Rural Prison Politics: The Impact of Correctional Facilities on Community Voting Behavior in California

This thesis explores how the building of a prison impacts local political behaviors and public opinion. Economic development during the late 20th century left agricultural and manufacturing based regions of the United States struggling to maintain a reliable sense of financial prosperity, thereby propelling rural regions into the prison-building business. In this thesis, I analyze the voting data of five rural Californian towns concerning Proposition 7 (1978) and Proposition 47 (2014). Through this data analysis and a synthesis of the literature on prison host communities, this thesis investigates whether the construction of a prison has influenced political action regarding prison reform over the past 40 years

Calibrated Langevin dynamics simulations of intrinsically disordered proteins

We perform extensive coarse-grained (CG) Langevin dynamics simulations of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs), which possess fluctuating conformational statistics between that for excluded volume random walks and collapsed globules. Our CG model includes repulsive steric, attractive hydrophobic, and electrostatic interactions between residues and is calibrated to a large collection of single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer data on the inter-residue separations for 36 pairs of residues in five IDPs: $\alpha$-, $\beta$-, and $\gamma$-synuclein, the microtubule-associated protein $\tau$, and prothymosin $\alpha$. We find that our CG model is able to recapitulate the average inter-residue separations regardless of the choice of the hydrophobicity scale, which shows that our calibrated model can robustly capture the conformational dynamics of IDPs. We then employ our model to study the scaling of the radius of gyration with chemical distance in 11 known IDPs. We identify a strong correlation between the distance to the dividing line between folded proteins and IDPs in the mean charge and hydrophobicity space and the scaling exponent of the radius of gyration with chemical distance along the protein.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Salus populi suprema lex: The impact of three major European thinkers on the Constitution of the United States

Within the context of discussions regarding the Constitution and its forming, great emphasis is given to the history of the ideas which influenced and/or became a part of that document. The general term given to the line of thought of which our Constitution is a part is natural law theory, referring to the rights which the founding fathers, or natural law theorists in general, deemed so basic as to be understood. Such a doctrine manifests as the inalienable rights ... life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the Declaration of Independence, but in a more subdued and practical manner in our Constitution. In discussions of this school of thought, three important works by three major European political philosophers are often the center of the conversation. Jean Jacque Rousseau\u27s Social Contract, The Spirit of Laws by Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu, and John Locke\u27s Second Treatise on Civil Government provide excellent insight into the school of natural law thought. On the surface, it would appear that all three played a major role in the development of American natural law thought and thus on the formation of the Constitution. In fact, two of the three can be shown to be such an influence. Rousseau, however, is conspicuously absent both in the interaction of the Constitution writers and in the form of the Constitution itself

Development of Force-Space Navigation for Surgical Robotics

Surgical robotics have been used for many years in orthopaedic procedures in the hip and knee. Robots tend to offer high accuracy and repeatability but add increased cost, complexity, time, and workflow disruption. This work outlines the design and development of a surgical robot that navigates using force feedback. Flexible components tether the patient to the robot and reaction loads are measured allowing the robot to “feel” its way around the pre-operative plan. Differences calculated between measured and desired loads are converted to Cartesian corrections that the robot used to navigate. The robot was tested first using simple square paths to test accuracy, repeatability and functionality. A pre-operative plan was established for implantation of the surgical system and allowed the robot to be tested doing a complex glenoid implant path. Finally, a study was performed and compared the robot’s surgical method to current surgical techniques of a trained surgical fellow on shoulder analogs. Based on this study, the robot performed as well as or better than the surgeon in almost every measurement parameter with less than 1 mm of implant placement error in many measurement metrics and less than 2° of implant orientation error in each angular measurement

Development of Imaging Paradigms for Drug Distribution and Fate in the Eye

Aging-associated vision loss is increasingly prevalent in our population and intravitreal injections are commonly used to administer ocular drugs to the posterior segment of the eye. This work aims to visualize and predict the delivery of ocular drugs by combining micro- computed tomography (micro-CT) imaging and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling. Intravitreal injections were administered into ex vivo porcine eyes and imaged for an extended period of time to track the progression of the injected drug mimic. Non-invasive imaging allowed for precise determination of contrast agent concentration, flow patterns and fate. A computational model was developed that provided quantitative agreement with the concentration values found in the experimental study and allowed for easy manipulation of parameters. The ability to accurately model drug transport following an intravitreal injection provides vital information to better understand the specific concentration and time frame for the drug to reach the target sit

Functional and Structural Analysis of the Yeast SWI/SNF Complex: a Dissertation

Modulating chromatin structure is an important step in maintaining control over the eukaryotic genome. SWI/SNF, one of the complexes belonging to the growing family of ATP-dependent chromatin remodeling enzymes, is involved in controlling the expression of a number of inducible genes whose proper regulation is vital for metabolism and progression through mitosis. The mechanism by which SWI/SNF modulates chromatin structure at the nucleosome level is an important aspect of this regulation. The work in this dissertation focuses on how the Saccharomyces cerevisiae SWI/SNF complex uses the energy of ATP-hydrolysis to alter DNA-histone contacts in nucleosomes. This has been approached in a two part fashion. First, the three-dimensional structure and subunit composition of SWI/SNF complex has been determined. From this study we have identified a potential region of the SWI/SNF complex that might [be] a site for nucleosomal interaction. Second, functional analysis of the ATPase domain of Swi2p, the catalytic subunit of SWI/SNF, has revealed that a specific conserved motif is involved in coupling ATP hydrolysis to the mechanism of chromatin remodeling. These results provide a potential model for the function of the SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex at the nucleosome level

Multiple Forms of Endocytosis In Bovine Adrenal Chromaffin Cells

We studied endocytosis in chromaffin cells with both perforated patch and whole cell configurations of the patch clamp technique using cell capacitance measurements in combination with amperometric catecholamine detection. We found that chromaffin cells exhibit two relatively rapid, kinetically distinct forms of stimulus-coupled endocytosis. A more prevalent “compensatory” retrieval occurs reproducibly after stimulation, recovering an approximately equivalent amount of membrane as added through the immediately preceding exocytosis. Membrane is retrieved through compensatory endocytosis at an initial rate of ∼6 fF/s. Compensatory endocytotic activity vanishes within a few minutes in the whole cell configuration. A second form of triggered membrane retrieval, termed “excess” retrieval, occurs only above a certain stimulus threshold and proceeds at a faster initial rate of ∼248 fF/s. It typically undershoots the capacitance value preceding the stimulus, and its magnitude has no clear relationship to the amount of membrane added through the immediately preceding exocytotic event. Excess endocytotic activity persists in the whole cell configuration. Thus, two kinetically distinct forms of endocytosis coexist in intact cells during perforated patch recording. Both are fast enough to retrieve membrane after exocytosis within a few seconds. We argue that the slower one, termed compensatory endocytosis, exhibits properties that make it the most likely mechanism for membrane recycling during normal secretory activity

Evaluation and treatment of cervical radiculopathy: a case study

This case report documents the evaluation and evidence-based treatment of a patient who had a presentation consistent with cervical radiculopathy. The patient highlighted in this report is a 30-year-old male diagnosed with bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. He had numbness and tingling in both hands, especially the right, not limited to median nerve distribution of either hand. The physical therapy evaluation pointed to cervical radiculopathy as the primary cause of the symptoms following patient subjective report of his symptoms, special testing, and passive accessory intervertebral motion testing. Treatment was focused on decreasing intensity of numbness and tingling along with increasing grip and upper body strength. The therapist utilized 5 outcome measures: grip strength, cervical range of motion, manual muscle testing, the Neck Disability Index, and the QuickDASH. Of these outcome measures, the therapist was only able to re-evaluate grip strength and cervical range of motion. After the plan of care, the patient demonstrated increased cervical rotation ROM and grip strength objectively and reported decreased intensity of symptoms and increased time to symptom onset when working and exercising. This case report demonstrates an effective, evidence-based approach to physical therapy evaluation and treatment for a patient with cervical radiculopathy