Storage Facility Upgrade: Streamlining Operations and Enhancing Revenue

The revitalization and enhancement of a 79 unit self-storage facility were the focus of this capstone project. The timely acquisition of the facility presented a unique opportunity for the project team to explore methods for optimizing operational efficiency and enhancing customer experience. Negotiations and contracting processes were employed to improve vendor/customer relationships and reduce operating costs. Automation was implemented to streamline day-to-day operations, including reservation and payment processing, and enhance customer convenience. The team’s takeaways included the importance of flexibility, consistency, and records-keeping in the successful execution of a project of this nature. The revitalized facility promises to offer customers a more user-friendly, efficient, and cost-effect storage experience while also increasing revenue and profitability for the owner. A video recording of this presentation is available here

Gender and policing in Soviet West Ukraine, 1944-1948.

RésuméLes femmes et la police politique dans l’Ukraine occidentale soviétique de 1944 à 1948.Notre article examine le rôle des femmes dans la campagne anti-insurrectionnelle menée par l’Union soviétique en Ukraine occidentale pendant et après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Nous nous sommes basés sur des documents des archives de Moscou, Kiev et Lvov. Au printemps de 1944, l’Armée insurrectionnelle ukrainienne (UPA) et l’Organisation des nationalistes ukrainiens (OUN) firent de plus en plus appel à des femmes et des jeunes filles pour effectuer des tâches vitales pour les rebelles nationalistes. La police secrète soviétique réagit en orientant sa stratégie autour de ces femmes. Les réseaux d’indicateurs (agentura) intégrèrent de plus en plus de femmes alors même que se développaient des tactiques spéciales visant à les terroriser. Celles de la police soviétique, qui mettaient en œuvre des violences sexuelles, engendrèrent en outre une réaction brutale de la part du mouvement clandestin ukrainien. Les moskal´ki (les « collaboratrices ») devinrent ainsi la cible des représailles des unités punitives du mouvement clandestin.AbstractDrawing from research in archives in Moscow, Kyiv, and L´viv, this paper examines the role of gender in the Soviet counter-insurgency in West Ukraine during and after World War II. By the spring of 1944 the Ukrainian Insurrection Army (UPA) and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) became increasingly dependent upon women and girls to perform duties vital to the Ukrainian nationalist rebels. In response, the Soviet secret police adapted counter-insurgency strategies to target the female element in the anti-Soviet underground. Soviet agentura or informants’ networks were increasingly focused on women recruits, even as special tactics were developed to terrorize women rebels. Soviet police tactics had the effect not only of terrorizing Ukrainian women in gender-specific ways, but they also provoked a brutal reaction from within the Ukrainian underground itself, so that moskal´ki -- ethnic Ukrainian women “collaborators” -- became the targets of reprisals carried out by special underground rebel punitive units

Recombinase-based conditional and reversible gene regulation via XTR alleles

Synthetic biological tools that enable precise regulation of gene function within in vivo systems have enormous potential to discern gene function in diverse physiological settings. Here we report the development and characterization of a synthetic gene switch that, when targeted in the mouse germline, enables conditional inactivation, reports gene expression and allows inducible restoration of the targeted gene. Gene inactivation and reporter expression is achieved through Cre-mediated stable inversion of an integrated gene-trap reporter, whereas inducible gene restoration is afforded by Flp-dependent deletion of the inverted gene trap. We validate our approach by targeting the p53 and Rb genes and establishing cell line and in vivo cancer model systems, to study the impact of p53 or Rb inactivation and restoration. We term this allele system XTR, to denote each of the allelic states and the associated expression patterns of the targeted gene: eXpressed (XTR), Trapped (TR) and Restored (R)

DNA polymerase zeta is required for proliferation of normal mammalian cells

Unique among translesion synthesis (TLS) DNA polymerases, pol ζ is essential during embryogenesis. To determine whether pol ζ is necessary for proliferation of normal cells, primary mouse fibroblasts were established in which Rev3L could be conditionally inactivated by Cre recombinase. Cells were grown in 2% O2 to prevent oxidative stress-induced senescence. Cells rapidly became senescent or apoptotic and ceased growth within 3–4 population doublings. Within one population doubling following Rev3L deletion, DNA double-strand breaks and chromatid aberrations were found in 30–50% of cells. These breaks were replication dependent, and found in G1 and G2 phase cells. Double-strand breaks were reduced when cells were treated with the reactive oxygen species scavenger N-acetyl-cysteine, but this did not rescue the cell proliferation defect, indicating that several classes of endogenously formed DNA lesions require Rev3L for tolerance or repair. T-antigen immortalization of cells allowed cell growth. In summary, even in the absence of external challenges to DNA, pol ζ is essential for preventing replication-dependent DNA breaks in every division of normal mammalian cells. Loss of pol ζ in slowly proliferating mouse cells in vivo may allow accumulation of chromosomal aberrations that could lead to tumorigenesis. Pol ζ is unique amongst TLS polymerases for its essential role in cell proliferation

“Corpses … coast to coast!” Trauma, gender, and race in 1950s horror comics

During the 1950s, a moral panic around youth culture and delinquency dominated the contemporary imagination. Rock n' roll and the new wave of youth-focused films seemed to critics to posit an alternative culture antagonistic to that of older generations. One cultural form sparked particular censorious intent: the horror comic book. Many critics of the 1940s and 1950s dwelt obsessively on the impact of horror comics on youthful readers. The culmination of this movement was the 1954 Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Juvenile Delinquency, which resulted in the implementation of a harsh new self-regulatory comics code and the end of the horror and crime genres. In this study, we argue that rather than (or perhaps as well as) promoting juvenile delinquency, horror comics served an important social function in that they presented a challenge to the dominant culture in cold war America. They corroborated the veteran experience; questioned faith in science and industry; recognised women as victims of war; and embodied, on occasion, many of the themes of the early Civil Rights movement. It was because of these countercultural impulses that the horror genre in comics was, ultimately, brought to an untimely end

Deletion of the MAD2L1 spindle assembly checkpoint gene is tolerated in mouse models of acute T-cell lymphoma and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Chromosome instability (CIN) is deleterious to normal cells because of the burden of aneuploidy. However, most human solid tumors have an abnormal karyotype implying that gain and loss of chromosomes by cancer cells confers a selective advantage. CIN can be induced in the mouse by inactivating the spindle assembly checkpoint. This is lethal in the germline but we show here that adult T cells and hepatocytes can survive conditional inactivation of the Mad2l1 SAC gene and resulting CIN. This causes rapid onset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and progressive development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), both lethal diseases. The resulting DNA copy number variation and patterns of chromosome loss and gain are tumor-type specific, suggesting differential selective pressures on the two tumor cell types

Proliferation of Aneuploid Human Cells is Limited by a p53-Dependent Mechanism

Most solid tumors are aneuploid, and it has been proposed that aneuploidy is the consequence of an elevated rate of chromosome missegregation in a process called chromosomal instability (CIN). However, the relationship of aneuploidy and CIN is unclear because the proliferation of cultured diploid cells is compromised by chromosome missegregation. The mechanism for this intolerance of nondiploid genomes is unknown. In this study, we show that in otherwise diploid human cells, chromosome missegregation causes a cell cycle delay with nuclear accumulation of the tumor suppressor p53 and the cyclin kinase inhibitor p21. Deletion of the p53 gene permits the accumulation of nondiploid cells such that CIN generates cells with aneuploid genomes that resemble many human tumors. Thus, the p53 pathway plays an important role in limiting the propagation of aneuploid human cells in culture to preserve the diploid karyotype of the population. These data fit with the concordance of aneuploidy and disruption of the p53 pathway in many tumors, but the presence of aneuploid cells in some normal human and mouse tissues indicates that there are known exceptions to the involvement of p53 in aneuploid cells and that tissue context may be important in how cells respond to aneuploidy