STEAM (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, ART, AND MATHEMATICS) EDUCATION AND TEACHERS’ PEDAGOGICAL DISCONTENTMENT LEVELS

Literature focused on the emerging implementation of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) education within K-12 education programs in the USA emphasizes the need for researchers to address the potential for disrupting the pedagogical contentment of teachers assigned to teach in STEAM disciplines who have no backgrounds in the fields represented by STEAM and/or who have no prior teaching experience in the areas of STEAM. Research objectives for the current study focused on examining the influence of intensive professional development on K-12 teachers’ pedagogical discontentment levels relative to the implementation of STEAM in all classrooms within a rural school district in the southeast region of the United States. Data sources included: (a) pre-post assessments of 93 teachers’ pedagogical discontentment levels; (b) classroom observation data collected by external observers; and (c) teachers’ perceptions of STEAM coaching.  Data retrieved were analyzed using quantitative analyses. Study findings indicated teachers’ pedagogical discontentment levels decreased over time. Future research must support teachers new to STEAM activities

Writing with Light: Cameraless Photography and Its Narrative in the 1920s

Cameraless photography’s resurgence in the 1920s has long been discussed by art historians and critics as either a facet of modernist “new photography,” or as a specialized practice associated with prominent figures of the interwar avant-garde. In their discussions of the medium, scholars have aligned cameraless photography with specific movements, groups, schools, or individuals, as a means of situating its emergence and subsequent popularity in the 1920s. This dissertation broadens the understanding of cameraless photography (also referred to as photograms) and its narrative by shifting the focus to the publications responsible for the medium’s articulation and dissemination in the years between 1920 and 1929. A focus on three distinct periods of time—1920–23, 1924–26, and 1927–29—provides a framework to chart cameraless photography’s evolution in the 1920s, from its “rediscovery” in 1919 to its status as a key component of the “new photography” at the end of that decade. This change in focus elucidates the importance of the publications to the history of cameraless photography in the 1920s, making clear that the current understanding of cameraless photography has been determined as much by what has been written about it—when, where, and by whom—as it has by the objects themselves. Beginning with cameraless photography’s “re-discovery” in 1919 by Geneva Dadaist Christian Schad, and the subsequent publication of Schad’s work in Dada in 1920, the first chapter focuses on the publications that together established the discourse of invention surrounding the medium’s embrace in the early 1920s by Dada and Constructivist artists, such as Man Ray, László Moholy-Nagy, and El Lissitzky. In the following chapter, the focus shifts to a period of codification, 1924–26, when popular and more specialized art, photography, and avant-garde publications sought to position cameraless photography within existing and emerging discourses around abstraction, technology, film, revolution, and art photography. These early attempts to position cameraless photography as a new art form succeeded in bringing cameraless photography into alignment with the “new photography” and the push for visual literacy at the end of the decade. The last chapter focuses on the final years of the decade (1927–29) and the culminating moment for cameraless photography’s role in teaching, popularizing, and debating, the “new photography.” The decade’s final years also brought increased criticism and negative responses to the more experimental forms that comprised the “new photography.” This shift in thinking signaled cameraless photography’s waning popularity with the rise of New Objectivity and other forms of modern photography that privileged the camera. By charting cameraless photography’s appearance, articulation, and dissemination in print, this dissertation provides a clearer picture of the medium’s importance to interwar art and photography that moves beyond earlier attempts to categorize the medium as either an individual practice or as tangential to the larger field of interwar photography

Orbital Metastases from Breast Cancer with BRCA2 Mutation: A Case Report and Literature Review.

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women in the United States. Of these women, 5-10% have an inherited form of breast cancer with a mutation in a major gene, such as the breast cancer susceptibility genes 1 or 2 (BRCA1 or BRCA2). Triple negative (the most common subtype of BRCA1-associated breast cancers) and Her2-positive breast cancer patients have more frequently been observed to develop central nervous system (CNS) metastases compared to other molecular subtypes of breast cancers. However, it remains an open question if BRCA2-associated breast cancers also have a higher propensity to develop CNS metastases. Here we report a rare case of recurrent BRCA2-associated breast cancer which manifested as orbital metastases. At the time of this publication, this is one of the first cases of BRCA2-associated breast cancer to present with orbital metastases. In this article, we discuss the diagnostic challenges and review the literature regarding this rare presentation

Synergistic recruitment of UbcH7~Ub and phosphorylated Ubl domain triggers parkin activation

The E3 ligase parkin ubiquitinates outer mitochondrial membrane proteins during oxidative stress and is linked to early-onset Parkinson’s disease. Parkin is autoinhibited but is activated by the kinase PINK1 that phosphorylates ubiquitin leading to parkin recruitment, and stimulates phosphorylation of parkin’s N-terminal ubiquitin-like (pUbl) domain. How these events alter the structure of parkin to allow recruitment of an E2~Ub conjugate and enhanced ubiquitination is an unresolved question. We present a model of an E2~Ub conjugate bound to the phosphoubiquitin-loaded C-terminus of parkin, derived from NMR chemical shift perturbation experiments. We show the UbcH7~Ub conjugate binds in the open state whereby conjugated ubiquitin binds to the RING1/IBR interface. Further, NMR and mass spectrometry experiments indicate the RING0/RING2 interface is re-modelled, remote from the E2 binding site, and this alters the reactivity of the RING2(Rcat) catalytic cysteine, needed for ubiquitin transfer. Our experiments provide evidence that parkin phosphorylation and E2~Ub recruitment act synergistically to enhance a weak interaction of the pUbl domain with the RING0 domain and rearrange the location of the RING2(Rcat) domain to drive parkin activity

Intimate Relationship Dynamics and Changing Desire for Pregnancy Among Young Women

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151900/1/psrh12119_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151900/2/psrh12119.pd

Benign Metastasizing Leiomyoma to the Lung and Spine: A Case Report and Literature Review.

Benign metastasizing leiomyomas (BML) represent a rare phenomenon consisting of the extra-uterine spread of smooth muscle cells with similar histological, immunological, and molecular patterns to those of benign uterine leiomyomas. They are considered benign based off their low mitotic activity, lack of anaplasia or necrosis, and limited vascularization. This condition represents an interesting diagnostic and treatment challenge based on their rarity and indolent nature. Our case represents a unique finding of BML in the thoracic spine in a postmenopausal woman many years after hysterectomy and partial oophorectomy. There are currently no standard guidelines for treatment of BML, given the rare nature of this condition, with most patients treated with a combination of surgical resection and radiotherapy, followed by hormonal treatment and radiological surveillance serving as the primary backbone of current management plans. Given that these patients present a unique clinical challenge in terms of diagnosis and management, it is important to delineate and further examine these rare entities

Black-White Differences in Pregnancy Desire During the Transition to Adulthood

This article explores race differences in the desire to avoid pregnancy or become pregnant using survey data from a random sample of 914 young women (ages 18-22) living in a Michigan county and semi-structured interviews with a subsample of 60 of the women. In the survey data, desire for pregnancy, indifference, and ambivalence are very rare but are more prevalent among Black women than White women. In the semi-structured interviews, although few women described fatalistic beliefs or lack of planning for future pregnancies, Black and White women did so equally often. Women more often described fatalistic beliefs and lack of planning when retrospectively describing their past than when prospectively describing their future. Using the survey data to compare prospective desires for a future pregnancy with women\u27s recollections of those desires after they conceived, more Black women shifted positive than shifted negative, and Black women were more likely to shift positive than White women-that is, Black women do not differentially retrospectively overreport prospectively desired pregnancies as having been undesired before conception. Young women\u27s consistent (over repeated interviews) prospective expression of strong desire to avoid pregnancy and correspondingly weak desire for pregnancy, along with the similarity of Black and White women\u27s pregnancy plans, lead us to conclude that a planning paradigm -in which young women are encouraged and supported in implementing their pregnancy desires-is probably appropriate for the vast majority of young women and, most importantly, is similarly appropriate for Black and White young women

Contraceptive Desert? Black-White Differences in Characteristics of Nearby Pharmacies

Objectives: Race differences in contraceptive use and in geographic access to pharmacies are well established. We explore race differences in characteristics of nearby pharmacies that are likely to facilitate (or not) contraceptive purchase. Study design: We conducted analyses with two geocode-linked datasets: (1) the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) project, a study of a random sample of 1003 women ages 18-19 living in a county in Michigan in 2008-09; and (2) the Community Pharmacy Survey, which collected data on 82 pharmacies in the county in which the RDSL study was conducted. Results: Although young African-American women tend to live closer to pharmacies than their white counterparts (1.2 miles to the nearest pharmacy for African Americans vs. 2.1 miles for whites), those pharmacies tend to be independent pharmacies (59 vs. 16%) that are open fewer hours per week (64.6 vs. 77.8) and have fewer female pharmacists (17 vs. 50%), fewer patient brochures on contraception (2 vs. 5%), more difficult access to condoms (49% vs. 85% on the shelf instead of behind glass, behind the counter, or not available), and fewer self-check-out options (3 vs. 9%). More African-American than white women live near African-American pharmacists (8 vs. 3%). These race differences are regardless of poverty, measured by the receipt of public assistance. Conclusions: Relative to white women, African-American women may face a contraception desert, wherein they live nearer to pharmacies, but those pharmacies have characteristics that may impede the purchase of contraception