Digital Commons Network^™

Microglial P38Α Mapk Is A Key Regulator Of Proinflammatory Cytokine Up-Regulation Induced By Toll-Like Receptor (Tlr) Ligands Or Beta-Amyloid (Aβ), Adam D. Bachstetter, Bin Xing, Lucia De Almeida, Edgardo R. Dimayuga, D. Martin Watterson, Linda J. Van Eldik

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines from activated microglia has been implicated as an important contributor to pathophysiology progression in both acute and chronic neurodegenerative diseases. Therefore, it is critical to elucidate intracellular signaling pathways that are significant contributors to cytokine overproduction in microglia exposed to specific stressors, especially pathways amenable to drug interventions. The serine/threonine protein kinase p38α MAPK is a key enzyme in the parallel and convergent intracellular signaling pathways involved in stressor-induced production of IL-1β and TNFα in peripheral tissues, and is a drug development target for peripheral inflammatory diseases. However, much less is known about the quantitative …

Procrastination Behaviors In College Students, Lauren Rosetti

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore a student's procrastination and how it relates to their motivation and self-esteem. Procrastination has been found in previous literature to be a prevalent behavior among college students, about 95% of students engage in procrastination. It was hypothesized that students who actively procrastinated would have a positive relationship with intrinsic motivation and high self-esteem. Three scales were administered to students in psychology classes at Rowan (n=69). Analysis revealed that no significant relationship was found between procrastination and intrinsic motivation or procrastination and self esteem. Implications for future research are discussed.

Modifying The Body: Canadian Men's Perspectives On Appearance And Cosmetic Surgery, Rosemary Ricciardelli, Philip White

The Qualitative Report

In postmodern scholarship there has been a temporal shift to thinking of the body as malleable rather than fixed, which has opened space for the remaking of the self via the remaking of the body (Featherstone, 1991; Giddens, 1991). Among men, this process is thought to interact with shifting understandings of masculinity. In this study, 14 interviews were conducted to investigate experiences of masculinity, physical appearance and cosmetic surgery among Canadian men who had undergone or were contemplating cosmetic surgery. Responses suggest that bodily presentations and experiences of masculinity continue to influence how people feel about themselves and their perspective …

Doctoral Students' Conceptions Of Research, Rod Pitcher

The Qualitative Report

In this paper I report a study of the conceptions of research held by a sample of doctoral students at an Australian research-intensive university. I take a unique approach by using metaphor analysis to study the students' conceptions. The students in this study were recruited for an on-line survey in which they answered questions relating to their conceptions of research. I arrived at four categories that I have labelled research is explorative, research is constructive, research is spatial, and research is organic.

Exploring The Experiences Of African American Students With Learning Disabilities In The Post-Secondary Setting, George Williams Jr

Special Education ETDs

During the last 50 years, the overrepresentation of students from African American decent in special education programs has engendered much concern within the education community. In addition, the problem of disproportionate representation of African American students in special education exists in American society as a whole. Given these statistics, little information is available on the perceptions and experiences of African American students with learning disabilities (LD) as they enter higher education. The review of literature indicates that the body of research lacks the voices of African American students with LD in higher education. Lack of research in this area puts …

Hollywood's Other America: Neoliberalism, Us Hegemony, And The Construction Of An Imaginative Geography Of The Americas In Contemporary Us Film, Brent Smith

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis explores the production of Latin America as a space in Hollywood films in the context of neoliberal hegemony and the shifting power relations of late capitalist globalization. Drawing on Edward Said's notion of 'imaginative geographies' I examine the way in which Hollywood representations of Latin America have constructed a spatio-temporal imaginative geography of the Americas that structures US knowledge of Latin America, arguing that these representations form part of a neocolonial discourse that legitimates neoliberal economic expansion and direct US military or political intervention in Latin America. In contemporary US film, this geographic imaginary is produced through representations …

Evoking Visual Imagination In Teaching Writing: Esl Students' Perspectives, Izabella Kovarzina

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

This study examines the relationship between encouraging visual imagination and ESL (English as a Second Language) writing performance. It was designed as a onesemester case study of two groups: high-intermediate and intermediate ESL writers, using a series of pre-writing activities designed to stimulate visual imagination. As an investigation of imagination across different cultures and languages, this study is intended to shed new light on the role of visual imagination in ESL writing instruction. The data collected in this qualitative research study included four principal methods: 1) participants essay assignments exploring different writing topics throughout the 16-week semester; 2) participants' reflection …

Lasting Marks: The Legacy Of Robin Cassacinamon And The Survival Of The Mashantucket Pequot Nation, Shawn Wiemann

History ETDs

My dissertation is a political and cultural history of seventeenth-century Anglo-Algonquian New England. Between the Pequot War of 1637 and King Philips War in 1675-76, a covalent Anglo-Algonquian society existed in New England. This created conditions which allowed the Pequots to reconstitute their communities after the devastation of the Pequot War. Robin Cassacinamon was instrumental in this process. His skills as an interpreter, diplomat, intermediary, and community leader connected Cassacinamon to the surviving Pequots and to important regional Algonquian and Puritan figures of the time. Cassacinamon became Pequot sachem, leading his people until his death in 1692. His work provided …

Finance And Pornography At The Sec: A Media Studies Approach, Mark Hayward

Communication Studies Faculty Publications

This short piece examines investigations into the use of workplace computers to access pornographic material at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States. Rather than focus on the individual or institutional morality of these activities, it examines what thinking about the role played by media in these violations of SEC policy tell us about the changing nature of institutional power and labour in the contemporary moment. Looking at practices of media use and the legal frameworks that structured the porn scandal at the SEC, it concludes by suggesting that media-oriented approach to the economy raises many possibilities …

Networked Expertise In The Era Of Many-To-Many Communication: On Wikipedia And Invention, Damien S. Pfister

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This essay extends the observations made in E. Johanna Hartelius’ The Rhetoric of Expertise about the nature of expertise in digital contexts. I argue that digital media introduce a scale of communication—many-to-many—that reshapes how the invention of knowledge occurs. By examining how knowledge production on Wikipedia occurs, I illustrate how many-to-many communication introduces a new model of “participatory expertise.” This model of participatory expertise challenges traditional information routines by elevating procedural expertise over subject matter expertise and opening up knowledge production to the many. Additionally, by hosting multiperspectival conversations on Wikipedia, the participatory model of expertise introduces epistemic turbulence into …

To Lynch A Child: Bullying And Gender Non-Conformity In Our Nation's Schools, Michael J. Higdon

Scholarly Works

“Lynching is a terror that has many forms; there is the lynching of men’s spirits as well as their bodies.” -- Richard Wright

In January 2010, a 9-year old boy named Montana Lance hung himself in a bathroom at the Texas elementary school he attended. Although certainly shocking, such acts are unfortunately becoming less and less unusual. In fact, the suicide of Montana Lance is very reminiscent of what happened in April 2009 when two 11-year-old boys, one in Massachusetts and one in Georgia, likewise committed suicide just days apart. What would cause these children to end their lives? The …

Macalester Today Summer 2011, Macalester College

Macalester Today

No abstract provided.

Southern Register. 2011.3 (Summer 2011), University Of Mississippi. Center For The Study Of Southern Culture

Southern Register

No abstract provided.

Lost In Translation: Interpreting And Presenting Dublin’S Colonial Past, Theresa Ryan, Bernadette Quinn

Conference papers

As Alderman (2010: 90) has recently written, the potential struggle to determine what conception of the past will prevail constitutes the politics of memory. This paper aims to investigate the politics of memory at play in determining how Dublin’s colonial heritage is constructed and represented to tourists. Dublin’s profile as a tourism destination has grown recently. It attracted 5.4 million visitors in 2009 (Fáilte Ireland 2010). Culture and heritage underpin both its touristic appeal and the city’s official efforts to represent itself as a destination. Much of Dublin’s most iconic built heritage is strongly associated with its development as a …

Researchnews, Issue 5, July, 2011, Dublin Institute Of Technology

Issues

No abstract provided.

Viral Selex Reveals Individual And Cooperative Roles Of The C-Box And G-Box In Hiv-2 Replication, Christy L. Strong, Jean-Marc Lanchy, J. Stephen Lodmell

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

The 5' UTR of HIV-2 genomic RNA contains signaling motifs that regulate specific steps of the replication cycle. Two motifs of interest are the C-box and the G-box. The C-box is found in the 5' untranslated region upstream of the primer binding site, while the G-box is found downstream from the major splice donor site, encompassing the gag start codon and flanking nucleotides. Together the C-box and the G-box form a long-range base-pairing interaction called the CGI. We and others have previously shown that formation of the CGI affects RNA dimerization in vitro and the positions of the C-box and …

Environmental And Taxonomic Bacterial Diversity Of Anaerobic Uranium(Iv) Bio-Oxidation, Karrie A. Weber, J. Cameron Thrash, J. Ian Van Trump, Laurie A. Achenbach, John D. Coates

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Microorganisms in diverse terrestrial surface and subsurface environments can anaerobically catalyze the oxidative dissolution of uraninite. While a limited quantity (~5 to 12 μmol liter^-1) of uranium is oxidatively dissolved in pure culture studies, the metabolism is coupled to electron transport, providing the potential of uraninite to support indigenous microbial populations and to solubilize uranium.

Supplementary files (zip folder) attached (below).

Indigenous Perspectives: The Struggle For Land, Culture And Education In Rivas, Nicaragua, Jeremy Harrison-Smith

Capstone Collection

The domination of Western educational systems and the capitalist market over indigenous social economic structures has been detrimental to communities all over the world. The search for foreign investment and development opportunities, along with local government’s educational structuring has spread these systems to communities in Central America. This research explores first-hand accounts surrounding these influences through the perspectives of two Nahua indigenous communities in Rivas, Nicaragua. First, a history of indigenous struggles in Nicaragua along with U.S. economic influence on land rights, tourism and educational systems are explored. Then, the indigenous communities’ perspectives are presented to understand the effects of …

On The Idea Of Learning Trajectories: Promises And Pitfalls, Susan B. Empson

The Mathematics Enthusiast

Learning mathematics is a complex and multidimensional if not an inherently indeterminate process. A necessary goal of research on learning is to simplify this complexity without sacrificing the ability of research to inform teaching. This goal has been addressed in part by researchers focusing on how to represent research on learning for teachers and on how to support teachers to use and generate models of students’ learning (e.g., Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Fennema, et al., 2001; Hammer & Schifter, 2001; Simon & Tzur, 2004; Steffe, 2004). Recently, the idea of learning trajectories has gained attention as a way to focus …

Apologies In The Healthcare System: From Clinical Medicine To Public Health, Michal Alberstein, Nadav Davidovitch

Law and Contemporary Problems

Alberstein and Davidovitch explore the role of apologies in healthcare systems from a broader perspective. The significance of apology in terms of social solidarity is addressed and the ways in which each apology situation entails a clash between cultural identities are demonstrated. The debate on apology is explored by presenting a public health perspective of apologies following collective traumatic events such as the application of sterilization laws or flawed human experimentations in various settings.

Family Dynamics And Career Decision Self-Efficacy: A Study Of First Year Malaysian Undergraduates, M. Sumari

Research Publications (2011 to 2015)

The study explores the relationship between family functioning and career decision making self-efficacy in a sample of 925 college students in Malaysia. The results indicate that the relationships between family functioning subscales and career decision making self-efficacy subscales were between small and moderate. The study also found that each family functioning subscale contributed less than 15% of the variance in career decision-making self-efficacy. The total variance accounted for by the six family functioning subscales was small (32%). Implications for career counseling and future studies are discussed.

Obama's Presidential (Mixed) Race: Framing And Ideological Analysis Of Blogs And News, Iliana Rucker

Communication ETDs

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States brought a heightened awareness to the role of race and produced speculation about the idealized notion of the achievement of a post-racial United States. This dissertation examined mediated conversations on mixed race identity in response to some of the significant events in the Obama campaign and the first months of the Obama presidency. Specifically, this study examined the ways that newspapers and blogs construct discourses about race, mixed race, and racism. Further, I explored the biological, legal, and social implications as they relate to current constructions of mixed-race identity. …

The Western Michigan University Magazine, Summer 2011, Western Michigan University

Western Michigan University Magazine (1997-present)

• News briefs
• Tech transfer increases trigger product development
• Printed electronics work garnering international kudos
• Researchers tackle rare neurological disease with Vanderbilt colleagues
• Prof puts democratic theories to test in Afghanistan
• Science role models and characters few for female students
• High school mathematics course reduces remedial needs in college
• WMU creative writer wins nation’s top book award
• ‘HeroRats’ combat land mines, tuberculosis
• Multiuniversity team minimizes global warming crop damage
• Lives of Kalamazoo children with autism changed

Street Theatre : Critical Pedagogy For Social Studies Education, Al-Karim Datoo, Zainab M. A. Chagani

Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

This paper aims at exploring the usefulness of street theatre as critical pedagogy in teaching of social studies education. It gives a brief background of street-theatre and its linkages with critical pedagogy. In the light of theoretical underpinnings of this arts-based pedagogy, the paper deliberates upon the relevance and efficacy of street theatre in a social studies classroom. This paper uses a street theatre performance case to look at the techniques such as: body motion, body work, props, use of visual and audio aids, etc.; processes such as: conscientization and catharsis; and dialogical approach employed by street theatre to bring …

Environmental Knowledge, Attitudes, And Behaviours : A Cross Cultural Study Of Malaysian Consumers., Cheong Hui Lu

Student Works (2010-2019)

This study attempted to examine Malaysian consumers across multi-cultural roots; mainly Malay, Chinese and Indian in terms of their environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours. A survey was carried out using a selfadministered questionnaire. A total of 300 Malaysian respondents (150 Malays, 100 Chinese and 50 Indians) were targeted and recruited through quotaconvenience- sampling. Surveys were distributed in various locations in Klang Valley such as hospitals, shopping malls, recreational parks, university and business centres. The respondents were required to complete the questionnaire in 15 minutes and return it back on the spot. The questionnaire was divided into four parts: Part A …

Off The Shelf, Fay Verburg

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.

Tucked In: American Quilts And The Beds They Cover, 1790-1939, Madeleine Roberg

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study examines the size of quilts to determine if changes in quilt size are a reflection of changes in bedstead size. To conduct this study 118 quilt publications and 304 furniture publications (including Sears, Roebuck and Co. retail catalogues). were examined for data on quilts and bedsteads. Using these sources the dimensions of 3299 surviving quilts and 1651 bedsteads were examined to determine whether or not changes in quilts sizes correlate with changes in bedstead dimensions. The study found that quilt size (mean area) steadily declined between 1800 and 1910 and increased in the 1920s and 1930s. The most …

When Knowing Just Isn't Enough: Examining The Role Of Moral Emotions In Health Decision Making Using The Theory Of Planned Behavior, Kate Duangdao

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A proposed integrated Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) model aimed to examine the role of moral emotions and two health outcomes: prosocial behaviors and smoking outcomes. Based on Tangney’s work with shame and guilt-proneness, it was expected that those more prone to guilt would engage in more prosocial behaviors and those more prone to shame would engage in more smoking behaviors. Prosocial behaviors were found to be negatively associated with smoking outcomes. However, results suggested that guilt and shame-proneness seem to function similarly in predicting behavioral outcomes. Components within the TPB were generally positively correlated with each health outcome, however …

Experiences With Peace Corps’ Third Goal: Perspectives Of Peace Corps Mali Volunteers, Elizabeth N. Gardiner

Capstone Collection

When asked what the best part of their service was, the large majority of Peace Corps Volunteers will light up as they describe a cross-cultural experience or relationship. Peace Corps Volunteers want to share these sentiments with Americans. I conducted a qualitative case study by interviewing three fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and evaluating 35 survey responses, in order to explore Peace Corps Volunteers’ perceptions of Peace Corps’ Third Goal- to share a host country culture with Americans. The interviews were transcribed and then compared and contrasted. From the interviews and survey findings, it has been found that the Peace Corps …

On Getting Lost In A Good Book: Bibliomania And The Harry Potter And Twilight Series, Erin Hollis

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Beginning with the common assertion that both the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series have had a positive effect on the reading practices of children, teenagers and adults, this article examines Bibliomania in relation to the Harry Potter and Twilight series in order to interrogate the validity of such an argument. It is easy to find articles, blogs and Amazon.com book reviews that marvel at each of the series’ ability to foster a passion for reading in previously resistant readers, but such a statement erases distinctions between the effects each series has on readers and fails to examine what …