Growth and plastic deformation of uniaxially aligned lamellar two-phase titanium aluminides

Wilkins, Donny Joe Swiss Federal Institute of Technology 1998 국내박사

Diffusion MRI of the human brain: Signal modeling and quantitative analysis

Wilkins, Bryce University of Southern California 2014 해외박사(DDOD)

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI) and specific applications such as DTI are uniquely capable of revealing the human brain's complex white-matter structure. Since its introduction two decades ago DTI has been applied to a broad range of neurological inquiry spanning neuroscience to clinical research. As the field has matured advances in signal modeling have led to a vast number of alternative diffusion sampling strategies (commonly HARDI techniques) and analysis methodologies. New analysis methods are commonly introduced alongside simulation studies for comparison against alternatives, however differences in signal models, simulation parameters and/or evaluation metrics often prevents a broad comparison of similar work. Consequently it often remains unclear whether or not new techniques are improvements over existing approaches, and if so, under what conditions. Development of real phantoms and synthetic data sets are indispensable for evaluating the accuracy, precision, reproducibility and noise sensitivity of DW-MRI analysis methods in a quantitative manner. While there has been a concerted effort towards this goal, there remains a need for publicly accessible DW-MRI data sets comprising realistic configurations of white matter pathways, with corresponding ground-truth of fiber directions and software tools to permit consistent and comparable detailed evaluation of analyzed data. To this end we develop a comprehensive framework for synthesizing DW-MRI data resembling the human brain, with configurable SNR and diffusion sampling patterns, and apply the resulting data to evaluation of several multi-fiber DW-MRI analysis methods. The data sets and quantitative tools developed were made publicly available. It is our hope that the availability of these tools will enable a greater understanding of differences between analysis methods and development of better techniques. With respect to quantitative diffusion imaging metrics---such as FA and MD which reflect changes in tissue microstructure and have become indispensable to non-invasive in-vivo assessment of neuropathology---it is important to assess the extent to which MR artifacts influence such metrics. While many geometric image distortion artifacts have been investigated and correction methods proposed, less work has examined the effect scanner drift and diffusion-weighting miscalibration have on diffusion metrics. We investigate these sources of erroneous signal change by developing a physical diffusion phantom. Our findings show differences in MD caused by diffusion-weighting miscalibration can be comparable to differences (in the same metric) between subjects or groups reported in clinical studies. This suggests differences in diffusion metrics cited in literature may not solely reflect changes in tissue pathology.

Making sense of violence: A qualitative study of men who have been violent towards female partners

Wilkins, Christine Theuma New York University 2011 해외박사(DDOD)

This qualitative study centers on men who have been violent towards female partners, and explores their understanding and meaning making of their behavior. The sample was selected from among three batterer intervention programs in New York City. Data were collected through in-depth initial and follow-up interviews with sixteen men, aged 23-46 years over a period of one year and analyzed for codes and themes consistent with grounded theory methodology. Making sense of violence was identified as an overarching theme among the men's narratives, and included concepts such as emphasizing self as nonviolent, being in control/being out of control, assuming responsibility for behavior, "it takes two to tango," linking behavior to childhood violence exposure, and recreating one's self. How the men contextualized their violence and their experiences of their participation in a group program were recognized as sub-themes. Implications for clinical practice and future research that specifically focus on men who are violent towards female partners are also discussed.

Households, guilds, and neighborhoods: Social solidarities in Ottoman Aleppo, 1640--1700

Wilkins, Charles Louis Harvard University 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

This thesis examines the social and political transformations of the Ottoman Empire in the seventeenth century by tracing changes in the urban institutions of a provincial city. It considers the question of how, in a period of persistent warfare, urban populations reorganized local institutions in efforts to maintain social and political order. Making use of local court records and central state correspondence, the study focuses on the city of Aleppo, and investigates three basic social units---the residential quarter, professional organization, and patrimonial household---as they underwent two major developments: the diffusion of military cadres in provincial society and the regularized imposition of extraordinary taxes. Focusing on the residential quarter, Part I demonstrates the instrumental importance of this unit in the taxation process and, challenging common assumptions, shows that the central administration remained capable of rigorous and probing cadastral surveys that are associated with "classical" sixteenth-century fiscal administration. Residents of urban quarters in turn met the demands of extraordinary taxation in a variety of ways, primarily by subsidizing tax payments for the poor, jointly managing declining properties, and establishing charitable endowments. Part Two examines two types of professional organizations, guilds and military garrisons. The first chapter of this part considers shifting patterns of leadership and membership in four large guilds as ambitious guildsmen and merchants affiliated with military units and formed ties of clientage with soldiers. The second chapter examines the reverse process by which members of local, city-based military units became enmeshed in the social and economic life of the city. Over time, military units shifted from hierarchical organizations with unity of command to more egalitarian structures motivated by commercial interests. Part III concentrates on one strategy of household-building among the social elite: the acquisition of slaves. Slaveholding in Aleppo was facilitated by the regular movement through the city of military cadres, who sold slaves either as a commercial venture or due to financial necessity. Valued as servants, soldiers, companions, and business agents, slaves assimilated to the households of merchants and military-administrative officials, in some cases providing critical human and material resources for the households' continuity.

Competency development for public library directors

Wilkins Jordan, Mary The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 2012 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of this study is to develop a set of competencies for public library directors, which can help them to successfully lead their libraries. The research objectives for this study were: (1) to identify in the literature and report desired competencies for library manager/leaders drawn from the literature; (2) to validate the competencies found in the literature through the opinions of current library manager/leaders; and, (3) to refine the competencies found in the literature through the opinions of current public library directors. In this study to develop competencies for public library directors, a content analysis of the literature was done to find the important ideas in the literature. Then a Delphi method was used to refine that set from the literature to establish a final set of competencies important over the next decade. No one will develop perfect mastery of all nineteen competencies -- or on all of any competency set. But the important thing is that standards are established to guide directors, to give them the best chance to be successful -- for themselves and for their libraries. The final set of nineteen research-informed competencies should help them achieve professional success, and help their libraries to be as strong as possible in serving their communities.

An examination of the utilization of transformational speech techniques in Southern Baptist homiletical theory since 1870

Wilkins, Stanley Allen New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

The purpose of the dissertation was to analyze the question, What is the role of transformational speech techniques in Southern Baptist homiletical theory? Since James Burns in 1978 distinguished between transactional and transformational leadership, attention has been given to organizational transformation through transformational leadership. Leadership theory has proposed an understanding of transformational leadership and its inherent mode of speaking. Five speech techniques have been delineated from the literature of leadership theory. The techniques are creative speech, interactive speech, visionary speech, empowering speech, and passionate speech. Chapter 1 discussed the five transformational speech techniques in light of leadership and organizational transformation. Chapter 2 surveyed thirty-eight published Southern Baptist homiletical theories, beginning with the 1870 publication of John A. Broadus, in order to identify concepts similar to transformational leadership. Three issues emerged from the survey. First, Southern Baptist homiletical theory presented diversity in approach and content. Second, relational affinities were discovered which included scriptural authority, historical appreciation of preaching, formal and functional analysis, communication analysis, and pastoral preparation. Third, the theories gave limited attention to concepts similar to transformational speech techniques. Chapter 3 hypothesized that a correlation existed between transformational speech techniques and Southern Baptist homiletical theory. The characteristics of the five transformational speech techniques were applied to the theories. Fourteen of the thirty-eight theorists surveyed provided limited correlation. Three considerations emerged from the study. First, Southern Baptist homiletical theory did not intentionally employ the nomenclature or characteristics of transformational speech techniques. Second, only fourteen of the thirty-eight theorists provided limited correlation. Third, no replicable patterns of transformational speech techniques emerged from Southern Baptist homiletical theory. Further study indicated that a qualitative analysis would provide a statistical understanding of transformational speech techniques. Such an instrument would provide objectivity of the qualities of transformational speech techniques and allow homileticians, their theories, or their sermons to be evaluated for transformational intentionality.

Pharmacological characterization of a series of novel n-alkyl nicotinium analogues as neuronal nicotinic receptor subtype-selective antagonists

Wilkins, Lincoln Haworth, Jr University of Kentucky 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

Molecular techniques have dramatically increased our knowledge of the diversity of nicotinic acetylcholine (nACh) receptors during the past decade. Multiple nACh receptor subtypes have been identified using cell expression systems. However, the identity of the specific subtypes in neural pathways, and their roles in the pharmacological response to nicotine remain to be elucidated. The lack of selective pharmacological tools to probe specific receptor subtypes has impeded the comprehensive understanding of the pharmacology of native nACh receptors. The focus of the current work was the development of novel subtype-selective nACh receptor antagonists. The hypothesis to be tested was that n-alkylation of the pyridine nitrogen of nicotine (S(−)NIC) converts it from an agonist to an antagonist, and furthermore, that altering the chain length of the <italic>N</italic>-n-alkyl substituent would optimize potency and selectivity. Functional and equilibrium binding assays were utilized to determine novel <italic>N</italic>-alkyl analogue interaction with respective nACh receptor subtypes. Inhibition of S(−)NIC evoked [<super>3</super>H]dopamine release from superfused rat striatal slices (an assay for an α3β2* subtype), inhibition of radioligand binding to brain homogenates and sections, and inhibition of S(−)NIC-evoked <super>86</super>Rb<super>+</super> efflux were the assays utilized to assess the structure-activity relationship (SAR) between analogues of <italic>N</italic>-alkyl chain lengths of from C₁ to C₁₂. Results of the SAR analysis identified <italic>N</italic>-octyl nicotinium iodide (C₈, NONI) and <italic>N</italic>-decyl nicotinium iodide (C₁₀, NDNI) as lead antagonists. NONI potently and completely inhibited S(−)NIC-evoked [<super>3</super>H]dopamine release, but was ineffective as an inhibitor of S(−)-[<super>3</super>H]NIC binding and the high-affinity component of S(−)NIC-evoked <super>86</super>Rb<super> +</super> efflux (binding and functional assays for an α4β2* subtype). In contrast, NDNI exhibited high affinity for the α4β2* subtype as determined in the binding and <super>86</super>Rb<super>+</super> efflux assays, but was ineffective as an inhibitor of an α3β2* subtype defined by the S(−)NIC-evoked [<super>3</super>H]dopamine release assay. Autoradiographic analysis revealed that neither NONI nor NDNI interact with receptors containing β4 or α7 subunits. Taken together, the results of these studies suggest that NONI interacts selectively with an α3β2* subtype, and NDNI interacts selectively with an α4β2* subtype. This research provides the basis for further SAR analyses to optimize development of pharmacophores affording selective interaction with nACh receptor subtypes.

Ghosts between the wars: History and the imagination in Proust, Woolf, and Greene (France, Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene)

Wilkins, Amanda Elizabeth Irwin Princeton University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

Ghosts Between the Wars: History and the Imagination in Proust, Woolf, and Greene explores Le Temps Retrouve, Mrs. Dalloway, and A Gun for Sale as narratives in which World War One haunts the landscape of the mind. Relationships with history and with other people are presented by Proust, Woolf, and Greene as mysteries that must be constantly and imaginatively re-engaged. All three suggest that our ethical obligation to imagine gains urgency in an era of crisis and division. In each text, division---whether between home and the Front, civilians and soldiers, ally and enemy---is both exemplified and undercut by some version of ghostly doubleness. Characters and places that appear to be opposites prove to have unexpected affinities. I argue that all three novels have a shared focus on home as a fragile space of relative safety, and that each illuminates a different temporal vantage point on the war as traumatic event. In Le Temps retrouve, war breaks in as a current event, confronting the narrator with the shock of interruption. With home overtaken by front-line fighting, Combray is a space that bears both the marks of the narrator's personal past and the marks of the collective present, bringing disparate times and experiences into relationship. In Mrs. Dalloway, the war is recent trauma, coated over by a thin veneer of routine and sentimental patriotism. Yet, across the gap in experience that divides Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith, the narrative weaves threads of authentic connection. A ghost story of sorts, it suggests that sensitivity to haunting is a mode of compassion. In A Gun for Sale, war looms again on the horizon, a seemingly inevitable repetition. Greene's thriller suggests that the future is shaped by what haunts us, by the dynamic of remembering and forgetting, and by our unwillingness to see ourselves in our enemy. Informed by the work of Valery, Kermode, Nussbaum, and Bakhtin---and framed by the modern trauma of September 11---my project argues that narrative is a collaboration between imaginative storyteller and imaginative reader, serving as an intersection between the experience of history articulated in the text and the experience of history readers bring to it.

Perceptions of Anti-White Discrimination: Whites' Ego-defensive Response to Racial Progress

Wilkins, Clara L University of Washington 2011 해외박사(DDOD)

Recent trends suggest that Whites are increasingly identifying themselves as victims of racial discrimination. Why might this be occurring? I argue that Whites' perceptions of anti-White discrimination are a response to racial progress: minorities beginning to occupy high status and high power positions traditionally occupied by Whites. I assert that Whites are threatened by racial progress. Threat causes Whites to feel worse about themselves (experience lowered implicit self-worth), and they compensate for decreased self-worth by perceiving greater amounts of discrimination. Four studies provide support for these hypotheses. A survey confirms that the more racial progress Whites perceive, the more anti-White prejudice and discrimination they report. An experimental study verifies the causal direction of the hypothesized effect; Whites primed with racial progress, by reading an article highlighting racial minorities' achievements, report more anti-White and personal experiences with discrimination than those who read a control article. Another experimental study examines the extent to which individual differences in endorsement of the status hierarchy shape perceptions of discrimination. Whites most committed to the status hierarchy perceive the greatest amount of anti-White discrimination and the greatest evidence of threat (lower implicit self-esteem) after reading about racial progress. A final study manipulates self-threat by using a self-affirmation procedure. This study demonstrates that the effects of status hierarchy endorsement on anti-White discrimination perceptions are mitigated when the self is affirmed. Studies 3 and 4 thus provide support for the proposition that racial progress is threatening to Whites (particularly to those who endorse status legitimizing beliefs). Together these studies suggest that when racial minorities advance in society, Whites are more inclined to see their group as suffering from racial discrimination. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for policies designed to remedy social inequality.

Members of the Jury Please Rise: Children Interact with African American Children's Literature

Wilkins, Ebony J University of Illinois at Chicago 2015 해외박사(DDOD)

Since the last publications of The Brownies' Book (TBB) and Ebony Jr., there have been few to no instances of public exchanges of African American children's writing in response to literature with a focused attention on their culture, identities, experiences, and history. In an effort to reconnect with youth, much in the way that TBB and Ebony Jr. correspondences allowed, this study sought to once again gauge the reactions of children after reading African American children's literature (AACL). The current research employed descriptive case study methodology (Yin, 2006) in order to examine the reactions of children after interactions with AACL. The current inquiry examined the following questions: what are children's reactions after reading AACL, and how do the written reactions align with the historical purposes of this literature. This study aimed to add to existing literature on reader response theory and the significance of AACL and its impact on children's understanding of their worlds. As a result of the present study we now know that children reacted to AACL by discovering new knowledge, making a range of connections, and negotiating cultural and racial evaluations and insights. In the written reactions addressed to internal and external audiences, participants also addressed racial challenges and appropriated historical language. As a result of the present study it is clear the five participants, although divided into two discussion groups, reacted to AACL in similar ways. These findings are significant because AACL gave participants the opportunity to discuss literature written about authentic Black life and to have their questions, opinions, and writings recognized.