Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Femininity Reclaiming Chivalry In The Harry Potter Series, Ashley M. Watson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This paper focuses on the reclaiming of chivalric values by female characters in the Harry Potter series by comparing them to Arthurian characters. Scholars have extensively compared the narrative of the Knights of the Round Table to the global phenomenon of the Harry Potter series, but in this paper I explore, through a feminist lens, a character comparison of the Harry Potter novels and Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur. I will show how female characters in modern literature reclaim chivalry. This is important because it exemplifies a shift in the position of women into a more active role. I …

Perplexions: Perceptions, Plexi And Prose, Amy B. Nelson

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

An understanding of our world is unique to each individual and their experiences. While experiences are often shared, we all process them according to our own schema. Through exploration into the multiple facets of plexiglass, my work examines trauma, loss and its lasting effect on a person's memory of the past, present and perception of the future. These experiences can cause an abrupt shift in personal schema and reshape one’s perception of the world. Through the combination of visual and linguistic stimuli, my trauma-informed work can be a catalyst for my viewers to discuss what they are experiencing and why. …

The ‘Poetry Of Old Roofs’: Edith Wharton And The Art Of Architecture, Elizabeth Emery

Department of World Languages and Cultures Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Known internationally for novels such as The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1921), New York-born Edith Wharton (1862-1937) began her writing career as a poet in 1878 with a self-published volume of Verses. She equated the work of architects and garden designers to that of poets in travel essays from the 1890s and early 1900s, many of which were collected and republished under the titles Italian Villas and their Gardens (1904), Italian Backgrounds (1905), and A Motor-Flight Through France (1908). The present article explores the aesthetics of writing, architecture, and home design in the earliest part …

Review Of Civil War Settlers: Scandinavians, Citizenship, And American Empire, 1848–1870, Alison Clark Efford

History Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

A Generic Qualitative Study Of Primary Grade Reading Teachers' Challenges And Personal Teaching Solutions, Jennifer Lynn Nunes

Theses and Dissertations

Not all children enter school with the same skill set. Teachers of young children know this. Despite this, schools prescribe curriculum and pacing guides as well as assessments that may fit only a subset of students’ instructional levels. Teachers are left to determine the best way to meet the student and mandated requirements. Teachers from two elementary schools from a neighborhood area were interviewed about their perspectives and how they manage instructional expectations to help students learn grade level expectations.

The following research questions were addressed.1. How and why do teachers report adapting literacy instruction for students who are deficient …

Temperature-Dependent Sex Determination (Tsd): Implications For The Biology And Conservation Of The Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys Kempii), Katherine Presz

All ETDs from UAB

The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) has temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) where the incubation temperature of the egg determines the sex of the hatchling. This has significant implications for the ecology, evolution, and conservation of this species because it can affect sex ratios. The studies presented in this thesis address hatchling sex ratios produced in Kemp’s ridley conservation programs using both natural as well as manipulated incubation regimes. First, a histology-based study was utilized to investigate sex ratios produced at the Padre Island National Seashore from 2002-2019. The results indicate that a female bias has been produced each year …

Experimental Characterization Of A Multispecies Plasma In The Pulsed Laser Deposition Of Thin Films, Braden Spiller

All ETDs from UAB

laser deposition (PLD) is a versatile technique for growing epitaxial heterostructures of a wide variety of novel materials combinations. Achieving low-defect layers with atomically sharp interfaces by PLD requires careful management of crystal growth conditions. Control over the flux of depositing particles, their kinetic energy, and the substrate temperature, is generally assumed to be sufficient to obtain high-quality single crystal epitaxy in vacuum. In this thesis, we explore measurements of other parameters of the PLD plasma, such as the ion and electron densities, which may provide quick in-situ guidance and insights into the tuning of the crystal growth and processing …

The Validation Of A Qualitative Analytical Method To Detect Nine Cannabinoids For Forensic Drug Analysis Using Gas Chromtography/Mass Spectrometry, Andrea Shipley

All ETDs from UAB

Cannabis is the most commonly abused drug in the United States and the world. It contains at least 100 phytocannabinoids including tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD), cannabinol (CBN), and cannabigerol (CBG), each of which produce different pharmacodynamics in the human body. Different isomers of THC are present in marijuana, of which Δ9-THC is the main psychoactive chemical. While many states have legalized medical and recreational use of cannabis, marijuana and many other cannabis derivatives remain Schedule I controlled substances federally and in many states including Alabama. Exceptions to these laws include hemp-derived products with a Δ9- THC content of no more …

Method Development Of Drug Court Samples, Kourtney Michelle Steen

All ETDs from UAB

This project was done in collaboration with the Jefferson County Drug Court system. The Drug Court program is available in Jefferson County to youth and adults to help first time offenders with felony drug offenses. Individuals can have their cases dismissed once they complete the rehabilitation program. There are three phases to the Drug Court program with random drug screens conducted through a color-coded selection system. The phases are correlated to completing screens weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. The program is completed once the individual has a clean drug test for 90 days. The overall objectives of this research project were …

Evaluating Cannabinoid Interference And Drug Stability In Oral Fluid For Dui/D Testing, Jasmine Maxwell

All ETDs from UAB

Oral fluid (OF) drug testing was first applied in the workplace and pain management facilities, and is now being applied to DUI/D (Driving Under the Influence of Drugs) cases to help establish probable cause and for laboratory evidentiary confirmation. OF drug testing is efficient due to its easy, fast, gender-neutral and OF sample collection is minimally invasive compared to blood and urine. The objective of this study is to investigate the stability of cannabinoids in OF specimens over time. Limit of detection and potential matrix and analyte interference will also be evaluated. The ANSI/ASB Standard 036 for Method Validation in …

Early Life Stress And Barrier Dysfunction Of The Blood-Brain Barrier, Margaret Ellen Lloyd

All ETDs from UAB

Early Life Stress (ELS) refers to any process or event of chronic and/or sever stress that occurs early in an individual’s development; this can be spurred by environmental or behavioral cues and helps predict inflammation later1 in life. ELS is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other chronic conditions like depression. However, many of the physiological processes that lead to increased risk of chronic illness later in life have yet to be established or examined. The ELS mouse model is used to examine the unknown mechanistic links between childhood stress and risk for chronic disease in adulthood. …

A Systematic Study Of Data Security Issues In Smart Home Iot Devices, Hilal Nur Issi

All ETDs from UAB

The best description of IoT comes from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which defines it as "a global infrastructure for the information society, enabling advanced services by interconnecting things based on existing and evolving interoperable information and communication technologies" (ITU, 2013). Different things, equipment, and household are employed in daily living in our world. The advantages that smart technology provides have piqued the curiosity of academics and practitioners alike. Home appliances have received a lot of attention, since smart technology has been extensively explored and put into practice. A great deal of research has gone into automating the house, making …

The Relationship Between Psychological Profiles And Longitudinal Pain Trajectories In People With Chronic Knee Pain, Daniel Alexander Kusko

All ETDs from UAB

Considerable evidence demonstrates that radiographic findings (e.g., osteophytes) are only modestly associated with the severity of knee pain, suggesting that other biopsychosocial factors likely influence symptom severity. Multiple psychological factors have been linked to worse health outcomes in people with chronic knee pain; however, it remains unclear whether psychological profiles might help explain variability in knee pain severity. The primary goal of this study was to identify unique psychological differences among people with and without chronic knee pain, and then examine whether psychological profiles longitudinally predicted knee pain trajectories over two years. Individuals with (n = 175) and without (n …

Use Of Force By Correctional Officers: A Test Of General Strain And Scial Bond Theories, Benjamin Hixon

All ETDs from UAB

Use of force in corrections is significantly less studied when compared to other fields, such as policing. This is a problem as unnecessary and unjustified use of force in corrections needlessly raises the violence level in correctional facilities, which endangers persons in custody and correctional officers alike. The current study examines use of force in corrections using a theoretical approach. First, Robert Agnew’s general strain theory is applied to understand use of force encounters between persons in custody and correctional officers. Second, Travis Hirschi’s social bond theory is used to investigate whether certain social bonds may relate to reductions in …

Dear Former Phenom, Meredith Beretta

All ETDs from UAB

Dear Former Phenom is a collection of essays and poems covering my life as a female athlete in America, beginning when I was a small child and continuing to my retirement after my senior year as a collegiate student-athlete. As it stands, the collection is incomplete. This current version contains the core memories and the foundation of my discussion. This collection tells the story of my failure to reach my full potential as an athlete. It is the story of me constantly achieving higher and higher achievements, awards, accolades, and praise until I didn’t anymore. Until there was no one …

"To Create A New Image Of Women": The Fight For The Equal Rights Amendment In Birmingham, Alabama, 1972-1982, Christopher J. Bertolini

All ETDs from UAB

This thesis argues that the struggle to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Birmingham, Alabama, rarely focused on the amendment’s legal merits, but rather became a debate about the nature and validity of gender roles. Generally, opponents of the ERA set the terms of the debate and connected the seemingly benign concept of legal equality between men and women with controversial issues like the conscription of women into the military, women’s freedom from the workplace and supposed right to the economic support of their husbands, religious interpretations of gender roles, and abortion. The struggle was primarily one between middle-class …

The Roles Of Racial Discrimination And Sleep In Cognitive Functioning In Diverse Youth, Queenisha Crichlow

All ETDs from UAB

Cognitive functioning is an important aspect of human development that is closely related to youth academic outcomes (Caemmerer et al., 2018). Specifically, there is evidence that cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, and self-control are predictive of academic achievement in youth (Peng & Kievit, 2020). Current research suggests that chronic stress reduces cognitive functioning (Korten et al., 2014), but few studies have examined this relationship for race-related stress, specifically racial discrimination. Considering that racial discrimination is a common and reoccurring type of stress in the lives of minority youth (Hughes et al., 2016), it is possible that chronic exposure to …

What "Makes A Monster Of Their Minds": The Influence Of Honor Culture, Shame, And Homsociality On Anxious Masculinity In Shakespearean Cuckoldry Plots, Hannah M. Cutting

All ETDs from UAB

In early modern drama, cuckoldry is used as the focal point for jokes and as a major plot device. Playwrights who use cuckoldry as a plot point often put the burden of blame on the women of these trysts, regardless of if they have made the women guilty or not, while failing to critique the behavior of men who act out in the face of these accusations. Unlike his contemporaries, Shakespeare seems to criticize men who choose to believe accusations of cuckoldry by putting their faith in homosocial bonds over their marital bonds. Across the timeline of Shakespeare’s plays, four …

The Seekers, Rachel Houghton

All ETDs from UAB

The Seekers is a collection of connected short stories that follows the lives of nomads, travelers, and adventurers who leave one place in search of another. The work explores themes of belonging, visibility, grief, friendship, and survival. The characters in each story weave in and out of each other’s lives as they crisscross the country—fueled by a desire to find home, find themselves, and find connection with others. While they travel, there is the ever-present tension of finding food and shelter, catching rides, and avoiding authorities. In the midst of these challenges, the characters in The Seekers keep moving. Dumpy …

We'll Eat You Up, We Love You So: On The Changes Of The Children's Horror Genre From The 17th Century Onward, Camrie Ann Latham

All ETDs from UAB

Research into the children’s horror genre is, currently, quite limited in that it is often only tangentially related to the history and qualities of the genre itself. This research is typically focused on horror at large, horror films for children, or children in horror. This thesis seeks to analyze the history of the genre and categorize the shifting purposes and intentions that, in turn, reflect larger social fears. It defines these purposes as moving from that of control, to entertainment, to empowerment, with transitionary periods in between. The thesis is also formatted chronologically, beginning in the late 1600s and continuing …

Smoking And Perceived Stress: Examining The Impact Of Racial Identity And Risk For Obstructive Sleep Apnea Through A Moderated Mediation Model, Sofia Mildrum Chana

All ETDs from UAB

Background: Cigarette smoking is known to have a negative effect on individuals’ sleep quality, and symptoms of insomnia. Smoking can particularly exacerbate sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) by increasing irritation and inflammation of the upper respiratory conducts. Previous research highlights the complex positive association between cigarette smoking and perceived stress. Sleep may be an important aspect intervening in the association between smoking and perceived stress, given that individuals who report high stress also report worse sleep quality and are at greater risk for OSA. However, limited research has examined the indirect association of cigarette smoking and perceived …

Crazy Town Stories, Tawanda Nyahasha

All ETDs from UAB

Crazy Town Stories focuses on the themes of strife, pain, perseverance, and faith. The memoir focuses on my childhood in a town called Epworth, one of the worst towns in Zimbabwe. Epworth was a town of compromises. We couldn’t afford decent food, so we ate whatever we could as long as it filled our stomachs. We couldn’t afford to finish up the house we lived in, so we had to live in a house with no flooring, doors, and a ceiling. Since we had to make all the compromises, the town had a habit of changing people. It took people’s …

Insulation And Paper, Mary Elizabeth Skinner

All ETDs from UAB

Insulation and Paper reflects on my childhood and teenage years as a dreamy, adventure-seeking teenager who faced the harsh realities of living through an EF-4 tornado. This piece explores the ups and downs of being homeschooled, the scars of unprocessed trauma, complex family bonds, and growing up being Catholic and homeschooled. The story starts on April 26, 2011, the night before a deadly tornado outbreak, where I was writing on a story titled, Atallas. The first few chapters demonstrate how obsessed I was with fantasy, dance, storms, and adventure, being stuck at home with only a few friends. As the …

Correlates Of Early Adversity In Children And Adolescents: Examining The Interrelatedness Of Aggression, Post-Traumatic Stress, And Suicidal Behaviors, Elizabeth Mcrae

All ETDs from UAB

The negative outcomes associated with adverse childhood experiences, especially child maltreatment ACEs (CM-ACEs), often emerge concomitantly with these experiences and have cascading negative effects across the lifespan. For example,childhood aggression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal behaviors have all been identified as negative sequelae of CM-ACEs. They have been associated with each other, as well, and share several common underlying mechanisms. Thus, it might be that these outcomes collectively exacerbate the risk of experiencing negative effects of CM-ACEs, yet most existing research has examined these risk factors independently. Moreover, these outcomes often emerge early in development, yet most related research has been …

Optical Absorption Of Point Defects In Doped Gallium Oxide Determined By Photo-Induced Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Suman Bhandari

All ETDs from UAB

Beta-gallium oxide (β-Ga2O3) is an ultrawide bandgap semiconductor with promising applications in high-power electronics. The ability of Ga2O3 to be grown from the melt will enable the production of potentially low-cost native substrates, unlike competing materials like GaN and diamond. To fully develop the potential of Ga2O3 as a material for device application, it is critical to have a thorough understanding and control of defects, as well as knowledge of the defect’s thermodynamic transition energy or defect level. This work investigates Fe or Mg, which are used to make semi-insulating Ga2O3 substrates useful for device fabrication, and determines the defect …

Mice With Ghrh Deficiency Are Resistant To The Detrimental Health Effects Of High Fat Diet, Joseph Jablonsky

All ETDs from UAB

According to our previous study, mice with a CRISPR/Cas9 mediated deletion of the GHRH gene have decreased bodyweight, respiratory exchange ratio (RER), energy expenditure compared to wild type animals, and increased insulin sensitivity and enhanced longevity. Calorie restriction enhances lifespan and delays multiple aging related phenotypes; however it is not known how these animals respond to nutritional stressors such as high fat diet (HFD) during the aging process. We subjected 18 month old GHRH-/- male and female mice to a high fat diet to determine differences in response to HFD in aged animals. After HFD exposure, GHRH-/- mice have increased …

The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On College Students With Disabilities Or Pre-Existing Conditions: A Qualitative Dissertation, Caro Celestine Holmes Wolfner

All ETDs from UAB

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a global and multifaceted impact on public health. The onset of the pandemic has resulted in widespread campus closures and transitions from in-person classes to online learning, further exacerbating the mental health crisis brought about by the pandemic. The effects of federal and state regulations have influenced the psychological well-being and mental health of many, more notably for college students with disabilities or pre-existing conditions. However, COVID-19 research on college students with disabilities or pre-existing conditions is limited and mostly international, thus it is of great importance to address these limitations. This phenomenological study …

The Potential Roles Of Broccoli Sprouts (Bsp) And Green Tea Polyphenols (Gtps) In Prevention Of Mammary Cancer, Itika Arora

All ETDs from UAB

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Based on the American Cancer Society statistics, in 2021 1,806,590 new cancer cases and 605,520 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States. Amongst all, breast cancer (BC) is one of the most prevalent cancers that occurs in women. Various lifestyle factors such as alcohol intake, smoking, an unhealthy diet and physical inactivity may result in increased rates of BC risks (cancer-transition) by inducing mutations in DNA. Numerous epidemiological studies indicate that a diet rich in green tea polyphenols (GTPs), and/or cruciferous vegetables such as …

Role Of Dietary Compounds On Modulation Of Epigenetic Mechanisms And Gut Microbiota In Prevention Of Breast Cancer, Manvi Sharma

All ETDs from UAB

Breast cancer is the second leading causes of mortality among women living in the United States, representing a major public health issue. The current chemoprevention therapies can result into various adverse effects. Therefore, the use of dietary bioactive compounds has been of great interest due to their safer, non-toxic and efficacious properties. Sulforaphane (SFN) is an isothiocyanate found in various cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli sprouts (BSp) and green-tea polyphenols (GTPs) contain a major polyphenol, (-)-epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). These compounds have been shown to exhibit several anticancer properties especially as an epigenetic modifier. We investigated the efficacy of BSp or GTPs …

Bacterial Community Structures And Species Delimitation Of Five-Armed Luidia In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Michelle D. Shilling

All ETDs from UAB

Luidia spp. (Family Luidiidae) are important predators in the benthic food web and are abundant in near-shore, shallow soft-bottom habitats throughout the northern Gulf of Mexico. Climate change-related environmental changes, such as ocean warming and acidification, are rapidly intensifying in this region and can have consequences for species diversity as well as individual sea star health through modification of host-associated bacterial communities. Our knowledge of sea star-associated bacterial community structure and dynamics is limited and conflicting genetic evidence has called into question the accuracy of species delimitation of five-armed Luidia in the northern GOM. The primary purpose of this dissertation …