We\u27ve Got You Covered

White paper for the Health Promotion and Wellness department and the Condom Concierge program

A Wellbeing@KSU Journey: MAPW Portfolio

A process narrative and samples and complete works from my time in MAPW and as a GRA within the health and well-being departments at KSU. The portfolio showcases my journey as a communicator and professional writer and how it has impacted my current career

Citizenship in social movements: constructing alternatives in the Anti-Privatization Forum, South Africa

This paper explores how social movements construct citizenship and redefine the very notion of the political realm. Social movements have quickly become powerful actors within South Africa’s civil society. They are largely contesting the basis upon which South Africa’s post-apartheid reality has been constructed according to specific policies. Citizenship is in turn used as a lens of analysis to show how social movements in South Africa are contesting macro and micro-economic policies and government re-structuring. The case analysis of the Anti-Privatisation Forum (APF) represents one of countless South African movements searching for alternatives to ongoing socio-economic policy. The overarching aim of this paper is to display how social movements actively construct citizenship, and to interrogate the strategies that are used to advance their agenda. The outcome of this article is therefore to reignite the meaning of citizenship as a lens for understanding the goals and methods of citizen lead activism. Moreover, the article reveals the competing and conflicting interpretations of rights existing between the state and other actors as well as an interrogation of further strategies that could be explored for social movements

International media and economic policy: A comparative media analysis of 2002 U.S. steel tariffs [abstract]

Abstract only availableThis paper compares American and European media coverage of the U.S. Emergency Safeguard Measures for steel which were imposed from March 2002-Dec. 2003 and levied tariffs of up to 30% on some steel imports. Of European Union members, the United Kingdom and France were among the most heavily affected by the tariffs. Mainstream newspapers in those countries presented mainly negative information and opinions of the U.S. policy. There were no significant differences between British and French coverage of this issue. In comparison, U.S. sources were predominantly neutral. However, headlines and prominent articles in all countries often reflected negative attitudes, and the most opinionated language came from journalists themselves, not outside sources, giving quantitative support to theories of chronic press negativity

Basic Goodness: Creating a Uniform for a Modern-day Devotee.

This thesis investigates the science of yogic living: living in harmony with nature and expanding consciousness through meditation. It discusses how the clothing we wear can support this way of living. Wearing white/light clothing is an ancient, science-based tradition maintained by yoga practitioners. The thesis culminates in the creation of a line of clothing called ‘Basic Goodness Clothing’. The line consists of light colour clothing made of organic cotton, illuminating a way of living a specific modern yogic lifestyle. The thesis begins with an account of what art and artmaking mean to me and how this meaning includes clothing, in principle, and Basic Goodness Clothing in particular

A novel mode of capping protein-regulation by Twinfilin

Cellular actin assembly is controlled at the barbed ends of actin filaments, where capping protein (CP) limits polymerization. Twinfilin is a conserved in vivo binding partner of CP, yet the significance of this interaction has remained a mystery. Here, we discover that the C-terminal tail of Twinfilin harbors a CP-interacting (CPI) motif, identifying it as a novel CPI-motif protein. Twinfilin and the CPI-motif protein CARMIL have overlapping binding sites on CP. Further, Twinfilin binds competitively with CARMIL to CP, protecting CP from barbed-end displacement by CARMIL. Twinfilin also accelerates dissociation of the CP inhibitor V-1, restoring CP to an active capping state. Knockdowns of Twinfilin and CP each cause similar defects in cell morphology, and elevated Twinfilin expression rescues defects caused by CARMIL hyperactivity. Together, these observations define Twinfilin as the first \u27pro-capping\u27 ligand of CP and lead us to propose important revisions to our understanding of the CP regulatory cycle

Occupancy of chromatin organizers in the Epstein–Barr virus genome

AbstractThe human CCCTC-binding factor, CTCF, regulates transcription of the double-stranded DNA genomes of herpesviruses. The architectural complex cohesin and RNA Polymerase II also contribute to this organization. We profiled the occupancy of CTCF, cohesin, and RNA Polymerase II on the episomal genome of the Epstein–Barr virus in a cell culture model of latent infection. CTCF colocalizes with cohesin but not RNA Polymerase II. CTCF and cohesin bind specific sequences throughout the genome that are found not just proximal to the regulatory elements of latent genes, but also near lytic genes. In addition to tracking with known transcripts, RNA Polymerase II appears at two unannotated positions, one of which lies within the latent origin of replication. The widespread occupancy profile of each protein reveals binding near or at a myriad of regulatory elements and suggests context-dependent functions

Acquisition of heroin conditioned immunosuppression requires IL-1 signaling in the dorsal hippocampus

Opioid users experience increased incidence of infection, which may be partially attributable to both direct opiate-immune interactions and conditioned immune responses. Previous studies have investigated the neural circuitry governing opioid conditioned immune responses, but work remains to elucidate the mechanisms mediating this effect. Our laboratory has previously shown that hippocampal IL-1 signaling, specifically, is required for the expression of heroin conditioned immunosuppression following learning. The current studies were designed to further characterize the role of hippocampal IL-1 in this phenomenon by manipulating IL-1 during learning. Experiment 1 tested whether hippocampal IL-1 is also required for the acquisition of heroin conditioned immunosuppression, while Experiment 2 tested whether hippocampal IL-1 is required for the expression of unconditioned heroin immunosuppression. We found that blocking IL-1 signaling in the dorsal hippocampus with IL-1RA during each conditioning session, but not on interspersed non-conditioning days, significantly attenuated the acquisition of heroin conditioned immunosuppression. Strikingly, we found that the same IL-1RA treatment did not alter unconditioned immunosuppression to a single dose of heroin. Thus, IL-1 signaling is not a critical component of the response to heroin but rather may play a role in the formation of the association between heroin and the context. Collectively, these studies suggest that IL-1 signaling, in addition to being involved in the expression of a heroin conditioned immune response, is also involved in the acquisition of this effect. Importantly, this effect is likely not due to blocking the response to the unconditioned stimulus since IL-1RA did not affect heroin’s immunosuppressive effects

Subducted lithospheric boundary tomographically imaged beneath the arc-continent collision in eastern Indonesia

We use travel‐times from a temporary seismic deployment of 30 broadband seismometers and a national catalog of arrival times to construct a finite frequency teleseismic P‐wave tomographic model of the upper mantle beneath eastern Indonesia, where subduction of the Indo‐Australian plate beneath the Banda Arc transitions to arc‐continent collision. The change in tectonics is due to a change from oceanic to continental lithosphere in the lower plate as inferred from geologic mapping and geophysical, geochemical, and geodetic measurements. At this inferred transition, we seismically image the subducted continent‐ocean boundary at upper mantle depths that links volcanism on Flores to amagmatic orogenesis on Timor. Our tomographic images reveal a relatively high velocity feature within the upper mantle, which we interpret as the subducted Indo‐Australian slab. The slab appears continuous yet deformed as a result of the change in buoyancy due to the composition of the incoming continental lithosphere. Accordingly, there is a difference in dip angle between the oceanic and continental sections of the slab albeit not a gap or discontinuity. We suggest the slab has deformed without tearing to accommodate structural and kinematic changes across the continent‐ocean boundary as the two sections of the slab diverge. These results suggest that deformation in tectonic collisions can be localized along a continent‐ocean boundary, even at depth. We propose that future slab tearing may develop where we observe slab deformation in our study region and that a similar process may take place in collisions generally.This work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant EAR‐1250214 as well as DIKTI Grant 127/SP2H/ PTNBH/DRPM/2018