Academia meets romancelandia: or, what scholars can learn from romance writers

Christine Larson argues that when faced with digital disruption, academics have much to learn from the writers of Romance fiction. Notably, the way in which their adoption of an open-elite organizational structure, has enabled Romance writers to successfully and equitably adapt to new forms of digital communication. The power of romance burns bright this holiday ... Continue

TiSi2 and CoSi2 Silicide Formation Using N2+ Implant

Suicides have been used in industry since minimum dimensions reached the 1 ~tm node. The goal of this project is to explore Titanium and Cobalt Silicide and incorporate its use into the JUT sub-micron CMOS process. TiSi2 had been the industry standard to decrease this resistivity through the 0.25μm node. The current industry standard is CoSi2, with resistivity independent of its grain size. This allows for the smaller dimensions. However, CoSi2 formation is very sensitive to oxygen contamination. A Ti capping layer may minimize the contamination by reacting with any oxygen. The nitrogen implant prior to metal deposition should suppress agglomeration in the films and improve thermal stability. A Transmission Line Model (TLM) structure has been used to extract specific contact resistivity and contact resistance for the suicide. Four point probing will measure the resistivity of the polycide. Results show a reduction in sheet resistance of polysilicon samples after silicidation. RBS and XRD analyses show oxygen contamination

Wellness and Coping of Residents in a Skilled Nursing Facility

Depression is common among older adults in long-term care (LTC) facilities. As many as 50%-80% of residents will experience depressive symptoms or have a diagnosis of depression. Depression increases the risk of poor health-related outcomes in older adults. A review of the literature suggests that early intervention using movement-based techniques decreases the risk for depression and improves depressive symptoms. This scholarly project aimed to reduce the risk of depression of residents in an LTC located in a suburban area in Midwestern United States. The LTC facility and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) student implemented the Chair One Fitness program for 30 minutes, two times per week, for three months. The facility leadership collected a sampling of residents’ Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ9) scores to evaluate the intervention’s effect on the risk for depression. Eleven residents had a PHQ9 score collected before and after the intervention time period. Data analysis using descriptive statistics and a Pearson Correlation Coefficient demonstrated that there was no correlation for the change in PHQ9 scores with intervention attendance. Some residents’ PHQ9 scores improved, some worsened, and some stayed the same in both those that attended the intervention and those that did not attend. While it is well documented in literature that there is a correlation between depression and physical activity, the project team was unable to demonstrate that this fitness program had a correlational effect on the risk for depression for these residents

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationAround 2-3 billion people worldwide are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacteria that causes tuberculosis (TB). Increasing incidence of drug resistant strains of Mtb indicate a growing need for new antibiotics. Pyrrolocins A-C are a set of pyrrolodinediones isolated from an endophytic fungus (NRRL50135) from Papua New Guinea. The mechanism of action for these compounds against Mtb and other bacteria (i.e., Staphylococcus aureus) is largely unknown. We found that pyrrolocins inhibit the first committed step in fatty acid biosynthesis, a mechanism that has yet to be targeted in anti-TB therapy. Current anti-TB drug screening approaches use axenic culture to assess drug efficacy. However this does not assess efficacy against intracellular Mtb infection. In addition, cytotoxicity is determined separately. We developed a screening method in a macrophage cell line that combines infection and cytotoxicity. This screen can be used to determine effects of drug on infected cells as well as uninfected cells. TB is the leading cause of death among HIV/AIDS patients worldwide. Interactions between Mtb and HIV-infected cells have been explored. However these studies have addressed the impact on latent HIV reservoirs. We found that components of the Mtb membrane as well as bacteria co-culture resulted in HIV latency reversal. Macrophages are susceptible to Mtb and HIV infection. We explored concurrent HIV/Mtb infection in vitro. We found a small percentage of our macrophage cell line, and an even smaller percentage of our T cell line, were infected with both HIV and Mtb. Latency reversal and concurrent infection by Mtb in HIV-infected cells identify mechanisms by which Mtb may exacerbate HIV infection. These findings highlight that HIV/Mtb interactions should be considered during anti-HIV and anti-TB drug therapy development as they will likely be implemented in HIV/TB patients. The findings in this work collectively provide new strategies to treat TB and HIV, whether that is offering an alternative to current antibiotics with a novel mechanism, assessing drug efficacy using an in vitro screening method that models intracellular Mtb, or understanding processes (i.e., latency reversal and concurrent infection) that may occur in HIV/TB coinfected patients which could have ultimate consequences on therapeutic efficacy in these patients

Death in the Medical Social System: An Analysis of Deviance

A thesis presented to the faculty of the School of Social Sciences at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Sociology by Christine A. Larson-Kurz in December of 1977

Instructional Partnerships:TeamTeaching Global Politics and the Web

Since its beginnings in the 1960s, the bibliographic instruction program at Earlham College has facilitated strong instructional partnerships between teaching faculty and librarians. Given the growth in information sources available via the Internet, these partnerships now extend beyond the realm of traditional library instruction. One example of how this has evolved at Earlham is the two-year partnership of these authors, who have been part of a team that teaches political science students to create World Wide Web (WWW) pages reflecting topical research and analysis. Successful instructional partnerships are critical to the success of this endeavor. This article describes and evaluates how an assignment that uses the WWW to research and present a global problem was team-taught during the spring 1997 semester, paying particular attention to the instructional partnerships, and their advantages and problems. Reasons for the success of the team teaching methods are discussed

Failure to Filter: Anxious Individuals Show Inefficient Gating of Threat from Working Memory

Dispositional anxiety is a well-established risk factor for the development of psychiatric disorders along the internalizing spectrum,including anxiety and depression. Importantly, many of the maladaptive behaviors characteristic of anxiety, such as anticipatory apprehension, occur when threat is absent.This raises the possibility that anxious individuals are less efficient at gating threat’s access to working memory, a limited capacity work space where information is actively retained, manipulated, and used to flexibly guide goal-directed behavior when it is no longer present in the external environment. Using a well-validated neurophysiological index of working memory storage, we demonstrate that threat-related distracters were difficult to filter on average and that this difficulty was exaggerated among anxious individuals. These results indicate that dispositionally anxious individuals allocate excessive working memory storage to threat,even when it is irrelevant to the task at hand. More broadly,these results provide a novel framework for understanding the maladaptive thoughts and actions characteristic of internalizing disorders

Open Networks, Open Books: Gender, Precarity and Solidarity in Digital Publishing

The nature of work is changing, from secure, full-time jobs to a &lsquo;risk regime&rsquo; characterized by alternative work arrangements and a pervasive sense of insecurity [Beck, U. (2000). The brave new world of work. Polity: Malden, MA]. While these conditions resemble those long endured by cultural workers, scholarly exploration of these similarities has stalled: Digital optimists extoll the value of self-enterprise, while critical cultural scholars decry such claims as a smokescreen for deteriorating labor conditions, which inevitably promote insecurity (or &lsquo;precarity&rsquo;). This paper attempts to end the stalemate by proposing three measures of insecurity and applying them to a group of cultural workers&mdash;romance authors. Through a survey of 4270 romance authors, I show their median income nearly doubled after the rise of digital self-publishing, while other authors&rsquo; incomes dropped. Interviews with 78 authors and editors suggest this resilience relates to professional tactics developed in the 1980s amidst pervasive gender bias. Specifically, romance authors developed an &lsquo;open-elite&rsquo; network, an arrangement historically associated with innovation, which was later amplified by interactive communication technologies [Powell, W. W., &amp; Owen-Smith, J. (2012). An open elite: Arbiters, catalysts, or gatekeepers in the dynamics of industry evolution. In The emergence of organizations and markets (pp. 466&ndash;495). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press]. This research contributes to debates around self-employment, cultural work and precarity. It shows increased insecurity is not inevitable in the risk regime, but rather that specific professional practices, enhanced by ICTs, can increase workers&rsquo; resilience.].</p

Creating Connections in Digital Space

While teaching in digital contexts creates new opportunities for students and instructors, making the experience engaging, personal, interactive, and relevant can sometimes seem challenging. This session will present assignments, activities, and approaches that can be used in digital spaces to connect students with each other and their instructors, bridge classroom experience into professional contexts, and engage learners with the process of creating information. Discussion will focus on attendees\u27 challenges and hopes, and how to make teaching and learning in a digital context a richer experience