Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Metrically Defined Uniformization Map Of Planar Domains, Ivan Holden Mann

All ETDs from UAB

Let D be the unit disk in the Riemann sphere C and D ∞ = C\D be its complement. A standard way to uniformize a proper simply connected domain U ⊂ C containing 0 is to consider a Riemann map φ : D → U such that 0 maps to 0. Images in D ∞ of radial line segments are called conformal rays. Brouwer defines metric rays in U using the centers of maximal balls touching ∂U and a function ψ, which we call here the Brouwer map. We use a new definition len of length under which every path …

Fall Out Boys And The Spice Girls: Understanding The Criminal Careers Of Those Who Use Spice, Whitney Julia Marsh

All ETDs from UAB

Since the early 2000s, Novel Psychoactive Drugs (NPDs) have been gaining popularity in the illicit drug world. One of the most popular NPDs is synthetic marijuana, commonly referred to as spice. Initially unregulated, spice became popular among and accessible to a diverse array of people throughout the United States. Deleterious health effects, including death, have been attributed to spice use. Recognizing a lack of criminological research available on spice use, this study seeks to understand why individuals use spice—why they began to use spice specifically, why they persisted, and why they quit if applicable. Based on 34 in-depth interviews and …

A Multi-Modal Approach To Sulforaphane-Mediated Chemoprevention Using The Epigenetic Network, Samantha Martin

All ETDs from UAB

Colon cancer is the third most common diagnosed cancer in both women and men in the United States. It is reported that dietary factors are responsible for 70-90% of colon cancer cases. While some investigators have observed a direct correlation in high fat diets and cancer initiation, other studies have observed opposite effects mediated by fruit and vegetable consumption. Recently, studies have highlighted the importance of Epigenetics as it modifies gene expression without changing the DNA sequence. Notably, several nutritive compounds have been reported to alter epigenetic profiles in many cancer forms. SFN, an isothiocyanate found in cruciferous vegetables such …

The Ecology And Evolution Of Invertebrate-Cyanobacterial Symbioses, Kenan Matterson

All ETDs from UAB

Intimate partnerships between marine invertebrates and microbial symbionts have garnered renewed interest, as advances in next generation sequencing have revealed substantial microbial diversity in tropical sponges and ascidians. These datasets have generated a suite of new questions concerning the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that structure these microbial partnerships. The research presented herein addresses such questions by integrating in situ ecological manipulations with modern molecular techniques to characterize the interactions between the host invertebrate and microbiome and its potential role in structuring marine communities. Implementing in situ manipulative shading experiments alongside replicated bacterial clone libraries, I documented significant variation in host …

Predicting Internalizing And Externalizing Child Behavior: A Comparative Analysis Between Autism Spectrum Disorder And Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Elizabeth Mcrae

All ETDs from UAB

Parent-related and environmental factors are both important variables in predicting and understanding internalizing and externalizing child behaviors. In clinical child populations, these factors are particularly important not only because of the increased demands the child’s disorder places on their caregivers and their environment but also because of the increased levels of internalizing and externalizing child behaviors associated with childhood psychopathology. Two such clinical child populations are Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Specifically, parents of children with these disorders are at increased risk of experiencing poorer parental adjustment which affects their parenting behaviors and the routines they …

Diamond-Based Sensors And Diamond Micro-Anvils For Studies On Materials Under Extreme Conditions, Samuel Lawrence Moore

All ETDs from UAB

This work encompasses the development and construction of a state of the art Microfabrication facility to produce diamond-based sensors for applications in extreme environments. The facility utilizes maskless lithography housed in a class 7000 clean room and DC-sputter deposition, along with a 1.2 kW Chemical Vapor Deposition system for the encapsulation of metallic micro-probes in single crystal diamond. Extensive research and development has been applied to developing a novel and reproducible method for fabrication of designer diamond anvils, that feature sensing probes integrated into the diamond anvil and are capable of unobtrusively measuring resistivity of a material whilst simultaneously compressing …

The Effects Of Pain Catastrophizing And Hiv-Related Stigma On Pain Sensitivity In Persons Living With Hiv (Plwh), Michael Alexander Owens

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Due to medical advancements in antiretroviral therapy (ART), HIV has transitioned from a terminal illness to a chronic condition requiring long-term management. Despite substantial improvements in life expectancy in the modern treatment era, PLWH still face significant medical comorbidities and threats to their health-related quality of life. HIV appears to sensitize the peripheral nervous system and facilitate sensitivity to a painful stimulus. A growing body of evidence derived from animal models has shown a specific biological basis linking HIV to pain sensitivity. HIV is likely not the only factor contributing to greater pain sensitivity; there are also important psychosocial factors …

Ritual, Self-Defense, And Territoriality At The Rock Art Site Of Chaturbhujnath Nala, Jennefer Celeste Paxton

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"Chaturbhujnath Nala, located in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, is the longest" "rock art gallery known in the world today. It consists of open-air rock shelters found in a" "rift valley, along an ephemeral tributary that pours into the Chambal River. The shelters" "are composed primarily of Vindhyan sandstone, which has metamorphosed to quartzite" "over time. Because the site is located within the state protected Gandhi Sagar Wildlife" "Sanctuary and safeguarded by the Archaeological Survey of India, the majority of the" "rock shelter paintings are still in immaculate condition. However, these artworks have yet" "to garner much attention by …

"Did She Have A Precursor?": The Intertextuality Of Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night And Nabokov's Lolita, Allie Rabon Pennington

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This thesis argues that an intertextual examination of Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night and Nabokov’s Lolita complicates our understanding of Fitzgerald’s main character, Dick Diver’s sexuality by rendering his desires as similar to those of Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert. First, by examining the biographical histories of and connections between Fitzgerald and Nabokov, I aim to illuminate the authors’ shared influences and experiences as part of their resulting novels’ intertextual relationship. The first section of this thesis applies Lolita as a lens for reading Tender Is the Night, thus highlighting Dick Diver’s problematic sexuality and presenting his character as a precedent for …

Cftr Snp Accumulation In The Context Of Evolutionary Fitness, Zackery Ezekiel Plyler

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Progress in whole genome sequencing in multiple species has provided new knowledge regarding the origins and evolution of large, disease associated genes such as the cystic fibrosis conductance regulator (CFTR). In this context, mechanisms that underlie human mutation, sequence fault tolerance, and maintenance of DNA integrity from the perspective of protein plasticity represent areas of considerable interest. The common occurrence of mutations within CFTR, including the F508del allele, provide a powerful system for studies of this sort. In this project, we consider the stability and persistence of CFTR in terms of longevity, accumulation of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and effects …

Cognitive Correlates Of Driving Behavior In Older Adults With Hiv, Caitlin Northcutt Pope

All ETDs from UAB

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) currently affects over 1 million individuals in the United States. It is estimated that by the year 2020, up to 70% of individuals with HIV in the United States will be ages 50 and older, as these individuals live longer due to more advanced medicine and later diagnosis. Aging research suggests individuals with HIV may be at risk for accelerated or accentuated aging making age-related deficits, particularly with cognition and everyday functioning, of public concern. The current study investigated the complex associations between age, HIV disease state, cognition, health, and driving in 139 older adults (Mage …

Thermodynamics And Kinetics Of Gel-Sol And Liquid-Liquid Phase Transitions: Effects Of Solid Surfaces And Nanoconfinement, Jennifer Rachel Prado

All ETDs from UAB

This research explores the effects of nanoconfinement and solid surfaces on gel-sol and liquid-liquid phase transitions through the changes in the thermodynamics and kinetics. The transitions that occur in the presence of solid surfaces were studied calorimetrically and compared to bulk. Two systems, gelatin gels and triethylamine/water (TEA/H2O) binary solution both undergo a phase transition on heating. Employing differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and isoconversional kinetic analysis, the changes upon introducing a solid surface or nanoconfining were quantified. The first system probes the effect of the addition of laponite, montmorillonite, and chitosan particles on the structure of gelatin gels. It was …

Enhancing Rating-Prediction By Incorporating User Concerns Discovered From User Reviews, Ligaj Pradhan

All ETDs from UAB

Collaborative filtering (CF) based rating prediction discover similar users and items to predict unknown ratings based on how similar users have rated similar items. Discovering and infusing additional knowledge to supplement the discovery of similar users can potentially improve the accuracy of CF-based rating prediction. Neighborhood discovery and non-negative matrix factorization (MF) are very popular techniques for collaborative filtering. Hence, we try to improve these two techniques to increase rating prediction accuracy by using multi-view clustering to better discover neighborhoods and infusing additional user behavior knowledge, respectively. Additional user behavior knowledge is extracted by mining User-Concern vectors (UC-vectors) which represent …

The Effects Of Incubation Environment On The Phenotype Of Hatchling Turtles: Implications For Ecology, Evolution, And Conservation, Taylor Matthew Roberge

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Temperature-dependent sex determination has significant implications for the ecology, evolution, and conservation of reptiles because it can affect sex ratios, reproduction and fitness in a population. The studies presented in this dissertation characterized the impact of temperature on sex determination using both laboratory- and field-based experiments. The effects of fluctuating temperature on sex ratio, incubation duration, and hatchling phenotype were examined at 28.2 ± 5°C and 31 ± 3°C. Fluctuating incubation temperature was found to extend incubation duration, relative to constant incubation temperatures, in both cases and resulted in a significant difference in sex ratio when eggs were incubated at …

From Despised Temporary Governor To First Elected Governor Of Louisiana: The Vindication Of William Charles Cole Claiborne, Stephanie Keller Womack

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ABSTRACT In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson commissioned William Charles Cole Claiborne as a representative of the United States to accept the cession of the Louisiana Territory from France. After the United States took control of Louisiana on December 20, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Claiborne as the temporary governor of the territory while Congress devised a governmental structure of the new territory and the president sought more qualified candidates for the position of governor. The inhabitants of Louisiana protested the choice of Claiborne as temporary governor, pointing to his inability to speak their language (French and Spanish), his youth (he …

The Effectiveness And Feasibility Of The Peers® School-Based Social Skills Intervention For Adolescents With Social Difficulties, Caroline Larkin Leonczyk

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The present study evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of the PEERS® social skills intervention for a transdiagnostic group of adolescents with social difficulties, both with and without neurodevelopmental disorders or mental health diagnoses, in the public high school setting. Twenty-four students participated in the study. Adolescents in the intervention group displayed significantly improved social skills knowledge and overall involvement in conversation compared to those in the waitlist control group. Almost half of adolescents in the intervention group displayed improvements in at least one conversational skill domain that were observable to an independent rater blinded to treatment status and time point. …

Pterostilbene Inhibits The Progression Of Breast Cancer Through The Down-Regulation Of The Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase (Htert) And The Akt/Mtor/P70s6k Pathway, Michael Daniel

All ETDs from UAB

Breast cancer is currently the most commonly diagnosed and second most common cause of cancer related deaths among women in the United States. Although overall breast cancer death rates have dropped over the past decades, current chemotherapeutic methods often prove ineffective and result in off-target, cytotoxic effects. Recently, the use of natural, dietary compounds as agents of chemoprevention and therapy has become increasingly provocative. Pterostilbene (PT), a stilbenoid found largely in the blueberries, has been shown to exhibit both antioxidant and antiproliferative effects in a variety of cancer types. We observed that PT, at physiological concentrations, inhibits the proliferation, cell …

Religious/Spiritual Coping And Attributional Styles Among Adolescents With Chronic Health Conditions And Their Parents: Reciprocal Relationships Over Time, Christina Marie D'Angelo

All ETDs from UAB

Adolescents with chronic health conditions and their parents typically utilize various coping strategies, including religious/spiritual coping, to manage the stress associated with a chronic health condition, yet few studies have examined how parent and adolescent religious/spiritual coping relate to other cognitive factors, such as attributional styles. Additionally, it is important to investigate how parent and adolescent coping and attributional styles influence each other. Better understanding of the temporal dynamics between adolescents’ and parents’ attributions and religious/spiritual coping has important implications for whom and what to target in interventions to help families cope with the challenges of a chronic health condition. …

Ci Therapy And Neuroplasticity After Brain Injury: Repurposing Brain Structures, Michelle Haddad

All ETDs from UAB

assumption of homoskedastic errors is violated, the statistical model is incorrectly

White-Beam X-Ray Diffraction And Radiography Studies On High-Boron-Containing Borosilicate Glass At High Pressures, Kathryn Jinae Ham

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Multi-angle energy-dispersive X-ray diffraction and white-beam radiography studies were conducted on a borosilicate glass sample (17.6% B2O3) to 13.7 GPa in a Paris-Edinburgh (PE) press at Beamline 16-BM-B, HPCAT, The Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. The measured structure factor S(q) to q = 19 Å-1 was used to determine internuclear bond distances between various species of atoms contained in the glass sample. Gold foil was used as the pressure standard. Bond distances for Si-O, O-O, and Si-Si were determined from the reduced pair distribution function G(r) and were measured as a function of pressure. The sample height, as …

Intractable Epilepsy: Does Perception Of Epilepsy Stigma Affect Levels Of Caregiver Burden?, Barbara Hansen

All ETDs from UAB

Objective: The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between affiliate stigma and the levels of burden experienced by individuals caring for family members with intractable epilepsy and to examine how levels of burden may vary between those caring for children and those caring for adults. Methods: This cross-sectional, quantitative approach utilized a self-administered survey offered to caregivers of family members with confirmed diagnoses of intractable epilepsy in a southern state. Caregiver burden was measured using the 30-item Carer’s Assessment of Difficulties Index while levels of perceived stigma were assessed using a six-item scale. Demographic data concerning both …

Exponential Laminations, Patrick Barry Hartley

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Laminations have proved useful in proving facts about polynomial Julia sets. In this thesis, a process by which to construct laminations for certain exponential Julia sets will be presented. This thesis will consider those exponential Julia sets where hairs are identified at a single repelling fixed point, as opposed to multiple repelling fixed points or repelling periodic points. This construction will make use of known facts about the complex exponential function and an itinerary system similar to those used in polynomial laminations.

Neural Correlates Of Social Perception In Children With Autism: Local Versus Global Preferences, Abbey Jane Herringshaw

All ETDs from UAB

The Weak Central Coherence (WCC) account of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD; Frith, 1989) posits that people with ASD utilize a detail-oriented information processing bias. Consequently, in social cognition tasks where coherence is required, people with autism falter, whereas in visual search tasks this is advantageous. Atypical brain response patterns may underlie this cognitive profile. The present study examined the neural correlates of WCC in ASD during visual and social processing. ASD (N=15) and Typically Developing (TD) (N=16) children/adolescents completed an information processing task in a Siemens 3.0 Tesla fMRI scanner. The task consisted of human characters, composed of geometrical shapes, …

Indirect Interactions Affect The Dynamics Of Multidrug Resistance Proteins And Sortase A, Bryan C. Roessler

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The concerted model of allosteric protein regulation suggests that the conformational states of a protein are tightly coupled. Therefore, modifications to a protein (or its substrate) that biases the system towards a specific state will also affect the structure and function of other protein domains, even if the site of the modification and the affected domains do not appear to directly interact. These modfications can manifest as gain-of-function (e.g., biasing the active state and thereby promoting protein function and increasing the affinity for activating substrates), loss-of-function (e.g., biasing the inactive state and thereby antagonizing protein function and decreasing the affinity …

An Examination Of The Neuropsychological Construct Executive Function And How It May Be Impacted By Cognitive And Exercise Interventions, Erica Schmidt

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Background: There is a growing body of literature supporting the beneficial effects of cognitive training and exercise training on executive function (EF) in older adults. More recently, evidence is amassing that interventions which combine cognitive and physical activity, for example, exergames, may confer even greater cognitive benefits. Comparison of EF interventions for older adults requires more investigation and would benefit from improved operationalization of the EF construct and better understanding of factors which predict baseline EF in older adults. Methods and Results: Fifty-seven sedentary, non-gamer, community dwelling older adults were randomly assigned to one of three intervention groups (computerized cognitive …

Mathematical Modeling Of Brain Tumors Advances Patient Care, Oncogenesis, And The Use Of In Silico Clinical Trials, Elizabeth Yates Scribner

All ETDs from UAB

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a uniformly fatal form of brain cancer that can exhibit unpredictable responses to dierent rate-reducing therapies. Here, we construct a mathematical model of brain tumor growth and utilize in silico clinical trials to investigate the unusual behavior of GBM. We also use the model to study the progression of grade 2 and grade 3 tumors to higher grades like GBM. Simulations in Chapter 1 lead to the identication of a previously unknown pattern of progression under anti-angiogenic (AA) therapy, which we call \Expanding FLAIR + Necrosis." Model analysis predicts that clinical features of this growth would …

Neuro-Physiological Underpinnings Of User-Centered Security, Ajaya Neupane

All ETDs from UAB

Computing has become increasingly common in many spheres of users' daily lives. At the same time, the need for securing computer systems has become paramount. The security of computer systems often rely upon decisions and actions of end users -- a principle sometimes referred to as "human in the loop''. User behavior when faced with security tasks can therefore directly or indirectly impact the overall security of the system. In this light, it is vital to understand users' behavior when subject to such tasks. A large volume of prior research in the field of user-centered security has mostly focused on …

Development Of Small Molecule Inhibitors Of S. Mutans Glucosyltransferases For The Prevention Of Dental Caries, Bhavitavya Nijampatnam

All ETDs from UAB

Streptococcus mutans is the primary cariogenic agent of dental caries. This bacterium has developed numerous mechanisms to attach to tooth surfaces and initi-ate the proliferation of biofilms. In addition, S. mutans contributes to the acidification of the oral cavity, as it produces lactic acid from dietary sugars, which ensues tooth decay. Currently marketed caries therapies do not selectively kill cariogenic species, instead they disrupt the whole natural oral flora in the oral cavity including the beneficial species. In order to develop a species specific therapeutic agent, we have targeted the S. mutans glucosyltransferases (Gtfs) for our structure-based drug design. These …

Towards Building An Efficient And Economical Cloud System Using Mobile Infrastructure, Shahid Al Noor

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Cloud computing has become the dominant computing paradigm in recent years. As cloud computing technologies evolved, researchers have explored the possibility of building clouds utilizing ubiquitous mobile computing devices and extend the domain of cloud services from traditional SAAS, PAAS, or IAAS models to distributed storage, computation, and sensing as a service models. Given the number of unused mobile devices in our environment and the invention of low cost and powerful IoT devices, we hypothesize that building a mobile cloud will be economically feasible and will provide cloud services at cheaper rates than existing cloud computing models. We prove our …

Finding Access And Digital Preservation Solutions For A Digitized Oral History Project: A Case Study, Krystyna K. Matusiak, Allison Tyler, Catherine Newton, Padma Polepeddi

Library and Information Science: Faculty Scholarship

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine affordable access and digital preservation solutions for digital collections developed by under-resourced small and mid-size cultural heritage organizations.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents a case study of Jeffco Stories, a collection of digitized oral histories created by the Jefferson County Public Library in Colorado.

Findings – This paper describes how the Jefferson County Public Library undertook a migration project of its oral history digital collection into an open access platform, Omeka and selected DuraCloud as a hosted digital preservation service.

Research limitations/implications – As a case study, this paper …