St. Regis Mohawk Trip Report: Assessment of Mold and Moisture Conditions

Kate Brown of the Building Research Council at the University of Illinois and Paul Knight of Magna Systems, Inc. conducted a site visit at the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation on December 9-11, 2002. The purpose of the site visit was to conduct onsite assessments of mold and moisture conditions in homes located on the reservation. This is a summary report of activities and issues identified while on site. A detailed analysis of the findings and recommendations is found in the attached report, titled: Technical Housing Assessment Report: Examining Mold and Moisture Conditions of Homes on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation.U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Native American Program

Comparing generalisation in children and adults learning an artificial language

Successful language acquisition involves generalization, but learners must balance this against the acquisition of lexical constraints. Examples occur throughout language. For example, English native speakers know that certain noun-adjective combinations are impermissible (e.g., strong winds, high winds, strong breezes, *high breezes). Another example is the restrictions imposed by verb sub-categorization (e.g., I gave/sent/threw the ball to him; I gave/sent/threw him the ball; I donated/carried/pushed the ball to him; * I donated/carried/pushed him the ball; Baker, 1979). A central debate has been the extent to which learning such patterns depends on semantic cues (Pinker, 1989) and/or distributional statistics (Braine et al., 1990). The current experiments extend previous work which used Artificial Language learning to demonstrate that adults (Wonnacott et al., 2008) and 6 year olds (Wonnacott, 2011) are able to learn lexically based restrictions on generalization using distributional statistics. Here we directly compare the two age groups learning the same artificial language, with a view to exploring maturational differences in language learning. In addition to manipulating frequency (across high and low frequency items) and quantity of exposure (across days), languages were constructed such that a word’s semantic class was helpful for learning the restrictions for some types of lexical items, but potentially misleading for others

Questioning the vulnerability zeitgeist : care and control practices with 'vulnerable' young people

This article provides insights into how the concept of vulnerability operates in welfare and disciplinary processes for young people who are considered ‘vulnerable’. It reports from empirical qualitative research conducted in a large city in England which included interviews with vulnerable young people and with professionals working with this group. Findings highlight that despite differences of opinion about what constitutes ‘vulnerability’, it is a popular and powerful conceptual mechanism which underpins the delivery of service interventions for certain young people. A relationship between vulnerability and ‘transgression’ is revealed, calling into question dichotomous representations of young people as either ‘vulnerable victims’ or ‘dangerous wrong-doers’. It is argued that whilst it can be utilised in the pursuit of more ‘caring’ interventions with those who are seen to be ‘in need’, vulnerability is also a concept relevant to debates concerning selective welfare systems and behavioural regulation

Currents of exchange: HEAD THROAT GUTS the sounding structures of the body in experimental voice practice.

Throughout this Masters research paper and practice I have placed the sounding body in different experimental contexts including live, event-based performances, sound technologies, and installation. My research specifically explores how the human voice sits in a body; how it is used and practiced to produce sound, and projected out to be placed elsewhere. During these moments the body undergoes physical challenges linked to the architecture and technology of a space. Each performance is specific to a site and is devised accordingly. I have conducted a number of experiments and collaborative projects to define and place the sounding body into a contemporary art context. These discoveries have lead to parallel findings and have allowed for a continuous trajectory throughout the MFA degree. My particular focus of research has lead to the investigation to how live experimental performances alter an experience in an audience as opposed to a documented or mediated experience. When an audience is presented with a raw sounding body, I’m interested in how are they affected and how this experience translates from one person to another. Throughout this paper I analyse, discuss and exemplify six of my own live event based works alongside other artists practicing in a similar field and context to highlight the intrinsic bodily experience that is evident when observing and receiving a sounding body in performance

Investigating the effects of Wnt/β-catenin Signalling on Melanoma Cell Metabolism and Mitochondrial Dynamics

Wnts are secreted morphogens that play pivotal roles in embryonic development, stem cell biology and a number of disease states including cancer. Most Wnts signal through a pathway that results in the stabilisation of an intracellular signalling molecule called β-catenin. In melanoma cells, Wnt/β-catenin signalling has been implicated as a key regulator of cellular invasion and metastasis. Using both transient and stable enhancement of Wnt/β-catenin signalling, I have found that mutation–based dysregulation of PI3K signalling dictates the invasive capacity of melanoma cell lines in response to Wnt3a stimulation. I demonstrate by confocal imaging that WNT3A facilitates perinuclear localisation of mitochondria with higher levels of mitochondrial networking and they show significant changes in the proteins of mitochondrial dynamics. Observed changes in mitochondrial fusion and fission proteins including MFN1, MFN2, OPA1 and DNM1L suggest that activation of Wnt/β-catenin signalling can increase mitochondrial fusion and decrease mitochondrial fission in melanoma cells. Cellular metabolic analysis using the Seahorse Bioscience XFe96 Analyzer suggests that Wnt/β-catenin mediated mitochondrial fusion may cause a global down-regulation of cellular energy metabolism in melanoma cells. This is supported by biochemical analysis of citrate synthase and lactate dehydrogenase activity. Knockout of -catenin removes the mitochondrial fusion effect in these cells and reverses any Wnt driven reduction in migration and metabolism suggesting that -catenin is able to control mitochondrial function and dynamics. We show that -catenin binds to the mitochondrial regulatory protein PARK2 in melanoma cells and subsequently blocks the autophagy dependency of melanoma cells. In summary, we demonstrate that activation of Wnt/β-catenin signalling in melanoma cells can lead to reduced cellular metabolism coupled with highly altered mitochondrial dynamics. This novel finding, controlled by -catenin, has potentially wide implications for understanding how certain context-dependent effects of Wnt/β-catenin signalling may be secondary to the regulation of mitochondrial dynamics and global cellular metabolism

Breaking into the tutor\u27s toolbox : an investigation into strategies used in writing center tutorials.

In this dissertation, I present the results of research conducted in the University Writing Center at the University of Louisville during the fall of 2006 and serves as an example of an empirical study blending qualitative and quantitative methods. It highlights and critiques the strategies tutors use to address students\u27 concerns about their writing during writing tutorials by addressing two research questions: (1) What strategies do tutors employ during tutorials to address higher-order concerns? And, what strategies do tutors employ during tutorials to address later-order concerns? (2) How are these strategies perceived by participants in tutorials? The data revealed that tutors tend to use three of the same strategies to address both higher-order and later-order concerns: Open-Ended Questioning, Reader Response, and Suggestion. Although tutors employed more strategies to address later-order concerns, which is congruent with advice from tutor-training manuals, they used these three strategies as default strategies throughout the observed tutorials. These strategies can be used effectively to address higher-order and later-order concerns; however, when used broadly, unique problems and potential pitfalls surfaced. The data also revealed that strategies generally assumed by writing center scholars to lessen control over the student and his or her writing can be used just as easily as other strategies to dominate the tutorial. Other factors apart from the strategies themselves affect whether the tutor dominates the tutorial, including amount of time the tutor pauses to allow the student to answer questions or respond to suggestions, students\u27 overall level of participation/interest in the tutorial, students\u27 expectations for the tutorial, and tutors\u27 listening to students\u27 concerns (really hearing those concerns). Moreover, the use of praise and time spent on rapport building may have an effect on whether the tutor dominates the tutorial. These findings invite further investigation and research

The Library Consortium of New Zealand's Shared IRR Infrastructure

The Library Consortium of New Zealand has run an Institutional Research Repository Project for three universities and one institute of technology in New Zealand since 2006. After a brief introduction to the context in which the project operates, this document describes the Institutional Research Repositories that are part of this project and their shared infrastructure. Particular emphasis is placed on advantages and challenges created by the shared infrastructure

Campus & alumni news

Boston University Medicine was published by the Boston University Medical Campus, and presented stories on events and topics of interest to members of the BU Medical Campus community. It followed the discontinued publication Centerscope as Boston University Medicine from 1991-2005, then continued as Campus & Alumni News from 2006-2013 before returning to the title Boston University Medicine from 2014-present

Manual-assisted cognitive therapy for self-harm in personality disorder and substance misuse: a feasibility trial

<b>Aims and method</b> To assess the feasibility of conducting a larger, definitive randomised controlled trial of manual-assisted cognitive therapy (MACT), a brief focused therapy to address self-harm and promote engagement in services. We established recruitment, randomisation and assessment of outcome within a sample of these complex patients admitted to a general hospital following self-harm. We assessed symptoms of depressed mood, anxiety and suicidality at baseline and at 3 months’ follow-up.<p></p> <b>Results</b> Twenty patients were randomised to the trial following an index episode of self-harm, and those allocated to MACT demonstrated improvement in anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation.<p></p> <b>Clinical implications</b> It is feasible to recruit a sample of these complex patients to a randomised controlled trial of MACT following an index episode of self-harm. There is preliminary support that MACT could be an acceptable and effective intervention in patients with personality disorder and substance misuse