrent Java Code Through Hybrid And Distributed Analysis, Reed Morgan Milewicz

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Since the widespread adoption of multi-core architectures at the turn of the millennium, parallel and concurrent programming paradigms, such as multi-threaded programming, have been advanced to enable programmers to take advantage of this abundance of computational resources. However, the need for speed has also given new life to ancient evils, namely concurrency bugs. The term concurrency bug, broadly speaking, refers to any bug that arises due to improper or inadequate synchronization of threads in their use of shared resources. These include deadlocks, race conditions, and atomicity violations. Model checking has proven to be a powerful and versatile approach to the …


A Comprehensive Investigation Of Hp1b, A Chromatin Protein, And Its Role In Aging, Benjamin Mills Mills Jan 2016

A Comprehensive Investigation Of Hp1b, A Chromatin Protein, And Its Role In Aging, Benjamin Mills Mills

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Genetic regulation determines which genes are expressed, in which tissues, at which time, and to which level. This regulation is necessary for proper organismal development, and loss of gene regulation can result in phenotypic consequences. As organisms grow older, gene regulation often begins to fail, resulting in negative phenotypic outcomes associated with aging. The exact reason for this failure of gene regulation remains unknown, but current models suggest that chromatin, and its associated proteins, plays a large role. The structure of chromatin impacts gene expression, directly affecting several phenotypes including aging. In this study, we investigate HP1B, a chromatin protein, …


Molecular Analysis Of Streptococcus Mutans Genetic Diversity For The Epidemiological Study Of Oral Disease, Stephanie Stahlbuhk Momeni Jan 2016

Molecular Analysis Of Streptococcus Mutans Genetic Diversity For The Epidemiological Study Of Oral Disease, Stephanie Stahlbuhk Momeni

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Dental caries is chronic global infectious disease. Streptococcus mutans are most frequently associated with dental caries. The goal of this work is to use molecular genotyping methods to investigate the genetic diversity and evidence for transmission of S. mutans for the epidemiological study of dental caries. It was first necessary to validate methods proposed in this study including choice of selective media, choice of multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme, and the frequency of clonality. Analysis included 13,906 S. mutans isolates obtained from oral samples collected from children and their household members in an 8-year longitudinal epidemiological study. Two genotyping methods …


Study Of Cobalt, Cobalt-Iron, And Chromium Doped Ii-Vi Media For Laser Applications, Jeremy M. Peppers Jan 2016

Study Of Cobalt, Cobalt-Iron, And Chromium Doped Ii-Vi Media For Laser Applications, Jeremy M. Peppers

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The middle infrared (mid-IR) spectral range of 2-15 μm possesses characteristics that make it interesting for a number of applications such as spectroscopy, free-space communication, remote detection of organic compounds, materials processing and medical diagnosis. Many organic molecules exhibit strong absorption in this spectral range, rendering their detection and identification possible. There also exist bands of atmospheric transmission which can allow free-space propagation of mid-IR light over considerable distances within the atmosphere. Because of these, there is an increasing demand for broadly tunable laser sources operating in this spectral range. II-VI wide bandgap semiconductor hosts doped with transition metal (TM) …


Trustworthy And Efficient Digital Forensics In The Cloud, D M Shams Zawoad Jan 2016

Trustworthy And Efficient Digital Forensics In The Cloud, D M Shams Zawoad

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The rise of cloud computing has changed the way of using computing services and resources. However, the black-box nature of clouds and the multi-tenant cloud models have brought new security risks, especially in terms of digital forensics. Current cloud computing architectures often lack support for digital forensic investigations since many of the assumptions that are valid for traditional computing environment are invalid in clouds. Current digital forensics tools and procedures rely on the physical access to the evidence. In clouds, computing and storage resources are no longer local and these resources are also shared between multiple cloud users. Hence, even …


Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy Of Two-Dimensional Electron Gasses At High Magnetic Fields, Jeremy Alan Curtis Jan 2016

Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy Of Two-Dimensional Electron Gasses At High Magnetic Fields, Jeremy Alan Curtis

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This dissertation covers two projects that were in the logical path to studying decoherence in a high mobility GaAs two–dimensional electron gas at high magnetic fields. The first project is the ultrafast non–degenerate pump–probe spectroscopic study of bulk GaAs in the Split Florida Helix at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University. This project was undertaken as a proof of concept that ultrafast optics could be done in the Split Florida Helix so that we might study a high mobility two dimensional electron gas using THz time–domain spectroscopy at high magnetic fields, which is a much more …


Writing Centers Across The Curriculum: Reimagining Writing Centers Through Writing Across The Curriculum And Human Resource Management, Adele Leon Jan 2016

Writing Centers Across The Curriculum: Reimagining Writing Centers Through Writing Across The Curriculum And Human Resource Management, Adele Leon

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Current research in Writing across the Curriculum theory and writing center assessment shows concerns for students being able to connect their writing to their disciplines. However, little is being said about connecting writing centers to WAC programs, and less is being said about having writing centers take on the role of a WAC program. This thesis addresses the possibility of the latter, and creating a Writing Centers Across the Curriculum program to better help students across the disciplines connect their writing to their majors. In the creation of a WCAC program, a strong focus on training writing center tutors through …


Toward A Scalable, Transactional, Fault-Tolerant Message Passing Interface For Petascale And Exascale Machines, Amin Hassani Jan 2016

Toward A Scalable, Transactional, Fault-Tolerant Message Passing Interface For Petascale And Exascale Machines, Amin Hassani

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was needed to increase calcium and vitamin D intake and positively change osteoporosis


Changes In Quality Of Life Following Substance Use Disorder Treatment For Mentally Ill Homeless Individuals, Lauren Hayes Jan 2016

Changes In Quality Of Life Following Substance Use Disorder Treatment For Mentally Ill Homeless Individuals, Lauren Hayes

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Quality of life (QOL) is a treatment outcome for substance use disorders that has largely been overlooked. Research suggests QOL is poor among persons with substance use disorders, even following treatment, but is unclear if this is primarily attributable to substance abuse itself or other life areas. Some evidence suggests other factors are responsible for low QOL, such as psychiatric distress. This paper examined QOL, its changes following treatment, and its contributors in two substance use disorder treatment studies (Homeless IV and EARTH) among persons who are homeless with co-occurring disorders. The purpose was to evaluate whether psychiatric distress should …


The Cost Of Home Rule: An Alabama Case Study, Mary Elizabeth Hendrix Jan 2016

The Cost Of Home Rule: An Alabama Case Study, Mary Elizabeth Hendrix

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increase calcium and vitamin D consumption in young women is needed.