UBIR Repository (Univ. at Buffalo)
Not a member yet
5736 research outputs found
Sort by
Black Masculinity in Early 21st Century Hollywood Cinema
No full textPh.D.Black Masculinity in Early Twenty-first-Century Cinema examines the correlation between the portrayal of black male characters in film and directors' vision for such works in the Hollywood film industry. This dissertation reveals the progression of black masculinity in film through a comparison of movies of the same genre produced in the 20th century and 21st century. I use the theories of scholars like bell hooks and Simone Drake to define black masculinity both historically and within performance presentations. These scholars question whether what we call black masculinity is really just the patriarchal view of white slave masters on nineteenth- century Antebellum plantations. With this thought in mind, this dissertation addresses how film character’s both reflect and impact how the public views black men in society. In a journey that begins with W.D. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (1917), and included King Kong films and Tarzan films; this dissertation concludes with Ryan Coogler's Black Panther (2018 The Director’s Cut, helps to bring a fuller understanding to why black men’s film appearances, with few exceptions, were historical one-dimensional. This dissertation details many iconic characters in black film while providing a history of how these movies were developed. Chapters are separated by different genres black men have portrayed in cinema. These characters are viewed through sexuality, fatherhood/family, black fraternities, biopics, and the varying aspects of African royalty in film. This brings into focus the diversity of black films, yet the monolith of characters in over one hundred years of cinema. I conclude that with many black artist being educated in filmmaking, unlike the actors turned directors in the past, there should be many well written, produced, and directed black themed films in the future. What could make this bright future dim is the fact that there’s no black representation at film studios with the ability to green light movies. With no change in leadership films intended for black audiences will face major challenges to be made. This will ensure studio films with a black subject matter will continue to be seen through a white gaze as in the early twentieth century. The reason is the studio heads are charged with hiring the creative teams to produce all movies so they must be trusted to hire filmmakers of color
Individuals' Decision Making About Risk Under Both Description and Experience
No full textPh.D.Risk and uncertainty play an important role in almost every decision we make. Heterogeneity in risk attitudes constitutes a confounding effect in predicting the behavior of an individual in natural settings. To prevent such confounding effects, understanding individuals’ attitudes towards risk is crucial. This study lies at the intersection of behavioral and experimental economics where we design and run laboratory experiments to understand better how individuals make risky decisions. To elicit an individual’s risk preferences in chapter 2, we ran an experiment over 100 risky decision tasks. We observe that at a 5% significance level 36.9% of the subjects in our experiment are expected utility maximizers. The rest of our subjects are non-expected utility maximizers. In naturally occurring environments people typically make decisions without a complete knowledge of the possible outcomes and risks. In chapter 3, in an experiment under “experience”, the individuals learned the risks associated with the outcomes in each risky decision. In this experiment there were two different types of risky decisions. Some of the risky decisions involved risks of specific monetary outcomes. We call these risky decisions simple binary lotteries. Other risky decisions involved several stages of risk, ending up in specific monetary outcomes. We call these risky decisions compound binary lotteries. We are interested in how these different types of risky decisions affect individuals’ behaviors. We found that compound binary lotteries under both experience and description generated more choices that are consistent with risk neutral behavior. In chapter 4, we tested the reduction of compound lottery axiom. We do not observe statistically significant violations of the reduction of compound binary lottery axiom among our treatments.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
A Low New-Cost, High-Precision Motion Analysis Protocol and a Case Study of Human Chewing Gape During Hard and Soft Food Mastication
No full textM.A.Commercial 3D motion-tracking systems are readily available, albeit expensive, options for motion research in dental science and comparative biology. Most applications using these devices are in whole-body or whole-limb model systems. The extent to which smaller-scale, finer movements can be captured precisely with such systems is limited by factors such as marker size, and the ability of markers to non-invasively track movements without impediment. Motion capture markers in commercial systems range from 3 to 25 mm in diameter, many of which may be inadequately sensitive to smaller-scale movements that occur in motions such as chewing. We designed and tested a cost-effective alternative to commercial turn-key systems for capturing jaw motion in mammals. Using a Video Reconstruction of Moving Morphology based approach, we analyzed the precision and accuracy of a motion capture system based on videos of 3 mm diameter fluorescent paper markers, recorded by two synchronized cameras coupled with blue light filters and blue LED light source to enhance marker-to-background contrast. Using free software (XMALab and R) and custom scripts, our protocol achieved a mean reprojection error of 0.16 pixels. This value translates to a mean accuracy level of 0.02 mm, more than twice as accurate as those reported for several mainstream commercial systems (0.10 to 0.30 mm). We were able to apply this protocol to subject videos of both hard food item cycles, and soft food item cycles, and the system was able to find differences in the jaw opening and closing velocities, as well as the cycle durations. The hard food item had higher velocities, as well as a significantly shorter cycle.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
De-Mystifying the Fog: Assessment of Aerosol Exposure from Novel Nicotine Delivery Devices
No full textPh.D.ENDS devices are extremely heterogeneous products, and the motivations and chemistry associated with their use are constantly evolving. The purpose of this thesis dissertation is to define and describe the prevalence of ENDS use in smoke-free places, and assess the emission of nicotine and particulate matter from a variety of ENDS devices used by human subjects and by instrumentation in order to assess the emissions profiles of ENDS devices under ambient indoor air conditions. In Study 1, a cross-sectional assessment of Wave 2 of the Population Assessment on Tobacco and Health found that ENDS use by cigarette/ENDS co-users in smoke-free places was determined to be potentially driven in part by pro-cessation and harm reductive beliefs, such as the belief that ENDS may pose less risk to users and non-users than conventional tobacco cigarettes. This association combined with prevalence data to suggest that a majority of ENDS/tobacco co-users report using ENDS in smoke-free places, and that these users are more likely to hold a belief that these devices are safer than traditional tobacco cigarettes. Emissions assessments in Studies 2 and 3 detected that, although all ENDS emissions were observed to be significantly lower than tobacco cigarette reference groups, all ENDS devices (regardless of brand, flavor, or device design) were observed to emit significantly greater quantities of airborne PM2.5 and nicotine than were present in the exposure chamber under ambient conditions. As the health effects of exposure to chemicals emitted from ENDS devices are currently unknown, and likely to remain so until adequate longitudinal ENDS use and health data may be aggregated in the upcoming decades, the significant emission of nicotine and PM2.5 matter into indoor spaces by ENDS devices suggests that these devices should be incorporated into smoke-free indoor air laws in order to minimize potential exposure to nearby non-users.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Privacy-Preserving Outsourcing of Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reconstruction
No full textPh.D.Since the broad application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) in the clinic, faster data acquisition against the physical and physiological constraints has been the subject of intense experimental research and theoretical work. Among these efforts, parallel imaging uses multiple receiver elements to exploit the explicit redundancy of the MR data, which can achieve an aggressive under-sampling rate and hence reduced acquisition time. Unwillingly, it leads to the time-consuming post-processing procedure of image reconstruction instead. In this thesis, we propose to leverage the benefit of cloud computing to address the speeding issue. Based on a pay-per-use manner, a clinic with low computational power can easily outsource the computational-intensive tasks of image reconstruction to Cloud Service Providers (CSPs). However, the privacy concerns with outsourcing patients' private data to public cloud servers are ignited and hinder those practitioners from enjoying the benefits of cloud computing. Specifically, we explore the problem of privacy-preserving outsourcing the image reconstruction process in a calibration-less parallel imaging reconstruction method, termed simultaneous auto-calibrating and k-space estimation (SAKE). SAKE is one of the state-of-art algorithms in clinical implementation, which structure an under-sampled, multi-channel data-set in the k-space domain into a single data matrix. The reconstruction can then be formulated as a structured low-rank matrix completion problem. This thesis is seeking to enable a clinic to outsource the most computationally-intensive tasks in SAKE of the resource-abundant cloud servers, taking consideration of both the factors of security and efficiency. In particular, two different protocols are put forward in SecSAKE, with extra emphasis on privacy and efficiency, respectively. The first protocol we propose can enforce a low-complexity matrix transformation over the data in the k-space domain on the clinic end. The clinic can then outsource the transformed data to the cloud and then harness the cloud server to perform iterative computation tasks. The corresponding security analysis shows that the outsourced MRI data are computationally indistinguishable under Chosen Plaintext Attack (CPA) under our assumption. The second protocol provides an alternative model that pursues efficiency by leveraging the architectures of multiple non-colluding cloud servers instead. This protocol can primarily reduce the computational complexity on the clinic side since it only needs to perform a one-round data transformation to retrieve the reconstructed MRI data. During the entire functional computation part, the clinic can stay offline with more flexibility. We conduct thorough privacy and efficiency analysis and extensive experiments over real-world image benchmark to evaluate the performance of the proposed designs. Compared with the original SAKE, the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed privacy-preserving mechanism can provide significant reconstruction time savings while achieving comparative performance on the quality of reconstructed images.In conclusion, we close with a brief discussion of future research directions and then speculate about further approaches to preserving the data privacy in related medical applications, along with the potential obstacles on the road on achieving such objectives that we may encounter.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
The Sound of Music: How Music Can Function as a Social Surrogate to Buffer Against the Negative Effects of Social Threats
No full textPh.D.Social need fulfillment is imperative to well-being (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Lieberman, 2013; Williams, 2007), and individuals are therefore highly motivated to ensure their social needs are satiated. The social surrogacy hypothesis proposes that individuals may use nonhuman social targets, including celebrities, television characters, or comfort foods, to fulfill these needs (Derrick, 2012; Derrick, Gabriel, & Hugenberg, 2009; Gabriel et al., 2017; Gabriel, Valenti, & Young, 2016; Hartmann, 2016; Troisi & Gabriel, 2011). This hypothesis has yet to be experimentally extended to the domain of music; no work has tested if music can function as a social surrogate and buffer against the negative effects of social threats. However, some work has suggested that music could function as a social surrogate; previous research has demonstrated that listening to favorite music is effective in reducing loneliness (Derrick, Gabriel, & Hugenberg, 2009; Pilot 1). Thus, it could be the case that music can function as a social surrogate. The current work sought to examine social surrogacy in the domain of music and make both theoretical and experimental advances in this area. Study 1 aimed to clarify the theoretical mechanisms by which individuals may reap the benefits of music as a social surrogate. This study provided evidence for multiple subtypes of social surrogacy (parasocial relationship, reminders of others, immersion into the world of the music) as they relate to music, but suggested that immersion into the world of the music may be the most effective theoretical mechanism for describing music as a social surrogate. Study 2 aimed to use an experimental design to demonstrate that music increases accessibility of social constructs. Participants completed a writing prompt about their favorite music (vs control music, or an academic control) and then completed a word completion task and measures of their mood. This study did not lead to the anticipated pattern of results; overall, no significant differences emerged between conditions. Instead, the results of this study raised important concerns regarding the effectiveness of the writing prompts to be addressed in future studies. Study 3 used an experimental design to test if music could serve as an effective buffer against the negative effects of social threats. Participants either completed a writing prompt meant to elicit social needs or a control prompt (both from Pilot 2). Next, they completed a writing prompt about their favorite music or control music (using the same writing prompts from Study 2). Finally, they completed measures of mood, rejection, and loneliness. Similar to Study 2, no significant pattern emerged between conditions in Study 3, which raised concerns about the writing prompts that will be addressed in future studies. Taken together, this work helped to establish a theoretical background for music in the context of the social surrogacy hypothesis, provided some evidence that music can function as a social surrogate, and revealed limitations that will be addressed in future work.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Discovery and Investigation of Functional Roles for Very Long Chain Fatty Acids during Necroptosis
No full textPh.D.Lipids are essential biomolecules that have a fundamental role in maintaining membrane architecture. They are also important molecules for energy storage and can have specialized roles as signaling molecules and second messengers. Our cells produce thousands of different lipid species, and there is a growing appreciation that subtle differences in chemical structure, even within a given class of lipids, can have a profound effect on biological function, and that lipids can be mediators of critical cellular processes such as cell division and cell death. In this dissertation, I will discuss efforts toward identifying novel functional roles of lipids during necroptosis, a form of regulated necrotic cell death. We utilized an untargeted liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based approach in order to explore the lipidomes of control vs. necroptotic cells. This approach allowed us to identify lipids whose levels changed significantly during necroptosis. We hypothesized that these changes may play a functional role in necroptotic membrane permeabilization and cell death. We found that there was a general accumulation of ceramides during necroptosis, which has also been observed by other researchers who investigated changes in sphingolipids during necroptosis using a targeted LC-MS-based approach. More interestingly, we also discovered an accumulation of saturated very long chain fatty acids (VLCFAs), which contain ≥ 20 carbons in their acyl chain. These lipids have not been previously connected to regulated cell death. However, we envisioned that these lipids could have profound effects on the structure of cellular membranes, due to their mismatch in chain length with membrane lipids that contain C16 and C18 fatty acyl chains.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Disassembly in Architecture: Devising a Lifecycle System for the Building Envelope
No full textM.S.Architecture has long ignored the rules of obsolescence. Very rarely have architects address their role in considering the End-of-Life (EOL) phenomenon such as reusing, re-purposing, and recycling. This established the way architects design and the construction industry builds components and buildings ignoring long term sustainability. When the buildings are deconstructed, their component materials may not be at the end of their lifespan, which generates massive waste. To harvest the material potential, it is crucial to take a step back and rethink the architectural practice and the way it imagines and constructs architecture. This thesis focuses on the building envelope - one of the major components of any building as a platform to explore planned obsolescence. It looks at the building envelope from load-bearing structures to simply being the curtain walls as individual element. The thesis investigates several precedent studies of unitized curtain wall systems. They are studied with a 'Design-for-Disassembly' (DfD) approach to consider assembly and disassembly of components. The aim is to generate design approaches and strategies for curtain wall systems predicated on the 'cradle-to-cradle' concept leading to complete and selective disassembly. The design strategies--mechanical assembly, assembly through hierarchical lifespan of material, assembly to fixation, modularity, homogeneity, uniformity, and minimal connections--lead the way to understand a potential pattern for designing the next generation of sustainable buildings raising the current concern of environmental and economical assessment.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Extraction and Analysis of Self Identity in Twitter Biographies
No full textM.S.An identity is a word or phrase that is used to refer to a particular social group, category, or role which holds a particular set of culturally-constructed meanings, or stereotypes. Most scholarship assumes that a well defined set of identities exist, which can then be used to study the implications of holding a particular identity. However, the identities we express for ourselves and others are often ill-defined. New methods and data are needed to acknowledge complex identities that manifest in the ever evolving domain of social media and to study the downstream impacts of using them to define oneself or another person.This thesis aims to extract and analyze the identities commonly used in social media. For this purpose, ten million biographies of Twitter users are used as the dataset and unigrams are extracted that pertain to identities and preferences. A similarity based network of identities is then generated to identify, study and explain clusters of related identities.The results indicate that a wide range of identities are used on social media, and that these identities cluster together in previously unexplored ways. Further, overlaps between these clusters signify the intricate nature and use of different expressions of identity in ambiguous contexts present in social media. Furthermore, the identity clusters indicate an expected trend of people choosing to identify with activities, attributes, occupations and preferences that they appear to define themselves by. This fragmentation of self identity is in accordance with prevailing literature in the field, but extends our understanding of how the self is presented in the context of social media.**To request an accessible version of the file(s) associated with this item, contact [email protected]. Please include the item's persistent URL [http://hdl.handle.net/. . .] in your request.*
Exploring Expectations and Integration of International Students at a Seventh-Day Adventist Boarding High School
No full textPh.D.A small, rural Seventh-day Adventist boarding high school in the northeast U.S. has been aggressively recruiting internationally. With this interview-based study, I considered the expectations and experiences of seven students who enrolled as a result. Aligned with Fairclough's (2013) Critical Discourse Analysis, this study centered expectation as the 'object of research' to act as a transdisciplinary point of access to (a) the diverse experiences and perspectives of these students, (b) describing globalization's effects on imagination and identity, (c) a unique research site caught in tensions of values and necessity, and (d) understanding the complexity and possibilities of integration of diverse learning communities