Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Factors Affecting Young Adults' Opinions About Hospice And Home Death, Nicole Marie Webb

All ETDs from UAB

An aging population and increased prevalence of chronic illness will demand greater in-volvement by young adults with respect to end-of-life care decisions, and little research has examined opinions about end-of-life care among this population. Exploration of fac-tors influencing opinions about hospice and home death is necessary in order to address potential barriers to available care options and, thus, to improved quality of care at the end of life. The present study first examined a sample of 1035 Caucasian or African American introductory psychology students in order to explore factors affecting opinions about hospice and home death. A subsample of 250 …

Utility Driven Grid Scheduling Framework, Enis Afgan

All ETDs from UAB

The grid computing paradigm enables access to geographically and administratively distributed networked resources, and delivers functionality of those resources to individual users. Stemming from the core composition and aggregation of individual resources, the grid is primarily characterized by the heterogeneity it offers. Although such heterogeneity is often considered a feature, it also presents an obstacle in terms of application execution patterns and expectations (in terms of job runtime, resource utilization, and/or user Quality of Service (QoS)). Typical users have little or no knowledge about the concrete requirements their application imposes on such resources and thus have to stumble through a …

Psychosocial And Affective Mediators Of Ethnic Group Differences In Stressor-Evoked Changes In Systolic Blood Pressure And Pain Perception, Renata Okonkwo

All ETDs from UAB

African Americans, compared to non-Hispanic whites, report greater levels of clinical pain and experience more pain-related disability (AmericanHeartAssociation, 2005; C. L.Edwards, Fillingim, & Keefe, 2001; R. R. Edwards, Doleys, Fillingim, & Lowery, 2001; McCracken, Matthews, Tang, & Cuba, 2001; J. L. Riley et al., 2002). Furthermore, African Americans consistently differ from primarily non-Hispanic white samples on experimentally induced pain. We examined ethnic group differences in the effects of exposure to a brief stressor on individuals' pain responses and changes in SBP and heart rate (HR). In addition, we examined the mediational role of perceived racial discrimination, and differences in the …

Edgar Degas's Fan-Shaped Designs: Art, Decoration, And The Modern Woman In Late-Nineteenth-Century France, Alicia Mccaghren Cook

All ETDs from UAB

French modernist Edgar Degas is one of the most well-known artists of the nineteenth century and his ballet paintings are among the most identifiable works in the history of art. However, surprisingly little scholarship exists on the twentyfive mixed-media fan-shaped designs he created sporadically throughout his career. This thesis focuses on the circumstantial factors surrounding the fans’ creation, in particular the mid-nineteenth-century Japonisme craze, the connotations of the fan as an historical item, and the intersection of commodity, fashion, and gender. Degas created nineteen of the twenty-five fans from 1878-1879 for the Fourth Impressionist Exhibit. This dazzling and sumptuous group …

The Cultural Worldview Of Allopthic And Naturopathic Physicians, Cullen Clark

All ETDs from UAB

Worldview is the socio-cultural compass with which we navigate the existential mysteries of life. It is our way of seeing – and being in – the world. As such it influences every aspect of culture from art to medicine. This exploratory study uses a sequential design combining quantitative and qualitative methodology to explore the worldview of allopathic and naturopathic physicians. Using survey research, the study identifies five basic components of competing worldviews among allopathic (n = 550) and naturopathic physicians (n = 399). It measures agreement among the two groups with these components and explores their influence upon support for …

Evolutionary And Conservation Implications Of Sex Determination And Hatchling Depredation In Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles, Anne Marie Leblanc Eich

All ETDs from UAB

This dissertation examines the arribada, or group nesting, phenomenon of ridley

The Chemical Ecology Of Antarctic Sponges, Kevin J. Peters

All ETDs from UAB

Sponges were collected from shallow waters along the western Antarctic Peninsula near Palmer Station on Anvers Island. The majority (78%) of the sponges were found to have outer tissues defended against the omnivorous, Antarctic sea star Odontaster validus. Of the species that had outer tissues defended, 62% of them also had internal tissues that inhibited feeding by O. validus. Lipophilic or hydrophilic extracts coated on artificial food pellets were found to be unpalatable for all of the sponge species tested. These data provide evidence that defenses are common survival strategies in sessile macroinvertebrates from Antarctica but that the allocation of …

Multi-Coefficient Dirichlet Neumann Type Elliptic Inverse Problems With Application To Reflection Seismology, Mandar S. Kulkarni

All ETDs from UAB

lliptic inverse problems requiring multi-coefficient recovery from boundary measurements are encountered in several areas of science and engineering. We present a fully non-linear variational approach to the aforementioned problem. Our investigation is motivated by the reflection seismology problem of recovering the subsurface parameters from acoustic measurements on the surface. By incorporating measurements of the normal derivative of pressure at the surface, and through a finite Laplace transform, the inverse recovery of parameters ρ, κ and γ from the hyperbolic acoustic equation 1 ρ(x)κ2(x) (ptt + γ(x)pt) − ∇ · 1 ρ(x) ∇p = F(x, t) on

p(x, t) = ζ(x, …

Living With Stress: Neighborhood Disadvantage, Social Capital, And Depression, John Porter Lillis

All ETDs from UAB

This study's objective was to determine the effects of personal and neighborhood stressors on depressive symptomology for community dwelling adults aged 65 and over. The psychosocial resource model was employed as social capital is hypothesized to be a resource and play a mediating role in the effect of both types of stressors on depressive symptomology. Individual level data utilized came from the UAB Study of Aging (N = 919) and the neighborhood level data came from the 2000 Decennial Census. Logistic regression analysis determined that neighborhood stressors had no direct or indirect effect on depressive symptomology. This analysis did show …

Optical, Laser Spectroscopic, And Electrical Characterization Of Transion Metal Doped Znse And Zns Nano-And-Microcrystals, Changsu Kim

All ETDs from UAB

Middle-infrared lasers operating over a “molecular fingerprint” 2-15 μm spectral range are in great demand for a variety of applications. One of the best choices for lasing in the 2-5 μm spectral range is direct oscillation from divalent transition metal ions (TM2+: Cr2+, Fe2+, Co2+)-doped wide bandgap II-VI semiconductor crystals. There are three major objectives in this dissertation: 1) Realize and study middle-infrared electroluminescence of n and p-type, Cr doped bulk ZnSe crystals. We have demonstrated a method of ZnSe crystals thermal-diffusion doping with donor (In, Zn, and Al) and acceptor (Cu, Ag, and N through CrN) impurities resulting in …

Stress And Support Among Southern Lesbians: An Application Of The Stress Process Model, Jay A. Irwin

All ETDs from UAB

The research question to be addressed in this dissertation is: Among adult Southern lesbians, does stress, social support, family ties, and social capital affect feelings of well-being among adult lesbians? Well-being is operationalized as depressive symptoms in this investigation. A study of this magnitude has not been conducted on such a population in previous work, either in sexuality research, or in the stress literature. This dissertation uses the stress process model as the main theoretical perspective and contributes to the existing literature on minority populations regarding the importance of stress, resources, and mental health. Lesbians in the Southern region of …

Evolutionary And Conservation Implications Of Sex Determination And Hatchling Depredation In Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles, Anne Marie Leblanc Eich

All ETDs from UAB

This dissertation examines the arribada, or group nesting, phenomenon of ridley turtles and its' ecological and evolutionary significance regarding certain aspects of reproduction such as egg survival, hatchling survival, and sex ratios. The initial two chapters test the role of non-steady moisture or temperature on sex ratios produced by the arribada nesting behavior. The first chapter addresses the potential effects of a nest's hydric environment on sex ratios using the red-eared slider, Trachemys scripta, as a laboratory model since it possesses a temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) pattern similar to that of sea turtles. The results indicate that daily water treatments …

Model-Driven Aspect Adaptation To Support Modular Software Evolution, Jing Zhang

All ETDs from UAB

One of the biggest challenges of software evolution is to adapt a software system to the ever-changing requirements from users or operating environments. An ideal goal is to encapsulate these requirements into a high-level abstraction, which can drive large-scale adaptation of the underlying software implementation. Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is one of the enabling techniques that support this objective, in that it allows the application designers to synthesize various software artifacts from high-level models. The state-of-the-art MDE techniques, however, lack support for advanced processes and constructive methods for software evolution. With respect to large legacy systems written in disparate programming languages, …

Scaffolding-Mediated Capsid Size Determination In Bacteriophages, Jenny Ren-Jye Chang

All ETDs from UAB

Bacteriophage P2 encodes a scaffolding protein (gpO), which is required for correct assembly of P2 procapsids from the major capsid protein (gpN). The 284-residue gpO also acts as a protease, cleaving itself into an N-terminal fragment, O*, which remains in the capsid following maturation. gpO is a classical serine protease, with a catalytic triad comprised of Asp 19, His 48 and Ser 107, located in its N-terminal domain. The C-terminal 90 amino acids of gpO, which contains a predicted &alpha-helical segment between residues 197 and 257, are required and sufficient for capsid assembly. This fragment exists as a multimer in …

The Status Of White Matter In Patients With Hemiparesis Given Ci Therapy: A Diffusion Tensor Imaging Study, Christi Perkins Hu

All ETDs from UAB

While attempts have been made to identify the cause and mechanism of motor deficit and subsequent recovery, there are several aspects of hemiparesis, especially in the chronic phase of acquired brain injury, that are still unclear. This study used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to study the role of white matter in upper extremity motor function in chronic hemiparesis, especially after administration of an efficacious therapy, Constraint-Induced Movement Therapy (CI therapy). This therapy has been proven effective in treating chronic motor deficit and has recently been associated with structural changes in the gray matter tissue in the brain. The goal of …

The Effects Of Naturally-Occurring Fatigue And Task Difficulty On Effort Related Cardiovascular Response, Jason Lagory

All ETDs from UAB

Wright's integrative analysis suggests that effort can be measured via cardiovascular (CV) response. In addition, the analysis breaks with tradition in suggesting that effort varies not with benefit alone, but also with the difficulty of the behavioral challenge at hand. Recent research has focused upon the effects of fatigue on effort related CV response, assuming that fatigue negatively affects perceived ability. Results have supported interactional predictions. Specifically, they have indicated higher levels of CV response among high- as compared to low fatigue participants when tasks were possible and worthwhile and the reverse response pattern when tasks were excessively difficult (given …

Effects Of Endocrine Disruptors On Biomarkers Of Reproductive Function In The Western Mosquitofish, Gambusia Affinis, Samiksha Ashok Raut

All ETDs from UAB

Chemicals introduced into the environment by anthropogenic activities have the capacity to interfere with the endocrine system of living organisms and act as endocrine disrup-tors. To date, most studies have focused on estrogenic endocrine disruptors but reports of androgenic endocrine disruptors continue to increase. In the current study, the western mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis was utilized as a model organism to assess the effects of some known and suspected androgenic and estrogenic endocrine disruptors on various reproductive biomarkers. The biomarkers utilized were: anal fin elongation and differen-tiation, expression of the vitellogenin gene, and sperm production in males. In the studies described …

Topological Models For Julia Sets, Clinton P. Curry

All ETDs from UAB

In this dissertation we discuss topological tools for studying the Julia sets of rational functions. The first results are concerned with pathological cases. To that end, we characterize indecomposable subcontinua of the plane in a way which could prove useful for recognizing indecomposable rational Julia sets, especially those with buried points. We then prove that any counter-example of Makienko's conjecture has an indecomposable continuum as its Julia set, and relatedly study the structure of Julia sets which are irreducible continua. In the direction of understanding less pathological examples, we prove for all connected polynomial Julia sets that there exists a …

Juxtaposing James The Greater: Interpreting The Interstices Of Santiago As Peregrino And Matamoros, John K. Moore Jr

College of Arts & Sciences Professional Work

No abstract provided.

Silver Bullet: Depleted Uranium As A Military Weapon, Ralph Patterson

Vulcan Historical Review

pp. 44-57

Talk To Me, Emily A. Nelms

Vulcan Historical Review

pp. 117-120

B 7th, Ken Autrey

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 6

Scene In Dan Xue, Taiwan, 1981, Allen Jih

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 23

The Cardboard Shirt, Elisabeth Murawski

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 31

Teeth, Carolyn Elkins

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 11

To Have You Back, Kathryn Kirkpatrick

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 24

Property Taxes, James Mersmann

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 27-28

Lotus Lilies, Robert Miltner

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 30

Amoskeag Quarry, Paul Nelson

Birmingham Poetry Review

pp. 33-34

The Beautiful, Stan Sanvel Rubin

Birmingham Poetry Review

p. 40