Digital Commons Network^™

What’S At “Steak”: The Drivers Of Deforestation In The Brazilian Amazon And Potential Multilateral Solutions, Soleil Gaylord

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper examines the contemporary drivers of deforestation in the Brazilian Legal Amazon and how multilateral solutions can be employed to bring forest loss to zero. Insights from the scholarly literature and five expert interviews allow a critical assessment of how the rise of unilateralism presents a novel threat to the Brazilian Legal Amazon and, by proxy, those relying on the region’s raw resources and ecosystem services. Integrating analyses of both Brazilian institutional structures and global environmental governance frameworks, this study examines the primary historical and contemporary factors driving accelerated deforestation rates observed under Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. In identifying …

The Role Of Frugivorous Birds As Seed Dispersers: Feeding Selection And Preference Of Madagascar’S Avian Frugivores In Analamazaotra Forest, Thaddeus Bashaw

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Madagascar is a country rich in floral and faunal diversity. However, anthropogenic habitat destruction and climate change increasingly threaten its biodiversity. Endozoochorous plants that dependent on frugivory for seed dispersal are under threat due to increasing rates of localized extinctions of frugivorous lemurs, the primary seed dispersers of the island. While lemurs are the islands most abundant frugivores, other frugivorous vertebrates like birds and bats likely play a significant role in seed dispersal, although this role is still poorly understood. This study, conducted in Analamazaotra forest, compares the rates of visitation and consumption of six endemic fruiting tree species by …

The Effects Of Gender-Based Violence On Maternal And Neonatal Health Among Women Of Reproductive Age Seeking Services At The Gender-Based Violence Recovery Center At Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching And Referral Hospital, Mana Tezuka

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this study is to provide recent data analysis on the patients that come in to seek services at the Gender-Based Violence Recovery Center at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital. The demographic features that will be analyzed include age, gender, pregnancy status, and follow-up trends. There will be an in-depth case study that will look at the perspective of a patient that experienced forms of gender-based violence during and after her pregnancy and the perspective of the counsellor assigned to this patient’s case. There will also be an analysis on an interview conducted with the nurse-in-charge …

“¿Te Invité Yo A Vivir Aquí?” … Vivir Contra La Pendiente: Resistencia Entre El Mapa Y El Territorio, El Caso Del Cerro Las Cañas, Darlene Guadalupe Valencia

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the Mega Fire of Valparaíso in 2014, more than 1,000 hectares were burned, leaving 12,500 people not only without their homes, but without their neighborhood. 15 people were killed and more than 500 people were injured. This socio-natural catastrophe was a clear demonstration of the marginality and abandonment in which the peripheral sectors of the urban configuration of the city find themselves. Given that most of the communities that live in these sectors have their homes as a result of “tomas de terrenos”, which is the unauthorized occupation and habitation of land, entails a significant level of vulnerability as …

Changes In Identity: How Mongolian Musicians And Performers Have Responded To Geopolitical Transition, Heather Cook

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

During Mongolia’s socialist period, traditional forms of Mongolian music were deliberately altered as the government, heavily influenced by the Soviet Union, attempted to modernize Mongolian culture. Throughout this period, traditional instruments were modified, the types of music that could be performed were strictly censored, and the structure of performances was set to strictly mimic those of Western orchestras. After Mongolia’s Democratic Revolution of 1990, the artistic freedom of Mongolian musicians has greatly increased, but even now, socialist cultural policies are deeply intertwined with Mongolian musical culture. Why is this the case? What is the common perception among performers about the …

Tsaachin Reindeer Herders: Perceptions Vs Reality, Sharla Dart

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mongolia is a country commonly known for its vast steppes and rich culture of nomadic pastoralism. Images of livestock grazing on the open steppe often come to mind when people think about the country. However, what about the lesser-known reindeer herders? The Tsaachin reindeer herders of Mongolia are an ethnic group in the northernmost region of the country that have been subject to common misconceptions stemming from perceptions created by people consuming exaggerated and false narratives. This study aims to discover if perceptions that outsiders have influence the reindeer herders of the West Taiga.

Retracing Revolutionary Footsteps: The Legacy Of The People’S War In The Maoist Heartlands, Katherine Coetzer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In 1996, Nepal was engulfed in a civil war when the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) – hereafter referred to a— launched a guerilla war against the state. In historical and political scholarship on the conflict, there has been a tendency to situate the conflict with a neat set of causes and consequences. In focusing on the macroscale changes, such narrations of “Big History” obscure the experiences of the Nepali people who were—and continue to be— impacted by war with the loss and violence endured clinically tallied in human right reports and social science studies. Within rigid analyses, the variegated …

What Makes Mad Honey “Mad”? An Investigation Into The Obsession Of The Himalayan Wild Cliff Honey, Codi Farmer

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Mad honey is a rare variety of cliff honey found in the mountainous regions of Turkey and Nepal and has been harvested by Indigenous groups for centuries. In Nepal, it is found on high-hanging cliffs that people risk their lives to face, but what makes this honey so special to cause generations of Nepalis to brave the formidable heights? Through a series of reading primary and secondary sources, watching first-hand accounts of honey hunting, and interviewing honey hunters, filmmakers, authors, and laypeople alike, I work to find the answer to the puzzling question – what makes mad honey "mad"? In …

Incisionless Targeted Adeno-Associated Viral Vector Delivery To The Brain By Focused Ultrasound-Mediated Intranasal Administration, Dezhuang Ye, Jinyun Yuan, Yaoheng Yang, Yimei Yue, Zhongtao Hu, Siaka Fadera, Hong Chen

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors are currently the leading platform for gene therapy with the potential to treat a variety of central nervous system (CNS) diseases. There are numerous methods for delivering AAVs to the CNS, such as direct intracranial injection (DI), intranasal delivery (IN), and intravenous injection with focused ultrasound-induced blood-brain barrier disruption (FUS-BBBD). However, non-invasive and efficient delivery of AAVs to the brain with minimal systemic toxicity remain the major challenge. This study aims to investigate the potential of focused ultrasound-mediated intranasal delivery (FUSIN) in AAV delivery to brain.

METHODS: Mice were intranasally administered with AAV5 encoding enhanced …

The Ascension Of Indigenous Cultural Property Law, Angela R. Riley

Michigan Law Review

Indigenous Peoples across the world are calling on nation-states to “decolonize” laws, structures, and institutions that negatively impact them. Though the claims are broad based, there is a growing global emphasis on issues pertaining to Indigenous Peoples’ cultural property and the harms of cultural appropriation, with calls for redress increasingly framed in the language of human rights. Over the last decade, Native people have actively fought to defend their cultural property. The Navajo Nation sued Urban Outfitters to stop the sale of “Navajo panties,” the Quileute Tribe sought to enjoin Nordstrom’s marketing of “Quileute Chokers,” and the descendants of Tasunke …

Report Of Thanatosis In The Central American Scorpions Tityus Ocelote And Ananteris Platnicki (Scorpiones: Buthidae), Felipe Triana, Fabián Bonilla, Adriana Alfaro-Chinchilla, Carlos Víquez, Cecilia Díaz, Mahmood Sasa

Euscorpius

Thanatosis, or tonic immobility, is a behavior where animals adopt a motionless posture after a physical contact or very close proximity of a predator. This behavior has been described in a wide range of taxa, from invertebrates to vertebrates. For scorpions, tonic immobility has been reported in two buthids, Tityus pusillus and Tityus cerroazul, one hormurid, Liocheles australasiae, and one scorpiopsid, Scorpiops jendeki. Here we report other cases of this thanatosis for two buthid scorpions from lower Central America: Tityus ocelote and Ananteris platnicki. Thanatosis in these species were observed in wild, but was better documented …

The Right To Bear 3d-Printed Firearms: Problems Created By Modern Gunsmithing, Chelsea Karen

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Picture a typical Friday evening at London’s St. Pancras train station with travelers trying to get away for the weekend. You board a train leaving for Paris after going through a vigorous safety check, which includes walking through a metal detector and having your bag scanned. You finally take a seat in a crowded train car when you notice a man standing at the front of the car holding what appears to be a child’s toy gun. It’s clunky, plastic, and crude-looking in that it seems it would fall apart if the man attempted to pull the trigger. In …

Small Business Relief In The Time Of Covid-19: Deservingness Judgments Lead The Ppp To Failure, Blair Hendricks

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In 2020, going to the grocery store or getting a bite to eat looked a little different than usual: normal outings in 2020 required masks and temperature checks, among other safety precautions. As if patronizing businesses was not difficult enough, operating a business in 2020 could have been downright tragic. In December 2020, Steven Klein, the owner of Vision Lanes Bowling Alley, posted a tribute on his Facebook page to his beloved business. The following is an excerpt from that post:

This is NOT a political post. My sources are telling me an extension is going to be announced. …

Werckmeister Harmonies, J. Barton Scott

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of the 4K restoration of Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), directed by Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky.

Ever Deadly, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Ever Deadly (2022), directed by Tanya Tagaq and Chelsea McMullan.

Bible And Film: The Basics, James W. Barker

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Matthew Rindge, Bible and Film: The Basics (Routledge: 2021).

Religious Hegemony And "Muslim" Horror Movies, Shaheed N. Mohammed

Journal of Religion & Film

The present paper examines horror films originating in Muslim contexts and available on U.S. streaming services. Using Gramsci's concept of hegemony, the paper examines how such films negotiate and articulate with the dominant Hollywood mainstream horror genre with particular attention to the hegemonic power of the mainstream with its Christian iconography and assumptions.

Teaching Asian Religions Through Film: Response And Reflections, Robin Rinehart

Journal of Religion & Film

This article presents reflections on Chien’s, Richey’s, and Mixon’s articles on the benefits of using film as a component of courses about Asian religions. I first explore how incorporating film can help meet the goals that instructors set as part of their course planning, and then shift to analysis of the various pedagogical strategies Chien, Richey, and Mixon employ, highlighting how the techniques that they use for East Asian religions and Islam can be valuable in teaching about other Asian religions as well.

This paper was part of a panel on “Teaching Asian Religions Through Film” presented at the Association …

Using Film To Teach About Compressed Modernity In East Asian Religions, Jeff Richey

Journal of Religion & Film

Teaching about East Asian religions all too often presents them as artifacts of the premodern past. This can encourage students to assume that modernization has rendered the East Asian past, especially religious traditions, obsolete. Teaching with contemporary East Asian films is a way to remedy that oversight, challenge that assumption, and bring students into contact with East Asian religious cultures as living traditions in modern societies. Since contemporary East Asian societies have been shaped by what Chang Kyung-sup calls “compressed modernity” – a process by which “economic, political, social and/or cultural changes occur in an extremely condensed manner in respect …

Employing A Chinese Ghost Story To Teach The Syncretism Of Chinese Religions, Gloria I-Ling Chien

Journal of Religion & Film

Upon its release in 1987, the Hong Kong blockbuster A Chinese Ghost Story resulted in sequels, adaptations, and two remakes in 2011 and 2020. Despite its popularity, only a few critics have noticed its eclectic representations of Chinese religions, nor has there been any evaluation of its pedagogical potential. This article details how the author employs this 1987 work to teach the syncretism of Chinese religions in an undergraduate course “Asian Religions in Film.” By decoding the embedded concepts, the meanings and history behind “the Jade Garland talisman,” the inclusion of the Diamond Sutra for exorcistic efficacy, and the portrayal …

Life In The Multiverse: Bringing Chaos Out Of Order?, John C. Lyden

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper was given as the opening keynote address at the International Conference on Religion and Film at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on June 8, 2022, and is here presented in that form.

My thanks go to those who organized the conference for Vrije Universiteit, notably Professor Johan Roeland and Miranda van Holland.

2022 14th Annual Student Center For Science Engagement Research Symposium, Student Center For Science Engagement

Student Center for Science Engagement Research Symposium

Student presentations in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Environmental Science, Computer Science, Mathematics, & Psychology

The Effects Of Cyp1a2 And Adora2a Genotypes Association With Acute Caffeine Intake On Physiological Effects And Performance: A Systematic Review, Rabia Rümeysa Kocatürk, İlke Karagöz, Ebru Yanik, Öznur Özge Özcan, Türker Tekin Ergüzel, Mesut Karahan, Nevzat Tarhan

Baltic Journal of Health and Physical Activity

Introduction: This systematic review aims to examine the effects of the CYP1A2 −163C>A and ADORA2A 1976T>C polymorphism on physiological effects and performance relative to caffeine consumption. Material and Methods: In this study, electronic databases including PubMed, Web of Science Core Collection, Korean Journal Database, Russian Science Citation Index, SciELO Citation Index, Scopus, ScienceDirect, ProQuest Dissertations & Thesis Global and EBSCO were searched. Results: The results highlight that individuals with the TT or CT/CC genotype can have differences in caffeine consumption, and C carriers may have increases in the maximum oxygen uptake (VO₂max). The AA or AC/CC …

Exploring The Attributes Of Open Public Spaces In The Developing Cities, Aya Chehab

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

Open Public Spaces, according to Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), are vital elements of urban fabrics that animate communities in cities. These significant spaces not only provide the residents with different facilities, but also promote social, economic, environmental and health opportunities. Successful open public spaces meet the needs of people of various social classes, ethnicities, and different backgrounds in general. Despite its importance within the city, the lack of appropriate design and planning strategies in developing cities have resulted in a degradation of the urban environment and subsequently the quality of urban life. The problem needs to …

Developing An Agent-Based Model Of Pedestrian Wayfinding To Conduct The Best Touristic Path In Historic Districts, Saada Hassan Khaled, Eslam M. Elsamahy, Mary Felix

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

A historic district is a historic and cultural conservation area that reflects traditional aspects from the past. A sense of memorable pathway allows pedestrian to experience the city happily and attract touristic activity in urban historic districts. The characteristics of touristic districts which facilitate pedestrian movement help in determining the optimum track. The aim of the research is to create an agent-based model (ABM) to simulate the activity of pedestrians in historic districts in order to way find the best touristic paths. Using Space-Syntax, a simulation of the interaction of tourists with the attraction points in old districts pathway will …

Searching For Association Of Gsk3Β Rs13314595, Msx1 Rs3821949, Tgfβ3 Rs3917201, And Bmp4 Rs17563 With Non-Syndromic Cleft Lip And Palate, Gabrielle Wainwright, Marie M. Tolarová Md, Phd, Drsc, Mirek Tolar

Orthodontics and Endodontics Theses

Introduction: Non-syndromic cleft lip with or without cleft palate (NCL±P) is characterized by a multifactorial etiology with both genetic and environmental factors playing a role in its embryonic development. Recent genetic studies have identified susceptibility loci and genetic variations in several genes that were associated with the risk of developing NCL±P. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of MSX1, BMP4, TGFβ3, and GSK3β gene variants with NCL±P in a casecontrol data set from Karaikal, India. Methods: The case sample consisted of 331 individuals who were diagnosed with CL (bi/unilateral cleft lip), CLP (bi/unilateral cleft lip and …

Semi-Annual Progress Report #11, Missouri University Of Science And Technology. Inspire - University Transportation Center

Semi-Annual Progress Reports

No abstract provided.

Advances Of Biowaste-Derived Porous Carbon And Carbon–Manganese Dioxide Composite In Supercapacitors: A Review, A. Zekenova, M. Nazhipkyzy, Wanlu Li, A. Kalybayeva, G. Zhumanova, O. Zubova

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

One of the global problems is environmental pollution by different biowaste. To solve the problem, biowaste must be recycled. Waste-free technology is also a way of saving exhaustible raw materials. Research on electrochemical energy sources is currently the most dynamically developing area of off-grid energy. Electrochemical capacitors can operate for a long time without changing performance, they have smaller dimensions, high mechanical strength, and a wide operating temperature range. These properties are effective energy-saving devices. Therefore, supercapacitors are widely used in various industries. This review discussed the methods of obtaining and the characteristics of biowaste-derived activated carbon and carbon–manganese oxide …

A Paraventricular Thalamo-Accumbal Circuit Necessary For Behavioral Inhibition Is Dysfunctional During Opioid Use And Dependence, Kelsey M. Vollmer

MUSC Theses and Dissertations

Suppression of dangerous or inappropriate reward-motivated behaviors is critical for survival, whereas therapeutic or recreational opioid use can unleash detrimental behaviors and opioid use disorder (OUD). Nevertheless, the neuronal systems that suppress maladaptive motivated behaviors remain unclear, and whether opioids disengage those systems is unknown. Here, we investigate the posterior paraventricular thalamus (pPVT) as a behavioral mediator due to its strong connectivity with brain structures important for reward processing, such as the nucleus accumbens (NAc). We and others have found pPVT-NAc neuronal activity is inhibited during reward seeking, but activated when such behaviors would be inappropriate, such as during stress …

Uab Study On Chorioamnionitis Directly Harming The Brains Of Preterm Infants Receives Nih Funding For Further Exploration, Staff

Browse All News

No abstract provided.