Digital Commons Network^™

The Threshold Of Hearing, Mike Wereski

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

No abstract provided.

Lifting Weights: Sculpting The Body Into An Artform, Stormi Knight

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

I believe the Body is a perfectly designed machine, many people underestimate the body’s ability to do marvelous things. One of the many great things the body can do is maneuver weight. What has this to do with art-science? At first glance weight lifting may not seem like anything but part of an athlete’s routine, however when we think about women there is much more that is to do with aesthetics and real science.

Magic Bullet, Karen Haydock

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Two of the most powerful types of corporations in the world today are those that produce pharmaceuticals and weapons. While the corporations are concerned with increasing their profits, we wonder if their products have any magical powers.

[India ink on rag paper]

This poster explores the military-industrial complex. The weapons industry profits through imperialism. The pharmaceutical industry profits through by taking advantage of people’s illnesses.

The poster has multiple interpretations, hopefully encouraging the viewer to participate by asking relevant questions, such as:

“What is that person drinking?”

”Are they pills or bombs?”

“Medicines cure us - how can a pill …

Ecoscience + Art Initiative: Designing A New Paradigm For College Education, Scholarship, And Service, Changwoo Ahn

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

The paper presents a new initiative, EcoScience + Art, which blooms at George Mason University. The creator explains the background, history, and recent activities of the initiative, and also introduces an on-going special project called “The Rain Project”, a student participatory project to design, construct, and monitor a green infrastructure (i.e., floating wetland) for sustainable stormwater management on campus. The special project is geared to design and present a new paradigm to integrate college education, scholarship, and service. The relevance of the initiative and the special project to STEAM education is discussed.

Designing For Immersive Technology: Integrating Art And Stem Learning, Jane Crayton, Vanessa Svihla

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Students struggle to learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics concepts. The arts have been proposed as a means to engage students in STEM education, resulting in the idea of STEAM. This study investigates how two students in a six-week summer program solved technological and design production problems to create public service announcements for the immersive fulldome on the topic of water conservation. Qualitative data were collected, including interviews, observations, artifacts of student work and reflections. Qualitative analysis focused on integration of STEM content and practices with the arts. The study contributes to what is known about how people learn when …

Beer And Brewing In German Culture: Bridging The Gaps Within Steam, John D. Sundquist

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

A university-level course on science, history, and culture of beer and brewing offers students from a wide range of disciplines a unique opportunity to learn from each other. They gain an appreciation for STEAM and the interaction of a number of disciplines while examining a subject of growing interest. This paper provides a brief description of such a course and includes specific examples of ways in which students explore science, engineering, humanities and the arts, as these areas of research come together in the study of beer and brewing.

What’S In A Name: Exposing Gender Bias In Student Ratings Of Teaching, Lillian Macnell, Adam Driscoll, Andrea N. Hunt

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

Student ratings of teaching play a significant role in career outcomes for higher education instructors. Although instructor gender has been shown to play an important role in influencing student ratings, the extent and nature of that role remains contested. While difficult to separate gender from teaching practices in person, it is possible to disguise an instructor’s gender identity online. In our experiment, assistant instructors in an online class each operated under two different gender identities. Students rated the male identity significantly higher than the female identity, regardless of the instructor’s actual gender, demonstrating gender bias. Given the vital role that …

Ins & Outs Of Faculty Salary Structures & Wage Equity, John W. Curtis

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Mindfulness For Beginners

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Panel: Faculty Diversity & Retention: Best Practices, Mark Hauber

Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy

No abstract provided.

Functional Impact Of 14 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms Causing Missense Mutations Of Human α7 Nicotinic Receptor, Qinhui Zhang, Yingjie Du, Jianliang Zhang, Xiaojun Xu, Fenqin Xue, Cong Guo, Yao Huang, Ronald J. Lukas, Yongchang Chang

Translational Neuroscience

The α7nicotinic receptor (nAChR) is a major subtype of the nAChRs in the central nervous system, and the receptor plays an important role in brain function. In the dbSNP database, there are 55 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that cause missense mutations of the human α7nAChR in the coding region. In this study, we tested the impact of 14 SNPs that cause missense mutations in the agonist binding site or the coupling region between binding site and channel gate on the receptor function. The wild type or mutant receptors were expressed or co-expressed in Xenopus oocytes, and the agonist-induced currents were …

St. Catherine's Director Meets With Oxford-Bound Students, Sarah Gardner, Dave Albee

Press Releases

Naomi Freud, director of Studies for Visiting Students at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, visited the Dominican campus September 3 to meet with the recipients of The Thomas and Joanne Peterson Endowed Scholarship for Dominican Scholars at Oxford.

Benveniste Named Senior Associate Dean For Research Administration And Development, Kendra Carter

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Daily Eastern News: September 04, 2015, Eastern Illinois University

September

No abstract provided.

Life History, Oviposition Characteristics, And Management Of The Ozark Baltimore Checkerspot (Euphydryas Phaeton Ozarkae), Stephen Robertson

Theses and Dissertations

The Ozark Baltimore Checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton ozarkae Masters) is an understudied nymphalid butterfly endemic to the Ozarks that specializes on False Foxglove (Aureolaria sp.) as the larval food plant. Few studies have focused on this animal and much of what is known has been derived from studies of the eastern subspecies (Euhpydryas phaeton phaeton Drury). Genetic evidence shows only slight variation between subspecies, but critical ecological differences are found between the two taxa. Here I present an in-depth life history with respect to general ecology and offer evidence towards species identity. Oviposition behavior (search and egg-site selection) is a key …

Case Studies Of Tolerance And Intolerance In Northeast Arkansas Circa 1900-1970, Monica Campbell

Student Theses and Dissertations

This study is an examination of events in a particular time and place that contributes to a better understanding of a complex culture that allowed white Protestant tolerance and intolerance of other ethnicities, religious creeds, and social and political ideologies to exist in the same petri dish of the Jim Crow South. The Olivetan Benedictine Sisters of Jonesboro, Arkansas faced early Protestant opposition to their Catholic hospital shortly after its opening and again with the arrival of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan. The Sisters’ success provided the script for Reverend Luther Davis Summers, a reactionary Baptist fundamentalist who built a …

The Effect Of Surface Modification Of Aligned Poly-L-Lactic Acid Electrospun Fibers On Fiber Degradation And Neurite Extension, Nicholas J. Schaub, Clémentine Le Beux, Jianjun Miao, Robert J. Linhardt, Johan G. Alauzun, Danielle Laurencin, Ryan J. Gilbert

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The surface of aligned, electro spun poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) fibers was chemically modified to determine if surface chemistry and hydrophilicity could improve neurite extension from chick dorsal root ganglia. Specifically, diethylenetriamine (DTA, for amine functionalization), 2-(2-aminoethoxy) ethanol (AEO, for alcohol functionalization), or GRGDS (cell adhesion peptide) were covalently attached to the surface of electro spun fibers. Water contact angle measurements revealed that surface modification of electro spun fibers significantly improved fiber hydrophilicity compared to unmodified fibers (p < 0.05). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of fibers revealed that surface modification changed fiber topography modestly, with DTA modified fibers displaying the roughest surface structure. Degradation of chemically modified fibers revealed no change in fiber diameter in any group over a period of seven days. Unexpectedly, neurites from chick DRG were longest on fibers without surface modification (1651 ± 488 μm) and fibers containing GRGDS (1560 ± 107 μm). Fibers modified with oxygen plasma (1240 ± 143 μm) or DTA (1118 ± 82 μm) produced shorter neurites than the GRGDS or unmodified fibers but were not statistically shorter than unmodified and GRGDS modified fibers. Fibers modified with AEO (844 ± 151 μm) were significantly shorter than unmodified and GRGDS modified fibers (p< 0.05). Based on these results, we conclude that fiber hydrophilic enhancement alone on electro spun PLLA fibers does not enhance neurite outgrowth. Further work must be conducted to better understand why neurite extension was not improved on more hydrophilic fibers, but the results presented here do not recommend hydrophilic surface modification for the purpose of improving neurite extension unless a bioactive ligand is used.

Novel Methodologies For Locomotion Mode Identification In Lower Limb Prosthesis, Taimoor Afzal

Theses and Dissertations

Lower limbs enable human beings to move in an uncomplicated manner. They support the weight of the body, provide postural stability while moving the body forward and even move it backwards. Regardless of the environment these limbs have the capacity to adapt to any terrain. However, disability as a result of amputation may lead a person to live a dismal life. The deficiency of the ability to walk can have undesirable effect on the amputee from both the physical and psychological point of view. Use of prosthetic devices helps in overcoming this deficiency. The use of prostheses goes back to …

Ford Foundation Ups Commitment To $25 Million For Um Science Building, Tina Hahn

University of Mississippi News

New facility to provide students one of the nation's top STEM learning environments

The Wooster Voice (Wooster, Oh), 2015-09-04, Wooster Voice Editors

The Voice: 2012-Present

This Voice issue's Story of the Week, "Nugent begins tenure as interim president," the Voices Features editors interviewed Interim President Georgia Nugent to get a sense of Wooster's immediate future. "Holden Annex demolished in favor of new hall" looks at the destruction of the temporary housing in order to create new, accessible housing. "Alcohol policy to undergo review" reports on a student-led task force to assess the policies of alcohol use on campus. The Features section continues the Nugent interview, but also looks at a popular I.S. on male reproductive behavior, a TEDx talk from Wooster student Caira Lee, and …

(-)-Oleocanthal Rapidly And Selectively Induces Cancer Cell Death Via Lysosomal Membrane Permeabilization, Onica Legendre, Paul A. S. Breslin, David A. Foster

Publications and Research

(-)-Oleocanthal (OC), a phenolic compound present in extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), has been implicated in the health benefits associated with diets rich in EVOO. We investigated the effect of OC on human cancer cell lines in culture and found that OC induced cell death in all cancer cells examined as rapidly as 30 minutes after treatment in the absence of serum. OC treatment of non-transformed cells suppressed their proliferation but did not cause cell death. OC induced both primary necrotic and apoptotic cell death via induction of lysosomal membrane permeabilization (LMP). We provide evidence that OC promotes LMP by inhibiting …

Systemic Corruption In An Advanced Welfare State: Lessons From The Quebec Charbonneau Inquiry, Denis Saint-Martin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Quiet Revolution in the 1960s propelled the province of Quebec onto the path of greater social justice and better government. But as the evidence exposed at the Charbonneau inquiry makes clear, this did not make systemic corruption disappear from the construction sector. Rather, corrupt actors and networks adjusted to new institutions and the incentive structure they provided. The patterns of corruption emerging from the Charbonneau inquiry bear the imprint of the so-called Quebec model inherited from the Quiet Revolution in at least three ways: (1) the economic nationalism that made public policies partial towards French-speaking and Quebec-based businesses, notably …

Real-Time Laser Beam Alignment To A Remote Target Using Blob Detection And Filtration For Unmanned Mobile Spectroscopy Platform, Jarjees Ahmed Khidir

Theses and Dissertations

In a project supported by NASA, a new unmanned air quality monitoring system has been proposed to look for signs of life on Mars. The system development and tests are specially directed to build an unmanned open-path spectrometer for near-ground biogenic gas concentration detection on Mars. Moved by a mobile robot platform, the spectrometer shoots an infra-red laser beam to a remote retro-reflector and examines the reflected signal looking for the absorption peak of the investigated gas. The problem is that the laser beam needs to be constantly aligned to the retro-reflect (the target) while the mobile robot is moving. …

Translating Time: The Eye, Marico Cobett Bryant Howe

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of the Translating Time: Eye Development research project is to increase understanding of unknown times of prenatal eye development events in mammals, especially in humans, based on the limited set of known timing of such events. The primary mammalian models included nine eutherian mammals: Felis domestica (cat), Mustela putorius furo (ferret), Mesocricetus auratus (hamster), Macaca mulatta (monkey), Homo sapiens (humans), Mus musculus (mouse), Oryctolagus cuniculus (rabbit), Rattus norvegicus (rat), and Acomys cahirinus (spiny mouse). The main subgoals of this research were to: mine the literature to identify a data set of eye development events for the selected placental …

The Tiger Vol. 109 Issue 30 2015-09-03, Clemson University

Tiger Newspapers 2015

No abstract provided.

Spartan Daily, September 3, 2015, San Jose State University, School Of Journalism And Mass Communications

Spartan Daily (School of Journalism and Mass Communications)

Volume 145, Issue 6

Otter Realm, September 3, 2015, California State University, Monterey Bay

The Otter Realm

Open for Business: New BIT Building Is Ready For Students -- More lights, more safety says UPD -- Students pile in for move-in day -- Welcome to the 2015-16 academic year, from President Ochoa -- CSUMB Resources -- Fall 2015 Calendar -- UROC rocks summer research experiences -- Unstoppable- a story of survival, perseverance and inspiration -- Movin' in, Fall 2015 -- People On campus: What are you most nervous and/or excited about for the fall semester? -- Business & Information Technology -- The Promontory -- Vision Students Reception Set. 4 -- Parents welcomed to Otter family -- Burn season …

Draft Genome Sequence Of The Shellfish Larval Probiotic Bacillus Pumilus Ri06-95, Meagan Hamblin, Edward Spinard, Marta Gomez-Chiarri, David R. Nelson, David C. Rowley

Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Faculty Publications

Bacillus pumilus RI06-95 is a marine bacterium isolated in Narragansett, Rhode Island, which has shown probiotic activity against marine pathogens in larval shellfish. We report the genome of B. pumilus RI06-95, which provides insight into the microbe’s probiotic ability and may be used in future studies of the probiotic mechanism.

The Utah Statesman, September 3, 2015, Utah State University

The Utah Statesman

Weekly student newspaper of Utah State University in Logan.

Characterizing Ebola Transmission Patterns Based On Internet News Reports., J. C. Cleaton, Cecile Viboud, Lone Simonsen, A. M. Hurtado, G. Chowell

Global Health Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND:  Detailed information on patient exposure, contact patterns, and discharge status, is rarely available in real time from traditional surveillance systems in the context of an emerging infectious disease outbreak. Here we validate the systematic collection of Internet news reports to characterize epidemiological patterns of Ebola virus disease (EVD) infections during the West African 2014-2015 outbreak.

METHODS:  Based on 58 news reports, we analyzed a total of 79 EVD clusters (286 cases) of size ranging from 1 to 33 cases between January 2014 and February 2015 in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS:  The great majority of reported …