Master of Arts

thesisThis thesis begins with one central question: how did second-wave feminist artists represent motherhood and his is it represented today? I explore this question through case-studies of three artists and their work: Judy Chicago's The dinner Party (1974-1979), Catherine Opie's Self-Portrait/Nursing (2004) and Canan Senol's Fountain (2000). All three works of art were on display during the inauguration of the Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in 2007. The physical dominance of The Dinner Party within the gallery acts as a metaphor for its ideological influence within the scope of feminism itself. My first chapter establishes Chicago's need to minimize representations of motherhood by obscuring her as an unwanted guest. Yet, the neighboring temporary exhibition "Global Feminisms," curated by Linda Nochlin, highlights maternal-representation, indicating a different vantage point in feminism's approach to motherhood. My second chapter investigates the appropriation of Madonna del Latte iconography in Opie's Self-Portrait/Nursing, framing it as an attack on traditional Christian values for both personal and political reasons. Yet this appropriation maintains the fantasy of the mother-child dyad, which second-wave feminists, like Chicago, sought to disrupt. In my third chapter, I explore Senol's video art Fountain, which codes the breast as phallic and powerful. Further, I draw a connection between Julia Kristeva's writings on chora with Fountain's sound of leaking milk. By examining these three works, this thesis ultimately highlights the complicated relationship between feminism and motherhood

Literate Vocabulary in the Written Language Samples of Seventh-Graders

Purpose - To analyze written persuasive language samples of seventh-graders to add to the local normative database by examining the use of literate vocabulary. Literate vocabulary refers to words that have a low frequency of natural occurrence in language, however, tend to appear in formal writing. Specifically, we will be examining the use of adverbial conjuncts (e.g., in conclusion, personally, technically), abstract nouns (e.g., freedom, enjoyment, opinion), and metacognitive/metalinguistic verbs (e.g., persuade, decide, imagine). Through examination of written persuasive essays we will gain further insight into literate vocabulary norms of seventh-graders. Methods - Written language samples were collected from seventh-grade students from a middle school in Missoula, Montana. All students were prompted to write a persuasive essay on a common topic. Each student’s essay was keyboarded into the Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts computer program. Each vocabulary variable was coded as either [AC] (adverbial conjuncts), [MTVL] (metalinguistic/metacognitive verbs), [ABN] (abstract nouns). Each writing sample was coded by two separate investigators. Reliability for coding each vocabulary variable reached at least 95%. A correlation analysis will be used to determine whether there is a relationship between literate language usage and standardized reading scores. Originality - Language sample analysis is under-utilized when assessing older students, since few language norms for this age group have been established. Significance - Language sample analysis is a widely known preferred clinical practice for speech-language pathologists according to the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, but is seldom used with school-aged clients in the upper elementary grades and beyond. It is important to regularly collect and analyze language samples because language development is continual throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Few studies have used language sample analysis to determine developmental milestones in adolescent language, so this study will contribute to the gap in the literature regarding adolescent language norms. With this information we hope to obtain an understanding of the average productivity and usage of literate vocabulary for adolescents in 7th grade. These writing samples can be used to create a normative database in regards to these measures. Additionally, if literate vocabulary usage is significantly correlated with reading scores, this will further strengthen the argument for language sample analysis in the upper grades

Conservation and Land Use Planning: Linking Municipal Capacity and Biodiversity Outcomes

CaRDI Research & Policy Brief Issue 7

Bison movements change with weather: Implications for their continued conservation in the Anthropocene

Animal movement patterns are affected by complex interactions between biotic and abiotic landscape conditions, and these patterns are being altered by weather variability associated with a changing climate. Some animals, like the American plains bison (Bison bison L.; hereafter, plains bison), are considered keystone species, thus their response to weather variability may alter ecosystem structure and biodiversity patterns. Many movement studies of plains bison and other ungulates have focused on point-pattern analyses (e.g., resource-selection) that have provided information about where these animals move, but information about when or why these animals move is limited. For example, information surrounding the influence of weather on plains bison movement in response to weather is limited but has important implications for their conservation in a changing climate. To explore how movement distance is affected by weather patterns and drought, we utilized 12-min GPS data from two of the largest plains bison herds in North America to model their response to weather and drought parameters using generalized additive mixed models. Distance moved was best predicted by air temperature, wind speed, and rainfall. However, air temperature best explained the variation in distance moved compared to any other single parameter we measured, predicting a 48% decrease in movement rates above 28°C. Moreover, severe drought (as indicated by 25-cm depth soil moisture) better predicted movement distance than moderate drought. The strong influence of weather and drought on plains bison movements observed in our study suggest that shifting climate and weather will likely affect plains bison movement patterns, further complicating conservation efforts for this wide-ranging keystone species. Moreover, changes in plains bison movement patterns may have cascading effects for grassland ecosystem structure, function, and biodiversity. Plains bison and grassland conservation efforts need to be proactive and adaptive when considering the implications of a changing climate on bison movement patterns

Diet Complexity and Estrogen Receptor β Status Affect the Composition of the Murine Intestinal Microbiota

ABSTRACT Intestinal microbial dysbiosis contributes to the dysmetabolism of luminal factors, including steroid hormones (sterones) that affect the development of chronic gastrointestinal inflammation and the incidence of sterone-responsive cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon. Little is known, however, about the role of specific host sterone nucleoreceptors, including estrogen receptor β (ERβ), in microbiota maintenance. Herein, we test the hypothesis that ERβ status affects microbiota composition and determine if such compositionally distinct microbiota respond differently to changes in diet complexity that favor Proteobacteria enrichment. To this end, conventionally raised female ERβ +/+ and ERβ −/− C57BL/6J mice (mean age of 27 weeks) were initially reared on 8604, a complex diet containing estrogenic isoflavones, and then fed AIN-76, an isoflavone-free semisynthetic diet, for 2 weeks. 16S rRNA gene surveys revealed that the fecal microbiota of 8604-fed mice and AIN-76-fed mice differed, as expected. The relative diversity of Proteobacteria , especially the Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria , increased significantly following the transition to AIN-76. Distinct patterns for beneficial Lactobacillales were exclusive to and highly abundant among 8604-fed mice, whereas several Proteobacteria were exclusive to AIN-76-fed mice. Interestingly, representative orders of the phyla Proteobacteria , Bacteroidetes , and Firmicutes , including the Lactobacillales , also differed as a function of murine ERβ status. Overall, these interactions suggest that sterone nucleoreceptor status and diet complexity may play important roles in microbiota maintenance. Furthermore, we envision that this model for gastrointestinal dysbiosis may be used to identify novel probiotics, prebiotics, nutritional strategies, and pharmaceuticals for the prevention and resolution of Proteobacteria -rich dysbiosis

Tamoxifen may prevent both ER+ and ER- breast cancers and select for ER- carcinogenesis: an alternative hypothesis

INTRODUCTION: Breast Cancer Prevention Trial (BCPT) and Multiple Outcomes of Raloxifene (MORE) data have been interpreted to indicate that tamoxifen reduces the risk of ER+ but not ER- breast carcinogenesis. We explored whether these data also support an alternative hypothesis, that tamoxifen influences the natural history of both ER+ and ER- cancers, that it may be equally effective in abrogating or delaying ER- and ER+ carcinogenesis, and place selection pressure, in some cases, for the outgrowth of ER- cancers. METHODS: BCPT and MORE data were used to investigate whether: first, tamoxifen could reduce equally the emergence of ER- and ER+ tumors; and second, tamoxifen could select a fraction of emerging ER+ cancers and promote their transformation to ER- cancers. Assuming that some proportion, Z, of ER+ tumors becomes ER- after tamoxifen exposure and that the risk reduction for both ER- and ER+ tumors is equal, we solved for both the transformation rate and the risk reduction rate. RESULTS: If tamoxifen equally reduces the incidence of ER+ and ER- tumors by 60%, the BCPT results are achieved with a transformation of approximately Z = 20% of ER+ to ER- tumors. Validation with MORE data using an equal risk reduction of 60% associated with tamoxifen produces an almost identical transformation rate Z of 23%. CONCLUSION: Data support an alternative hypothesis that tamoxifen may promote ER- carcinogenesis from a precursor lesion that would otherwise have developed as ER+ without tamoxifen selection

The Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI)

FOXSI is a direct-imaging, hard X-ray (HXR) telescope optimized for solar flare observations. It detects hot plasma and energetic electrons in and near energy release sites in the solar corona via bremsstrahlung emission, measuring both spatial structure and particle energy distributions. It provides two orders of magnitude faster imaging spectroscopy than previously available, probing physically relevant timescales (<1s) never before accessible to address fundamental questions of energy release and efficient particle acceleration that have importance far beyond their solar application (e.g., planetary magnetospheres, flaring stars, accretion disks). FOXSI measures not only the bright chromospheric X-ray emission where electrons lose most of their energy, but also simultaneous emission from electrons as they are accelerated in the corona and propagate along magnetic field lines. FOXSI detects emission from high in the tenuous corona, where previous instruments have been blinded by nearby bright features and will fully characterizes the accelerated electrons and hottest plasmas as they evolve in energy, space, and time to solve the mystery of how impulsive energy release leads to solar eruptions, the primary drivers of space weather at Earth, and how those eruptions are energized and evolve.Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 14 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Ki67 Proliferation Index as a Tool for Chemotherapy Decisions During and After Neoadjuvant Aromatase Inhibitor Treatment of Breast Cancer: Results From the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group Z1031 Trial (Alliance)

To determine the pathologic complete response (pCR) rate in estrogen receptor (ER) –positive primary breast cancer triaged to chemotherapy when the protein encoded by the MKI67 gene (Ki67) level was > 10% after 2 to 4 weeks of neoadjuvant aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy. A second objective was to examine risk of relapse using the Ki67-based Preoperative Endocrine Prognostic Index (PEPI)

Fundamentals of impulsive energy release in the corona

It is essential that there be coordinated and co-optimized observations in X-rays, gamma-rays, and EUV during the peak of solar cycle 26 (~2036) to significantly advance our understanding of impulsive energy release in the corona. The open questions include: What are the physical origins of space-weather events? How are particles accelerated at the Sun? How is impulsively released energy transported throughout the solar atmosphere? How is the solar corona heated? Many of the processes involved in triggering, driving, and sustaining solar eruptive events -- including magnetic reconnection, particle acceleration, plasma heating, and energy transport in magnetized plasmas -- also play important roles in phenomena throughout the Universe. This set of observations can be achieved through a single flagship mission or, with foreplanning, through a combination of major missions (e.g., the previously proposed FIERCE mission concept).Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 5 pages, 1 figur

Aberrant DNA Methylation of OLIG1, a Novel Prognostic Factor in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Currently, tumor, node, metastasis (TNM) staging provides the most accurate prognostic parameter for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the overall survival of patients with resectable tumors varies significantly, indicating the need for additional prognostic factors to better predict the outcome of the disease, particularly within a given TNM subset. METHODS AND FINDINGS: In this study, we investigated whether adenocarcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas could be differentiated based on their global aberrant DNA methylation patterns. We performed restriction landmark genomic scanning on 40 patient samples and identified 47 DNA methylation targets that together could distinguish the two lung cancer subgroups. The protein expression of one of those targets, oligodendrocyte transcription factor 1 (OLIG1), significantly correlated with survival in NSCLC patients, as shown by univariate and multivariate analyses. Furthermore, the hazard ratio for patients negative for OLIG1 protein was significantly higher than the one for those patients expressing the protein, even at low levels. CONCLUSIONS: Multivariate analyses of our data confirmed that OLIG1 protein expression significantly correlates with overall survival in NSCLC patients, with a relative risk of 0.84 (95% confidence interval 0.77–0.91, p < 0.001) along with T and N stages, as indicated by a Cox proportional hazard model. Taken together, our results suggests that OLIG1 protein expression could be utilized as a novel prognostic factor, which could aid in deciding which NSCLC patients might benefit from more aggressive therapy. This is potentially of great significance, as the addition of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy in T2N0 NSCLC patients is still controversial