Digital Commons Network^™

Asexual People’S Experience With Microaggressions, Tamara Deutsch

Student Theses

Asexuality as a non-heterosexual identity is a target of microaggressions similar to those experienced by other non-heterosexual identities. In this study asexual participants reported experiencing invalidation, sexual normativity/romantic normativity, pathologization, ignorance, general LGBTQIAP+ prejudice, dehumanization, rejection, disappointment, infantilization, tokenization, sexual threats/pressure, and sexual assault/corrective rape. These microaggressions came from various sources; family, partners/potential partners, friends/acquaintances, medical professionals, media, school systems, other LGBTQIAP+ people, and religious institutions. These led to emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions. Participants also reported negative mental health outcomes they linked to these microaggressions.

Worldwide Distribution Of The Human Apolipoprotein E Gene - The Association Between Apoe, Subsistence, And Latitude, Tiffany S. Ho

Theses and Dissertations

The human apolipoprotein E gene (APOE) plays an important role in metabolizing lipids, regulating plasma cholesterol, and maintaining biological function. Structural differences in APOE variants impact cholesterol absorption and health risk, so that alleles serve as biomarkers for numerous cardiovascular and neurological diseases (Lai 2015). Variant differences are determined by changes in two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), rs429358 and rs7412. Distribution of alleles varies across populations. Allele frequencies in populations have been shown to be associated with cultural and environmental factors, including subsistence strategy and latitude (Eisenberg 2010).

This study aims to provide a cross-population, genetic association study …

Cloning And Spatiotemporal Expression Of Xenopus Laevis Apolipoprotein Ci, Jyotsna Sridharan, Tomomi Haremaki, Daniel C. Weinstein

Publications and Research

Apolipoprotein CI (ApoCI) belongs to the Apolipoprotein superfamily, members of which are involved in lipid transport, uptake and homeostasis. Excessive ApoCI has been implicated in atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease in humans. In this study we report the isolation of Xenopus laevis apoCI and describe the expression pattern of this gene during early development, using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and whole mount in situ hybridization. Xenopus apoCI is enriched in the dorsal ectoderm during gastrulation, and is subsequently expressed in sensory placodes, neural tube and cranial neural crest. These data suggest as yet uncharacterized roles for ApoCI during early vertebrate …

Squatters, Shanties, And Technocratic Professionals: Urban Migration And Housing Shortages In Twentieth-Century Chile, Nathan C. Norris

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the struggles of squatters and slum dwellers for housing prior to the 1973 coup in Santiago de Chile, Valparaíso, and surrounding areas, with a focus on the Frei era of the late 1960s. The work argues that severe urban overcrowding generated advocacy for housing during the rise of progressive and leftist politics in Chile. It also explores the dynamics of efforts to promote housing through the lens of the work of professionals in the fields of architecture and urban planning. It argues that Chilean professionals adopted modernist principals in the fields of architecture and planning when promoting …

Transspinal Direct Current Stimulation Produces Persistent Plasticity In Human Motor Pathways, Lynda M. Murray, Behdad Tahayori, Maria Knikou

Publications and Research

The spinal cord is an integration center for descending, ascending, and segmental neural signals. Noninvasive transspinal stimulation may thus constitute an effective method for concomitant modulation of local and distal neural circuits. In this study, we established changes in cortical excitability and input/output function of corticospinal and spinal neural circuits before, at 0–15 and at 30–45 minutes after cathodal, anodal, and sham transspinal direct current stimulation (tsDCS) to the thoracic region in healthy individuals. We found that intracortical inhibition was different among stimulation polarities, however remained unchanged over time. Intracortical facilitation increased after cathodal and anodal tsDCS delivered with subjects …

Integrating Multiple Instructional Mediums To Teach Critical Literacy With The Adult Linguistically Diverse Learners, Kaemanje Thomas

Publications and Research

Critical reading is the apex of tertiary education and the chief focus in higher education courses as they prepare adults for the workforce. Without significant improvements in academic preparation and support, many linguistically diverse [LD] students will have higher drop out rates in their first year of college. Developmental reading instruction practices are designed to emphasize moving the first-year LD students from sub-par reading levels towards the application and development of critical reading skills, as demanded by their college courses. Many community colleges across the United States prepare assessments tests in reading and mathematics for most, if not all, newly …

Target Engagement Imaging Of Parp Inhibitors In Small-Cell Lung Cancer, Brandon Carney, Susanne Kossatz, Benjamin H. Lok, Valentina Schneeberger, Kishore K. Gangangari, Naga Vara Kishore Pillarsetty, Wolfgang A. Weber, Charles M. Rudin, John T. Poirier, Thomas Reiner

Publications and Research

Insufficient chemotherapy response and rapid disease progression remain concerns for smallcell lung cancer (SCLC). Oncologists rely on serial CT scanning to guide treatment decisions, but this cannot assess in vivo target engagement of therapeutic agents. Biomarker assessments in biopsy material do not assess contemporaneous target expression, intratumoral drug exposure, or drug-target engagement. Here, we report the use of PARP1/2-targeted imaging to measure target engagement of PARP inhibitors in vivo. Using a panel of clinical PARP inhibitors, we show that PARP imaging can quantify target engagement of chemically diverse small molecule inhibitors in vitro and in vivo. We measure PARP1/2 inhibition …

The Variability Of Neural Responses To Naturalistic Videos Change With Age And Sex, Agustin Petroni, Samantha Cohen, Lei Ai, Nicolas Langer, Simon Henin, Tamara Vanderwal, Michael P. Milham, Lucas C. Parra

Publications and Research

Neural development is generally marked by an increase in the efficiency and diversity of neural processes. In a large sample (n=114) of human children and adults with ages ranging from 5 to 44 yr, we investigated the neural responses to naturalistic video stimuli. Videos from both real-life classroom settings and Hollywood feature films were used to probe different aspects of attention and engagement. For all stimuli, older ages were marked by more variable neural responses. Variability was assessed by the intersubject correlation of evoked electroencephalographic responses. Young males also had less-variable responses than young females. These results were replicated in …

Numbers Are Just Not Enough: A Critical Analysis Of Race, Gender, And Sexuality In Elementary And Middle School Health Textbooks, Sherry L. Deckman, Ellie Fitts Fulmer, Keely Kirby, Katharine Hoover, Abena S. Mackall

Publications and Research

Textbooks are a multimillion dollar publishing business in the United States. Even as 21st-century classrooms become more multimodal, digital and hardcopy textbooks remain a key feature of American education. Consequently, classroom textbooks have been shown to control knowledge dissemination across the content areas. In particular, health texts have been uniquely shown to communicate values that validate or marginalize students and encourage healthy or harmful activity. Thus,what textbook makers choose to include as worthy of study, and how they portray various groups of people with regard to race, gender, and sexuality has societal implications. Employing quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods, …

Precocious Development Of Self-Awareness In Dolphins, Rachel Morrison, Diana Reiss

Publications and Research

Mirror-self recognition (MSR) is a behavioral indicator of self-awareness in young children and only a few other species, including the great apes, dolphins, elephants and magpies. The emergence of self-awareness in children typically occurs during the second year and has been correlated with sensorimotor development and growing social and self-awareness. Comparative studies of MSR in chimpanzees report that the onset of this ability occurs between 2 years 4 months and 3 years 9 months of age. Studies of wild and captive bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have reported precocious sensorimotor and social awareness during the first weeks of life, but no …

Evidence For Energetic Tradeoffs Between Physical Activity And Childhood Growth Across The Nutritional Transition, Samuel S. Urlacher, Karen L. Kramer

Publications and Research

Despite broad implications for understanding human life history, energetics, and health, the impact of physical activity on childhood growth remains unclear. Particularly understudied is the effect of secular changes in physical activity on child development. We address these shortcomings using data spanning the transition from traditional to semi-developed economy among Yucatec Maya agriculturalists. Anthropometric and behavioral observation data were collected from children living in a subsistencebased rural community in 1992 and again in 2012 following the introduction of a school and mechanized technologies but minimal overt dietary change. Multiple regression analyses demonstrate dramatic twenty-year transformations in how children spent their …

Why World Art Is Urgent Now: Rethinking The Introductory Survey In A Seminar Format, Gretchen Holtzapple Bender

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

Ultimately, what can and should an introductory course in the history of art do? What difference can it make and what work can it perform? To fully contemplate these questions and radically rethink the standard large-lecture survey, in an experiment, it was taught as an advanced seminar to both majors and general education non-majors, with “global understanding” privileged over extensive content knowledge. The classroom environment moved from the authoritative stance imposed by a lecture format to a space for speaking and listening that was collaborative and exploratory, nurturing curiosity and critical thinking not just about disciplinary knowledge and methods, …

Measuring Perceptual Consciousness, Marjan Persuh

Publications and Research

Conscious perception is typically assessed with either objective or subjective measures (Seth et al.,2008). Measures are considered objective if conscious perception is estimated from performancein a discrimination task; inability to discriminate between stimuli is taken as evidence thatparticipants had no conscious perception (Hannula et al., 2005). Measures are considered subjectiveif participants report their visual experience on each trial (Sergent and Dehaene, 2004; Del Culet al., 2007). One type of subjective measures consists of metacognitivejudgments; the relationshipbetween metacognition and perceptual awareness is a matter ofdebate (Fleming and Lau, 2014;Jachs et al., 2015) and I will not discuss these measures further. Likewise, …

Nanoparticle Elasticity Directs Tumor Uptake, Peng Guo, Daxing Liu, Kriti Subramanyam, Biran Wang, Jiang Yang, Jing Huang, Debra T. Auguste, Marsha A. Moses

Publications and Research

To date, the role of elasticity in drug delivery remains elusive due to the inability to measure microscale mechanics and alter rheology without affecting chemistry. Herein, we describe the in vitro cellular uptake and in vivo tumor uptake of nanolipogels (NLGs). NLGs are composed of identical lipid bilayers encapsulating an alginate core, with tunable elasticity. The elasticity of NLGs was evaluated by atomic force microscopy, which demonstrated that they exhibit Young’s moduli ranging from 45 ± 9 to 19,000 ± 5 kPa. Neoplastic and non-neoplastic cells exhibited significantly greater uptake of soft NLGs (Young’s modulus13.8 MPa). In an orthotopic breast …

Jack Goldstein In Los Angeles, Kirby Michelle Woo

Theses and Dissertations

This paper reexamines Jack Goldstein as one of the key but under recognized figures of what came to be known as the postmodern period in American art. Often described as bridging the gap between conceptualism and pop art, his work explores visual strategies of representation through the lens of art and mass media and how they inform our understanding of the world around us. Goldstein's interest in representation is outlined by the cultural practices and aesthetic priorities of Los Angeles (where he began making art) of the late 1960s and 1970s and by extension, Hollywood.

Slave To The Rhythm: Variation In The Acoustic Signaling Of Picoides Woodpeckers, Alex Baer

Theses and Dissertations

We explored rhythmic variation in acoustic signals by geography across four species of Picoides woodpeckers. We hypothesized that there would be an effect of geographic location on the cadence of drums and rattle-type calls. No significant effect was observed. However, drum cadence was observed to significantly impact conspecific recognition in playbacks.

Long Vacation In Bk, Doll Chao

Theses and Dissertations

The diary of a transcontinental search for self and place, a journey through obtuse politics, cultural oppression, and loneliness - this film is the document of a lost generation of Taiwanese youth and its conflict with China, swirling in a transpacific gyre of sound, image, and text.

How The Egg Rolls: A Morphological Analysis Of Egg Shape In The Context Of Displacement Dynamics, Ian R. Hays

Theses and Dissertations

Very little is known about how morphology effects the motion, stability and the resulting viability of avian eggs. The limited research that exists focuses on the pyriform or ‘pointed’ egg shapes found in the Alcidea family. This unusual shell form is thought to suppress displacement and prevents egg loss on the cliffside nesting habitat of the Uria genera. Unfortunately, these studies never isolated or quantify the specific morphological features (elongation, asymmetry and conicality) of these pyriform eggs, which limits their applicability to other taxa and hampers a robust proof of concept. We isolated each feature as a variable, produced models …

The Role Of Mdm2 In Dna Damage Signaling, Stanley Tam

Theses and Dissertations

The overexpression of the oncogene MDM2 is common in a variety of human cancers. MDM2 overexpression is known to increase genome instability in cells by delaying DNA double strand break repair and γH2AX levels. This study explores the knockdown of MDM2 and how it may affect DNA damage signaling.

Electronic Rhapsody: Theremin And Matryomin, Kayoko Nakamura

Theses and Dissertations

Electronic Rhapsody: Theremin and Matryomin is a short documentary film, which explores two magical musical instruments: the Theremin and the Matryomin. Both instruments represent innovations in the history of electronic music. The film depicts the world of these unique musical instruments, their inventors and performers who make up the community.

Xu Zhen & Madein Company: The Phenomenon Of Artist-Company, Qianfan Gu

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis is about the phenomenon of "artist-company" -- commercial methodologies employed by contemporary artists are determining their artworks. Taking XuZhen as a case study, it attempts to understand the phenomenon through aspects including art autonomy and institutional theories. It argues that "artist-company" is a continuation of institutional critique.

Consumption And Ceramics At The Rural Homestead Of The Raddin-Badgley Family, New Providence, Union County, New Jersey, Carissa A. Scarpa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the expression of consumer behavior and choice through the ceramic assemblage from the Raddin-Badgley house site, a late-18th to mid-19th-century rural homestead located in Berkeley Heights, Union County, New Jersey. Emphasis is placed on the ceramic assemblage recovered from a 4- by 5-meter (13- by 16-foot) cellar hole, the primary feature remaining from the homestead. The analysis was focused on answering three questions. First, how does the ceramic assemblage reflect consumer behavior over time from the earliest period of occupation to the latest? Second, how does the ceramic assemblage reflect the consumption behaviors of specific individuals or …

Combatting The Illegal Pet Trade: Using Molecular Techniques To Determine The Provenience Of Illegal Ring-Tailed Lemur (Lemur Catta) Pets, Jessica Knierim

Theses and Dissertations

One of the biggest threats facing the Endangered ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) is the illegal pet trade. This study compares genotypes of 20 pet L. catta to a geographically-referenced allele frequency database of 4 wild populations (n=35) in attempt to determine their source population. This study will have many conservation implications.

Factors Of Annual Reproductive Success In North American Barn Swallows (Hirundo Rustica Erythrogaster) In Shared Greenspace, Joseph Czeisel

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined three metrics related to barn swallow reproductive success in shared greenspace. Earlier nesting dates were positively related to reproductive output and survival rate. Anthropogenic disturbance was not found to influence productivity. The distance of nests inside structures predicted survival rate. The monitoring of additional seasons is recommended.

Contesting Representations Of Gender And Womanhood In Mexico The Photomontages Of Lola Álvarez Bravo, 1935–1958, Alana Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Lola Álvarez Bravo (1903–1993), a Mexican photographer, photojournalist, portraitist, and teacher created approximately thirty photomontages during the span of her fifty-year career. This thesis argues that Álvarez Bravo turned to photomontage during targeted periods of her career in order to contest and challenge prevailing discourses on motherhood and femininity. A close analysis of eight photomontages produced between 1935 to the last printed in 1958 make evident the manifold ways Álvarez Bravo represented gender as a contested, political, and personal concern.

The Microbe Directory: An Annotated, Searchable Inventory Of Microbes’ Characteristics, Heba Shaaban, David A. Westfall, Rawhi Mohammad, David Danko, Daniela Bezdan, Ebrahim Afshinnekoo, Nicola Segata, Christopher E. Mason

Publications and Research

The Microbe Directory is a collective research effort to profile and annotate more than 7,500 unique microbial species from the MetaPhlAn2 database that includes bacteria, archaea, viruses, fungi, and protozoa. By collecting and summarizing data on various microbes’ characteristics, the project comprises a database that can be used downstream of large-scale metagenomic taxonomic analyses, allowing one to interpret and explore their taxonomic classifications to have a deeper understanding of the microbial ecosystem they are studying. Such characteristics include, but are not limited to: optimal pH, optimal temperature, Gram stain, biofilm-formation, spore-formation, antimicrobial resistance, and COGEM class risk rating. The database …

Flp-1 Neuropeptides Modulate Sensory And Motor Circuits In The Nematode Caenorhabditis Elegans, Ingrid Buntschuh, Daniel A. Raps, Ivor Joseph, Christopher Reid, Alexander Chait, Raubern Totanes, Michelle Sawh, Chris Li

Publications and Research

Parasitic nematodes infect over one quarter of the population worldwide, causing morbidity in over one billion people. Current anthelmintic drugs are beginning to lose effectiveness due to the presence of resistant strains. We are interested in the role of neuropeptides, which regulate behaviors in all organisms, as another possible target for anthelmintic drugs. FMRFamide-related peptides (FaRPs) are a family of neuropeptides that are conserved throughout the animal kingdom. In particular, nematodes contain the largest family of FaRPs identified thus far and many of these FaRPs are identical among different nematode species; FaRPs in nematodes are collectively referred to as FLPs …

Ten Years Of Food Policy Governance In New York City: Lessons For The Next Decade, Nicholas Freudenberg, Nevin Cohen, Janet Poppendieck, Craig Willingham

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Regulation Of Radioactive Fracking Waste, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman, Nichole Leclair

Publications and Research

Natural gas extracted form shale reached record production totals in 2015 in the United States and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts natural gas production will continue to increase. Wastes from shale gas extraction can contain the radioactive isotopes radium-226 (Ra-226) and radium-228 (Ra-228), which decay further into radon (Rn). Exposure to radon, a form of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), is the leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, after smoking. This article explores how states handle the disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) and/or NORM waste from oil and gas operations to …

Experiential Learning Activity: Biodiesel Inquiry Project, Ji Kim

Open Educational Resources

The activity described herein can be implemented in introductory chemistry and high school chemistry courses. The main goal of the project is to integrate a ubiquitous biodiesel production with experiential learning by providing a community-based project. The students work in groups, research the benefits of using biodiesel over petroleum-based diesel, collect waste cooking oil from home or restaurants, develop simple and cost-effective methods to produce biodiesel.