The Relations Between Anxiety Symptoms and Friendships in Adolescence

Anxiety symptoms can often be experienced as a silent struggle in adolescence, as many anxious adolescents do not exhibit outward symptoms. Identifying adolescents who are struggling with subthreshold anxiety symptoms can be even more difficult. As adolescence is a time where friendships become primary sources for emotional support, youth who experience anxiety symptoms and associated distress may have trouble navigating close relationships with peers. The current study aims to investigate the relations between adolescents’ anxiety symptoms and their friendship functioning, as well as the impact of their anxiety symptoms on friends’ emotional adjustment. Data were taken from a larger project on adolescent friendships and emotional adjustment, approved by the University of Maine Institutional Review Board (IRB). Participants (N = 186) were nested within 93 same-gender friendship dyads and were between 13 and 19 years of age. Dyads’ emotional adjustment and friendship functioning were assessed concurrently and after 3 months. Self-report measures of anxiety symptoms, friendship quality, and depressive symptoms were gathered. Descriptive statistics, mean-level gender differences, and correlations among study variables were computed, and dyadic data analyses tested primary hypotheses of interest. Results indicated that anxiety symptoms were not associated with lower levels of positive friendship quality. Additionally, although friends were similar to one another in terms of anxiety symptoms, results did not support evidence of anxiety contagion over 3 months. Future research should test for anxiety contagion across a longer period of time (e.g., 1 year), and studies of adolescent anxiety should continue to control for depressive symptoms to account for the overlap in symptomatology between depressive and anxiety symptoms. This study contributes to the existing literature on the impact of adolescents’ internalizing symptoms on friendships and the emotional adjustment of friends

Computational Analysis of the Structural Importance of the Conserved Glycine Residues at Positions 31, 33, and 35 in the Chromophore Formation and Folding of Green Fluorescent Protein

Green fluorescent protein, initially cloned and expressed from the bioluminescent jellyfish, Aequorea victoria (avGFP), has a wide range of uses in cellular biology, one of which includes uses as a biological marker1. Variants of GFP exist, but some residues are highly conserved and necessary for appropriate chromophore formation. Some of these conserved residues are the glycine residues at positions 31, 33 and 35, though it they are not part of the tripeptide that forms the chromophore2 . The objective of this honors study and 3 related independent studies was to use computational methods to find out why the glycines at positions 31, 33, and 35 are so highly conserved in all fluorescent proteins and what role they play in chromophore formation, folding and stabilizing the protein. Precyclized immature structures (i.e. with no chromophore) have been used in our simulations because there is been evidence that conserved glycine residues play an important role in protein folding3 or chromophore formation, which occurs prior to cyclization. Although mutating the glycine at position 35 to a cysteine3 has been found to be somewhat fluorescent, we chose to make a less aggressive mutations, G31A, G33A, and G35A in order to study because alanine is the most structurally similar to glycine

Class Status and Identity: A Semantic Reading of the Typical Trinidadian House

This manuscript analyzes the use of ornamentation on the exterior of residential architecture, in early 20thcentury Trinidad, as a hybridized product of a class system developed during Colonialism. The manuscript begins with the examination of the socio-political context of late 18th, 19th and early 20th century Trinidadian society, looking specifically at how a boom in the cocoa industry in the 1870’s allowed social mobility for free coloreds and blacks. As a result, this nouveau bourgeois class of cocoa planters sought to affirm their status by displaying their identity in the strongly European influenced houses they designed. The architectural details and ornamentation of the Boissière House will be discussed in depth as a representative example of these nouveau bourgeois mansions. In conclusion, the paper will demonstrate the architectural influence of the elite on other aspiring classes

Modern celebrity and inspiration in South Africa: an examination of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans

The postapartheid condition of a majority of young people in South Africa is substantially similar to the apartheid conditions under which their parents lived. This results in a dominant narrative in the media and everyday talk circulating in South African that the youth are a ‘lost generation’ and also that they represent a significant danger and risk for the stability of our democracy. Against this backdrop The Mail and Guardian, one of the South Africa’s most influential newspapers has chosen to celebrate a small number of young people every year as inspirational and extraordinary in their achievements. This investigation into this representation of a significant - although small - group of young South Africans employed content analysis of the 2015 edition of 200 Young South Africans, interviews with profiled individuals across the years, and a focus group of readers. The study aimed to unpack the complexity of constructing certain young people as exemplary given the structural conditions that constrain and prevent a majority from attaining the education and mobility they need to make a difference in their own lives. The study found through the content analysis that the Mail&Guardian is setting up these young people as exemplary citizens whose actions should inspire other young people to similarly ‘make a difference’. Through the interviews the study found that those featured on the list found both that there was significant social capital in being valorised this way, but that this position was also a complex one to negotiate given the structural limitations of poverty and lack of education for those out of whom they had been chosen. The readers in the focus group did find inspiration in reading about their exemplary peers but they too were conscious of how small a group this was in comparison to the majority of young South Africans. In conclusion the study found that the narrative of hope, inspiration and making a difference is an important message in relation to a generalised hopelessness about South African youth but that it runs the risk of ignoring the significant structural constraints that young, poor, undereducated, unskilled young South Africans face

The Ursinus Weekly, May 29, 1908

Baseball • Interclass game • A successful lecture • Weekly staff entertained • Sophomores entertained • Freshmen entertained • On to Northfield! • Musicale • 1908 football schedule • Sunday School Convention meets here • Personals • Alumni notes • Manager electedhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/2910/thumbnail.jp

The Ursinus Weekly, April 9, 1909

Weekly appointments made • Swarthmore wins intercollegiate debate • Res musicae • Field house fund • Baseball • Society notes • College world • Benefit for library fund • Personals • Schaff prize debatehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/2868/thumbnail.jp

The Ursinus Weekly, June 5, 1908

Graduating class • Alumni notes • Commencement week exercises • Personals • College world • Editorial: Class of 1908 • Tennis tournament • Officers elected • Literary societieshttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/2911/thumbnail.jp

The Ursinus Weekly, November 13, 1908

Ursinus Union • Miss Place entertains • Meeting of Directors • Football • A group meeting • Societies • The Brotherhood of St. Paul • Scores of last Saturday\u27s games • Personals • Alumni notehttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/2848/thumbnail.jp

Biocatalytic studies of phenol oxidases producing antioxidants

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-198).In recent years there has been increasing interest in the production of oligomers and polymers of economic importance using biocatalysts; the application of enzymes in dimerisation or polymerisation processes can lead to the synthesis of unique compounds, with novel properties, that could not be easily achieved by conventional methods. Further, the application of biocatalysts in polymerization processes can be exploited in development of bioremediation systems, and there is a demand for new technologies that can be utilized in the removal of organic pollutants such as phenolics from contaminated environment. This study reports on the potential application of laccase, obtained from the white rot fungi Trametes pubescens, in the synthesis of organic compounds which are dimers or polymers, and in the development of bioprocesses of potential economic importance. The focus of this study is, particularly, on the effect of organic solvents and the structure of the substrates on the nature of products formed. The thesis also gives some insight into the relationship between the structure of laccase products and their biological (antioxidant and antimalarial) activity. The compounds tyrosol, hydroxytyrosol, 8-hydroxyquinoline, and totarol were selected as the model compounds for laccase reactions. Tyrosol was oxidised by laccase, yielding dimeric and polymeric compounds which were identified by LC-MS and IH-NMR. As a comparative study, hydroxytyrosol was also oxidised by laccase yielding dimeric, trimeric and polymeric compounds which were identified by LC-MS. Manipulation of this biocatalytic system resulted in development of an efficient process that allows for selectivity with respect to the products. A system was then developed whereby oxidation of hydroxytyrosol by laccase would selectively yield either dimers or oligomeric products. Thus, use of 50 % acetone in the reaction medium favoured the synthesis of dimeric products, and 20 % methanol resulted in the formation of a polymeric product. These results showed that hydroxytyrosol-laccase reactions were more readily controlled than tyrosol-laccase reactions, and this difference was attributed to structural configuration of these substrates

The Influence of Instructional Minutes on Grade 11 Language Arts and Mathematics High School Proficiency Assessment Performance

The purpose for this cross-sectional, non-experimental explanatory quantitative research study was to explain the amount of variance in the High School Proficiency Assessment-11 Language Arts and Mathematics scores accounted for by the amount of instructional minutes at high schools in New Jersey. A proportional, stratified random sample which included all public high schools’ students who participated in the State of New Jersey was generated and subsequently analyzed to determine the influence of NJ School Report Card-instructional minutes on NJ HSPA-11 language arts and mathematics scores. The independent variable was instructional time, which is defined as the exact amount of time a school dedicates to instruction during a normal school day controlling for student, faculty and school variables. The student variables included attendance, mobility, LEP, students with disabilities and socioeconomic status. The faculty variable included attendance, credentials and mobility. School variables included school size and length of school day. Total instructional time, the focus of this study, was not a statistically significant predictor of student achievement in the grade 11, 2011 High School Proficiency Assessment for Language Arts and Mathematics. The variable that was the most significant predictor of student achievement in the grade 11, 2011 High School Proficiency Assessment for Language Arts and Mathematics was Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students. Other variables that were found to be statistically significant predictors of student achievement included student mobility, students with disabilities, SES, and student attendance, along with the faculty-based variables faculty attendance and faculty mobility as well as the school-based variable school size for students on the grade 11, 2011 High School Proficiency Assessment for Language Arts and Mathematics