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Spirit Disfigured: The Persistence Of Freedom In The Modernist Novel, Jensen Suther

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

The modernist novel has often been read as an apolitical expression of dissatisfaction with bourgeois modernity. From Kafka to Beckett, the modernists are taken to champion a transcendent condition beyond the straitjacket of society, body, and self. Against this interpretive tradition, my dissertation draws on recent work in philosophy on conceptuality and affect as well as animality and social recognition to develop a new account of the politics of form in modernist fiction. First, the project shows that the idea of a free, self-determining subjectivity is not—as has often been argued—defeated in or left behind by the modernist novel. Rather, …

Imaging Cholinergic And Dopaminergic Systems In Cigarette Smoking And Withdrawal, Katina Constantina Calakos

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Tobacco smoking continues to be a leading cause of preventable disease and death. Individuals face challenges in quitting smoking due to negative experiences in early abstinence such as changes in mood and cognition, as well as the onset of cigarette craving, irritability, and other adverse withdrawal symptoms. Elucidation of neural systems involved in tobacco use and withdrawal may help predict cessation outcomes. The cholinergic and dopaminergic systems of the brain are involved in the reinforcing properties of cigarette smoking. Animal studies demonstrate that chronic nicotine exposure induces changes in beta2-subunit containing nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (beta2*-nAChR) expression and dopamine responsivity to …

Leveraging Omics Data For Better Treatment: Computational Methods For Biomarker Identification, Drug Repositioning, And Polypharmacy Risk Assessment, Zhaolong Yu

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

With the advancement of high-throughput sequencing and massively parallel technologies, more and more omics data are available for biomedical research. Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and microbiomics data help biomedical researchers delve into the complex biological systems and dissect the underlying mechanisms of genetics from different perspectives. Despite the huge success in molecular biology research, the potential value of omics data has not been fully realized, especially for treatment discovery. This thesis is focused on the computational method development for biomarker identification, drug repositioning, and polypharmacy risk assessment, which are three substantial tasks in treatment discovery and development. The first contribution …

Discovery Of Selective Binding Molecules For The Pseudokinase Domain Of Janus Kinase 2, Maria-Elena Liosi

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Janus Kinase 2 (JAK2) is a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase that plays an important role in the regulation of hematopoiesis through the JAK-STAT pathway. JAK2 is comprised of seven Janus Homology (JH) domains, including a C-terminal kinase domain (JH1) responsible for the catalytic activity, and an adjacent pseudokinase domain (JH2). The pseudokinase domain adopts a prototypical protein-kinase fold and can bind ATP, but it lacks critical residues for phosphorylation catalysis. Its primary role is to regulate the function of the JH1 domain, and according to recent insights, it also plays critical role in cytokine receptor dimerization. V617F, the most frequently occurring …

Co-Option Of Alveolar Macrophage Homeostatic Metabolic Networks In Lung Adenocarcinoma, Alexandra Kuhlmann

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Cancer, fundamentally a disease of deregulated tissue homeostasis, substantially alters the composition of the surrounding tumor microenvironment (TME). The metabolic demands for rapid cellular growth and proliferation result in abnormally high rates of glucose and amino acid consumption in cancer cells. We propose a model in which nutrient competition creates a metabolic checkpoint engendering a suppressive TME. Failure to acquire adequate nutrients is compounded by the accumulation of nutritionally—and therefore immunologically—permissive immune cells. In Chapter 2, using a genetically induced mouse model of lung adenocarcinoma, we observed a striking expansion in resident alveolar macrophages (AM). AM accumulation was dependent upon …

Comprehensive Identification And Characterization Of Cajal Body Components, Dahyana Arias Escayola

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Each cell’s nucleus is a safe harbor for the genome (DNA), ensuring the integrity of all of the genes that contribute to development and health of an organism. What’s more, the 3-dimensional (3D) organization of the cell nucleus regulates how genes are expressed to give each cell its unique characteristics. In addition to chromosomes, the nucleus contains nuclear bodies, which are functionally distinct yet membraneless compartments that likely form through liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Nuclear bodies concentrate specific proteins and RNAs on distinct chromosomal DNA regions to regulate gene expression. One of these nuclear bodies, the Cajal Body (CB), is …

On The Surveillance And Spread Of Drug Resistant Malaria In Sub-Saharan Africa, Hanna Y. Ehrlich

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) are among the most important tools in our arsenal to treat and control malaria. ACTs and other antimalarial drugs have contributed to significant declines in global malaria-attributed morbidity and mortality over the past few decades. However, progress is the effort to eradicate the disease has not been equally distributed: sub-Saharan Africa continues to experiences the vast majority of the burden of the disease. Recent reports of ACT resistance in Rwanda and Uganda confirm longstanding expectations that artemisinin-resistant parasites will eventually emerge in Africa. To delay the spread of artemisinin resistance across the malaria endemic sub-continent, it …

Incorporating Ancestry Information Into Association Studies Provides New Insights Into The Genetic And Epigenetic Architecture Of Smoking Trajectory, Boyang Li

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Tobacco smoking is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality and the most preventable cause of a wide range of medical conditions and diseases. Studies showed that smoking was associated with both the genetic predisposition and DNA methylation signatures. To date, association studies have identified thousands of genetic variations and epigenetic alterations associated with smoking behavior. However, a large number of existing studies focused on a single ancestry group, mostly samples of European descent. Furthermore, a majority of the commonly used phenotypes including contrasts of smoking status (e.g. smoking initiation, smoking cessation) and quantitative phenotypes (e.g. pack-year, number of cigarettes …

Identification And Characterization Of Epigenetic Regulators Of Breast Cancer Metastasis, Jocelyn Fang-Yi Chen

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Cancer metastasis remains a major clinical challenge for cancer treatment. It is therefore crucial to understand how cancer cells establish and maintain their metastatic traits. Emerging evidence suggests that key steps of metastasis are controlled by reversible epigenetic mechanisms, which can be targeted to prevent and treat the metastatic disease. Although a variety of epigenetic mechanisms were identified to regulate cancer metastasis, including the well-studied DNA methylation and histone modifications, there are very few epigenetic drugs for cancer treatment and currently none of them was approved specifically for metastasis. Thus, we aim to uncover novel epigenetic regulators and identify the …

‘Hideous Progeny’: The Role Of Monsters And Hybrids In Latin Metapoetry, Treasa Mae Bell

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

This dissertation explores the role of the monster and the hybrid in Latin poetry of the Augustan period. It asserts that these creatures symbolize the embodied literary work through close parallels between their bodies and the body of the texts in which they appear. The opening two chapters (Part I) tie monsters to ancient literary critical disputes. The first examines the connection between monstrous forms and critical terminology. The second chapter, through case studies on the recusatio and many-mouth motif, considers the relationship between the monster’s voice and the political voice of the text. Part II of the dissertation is …

Engineering Functional Distal Lung Epithelium, Katherine Leiby

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

The potential for lung tissue engineering to generate lung tissue capable of gas exchange ultimately rests upon the ability to reconstitute a functional barrier between the air and blood spaces in the engineered lung alveolus. The success of this endeavor will rely in large part on the recapitulation of an alveolar epithelium, comprising alveolar epithelial type 1 cells (AEC1s) and type 2 cells (AEC2s), which provides a surface for gas diffusion, actively maintains critical features of blood-gas barrier function, and comprises resident AEC2 stem cells for ongoing maintenance and repair of the distal lung. Yet, since the beginning of this …

Molecular Mechanisms Of Atg-9 Localization And Function In Neurons, Sisi Yang

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Autophagy is a cellular degradation pathway essential for neuronal health andfunction. Autophagosome biogenesis occurs at synapses, is locally regulated and increases in response to neuronal activity. The mechanisms that couple autophagosome biogenesis to synaptic activity remain unknown. In my thesis work, I determine that trafficking of ATG-9, the only transmembraneprotein in the core autophagy pathway, links the synaptic vesicle cycle with autophagy. ATG-9-positive vesicles in C. elegans are generated from the trans-Golgi network via AP- 3-dependent budding and delivered to presynaptic sites. At presynaptic sites, ATG-9 undergoes exo-endocytosis in an activity-dependent manner. Mutations that disrupt endocytosis, including a lesion in …

Ion Transport In Membranes With Sub-Nanometer Pores: Material Design And Selectivity Mechanisms, Xuechen Zhou

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

As of 2017, over 800 million people around the world still lacked the access to safe drinking water. With over 97% of the earth’s water stored in the ocean, reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination has been proposed as a promising solution to boost the water supply and alleviate the water shortage. Polyamide (PA) thin-film composite (TFC) membranes are the state-of-the-art membranes for RO separation and a typical PA TFC membrane can reject over 99% of the sodium chloride (NaCl) in the feed stream. Despite their exceptional water-salt separation capability, current PA membranes have two major limitations: 1) they are highly …

Learning About Safety: Conditioned Inhibition As A Novel Approach To Fear Reduction Targeting The Developing Brain, Paola Odriozola

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Fear serves an adaptive function by allowing an organism to predict potentially aversive events from environmental cues, increase vigilance, and avoid potential danger. However, fear responses can become maladaptive when they are excessive or prevent an individual from engaging in goal-directed activities (Rothbaum & Davis, 2003). Anxiety disorders, which are characterized by this failure to regulate fear, are the most common psychiatric illnesses, affecting up to one-third of the population (Kessler et al., 2005). Adolescence is a peak time for the onset of mental illness, with anxiety being the most common disorders (Beesdo et al., 2009; Merikangas & Swanson, 2010), …

The Impacts Of Unconventional Oil And Gas Development On Drinking Water And Children’S Health, Cassandra J. Clark

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD) combines horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing (the pressurized injection of millions of gallons of water and chemicals) to extract fossil fuels such as natural gas from deep rock deposits. UOGD has led to community concern over environmental hazards, such as water contamination, and health hazards, such as cancer. This dissertation examines the impacts of UOGD on communities in the Appalachian Basin from the perspective of three disciplines: exposure science, environmental justice, and epidemiology (background and overall aims summarized in Chapter 1). Chapter 2 investigates whether UOG exposure through household groundwater is captured by spatial …

Associations Between Adherence To Lifestyle Behaviors And Obesity-Related Cancer Risk And Outcomes Among Black/African American And Hispanic/Latino Adults, Margaret S. Pichardo

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

BackgroundObesity is a chronic disease that has been established in the etiology of at least 14 cancers. Rates of many of these obesity-related cancers (ORC) have been increasing among Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino populations. Following the American Cancer Association’s (ACS) nutrition and physical activity cancer prevention guidelines has been associated with a 10-61% reduction in overall cancer incidence and mortality. However, just 5 to 14% of the general population and cancer survivors follow these guidelines. Limited research suggests that adherence with the cancer prevention guidelines results in a greater reduction in cancer risk and mortality for Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino …

Fungal Burden Of Disease In Central And South America, Urmimala Chaudhuri

Master of Public Health Program Student Publications

Background: Serious fungal infections are associated with an increase in mortality. Globally, fungal infections affect high-risk groups such as individuals with HIV/AIDS, asthma, transplant recipients, and those on immunosuppression. The most common fungal diseases include Histoplasmosis, Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP), Candidiasis, and Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA). Epidemiological information on the prevalence of fungal diseases has been limited, particularly in Central and South America due to inadequate surveillance. Purpose: The aim of this review was to evaluate the burden of common fungal diseases in Central and South America and discuss strategies of national surveillance. Methods: PubMed searches were conducted from the years …

Combating White Saviorism In Community-Engaged Learning, Eva Harrell

Community Engagement Student Work

The white savior narrative can be seen in a number of different places, including community- engaged learning courses at higher education institutions. We must address this issue because it prevents students and communities from attaining mutual benefits within these relationships, and the student’s perpetuation of saviorism can cause harm in the communities in which they work. In this study, a workshop titled “Interrupting White Saviorism in Community-Engaged Learning” was held for community engaged learning (CEL) instructors and associated faculty in collaboration with the Center for Community-Engaged Learning at the University of Minnesota. Participants were presented with information on white saviorism …

Resilience In Healthcare During Covid-19: Provider And Associate Well-Being At Ohiohealth, Rachel Dosch

Masters Theses/Capstone Projects

Organization: OhioHealth Department: Provider and Associate Well-Being Site Supervisors: Laurie Hommema, M.D. Kristi McClure Lois Sallee Faculty Supervisors: Dr. Paul Longenecker Dr. Erica Van Dop

Wright State University Magazine, Spring 2022, Wright State Alumni Association, Wright State University Foundation

Wright State University Magazine

52-page issue of the Wright State Magazine. This magazine is published twice a year and focuses on news related to Wright State alumni, faculty, and friends of the university.

Healing Layers Of Trauma: Culturally Responsive Counseling With Asian American Clients, Yun Shi, Atsuko Seto, Sharon Stanley

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Learning Objectives
Objective 1: To understand the wide range of traumatic experiences that affect the Asian American population and implications for counseling practice.
Objective 2: To articulate the foundation for establishing a therapeutic relationship with clients of Asian descent.
Objective 3: To be able to apply 3 5 trauma informed and culturally responsive counseling strategies for facilitating the growth and healing of Asian American clients.

Targeting Notch3 With Crispr-Cas9 Technology In Zebrafish Retinal Degeneration Models, Emily Januck

Celebration of Scholarship 2022

Teleost fish such as zebrafish (Danio rerio) have shown the ability to regenerate damaged photoreceptors due to the robust activity of Müller glia [1]. Interestingly, the Müller glia in retinal disease model zebrafish such as bbs2, cep290, and eys do not respond like those in normal zebrafish, making these genotypes a good model to study treatment options in humans [2, 3, 4]. The Notch signaling pathway is a highly conserved cell signaling pathway in many organisms that plays a role in determining cell fates in developmental processes [5]. Specifically, the notch3 gene has been studied and shown to have effects …

Wiley Journal Package: Unl Download Activity By Subject, David C. Tyler, Casey Hoeve, David Macaulay, Robin Mcclanahan

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: White Papers

Because the field of librarianship has been reconsidering its relationship to commercial academic publishers and their 'Big Deal' journal packages, the authors decided to review the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's usage of Wiley's package. In this report, the authors looked into whether UNL's downloads by subject were such that subscribing to a number of hypothetical smaller, subject-specific packages, rather than to the entire Wiley package, might be a viable strategy.

The 835 Weekend: A Model For Recruitment Of Generation Z Entrepreneurs Toward Church Planting In Europe, Mark Good

Doctor of Ministry

The continent of Europe, once a center of spiritual renewal and missionary mobilization, has now become a gospel desert. The need for church planting is acute. The means to address this need is partly through the deployment of church planting teams, yet there is a dearth of both European and expatriate missionary young adults ready to take up this charge. Generation Z entrepreneurs must be successfully engaged and recruited to meet the need for pioneering career church planters among the least reached peoples of Europe. The key insights discovered regarding recruitment of Generation Z to missionary careers come from the …

A More Equitable World: The Social And Economic Benefits Of Investing In Girls’ Education, Norway Dolan

Community Engagement Student Work

Education is a human right, although many children are not afforded this opportunity. Across the world, there are millions of children who are not in school and may not ever be able to complete their education. Specifically in the region of Sub-Saharan Africa, innumerable children are unable to go to school due to many barriers that prevent educational access; girls are especially impacted by these barriers, some of which include poverty, menstruation, and conflict. The rate of children who are displaced from school increases with age, encountering more challenges to educational attainment as they move through the levels in school. …

Applied Behavior Analysis Services In Public Schools, Bridget Soraghan

Community Engagement Student Work

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have a very different educational experience than their peers. The process of providing more resources can be beneficial if insurance plans can help families with the cost and coverage. Research findings explain how more resources can help lower socioeconomic families with earlier diagnoses of ASD in their children. Insurance plans and different policies can provide more educational opportunities for those children. Having more coverage on insurance plans will allow more families to seek Applied Behavior Analysis therapy to work with Behavior Technicians. Public school districts can make opportunities available for non-neurotypical students by providing …

Promoting Impactful Internships With Community Partners, Leeann M. Akers, Samuel L. Stapleton

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the Ernst and Sara Lane Volgenau College of Education at Morehead State University by Leeann M. Akers and Samuel L. Stapleton on April 1, 2022.

Healthy Living Club, Rachel Arens, Alex Curtis

Honors Program: Expanded Learning Clubs

No abstract provided.

Improving Energy Efficiency In Multi-Family Units, Shelby Serritella, Kaylee Steen, Megan Baker, Janette Williams

Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319): Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community projects, spring 2022

Poster titled Improving Energy Efficiency in Multi-family Units with client City of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Improving Low-Income Housing Can Help The Environment!, Ethan Halman Gonzalez, Margo Johnson, Alesha Skoda, Shane Vrbicky

Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319): Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community projects, spring 2022

Poster titled Improving Low-income Housing Can Help the Environment! for client City of Lincoln, Nebraska.