WHEN SEXUAL ASSAULT BECOMES INCIDENT TO MILITARY SERVICE

For seventy-two years, federal courts have barred military servicemembers who are survivors of sexual assault from recovery under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The Feres doctrine, promulgated from the Supreme Court case Feres v. United States, became the foundation for federal courts’ decisions that sexual assault is incident to one’s service in the military. Courts’ over-deference to the military has enabled a system that turns a blind eye to perpetrators and abusive environments on bases. However, the Ninth Circuit recently turned the tide in FTCA cases, holding in Spletstoser v. Hyten that military sexual assault survivors should be permitted to recover damages. Thus, this Note calls for all federal courts to bolster the analysis in Spletstoser v. Hyten and implement a bright-line rule that sexual assault is not incident to one’s military service, arming survivors with the resources needed to hold their perpetrators accountable and promote a healthier environment in the military

Transcriptome-Wide Analysis Of Hypoxic Cancer Cells Identify Alternative Splicing As A Mechanism To Inhibit Translation

Cellular adaptation to hypoxia involves downregulation of energy-consuming processes such as macromolecular synthesis, and leads to tumor aggressiveness and resistance to therapies for many solid cancers. To delineate mechanisms underlying this process, I carried out a transcriptome-wide study to measure hypoxia-mediated changes in gene expression and alternative splicing in in vivo and in vitro models of hypoxic head and neck carcinoma (HNC) cells. These data represent the first nucleotide-resolution study of the hypoxic transcriptome of HNC cells in vivo and in vitro. This investigation uncovered a global downregulation of genes known to regulate RNA processing, including a significant number of genes involved in splicing catalysis. Exon-level analyses classified \u3e1,000 mRNAs to be affected by alternative splicing, and led to the discovery of a unique retained intron in the master regulator of translation initiation, EIF2B5. In this dissertation, I will describe a previously uncharacterized mechanism by which a hypoxia-mediated retained intron in EIF2B5 leads to a truncated isoform that opposes full-length eIF2Bε to inhibit translation. A functional investigation of this hypoxia-induced isoform confirmed that expression of the truncated 65kDa isoform of eIF2Bε confers a survival advantage to HNC cells under conditions of hypoxia. Moreover, expression of this isoform was observed in solid tumors of patients with HNC in a stage-dependent manner. Additional work to uncover -cis and -trans regulators of EIF2B5 splicing identified several factors that influence intron retention in EIF2B5: a weak splice site with an alternate splice site at the retained intron, hypoxia-induced expression of the splicing factor SRSF3, and increased binding of total and phospho-Ser2 RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) specifically at the intron retained under hypoxia. Altogether, these data reveal differential splicing as a previously uncharacterized mode of translational control under hypoxia and are supported by a model in which hypoxia-induced changes to co-transcriptional processing lead to selective retention of an intron containing a premature-termination codon in EIF2B5

The Ability of the Movement Assessment for Children (MAC) to Predict Fine and Gross Motor Development in Typically Developing Children at a Five and a Half Year Follow Up

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the long-term (5.5-year) predictive validity of the Movement Assessment for Children (MAC). Background: Many pediatric examinations of motor development attempt to detect developmental delays in infancy so that early intervention may be implemented. Some tests have shown strong predictive validity within the first 12 months of development, but no test has illustrated long-term (\u3e5 years) predictive power. The Movement Assessment for Children has demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability, consistent test-retest scores, strong construct validity and responsiveness to change, but the predictive validity remains unknown. Methods: Eight typically developing children were recruited for this study. All had participated in a previous study that assessed developmental milestones, via the MAC, at 12 months of age. Five years later, the children were tested at 6.5 years of age utilizing the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOT-2) to assess their current motor developmental level. Z-scores for the MAC and BOT-2 were calculated in order to compare the fine and gross motor subsections of each examination and determine if any correlations prevailed. A Spearman rank correlation was performed with an alpha of .05. Results: When comparing participants’ MAC scores at 12 months to their BOT-2 scores at 6.5 years, no significant correlations existed in any of the fine or gross motor subsections. Conclusion: The MAC is unable to predict motor function in typically developing children at a 5.5 year follow up. It is possible the MAC may successfully predict motor development on a shorter timeline (years) or in non-typically developing children, but more research is necessary. Chandler LS, Terhorst L, Rogers JC, Holm MB. Movement Assessment of Children (MAC): validity, reliability, stability and sensitivity to change in typically developing children. Child: Care, Health and Development. Published May 15, 2016. Chandler LS, Andrews MS, Swanson M. Movement Assessment of Children. 2ndEd. Tacoma, WA. 2012. Deitz JC, Kartin D, Kopp K. Review of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition (BOT-2). Phys Occup Ther Pediatr. 2007;27(4):87-102

The role of racial objectification on Asian American women's disordered eating and depression: A person-centered approach

Objectification theory has enhanced understanding of disordered eating and depression among college women, yet the experiences of Asian American women (AAW) have comparably received limited empirical attention. Investigating AAW is important because emerging evidence suggests that AAW, compared to other racial groups, report similar, if not elevated, rates of eating disorder symptoms and depression, yet do not seek out or receive the services they need. Additionally, AAW experience distinct forms of both sexual and racial objectification that can increase evaluation of not only general body shape and size, but also racialized features (e.g., face, skin-tone, and eye-size). The present study tested a culture-specific extension of objectification theory using a person-centered approach. The aims of this study were to a) identify subgroups (e.g., latent classes) of AAW (N = 554) based upon their general and group-specific self-objectification processes, b) examine the racial objectification predictors (e.g., general racism, gendered racial microaggressions and racial identity) of latent class membership, and c) examine the extent to which these latent classes are related to disordered eating and depressive symptomatology. Using latent class analysis, four classes were identified: a) High Self-Objectification class (37.2%), reported highest levels across all indicators, b) Moderate Self-Objectification class (40.1%), reported mid-range levels of self-objectification across all indicators, c) Body Conscious class (7.3%), reported high levels of body consciousness and body shame, and d) Appearance Acceptance class (15.5%), reported lowest levels across all indicators. The High Self-Objectification class reported significantly higher rates of disordered eating and depression. Women were more likely to be in the High Self-Objectification class if they experienced higher levels of gendered racial microaggressions and racial dissonance. Results can advance the literature by demonstrating significant with-in group variability in self-objectification processes among AAW and offer valuable clinical implications for targeting high-risk groups

Profiling a Community-Specific Function Landscape for Bacterial Peptides Through Protein-Level Meta-Assembly and Machine Learning

Small proteins, encoded by small open reading frames, are only beginning to emerge with the current advancement of omics technology and bioinformatics. There is increasing evidence that small proteins play roles in diverse critical biological functions, such as adjusting cellular metabolism, regulating other protein activities, controlling cell cycles, and affecting disease physiology. In prokaryotes such as bacteria, the small proteins are largely unexplored for their sequence space and functional groups. For most bacterial species from a natural community, the sample cannot be easily isolated or cultured, and the bacterial peptides must be better characterized in a metagenomic manner. The bacterial peptides identified from metagenomic samples can not only enrich the pool of small proteins but can also reveal the community-specific microbe ecology information from a small protein perspective. In this study, metaBP (Bacterial Peptides for metagenomic sample) has been developed as a comprehensive toolkit to explore the small protein universe from metagenomic samples. It takes raw sequencing reads as input, performs protein-level meta-assembly, and computes bacterial peptide homolog groups with sample-specific mutations. The metaBP also integrates general protein annotation tools as well as our small protein-specific machine learning module metaBP-ML to construct a full landscape for bacterial peptides. The metaBP-ML shows advantages for discovering functions of bacterial peptides in a microbial community and increases the yields of annotations by up to five folds. The metaBP toolkit demonstrates its novelty in adopting the protein-level assembly to discover small proteins, integrating protein-clustering tool in a new and flexible environment of RBiotools, and presenting the first-time small protein landscape by metaBP-ML. Taken together, metaBP (and metaBP-ML) can profile functional bacterial peptides from metagenomic samples with potential diverse mutations, in order to depict a unique landscape of small proteins from a microbial community

Cardioactive effects of diphenhydramine and curcumin in Daphnia magna

Although used as a model for examining the cardioactive effects of various compounds, the neuromuscular regulation of the heart of the crustacean Daphnia magna (D. magna) is not well understood. In the present study, we sought to determine how the heart rate of D. magna was affected by two previously untested compounds: curcumin and diphenhydramine (DPHM). DPHM produces a number of cardiotoxic side effects in vertebrates, particularly sinus tachycardia. Curcumin acts as a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) and was expected toincrease the heart rate of D. magna. DPHM was found unexpectedly to lower the heart rate of D. magna with time. Curcumin increased heart rate when administered in higher concentrations. However, co-administration of curcumin with DPHM negated this effect. These findings may be explained by the potential role of histamine as a sympathetic cardiac neurotransmitter in D. magna

STEM for Everyone: A Mixed Methods Approach to the Conception and Implementation of an Evaluation Process for STEM Education Programs for Students With Disabilities

Some students with autism spectrum disorder and other learning differences may have superior visual acuity, increased attentional focus, and logical thinking abilities, lending to an affinity for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. At the same time, economists report that, the United States will experience a 28.2% increase in STEM-related jobs between 2014 and 2024. Although students with disabilities (SWD) can help to fill those positions, 85% of SWD graduates are either underemployed or unemployed as they enter young adulthood. Thus, there is a need to develop, evaluate, and report outcomes of STEM preparation programs specifically tailored to SWD. This mixed-methods study was designed to develop an evaluation procedure to measure a STEM school’s program for SWD and to analyze the first two years of data to help shape the evaluation process. A comprehensive evaluation model of STEM education for children with learning differences was developed and tested. Implications for practice and future research are discussed

Impact of age and race on outcomes of a program to prevent excess weight gain and disordered eating in adolescent girls

Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT) prevents weight gain and reduces loss-of-control (LOC)-eating in adults. However, IPT was not superior to health-education (HE) for preventing excess weight gain and reducing LOC-eating over 1-year in adolescent girls at risk for excess weight gain and eating disorders. Limited data suggest that older and non-White youth may be especially responsive to IPT. In secondary analyses, we examined if age or race moderated weight and LOC-eating outcomes. The 113 participants (12–17 years; 56.6% White) from the original trial were re-contacted 3 years later for assessment. At baseline and follow-up visits through 3 years, we assessed BMI, adiposity by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, and LOC-eating presence. In linear mixed models, baseline age moderated 3-year BMI outcome; older girls in IPT had the lowest 3-year BMI gain compared to younger girls in IPT and all girls in HE, p = 0.04. A similar pattern was observed for adiposity. Race moderated 3-year LOC-eating; non-White girls in IPT were most likely to abstain from LOC-eating at 3 years compared to all other girls, p = 0.04. This hypothesis-generating analysis suggests future studies should determine if IPT is especially efficacious at reducing LOC-eating in older, non-White adolescents

Vestibular-Somatosensory Convergence in Head Movement Control During Locomotion after Long-Duration Space Flight

Exposure to the microgravity conditions of space flight induces adaptive modification in the control of vestibular-mediated reflexive head movement during locomotion after space flight. Space flight causes astronauts to be exposed to somatosensory adaptation in both the vestibular and body load-sensing (BLS) systems. The goal of these studies was to examine the contributions of vestibular and BLS-mediated somatosensory influences on head movement control during locomotion after long-duration space flight. Subjects were asked to walk on a treadmill driven at 1.8 m/s while performing a visual acuity task. Data were collected using the same testing protocol from three independent subject groups; 1) normal subjects before and after exposure to 30 minutes of 40% bodyweight unloaded treadmill walking, 2) bilateral labyrinthine deficient (LD) patients and 3) astronauts who performed the protocol before and after long duration space flight. Motion data from head and trunk segmental motion data were obtained to calculate the angular head pitch (HP) movements during walking trials while subjects performed the visual task, to estimate the contributions of vestibular reflexive mechanisms in HP movements. Results showed that exposure to unloaded locomotion caused a significant increase in HP movements, whereas in the LD patients the HP movements were significantly decreased. Astronaut subjects results showed a heterogeneous response of both increases and decreases in the amplitude of HP movement. We infer that BLS-mediated somatosensory input centrally modulates vestibular input and can adaptively modify head-movement control during locomotion. Thus, space flight may cause a central adaptation mediated by the converging vestibular and body load-sensing somatosensory systems

Clockface polygons and the collective joy of making mathematics together

The social and embodied nature at the heart of all knowing, doing, and learning contrasts with the images that pervade our cultural imagination of mathematical work as a solitary, cognitive activity. This article describes a playful experiment by the author group to do collective mathematics, in an extended effort to construct alternative images, instincts, and practices for ourselves. We present a pair of episodes of mathematical exploration that come from our work together and that we have seen as an early success, intimating features of a stabilized collective mathematics that we hope to continue pursuing. Coming from a single investigation of our group, these episodes offer narrative accounts of the parallel inquiries of subgroups, working to define and characterize a mathematical space we had collectively identified, and then to formulate and investigate conjectures about that space. The narratives are followed by a discussion of themes within and across them and reflections on their significance as a step toward self-organized collective mathematics