Metal and cloth sculptures

The sculpture that I have selected for my thesis exhibition consists of two configurations, executed in metal and cloth. They represent a search for a fluid but contrasting relationship of space and form. The selection of materials, metal and cloth, was undertaken with the purpose of showing how two materials with opposing physical characteristics can work together in a parallel of function and detail. They also make possible an equilibrium of space and form by allowing these two elements to flow together without conflicts. The following descriptions of each sculpture indicate the ways in which these materials function in each of them. VELA MING This is a black rectangular frame made from electric tubing enclosing a canvas. Aluminum bars inserted within the material run parallel to the top and bottom of the frame producing a grid-like effect. These bars are bent at different radius so the space element can be manipulated and free-flowing curves are obtained with the fabric. Such movement contrasts with the rigidity of the frame. Vela Ming will be displayed 6" away from the wall to create the effect of the space that seeks to be released by pushing through the canvas. VEIA6 This is an environmental sculpture consisting of six different modules. Each one is a triangular frame with stretched canvas. The varing levels of the steel frame cause the canvas to change direction, thus creating different tensions

A culturally sensitive conceptualization of parental intrusiveness and its effects on child adjustment within Latino families.

The goals of this study were (a) to examine measurement invariance of a traditional observational measure of parenting across European American and Latina mothers, (b) to compare the factor structures of traditional versus culturally informed observational measures among Latina mothers, (c) to examine traditional versus culturally informed observational assessments of Latinx parenting to determine whether early indicators of parental intrusiveness and parental guidance were associated with internalizing and externalizing behaviors during early childhood among Latinx children, (d) to examine whether maternal warmth moderated associations between traditionally versus culturally informed observational measures of parental intrusiveness and guidance, and Latinx children’s adjustment. Parenting behaviors were measured using an observational semi-structured parent-child interaction task during home visits when children were on average 14 and 24 months and children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors were based on mothers reports. Parental intrusiveness and parental guidance were coded using a traditional and a culturally informed coding system. Results indicated partial measurement invariance in parenting behaviors across groups when applying a measure initially developed for European American and middle-class samples to families from Latinx backgrounds. Additionally, findings indicated that during early childhood and within the Latinx cultural context, parental intrusiveness was an indicator of negative parenting, whereas parental guidance was a good indicator of positive parenting. Parental guidance was negatively associated with internalizing behaviors only for children whose mothers showed high levels of warmth. In contrast, parental guidance was negatively associated with externalizing behaviors for children whose mothers showed average and below average levels of warmth. Finally, parental intrusiveness was positively associated with externalizing behaviors for children whose mothers displayed low levels of warmth during a free play task. These findings provide new knowledge that can guide preventive and intervention efforts and have important theoretical and measurement implications that emphasize the use of culturally informed frameworks to better understand the implications of early caregiving experiences for child development within Latinx families

Affect presentation in infancy and toddlerhood as a predictor of later internalizing behaviors in early childhood

Affect representations during infancy have been associated with internalizing behaviors among children. However, few studies have examined the role of parenting practices in early childhood as shaping such associations. The current study used a large, population-stratified, randomly-selected sample of children living in rural areas under conditions of poverty to examine how positive and negative affect at 15 months was associated with internalizing behaviors at 58 months of age. Patterns of interaction between infant affects and positive and negative parenting behaviors at 24 were also examined and probed to determine whether these effects supported a diathesis stress model of early developmental processes related to later internalizing behaviors. Infant affect and parenting behaviors were measured using observational assessments and primary caregivers reported on children’s internalizing behaviors. Results indicated that positive parenting predicted lower levels of internalizing behaviors for all children. For European American children, lower levels of negative affect were associated with greater internalizing behaviors in the presence of low positive parenting. For African American children, more negative parenting was associated with higher levels of internalizing behaviors. These findings raise important questions regarding different levels of vulnerability to environmental influences among European American and African American young children and have the potential to inform interventions aimed at preventing and/or reducing internalizing behaviors

The influence of sensory and motor set on early attention-sensitive VERs

The study examined whether motor set, along with perceptual set, produces precortical short-latency poststimulus effects in the visuo-motor system. Eighteen subjects participated in a spatial selective attention paradigm developed by Eason, Harter, and White in 1969. Spots of light were presented concomitantly 30 degrees peripherally in the right and left visual fields. The stimuli were presented either as a single flash or as two flashes (doublets). Subjects were required to make one of three types of responses to the doublets presented in the relevant field: (1) an eye movement, (2) a foot lift response, or (3) silent counting. VERs were recorded at frontal and parietal areas of each hemisphere

Study protocol: a randomised controlled trial investigating the effect of exercise training on peripheral blood gene expression in patients with stable angina

Background: Exercise training has been shown to reduce angina and promote collateral vessel development in patients with coronary artery disease. However, the mechanism whereby exercise exerts these beneficial effects is unclear. There has been increasing interest in the use of whole genome peripheral blood gene expression in a wide range of conditions to attempt to identify both novel mechanisms of disease and transcriptional biomarkers. This protocol describes a study in which we will assess the effect of a structured exercise programme on peripheral blood gene expression in patients with stable angina, and correlate this with changes in angina level, anxiety, depression, and exercise capacity. Methods/Design: Sixty patients with stable angina will be recruited and randomised 1: 1 to exercise training or conventional care. Patients randomised to exercise training will attend an exercise physiology laboratory up to three times weekly for supervised aerobic interval training sessions of one hour in total duration. Patients will undergo assessments of angina, anxiety, depression, and peripheral blood gene expression at baseline, after six and twelve weeks of training, and twelve weeks after formal exercise training ceases. Discussion: This study will provide comprehensive data on the effect of exercise training on peripheral blood gene expression in patients with angina. By correlating this with improvement in angina status we will identify candidate peripheral blood transcriptional markers predictive of improvements in angina level in response to exercise training

"Them Ole' Love Songs": The Ballad And Country Music Tradition Of Earl Silvers, From Green Mountain, North Carolina

In this thesis the ballad and early country music singing traditions of Earl Silvers, from Green Mountain, North Carolina are examined. Silvers has never been a professional performer, and sings ballads, early country music hits, and folksongs to his grandchildren and family members. He comes from a legacy of mountain musicians. Earl's father, Tom Silvers, was born in 1881 and was a noted fiddle and banjo player in the Higgins community of Yancey County. Zora Higgins Silvers, Earl's mother, was a singer of old ballads and songs she leaned from the radio and from her neighbors. Earl's parents, as well as the early country music broadcast from the radio into the mountains of western North Carolina helped Earl develop a passion for and connection to mountain music. Earl sings the songs his parents, family, and neighbors sang for him in his lifetime to his family, fiends, and neighbors in the community of Green Mountain

An in vitro stem cell model of human epiblast and yolk sac interaction.

Human embryogenesis entails complex signalling interactions between embryonic and extra-embryonic cells. However, how extra-embryonic cells direct morphogenesis within the human embryo remains largely unknown due to a lack of relevant stem cell models. Here, we have established conditions to differentiate human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) into yolk sac-like cells (YSLCs) that resemble the post-implantation human hypoblast molecularly and functionally. YSLCs induce the expression of pluripotency and anterior ectoderm markers in human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) at the expense of mesoderm and endoderm markers. This activity is mediated by the release of BMP and WNT signalling pathway inhibitors, and, therefore, resembles the functioning of the anterior visceral endoderm signalling centre of the mouse embryo, which establishes the anterior-posterior axis. Our results implicate the yolk sac in epiblast cell fate specification in the human embryo and propose YSLCs as a tool for studying post-implantation human embryo development in vitro.</i

Climate change adaptation in European river basins

This paper contains an assessment and standardized comparative analysis of the current water management regimes in four case-studies in three European river basins: the Hungarian part of the Upper Tisza, the Ukrainian part of the Upper Tisza (also called Zacarpathian Tisza), Alentejo Region (including the Alqueva Reservoir) in the Lower Guadiana in Portugal, and Rivierenland in the Netherlands. The analysis comprises several regime elements considered to be important in adaptive and integrated water management: agency, awareness raising and education, type of governance and cooperation structures, information management and—exchange, policy development and—implementation, risk management, and finances and cost recovery. This comparative analysis has an explorative character intended to identify general patterns in adaptive and integrated water management and to determine its role in coping with the impacts of climate change on floods and droughts. The results show that there is a strong interdependence of the elements within a water management regime, and as such this interdependence is a stabilizing factor in current management regimes. For example, this research provides evidence that a lack of joint/participative knowledge is an important obstacle for cooperation, or vice versa. We argue that there is a two-way relationship between information management and collaboration. Moreover, this research suggests that bottom-up governance is not a straightforward solution to water management problems in large-scale, complex, multiple-use systems, such as river basins. Instead, all the regimes being analyzed are in a process of finding a balance between bottom-up and top–down governance. Finally, this research shows that in a basin where one type of extreme is dominant—like droughts in the Alentejo (Portugal) and floods in Rivierenland (Netherlands)—the potential impacts of other extremes are somehow ignored or not perceived with the urgency they might deserv

Validation of the Spanish version of the Multidimensional State Boredom Scale (MSBS)

BACKGROUND: Boredom, which is a common problem in the general population, has been associated with several psychiatric disorders. The Multidimensional State Boredom Scale (MSBS) was developed, based on a theoretically and empirically grounded definition of boredom, to assess this construct. The aim of the present study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish validated version of the MSBS in a multi-age sample recruited from the general population. METHODS: The patients (N = 303) were recruited from primary care settings. In addition to the sociodemographic variables and the MSBS, the General Health Questionnaire 28 items (GHQ-28), Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS), Negative subscale and the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) were administered. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to analyse the dimensionality of the MSBS. Cronbach’s α coefficient was used to analyse the internal consistency of the scale. The consistency of the MSBS over time (test-retest reliability) was assessed using the intra-class correlation coefficient. The construct validity was examined by calculating Pearson’s r correlations between the MSBS with theoretically related and unrelated constructs. Cronbach’s α for MSBS was 0.89 (95 % CI, 0.87–0.92), ranging from 0.75 to 0.83 for the 5 subscales. RESULTS: The characteristics of the final sample (N = 303) were that the participants were primarily female (66.77 %) with a mean age of 49.32 years (SD, 11.46) and primarily European (94.71 %). The CFA of the MSBS confirmed that the original five-factor model showed good fit indices: CFI = .96; GFI = .94; SRMR = .05; and RMSEA = .06 [.05–.08]. Cronbach’s α for MSBS was 0.89 (95 % CI, 0.87–0.92), ranging from 0.75 to 0.83 for the 5 subscales. The MSBS showed a test-retest coefficient measured with an ICC of 0.90 (95 % CI, 0.88–0.92). The ICC for the 5 subscales ranged from 0.81 to 0.89. The MSBS showed a significant negative correlation with MAAS and a significant positive correlation with the GHQ (total score and subscales) and PANAS-Negative Affect. CONCLUSIONS: The Spanish version of the MSBS has been validated as a reliable instrument for measuring boredom in the general population. This study will facilitate the assessment of boredom for clinical and research purposes in Spanish-speaking populations

Polymorphism of the FABP2 gene: a population frequency analysis and an association study with cardiovascular risk markers in Argentina

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The FABP2 gene encodes for the intestinal FABP (IFABP) protein, which is expressed only in intestinal enterocytes. A polymorphism at codon 54 in exon 2 of the FABP2 gene exchanges an Alanine (Ala), in the small helical region of the protein, for Threonine (Thr). Given the potential physiological role of the Ala54Thr FABP2 polymorphism, we assess in this study the local population frequency and analyze possible associations with five selected markers, i.e. glycemia, total cholesterol, body mass index (BMI), hypertension, and high Cardiovascular Risk Index (CVR index).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We studied 86 men and 116 women. DNA was extracted from a blood drop for genotype analysis. Allele frequencies were calculated by direct counting. Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium was evaluated using a Chi-square goodness of fit test.</p> <p>For the polymorphism association analysis, five markers were selected, i.e. blood pressure, Framingham Risk Index, total cholesterol, BMI, and glycemia.</p> <p>For each marker, the Odds Ratio (OR) was calculated by an online statistic tool.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results reveal a similar population polymorphism frequency as in previous European studies, with <b>q = 0.277 </b>(95% confidence limits 0.234–0.323). No significant association was found with any of the tested markers in the context of our Argentine nutritional and cultural habits. We did, however, observe a tendency for increased Cholesterol and high BMI in Thr54 carriers.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This is the first study to look at the population frequency of the Thr54 allele in Argentina. The obtained result does not differ from previously reported frequencies in European populations. Moreover, we found no association between the Thr54 allele and any of the five selected markers. The observed tendency to increased total cholesterol and elevated BMI in Thr54 carriers, even though not significant for p < 0.1 could be worth of further investigation to establish whether the Thr54 variant should be taken into consideration in cardiovascular prevention strategies.</p